Tag Archives: World

Opinion

Is Neo-Liberal Economic Model as Glorious as it is Portrayed?

Although neo-liberal economic model is proven to be a complete failure in the first country (the United States) of its full implementation, yet this model of complete misery is applied across the world, including Greece.

[Fotini Mastroianni | Oped Column Syndication]

The neo-liberal economic model is being represented as more glorified in many countries. In Greece too, the permanent message of the mass media is the glorification of the neo-liberal economic model, which supports the idea that the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich people will be spread to the lower classes and, thus, create wealth for the whole society.

Is that the case?

The United States (US) is a global superpower and has become the economic model for many countries. However, many are unaware of the consequences of the US’s economic power for its own population, particularly for the middle and working class.

In the US, the winners are the very rich, while the other social classes belong to the losers. In particular, between 1979 and 2006, the working-class income rose only 10% in 27 years and the income of the middle class increased by 21%.

This 21% is not as good as it may seem, taking into account the smallest number of people in American households (i.e. families with one kid compared to families with more kids in the past). Therefore, the income per person seems to be greater than it actually is.

In fact, the middle-class income rose by only 0.7% per year. It’s worth noting that the middle class is working much longer hours nowadays compared to the end of the 1970s. Without these extra hours, the increase in the US household income would be negligible. In contrast, the income of the rich for the same period has increased by 260%.

Regarding pensions, the middle class and working class are in a worse state. Employees are increasingly burdened with the cost of their retirement, and the state-guaranteed pension is only for a few.

Pensions are based on participation patterns like 401(K) plan, which is a retirement savings plan sponsored by an employer. This plan lets the employees save and invest a portion of their paycheck (pay cheque) before taxes are taken out. However, the scope of investment with this 401(K) plan is limited. One can invest money into mutual funds mostly composed of stocks, bonds and money market investments.

These schemes exposes the American employees to, for instance, the adverse affects of a fall of the stock market, such as in 2007 and 2008, as well as the one that is predicted for the near future. As a result, many Americans run the risk of having little or no income in their pensionable years.

Furthermore, medical costs have been squeezing the income of the middle class and the working class, as they have to bear the insurance cost. Employees spend too much on medical coverage ($ 7,290 per person in 2007 and 12,872 in 2018), while the state has less doctors, nurses and hospitals per individual than other wealthy countries. As a result, mortality – due to lack of early care in the US – is very high, and the ones who are over seventy-five years are at greater risk.

There’s the widespread believe of an American dream that one can be born poor, but s/he can become rich in the course and, thus, escape from the aforementioned problems.

However, the figures are disappointing. Only one in seven could rise to the high income class in the 1970s, whereas today the ratio is one in ten. Those who belonged to the high income category of 1% of the American population were in the same category in the 1970s as evidenced by the heredity of wealth. Hence, social mobility has been, and will be, more difficult for the lower classes due to the accumulation of wealth.

The neoliberal economic model is proven to be a complete failure in the first country of its full implementation i.e. the United States of America. Yet this model of complete misery for the middle and working class is applied throughout Europe and across the world, and Greece is no exception.

Fotini Mastroianni is an economist, MBA lecturer, writer, blogger from Athens, Greece. She had taught, among others, at the University of Wales & the University of Glyndwr.

 

Opinion

Russia is America’s Friend

“Russia is our friend.” It’s a case that could fill volumes. I don’t make this case suffering under some delusion of the perfect saintliness of the Russian government, neither now nor at any time in history.

[David Swanson | Oped Column Magazine]

Last May I was in Russia when fascists held a rally in my hometown of Charlottesville, not to be confused with their larger rally which followed in August. At the May rally, people shouted “Russia is our friend.” I was on a Russian TV show called Crosstalk the next day and discussed this. I also discussed it with other Russians, actual friends in the human sense. Some of them were completely bewildered, arguing that Russia never had slavery and couldn’t be the friend of Confederate-flag-waving people whom they saw as advocates for slavery. (Anti-Russian Ukrainians have also waved Confederate flags.)

