In 2014, Yemen’s leader Hadi began pursuing a federal system to better distribute power among Yemen’s different political groups, but obstacles to the plan emerged. The country’s Houthi rebel group wanted more power within the new system and stepped up its campaign against the government in Sanaa, advancing all the way to the capital and eventually forcing it into U.N.-brokered peace talks in August. Per the agreement, Yemen formed a new government to appease the Houthis. However, the group was unhappy with the terms of the new proposition for the country’s constitution. Despite agreeing to a cease-fire Jan. 19, Houthi rebels stormed the presidential palace in Sanaa and surrounded Prime Minister Khaled Bahah’s residence Jan. 20. Although on the surface the Houthis’ actions resemble a coup, the militants are actually pursuing a different strategy. Their recent moves are aimed at demonstrating their strength — they are not interested in directly ruling Yemen. Instead, they seek to increase their influence within Yemen’s federal system. Stratfor has been tracking the conflict in Yemen closely, and below is a routinely updated chronicle of the most recent developments.
Oct. 19: In Yemen, a Violent Stalemate
Heavy fighting continues across Yemen, with a major Saudi-led ground offensive to retake Sanaa underway. Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassin announced Oct. 13 that the battle to retake the country’s capital had begun, but so far, progress has stalled in Marib province in the face of heavy resistance. Saudi-led coalition aircraft are inflicting punishing airstrikes on Yemeni towns and cities still under the control of Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former president-turned insurgent Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Two battalions of Sudanese infantry arrived in the port city of Aden to help support military operations in Yemen. They may be called upon to augment existing forces in Aden to try and improve the security situation, or to move north to assist with the Sanaa offensive, or perhaps to try to tip the balance in the stalled operation to drive the Houthis out of the contested city of Taiz. Though additional troops are a boon for the anti-Houthi alliance, the diverse nature of the military coalition is problematic. Coordinating the various ground and air forces has been difficult, leading to several friendly fire episodes. The most recent incident occurred Oct. 17, when a misplaced Saudi airstrikes killed 20 coalition fighters by mistake and injured dozens more. Difficulties aside, the coalition has made progress in some areas, particularly along the Red Sea coast, although the critical port of al-Hudaydah remains out of reach for now.
Unwilling to be fixed in place, Houthi and Saleh-aligned forces conducted several successful counterattacks over the weekend. A rebel thrust into Bayda province regained territory and inflicted significant coalition losses. Other counterattacks in Shabwa province were also reportedly successful. As well as launching indirect fire attacks across Yemen’s northern border into Saudi Arabia, the rebels also stage cross-border raids. In an attack over the weekend, the Houthis managed to kill several paratroopers at a base in Jizan province, Saudi Arabia, and reportedly took at least one soldier captive.
Further capitalizing on the chaos and disorder in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula extended its influence in Abyan province, strengthening its hold over the provincial capital, Zinjibar. Meanwhile, the Islamic State continues its systematic assassination campaign targeting coalition soldiers and aid workers in the Aden peninsula. This has a wider destabilizing effect because Aden is a key transit hub for essential humanitarian supplies: Beyond the immediate conflict, Yemen is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, experiencing shortages of food, gas, water and medical supplies in particular. The situation is worsened by intense fighting resulting from the coalition’s push to remove deep-rooted Houthi and Saleh-aligned elements throughout the country as well as the naval blockade that has prevented essential supplies from reaching ports such as al-Hudaydah.
On the diplomatic front, the rebels provisionally agreed to abide by a U.N.-brokered peace plan developed earlier in October. Yemeni President Abd Rabboh Mansour Hadi recently announced that his administration is willing to accept U.N.-led peace talks. In response, the Houthis issued an agreement, but said they would keep fighting in the meantime. Going into talks, all parties want to negotiate from a position of strength, supported by successes on the battlefield. Rather than crumbling under the weight of the combined coalition, the Houthis have stayed potent. As long as they have a stomach and resources for the fight, they will not easily concede at the negotiating table or on the battlefield until they can achieve a favorable position.
A police officer deploys tape to an area near where authorities stopped a vehicle in San Bernardino, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. Multiple attackers opened fire on a banquet at a social services center for the disabled in San Bernardino on Wednesday, killing multiple people and sending police on a manhunt for suspects. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Analysis
In San Bernardino, a peaceful town of California, Syed Rizwan Farook got into an altercation at his office holiday party Dec. 2, after which he and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, conducted a sophisticated attack on the event. Though many details of the attack remain unclear and the motive is still being investigated, the incident seems to be a prime example of the blurred line that sometimes exists between international ideologically driven terrorism and violence perpetrated by lone assailants.
Farook was a 28-year-old public health employee for San Bernardino County, where he had worked for the past five years. According to witnesses, he began to argue with another employee at the office holiday party. He then left the party and retrieved his wife, and both returned around 11 a.m. armed with assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns and dressed in black tactical gear.
The two shot indiscriminately at the employees of the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, killing 14 people and wounding 21, before fleeing in a black SUV. Police eventually caught up with the SUV in a chase and shootout that left Farook and Malik dead and two officers wounded. Later, investigators found a failed explosive device that used the remote control from a car as the command detonator at the scene of the attack and, at the couple’s home, 12 pipe bombs, ample material to construct bombs and 2,000 rounds of ammunition for a .223.
Neither Farook nor Malik were known to the FBI, but investigators are searching for potential links to international terrorist groups. The key to establishing these links will be found on the couple’s technological devices. And according to initial searches, Farook does seem to have been in touch by phone and through social media with at least one international terrorism suspect on the FBI watch list. Moreover, the failed explosive device at the scene seems to be similar to one featured in the jihadist magazine Inspire.
As the FBI takes over the investigation and more details about Farook and Malik emerge, we will begin to get a better understanding of who the two were and what their seemingly mixed motives were for the attack. It will be particularly important to note whether Farook and Malik operated alone or whether they were part of a larger grassroots cell, which poses a much bigger threat from a law enforcement perspective.
In the meantime, discussions about the role of the authorities and the individual in ensuring safety will be prominent. When thinking about personal protection, it is important to remember that the brain is the most important weapons system — even for armed individuals. When people have the proper mindset, practice good situational awareness and recognize a problem while it is still developing, they put themselves in a much better position to effectively deploy and employ their body, knife, gun or whatever secondary weapon they have access to. If the brain is not effectively and actively engaged, a person is left relying on luck, happenstance and the ineptitude of the criminals — these are not things prudent people should trust their lives to.
