Um novo ‘Africanistão‘ na fronteira Sul da Europa?

After years spent waging war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, almost $1.5 trillion in direct costs and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the Western public feels it has learned a hard lesson. It is more convinced than ever that even the best-intentioned foreign intervention is bound to bog its armies down in endless wars fighting invisible enemies to help ungrateful locals.
Echoes of Afghanistan rang loud earlier this month when French forces swooped on advancing columns of Islamists threatening the Saharan state of Mali. And they were heard again, a few days later, when a unit of bearded, gun-toting jihadists from the “Signed-in-Blood Battalion” seized a gas plant and slaughtered dozens of foreigners in next-door Algeria—more than in any single Islamist terror attack since the bombing of a Bali nightclub in 2002. Here, it seemed, was the next front of the global war on terror and also a desert quagmire to entrap vainglorious Western leaders. [...]

Ver artigo da revista Economist

Mali: a conturbada situação geopolítica explicada neste vídeo

A conturbada situação geopolítica no Norte do Mali, onde grupos islamistas e tuaregues separatistas controlam grande parte do terreno, explicada neste interessante vídeo do jornal Le Monde  (ver aqui o vídeo).

Regiões mais ricas querem redesenhar o mapa da Europa

A Catalunha pode ser o catalisador de uma nova vaga de separatismo na União Europeia, com a Escócia e a Flandres não muito atrás. O grande paradoxo é que a União Europeia, que assenta no conceito de soberania partilhada, reduz os riscos para as regiões que aspiram à independência.
Ao mesmo tempo que, da crise da zona euro, poderá vir a emergir uma União Europeia pós-nacional, caminhando no sentido de mais união fiscal e do controlo mais centralizado dos orçamentos e bancos nacionais, a crise acelerou os apelos à independência das regiões mais ricas de alguns Estados-membros, encolerizadas por terem de financiar as regiões mais pobres.
O presidente catalão, Artur Mas, abalou recentemente a Espanha e os mercados ao convocar eleições regionais antecipadas e ao prometer um referendo sobre a independência de Espanha, apesar de Madrid o considerar ilegal. A Escócia planeia realizar um referendo sobre a independência no outono de 2014. Os flamengos da Flandres obtiveram uma autonomia quase total, a nível administrativo e linguístico, mas ainda se ressentem daquilo que consideram ser a hegemonia remanescente dos belgas de língua francesa e da elite de Bruxelas, emoções que estarão patentes nas eleições autárquicas de 14 de outubro. Há inúmeras coisas, como casamentos, que mantêm unidos países descontentes: história partilhada, guerras partilhadas, inimigos comuns. Mas a crise económica na União Europeia está também a pôr a nu velhos ressentimentos. [...]

Ver o artigo original do NYT e a tradução portuguesa da presseurop

Arquipélago das Senkaku/Diaoyu: as ilhas da discórdia entre a China e o Japão (será que valem uma guerra?)

Leituras: Limes Rivista Italiana di Geopolitica

Leituras na revista Limes: o regresso do sultão à Turquia

‘Olhar para além das modas na geopolítica‘ in Financial Times

Beware fashions in geopolitics. They change as often as the hemlines on Paris catwalks.

The fast-shifting distribution of power in the world is feeding a burgeoning community of geopolitical seers. Change sharpens our appetite for certainty about the future. By and large, though, the myriad maps of a new global order are turning out to be as ephemeral as the couturiers’ spring collections.

Not so long ago, the competing ambitions of autocracies and democracies were set to shape the future. China and Russia would square up against the west. Washington rang with calls from pundits and policymakers for a global league of liberal democracies. As I recall, France’s Jacques Chirac and Germany’s Gerhard Schröder were mustard keen to side with the autocrats.

The predicted collision was always fanciful, not least because Beijing and Moscow are more plausible strategic rivals than allies. Nor is India, the world’s largest democracy, ever likely to join a US-dominated club of political pluralists.

Never mind. The great thing about fashion is that it moves on. Soon enough, we were told that democracy and autocracy would make their peace; the US and China would jointly rule the global roost. Europe, Russia and the rest would trail quaking in the wake of this all-powerful G2.