I don’t think slavery or serfdom was on the minds of the people shouting “Russia is our friend.” Rather they believed the Democratic/Liberal accusation that the Russian government had tried to help make Donald Trump President, and they approved. They may also have thought of Russia as a “white” ally in their cause of white supremacy.

I think there is a case to make that, in fact, in a very different sense, “Russia is our friend.” It’s a case that could fill volumes. I don’t make this case suffering under some delusion of the perfect saintliness of the Russian government, neither now nor at any time in history. In 2015, the Russian military approached me and asked if I would publish their propaganda under my own name. I told them to go to hell publicly. I’ve had Russian media censor my criticisms of Russia and highlight my criticisms of the US (yet they allow more criticism of Russia than big US media allows criticism of US foreign policy).

I make the following case because I think it is overwhelming yet fervently ignored. I’ll just note a few highlights.

While the US and Russia were war allies during World War I, the US, in 1917, sent funding to one side, the anti-revolutionary side of a Russian civil war, worked to blockade the Soviet Union, and, in 1918, sent US troops to Murmansk, Archangel, and Vladivostok in an attempt to overthrow the new Russian government. They abandoned the effort and withdrew in April, 1920. Most people in the US do not know this, but many more Russians do.

The threat of the communists, as an example, albeit a deeply flawed one, of taking wealth away from oligarchs was a driving force in US foreign affairs from 1920 up to, all during, and long after World War II. Senator and future president Harry Truman was far from alone in wishing to help the Russians if the Germans were winning, but the Germans if the Russians were winning, so that more of both would die. Senator Robert Taft proclaimed an elite view, shared by some West Point generals, that a victory for fascism would be better than a victory for communism. Wall Street had helped to build up Nazi Germany. Without the help of IBM, General Motors, Ford, Standard Oil, and other US businesses right through the war, the Nazis could not have done what they did. The US government was complicit in these acts of treason, avoiding bombing US factories in Germany, and even compensating US businesses for damage when hit.

The Russians had turned the tied [tide] against the Nazis outside Moscow and begun pushing the Germans back before the US ever entered World War II. The Soviets implored the US to attack Germany from the west from that moment until the summer of 1944 — that is to say, for two-and-a-half years. Wanting the Russians to do most of the killing and dying — which they did — the US and Britain also did not want the Soviet Union making a new deal with or taking sole control of Germany. The allies agreed that any defeated nation would have to surrender to all of them and completely. The Russians went along with this.

Yet in Italy, Greece, France, etc., the US and Britain cut Russia out almost completely, banned communists, shut out leftist resisters to the Nazis, and re-imposed rightwing governments that the Italians called “fascism without Mussolini.” The US would “leave behind” spies and terrorists and saboteurs in various European countries to fend off any communist influence.

Originally scheduled for the first day of Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s meeting with Stalin in Yalta, the US and British bombed the city of Dresden flat, destroying its buildings and its artwork and its civilian population, apparently as a means of threatening Russia. The US then developed and used on Japanese cities nuclear bombs, a decision driven largely by the desire to see Japan surrender to the US alone, without the Soviet Union, and by the desire to threaten the Soviet Union.

Immediately upon German surrender, Winston Churchill proposed using Nazi troops together with allied troops to attack the Soviet Union, the nation that had just done the bulk of the work of defeating the Nazis. This was not an off-the-cuff proposal. The US and British had sought and achieved partial German surrenders, had kept German troops armed and ready, and had debriefed German commanders on lessons learned from their failure against the Russians. Attacking the Russians sooner rather than later was a view advocated by General George Patton, and by Hitler’s replacement Admiral Karl Donitz, not to mention Allen Dulles and the OSS. Dulles made a separate peace with Germany in Italy to cut out the Russians, and began sabotaging democracy in Europe immediately and empowering former Nazis in Germany, as well as importing them into the US military to focus on war against Russia.

