What's behind the violence in South Sudan?

Lee Wengraf provides the background to understand the crisis gripping South Sudan.

January 6, 2014

SOUTH SUDAN is hovering on the brink of civil war and humanitarian crisis.

Fighting broke out on December 15 in Juba, the capital of this newest African nation, which split from Sudan following a 2011 referendum [1].

The violence spilled over from a simmering conflict between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his former Vice President Riek Machar, who was removed from power in July along with the rest of the cabinet. It began with skirmishes between sections of the Presidential Guard and quickly reverberated beyond.

Kiir claims Machar attempted to stage a coup, which Machar denies. Earlier in the month, Machar accused Kiir of dictatorship. Fears abound that the conflict will descend into ethnic warfare between followers of Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and Machar's Nuer supporters. Those fears were dramatized by a massacre of 2,000 Nuer in Juba [2]. Retaliatory killings of Dinka in areas controlled by Machar's forces have likewise been reported.

Fighting between the national army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and supporters of Machar spread northward from Juba to the towns of Bor and Bentiu, located in the strategically critical oil-producing region near the border with Sudan. A buildup of SPLA troops outside rebel-held cities threatens to unleash a full-blown civil war [3] as the government attempts to regain control.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ADDING TO the instability is the fragmentation of military forces that existed in years before the referendum establishing South Sudan. As the Guardian wrote[4]:

While demobilization and disarmament schemes were announced, for much of the time between 2005 and the referendum, governing consisted of farming out oil and aid money to civil war-era military commanders in order to keep the peace. Little was done to break up old units and forge a truly national army. The SPLA had become a big tent into which armed ethnic militias with no uniform, training or shared identity had wandered in order to get paid.

Thus, the current mobilizations on the basis of ethnicity are underpinned by the crumbling of weak multiethnic national institutions. As Sudan experts Adreas Hirblinger and Sara de Simone wrote in late December [5]:

Attempts to create a decentralized system of governance based on democratic principles have in many places created tensions between different ethnic communities, which perceive access to government services as well as political representation at the local level of government more often than not through an ethnic lens.... The threat of ethnic conflict is used by both sides as a strategy to legitimize the crackdown on the alleged perpetrators of violence.

On January 3, President Obama announced the evacuation of U.S. personnel and suspension of all consular services in the country. Several dozen recently arrived Marines currently guard the U.S. Embassy in Juba.

Last month, three U.S. aircraft came under fire during an aborted attempt to airlift U.S. citizens out of the country. Four Navy SEALs were wounded, prompting a stern warning from the Obama administration. "Any effort to seize power through the use of military force will result in the end of longstanding support from the United States and the international community," the White House said in a statement [6]. More than 100 Marines were moved into position nearby for a potentially rapid deployment.

The Obama administration played a key role in supporting South Sudan's 2011 secession from the north. Its goal was to secure a friendly government in an oil-rich area. The possible breakup of the state threatens U.S. attempts to build its influence in the region.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

HUNDREDS OF thousands of South Sudanese face a humanitarian disaster. The United Nations reports that 1,000 people have been killed--the real number is probably higher.

An estimated 200,000 people have been displaced. Tens of thousands have sought shelter in UN camps, and aid organizations are struggling to gain access to those in need. Approximately 75,000 refugees have gathered across the Nile River from Bor in makeshift camps, threatening a deterioration of deadly health conditions.

In neighboring Uganda, Mohamed Adar, the representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in the country, described the unfolding crisis [7]: "It's a very fast-moving and dynamic situation. We are experiencing significant spike of refugees fleeing the fighting in South Sudan. We are now receiving about 1,000 people per day. We expect to surpass 10,000 by [early January]."

"There is no clean drinking water," David Nash of the medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) told the BBC [8]. "People are drinking water straight out of the river Nile. And there are no latrines, so open defecation is happening. Conditions for an outbreak of watery diarrhea are perfect."

South Sudan already suffered massive poverty before the latest fighting broke out. In the state of Unity, the leading oil producer among the country's 10 states, almost half of all children are malnourished. Just 2 percent of households have water on the premises. Some 80 percent of the population is illiterate, and more than 50 percent live below the poverty line.