This theory had a fair run. It held sway until quite recently. Then came Barack Obama’s so-so visit to Beijing last autumn. There followed a series of Sino-American spats about everything from climate change and the renminbi to Google, the Dalai Lama and arms sales to Taiwan.

Fortunately this provided a seamless segue to the latest grand theory of the world, the future and the universe. Forget about the G2; the geopolitical landscape will be marked out in coming decades by competition rather than co-operation. For an aggressive Germany in the second half of the 19th century substitute an assertive China in the first half of the 21st. The international order will again be held in thrall to a struggle between a mature and a rising power.

The above, of course, is an abbreviated list. I might have mentioned also the fleeting but sure belief around the turn of the millennium that the US would be a permanent global hegemon. This was followed, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 2001, by the dismal certainty of an epoch-defining clash between the west and Islam.

I often wonder what happened to those predictions that the 21st century would belong to the soft power of a postmodern Europe? It seems only yesterday that the euro was being hailed as the currency to oust a feeble dollar. Now, or so it seems, the eurozone is breaking apart, courtesy of some dodgy book-keeping in Greece.

You will have seen by now what I am getting at. The greater the conviction of the soothsayers, the more likely they are to be wrong. If we should have learnt anything from the tumultuous changes of the post-cold war era, it is how hard it is to predict the way things will turn out. Sad to say, the economists who failed so dismally to spot any flaws in the financial system are not alone in their myopia.

Understanding present trends is not the same as knowing where they will lead. We know the world is changing faster than at any time in modern history – hence the pervasive sense of insecurity in western societies that have so long taken for granted their privileged status in the hierarchy of nations.

The biggest shifts – the rise of China, India, Brazil and the rest, and a shift in the centre of geopolitical gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific – speak for themselves. So do the mega-trends: climate change, population growth, intensifying competition for resources and the ubiquity of modern communications technologies among them.

Much harder to fathom is how these changes will fit together: will they promote collisions or co-operation? Most likely both. But in what proportions? An optimist might see the planet’s rising temperature as a catalyst for the refurbishment of an outdated system of global governance. A pessimist – even a realist – might look instead to the prospect of new conflicts driven by resource scarcity.

The best in the crystal-ball gazing business understand all this. They eschew primary colours and prefer to paint the future in subtler hues. They delineate the direction of travel – from the changing balance of power between states to the worldwide trends mentioned above – but draw only tentative conclusions.

The US National Intelligence Council has done this well for many years. Its latest survey, Global Trends 2025, was published more than a year ago. It has weathered well the fads and fashions since.

A study published last month by Britain’s Ministry of Defence (spooks and the military pay close attention to all this stuff) peers further into the future. Global Strategic Trends – Out to 2040 declares that it wants to inform “without being constrained by the latest good idea, fashionable trend or received wisdom”.

True to its word, its analysis usefully measures the implications of the way the world is going against the potential for dislocations. Thus it is quite possible China will boast the world’s largest economy by 2030 or so; it is also plausible, as its leaders never stop telling themselves, that China’s progress will hit the buffers of political and social unrest. It is often forgotten that China is in a race to get rich before it gets old.

The US does not look quite the waning power of fashionable fancy. It has geography and demography on its side – a friendly neighbourhood and a growing population that is ageing less fast than that of rivals. It has a big technological edge, a culture of enterprise and innovation, first-rate universities and a stable, if infuriating, political system.

It is not at all hard to paint a picture of the future that has the US and China fighting it out for the title of superpower-in-chief. It is equally true that the biggest losers would be, yes, the US and China. Their interdependence is inescapable. Both need the preservation of a relatively stable international order.

