Disruption (Page 11)

Some two and a half times after&nbsp, Russia launched its” special military activity” against Ukraine there appears to be much thought given to how the conflict was realistically&nbsp, finish. Now, both parties claim that their purpose is “victory”.

For President Volodymyr Zelensky, this entails the return to Ukraine of all the lands occupied by Russia, including Crimea, and NATO account.

For President Vladimir Putin’s triumph, it means that Russia will continue to control the land it seized from its neighbor and that Ukraine will not only refrain from joining NATO but acknowledges that it is a part of Russia’s sphere of influence.

In other words, as of right now, each group demands that its adversary be a acquiescence without reservation. Given the current circumstances, these problems are never likely to be met, and if new story is a guide, they probably never will be.

The next big conflict, as it was known, saw Japan and Germany defeat one of the opposing forces in the end. All subsequent wars, from Korea to Vietnam to the Iran/Iraq conflict ended either with a negotiation, a compromise ( be it temporary ) or a return to the status quo ante.

And in the two instances where the attacking authority was initially successful, specifically Iraq and Afghanistan, it proved capable of consolidating its carry on its opponent.

So, one can honestly believe, irrespective of the standard pronouncements made by all the parties to the Ukraine fight, that the result will be some sort of “modus vivendi”, even if this may take the form of an eternal, protracted, low-intensity confrontation. But whatever the results, there are a number of experiences that cannot be ignored.

In terms of populations, Russia’s population is currently estimated at 144 million. The combined groups of Germany, Poland and France are 192 million, reaching 259 million if one adds Ukraine.

From an economic standpoint, Russia’s position is not much stronger. Currently, Russia has an average yearly per capita GDP of some US$ 15, 200, compared with$ 48, 700 for Germany,$ 39, 000 for France and$ 18, 500 for Poland.

Therefore, Putin took a position of relative failure in terms of population and economic clout when he began his Ukrainian project. These flaws were made even more clear by Russia’s achievement in the military world.

A Russian armoured row made a run for Kiev on February 27, 2022, with the intention of putting a pro-Russian government in place in the Russian capital. At best, it was a lightening strike that was supposed to last 48 hours. For Russia, it has proved rather an absolute disaster.

The Russian troops, which reportedly had been reformed and reorganized under Putin, proved capable of seizing the Russian capital, more galvanizing a opposition embodied figuratively instantaneously by Zelensky.

Putin’s actions against Ukraine, which occurred after Russia’s invasion of Crimea, had a damaging impact on the development of global ties as it had been intended since World War II.

Granted, it was not the first day that a nation-state without foreign support invaded another. In theory, there was little to differentiate between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the American invasion of Iraq.

Also, India’s conquest of Sikkim in April 1973 and the “referendum” that followed may have caused a splash, but it did no. Finally, Sikkim was useless and America’s invasion of Iraq was a show.

Ukraine, however, is in the heart of Europe. It is one of the world’s major grain producers and it shares a boundary with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. So, in geostrategic conditions, a Russian-dominated Ukraine has the potential of appearing as a menace to Western Europe. But to do so it has to be firmly in Russia’s hand. For Putin, the problem is not only to establish his identity on Ukraine but, once he has, to keep it in his grasp.

One may assume that the rest of Ukraine would not approve of being under Soviet rule, aside from the Donbass and Crimea, which are both inhabited by Russian listeners. Putin’s military might be insufficient to control an held Ukraine, but if background provides an example it does not enjoy in his favor.

When Germany occupied part of France in 1940, it took some 350, 000 European soldiers to retain some 25 million Frenchmen under control. That proportion considered the fact that French officials continued to be in charge of the nation for all manner of purposes at the local level.

So the postal service, trains, schools, road maintenance, the courts and the like endured as they always had and almost all of the 72, 500 Jews who were deported to the death camps were arrested not by the Germans but by the European authorities operating on behalf of the occupiers.

It would take at least one million, if not more, to impose Putin’s rule over an occupied Ukraine, keeping in mind the size of the French population in relation to the number of occupying Germans as a reference and assuming that the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian occupation would not be more committed than the French.

A hostile and occupied Ukraine would not, in the long run, pose a greater challenge to Putin’s vision of Russia than his current predicament, he might ask.

On paper, there were two ways of denying Putin’s ambition to impose his hegemony on Ukraine.

The first was to allow him to have his way while ensuring that his desire to recreate a Russian empire based on the Stalinist model would be thwarted by the burden it would impose on Russia from within.

However, this would not only have entailed a long-term strategy for which the West was ill-equipped. It also would have required, above all, that the Ukrainians throw in the towel. Although this might have happened about 20 years ago, a resurgence of Ukrainian nationalism made it possible for the nation to refuse to accept Russia as its oppressor in the 2020s.