These living conditions for the vast majority are a stark contrast to the untapped oil wealth that lies beneath the ground. South Sudan is thought to have Africa's third-largest oil reserves, after Angola and Nigeria. Oil revenues account for 98 percent of South Sudan's budget [9], making it arguably the most oil-dependent country in the world.

Disputes over access to oil drove the two-decade civil war in the formerly united Sudan: Most of the oil lies in the South, but the refineries and pipelines to transport it out of the landlocked country flow through Sudan. This conflict continued to drive fighting, even after independence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A CIVIL war in South Sudan threatens to drag the country's East African neighbors into the conflict--another reason for the heightened concern of U.S. officials.

Looking to shore up its buffer zone with Sudan, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a close ally of the U.S., announced his country's decision to send troops into South Sudan [10] in mid-December.

To the north of South Sudan, Sudan has its own fears about disruption in the oilfields of the region [11]. Sudan faces an internal crisis resulting from continued rebellions in Darfur and the oil states of Blue Nile and Kordofan. Rebel forces in these conflicts have ties to both South Sudan and Uganda [12]. Tens of thousands of refugees, mainly Dinka, have poured into South Sudan as a consequence of these conflicts.

South Sudan's secession created a massive economic crisis in the north by taking away 75 percent of Sudanese oil, the country's main source of foreign currency. As East Africa expert Alex De Waal described [13], this "required the [Sudanese] government to undertake painful austerity measures. Shut off from access to the IMF and other international concessionary finance by U.S. financial sanctions, and encumbered by more than $40 billion in international debt, Sudan had to face this economic crunch alone."

Moreover, Sudan's problems have been reinforced by the factional conflict in newly independent South Sudan. According to the think tank Stratfor in mid-December:

Cooperation in the oil sector is the only sustainable option for both [South Sudan and Sudan] to guarantee meaningful and ongoing revenues...In the past, [Sudanese President Omar al] Bashir has accused South Sudan of supporting Sudanese rebel groups, leading to a dispute over oil exports. At the time, there was some speculation that Machar and others had in fact been supporting the rebel groups to undermine Kiir's authority as well as his ability to placate Bashir and get oil production back online. Continued competition between these separate factions in South Sudan could lead to a repeat of these events.

The Guardian recently made a similar point [14]:

Until this new crisis erupted, international engagement was focused on the border issues with Sudan and encouraging Kiir to reconcile with his former enemy, President al-Bashir of Sudan. The unintended consequence of this strategy was to increase internal tensions within the party of government in South Sudan, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.

On top of the external pressure from Uganda and South Sudan, Sudan is dealing with the consequences of a massive diversion of the Nile River when Ethiopia completed a new dam in May--this threatens to disrupt water supplies in both Sudan and Egypt.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MUCH IS at stake for Obama in the South Sudan conflict. South Sudan's independence was seen as one of the few visible successes of the administration's policy in Africa [15].

Pressure is mounting for Obama to do something before South Sudan becomes the next failed African state. "Humanitarian hawk" Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has been lobbying behind the scenes for an increase in UN troops deployed to the region.

On January 3, the administration pledged an additional $49.8 million in humanitarian aid to assist the refugee crisis. The emergency aid, however, pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions spent on military assistance.

Understanding the importance of South Sudan for the U.S. requires recognizing the growing value of the region and the continent for American foreign policy overall. East Africa is geostrategically critical, both with regards to competition over oil resources and to the Obama administration's anti-terror agenda.

Uganda under Museveni is a lynchpin to U.S. aims in the region. It has been a willing supplier of African Union troops to back up a U.S.-supported government in Somalia. The U.S. also provides large amounts of military aid to Kenya and Ethiopia, the location of a drone base.

Vast tracts of oil have been discovered in Uganda, but they have not been procured. Thus, South Sudan's importance is that much greater, especially with Washington's imperial arch-rival, China, leading the way in South Sudan's oil production. In addition to China's National Petroleum Corp. [16], India's ONGC Videsh and Malaysia's Petronas are the other main firms running the oilfields, although the French multinational Total has exploration concessions in the area.