Human nature being what it is, competition may indeed triumph over self-interested co-operation. If so, the really big struggles in coming decades will be between order and disorder and between governance and anarchy. On the other hand, Beijing and Washington might just end up on the same side after all.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/efaccb08-1cc9-11df-8d8e-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

‘Um século asiático? Não será para já‘ por Guy Sorman in City Journal

Pundits are proclaiming the beginning of an Asian century. Many think that the next G20 meeting, which will take place in Seoul this autumn, represents a transfer of power from West to East, a decline of Western influence, and a geopolitical tectonic shift. Such a hyperbolic vision of history seems justified, at least on the surface, by a series of recent events. China, for instance, is said to have surpassed Germany’s exports and should thus be considered the leading global economic power.

Actually, the statistic is irrelevant, because it considers as exports products that are merely assembled in China: the imports that make possible the assembly—and eventual exporting—should be deducted from the measure. Other observers have pointed to the South Korean company Korean Electric, which recently outbid Électricité de France to build three nuclear reactors in Abu Dhabi. Like the Chinese exports, though, this success should not be overstated. The South Koreans will build and manage American-made reactors, using technology from . . . Westinghouse.

Recent Asian breakthroughs do make for a contrast with the pervasive gloom in the West, where the economic crisis is far from over. Governments in the U.S. and Europe seem unable to understand why huge public expenses have failed to stimulate their economies. Neither the Obama administration nor the Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown governments grasp the fact that public spending and welfare statism may have broken the backs of would-be entrepreneurs. Asian governments didn’t make the same mistake. South Korea, for example, has simultaneously helped its poor and deregulated its labor market. Asia has used the crisis to reinforce free-market mechanisms.

But proclaiming the end of the West and the advent of the Asian century would be premature, to say the least. First, what do we mean by Asia? Perhaps South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and the Eastern China seaboard share some common cultural characteristics. Central and Western China, however, remain mired in the medieval era; Indonesia belongs to an entirely different world; India, too, is wholly different from the rest of Asia. Asia knows no political unity: parts of it are democratic, other parts ruled by despots. There is no Asian economic system as such: China’s state-run capitalism doesn’t belong to the same category as Japanese and Korean private capitalism. India remains by and large an agricultural economy, dotted with an emerging small-business dynamism. Asia has no decision center, no coordinating institutions like NATO and the European Union.

For all its problems, moreover, the West is relatively at peace with itself; Asia is not. The continent is riddled with active conflicts around Pakistan and potential ones all around the China Sea. What guarantees border stability and open communication in Asia is NATO to the West and the Seventh American Fleet in the Pacific Ocean. If the U.S. Army and Navy were to leave, war would threaten the continent; at the very least, trade would suffer heavy disruptions. Asian economic dynamism would not survive the departure of the global cop. It’s hard to believe in an Asian century when Asian security depends on non-Asian security forces.

Another of Asia’s weaknesses has to do with its poor record on innovation. Chinese exports contain little added value beyond cheap manpower. China sells sophisticated objects like smartphones to the rest of the world, but these devices are invented in the West. Though Japan and South Korea are much more creative than China, they, too, mostly improve products and services initially conceived in the West. Asia’s lagging innovation is probably rooted in its brand of rote education: when they have the opportunity, Asian students flock to North American and European colleges. And the brain drain doesn’t run the other way: 80 percent of Chinese students in the United States never return to China.

Asia’s undoubted progress happens to be related to its conversion to Western values. Capitalism, democracy, individualism, equality of the sexes, and secularism are all Western notions, and they’ve been adopted in varying degrees in Asia. Reactions against Westernization have also set in, alongside efforts to promote so-called Asian values, both Buddhist and Confucian, such as the Harmony Principle. Such attempts are weakened, however, by their evident political intentions. It’s well known among Asia scholars that China and South Korea manipulate the Harmony Principle to prevent democracy and weaken workers’ rights, respectively. Such political mangling is regrettable: the classic Harmony Principle, which essentially tells us that personal happiness is rooted in a natural social order and that one cannot be happy alone, is a rich philosophical concept and deserves better than to reappear in Communist or despotic garb. One also regrets that not much is done in India to keep alive the philosophy and spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the very few twentieth-century universal thinkers who rose from Asia.

