La Vigie n° 99 (1st AUG 2018) : Mali, in-between – Russia reinvests Egypt – Lorgnette : Deadlines planet

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La Vigie n° 99, a strategic letter by Jean Dufourcq et Olivier Kempf

Mali, in-between

Seen from France, Mali first poses a security question. Unfortunately, this perception prevents more complex geographical and political realities than the “fight against terrorism”, an awkward slogan that justifies our action. Because the Malian question (and beyond, regional, in the Sahara as in the Sahel which obey to different logics) is first that of the state organization. However, there are some optimistic factors that need to be strengthened so that military success “en premier” is pursued by a political and economic action “en second”.

Russia reinvests Egypt

Russia, which is prospecting for former Soviet positions, is gradually re-establishing itself along the great maritime artery that connects the North Sea with the Indian Ocean. In doing so, she finds in President Sissi’s Egypt a central partner sensitive to her leadership and her strategic, security and economic arguments. Her ability to mediate and her regional ability make her the player in the strategic reconstruction of the Levant, an interlocutor with whom France must now compose to find a place in the game.

Lorgnette : Deadlines planet

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La Vigie nr 98 bis (18 JUL 2018) : Mixed war | Alliance : vacancy or emptyness ? | from Lorgnette : foot and strategy

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Lettre La Vigie n°98 bis – 18 July 2018

Mixed war

War is no longer effective! it remains, however, but the representation that we have deceives us, from Napoleon to the Hairy and the parade of July 14 to Operations in Africa. We seek to respond to an outdated form of war, knowing that it has taken many other forms (economic, cyber, monetary, media …): as many theaters of operation where take place the real strategies of power. To fail to understand this is necessarily to mislead the commitment of the combat forces that remains necessary, but on the condition of being subordinated to a complete strategy.

Alliance: vacancy or emptiness?

An EU full of false pretenses, a helpless Alliance, a possible Russo-American arrangement on the European back, the strategic failure is confirmed. France should seize it to promote a median position placing Europe to the Urals in a stable equilibrium between America and China, the two commercial competitors who decided to go to a long war. Lorgnette : Foot and strategy JDOK

La Vigie Nr 98 (4 July 2018) : Building the balance of power – Farewell old Europe – From lorgnette :Deraa and realism

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Letter n° 97,  La Vigie, 20th  June 2018 (to read this issue in French, clic here)

Building the balance of power

Conflictuality evolves and breaks down into various modes of friction: games of go, chess games, commercial negotiations. To be respected requires more than ever a combination of scattered actions by multiple actors in various fields of action. For France, an obligation of lucidity, coherence, strategic planning and internal exemplarity to try to weigh on the march of the world.

Farewell old Europe

Europe is more than the EU, it is a distinct geographical reality characterized by its unity and its differences. The EU was built to solve a European civil war, according to an ambiguous division of power between an unpopular technocracy and states retaining the reality of the decisions: this mechanism was seized, first with the crisis of 2008 then that of the migrants . As for NATO, it falters because of D. Trump who doubts its usefulness. Initiatives are flourishing in both western and eastern Europe. The institutional mechanism built after the Second World War is running out of steam and we are only beginning to discern what will succeed it.

Seen from lorgnette :Deraa and realism

JDOK

La Vigie n° 97 (20 June 2018) : Kim-Trump : Two winners ? – Governance : towards syncretism – Seen from la Lorgnette : Aquarius

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Letter n° 97,  La Vigie, 20th  June 2018 (to read this issue in French, clic here)

Kim-Trump : Two winners ?

The recent Singapore summit between Presidents Kim and Trump resulted in a rather flat and uncompromising statement: yet both protagonists were very satisfied. However, this is not a “win-win” agreement, since basically everyone thinks they have deceived each other. In fact, beyond the nuclear issue (yet nothing less than anodyne), the most interesting lies in the ulterior motives of the two leaders. They did not say a word and no commentator has deciphered their real calculations. They are much more subtle than we think.

Governance : towards syncretism

To save the idea of a minimal governance of the planet, we will have to introduce a dose of diversity in the principles and values that administer it, especially at the regional level because the universal always has a local color. To preserve the gains of the old multilateral structures that are going down (UN, NATO, EU), it will be necessary to focus on identifying the factors of peace and development that they carry. To contribute, France must be out of alignment.

La Lorgnette : Aquarius

 

JDOK

The withdrawal of the United States from the Vienna Agreement: an injustice for Iranians

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Following our number 95 (read here for free), we are pleased to welcome Master Ardavan Amir-Aslani who is a business lawyer in Paris. He has published several books on Iran and the Middle East, the last of which, From Persia to Iran, 2500 years of history (L’Archipel, 2018).

On the 8th May, the United States withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement signed in Vienna on the 14th July 2015. This decision brought about the re-establishment of sanctions which had been lifted, as well as the implementation of new sanctions on multinationals who want to invest in Iran.