According to the International Crisis Group:

South Sudan is very much "open for business", actively seeking foreign direct investment from West, East, and everywhere in between. Historical ties may be strongest with the West, but Juba has made clear that if the Chinese are first to come and partner in developing the new nation, they will not hesitate to welcome them.

Thus, the U.S. faces a delicate balancing act with South Sudan, as former Africa Action executive director Nii Akuetteh explained on the Pambazuka website [17]:

The U.S. would love to get rid of Bashir and get some more compliant person in Khartoum, and...they definitely would like it if they were the big recipient of the oil instead of the Chinese. [T]he other thing that is important to the U.S. is to build up South Sudan as a strong, self-reliant, rich country because it has a lot of oil. The U.S. has a number of dictators in the region that are its friends--Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and even the Kenyans. So it doesn't sound credible or smart to me that the Obama administration's policy would be to destabilize the area, because if they do, the country that they support, South Sudan, is likely to lose that war.

The intensifying rivalries between international and regional powers explains the presence of U.S. troops in Uganda, Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan and Washington's rapidly expanding network of bases. Together, these represent a major escalation of the U.S. military presence on the continent. According to Nick Turse writing at TomDispatch [18], "[R]ecent U.S. military involvement [entails] no fewer than 49 African nations...While AFRICOM commander David Rodriguez maintains that the U.S. has only a 'small footprint' on the continent, following those small footprints across the continent can be a breathtaking task."

AFRICOM's funding has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching $836 million between 2010 and 2012. As Turse wrote for Huffington Post [19], "After 10 years of U.S. operations to promote stability by military means, the results have been the opposite. Africa has become blowback central."

With this escalating militarization of the region, it's clear that U.S. and Western actions are driven by strategic interests--while ordinary people in the region pay the price.

Thus, fears run high about the threat of further violence and suffering. As 51-year old Nuer refugee Peter Bey told the Guardian [20], "We see from history that the UN has left people behind before in Rwanda. They put their own people on helicopters and left the people who died."

Over the weekend, U.S. and UN officials were overseeing peace talks in Ethiopia, but reported little progress. But whether or not a negotiated settlement is reached in this round, the long-term prospects for renewed fighting and perpetual nightmare for the South Sudanese will remain as long as the drive for control over oil resources and geopolitical rivalries continue.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Published by the International Socialist Organization.
Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [21] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.

1.        [1] http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/26/new-country-in-africa

2.        [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/23/south-sudan-state-that-fell-apart-in-a-week

3.        [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25586456

4.        [4] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/28/reality-of-south-sudan-and-hollywood-stars

5.        [5] http://africanarguments.org/2013/12/24/what-is-tribalism-and-why-does-is-matter-in-south-sudan-by-andreas-hirblinger-and-sara-de-simone/

6.        [6] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/21/us-southsudan-unrest-aircraft-usa-idUSBRE9BK0E020131221

7.        [7] http://allafrica.com/stories/201401021727.html

8.        [8] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25573882

9.        [9] http://socialistworker.org/Oil%20revenues%20makes%20up%2098%20percent%20of%20South%20Sudan%2526#039;s budget, making it arguably the most oil-dependent country in the world.

10.     [10] http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Ugandans-fear-retaliatory-rebel-attacks/-/2558/2127850/-/ixuraaz/-/index.html

11.     [11] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/south-sudan-conflict-spread-border-khartoum

12.     [12] http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/81818

13.     [13] http://africanarguments.org/2013/10/16/making-sense-of-the-protests-in-khartoum-by-alex-de-waal

14.     [14] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/26/halt-crisis-south-sudan-civil-war

15.     [15] http://socialistworker.org/2012/11/06/obamas-war-in-africa

16.     [16] https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/20

17.     [17] http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/81677

18.     [18] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743

19.     [19] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-turse/africom-war-on-terror-africa_b_3459268.html

20.     [20] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/23/south-sudan-state-that-fell-apart-in-a-week

21.     [21] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

East Africa is continent’s most democratic place

By TREVOR ANALO The EastAfrican
Posted  Friday, May 2  2014 

IN SUMMARY

·    More East Africans are generally satisfied with their countries’ democratic credentials even as they demand for a freer and open society.