Though the prophecy of an Asian century is premature, that doesn’t mean that Western domination won’t eventually subside. Despite its universities, cultural values, entertainment industry, and strong military, the West may not maintain its edge forever. Still, we should note that whenever we compare the relative power of West versus East, we may be clinging to an obsolete vocabulary. Our criteria themselves may belong to the past. Today, geography is a poor framework: there is no such thing as a national economy any longer. All products and services are global. The more sophisticated a product or a service, the more its national identity tends to disappear. There are no Western or Eastern cell phones, to say nothing of financial derivatives. When China buys American Treasury bills, which nation is depending on which? Exchange generates interdependence. When Asia grows, the West doesn’t necessarily become poorer. From now on, we rise or fall together. There is no contradiction, either, between West and East when it comes to threats against our global security, like terrorism or nuclear rogue states. Barriers have broken down even in popular culture: Korean rock singers are all the rage in China. Are they Korean or American?

So forget the Asian century; we’re entering the first global century. Globalization is so new that we don’t yet fully understand what’s happening to us; we cling to old concepts and lack the language to describe an emerging new world. We can argue about whether it will be a better world; what’s certain is that it will be a very different one.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0122gs.html

Ainda sobre o esgotamento do petróleo: ‘O Crepúsculo no Deserto‘ de Matthew R. Simons

‘Planeta tem menos petróleo do que as estatísticas oficiais dizem‘

O planeta tem muito menos reservas de petróleo do que as previsões oficiais indicam. A afirmação não pertence a nenhum ‘petrocéptico’, mas a um elemento de topo ligado à Agência Internacional de Energia, citado sob anonimato na edição de hoje do diário britânico The Guardian.

Segundo esta fonte, a entidade tem afastado deliberadamente a ameaça de uma escassez de petróleo por receio de uma vaga de pânico consumista, uma acusação que acentua a polémica em torno do rigor das estatísticas oficiais que os países usam como referência para as suas políticas.

O jornal cita o quadro da AIE, de acordo com o qual os EUA têm usado a sua influência junto da organização para que esta estime em baixa a taxa de declínio dos campos petrolíferos em actividade, ao mesmo tempo que estima em alta as possibilidades de serem encontradas novas reservas petrolíferas. A suspeita já não é nova, muitos dos especialistas ligados ao movimento do chamado “pico do petróleo” alertam há anos para esse risco, defendendo que a produção mundial já ultrapassou o seu pico e se encontra já em declínio. A questão torna-se agora ainda mais séria quando se reconhece que os números reais não saem a público por receio de uma grave crise nos mercados financeiros mundiais e na fragilização dos interesses americanos no acesso aos recursos petrolíferos.

No centro das dúvidas, estão as previsões da AIE, segundo as quais a produção mundial de petróleo pode ser elevada de 83 milhões de barris diários para 105 milhões – projecção que os críticos consideram carecer de evidência firme, uma matéria que, para países como o Reino Unido é especialmente grave, sobretudo depois de se ter tornado importador de petróleo, com o fim das suas reservas no Mar do Norte, desde 2005.

A fonte citada pelo Guardian, que pediu anonimato para evitar represálias da indústria, usa os números da própria AIE para explicar como o problema tem sido gerido. “Em 2005, a AIE previa que a produção de petróleo podia subir até 120 milhões de barris diários em 2030. Desde então, tem baixado gradualmente essa previsão para 116 milhões, depois para 105 milhões no ano passado”. E acrescenta: “o número dos 120 milhões de barris nunca fez sentido e mesmo os valores actuais são demasiado elevados para serem justificados e a AIE sabe isso”.

Admitir valores mais baixos, embora alegadamente mais próximos da realidade, poderão criar uma situação de ruptura no mercado petrolífero e o “receio de que o pânico se espalhasse pelos mercados financeiros, sendo que os americanos temem o fim da supremacia do petróleo, proque isso pode ameaçar o seu poder de acesso aos recursos petrolíferos”, adiantou a mesma fonte.

Outro elemento que já foi quadro de topo da AIE reconhece também que conheceu uma regra interna segundo a qual era “imperativo não enfurecer os americanos”, ao mesmo tempo que se aceitava que não havia assim tanto petróleo no mundo como se fazia crer.

