Day: April 5, 2024
On 2 April, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry stated that the Armenian armed forces units periodically subjected to fire the Azerbaijan Army positions in the Nakhchivan direction of the interstate border. This followed the news spread by the Azerbaijani side concerning Armenia’s consolidation of military equipment and troops along the border region over the past several days. While both the Armenian government and the monitoring mission of the EU that deployed to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border since the late 2022 denied this information, the growing tensions on the ground are visible to the naked eye. These tensions have been further strained since the announcement of a trilateral meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen, and the United States’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken that is set to take place in Brussels on 5 April. The meeting has been negatively viewed in Azerbaijan and criticized for drawing “geopolitical dividing lines” in the South Caucasus and fueling local conflicts.
Azerbaijan has insisted on this position despite the fact that both the European Commission and the Department of State of the United States asserted that the meeting would focus on economic issues and, as such, would not include the questions related to the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process.
Considering that today security issues dominate the agenda both for Armenia and the West in the context of the Ukraine war and unprecedented confrontation between Russia and the West, these assertions are not convincing; Quite the contrary, there is enough reason to expect that all the economic and humanitarian issues on the agenda will be assessed through the lens of Armenia’s efforts to weaponize it against Azerbaijan and can cause the stagnation in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process.
Therefore, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan countered the claims of Antony Blinken during their phone call on April 3 and reiterated that the trilateral meeting “would ultimately escalate tensions and create new dividing lines instead of fostering peace and cooperation in the South Caucasus.” Referring to his own sources, President Aliyev stated that the meeting’s agenda includes military support to Armenia as well as joint military exercises which will accelerate the arms race in the region and stir up tensions undermining regional stability.
Moreover, the context of the meeting and regional geopolitical situation backs the assessment of President Aliyev whose foreign policy has been traditionally based on maintaining balance between the West and Russia and striving to keep geopolitical rivalries at bay. The balance of power in the wider region, which has been supportive of Baku’s balanced approach until recently, has been, however, changing due to Russia’s war against Ukraine. The attempt of Armenia, Russia’s ally within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), to move closer to the Euro-Atlantic space by breaking away from Russia’s orbit is the most noticeable manifestation of this power shift in the region.
Azerbaijan is also concerned that the geopolitical struggle between global powers will end up with a major instability in the region. On a larger scale of geopolitics, Russia does not seem willing to give up the South Caucasus, the region which is of a critical importance for the country’s national security and connectivity with Iran, India, Middle East and South Asia. In the case, of a Russian action, as experience manifests, Western support frequently comes as only verbal one, without much substance to the security and well-being of the post-Soviet states, just as it happened in Georgia in 2008.
The trilateral meeting on 5 April hardly promises any good to the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process either. In his phone call with Secretary Blinken, President Aliyev specifically mentioned “lack of inclusivity” as part of his criticism of the meeting. Indeed, it is the first such a meeting ever between the Armenian Prime Minister and the Western leaders in this format and raised many questions and concerns in Baku. This gains even further momentum as both the Armenian leaders and Western officials have continuously accused Azerbaijan of plans and preparations to invade Armenia. These accusations continue being made despite the Azerbaijani government has denied the existence of such intentions many times. In Baku, this is seen as a deliberate effort to fabricate a nonexistent threat under the guise of Azerbaijan, thereby justifying increased military assistance to Armenia and bolstering Western presence in the country. Previously Armenia used its military alliance with Moscow to prolong its occupation of Azerbaijani territories, and now Yerevan seems to be attempting to promote its move towards the West for undermining Azerbaijan’s standing in the region.
That said, in light of the escalating tensions and deepening mistrust, it is evident that the upcoming trilateral meeting between Armenia, the European Union, and the United States has become a focal point of contention in the South Caucasus. Despite assurances of its economic focus, the broader geopolitical implications cannot be ignored, especially amidst the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s assertive stance in the region. The emergence of “dividing lines” in the region may further complicate the situation in the South Caucasus and lead to a geopolitical crisis with much more severe consequences for the peoples of the region.
With 85 votes in favor and 22 against, the Parliament abolished the mandatory gender quotas in an accelerated manner. Before this decision, the Electoral Code required that at least one out of every four persons on a party list must be a woman. This amendment follows an agreement between the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party and Girchi, under which the ruling party backed Girchi’s initiative to abolish quotas in exchange for Girchi’s support for the GD candidate for the Central Electoral Commission Chairperson.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, defended the reintroduction of the Foreign Agents Law by the parliamentary majority in Georgia, saying that “no sovereign state wants interference from other countries in domestic politics. This is normal practice.” “We see a rather acute and sharp reaction of the opposition to such plans. But probably, there is a need to explain to them the absurdity of these attempts to portray it as a Russian project,” Peskov said.
The European Union issued a statement reacting to the reintroduction of the Foreign Agents law, noting that “the announcement by the ruling party in Georgia to re-introduce a draft law on “Transparency of Foreign Influence” raises serious concerns.” The statement says that “the EU regrets that it is once again being considered despite strong public and international reactions in March 2023,” encouraging the Georgian authorities to implement reforms necessary for joining the EU.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also denounced the reintroduction of the Foreign Agents Law, saying, “This will contradict the whole effort of strengthening the democratic institutions of Georgia,” undermining “the whole idea of making Georgia a strong democratic society.” The Secretary-General also called on the Georgian authorities to work on reforms to move closer to NATO and the EU.