·         Preference for a more democratic government is highest in Tanzania (84 per cent), then Uganda (79 per cent) Burundi (74 per cent) and Kenya (74 per cent).    

East Africa has been ranked as the most democratic region on the continent, hinting at lower pressure in the near future for further regime change as it is the case in North Africa, the worst performer.

According to the latest Afrobarometer 34 survey, more East Africans are generally satisfied with their countries’ democratic credentials even as they demand for a freer and open society. Preference for a more democratic government is highest in Tanzania (84 per cent), then Uganda (79 per cent) Burundi (74 per cent) and Kenya (74 per cent).  

But even as East Africans express their popular support for democracy, the realities on the ground paint a very grim picture. The 2014 Freedom in the World report by Freedom House, a US-based watchdog, notes a downward trend in civil and political liberties across the region.

The international reputation of Tanzania as the heart of good governance in East Africa is becoming harder to maintain. And while its citizens are the most satisfied with the way their democracy works (75 per cent), there have been some worrying signs in the country’s politics. 

According to Freedom House, there has been a notable jump in extrajudicial violence by the police, including vigilante violence against women, albinos and members of the LGBT community.  

The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused Dar es Salaam of relying on an “arsenal of anti-media” laws that give the government wide discretionary powers to curb media freedom. 

In Burundi, several rights groups have also reported that impunity for human rights abuses by State agents and the youth wing of the ruling party remains a concern.

Last year, the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranked Burundi the least open and free society in East Africa.

Journalists and civil society groups have been branded agent provocateurs by the government, while a new media law assented to by the president last June is severely limiting press freedom. The law forces journalists to reveal their sources or face heavy penalties.

In the recent past, both Uganda and Kenya have also experienced reversals in democratic gains. Fewer than half of Kenyans and 52 per cent of Ugandans do not think they live in democracies, according to the Afrobarometer.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who is Africa’s fifth longest ruler, is widely expected to seek a fifth term in office in the 2016 election. Just before the 2006 presidential polls, Uganda’s parliament amended the Constitution to hand President Museveni a third term in office.

Early this year, President Museveni signed into law a controversial anti-gay law which sentences first time offenders to 14 years in prison, forbids the promotion of homosexuality and requires people to denounce it.

Uganda continues to use its repressive media law that gives the government powers to shut down a media house for national security reasons. The law also bans the publication of material authorities consider endangers the country’s diplomatic relations with its neighbours. 

In Kenya, presidential election results continue to be disputed, even though international observers like the European Union thought last March’s polls were more credible than in 2007.   

The report reveals that people tend to be satisfied with the performance of their democracies if they experience successful leadership turnovers in open polls.

So far Kenya has had two turnovers in 2002 and 2013 since the introduction of multi-party politics in 1990. As people continue to gain trust in the country’s elections, perhaps Kenyans will become more satisfied with their democracy as their Tanzanian neighbours. 

However, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration is facing mounting criticism over its record on civil and political rights a year into power. A report released on Wednesday by Kenya Human Rights Commission has also spotlighted the president’s human rights record.

“Throughout the year, Kenyan authorities have attempted to clamp down on dissenting voices, either through the adoption of restrictive legislation… or through the violent police crackdown on demonstrators,” KHRC director Atsango Chesoni told reporters in Nairobi. 

The ongoing police operation to flush out suspected terrorists has also come under the spotlight of local and international press.

On single party rule, the report finds rejection of the system highest in countries which have had to endure the dominance of a single party for decades.

In Uganda, where the ruling National Resistance Movement has been in power since 1986, the opposition is struggling to gain a foothold in the country’s politics. Its most prominent leader Dr Ki Kizza Besigye has been the subject of frequent arrests and assaults by the Ugandan police. 

In Tanzania, even though more than two-thirds citizens reject a single party system, the Independence party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) is expected to continue with its half a century-long dominance.