Moreover, as more details emerge on just what happened in San Bernardino the morning of Dec. 2, it is important that individuals and policymakers keep a cool head. Terrorism is a fact of life and will continue to be so. This is because there is a wide variety of groups that practice it and seek to use violence as a means of influencing the behavior of a government — either their own or another. Terrorist attacks are also easy to conduct, especially if the assailant is not concerned about eluding capture. Finally, it is impossible to protect everything, so there are a large number of vulnerable targets in every country. This means that some terrorist attacks will invariably succeed.
The way in which people react to successful attacks — whether with a sober, measured response or with hysteria — defines whether an attack has been successful as an act of terrorist theater. Making sure that response is measured will help guard against costly and ineffective policy decisions.
Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter jet in Syria has raised the stakes in an already crowded and complicated conflict. The Nov. 24 incident will also likely undermine efforts to find a solution to the country’s protracted civil war.
Since Syrian air defenses intercepted a Turkish aircraft on June 22, 2012, resulting in its destruction and the deaths of its two pilots, the Turkish air force has maintained an assertive stance toward aircraft that violate Turkey’s border with Syria. On Sept. 16, 2013, Turkish fighter jets shot down a Syrian Mi-17 helicopter that flew into Turkish airspace; about six months later, a Syrian MiG-23 that reportedly strayed into Turkey’s airspace met a similar fate.
The number and frequency of incidents in the air above the Turkey-Syria border have risen since Russia’s Sept. 30 intervention into the Syrian conflict. Turkey has lodged many complaints against both Russia and Syria, alleging numerous airspace violations (including one confirmed by Russia in which an Su-30 accidentally crossed into Turkey) and the harassment of Turkish aircraft patrolling the border region.
Over the past week, as Russian forces backed several loyalist offensives against rebels in the area, Russia’s aerial activity near the Turkey-Syria border has been particularly high. The rebel groups, including the 1st Coastal Division, the 2nd Coastal Brigade and the Sham Brigade, contain a large number of Turkmen fighters and are closely linked to and supported by Turkey, further stoking Ankara’s anger over Moscow’s presence in Syria.
One thing that remains unclear is the fate of the Russian pilots. Videos and photographs taken at the scene suggest that rebels on the ground shot and likely killed them as they descended with their parachutes. However, a number of Turkish officials have said they believe the pilots are still alive. If this is true, Ankara could use its connections with the rebel groups to quickly transfer the pilots back into Russian custody, somewhat defusing the situation. But if they are dead, Russia will probably ramp up its operations against the rebels in the area, exacerbating tensions with Turkey.
The destruction of a Russian search-and-rescue helicopter sent to find the downed jet’s crew will only aggravate the situation more. Rebels brought down the helicopter with small arms fire, killing one Russian marine, and then destroyed it with a TOW anti-tank guided missile — a weapon built and supplied by the United States. Even though the rest of the crew survived the attack, Russia will not be pleased that another outside party’s weapons are being used against it in the fight.
Peace Moves Further Out of Reach
The incident with the fighter jet will no doubt raise the risk of clashes occurring in the airspace over Syria. The United States had made considerable progress in deconflicting Syrian airspace by signing a memorandum of understanding with Russia that laid out procedures to prevent problems from arising as each side carried out airstrikes. But with the Russians angry at the Turks, and the Turks operating in close concert with the Americans — especially in the planned anti-Islamic State operation over northern Aleppo — the United States and its coalition partners may find themselves drawn into the spat between Ankara and Moscow. Therefore, in spite of any prior agreements that have been reached, the United States and its partners will be far more wary of any Russian or loyalist aircraft they encounter in the conflict. So although this incident alone will not halt airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, coalition forces may modify the structure of the strikes to include more protection against any potential action by Russian or Syrian government aircraft.
The dispute will also undermine ongoing attempts to find a solution to the Syrian civil war, especially since Turkey is an important foreign patron of many of the rebel groups that were expected to have a seat at the negotiating table. With video circulating of Turkmen fighters from these units shooting at the Russian pilots, Moscow probably will no longer accept their participation in the talks. Since some of these groups also belong to the Free Syrian Army and are part of Syria’s more moderate opposition, this will make it much more difficult to reach a roster of representatives that all sides can agree on before heading into negotiations. And as long as talks on a power-sharing agreement in Syria remain elusive, the foreign sponsors of the Syrian civil war will be dealing with an increasingly complex battlefield.
Amid the flurry of activity that has occurred in the United Kingdom Parliament since the Conservative government was elected with a majority in May, one measure passed on Oct. 22 that perhaps did not receive the attention it deserved: the “English Votes for English Laws” (EVEL) law.
Coming as a direct result of last year’s Scottish independence referendum, perhaps commentators felt the subject had been exhausted. Nevertheless, EVEL has the potential to be just as important for the United Kingdom’s fate as the referendum itself, since it moves the political system one step further in devolution of power.
Since its formation as a union in 1707, the United Kingdom has struggled with rebellious elements in its more remote regions. Scottish highlanders rebelled more than once in the 18th century, and in the 19th century Ireland demanded its independence and eventually won it in the 20th century. The problems of secessionism have continued into recent decades. EVEL was designed as an attempt to resolve a resulting issue that has been tugging at the United Kingdom’s parliamentary sleeve for many years. Known as the “West Lothian question,” the issue emerged in the 19th century when Ireland was embarking on its course to independence, but resurfaced again in 1977 during discussions about devolving power to Scotland and Wales. Under the suggested new system, Scotland and Wales would gain some independent control over some of their own domestic administration, while Scottish and Welsh parliament members in London would still have full voting powers over all the national laws involving the entire United Kingdom, though England would lack an equivalent power. The parliament member for West Lothian, Tam Dalyell, asked how it was fair that Scottish and Welsh parliament members should have a say over English laws while English parliament members were not afforded an equal influence to the north and west of the border.
The referendum that followed the discussions did not lead to devolution, putting the problem on hold for two decades, but it returned in 1997 when another referendum returned a positive result and the Scotland Act saw the creation of a Scottish parliament in 1999. The West Lothian question has thus been in play for the last 16 years, but to a small enough degree that the “unfairness” has been tolerable. This is because the powers afforded to the Scottish parliament have been somewhat limited, and with England making up 84 percent of the United Kingdom’s population and Scotland just 8 percent, English parliament members had influence over such an overwhelming proportion of the laws passed in the United Kingdom as a whole that the discrepancy could be overlooked.