Para o Reino Unido, estas suspeitas podem dar uma nova importância à conferência de Copenhaga, que discutirá o pós-Quioto dentro de menos de um mês, e as medidas para uma economia mundial com menores emissões de gases com efeito de estufa.

Especialistas da indústria petrolífera como Matt Simmons, recentemente entrevistado pelo PÚBLICO, ou Colin Campbell, co-fundador do movimento do pico do petróleo reforçam a necessidade de prudência a olhar para os números oficiais. O primeiro há vários anos que diz que as estimativas de reservas estão sobrevalorizadas, a começar pelas da Arábia Saudita. O Segundo até admire que se os números verdadeiros viessem a público, causariam pânico nos mercados financeiros “ e no final não aproveitaria a ninguém”.

http://economia.publico.clix.pt/noticia.aspx?id=1409268

Leituras: ‘Networks and Netwars. The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy‘ de John Arquilla e David Ronfeldt

‘No Xinjiang, o separatismo não passará!‘ in Courrier International

Les incidents qui se sont produits, le 26 juin, dans l’usine de jouets Xuri de Shaoguan (province du Guangdong) étaient au départ une simple bagarre générale [un ouvrier han a été arrêté pour diffusion de fausse rumeur. Il avait accusé sur Internet des ouvriers ouïgours d’avoir violé une ouvrière han. Les affrontements qui ont suivi ont fait deux morts parmi les Ouïgours]. Mais cette affaire a été montée en épingle par des personnes aux noirs desseins à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur du pays, entraînant les graves violences du 5 juillet. Animés de sinistres intentions, ces individus ont profité de l’occasion pour fomenter des troubles à visées séparatistes.

Le Congrès ouïgour mondial [fédération des organisations ouïgoures en exil installée à Munich] dirigé par Rebiya Kadeer – qui ne pense qu’à provoquer de graves incidents – ne s’est jamais résigné à admettre le développement prospère et stable du Xinjiang ni la bonne entente entre les peuples qui y règne. A intervalles réguliers, cette organisation projette des attentats ou des attaques terroristes. Si ces incidents ne s’étaient pas produits le 5 juillet, ils auraient eu lieu un autre jour, et si l’affaire du 26 juin n’avait pas joué le rôle de déclencheur, une autre affaire aurait tout aussi bien servi de prétexte. Cette organisation a plus d’un tour dans son sac pour déformer la réalité, induire en erreur la population, attiser sa colère et répandre la haine entre les différentes nationalités.

Quand des incidents éclatent, elle prétend ne pas y être mêlée et rejette la faute sur le gouvernement chinois. Face à l’Occident, elle se présente toujours comme un “groupe non violent, sans aucun lien avec le terrorisme”. En mars 2008, après l’attentat manqué contre un vol de la compagnie Southern Airlines par des activistes de l’indépendantisme du Turkestan oriental [Xinjiang], le porte-parole du Congrès ouïgour mondial, Dilixiati, avait tout de suite crié au complot de la part du pouvoir chinois et, le 6 juillet dernier, il a fait le même genre de déclarations. Pour faire croire que la Chine pratique une politique discriminatoire envers les minorités, ils appellent blanc ce qui est noir et font passer le vrai pour le faux. Les larges déplacements de main-d’œuvre sont un phénomène très répandu et normal dans la Chine actuelle, mais ils considèrent comme anormal que des minorités aillent travailler dans les régions de l’intérieur du pays et dénoncent des “déplacements forcés”.

S’ils ont attisé par leurs manigances les incidents du 5 juillet, c’est dans le but de semer la discorde et la haine entre les peuples pour créer de nouveaux troubles. Ils veulent aussi susciter l’indignation chez les gens qui ont une mauvaise approche de la réalité afin de mettre de l’huile sur le feu. Les incidents du 5 juillet ne correspondent pas à un problème entre nationalités, même si, à l’extérieur de nos frontières, des forces séparatistes espèrent qu’il en découlera des antagonismes entre les peuples. Ces incidents ont mis à mal les intérêts et le bien-être de la population, une situation dont toutes les personnes souhaitant l’entente entre les peuples et l’harmonie dans la société ne veulent pas ! Face à ces violences, les différentes composantes ethniques de la population se doivent de conserver leur calme, de se serrer les coudes en nourrissant une haine implacable contre l’ennemi, pour réduire à néant les complots des forces séparatistes situées par-delà des frontières.