While opposition party Chadema has been gaining ground over the past few years, its performance in the January municipal by-elections in 29 wards, where it won only five seats while CCM scooped 22, has some observers worried that it might not put on a good show in the 2015 polls.

Rwanda was not surveyed in this fifth edition of Afrobarometer, but according to Freedom House, increased commentary on social media unhindered by President Paul Kagame has opened up more space for public debate.

However, Rwandan dissidents living abroad have accused President Paul Kagame’s regime of “hunting down” his exiled critics.

They fingered President Kagame for ordering the January “assassination” of Patrick Karegeya, the country’s former spy, in South Africa. But the president has denied claims his government had a hand in the murder.  

The security risks of China’s abnormal demographics

·BY ANDREA DEN BOER AND VALERIE M. HUDSON

  

At the Third Plenum held in November 2013, the Chinese Communist Party announced the establishment of a new National Security Commission designed to increase state security and social stability and provide greater coordination between internal and external security. This linkage between internal and external security is one that security scholars and policymakers have not sufficiently recognized. While external issues such as relations with Japan, Taiwan and North Korea, and concerns related to China’s military power and nuclear weapons, are of major concern to those seeking peaceful relations with China, we argue that the security risks posed by China’s abnormal demographics must be taken into account when assessing China’s security.

Fertility patterns, high birth-sex ratios and the resulting gender imbalance, when coupled with inequalities between rural and urban workers, have contributed to increases in societal instability characterized by a rise in violent crime, the numbers of secret societies and gangs, the levels of muscular nationalism, and prostitution and trafficking in women and children. These national effects, in turn, can have regional and international repercussions as they undermine national stability and security.

According to China’s 2010 Census, men currently outnumber women by at least 34 million, an imbalance in large part due to China’s fertility policy (known as the one child policy) and a preference for sons. Despite government attempts to stop the use of sex-selective technologies to manipulate the sex of offspring, birth-sex ratios remain high (118-120 male babies for every 100 female babies born in 2010). The dearth of women among the young adult population is of particular concern to demographers, who estimate that the sex ratio of the marriageable population will continue to rise and will peak between 2030 and 2045, with the effect that at least 20 percent of men will be unable to marry.

A surplus of 40-50 million bachelors throughout the mid- to late 21st century will have a significant effect on China’s stability and development as a nation: Male criminal behavior drops significantly upon marriage, and the presence of significant numbers of unmarriageable men is potentially destabilizing to societies. In the case of China, the fact that a sizeable percentage of young adult males will not be making that transition will have negative social repercussions, including increased crime, violent crime, crimes against women, vice, substance abuse and the formation of gangs that are involved in all of these antisocial behaviors.

The high concentrations of involuntary bachelors, or bare branches, in China’s poorer provinces (there are already a significant number of “bachelor villages”) may also be exacerbated by the presence of ethnic minorities in these areas, where the gender imbalance may contribute to social tensions. Those who leave the unproductive rural areas to seek employment in urban areas are faced with problems created by China’shukou (household registration) system, which denies access to economic and social benefits to illegal migrants in China’s “floating population.”

The floating population is rapidly changing the landscape of China’s urban areas, and the Chinese government is aware of both the benefits and risks posed by internal migrants. The current floating population is young — 62 percent are under 35 and the majority of them have a junior high school level of education or less, and are only slightly more male (53 percent), although the sex composition of the floating population varies by geographic area and by employment sector. In Guangdong province alone, the male migrant population outnumbers the female population by 3.1 million. The gender imbalance of migrants in these areas may mean that these areas are at risk for higher levels of crime and greater social instability.

An estimated 10 percent to 30 percent of the floating population participates in criminal secret societies known as black societies (heishehui), groups believed to account for the majority of criminal activity in China, or in “dark forces” (e’shili), the more loosely organized criminal gangs. At the moment, China views the rise in gangs and increased crime rates as local, not national, problems, although many gangs are operating both nationally and internationally, and often with the collaboration of local government officials, as demonstrated by the 2009-2010crackdown in Chongqing.