However, the Scottish referendum of 2014 changed the situation. As the referendum approached its climax, the polls began to show an increasing likelihood that the “Out” vote might win, prompting senior members of the Westminster government to rush up to Scotland to hurriedly improve the devolution terms on offer should the Scots choose “In,” which they ultimately did. The terms offered to the Scots appear to have tipped this mildly unbalanced situation into a pronounced enough disequilibrium that the day after the vote, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he would finally address the West Lothian question as part of the new deal offered to the Scots to reassure English voters.
The EVEL law is the result of that promise. Under the new rules, the speaker of the British Parliament will decide whether or not a new law should be considered “English” — for example, if it does not touch the other three members of the union. Once a law has been labeled as English, it will then be considered only by English parliament members in a separate session, cutting the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliament members out of the voting before adding them all back in later on in the process. This system is in place now and will be reviewed after a year.
It is a flawed solution for several reasons. First, it politicizes the position of the speaker, who will now have to decide whether or not Scottish parliament members are allowed to vote on a matter; historically, the Labour Party has had many more Scottish parliament members than the Conservatives have. Moreover, removing the influence of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliament members over English matters also removes from them a great deal of influence over the overall workings of Westminster, since England is such a substantial part of the whole. Thus it becomes much harder for a Scottish parliament member to become prime minister (Gordon Brown, a Scot, was Cameron’s predecessor as prime minister), since it would be difficult for a prime minister to rule while locked out of at least some of the domestic vote for 84 percent of the country. Because it diminishes the chances of someone from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland getting the top job, EVEL surely will have a corrosive effect on the subnational members’ loyalty to the union as a whole. Members of the Scottish National Party already have loudly denounced the development.
But if this is not a sustainable plan, what is the solution? In Scotland, Britain has to cope with a union member that is demanding ever more powers and autonomy if it is to remain part of the union. EVEL is evidence of the existing system being stretched into contortions in an attempt to accommodate this. The systemic shift that would appear to be the ultimate end goal, and the one toward which EVEL might be a step, is outright federalism: a U.S.- or German-style system in which power is devolved in equal terms to all the underlying states, which are overseen by a federal government that combines the considerations of all its members.
The problem is that unlike Germany and the United States, the United Kingdom is not made up of a sizable number of reasonably equal-sized states (with some outliers); it would instead be a four-state union that would be utterly dominated by the largest — England. A federal government leader, such as a president, would have to cope with an English state government whose leader would represent 84 percent of the president’s total purview. The power balance between these two figures would be such that any foreign leader would surely be confused as to which person to call to address the true power in the United Kingdom. In addition, unlike Germany and the United States, the United Kingdom has real and significant separatist problems.
Thus a federal solution does not appear to be the answer, and the solution that has emerged looks set to drive Britain’s smaller nations further away from the center, creating more problems for the union. Before the referendum, the Scottish Nationalist Party stated that the vote would settle the matter for a generation, but the strong undercurrents that have emerged partly as a result of the referendum have caused the party to reconsider, and given an opportunity it is likely that the Scots will begin to lobby hard for a rerun of the vote. The United Kingdom may have escaped losing Scotland a year ago, but the prevailing currents continue to push against the bonds that tie the union together. The EVEL law is just another symptom of the trend.
For most strategic planners, space represents the ultimate high ground. In the same way that control of the skies added a new dimension to combat in the great wars of the 20th century, the military exploitation of space will be a defining characteristic of the 21st century.
German rocket technology propelled the first unmanned systems into space during the latter stages of World War II. These systems traveled beyond the Karman line — the commonly accepted boundary between Earth and space, at around 100 kilometers altitude (62 miles). From the late 1950s onward, the ability to routinely launch manned and unmanned systems into orbit heralded a new era of competition between the Soviet bloc and the West, led by the United States. As the Cold War progressed, the utilization of the near-Earth environment shaped a new strategic aspect to the conflict and added another battlefield in which the world’s superpowers could compete.
In the standoff between the post-war powers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were the only weapons to enter space. They were projected on an arc that took them beyond the Earth’s atmosphere before deploying warheads carried by re-entry vehicles to their targets. There were no existing defensive systems that could be stationed in space or close enough to ensure the destruction of the ballistic missiles themselves or of their deadly payloads. The development, staging and maintenance of space-based weapons and bases was untenable at the time, so treaties limiting what could be done in Earth’s immediate vicinity were relatively uncontroversial and easy to pass.
These pacts also hoped to address some of the prevalent fears of the time, including concerns about nuclear explosions in space and about debris descending back to Earth. U.N.-brokered regulations were based on existing Cold War technologies, capabilities and expectations, influenced by the fact that emerging space law was particularly ambiguous. Therefore, existing international law considers the lowest perigee attainable by an orbiting craft: Anything in orbit is taken to be in international space, and anything not orbiting is accepted to be in national airspace. The problem with legal ambiguity, however, is the extent to which gray areas can be exploited for gain.
Yet, as technology improved and countries’ strategic imperatives evolved, so did the consideration given to the domination of space. The announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983 was heavily criticized, but it proved that the logical evolution of missile defense involved orbital platforms as well as ground-based systems. Although the initiative — known by its more popular moniker Star Wars — did not reach fruition, the United States still achieved global military superiority in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In achieving military dominance, the United States came to increasingly rely on space-based infrastructure to wage war. While Washington adhered to the prohibition on placing offensive weapons — including kinetic kill systems, directed energy weapons platforms and missile-carrying satellites — in space permanently, the United States installed a huge portion of its electronic networking capability in orbit, enabling it to intervene in conflicts around the globe. Military satellites were the lynchpin of a network-centric approach to operations, comprising command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance structures, better known as C4ISR. The evolution of C4ISR coincided with the advent of precision-guided munitions and the drone revolution, enabling the free movement of near real-time data. Everything from GPS, early warning monitoring, weather tracking, tactical and strategic communications, and full-spectrum intelligence gathering is facilitated through the United States’ expansive network of military satellites.
However, the U.S. military is not the sole operator of space-based infrastructure. Countries with advanced space programs, such as China, Russia, Israel, Japan and some NATO alliance members, all rely on some military space-based capability. And the trend is only increasing. As much as the United States leads the field, however, it is increasingly reliant on its space-based systems — of which a significant percentage are highly vulnerable and largely indefensible. This vulnerability has not escaped the notice of the United States’ biggest competitors. By finding a way to disable space-based systems, a potential antagonist could disconnect the multiple interlocking U.S. military systems, plunging it into information darkness and delivering a critical blow ahead of any physical strike — and to do so would not violate any existing space treaty.