The second way of denying Putin’s ambition—refusing to let him have his way—is what has emerged as the current situation. Today, there is a general consensus among Western countries that Putin’s geopolitical agenda must be constrained.

That raises two questions:

• Why?
• At what cost?

Putin’s Ukrainian initiative will be viewed as a direct threat to Western Europe if, in part, the Western public accepts the idea that if he is n’t stopped, it will encourage him to take similar initiatives against Poland or the Baltic states. In this perspective, Putin had to be stopped, and Ukraine was the place to do it.

Questions that were raised or left unanswered included whether he had the population to move farther west, whether the economy would support an open conflict, or whether the army would manage it.

If Ukraine had not resisted the Russian incursion, there would have been&nbsp, no scope for the West to intervene as it did. However, once it did, the nature of the conflict changed.

What started out as a conflict between Moscow and Moscow’s neighbor became a conflict between Washington-plus-allies and Russia. And while conflict’s political and economic dimensions are still restricted to the Russian-Ukrainian border region, they have expanded to include all countries.

The collateral damages have been colossal, even if the human cost of the conflict is estimated to be 400 000 casualties in addition to the estimated 3.7 million internally displaced and the 6.3 million refugees who have fled the country.

In economic terms, the combination of sanctions, embargoes and disruption is estimated to have cost a total of some$ 1.5 trillion, equivalent to 1 % of the global GDP. This includes, among other things, the price of petroleum, which in turn has impacted prices in the fertilizer and petrochemical industries, as well as the global supply of grain. From that perspective, the war in Ukraine is nothing less than a global economic disaster.

The disruptive impact of the conflict in Ukraine is difficult to understate if the international order is a matter of balance. Before Putin’s” special military operation”, NATO, which was conceived as an anti-Soviet alliance, has, over the years, drifted into a state of semi-irrelevance.

Literally overnight, Putin was able to persuade countries like Finland and Sweden to join the alliance, which was revived as a buffer against a potential Russian imperial expansion.

Washington’s stance on both Russia and China on a more global scale inevitably provided the two with a common ground when confronting a common enemy. However, Beijing’s interests do n’t align with China’s desire to see Russia overbearingly weakened, as this would strengthen Washington’s reputation globally.

Ultimately, Beijing’s Russia policy entails providing some support to Putin without provoking an excessive American reaction.

As for the West in general and more specifically for Washington, the future is, to say the least, uncertain. The temptation to use Ukraine to bring Putin to his knees is real, but it also poses a risk.

Russia is a major nuclear power, after all, and nothing could prevent it from losing control of its arsenal if it drifted into a state of semi-anarchy. The real question is therefore whether Putin can be attracted to without destroying the Russian state.

Much will depend on how long the Putin establishment can maintain the system that the West is currently imposing on it. Sanctions are undoubtedly having an impact, but one should not discount the fact that the Russian people’s level of social resilience is unmatched in the West in terms of hardship.

In terms of socioeconomics, Russian society is neither industrial nor entrepreneurial, and all it produces is energy, grain, and raw materials. In the end, Russia is much less receptive to outside forces than countries like China by merely hunkering down.

As of today, Putin’s” special military operation” has reinvigorated NATO, illustrated the shortcomings of the Russian armed forces and massively boosted Ukrainian nationalism. They have yet to demonstrate that they are even close to reining Putin in when it comes to their responses.

That makes the current situation a lose-lose proposition for all concerned.

Alexander Casella PhD has taught and worked as a journalist for Le Monde, The Times, The New York Times, Die Zeit, The Guardian and Swiss radio and TV, writing primarily on China and Vietnam. In 1973, he joined the UNHCR, serving, among other postings, as head of the East Asia Section and director for Asia and Oceania. The International Center for Migration Policy Development’s representative in Geneva then served him.

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As demonstrators attempted to flood parliament in protest of the questionable political ruling, Indonesian legislators have resisted plans to disregard the government’s Constitutional Court.

Some joyous supporters of the Constitutional Court applaud the choice, but many warn that the government may still take similar steps to strengthen the authority of retiring president Joko Widodo and protection secretary Prabowo Subianto, who will take him on October 20.

The jury rendered two significant decisions on August 20 that set off the near-consensual crisis. Just days before the membership of candidates was scheduled to begin, the first significantly reduced the nomination boundary for candidates running in local elections.

There were signs of cooperation within the alliance as every key party except one then supports Prabowo and Widodo in important local races. The goal was to effectively prevent opposition candidates from winning several crucial races.

Anies Baswedan, a former governor of Jakarta and likely to win a second term in office, appeared to be the most well-known destination. But some individuals from the PDI-P – Widodo’s old group, which is now extremely opposed to him – stood to become affected.

A lower court’s decision to relax the least time demands for political candidates was overturned by the second Constitutional Court decision.