Compounding the situation is the March 2014 announcement of the state’s National New-Type Urbanization Plan, which aims to increase urbanization to 60 percent by 2020, and plans to ensure that 45 percent of those in urban areas have official urban status. This mandated aggregation of the population will not only deepen resentment among many urban and rural residents, but will also provide an improved logistical foundation for recruitment of the disaffected by groups with grievances against the current system.  The ranks of the disaffected surely include China’s bare branches, who have been fodder for such groups throughout Chinese history.

China’s demographic situation is further complicated by the increase in its aging population and the decline in the labor force. China is different from the other aging countries of the world in that a) it is not yet fully developed, b) most of its population is still poor, and c) it has the highest sex ratio in the world. By 2055, China’s elderly population will exceed the elderly population of all of North America, Europe and Japan combined, and this is exacerbated by the now declining working-age population. China’s impressive economic growth has been facilitated by its expanding working-age population: The population ages 15-64 increased by 55 percent between 1980 and 2005, but this age cohort is now in decline due to the declining fertility rate. In 2012, the working age population declined by 3.5 million and is expected to continue to decline unless there is a dramatic shift in China’s fertility rate.

Aging will have a negative effect on economic growth through higher pension and healthcare costs, fewer low-income jobs, increased wage depression, slowing economic growth and job creation, declining interest from foreign investors, lower entrepreneurship, and higher budget deficits. Labor force declines also translate into lower tax revenues for governments, and if these governments are tempted by deficit financing, global financial stability may be compromised, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Commission on Global Aging.

When we look at global aging, China’s aging, and the synergy between the likely economic effects of aging and the effects of abnormal sex ratios in China, the confluence is likely to be dangerous for the Chinese government. There appears to be an inevitable economic slowdown approaching in the global economy that will last well beyond the effects of the Great Recession of 2008, primarily due to aging trends in the most advanced economies. This global slowdown is likely to amplify the economic storm clouds already looming for China. A society with a masculinized young adult population, such as China’s, is likely to respond to significant economic hardship with heightened domestic instability and crime. As a result, the Chinese regime may be hard pressed to maintain its usual control over society and to meet this internal security challenge, the regime may well become more authoritarian.

The Chinese government realizes that they must maintain the respect of their bare branch populations: a government perceived as weak invites the contempt of its society’s young men who might also exploit vulnerabilities to undermine the regime’s control over the country. Governments quickly learn they must react swiftly and aggressively in the wake of perceived slights and insults from other countries.

A “virile” form of nationalism begins to creep into the government’s foreign policy rhetoric, and it is stoked domestically to keep the allegiance of young adult bare branches. Faced with worsening instability at home and an unsolvable economic decline, China’s government may well be tempted to use foreign policy to “ride the tiger” of domestic instability. The government’s fanning of nationalist fervor has already been seen in the dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, where large and violent protests around the country were accompanied by the dramatic public destruction of Japanese goods and strong expressed anti-Japanese sentiments.

The recent minor relaxation of the one child policy announced at the Third Plenum will do little to address the imbalance in China’s population in future, but there is hope that this is the first of further changes to reduce state control of fertility. Even if sex ratios were rectified today, young adult sex ratios in China will result in a significant gender imbalance in the adult population for the next 30 years.

The US needs to be aware of the possibility of greater internal instability if China experiences reduced economic growth, which may disproportionately affect the bare branch population. Furthermore, the U.S. needs to consider how China’s estimated 34-50 million bare branches figure in to the strategic trajectory of its relations with Japan and Russia, as well as nearby states with sizable proportions of bare branches themselves (such as India and Vietnam). U.S. policymakers should be aware that Chinese leaders may perceive a relatively short window of time for China to leverage its rise so as to maximize power and achieve its perceived national interests in the regional and international system.  China’s high sex ratios are not a matter of concern for China alone; as former secretary of state Hillary Clinton noted, “the subjugation of women is a direct threat to the security of the United States,” and in this case, she is certainly correct.

Valerie M. Hudson is professor and George H.W. Bush chair in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.

 Andrea den Boer is a senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. 

This is the third in a series of posts from a conference “Beyond the Pivot: Managing Asian Security Crises,” held in the Senate Hart Building on April 30, 2014, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.   For more information, visit cpost.uchicago.edu.