Emerging Threats
The single biggest example of this threat to U.S. military orbital systems comes from China. A progression of Chinese anti-satellite missile tests carried out over the past few years has alarmed the Pentagon. Though there are still limitations to the effectiveness of ground-based anti-satellite weapons — namely the tracking and accuracy requirements, given the speed, size and altitude of satellites — the technology is rapidly advancing. For countries that are still developing militarily, there is a strong incentive to pursue anti-satellite technology in the hope it could neutralize or disrupt one of the greatest advantages that the United States has: its C4ISR infrastructure.
Copyrights : StratforMost other countries do not have the same vulnerabilities as the United States, which makes it difficult for Washington to impose the kind of retaliatory deterrence structure that worked so well during the nuclear arms race. In other words, the United States cannot use the threat of disabling other countries’ space-based communications infrastructure to prevent attacks because other countries do not rely as heavily on the technology. So U.S. Space Command faces a conundrum: How does it cover what is a largely exposed and defenseless flank?
Perhaps partly because of concerns over Chinese anti-satellite tests — the most recent of which was conducted Oct. 30 — the Pentagon has recently started to talk about “space control.” And the shift in language could indicate a change to the U.S. defense approach. Washington knows that to be proactive may mean stepping beyond the boundaries of the Outer Space Treaty, and the move would not be without precedent: Reagan showed a willingness to overstep the treaty with his Star Wars program, though he was ultimately stalled because of a lack of political will and technological capability.
The Space Race
As Washington works to secure its orbital technology, it also realizes that competitors are catching up. This is not to say that the U.S. military has been negligent in developing and expanding its capabilities. The United States leads the field in ballistic missile defense (BMD), and many of its maturing systems are designed to operate outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. The United States also dominates space-tracking infrastructure: Being able to see other countries’ space-based systems is beneficial from both a defensive and offensive perspective.
The U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system has the ability to reach into space and to attack ICBMs in the middle of their flight trajectory. A key component of GMD is something known as an exoatmospheric kill vehicle, which separates from its boost vehicle in space and collides with an incoming projectile. This technology does not violate existing space treaties but is revealing of the way military planners — and the defense industries that serve them — are thinking.
Regulation and enforcement is not clear, but the trend is. As militaries around the globe expand their capabilities, so will they increase their reliance on space-based systems. Thus space will become increasingly militarized. The push to expand, occupy and dominate space will eventually erode the efficacy of the current treaty structures set in place decades ago. Currently, all space-based military infrastructure supports terrestrial operations. But long-term considerations about the eventual exploitation of resources in the broader solar system factor into current debates. When space exploration and the collection and refinement of resources become economically feasible, competition will inevitably ensue.
History tells us that such opportunities for resources rarely go smoothly or unchallenged, though deep-sea mining shows us that peaceful competition is possible. Still, generally, competition on Earth has led to perpetual conflict and military posturing, so it is logical that competition for resources elsewhere could inevitably lead to more conflict and could necessitate the ability to project military power there in one form or another. Closer to home, we can look to the opening of the Arctic for comparison: There is no clear precedent for ownership, there are mineral resources present, and only certain countries have the technological know-how to explore and exploit such an inhospitable environment. Countries have already staked their claims and military posturing has begun. As the ability to capture the riches of the solar system becomes more viable, it is highly likely that similar disputes will emerge in the more forbidding environment of space.
Paris, France, 30 août 2014 --- Emmanuel MACRON, le nouveau ministre de l'Economie, de l'Industrie et du Numérique du gouvernement Valls 2, pose dans son bureau à Bercy.
A key goal of this week’s visit to Israel by French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron was to lure Jewish investors and high-tech talent back to France, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Indeed, during his visit in Israel, the French economy minister tried to convince young graduates and entrepreneurs who left France for Israel to return to France. It is exactly this kind of entrepreneurs that the French economy desperately needs, analyzed the Wall Street Journal.
It is a cruel dilemma for the French government. In recent years, Israel “has become the refuge for the kind of talent that the second largest economy in the euro zone needs: Young Entrepreneurs specialized in the high-tech sectors,” suggests The Wall Street Journal. This Exile is due not only to Israel prowess to attract young entrepreneurs but also because anti-Semitism is gaining ground in France. Not to mention “chronic rigidity of the French education system and framework,” the newspaper said.
Macron in Israel
A France without Jews would be a disaster
The French economy minister was visiting Israel from September 6 to 8, where he met with students and entrepreneurs, including the Israel Institute of Technology. “A large part of his mission was to convince Jewish investors and talents to return to France”, notes the Wall Street Journal. Last year, 6,961 French Jews left for Israel – two times more than in 2013 – and 36% of these emigrants had a diploma of higher education. These significant departures “deprive [France’s] future business leaders and investors, while the economy is struggling with low growth and double-digit unemployment,” analyzes the American newspaper.
Culture of failure
Israel has become a model for governments around the world, with its policy of aggressive subsidies for young companies. And even if Paris is well placed in the race for talent, with effective measures for start-ups, “young people who join Israel go there for something that France can not offer them the spirit tranquilllité , “the Wall Street Journal.
The daily quoted one hand the attacks against Jews occurred recently (notably the killing of Hyper Kosher in Paris), but also the “culture of failure” in France: “In France, young entrepreneurs fear the stigma associated with failure. ”
In Israel, employers and investors view early failure as a valuable learning experience, émigrés say, while it can be viewed as career-ending in France.
For the Jews of France, everything changed
Emmanuel Macron tried to reassure safety for Jews in France, and mentioned government programs to support young companies that have failed. His speech could have paid off, says the Wall Street Journal, citing a young French arrived in Israel a year ago: “What he said is strong, because he understands what is happening. I am now Israel, but I will always be French. “
Nigeria is now the largest economy in Africa, and global multinationals are queuing up to tap into its potential. Yet there are still major hurdles for the country to overcome before it can properly silence its critics.
The clouds burst overhead as an army of hawkers wades knee-deep through the rising floodwaters on Akin Adesola Street. In their hopeful, outstretched, hands are Chinese-manufactured mobile phones, plastic sachets of lurid green detergent, and towering bales of pirated Nollywood DVDs.
We are encircled by water: west toward the Benin border, north to the boundary of Lagos state, east toward the cradle of economic growth – the oil delta. This is Lagos in the midst of what feels like a biblical flood. But the “Area Boys” – young gangs who control street trade – don’t seem to be skipping a beat. Here on Victoria Island, in the heart of Africa’s most manic urban sprawl, it is business as usual. Rising floodwaters amount to one thing: a captive audience of stranded yellow kombi taxis and a grand opportunity.