The war launched was a cold one. The US. worked to make sure that West German companies would rebuild quickly but not pay war reparations owed to the Soviet Union. While the Soviets were willing to withdraw from countries like Finland, their demand for a buffer between Russia and Europe hardened as the US-led Cold War grew, in particular the oxymoronic “nuclear diplomacy.”

Lies about Soviet threats and missile gaps and Russian tanks in Korea and global communist conspiracies became the biggest profit makers for US weapons companies, not to mention Hollywood movie studios, in history, as well as the biggest threat to peace in various corners of the globe. The US drew Russia into a war in Afghanistan and armed its opponents. Efforts at nuclear disarmament and diplomacy, which more often than not came from the Soviet side, were routinely thwarted by Americans. When Eisenhower and Khrushchev seemed likely to talk peace, a US spy plane was shot down, just after an American who’d been involved with those planes defected to Russia. When Kennedy seemed interested in peace, he was killed, purportedly by that very same American.

When Germany reunited, the US and allies lied to the Russians that NATO would not expand. Then NATO quickly began expanding eastward. Meanwhile the US openly bragged about imposing Boris Yeltsin and corrupt crony capitalism on Russia by interfering in a Russian election in collusion with Yeltsin. NATO developed into an aggressive global war maker and expanded right up to Russia’s borders, where the US began installing missiles. Russian requests to join NATO or Europe were dismissed out of hand. Russia was to remain a designated enemy, even without the communism, and even without constituting any threat or engaging in any hostility.

When Russia gave the US a memorial in sorrow for the victims of 9/11, the US practically hid it, and reported on it so little that most people don’t know it exists or believe it’s a false story.

When Russia has proposed to make treaties on weapons in space or cyber war or nuclear missiles, the US has regularly rejected such moves. Russia’s advocacy for the Iran agreement meant nothing. Obama and Trump have expelled Russian diplomats. Obama helped facilitate a coup in Ukraine. Trump has begun weapons shipments to the coup government, which includes Nazis. Obama tried to facilitate an overthrow in Syria. Trump escalated the bombings, even hitting Russian troops. Trump accuses Russia — the one allied power not still occupying Germany — of dominating Germany, while trying to prevent Russia from selling its fossil fuels.

Russia is accused, and found guilty prior to convincing evidence, of shooting down an airplane, of “aggressively” flying near US planes on Russia’s borders, of “conquering” Crimea through a popular vote, of poisoning people in England, of torturing and murdering a man in prison, and of course of “hacking” an election — an accusation which, if evidence is ever produced for it, will amount to far less than Israel does in the US or than the US does in many countries. Through all of these accusations it is not uncommon for the Russians to be referred to as “the commies,” despite the demise of communism.

What, you may ask, does any of this have to do with Russia being a friend? Simply this: nobody other than a friend would put up with this shit.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is the director of World Beyond War, a global nonviolent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. David is campaign coordinator for Roots Action.

Opinion

Anarcho-Populism, A New Ideology?

Failure to understand the new ideological framework will be the cause of the collapse of many political parties and coalitions that exist today.

[Fotini Mastroianni | Oped Column Syndication ]

According to researchers, the ideology born in 2011 is a mix of cyber-anarchism, anti-globalization and populism like the one emerged in Russia and the US in the late 19th century.

We all know the Anonymous mask, a symbol of the new type of revolution (anarcho-populism), a symbol that we have seen in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere. The new ideology that has emerged is grounded in the anti-globalization movements that emerged in the 1990s and in 2000. Movements that rejected the power of the media and promoted the idea of ​​collectiveness through popular assemblies in each neighborhood. There is, however, a significant difference between the anti-globalization movements and the movements of the squares, such as those who have been resurrected in Greece, etc.