Source

This decision has been seen as an injustice in Tehran, especially when considering Iran’s full compliance with the provisions of the nuclear agreement, which was officially confirmed by the AIEA in eleven successive reports, the last of which intervened on the 9th of May by Yukiya Amano, President of the IAEA. Continue reading “The withdrawal of the United States from the Vienna Agreement: an injustice for Iranians” →

La Vigie n° 96 – 6 June 2018 : The revenge of the depth – Italian divorce – Lorgnette : Master Hassner

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Letter n° 96,  La Vigie, 6th  June 2018 (to read this issue in French, clic here)



 

The revenge of the depths

In crises, the bottom of things is shown. So today the fragile world governance is affected by the return of the collective identities and deep-seated forces of peoples who are taking over illegitimate states, confiscated democracies or systems that neglect their interests or their real weight. So it goes in Europe, the United States, Russia and China. What lessons for France?

 

Italian divorce

The Italian elections are not a populist threat, as some people like to reduce them. They are a democratic alternation that breaks with seven years of “technical” governments, inspired by the rules of the EU, and have not given satisfactory results, either economically or on the issue of migrants . By dint of claiming that there is no other policy, to say that politics is useless in the face of economic and technocratic reason, democracy is weakened. People have their say, whether we like it or not.

 

 

Lorgnette :  Le Maître Hassner

JDOK

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La Vigie n° 95 (free) – 23 May 2018 : Trump, Iran, and impotent Europe – An impossible regulation – Lorgnette : Iraqi populism

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Lettre n° 95,  La Vigie 23 May 2018

 

Photo credit: IAEA Imagebank on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

 

Trump, Iran, and impotent Europe

Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal only surprised the gullible. It confirms an electoral promise and implements its policy of questioning the state of the world. Of course, it has consequences in the Middle East and on the nuclear order. Above all, it has very deep economic effects that affect Europeans first and foremost. These are in the hour of truth, realizing that the rogue state is not the one they believed. Will they react firmly or will they demonstrate, once again, their helplessness?

 

An impossible regulation

Control and regulate the strategic nuclear system has been a long process slow to establish itself in the bipolar world of the cold war. Deregulation began at the end of this one with multipolarity, tolerances, exceptions and manipulations. It is growing with the US withdrawal of the 2015′ Iranian agreement that threatens the exit of the Korean stalemate, ignores the need for nuclear power, sends countries to reassure towards a creeping military nuclear proliferation. Nuclear disarmament is not for tomorrow.

Lorgnette :  Iraqi populism

JDOK

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La Vigie n° 94 – 9 May 2018 : Regionalisms in Spain – The Vietnamese track – The Libanese democratic challenge

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Letter n° 94 – 9th May 2018

Regionalisms in Spain

The self-dissolution of ETA in the Spanish Basque Country does not only mean the end of an armed struggle, but above all it marks the end of an outdated ideology: that of revolutionary independence. It reveals the internal geopolitical balance of Spain, a country that has little known a strong state and which, in favor of democracy in 1975, invented an original way of decentralization that is not a federation. This helps to understand the current tension between Madrid and Catalonia. This does not mean that regional issues are over, in Spain as in Europe, because they are also responses to the furious globalization.

The Vietnamese track

Vietnam suffers the presence of a cumbersome neighbor which he must accomodate since ages. While imitating his politico-economic model, he must be careful not to fall into his orbit. To do this, it deploys a subtle strategy of the right balance and seeks through multiple partnerships the strategic depth it lacks. The strategy of balance that it deploys must enable it to preserve the centrality of the party, to satisfy an expected development and to contain a nationalist public opinion.

Lorgnette : The Libanese democratic challenge

JDOK

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La Vigie n° 93 – 10 avril 2018 : Bomb. Intimidate – Demonstration of weakness – Lorgnette : Becoming tough

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Letter n° 93,  25  Avril 2018

L’USS Ross tire un missile d’attaque terrestre tomahawk le 7 avril 2017.

Bomb. Intimidate

What factors prevailed in the French intervention decision against Syrian sites? How can one read the precipitation of the missile strike? Why did one want it limited and without military effect? What indications do these choices give to the political goals pursued? Is military intimidation still possible today? So many legitimate questions for the analyst.

Demonstration of weakness

In addition to strategic analysis, strikes in Syria require geopolitical decoding. The United States, France and the United Kingdom (FRUKUS) basically had two objectives: to restore their credibility, and to regain a position allowing them to influence future negotiations behind the scenes. This explains the disproportion between the media buzz and the weak demonstration of the strikes. Everything was designed to pretend and aim for goals other than those that were so loudly displayed.

 

Lorgnette :  Becoming tough

JDOK

 

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n° 92 (10 April 2018) : Nuclear Patchwork – Time is covering – Homicides in Brasil

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La Vigie, n° 92 :

Nuclear patchwork

The Cold War was based on a very deep ideological rift between two well-identified camps. This opposition was a perfect match for the construction of a nuclear deterrence based on the strategic dialectic between two actors. Today, the complexity has settled: not only are there several theaters of nuclear opposition, but these still bring together more than two actors and finally, there is now a general connection of these local theatres, without a super actor to polarize the whole. Therefore, a new strategic grammar seems necessary to think about this nuclear patchwork.

Time is covering

The political guaranty and the moral advantage that the countries of freedom derived from their virtuous behavior in the service of global governance have eroded with the wave of globalization whose economic stakes have perverted democracies. In the absence of any benevolent leadership and possible internatioanl regulation, sanctions are resorted to and dangerous games of intimidation are played. It’s a collective regression. Other political and strategic models could then emerge, devoting effective alternative actors. Weather is getting worse.

Lorgnette : Homicides in Brasil

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JDOK