Any reflection on the startling pace of change on the world’s second-largest continent should arguably begin here on the streets of West Africa’s unofficial capital, which remains a mirror to Nigeria’s unbridled economic progress. Here, in this city of around 20 million, the startling disjuncture between the wealthy and the impoverished can be seen in full Technicolor.
Yet the fact is that Nigeria, recently announced as Africa’s largest economy, is no longer a one-dimensional story of oil and corruption. The headlines on newsstands increasingly offer a broader picture. For example, SMEs are growing, and chemical and pharmaceutical products activities in the manufacturing sector grew by 38.5% in the second quarter of this year. Today, Nigeria stands as the world’s 24th-largest economy, slotting in slightly behind Sweden but ahead of energy-rich Norway. There is optimism in the air – even if cynics say it is polluted.
NIGERIA FACTS
The Federal Republic of Nigeria, located in Western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, is the most populous country in Africa with a rich cultural heritage and diverse ethnic background. Half of its 170 million population is Muslim, while Christianity is practiced by 48%. A former British colony, Nigeria gained independence in 1960. After years of civil war and military rule, it has been on the path to democratization since 1999, with Goodluck Jonathan elected President in 2011. This year Nigeria overtook South Africa as the largest economy in Africa. While oil reserves still play a major role, Nigeria’s financial and telecommunications sectors are growing fast and it has a promising pipeline of infrastructure projects.
The reason for their cynicism is because the nation’s much heralded growth status has polarized economists, NGOs, and businessmen alike. With its population of 170 million people and economic power, Nigeria has the potential to lead its energetic and ambitious people into a new epoch. But, as the World Bank recently reiterated, a significant portion of its vast population lives on less than $1.25 a day. Meanwhile, youth unemployment is close to 80%, and chronic power shortages continue to stifle business and put a brake on economic growth. Plus there is the threat from Boko Haram, a vicious Islamist insurgency in the country’s remote and sparsely populated north-east. Despite a ceasefire announced in October, the group is, at the time of writing, still holding hostage more than 200 girls seized in this part of the country – a region which, unsurprisingly, has become increasingly marginalized from a trade and investment perspective.
RISING DEMAND: Another container ship arrives in Lagos with goods to fuel Nigeria’s new boom.
INVESTMENT FLOWS IN
At the epicentre of this 21st-century story of extremes of hope and doubt is teeming Lagos, a magnet for the optimistic poor. Every year about 600,000 locals join the city’s informal economy. The UN estimates that within a few years Lagos could edge out Karachi to become the world’s third-largest city, after Tokyo and Mumbai. It is for this reason that Nigeria’s economic future looks increasingly urban.
If Lagos became independent tomorrow, its GDP would be similar in size to Angola. But such breakneck pace also brings with it a propensity for whiplash. The city is also one of the most congested urban sprawls on the planet, with a rudimentary mass transit system and chronic infrastructure problems.
Indeed, the city’s Governor, Babatunde Fashola, recently put the estimated amount required for infrastructure development in Lagos in the next 10 years at $50 billion. No wonder Lagos state has used a Public- Private Partnership (PPP) strategy to solve its vast infrastructure deficit. At the beginning of 2014, the Lagos State Government revealed that 83 roads had been completed in 2013 – as had Nigeria’s first cable-stayed bridge, the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge (although this was publicly, not PPP, funded). The State Government also recently revealed how N160 billion ($981 million) it borrowed from the World Bank has been used to fund its Light Rail project.
Nigeria has also privatized the infrastructure and assets of Parastatal Power Holding Company of Nigeria, splitting the company up in regional distribution and placing the national power grid on a management contract. This is crucial to solve Nigeria’s notoriously erratic power supply. Although it will likely take years for the power supply to improve, it is hoped that private investors are placed to access the funding and technical expertise required to make it happen.
Oliver Facey, Vice President of Operations at DHL Express Sub–Saharan Africa, sees this infrastructure scale-up and improved regional trade, from both an SME and multinational perspective, as intertwined. “As multinationals turn to Africa, and as smaller African enterprises look to trade cross-border, regions like West Africa need increased capacity to cope with the rising demand for transportation of goods,” he says.
This demand for goods from a growing middle class is a turnaround because, to date, Nigeria’s economic growth has been a narrative shaped by oil and gas. Although energy resources only account for 14% of its GDP, they are still responsible for 75% of Nigeria’s federal revenue and 90% of exports. But the recent rewriting of Nigeria’s GDP took into account thirteen previously uncounted industries which included telecommunications, online sales, film production, and music, each offering promising signs for the future. In short, it’s increasingly all about “human energy”.
And international companies want to tap into that energy. General Electric recently became one of the global manufacturers to take advantage of this new narrative, with a $1 billion investment over five years in a service and manufacturing facility in Calabar, Cross River State. On a bigger scale, the $9 billion investment of Dangote Group in petroleum refining and petrochemical and fertilizer plant in the Olokola Free Trade Zone is set to transform the area. Nigeria is also making the great leap towards its own car industry. In the last few months Nissan began manufacturing family saloons and SUVs at an old Lagos Volkswagen assembly – foreign cars with a “Made in Nigeria” stamp.
Certainly, foreign investment is increasing. According to a June 2014 report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Nigeria’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow stood at $5.6 billion in 2013. Yet a May 2014 report from Ernst and Young forecasts that FDI inflows to Nigeria will average about $23 billion annually over the next five years and create around 95,000 jobs.
TEEMING LAGOS: Nigeria’s current population is the world’s seventh-highest.
PEOPLE POWER
The bottom line, digging beneath the statistics, is that there is a positive story here and all to play for. To be a dominant world economy, like China or America, two fundamental things are required: a large population and strong productivity. Nigeria is making bullish inroads into both. Simple demography is probably the most fundamental factor. At 180 million, the current population is the world’s seventh-highest. By 2050, this is projected to be 400 million, setting Nigeria on course to replace the United States as the world’s third most populous country.
This population windfall is part of a broader developing world trend whereby 1.2 billion mostly emerging-economy youth are forecast to move out of subsistence poverty by 2020. For this new generation of local consumers in Nigeria, household discretionary spending will exceed $5,000 for the first time. What this means in the present is Nigeria, as a burgeoning consumer market, is simply too large to ignore.