A fearful new world, imperiled by Russia’s subterfuge

By Anne Applebaum,  

Applebaum writes a biweekly foreign affairs column and contributes to the Post Partisan blog.

In the Western imagination, the words “war” and “invasion” carry clear connotations. From books, movies and television, we know that such events involve tanks, airplanes and artillery, as well as soldiers in uniform, advanced weaponry, sophisticated communications. They look like the invasion of Iraq or, to go back in time, D-Day.

So far, the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine looks nothing like these battles. This war involves not soldiers but local thugs and volunteers, some linked to the ex-president, Viktor Yanukovych , some from criminal gangs and some who mistakenly think they are fighting for some form of benign local autonomy.

They are being led not by officers in uniform but by men from Russian military intelligence and special forces, some wearing camouflage without insignia, some communicating with “activists” by telephone. They are supplied with Russian logistics and a few Russian automatic weapons, but for the most part not tanks or planes. There is no “shock and awe” bombing campaign, just systematic, organized attacks on police stations, city councils, airports.

Unlike the planners of D-Day or Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Russians organizing the invasion of Ukraine don’t need an immediate victory. They have flexible goals, and they are prepared to adjust their strategy depending on how much resistance they encounter. In the long term, Russia clearly hopes to annex eastern and southern Ukraine; maps to that effect have begun to circulate.

But in the meantime, the Kremlin may settle for disrupting Ukraine’s presidential elections, scheduled for May 25, or for destabilizing Ukraine’s shaky provisional government, perhaps forcing an economic crash. The Russians may hope to provoke a civil war, or something that appears to be a civil war, which would then require a Russian “peacekeeping mission.”

Many of these tactics are familiar, though we haven’t seen them for a long time. In 1945, Soviet secret policemen, given the task of transforming disparate Eastern European nations into communist puppet states, also began by organizing local thugs and volunteers — criminals and war-damaged sociopaths as well as people who mistakenly believed they were fighting for a form of benign socialism — into paramilitary and secret police forces, exactly like the ones operating in eastern Ukraine. Then as now, they led from the shadows. Then as now, they adjusted their strategy depending on how much resistance they encountered and how much support they received.

But the 21st century is not the 20th century. When Polish communists, backed by Soviet communists, falsified the results of a national referendum in 1946, there weren’t many international observers around to complain. In the past few days, by contrast, the Internet has lit up with photographs of “pro-Russian activists” carrying Russian-made RPGs, as well as audio clips of Russians barking orders. The effect of these revelations, however, has been to encourage the Russians to lie more brazenly and aggressively. The Russian foreign minister continues to insist that “Moscow is not interested in destabilizing Ukraine,” and Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the United Nations to condemn Ukraine’s weak and confused attempts to defend itself. Russian television — watched by many in eastern Ukraine — continues to denounce nonexistent violence coming from “fascist Kiev” and is even showing politicized weather reports: Dark clouds are gathering over Donetsk while there is sun in Crimea. These language games and disinformation campaigns are now far more sophisticated than anything the Soviet Union ever produced.

This combination — old-fashioned Sovietization plus slick modern media — is genuinely new, so much so that it’s fair to say we are witnessing a new kind of war, and a new kind of invasion. Thirteen years ago, in the wake of 9/11, the United States suddenly had to readjust its thinking to asymmetric warfare, the kinds of battles that tiny groups of terrorists can fight against superior military powers. Later, we relearned the tactics of counterinsurgency in Iraq.

But now Europe, the United States and above all the Ukrainians need to learn to cope with masked warfare — the Russian term is maskirovka — which is designed to confuse not just opponents but also the opponents’ potential allies. As I’ve written, the West urgently needs to rethink its military, energy and financial strategies toward Russia. But more specific new policies will also be needed to fight the masked invasions that may follow in Moldova or, in time, the Baltic States if this one succeeds.