The anti-globalization movement was, of course, against global neo-liberalism and its main exponents, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, etc., while the square movements, as we experienced with the Aganaktismenoi in Greece, were directed mainly against the domestic oligarchy of the political system. Ideological purity, simply, did not exist. Common people were involved in the movements of the squares, where they discussed publicly and shared their thoughts with others, and their goal was more justice and transparency from the political system.

The “contract” between rulers and the people has been broken due to the economic crisis. The creation of artificial economic crises by the neo-liberal elites, the so-called rescue programs that do not eventually save anyone, have led millions of people to poverty and impoverishment (Greece is a living example). Governments no longer guarantee prosperity, not even the viability of their citizens, and freedom is limited.

The new movements and the new ideology mainly use social media to spread messages to mobilize furious citizens and protect them from austerity measures (see anti-auction movement in Greece). The communication campaigns of these movements reveal the political and economic scandals, the middle-class poverty and the oppression of the government.

A two-pole system is created – common people against the elites. Common people who seek democracy and battle totalitarianism. The relationship with the Left is now competitive, therefore the Left fights these movements.

In the economy, the main axes are to provide social services and guarantee a minimum wage, while, contrary to the globalization movements that await the end of capitalism, the new ideology emphasizes the end of inequalities, mainly at national/local level.

The existing political system cannot match this new ideology and, in my opinion, it is wrong to consider this new ideology as populist in the sense of chauvinistic nationalism.

Failure to understand this new ideological framework will also be the cause of the collapse of many political parties and coalitions that exist today. In Greece, this collapse is seen through mass contestation and the creation of many small parties, which, however, do not quite understand these changes, but think in an old-fashioned political way.

World changes, a change so radical that causes unrest. The new reality has not yet been shaped, but it will, perhaps after very painful processes, be created hoping for better living terms for people.

Fotini Mastroianni is an economist, MBA lecturer, writer, blogger from Athens, Greece. She had taught, among others, at the University of Wales & University of Glyndwr.

Opinion

Time to Re-Examine the Atlantic Alliance

It’s time the NATO went the way of the Warsaw Pact and recognize that the old ways of thinking are not only outdated but also dangerous.

[Conn M. Hallinan | Oped Column Magazine]

The outcome of the July11-12 NATO meeting in Brussels got lost amid the media’s obsession with President Donald Trump’s bombast, but the “Summit Declaration” makes for sober reading. The media reported that the 28-page document “upgraded military readiness,” and was “harshly critical of Russia,” but there was not much detail beyond that.

But details matter, because that is where the Devil hides.

One such detail is NATO’s “Readiness Initiative” that will beef up naval, air and ground forces in “the eastern portion of the Alliance.” NATO is moving to base troops in Latvia, Estonia Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Poland. Since Georgia and Ukraine have been invited to join the Alliance, some of those forces could end up deployed on Moscow’s western and southern borders.

And that should give us pause.

A recent European Leadership’s Network’s (ELN) study titled “Envisioning a Russia-NATO Conflict” concludes, “The current Russia-NATO deterrence relationship is unstable and dangerously so.” The ELN is an independent think tank of military, diplomatic and political leaders that fosters “collaborative” solutions to defense and security issues.

High on the study’s list of dangers is “inadvertent conflict,” which ELN concludes “may be the most likely scenario for a breakout” of hostilities. “The close proximity of Russian and NATO forces” is a major concern, argues the study, “but also the fact that Russia and NATO have been adapting their military postures towards early reaction, thus making rapid escalation more likely to happen.”

With armed forces nose-to-nose, “a passage from crisis to conflict might be sparked by the actions of regional commanders or military commanders at local levels or come as a consequence of an unexpected incident or accident.” According to the European Leadership Council, there have been more than 60 such incidents in the last year.

The NATO document is, indeed, hard on Russia, which it blasts for the “illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea,” its “provocative military activities, including near NATO borders,” and its “significant investments in the modernization of its strategic (nuclear) forces.”

Unpacking all that requires a little history, not the media’s strong suit.