MANAGING RISK
Doing business in Nigeria can present certain risks. The DHL Resilience360 solution is a unique and highly customizable supply chain risk management resource that is designed to protect sales, maintain service levels, reduce emergency costs, and enable fast post-disruption recovery. A risk assessment process maps and visualizes the customer’s entire supply chain and analyzes the network to identify exposures and vulnerability as well as options for immediate recovery. The Incident Monitoring platform allows real-time tracking of incidents that are capable of disrupting the supply chain – including lanes, nodes, plants, suppliers, and shipments – assesses their potential impact on the end-to-end supply chain, and creates notification alerts with site feedback loops.
E-COMMERCE EXPLOSION
According to DHL Express Nigeria’s Managing Director, Randy Buday, the growth in the consumer market is a barometer of profound change. “An untold narrative I see in Nigeria is the explosion in the world of e-commerce,” he says. “Today Nigerians can get the products they need online. For the last five years, we have seen huge changes in information and communication technology, and this is encouraging not only growth areas like e-commerce but also startups. I have worked in Africa for 30 years and seen great change. Today Nigeria is an entrepreneurial environment – a business frontier, where e-commerce can thrive and where we are seeing better governance. It is, without question, the most exciting, promising, and hopeful time in the nation’s post-independence history.”
Yet there are challenges on this new economic frontier. Many critics have pointed at Nigeria’s banking sector for not doing enough to help foster startups. According to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, the country boasts over 17 million SMEs. Yet at least 50% operate informally and are handicapped by a lack of access to cashflow.
One major positive in the sector is the efforts by SAP Africa, in partnership with Ernst and Young – both committed to transforming Nigeria’s banking sector. SAP’s Head of Financial Services for Africa, Darrel Orsmond, believes making the banking sector more internationally compliant will be key to growth. He says, “Countries all over Africa – including Nigeria, the largest economy – are making every effort to increase their levels of regulatory compliance to keep up with legislative and economic requirements for analyzing financial data, including threats and risks. By identifying and eliminating risks in advance through the use of real-time reporting, banks can satisfy the needs and demands of stakeholders thereby reducing risk and increasing regulatory compliance.”
Entering the Nigerian market is still an unknown quantity for many. Heather Frankle, Managing Director of DHL Global Forwarding in Nigeria, says there has been an influx of enquiries about how to do business in the country not only from customers in the West, but also from within Africa. “There are a lot of African businesses coming into Nigeria now and this is incredibly positive,” she says. “They tell us they want information about entering Nigeria and, most importantly, becoming legally compliant.”
Oliver Facey believes that lateral thinking has always been key to making it in Nigeria. “Because of the crippling congestion in Lagos, a courier van can take up to three hours to collect or deliver customer consignments between the airport and the city center” he says. “Our solution was to use Lagos abundant water, so we added a DHL boat to our fleet to ferry our parcels and documents from Victoria Island to the mainland, which connects to our aircraft at our Gateway and Hub at Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA). It’s a great solution to an enduring problem.”
Success on the ground also takes lateral thinking. To this end Lagos offers a laboratory for Africa’s future. For both foreign investors and local people, adaptability is key to not just surviving but thriving – a can-do mentality that emerges from the streets. Unless you have struggled across Lagos at rush hour it’s impossible to understand the scale, energy, and challenges brought by the new African epoch of prosperity. The markets never close. Informal transactions make up at least 60% of all economic activity in Africa’s largest city; where else can you purchase matches, cigarettes, and a fire extinguisher from the same vendor? What looks like anarchic activity in Lagos is actually governed by a set of informal, but ironclad rules.
And in Lagos, one thing is abundantly clear: there is little evidence of idleness sinking into despair – even on the street. It feels like a city that wants to break the mould because its people understand that to survive you first need to become a striver.
The next phase of Myanmar’s political transition has been settled. China is monitoring closely the elections. The results of the country’s Nov. 8 elections have confirmed that the opposition National League for Democracy now holds a healthy majority in parliament and can form a new government without the help of the formerly ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party. For the first time since Myanmar’s 1962 coup, a fully civilian party will lead the government, although it will still have to vie for power with the country’s military elite.
Meanwhile, China has been watching Myanmar’s political transition with growing concern. Myanmar, which shares a 2,192-kilometer (1,362-mile) border with China that cuts across rugged highlands, represents access to trade routes in the Indian Ocean Basin and to overland commerce with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), now China’s largest trading partner. However, the relationship between the National League for Democracy and Chinese leaders has been cool; Beijing conspicuously avoided congratulating party chief Aung San Suu Kyi on her victory. This track record would seem to suggest that she will lead her party — and her country — toward the West, in both diplomatic and economic terms. But Suu Kyi’s actions and tactics will still be informed by Myanmar’s geopolitical position, and regardless of the party in power in Naypyidaw, China will continue to play a massive role in the Myanmar capital.
The Road Away From China
Myanmar’s latest round of elections was the culmination of 12 years of planning by the country’s political elite, who laid out a roadmap in 2003 for Myanmar’s transition to quasi-civilian rule. The gradual, strategic loosening of the military’s grip is a reaction to the failed attempt to open up Myanmar’s economy in the early 1990s, which left the country wholly dependent on economic and political support from China. This position was geopolitically untenable for Myanmar, which desperately needed to integrate into the international community.
Since 1962, Myanmar had systematically cut itself off, both economically and politically, from the fraught Cold War environment in Southeast Asia. The country also faced ethnic and communist insurgencies, some of which received direct support from Beijing.
Once the Cold War was over, Myanmar tried to turn outward once again, in spite of its need to maintain tight control at home amid the ongoing unrest. But when the military government nullified the country’s elections in 1990, the West imposed economic sanctions, forcing it to turn to China for survival. Between 1988 and 2013, 42 percent of Myanmar’s total foreign investment (some $33.67 billion) and 60 percent of its arms imports came from China. By the early 2000s, some of Myanmar’s leaders began to worry that they had become too reliant on China and began searching for a solution. They eventually settled on a roadmap to democracy that would gradually open Myanmar’s political system to opposition parties — primarily the National League for Democracy — to please the West and give Naypyidaw the opportunity to seek partners other than China.
A Government Divided
The National League for Democracy’s Nov. 8 victory was the logical conclusion of this process and one for which Myanmar’s military elite have long been planning. They erected a constitutional hedge around the military’s position and assets, securing 25 percent of the seats in parliament, consolidating control of several key ministries and economic enterprises, and ensuring that retired soldiers will be incorporated into the bureaucracy. Consequently, the new government will need to strike an accord with the military if it hopes to transition into power smoothly.
Beijing has also been planning for the transition. In June, China invited Suu Kyi to meet with Prime Minister Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping in Beijing. It also made a point to reach out to other parties, meeting with the Union Solidarity and Development Party in April and, in an unprecedented move, the powerful ethnic minority Arakan National Party in July.