L’unité de la patrie, la concorde entre les peuples, la stabilité de la société, sont appelées de leurs vœux par toutes les nationalités de Chine, y compris nos concitoyens du Xinjiang. C’est l’intérêt commun de toutes les nationalités chinoises, lesquelles ne sauraient tolérer des pratiques à visée séparatiste ou cherchant à instaurer le désordre. Résoudre les conflits dans le cadre de la Constitution et des lois est le devoir sacré du gouvernement et du Parti, dont l’action est sûre d’obtenir le soutien et l’appui de l’ensemble des masses populaires et des cadres du Parti. Aucun complot séparatiste ne saurait triompher !

http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2009/07/13/au-xinjiang-le-separatisme-ne-passera-pas

JPTF 2009/07/14

‘Um eixo necessitado de petróleo‘, cartoon de Claudio Muñoz para a revista The Economist

'Eixo do petróleo' forçado a mudar a sua estratégia devido à queda dos preços in Times, 18 de Outubro de 2008

Together they form an “Axis of Diesel”. Buoyed by petrodollars, Russia, Iran and Venezuela hectored the West as they extended their reach abroad, backing separatists in Georgia, Islamists in the Middle East and Leftists around the world.

Now those oil-producing powers may be forced to draw in their horns as crude prices tumble. They face austerity budgets that could force them to scale back their military spending and foreign assistance even as falling oil prices fuel domestic dissent.

“All countries heavily dependent on petroleum revenue are nervously watching oil prices as they drop not just far, but quickly,” said Jonathan Elkind, a senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“That price adjustment is raising questions in all these capitals about the suitability of the economic model that has been making them feel so full of themselves in the recent period.

“It would be a serious mistake for people in the United States or other net consumers to feel a sense of the satisfaction that ‘Happy days are here again',” he said. “They're not.”

Leaders in Tehran, Moscow and Caracas have gloated as the financial crisis has hobbled the United States and its Western allies. Analysts say that the three swaggering petro-states are the most vulnerable oil producers to the steep price declines. From a record high of $147 (£85) a barrel in July, crude oil is now trading at around $70 after dipping to its lowest level since August 2007.

Deutsche Bank estimated in a recent research note that Iran and Venezuela need an oil price of more than $95 a barrel to balance their budgets, and Russia requires a price of $75. That compares to a break-even figure of $55 for Saudi Arabia.

Iran and Venezuela have led so-called oil hawks in recent days to push the producer cartel Opec to bring forward an emergency meeting to next Friday, from mid-November, to discuss cutting output quotas to drive up the price. While Russia has prudently salted away much of its oil windfall in “rainy day” funds, Iran and Venezuela are much worse prepared for the downturn, Mr Elkind said.

The tumbling oil prices are grim news for President Ahmadinejad of Iran as he prepares to fight for re-election next June. The populist son of a blacksmith won a landslide election victory three years ago by pledging to give the poor a fairer share of Iran's oil wealth. Now the economy is his Achilles' heel. His profligate spending of petrodollars from record oil revenues has stoked inflation, which topped 29 per cent last month, compared with 12 per cent when he took power.

Bazaar merchants - a potent middle-class force - went on strike last week for the first time since the run-up to the country's Islamic revolution, forcing Mr Ahmadinejad to scrap plans to impose 3 per cent VAT to help to replenish Iran's coffers.

Iranian reformers are urging the headstrong Mr Ahmadinejad to prepare for lower oil revenues by slashing subsidies on commodities such as sugar, cooking oil and wheat. Instead, with an eye on the elections, he continues to tour the provinces, attempting to buy rural support by dispensing largesse in cash and loans.