The story goes back more than three decades to the fall of the Berlin Wall and eventual re-unification of Germany. At the time, the Soviet Union had some 380,000 troops in what was then the German Democratic Republic [East Germany]. Those forces were there as part of the treaty ending World War II, and the Soviets were concerned that removing them could end up threatening the USSR’s borders. The Russians have been invaded — at terrible cost — three times in a little more than a century.

So West German Chancellor Helmet Kohl, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev cut a deal. The Soviets agreed to withdraw troops from Eastern Europe as long as NATO did not fill the vacuum, or recruit members of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact. Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch east.”

The agreement was never written down, but it was followed in practice. NATO stayed west of the Oder and Neisse rivers, and Soviet troops returned to Russia. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved in 1991.

But President Bill Clinton blew that all up in 1999 when the US and NATO intervened in the civil war between Serbs and Albanians over the Serbian province of Kosovo. Behind the new US doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” the NATO opened a massive 11-week bombing campaign against Serbia.

From Moscow’s point of view the war was unnecessary. The Serbs were willing to withdraw their troops and restore Kosovo’s autonomous status. But NATO demanded a large force that would be immune from Serbian law, something the nationalist-minded Serbs would never agree to. It was virtually the same provocative language the Austrian-Hungarian Empire had presented to the Serbs in 1914, language that set off World War I.

In the end, NATO lopped off part of Serbia to create Kosovo and re-drew the post World War II map of Europe, exactly what the Alliance charges that Russia has done with its seizure of the Crimea.

But NATO did not stop there. In 1999 the Alliance recruited former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, adding Bulgaria and Romania four years later. By the end of 2004, Moscow was confronted with NATO in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to the north, Poland to the west, and Bulgaria and Turkey to the south. Since then, the Alliance has added Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, and Montenegro. It has invited Georgia, Ukraine, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to apply as well.

When the NATO document chastises Russia for “provocative” military activities near the NATO border, it is referring to maneuvers within its own border or one of its few allies, Belarus.

As author and foreign policy analyst Anatol Lieven points out, “Even a child” can look at a 1988 map of Europe and see “which side has advanced in which direction.”

NATO also accuses Russia of “continuing a military buildup in Crimea,” without a hint that those actions might be in response to what the Alliance document calls its “substantial increase in NATO’s presence and maritime activity in the Black Sea.” Russia’s largest naval port on the Black Sea is Sevastopol in the Crimea.

One does not expect even-handedness in such a document, but there are disconnects in this one that are worrisome.

Yes, the Russians are modernizing their nuclear forces, but the Obama administration was first out of that gate in 2009 with its $1.5 trillion program to upgrade the US’s nuclear weapons systems. Both programs are a bad idea.

Some of the document’s language about Russia is aimed at loosening purse strings at home. The NATO members agreed to cough up more money, but that decision preceded Trump’s Brussels tantrum on spending.

There is some wishful thinking on Afghanistan — “Our Resolute Support Mission is achieving success” — when in fact things have seldom been worse. There are vague references to the Middle East and North Africa, nothing specific, but a reminder that NATO is no longer confining its mission to what it was supposedly set up to do: Keep the US in, Russia out and Germany down.

The US is still in — one should take Trump’s threat of withdrawal with a boulder size piece of salt — there is no serious evidence the Russians ever planned to come in, and the Germans have been up since they joined the NATO in 1955. Indeed, it was the addition of Germany that sparked the formation of the Warsaw Pact.

While Moscow is depicted as an aggressive adversary, the NATO surrounds Russia on three sides, deployed anti-missile systems in Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, and the Black Sea, and has a 12 to 1 advantage in military spending. With opposing forces now toe-to-toe, it would not take much to set off a chain reaction that could end in a nuclear exchange.

Yet instead of inviting a dialogue, the document boasts that the Alliance has “suspended all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia.”