After the vote, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quick to issue its congratulations for the orderly conduct of elections and to express hope for long-term stability and growth. However, it omitted any reference to the National League for Democracy, in part because the elections’ outcome has complicated the power structure in Naypyidaw. Now the National League for Democracy will control the parliament while the military controls the state’s more permanent structures, including the key ministries, economic assets and, of course, hard power. At the same time, ethnic parties that won at the state level but not in the national elections may cause trouble as they jockey for position.China will now have to deal with the multiple power brokers contributing to Myanmar’s policy decisions.
Choosing how to deal with ethnic minority insurgents will be a key point of contention in Myanmar moving forward. For over half a century, the military has fought to regain territory from and weaken these groups. Now the insurgents are demanding political concessions in exchange for peace. Beijing, which has long supported the groups on its border (especially the United Wa State Army and the Kachin Independence Army), has leveraged its influence over them in the past to check Myanmar’s attempts to move away from China. Indeed, the groups’ decision not to sign an Oct. 15 cease-fire deal with Naypyidaw was allegedly made at Beijing’s request. As China continues to bolster Myanmar’s insurgencies, the National League for Democracy will try to make political compromises with Beijing, but it will have to contend with a military that wants to continue eroding the ethnic groups’ position.
Finding New Trade Partners
Much has been made of Myanmar’s supposed pivot away from China, and the country has certainly managed to diversify its sources of foreign investment since its 2010 transition. But Myanmar’s geography limits how far it can stray from China. China’s Yunnan province, though poor by Chinese standards, is quite dynamic compared with the four remote Indian states to Myanmar’s west or Bangladesh to the southwest. In a bid to develop its interior, China wants to build outlets for the landlocked Yunnan — outlets that would run through Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar. As a result, though Myanmar will seek to balance its neighbor to the east, China will continue to be an essential trading partner.
Much has also been made of the decline of the Chinese economy since 2010, but China still plays the most important role in Myanmar’s economy and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It is simply too big and too near to expect otherwise. In 2014, China accounted for 42.7 percent of Myanmar’s imports by value and 65.2 percent of its exports. Myanmar’s next-largest partner, Thailand, is dwarfed by comparison, accounting for 19.3 percent of Myanmar’s imports by value and 16.4 percent of its exports. And the official statistics do not account for the massive outflow of narcotics, black market timber, and minerals or gems that also bring Chinese money into Myanmar. In the face of this reality, the West could only play the role of a spoiler at best, possibly cutting trade deals and providing diplomatic and technical assistance to Myanmar in the hope of strengthening ties. But even that will have its limits; the United States is much more concerned with the balance of power in the South China Sea than it is with a newly open Myanmar.
But what is different this year is that Myanmar has broadened its sources of economic support. The Asia Highway connecting Thailand and India via Myanmar was completed in 2015. This will tie Myanmar to the more dynamic Thai economy. Myanmar and Thailand also laid the policy groundwork for a special economic zone between the Thai border town of Mae Sot and Myanmar’s Myawaddy, which have had limited formal border connectivity in the past. This huge step will be further enhanced by connections to a planned deep sea port in Dawei, Myanmar. As Thailand tries to move up the economic value chain, it will shed some production that will fall to Myanmar, in turn moving Myanmar’s economy away from primary resource extraction.
Meanwhile, the West’s much-touted entrance into Myanmar has remained comparatively limited. Trade with the United States and Europe is still anemic: Exports to the United States accounted for only 0.4 percent of Myanmar’s trade, and imports did not fare much better. Europe has fully repealed its sanctions against the government. The United States lifted its investment ban in July 2012, but it still has targeted sanctions in place on key industries and business leaders. Suu Kyi, as part of an attempt to forge ties with Myanmar’s military-backed elite, may try to use her Nobel laureate status to push for an end to these sanctions and possibly for favorable trade deals. For now, though, sanctions have a huge impact on trade; for example, a sanctions issue squeezed U.S.-Myanmar shipments from $50 million in June to $5.5 million in September. The only sector that has benefited from greater Western involvement is energy. In March, Chevron’s Unocal Myanmar Offshore Co. signed a $277 million contract for one block and BG Group and partner Woodside Petroleum together signed a $1 billion deal to explore four offshore blocks. These deals will provide much-needed cash for the Myanmar government, which suffers from limited tax income because of its weak institutions.
For the most part, China boasts more options in Myanmar — and Southeast Asia as a whole — than it had in 2010. Beijing has managed to complete a pipeline connection running through Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal, a project that is one small component of China’s broader strategy to diversify its energy inputs and pump directly to its poorly developed interior. However, the accompanying highway project has yet to materialize, and a major hydropower project, the Myitsone Dam, is on hiatus through the end of the year. Still, China has plans to send connections into Thailand through Laos and Vietnam. Myanmar is one option for China’s energy schemes, but it is not the only one.
Beijing can afford to play the long game in Myanmar. It can even afford to lose out entirely on any future business so long as it can retain its current projects. Whatever potential reorientation Myanmar’s new government may bring, China will leverage its significant influence in the country to seek an advantage over the West, while the West will use Myanmar in a limited way to balance against China in the Asia-Pacific.
Commercial Drones, the next step toward evolution? Moving goods from one place to another isn’t always as simple as it sounds. Intricate supply chains are often needed to coordinate transit across different countries, incorporating various modes of transportation. Every so often, new technologies come along that revolutionize how we send goods to other places. In the 20th century, it was the advent of container shipping; in the 21st century, it was the rise of a global marketplace made possible by the Internet, which changed shopping behaviors in the developed world and increased the demand for rapid delivery.
Now, as existing infrastructure struggles to keep up with the rising congestion that comes with growing demand, new technological developments are on the horizon that could help relieve some of that burden and improve the efficiency of global supply chains. Within the next five years, drones could become widely used to help transport goods. But rapid advancement and keen industry interest aside, the realities of regulation and technological constraints will limit the role of drones in delivering goods to customers in the United States, at least in the short term.
Overcoming Regulatory Hurdles
In 2012 the U.S. Congress instructed the Secretary of Transportation to “establish requirements for the safe operation of [unmanned] aircraft systems in the national airspace system.” Three years later, the Federal Aviation Administration responded by releasing its proposed rules of operation. The 195-page document, published in February, contained both laudable and questionable stipulations, but one overarching concern received the most attention: safety.