In Venezuela the Government has unveiled an austerity budget. Just as in Iran, however, Mr Chávez maintains his populist social spending ahead of municipal and state elections. Economic analysts predict that the Government will be forced to raise taxes and devalue the currency.

First affected may be Venezuela's foreign allies. The country's energy aid to friendly nations, which has bought it influence across the continent, is likely to be reined in. Its generous credit programme for Caribbean partners in the PetroCaribe energy accord has been reduced from 50 to 40 per cent.

Defence spending may also be hit. Venezuela has bought about $4.4 billion-worth of Russian military equipment since 2005. Last month it got a $1 billion Russian loan for more purchases - the first time it has sought financing for arms deals with Moscow.

Russia is best positioned for the crisis, having built up the world's third-largest foreign currency reserves before the crisis, at $580 billion. As its stock market plunged it has been forced to spend more than $32 billion in the past two weeks to prop up the currency and bail out banks. The Kremlin will be forced to plug holes in next year's budget by dipping into the Reserve Fund, a $154 billion repository of windfall oil revenues forecast to grow to $174 billion by 2010, but may now start to shrink instead.

President Medvedev, however, is determined to press on with modernisation of the military and has adopted an increasingly strident tone with the West. He has ordered a renovation of Russia's nuclear deterrent and the creation of new space and missile defence shields by 2020, as well as the “mass production of warships... and multi-purpose submarines”.

Nevertheless, Western diplomats detected signs of a new Russian flexibility during last month's UN General Assembly, when Moscow backed an extension of the Nato mandate in Afghanistan and agreed to a meeting on Iran's nuclear programme.

Frank Verrastro, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, noted that oil prices had only fallen to last year's levels and cautioned that it would take more sustained price falls to trigger long-lasting changes by major oil producers.

“It's premature to say people are radically changing their behaviour,” he said. “I think they will, but not yet.”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article4965242.ece

JPTF 2008/10/18

‘O êxtase fantasioso da Europa‘ por Ivan Krastev in OpenDemocracy, 26 de Junho de 2008

Leituras: ‘A Terra é Redonda como uma Bola. Geopolítica do Futebol‘ de Pascal Boniface, Edições Seuil, 2002

O futebol também pode ser analisado como um fenómeno geopolítico. É isto que sustenta Pascal Boniface, director do Instituto des Relações Internacionais Estratégicas (IRIS), nesta publicação das Edições du Seuil de Paris (2002). Segundo o autor, o futebol representa a fase mais avançada da globalização, estando mais expandido do que a democracia, a internet ou a economia de mercado. Para além dos seus aspectos estritamente desportivos, o futebol tem implicações políticas. Numa altura em que as identidades se tornam fluídas, permite uma identificação nacional o que transforma as selecções nacionais em ‘embaixadores‘. À definição clássica de Estado com os seus três elementos tradicionais - território, poder político soberano e população -, será hoje necesário juntar um quarto: a selecção nacional de futebol... A independência nacional, no passado caracterizada pela possibilidade de defender as fronteiras e de ter uma moeda nacional (o que já não existe ao nível da ‘Eurolândia‘) transferiu-se para as provas internacionais de futebol. O futebol ter-se-à assim convertido num elemento da política internacional e numa expressão da actual globalização com a FIFA a superar a ONU em número de Estados.
JPTF 2008/06/07

Revista Hérodote nº 127, Geopolítica do Turismo

Em que medida o fenómeno económico e cultural, em que o turismo se transformou, pode ser encarado em termos geopolíticos? Não é suficiente evocar a globalização em todos os seus aspectos - o tempo em que os estados «socialistas» fechavam o seu território aos turistas e aos capitais estrangeiros faz parte do passado. É preciso, mais do que nunca, colocar os problemas do turismo em termos de rivalidades de poderes sobre territórios com dimensões muito diferentes: desde o planetário e o internacional até aos bairros turísticos e às estações balneares. As agências de turismo excluem dos seus circuitos os países onde existem fortes tensões políticas. Mas os movimentos islamistas, numa estratégia também mundial, consideram o turismo uma ofensa ao Islão: no Egipto, na Turquia ou na Indonésia, grupos terroristas têm por objectivo os turistas ocidentais. Ver apresentação integral do nº 127 (2007) da revista Hérodote.
JPTF 2008/05/25