The solution seems obvious. First, a return to the 1998 military deployment. While it is unlikely that former members of the Warsaw Pact would drop their NATO membership, a withdrawal of non-national troops from NATO members that border Russia would cool things off. Second, the removal of anti-missile systems that should never have been deployed in the first place. In turn, Russia could remove the middle range Iskander missiles the NATO is complaining about and [Russia] agree to talks aimed at reducing nuclear stockpiles.

But long range, it is finally time to re-think alliances. The NATO was a child of the Cold War, when the West believed that the Soviets were a threat. But Russia today is not the Soviet Union, and there is no way Moscow would be stupid enough to attack a superior military force. It is time the NATO went the way of the Warsaw Pact and recognize that the old ways of thinking are not only outdated but also dangerous.

Conn M. Hallinan is a California-based independent journalist. He is a regular columnist for the think tank Foreign Policy In Focus and holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Opinion

The Necessity of Multilateralism

It is not just multilateral relations between countries that are suffering, it is also the institutions created through multilateral treaties, especially those tied to the Rome Statue, that are failing their essential purpose. Even the stability of the EU has been threatened by nationalism, including Brexit.

[Cynthia M. Lardner| Oped Column Syndication]

Global stability and security depends upon multilateral relationships among countries and multinational entities. Multilaterism broadly encompasses agreements, treaties, trade agreements, security and intelligence sharing, etc. among three or more countries with one another or as members of multinational entities, such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the G7, NATO, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

The focus is on cooperation that is based on adherence to norms and the rule of law. In many respects multilateralism is the exercise of soft power by its members as it opens the door for leverage should other issues falling outside the defined relationship develop. Multilaterism is waxing and waning depending upon what country or entity one scrutinizes.

“What is new today is that the United States in particular, but also the UK, Russia, and others, often contrary to their own interests, are trying to go it alone more often—whether by pulling out of international agreements, leaving international organizations, or annexing territory in violation of international law. It is too early to say, however, that multilateralism is on the wane: that depends on how the rest of world responds to these moves,” said Ian Bond, Director of Foreign Policy at the Centre for European Reform.

Multilaterism at Work: The OSCE’s Asian Partners for Co-operation and NATO

There are a few excellent examples of multilateralism, including the OSCE’s Asian Partners for Co-operation and NATO. I had the privilege to speaking with Ambassador Clemens Koja, the Permanent Representative of Austria to the OSCE, which is based in Vienna, Austria and to Eirini Lemos from NATO’s Political Affairs and Security Policy Division in Vienna, which maintains a relationship with the OSCE’s Asian Partners for Co-operation.

Excellency, you recently spoke at the Austrian Embassy in The Hague about the OSCE Asian Partners for Co-Operation, along with the Ambassadors from four or the five participating Asian countries – Afghanistan, Thailand, South Korea and Australia. Why is the Asian Partners for Co-Operation an important outreach endeavour for the OSCE?

Ambassador Koja: In an increasingly interconnected world it is clear that security does not end or begin at Europe’s borders: issues such as cyber security, migration, human trafficking or non-proliferation to name but a few are transregional or global in their nature.

For that reason the partnership between the OSCE and a number of Asian countries helps both sides to advance on security matters. On the partner side the OSCE is often seen as an important contributor to peace and stability and sometimes also as a model for deepening regional cooperation. Partners also take great interest in resolving conflicts in the OSCE area, in particular in the crisis in and around Ukraine, and contribute substantially to the OSCE’s activities there.

What do see as the greatest challenge facing the Asian Partners for Co-Operation?

Ambassador Koja: However, it is undeniable that Partners are by their nature diverse: Afghanistan shares a long border with the OSCE and for this reason takes a natural interest in the numerous OSCE projects in Central Asia. Other more remote partners place their focus more on the common security issues and lessons learned from the OSCE as the world’s largest regional security organization.

Does the Asian Partners for Co-Operation discuss the issue of free trade and, conversely, trade wars?