For any new airspace regulation, the FAA is required to consider three criteria: the safety of the aircraft, the efficient use of airspace and the protection of people and property on the ground. Based on the proposed regulations, FAA officials are going to great lengths to ensure drones can operate safely around other aircraft and people, even when pilots are far away. The new rules, if passed, would require operators to keep drones within their line of sight throughout the entire flight. (The regulations likely will not be finalized until late 2016 or early 2017 because of a lengthy commenting and revisions process.)
Both the U.S. airspace system and the Federal Aviation Administration that oversees it were built on the assumption that pilots control aircraft from onboard. The line-of-sight requirement reflects the FAA’s long-standing rules on determining right-of-way in the air, which mandate that operators stay vigilant “so as to see and avoid other aircraft.” In modern manned aircraft, cockpit and control tower technologies have advanced enough to enable planes to stay separated and avoid hazards without needing the pilot to maintain visual continuity. The development of technologies that provide an equal level of safety assurance, be they autonomous piloting, networked control or other advances, will be critical to making drone flight feasible in congested urban areas.
A Gradual Development Process
Since its February announcement, the FAA has been working with industry partners to test technologies that could satisfactorily overcome the discrepancies between current regulations and drones’ potential uses. To this end, six test sites have been set up across the United States, where certain companies can look for ways to address safety concerns under three specific use scenarios in a controlled environment. Those scenarios are maintaining line of sight in urban areas where bystanders are present; operating in rural areas where observers extend the operator’s “sight”; and operating in isolated areas beyond the operator’s line of sight. In May, the tests led to the first FAA-approved drone delivery when a medical clinic in rural Virginia received much-needed supplies from an unmanned aircraft. And just this week, companies conducted the first approved long-distance drone flight in the United States and began testing a new avoidance system technology that will help operators “see and avoid” obstacles even when the aircraft are far out of their visual range.
Alongside these trials are, of course, the widely publicized tests that private sector behemoths such as Amazon, Wal-Mart and Google are performing. Amazon is primarily focusing on developing technology to guarantee safe and quick home deliveries as well as the battery capacity to make such devices feasible. Wal-Mart is also hoping to someday use drones to make home deliveries, but for now the retail giant is trying to figure out how to use unmanned technology to manage inventory at distribution centers and deliver goods from warehouses to stores. Google, meanwhile, has been working with NASA engineers to create an autonomous air traffic control system for drones while tackling — no surprise — the problem of unmanned home deliveries. All three of these companies have the ambitious timeline of bringing their drones into commercial operations by 2017.
The outcome of the various tests will determine how and where the first generation of commercial drones is used in the United States. So far, it appears very likely that drones will improve efficiency in warehouse operations in the near future. Deliveries in rural areas, especially to set locations such as warehouses, stores or lockers, also seem to be a real possibility. While these uses would not increase speed or efficiency in the final stages of delivery — bringing goods directly to people’s front doors — they would improve other phases of the supply chain. In addition, they would give companies a controlled environment in which they could test even more advanced delivery systems.
Still, none of the trials have managed to simultaneously address the problems of bystander safety and maintaining line of sight — both of which are concerns in urban environments. Therefore, it is unlikely that urban deliveries will be among the first tasks of commercial drones. Instead, companies will first use drones to make warehouse and stockyard operations run more smoothly and then turn their attention toward rural deliveries. Urban operations will probably have to wait until the second or third phase of development.
Even when drones begin operating regularly in urban environments, a number of problems will confront the U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle network. The United States has the busiest and most complex airspace in the world, meaning congestion will still be a problem. The introduction of thousands of new airborne vehicles will put further stress on an air traffic control network that is already spread too thin and a national airspace system that is already at or over capacity in many places. Transportation and supply chain technologies allow countries to overcome their geographic constraints; in this, drones are no exception. But like their predecessors, unmanned aerial vehicles will not come without their own limitations, nor will the transition be seamless.
In the past decade we have seen how a wave of leftist populism has shaken up Latin America. Argentina, Birthplace of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was of course hit by it.
First Nestor, then his wife Cristina, on an attempt to emulate the Peronist anti-imperialist dream, adopted failed economic policies like currency control and limitation of import and export of goods.
On October 25, millions celebrated what they believed was the defeat of Kirchnerism with general elections that placed Mauricio Macri, a liberal businessman on the presidential chair, beating the Kirchnerist candidate Daniel Scioli, former vice president under the mandate of Nestor Kirchner.
But, was it really a defeat?
Populist policies and leaderships have become part of a very enrooted preference in Latinamerican cultures. A sense of entitlement to everything just by having been born in a place rich of natural resources combined with a long history of populist regimes have enforced this mentality.
Trascending historically and most importantly, ideologically, has been the dream of many leaders. Cases of personality cults giving birth to political movements in the presence of factors like Populism, Institutionalization, Continuation of the regime, culturalization, mystification, Fatherhood, revolution and mourning have ended up in phenomenons like Maoism, Chavismo, Castrism, and of course Peronism.
A common saying in Argentina says that “even those who aren’t Peronistas are Peronistas”. Peronism became part of the culture, a collective identity. They have even made Peronism cool and transcendental through cultural means. The movie Evita, starring Madonna, for example, became an award winning movie. Going to Argentina and not visiting the mausoleum of Eva Peron is almost like never having gone there.
A little in-depth of Peronism can be taken from James Lewis’ “Roots of Charisma”: Even today, more than a decade after his death, a powerful political party backed by the Trade Union movement bears his name. His speeches and writings are still quoted as gospel by many thousands of argentines, who nevertheless cannot agree on whether he was a revolutionary of the left, a champion of the patriotic right, or a pragmatic reformer who ruined the country’s economy, wasted its resources and stirred up class hatred.
His foreign position was against the U.S. He named his principles of his purported new Tricontinental political vision:
“Mao is at the head of Asia, Nasser of Africa, De Gaulle of the old Europe and Castro of Latin America”. Perón (1968)
Kirchnerism has as well become an ideology that goes beyond who sits in La Casa Rosada (Argentina’s Government House), and that is because history has a tendency to repeat itself. The Kirchners tried to emulate many Peronistic characteristics; and they even had a curiously coincidential way to mimic their ways of accessing power (A leader’s death that led to the rise to power of the wife).
The Kirchners, like the Perons, also dreamed with transcending and took the ‘similarity’ highway to do it. So there it is, Kischnerism as an ideology is now an actual thing.
Kirchnerism, while not in the presidency, will still be in the congress and enrooted in people’s ideologies, and it will be very difficult for Macri to rule and make immediate drastic changes with that. Kischnerism will still be making laws and having mediatic space to keep popularity amongst the people.