The lower court’s decision was criticized as suggest because Kaesang Pangarep, the only possible candidate who appeared to be impacted by the change, was the second child of President Joko Widodoo, who had been preparing to move for the position of deputy governor of Central Java.

Faced with this double punch, Indonesia’s congress, which pro-government events dominate, made plans to avoid the rulings. Important lawmakers met with Gerindra party’s Minister of Law and Human Rights, Supratman Andi Agtas, on August 21 for a quick meeting.

What came up was a proposal to essentially dismiss the court’s decisions by revising local election court’s provisions regarding candidate eligibility and nominations in ways that completely contradicted the decisions.

The common response, nevertheless, was swift and upset. One image designed to look like a disaster warning system, complete with the text” Peringatan Darurat” ( Emergency Alert ), spread widely on social media. It was posted and reposted by some often unbiased influencers, comedians and another celebrities, helping protest support and arrange the protests.

On August 22, protest launched big rallies across Indonesia. Special attention was given to Kaesang’s election and Jokowi’s claims that he wanted to create a political dynasty.

The protests ‘ swell of social media posts by Kaesang’s wife, which appeared to show the pair taking a private airplane to America to begin a college course there, did nothing to improve things. Additional satire was sparked by a picture of her laptop that showed her taking a social justice class.

The important action, however, took place no on social media but on the roads. The most interest was garnered by Jakarta protest ‘ attempts to take over the legislature.

However, significant demonstrations took spot in numerous cities and towns throughout the coastal region. In Ambon City and Makassar, protest managed to break into their respective local legislatures.

According to activists with knowledge from previous demonstrations who spoke to Asia Times, the protests on August 22 appeared to extend far beyond the normal groups. Numerous stars credited social media posts on their accounts with attracting more varied and larger crowds than usual.

Faced with this powerful street-level criticism, legislature has scrapped the modifying costs. Protest elicited cheers, but several remain unsure whether the government will try to restore the proposed changes once the rallies have ended.

” Yes, on the one hand, we’ve received good information that the correction is not going to get carried out”, said Fikri Diaz, a law student who joined the Jakarta demonstrations. ” But we should n’t yet lower our guard”.

He cited how, in 2019, Widodo had resorted to signing a contentious Omnibus Bill while the majority of protest were asleep to try to limit disturbance. The elections commission is awaiting word from other parties to see if it will correctly apply the judge’s decisions.

The protests and near-consensual problems occurred in the middle of what critics claim was a deterioration of politics during the national vote, which ended in February of this year.

Despite not meeting the minimum age requirement of 40, the Constitutional Court ruled in October 2023 that the first child of President Widodo, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, could be nominated as Prabowo’s vice-presidential running partner.

The Chief Justice of the Court, Widodo’s brother-in-law, was eventually removed from his place for violating professional morality in presiding over a situation in which he had a clear conflict of interest.

Additionally, there were allegations that the authorities had used happiness handouts to support Prabowo’s election and that the two opponents had been harassed at the net during the election campaign.

The Constitutional Court’s decisions, in contrast to perceived creeping anti-democratic techniques, were viewed as a positive indicator of political separation of powers for many.

” I think the Constitutional Court was giving a solution to the majoritarian tendencies we’re seeing today”, says Titi Anggraini, a constitutional lawyer and member of the Association for Elections and Democracy’s ( Perludem ) advisory board.

However, the government and legislature’s bet to avoid these judge decisions was the last straw for many Citizens worried about political backsliding.

The public’s outcry over the recent wave of insults to our political values is a classic example of a “tipping place” fact, according to Thomas Lembong, a former Widodo trade minister.

He has since become essential of Widodo and is now socially close to Anies Baswedan. Lembong endorsed the protesters in a statement on August 22 that bothered Indonesia’s democracy and its declining position.

In an appointment with Asia Times, Lembong said,” Some of our political leaders have been testing the patience and tolerance of the public by breaking more and more political and social standards more and more quickly over the past year.

” Until we got the reaction we see nowadays, with open figures and well-known actors and singers who have so far remained scrupulously reluctant suddenly speaking out,” he continued.

However, some care that the battle is far from over. The head of Indonesia’s second-largest group, Airlangga Hartarto of Golkar, abruptly resigned on August 12 and was quickly replaced by a well-known Widodo ally in a muddle of situations.

Jokowi is also concerned because he is Suharto’s son-in-law, who is accused of being a part of the 1998 kidnapping and disappearance of several pro-democracy activists.

” I think this is the new normal – rather than the be-all or end-all”, said Kevin O’Rourke, chairman of the Jakarta-based risk firm Reformasi Information Services. &nbsp,

This is not the ultimate test of democracy, but rather the beginning of a drawn-out strategy, according to the statement. At some point, later and not actually in the near phrase, more anger is good, perhaps with violence&nbsp, and&nbsp, fatalities”, O’Rourke predicted.

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