Ambassador Koja: The OSCE increasingly discusses issues such as trade and environment, however does not duplicate EU or WTO activities. It therefore concentrates on the concept of economic connectivity as a means of enhancing trust and co-operation between partners and increasing political stability by increasing living standards.

Are there issues that fall outside of the ambit of the Asian Partners for Co-Operation?

Ambassador Koja: Obviously, the discussions with partners cover only issues within the OSCE’s ambit, i.e. the very wide and comprehensive security approach the OSCE stands for with its three dimensions.

Do you consider multilateral alliances and partnerships essential to creating a more peaceful and just world?

Ambassador Koja: In our perspective, it has become clear that the complexity of today’s challenges in several fields calls for multilateral approaches – at least for those aspiring to sustainable answers and solutions. More multilateralism also means more credibility and a stronger acceptance by the people.

The OSCE, as largest regional organization under Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter, has always relied on the concept of comprehensive, indivisible security based on a cooperative method. In that vein, Austria has always advocated the promotion of effective multilateralism in order to ensure political stability, overall security, socio-economic progress as well as ecological sustainability.

The OSCE is comprised of 57 member nations. Has there been any objection by any OSCE member nation to the OSCE Asian Partners for Co-Operation or any other OSCE operation?

Ambassador Koja: With its 57 participating States, ranging from Vancouver to Vladivostok, the OSCE provides a vital platform for dialogue and and the sharing of norms, commitments and expertise. Yet, an outreach to our immediate neighbors is valuable, indeed indispensable, as our security is inseparably linked to theirs. This concerns both our partners in the Mediterranean and in Asia.

Nor is this approach questioned by the OSCE States. On the contrary, we are happy when third countries express their interest in the organization and seek an exchange. But it is clear that according to the basic principle of our organization – the consensus – all participating States must agree to a formalization of such a co-operation. As far as I am informed, China never applied for an official partner’s statute. However they were involved in the discussions on enhancing connectivity in the Eurasian area initiated by Germany’s OSCE Chairmanship 2016.

The OSCE’s Asian Partners for Co-Operation is supported by NATO. Ms. Lemos shed some light on the critical support NATO renders.

NATO established an office in Vienna for liaising with the OSCE Asian Partners for Co-operation. Why has NATO made this a priority?

Ms. Lemos: NATO has opened the liaison to the OSCE and other Vienna based organization, following a Warsaw decision to enhance the practical and political co-operation with the OSCE.  This reflects the long standing relationship, which dates back many years. As such the office doesn’t have any geographical focus, and is not specifically mandated to liaise with the OSCE Asian Partners for Co-operation.

The OSCE is an important organization for NATO (reflected very well at the Warsaw Summit declaration), not least for its role as a custodian of the rules based order and important European security agreement and CSBMs.

NATO is an excellent example of a working multilateral institution. Does NATO consider multilateral alliances and partnerships essential to creating a more peaceful and just world?

Ms. Lemos: NATO attributed great importance to multilateralism and relations with external partners and international organizations. This was very much enshrined also in our comprehensive approach policy, already in 2008, where we endeavored to include NATO’s efforts as part of an international strategies for sustainable piece efforts. Our experience in Afghanistan and in the Balkans demonstrated the need that security and development go hand in glove. Multilateralism complements bilateral relations, and allows a more comprehensive perspective of addressing challenges.

As you know, in the same spirit in 2010 we opened an office to UN.

So NATO’s outreach to its associated partners, be it in the MD or Asia will be through regular OSCE events and activities, whenever we are involved.

How is NATO working with the OSCE and its Asian Partners for Co-operation on the five established areas: new security threats and a new security paradigm; search for conflict prevention in the new security circumstances; confidence- and security-building measures in Northeast Asia; comprehensive security in Central Asia, the human dimension of security, and human trafficking? Is the relationship “generic” or of a general consultative nature?

Ms. Lemos: NATO has developed its own partnership agreements with a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region, namely Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand. These are not related to NATO’s cooperation with the OSCE. You can find more on these partnerships on the NATO website.

