| | | | Mainland Europe might lag Britain and the United States on certain economic measures, "but they win the sanity competition," argues Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg View.
"That is a major, and underestimated, achievement of the EU: It has fostered a non-radical culture and a non-radical consensus that even powerful turbulence cannot destroy," Bershidsky writes.
True, he says, "the continent has higher government expenditure and lower growth, but also less inequality, higher saving rates and lower household debt. People's lives are less precarious in the core EU than in the English-speaking countries. Voters in the major continental nations may get angry and disappointed -- say, with French President Francois Hollande's feckless leadership or with the recent inflow of refugees from the Middle East -- but they don't get desperate enough to vote in a Donald Trump or to inflict Brexit-style turmoil on their countries." - Far-right parties appear to have hit a ceiling, writes Zack Beauchamp in Vox. Why? Because they are "attempting to invent a largely new form of politics: One that calls for a radical reorientation of European society away from tolerance and continent-wide integration, and something closer to the kind of nationalist set-up we saw in Europe prior to 1939. There's a reason that we haven't seen such a politics succeed since then, of course: World War II."
| | Expectations that Hassan Rouhani was a shoo-in for reelection as Iran's president next month have been upended by the candidacy of Ebrahim Raisi, writes Ray Takeyh in the Financial Times.
"Iran's elections are inherently difficult to predict, as the ebb and flow of a compressed electoral cycle can still have an impact on the outcome," Takeyh writes. "But for [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei and his disciples, Mr Rouhani has served his purpose, as he obtained an arms control agreement from the west that ensures Iran's steady path to nuclear empowerment."
"The task at hand for Mr Khamenei is to ensure a reliable successor that will safeguard his "Republic of Virtue" and mould the economy in his protectionist image. And for that task, Mr Raisi may just be the right man."
| | North Korea Will Lose Game of Chicken: Chinese Paper | | North Korea's military marks its 85th anniversary Tuesday, with speculation growing that it might choose to mark the date with a nuclear test.
China's semi-official Global Times editorializes: "The game of chicken between Washington and Pyongyang has come to a breaking point. If North Korea carries out a sixth nuclear test as expected, it is more likely than ever that the situation will cross the point of no return. All stakeholders will bear the consequences, with Pyongyang sure to suffer the greatest losses."
| | Trump Must Resist the Lure of Special Ops: Moyar | | President Trump should be wary of continuing the rapid growth in special forces that his predecessors oversaw, suggests Mark Moyar in the New York Times. Special operations forces "are primarily tactical tools, not strategic options. Nor, for all the talent and training, can they always beat the odds."
"America's special operations troops can hunt down a terrorist or train an elite unit better than anyone. But they can't destroy a Russian armored division or occupy a North Korean city. If the military continues to shift talent from conventional to special units through expansion of the latter, the conventional forces required in a large war will suffer." | | China: Where Birthplace Is Destiny? | | Chinese are getting wealthier, but a decades-old land registration system means that rural residents are getting left behind in the property boom fueling the overall growth in wealth, reports Mark Magnier in the Wall Street Journal.
"Over the past decade, housing prices have increased up to 700% in cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Property now accounts for 70% of personal wealth in the country," Magnier writes. Yet, "China's system of hukou…binds most Chinese to their place of birth, and denies those outside China's booming megacities the right to buy property inside them."
| | The 30th ASEAN summit begins Wednesday in the Philippines. Security will be heavy: CNN Philippines reports around "26,000 uniformed police officers and soldiers and 15,000 force multipliers from 21 government agencies are to be deployed."
Argentine President Mauricio Macri will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday. "The two leaders will exchange views on a range of bilateral and regional issues, including the expansion of trade, security sector collaboration, and the deteriorating situation in Venezuela," the White House said.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will chair a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss North Korea on Friday. USA Today reports that the meeting will consider ways to "maximize the impact" of U.N. sanctions. | | | | | | |
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