Americans and Europeans should begin to rethink the funding and governance of our international broadcasters in order to counter the new war of words. We should also begin to reinforce the local police forces of the states that border the new Russian empire; NATO’s F-16s cannot fight thugs who are storming the town hall. This isn’t just about spending money: We need more special forces, more “human” intelligence, not just more ships and planes. Above all, we need to be prepared, in advance, for what may come. It’s a new world we are now entering, and we need new tools to cope with it.

Read more from Anne Applebaum’s archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.

Has the Ukraine crisis been defused?

David Ignatius

Has the Obama administration really found the famous “exit ramp” in Ukraine that will provide an eventual diplomatic resolution of the crisis? It’s too early to know, but there were certainly signs of progress Thursday in Geneva, where seven hours of negotiations produced what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called “a compromise, of sorts.”

President Obama doubtless will get brickbats from congressional Republicans if he’s seen to be making concessions they’ll claim ratify Moscow’s bullying in Ukraine. But this has always been a fight that mattered more to Russia than to the West. President Vladimir Putin showed in recent days that he was prepared to take Ukraine to the brink of civil war to get his way. Even if Obama had been ready for that confrontation, Europe wasn’t.

If the deal holds, it’s likely to open the way for what many U.S. strategists have seen as the most stable path for Ukraine — a country that looks east and west at the same time. The Euromaidan protests last winter showed that western Ukrainians want passionately to be part of Europe. The Russian-speaking protesters who massed in eastern Ukraine may have been orchestrated by Moscow, but they feel deep ties with Russia. What Thursday’s initial deal says is: Stand down.

Compromise is always hard to swallow. President John Kennedy was so worried about public reaction to the secret deal he made with Moscow to avert the Cuban missile crisis that details were suppressed until long after his death. Yet that negotiation is remembered now as Kennedy’s finest moment. Obama will be lucky if Ukraine is remembered similarly, as a dangerous confrontation that was defused.

The consequences of the alternative path, of an ever-escalating crisis, were highlighted this week by Australian historian Christopher Clark, author of “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.” In a lecture at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Clark compared the Ukraine crisis with the 1914 catastrophe.

Clark noted the similarities between 100 years ago and today. There was a “weary titan” then in Britain, just as some see in today’s United States. And in both cases, there was the shock of an unanticipated crisis in a fragile Eastern European country, which propelled nations toward the brink. The big difference is that despite Russia’s aggressive moves in Ukraine, Western nations responded with what Clark called “caution and circumspection” rather than lockstep escalation.

Clark was asked about one of his book’s most interesting sub-themes, which is that the conflict a century ago was in part a “crisis of masculinity.” European leaders were so determined to be “firm” and “upright” about commitments that they drove straight into a wall.

This got me to thinking about the central personalities in this drama, Putin and Obama. There is something of the summer of 1914 about Putin. It’s not clear whether he sees himself as the tsar or the gamekeeper when he’s photographed hunting tigers, or shooting whales with a crossbow, or going bare-chested when fishing or riding horses. But he’s evidently a man with something to prove, confident and insecure at the same time.

Putin wants to be the bad boy. As Obama said memorably of him: “He’s got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom.”

Obama, in contrast, has shown himself once more to be the opposite of a macho politician. He is reserved and analytical, occasionally caught shirtless on vacation but rarely photographed with the top buttons of his shirt undone. He’s the good boy in the class, sometimes to a fault.

Far from marching off the cliff, Obama stayed safely on the sidewalk. If he’d been guiding one of the major European nations in that summer of 1914, one senses that he might have avoided the reflexive mobilization for war that proved so disastrous. That sense of caution would have been derided as “weak” in 1914, as Obama is now. As Clark observes, hawkish arguments always tend to resonate better in crises than dovish ones.

“The protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing . . . blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world,” Clark writes in the book’s concluding passage.

Whatever his faults, Obama is no sleepwalker. He has been acutely aware of the dangers in Ukraine. He appealed for, and finally demanded, de-escalation by Putin. The macho bully seized Crimea and may well gain effective control of eastern Ukraine. The wary diplomat appears, for now, to have averted war. Each side can reasonably claim success.

Read more from David Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or

 subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.

By David Ignatius, 

Published: April 18 

E-mail the writer