| | | | Fareed: Trump's Empty Bravado on North Korea | | There is an early pattern to President Donald Trump's approach to foreign policy – and it isn't reassuring, Fareed writes for the Washington Post.
"It begins with bravado, the repeated use of rhetoric that is not backed up by much. The president constantly insists that if China doesn't help deal with North Korea, the United States will," Fareed writes.
"Really? How? A military strike is close to impossible. South Korea would vehemently oppose any such move, as it would face the brunt of North Korea's retaliation…Japan would also oppose a strike, and, of course, any military action would enrage China. Plus, a bombing campaign would be ineffective..."
"Trump has not been alone in his bravado. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the United States' historical policy of 'strategic patience' with North Korea had ended, and that the United States has a new policy. The danger of this kind of rhetoric is that it is becoming readily apparent that Washington does not in fact have a new policy. And if it does, Washington's key allies, especially the South Koreans, are terrified by it. "
- Speculation this week that U.S. cyber wizardry is behind North Korean missile test failures is misguided, writes Jeffrey Lewis in Foreign Policy.
"North Korea's missile launches aren't failing because we are hacking them; they are failing because Pyongyang is developing a wide array of new liquid- and solid-fueled ballistic missiles. Many of those systems -- especially the new solid-fueled missiles -- are working just fine. And North Korean engineers will either figure the others out or learn from their mistakes and move on to more promising designs."
| | The Real Lesson of France's Election | | The French presidential election is just the latest example of a global phenomenon: "The political party is dying and independents now rule among voters," writes John Lloyd for Reuters.
"Parties asked the people to trust them because they were created by activist groups to further their social and economic interests. The new individual candidates ask people to trust them because they are not of a party, will not further party interests but will devote themselves to the public, unencumbered." - Fillon rising? Thursday's shooting in Paris might have given Marine Le Pen a boost. But it may also have revived the campaign of Republican candidate Francois Fillon, writes Pauline Bock in the New Statesman.
"[W]hen the news about the shooting filtered into the live TV debate, the centrist Emmanual Macron seemed to try too hard to look presidential, especially compared to Fillon, who channeled his real-life prime ministerial experience…It would be only logical to see the big crowds of undecided voters warm to an experienced conservative with a strong security stance." - France: Not as fake as America. France's presidential election has had a fake news problem, but "political conversations about French politics over social media are not as poisoned as the same kinds of conversations about the U.S. election," a new study from Oxford University says.
The report says that a study of junk news consumption among Michigan voters just before the presidential election "found a 1:1 ratio between professional news content and junk." Meanwhile, only a quarter of all links shared among Michigan voters led to "professional news content," compared with 46.7% in the sample for the French presidential election, and 44.9% for Germany's presidential election, which took place earlier this year.
| | Turkey Referendum a Wake-Up Call for Germany: Bittner | | There's an uncomfortable reason why so many German Turks backed Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday's referendum, writes Jochen Bittner in the New York Times: "A low regard for their own people."
"In Hamburg, a Turkish-born, highly educated businessman who aligns with the German Social Democrats and who is well connected in Ankara told me why he was keen to vote yes in the referendum: He believed that Mr. Erdogan truly wanted to modernize Turkey and to ultimately make it a democracy. In order to achieve this, though, he needed increased powers. Why? Because, the man replied, the Turkish people weren't ready for democracy.
"That answer, more than anything, represents the failure of Germany to imprint its culture on its Turkish immigrants. After all, if they have learned nothing else, German Turks should know that their adopted country once rejected democracy in favor of an autocrat promising big things -- and with disastrous results."
| | The End of Coal in Britain? | | Britain was poised Friday to do something it hasn't done since before the Industrial Revolution – go a full day without any electricity being produced using coal, the Financial Times' Pilita Clarke reports.
"Coal disappeared from the power system at certain times of the day last year. But its absence for an entire working day underlines a crash in the use of a fuel that accounted for 23% of U.K. electricity generation as recently as two years ago, but by last year slid to just 9%." - And maybe in America. President Trump pledged during the election campaign to bring back America's coal jobs. But Fareed says that simple economics mean that's highly unlikely. "Coal is more expensive than many of the alternatives. And the big natural gas boom in the U.S. and the rise of renewable have both put the squeeze on the demand for coal…Until the economics change, the number of power plants using coal will keep falling."
Watch Sunday's "What in the World" for more on coal's future.
| | What Japan's Potato Chip Crisis Says About Trump and Trade | | A shortage of potato chips in Japanese stores underscores the folly of one of the first steps taken by the Trump administration, the Wall Street Journal suggests in an editorial.
"Japan banned the import of American fresh potatoes in 1950, ostensibly because of concerns about the potato wart bacteria and the cyst nematode. That was part of a wave of protectionism based on spurious claims. Tokyo justified keeping out U.S. beef because Japanese intestines were supposedly unable to digest it," the Wall Street Journal says.
"…The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would have cracked this valuable market for Idaho spud farmers. The National Potato Council supported TPP in part because it contains a mechanism to resolve phytosanitary issues -- i.e. unjustified import restrictions based on disease. Potato Grower magazine estimated TPP would allow U.S. exports to grow to $50 million annually within five years." | | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment