This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the UN General Assembly, or even just whatever you’re reading.
Nagorno Karabakh
On Tuesday Azerbaijan launched a major offensive into Nagorno-Karabakh. They describe the operation as “anti-terrorist” and have accused the Armenian army of shelling them, which Armenia denies.
At least five people were killed, including a child, and 80 people were injured, amid artillery, missile and drone strikes by the Azerbaijan military, according to Armenian state news…
Tensions have been simmering around the region for months, after Azerbaijani troops blockaded the Lachin corridor in December, cutting off the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and preventing the import of food to its roughly 120,000 inhabitants.
Russian peacekeepers, who deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire, have been tasked with preventing a fresh conflict breaking out. But Moscow has been accused of being unable or unwilling to intervene to protect Armenia, its long-term ally, in the face of continuing aggression from Azerbaijan.
The conflict has now reached a ceasefire with Azerbaijan claiming complete military control of the territory.
(For background: a long time ago Nagorno-Karabakh (or Artsakh) was an autonomous oblast under the Soviet Union. The area was mixed ethnically between Armenians and Azeris and when the USSR fell both Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over the future of Artsakh (with Armenia supporting its independence). Armenia won and pretty significant ethnic cleansing drove much of the local Azeri population out. The area remained officially Azeri but de facto independent until 2020 when Azerbaijan conquered much of it back. The area is now pretty solidly ethnically Armenian (post all the ethnic cleansing) and it was very much a hostile occupation so it was probably inevitable that conflict would bubble up again in one way or another.)
Canada
This was written right after things happened, see @self_made_human’s in depth comment in the main thread for more discussion.
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau has accused the Indian government of assassinating a Sikh community leader on Canadian soil. The man in question, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was a Canadian citizen residing in British Columbia, and a prominent advocate for “the creation of Khalistan, an independent Sikh nation carved out of areas including the Indian state of Punjab." These views have led the Indian government to label him as a “wanted terrorist”. India had a fraught relationship between Sikh dissidents and the government in the past, and the present day Indian government has criticized the behavior of the Canadian Sikh community, but this would be an unprecedented escalation. It’s entirely unclear what the evidence is though beyond confidential Canadian intelligence reports.
Canada has expelled an Indian diplomat “whom [Foreign Minister Joly] described as the head of India’s intelligence agency in Canada.” India has responded by expelling a Canadian diplomat in turn. India has also issued a travel advisory warning its citizens in Canada to “exercise caution” - pretty cheeky if you ask me.
Their ongoing trade deal negotiations now seem permanently dead as well; they were paused earlier, apparently because of suspicions surrounding the assassination. If the trade deal had gone through “Industry estimates show the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between Canada and India could boost two-way trade by as much as $6.5 billion, yielding a GDP gain of $3.8 billion to $5.9 billion for Canada by 2035.”
As NYTimes notes, Indians are not only sizable minority population in India at around 4%, but the New Democratic Party, which currently props up Trudeau’s coalition, is led by a Jagmeet Singh, a Sikh himself. The current coalition has the NDP offering to support the liberals through 2025 as long as they work on NDP priorities. Significantly this forced Liberals to fund the NDP’s primary plank of federal dental care, despite the fact that it cost over double what it was projected. Needless to say, their support is important and will factor into Canada’s response in this situation.
Taiwan
Taiwan will be holding elections in January and it’s looking to be a fraught one in the context of increased Chinese belicosity. The incumbent Democratic Progressive Party will be facing stiffer challenges to their rule as party leader President Tsai Ing-wen is no longer eligible to run due to term limits. Instead they’ll be running Vice President Lai Ching-te, a historically pro-independence politician (which may make some voters nervous about more escalation with China).
The primary opposition candidate, Hou Yi-Hi running for the Kuomintang party (the traditional nationalist party of Chiang Kai-Shek, ironically less anti-China than the DPP) , published an op-ed in Foreign Affairs arguing for his candidacy. The tl;dr is greater dialogue with China while also increasing the military and deepening relationships with allies.
Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Foxconn, has also announced his second Presidential bid. In 2020 he ran (“declaring he was instructed by the sea goddess Mazu in a dream to contest the election”) in the KMT primary and lost, now he will be running as an independent, which may split KMT’s voters. Currently he is probably the most pro-Chinese candidate.
The Taiwanese People’s Party (actually a pretty centrist party) will also run their leader Ko Wen-je but they get like no votes.
CNN notes that if DPP were to win a third term this would be “unprecedented” in the history of Taiwanese democracy, but that only started in like 1987, so not actually that hard to beat previous records.
Sudan
The Sudanese conflict continues to rage on with over 4 million displaced and 200,000 killed, but media coverage has mostly lost interest. Last month military officials spoke about a negotiated agreement to end the war, but as far as I can tell it hasn’t manifested (and there have been several ceasefires already established and violated). The army has also paid recent visits to Qatar and Eritrea to discuss the conflict.
The millions who remain in Khartoum and cities in the Darfur and Kordofan regions have faced rampant looting and long power, communications and water cuts.