“Visto da Rússia: Eurovisão, uma lição de geopolítica aplicada” in Courrier International, 14 de Maio de 2007

por Maxime Ioussine
Le concours de l'Eurovision est depuis longtemps devenu une compétition est-européenne, qui se joue "entre soi". Les Allemands, les Français, les Anglais ne s'y intéressent guère, et les Italiens ont même refusé d'y participer. En revanche, les ex-Soviétiques, les ex-Yougoslaves et les ex-"démocraties populaires" considèrent ce concours avec autant de sérieux que si l'honneur de leur pays en dépendait. Pour l'emporter, ces pays sont prêts à conclure les "alliances régionales" les plus variées, parfois naturelles (Russie – Biélorussie), parfois extravagantes (Croatie – Serbie, les ennemies d'hier). Ce qui compte avant tout, c'est le résultat, la garantie d'obtenir le vote des voisins, quelles que soient les circonstances, même si la prestation de l'interprète a été lamentable. Sans même avoir entendu le chanteur grec, on pouvait par exemple parier que Chypre le placerait en tête, tandis que la Grèce voterait pour le ou la Chypriote. Les Roumains donnent toujours 12 points aux Moldaves, et réciproquement dans la plupart des cas. Mais ces arrangements ne suffisent pas à assurer la victoire. Il faut une alliance de poids, pas seulement bilatérale. De ce point de vue, les Etats nés de l'ex-Yougoslavie et de l'ex-URSS sont les mieux placés. A Helsinki, six anciennes républiques yougoslaves et neuf anciennes républiques soviétiques prenaient part au vote. Le résultat n'a pas fait un pli. Le podium a accueilli dans l'ordre la Serbie, l'Ukraine et la Russie. Cette fois, nous n'avons pas su tirer parti de notre supériorité numérique, nous avons dispersé nos voix, certains accordant les fameux 12 points à l'Ukraine, d'autres à la Russie, d'autres encore au chanteur biélorusse, qui a fini sixième. La première place nous a donc échappé. Les ex-Yougoslaves se sont montrés plus intelligents. Disciplinés, les Croates, Bosniaques, Slovènes, Macédoniens et Monténégrins ont tous placé en tête la chanteuse serbe, ce qui lui a valu 60 points d'office, auxquels sont venus s'ajouter les voix de l'Autriche et de la Suisse, où vivent beaucoup d'immigrés serbes, ainsi que de la Hongrie, qui avait rejoint l'"alliance balkanique" (les Serbes ont voté pour la chanteuse hongroise, échange de bons procédés). Finalement, la Finlande a été le seul pays "désintéressé" à placer la concurrente serbe en tête. Les tactiques de certains pays peuvent sembler paradoxales, mais si on y regarde de près, on découvre toujours leur logique. Par exemple, pourquoi l'Estonie a-t-elle voté en faveur de la Russie alors que le contentieux du Soldat de Bronze est encore brûlant ? C'est très simple : [grâce au vote du public] les russophones vivant en Estonie se sont massivement prononcés pour le groupe [russe] Serebro. Et pourquoi les Turcs se sont-ils soudain mis à apprécier les Arméniens ? Parce qu'en fait, ce ne sont pas les Turcs, ce sont les Arméniens de la diaspora qui s'étaient organisés pour envoyer des votes par SMS. D'où est venue la popularité de Vierka Serdioutchka [le concurrent ukrainien] au Portugal ? Il suffit de savoir que ce pays héberge 300 000 travailleurs ukrainiens… Et pourquoi les spectateurs d'Allemagne, d'Autriche et de Suisse soutiennent-il si ardemment la Turquie ? Songez au nombre d'immigrés turcs dans ces pays… Le concours de l'Eurovision ? Une vraie leçon de géopolitique appliquée!
http://www.courrierinternational.com/article.asp?obj_id=73829
JPTF 25/05/2007