Failed Multilaterism

It is not just multilateral relations between countries that are suffering, it is also the institutions created through multilateral treaties, especially those tied to the Rome Statue, that are failing their essential purpose, such as the United Nations Security Council, and the International Criminal Court, which has lost members in the last two years. Even the stability of the European Union has been threatened by nationalism, including Brexit, which can be roughly translated into a fear of the influx of refugees.

The Trump Administration

Sadly multilateralism is on the decline, in part, due to the Trump Administration’s isolationist and bilateral policies, Brexit, and to China’s expansionist and bilateral foreign policies. The United States (U.S.) is losing allies as fast as China is gaining partners.

It started immediately after Donald Trump’s inauguration when he abandoned the Transpacific Trade Partnership, and has continued with the Trump Administration backing out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, the threats to abandon NAFTA, combined with threats to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum on the European Union, China and Canada, and the obscene failure of President Trump to work with the U.S. key allies at the G7 Summit or, as some are calling it, the G6 + 1.

Currently, the U.S. currently has 20 bilateral trade relationships, which came under harsh criticism by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who stated that because the U.S. is “…bigger than any other partner that comes along… many partners will [not] be keen to deal with you bilaterally.”

Meanwhile China has been scooping up countries left standing out in the cold by the White House creating innumerable partnerships with America’s former allies. At the 2018 World Economic Forum President Xi Jinping commented that, “The global market system is the ocean we all swim in and cannot escape from. Any attempt to… channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible.”

An excellent case in point in Japan as explained in a December article that appeared in The Diplomat:

[In November 2017] Japan finalized a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) that will encompass some 600 million people and roughly 30 percent of gross world product: it creates what the Financial Times calls “the world’s largest open economic zone.” When Washington withdrew from negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at the beginning of last year, the 11 remaining countries that had been participating in deliberations pressed forward, with Tokyo taking the lead. They agreed on the core elements of a revised deal this past November — the so-called Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) — and are hoping to ratify it early this year. Japan is simultaneously contending with China to shape the contours of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, an FTA that covers approximately half of the world’s population and a third of its output and, notably, excludes the U.S. Most recently, Tokyo has agreed to help finance Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

The United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is comprised of five permanent member nations, and ten rotating member nations elected by the five permanent members to staggered two-year terms. At the time of its creation, the world’s five greatest superpowers were afforded the privilege of serving as permanent UNSC members: the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, the Russia and China (P5). There is no provision in the U.N. Charter requiring that designation as a UNSC permanent member ever be reviewed or revisited.

The P5 have de facto control over the UNSC by virtue of their exclusive veto power over exercised when any permanent member casts a “negative” vote on not only “substantive” draft resolutions but as to what constitutes a substantive issue. The most recent abuse of the veto power was by the U.S. in resolution as to its highly inflammatory decision to move the Israeli Embassy to Jerusalem, which it singularly recognized as the capital of Israel. China did not even participate in the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s case concerning its violating the Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea as it knew it could veto any UNSC action to enforce the adverse decision. For the same reason Russia fears no UNSC action as to the illegal annexation of Crimea. There will never be a resolution as to Syria as Russia and likely China would cast their veto.

The P5 has been criticized for failing to deliver justice, provide security, and adhere to Rule of Law, including its responsibility to protect (R2P) by former statespersons, such as Kofi Annan, the seventh U.N. Secretary-General and Nobel Laureate, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and former Canadian Foreign Minister Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, calling into question whether the U.N. Charter needs to be amended. Very few statespersons still in office are willing to criticize the P5 fearing retribution with two exceptions being New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have boldly joined the chorus.

A portion of this article first appeared in the Security and Human Rights Monitor.

Cynthia M. Lardner is an American journalist residing in the Netherlands and is a contributing editor to Tuck Magazine and the International Policy Digest. Ms. Lardner holds degrees in journalism, law, and counseling psychology.