Reports of sexual assaults have increased by 50 percent, said UN population fund official Laila Baker
Large swaths of the country have been suffering from an electricity blackout since Sunday, which has also taken mobile networks offline, according to a statement from the national electricity authority
Seasonal rains, which also increase the risk of waterborne diseases, have destroyed or damaged the homes of up to 13,500 people, the UN estimated.
Foreign Affairs writes a very good piece on the conflict updating (to the best of our ability to know what’s happening) on the present status quo in Darfur:
Darfur is without cellphone or Internet access, making it a black hole for information. But it appears that the RSF has also taken over Zalingei, the capital of central Darfur and the largest city of the Fur ethnic group. The militia commander has moved into the governor’s office. One by one, Darfur’s towns are falling to the RSF. The cattle-herding Arab tribes of eastern Darfur, which had tried to remain neutral in the earlier war, now find themselves with no option but to ally with the RSF. Rural aristocrats, whose writ once determined tribal policy, are now subject to the diktats of young militia commanders. Last month, nine senior chiefs declared support for the RSF.
So far, the most powerful of the former rebels—including Minni Minawi of the Sudan Liberation Movement—have stayed out of the fight. They fear the RSF, but they do not trust the intentions or the capacity of the army and have accused Burhan’s government of neglecting Darfur’s urgent humanitarian needs. Others have joined forces with the beleaguered army to defend key cities. How long the former rebels can stay neutral is uncertain, especially as the targeted communities need protection. Darfuri communities’ self-defense units urgently need international support to create safe zones in cities and displaced people’s camp.
The RSF has also swept across neighboring Northern Kordofan. Its conquest of the main city of al-Obeid was only thwarted by mass demonstrations by its residents. RSF paramilitaries are moving eastward to reinforce their fight for Khartoum, as trucks laden with the capital’s looted goods rumble in the opposite direction.
They also offer a retrospective tracking the present day conflict in Sudan through its roots in the 2003 Darfur genocide, and even farther back through the spillover effects of the Chadian civil war of the 60s and Libyan invasions of Chad in the 70s and 80.
Japan
During Kishida’s time in the US for the UN General Assembly he reportedly held a summit with Iran and intentionally avoided one with Ukraine. In more major diplomatic meetings, on September 26, Japan will meet with China and Korea to hold the first trilateral summit ever. Japan and Korea have only recently restored their diplomatic and trade ties, so they will likely be approaching the summit from a mostly united front on the one thing they really agree on: countering China.
A little over a year ago Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a guy with a homemade pipe gun and some schizophrenic accusations that Abe was in bed with the Korean "Moonies" cult. It turns out his accusations weren’t so schizophrenic after all and not only was Abe connected with the Moonies, like his father and his father’s father before him, half of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had some ties with them. This turned into a gigantic scandal; the Atlantic offers a great retrospective with some eye popping details about the extent of the Moonies’ influence within Japanese democracy.
Guatemala
Since underdog Bernardo Arévalo’s upset victory in the election, the establishment has pursued a series of pretty much everything they can do to overturn the results of the election. Most recently the Attorney General had federal agents raid the electoral tribunal office and seize all the ballot boxes. Arévalo won with a pretty commanding 60% and pretty much everyone has condemned the government’s moves to oppose it, from the Organization of American States to the European Parliament to the United States.
Thousands of protestors have been marching in Guatemala City, particularly from the indigenous community, in support of Arévalo and calling for judicial officials to resign.
Colombia
I’ve covered several weeks of people reporting on Gustavo Petro’s failures on cartel violence, the drug trade, and getting his bills passed, so here’s a more positive take from Jacobin (obvious bias is obvious). His failures to pass his primary legislative goals through they chalk up to opposition stonewalling (which is 100% true). Even so, they argue, he’s achieved quite a bit and despite his overall popularity falling, this is reflected in some 90% of his coalition’s voters still supporting him.
On the economy, most conservative analysts predicting he would steer them into economic chaos and hyperinflation (in fairness, with more of a legislative mandate he certainly would have passed higher levels of spending). Instead, Petro inherited high unemployment and inflation rates and has overseen them come steadily down even as he continuously raised minimum wages, expanded housing subsidies for low income buyers, and passed land redistribution. This has decreased poverty and raised living standards, especially for the poorest Colombians. On the environment, he’s also passed ambition funding for the preservation of the Amazon where previously there was nothing allocated.
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Notes -
I wonder what impact the amount of resources they've put into the Ukraine war has had on their ability to respond to situations on other fronts. One of the things the Russia-supporters were worried about is how worried about "big bad Russia" all of the other nearby states will be if they couldn't/didn't bring Ukraine to heel promptly. It now seems like they're in that situation anyways, regardless of whether they are able to pull something they can call a "win" out of the Ukraine war.
Ukraine will be strongly aligned with the West. The countries of southern Caucasia are drifting away. Belarus is already not-so-obedient, and my guess is that the pro-Russian government there is unlikely to outlive Lukashenko. Russia is on track to lose its entire sphere of influence. 1991 was the end of its status as a world power; I think 2024 might be the end of its status as a regional power.
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