U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chair of the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, released a statement on a GD-proposed Russian-style Foreign Agents Law saying that “not only would this draft law lead the political process in the wrong direction, but it would harm Georgia’s transatlantic integration and its future in the European Union,” further urging the parliament to reject this proposal.
The National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF GNP) terminated the Memorandum of Cooperation with the Parliament in response to the ruling party’s decision to reintroduce the Foreign Agents Law. In the statement issued by the Platform, almost 200 Georgian organizations emphasize that they feel insulted by the ruling party after it broke its promise made last year not to reintroduce the draft law on foreign agents, stating that “the reintroduction of the draft law by the ruling team is incompatible with the state interests, culture and Georgian traditions.”
The Georgian Foreign Minister, Ilia Darchiashvili, is on his first official visit to Paraguay. This is the first visit by a Georgian Foreign Minister to Paraguay since establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2010. He has already met with his counterpart, Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, President Santiago Peña, and the Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, Raúl Luis Latorre Martínez.
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The Daily Beat: 4 April
With 85 votes in favor and 22 against, the Parliament abolished the mandatory gender quotas in an accelerated manner. Before this decision, the Electoral Code required that at least one out of every four persons on a party list must be a woman. This amendment follows an agreement between the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party and Girchi, under which the ruling party backed Girchi’s initiative to abolish quotas in exchange for Girchi’s support for the GD candidate for the Central Electoral Commission Chairperson.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, defended the reintroduction of the Foreign Agents Law by the parliamentary majority in Georgia, saying that “no sovereign state wants interference from other countries in domestic politics. This is normal practice.” “We see a rather acute and sharp reaction of the opposition to such plans. But probably, there is a need to explain to them the absurdity of these attempts to portray it as a Russian project,” Peskov said.
The European Union issued a statement reacting to the reintroduction of the Foreign Agents law, noting that “the announcement by the ruling party in Georgia to re-introduce a draft law on “Transparency of Foreign Influence” raises serious concerns.” The statement says that “the EU regrets that it is once again being considered despite strong public and international reactions in March 2023,” encouraging the Georgian authorities to implement reforms necessary for joining the EU.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also denounced the reintroduction of the Foreign Agents Law, saying, “This will contradict the whole effort of strengthening the democratic institutions of Georgia,” undermining “the whole idea of making Georgia a strong democratic society.” The Secretary-General also called on the Georgian authorities to work on reforms to move closer to NATO and the EU.
U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chair of the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, released a statement on a GD-proposed Russian-style Foreign Agents Law saying that “not only would this draft law lead the political process in the wrong direction, but it would harm Georgia’s transatlantic integration and its future in the European Union,” further urging the parliament to reject this proposal.
The National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF GNP) terminated the Memorandum of Cooperation with the Parliament in response to the ruling party’s decision to reintroduce the Foreign Agents Law. In the statement issued by the Platform, almost 200 Georgian organizations emphasize that they feel insulted by the ruling party after it broke its promise made last year not to reintroduce the draft law on foreign agents, stating that “the reintroduction of the draft law by the ruling team is incompatible with the state interests, culture and Georgian traditions.”
The Georgian Foreign Minister, Ilia Darchiashvili, is on his first official visit to Paraguay. This is the first visit by a Georgian Foreign Minister to Paraguay since establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2010. He has already met with his counterpart, Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, President Santiago Peña, and the Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, Raúl Luis Latorre Martínez.
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NPR News: 04-05-2024 1AM EDT
All political regimes need an ideology. This is a set of principles or beliefs that explain what the government is doing and why it is doing it. Ideally, the ideology justifies the government’s role in terms of some ethical principles that are commonly accepted by the governed – even if the government is not acting in accordance with those principles and even if it is blatantly violating them.
In general, the more compelling the ideology, the more successful the state will be in carrying out its objectives. In the twentieth century, the most successful ideology-based regimes emerged in Russia, China and Germany.
The idea of taking from each according to his ability and giving to each according to his needs is a powerful idea. It loosely describes the ethos that governed the communal existence of our ancestors – living in small tribes, say, 50,000 years ago. As a practical matter, however, neither the Chinese communists nor the Russian communists ever redistributed significant resources from the able to the needy. If anything, they did the reverse. The leaders lived a life of luxury while the peasants struggled to survive. That practice was continued in subsequent communist regimes – in Cuba and North Korea, for example.
National socialism in Germany was based on the idea that individuals have a duty to sacrifice for the good of the whole. This is another idea that would have been common among our primitive ancestors.
The reason I mention our distant ancestors is because the way they thought may have been passed down to the modern era by means other than culture alone. It may, to a certain extent, be part of our genetic inheritance.
The communist moral imperative was a very effective way to explain why people shouldn’t be allowed to selfishly pursue their own happiness. The fascist moral imperative had the same end. And as I show below, a similar function was served by 20th century liberalism in the United States.
In World War II, the three most prominent figures were Hitler, Stalin and Roosevelt. All three disagreed about what government should be doing. But they were in total agreement on what government should not be doing. All three saw classical liberalism as the single greatest ideological threat to their regimes. In fact, classical liberalism was seen as a greater threat to the political thinking of these three men than communism, fascism and modern liberalism were to each other.
Government is the unique institution that has a monopoly on the socially legitimate use of force. That means government can forcibly take from Peter and give to Paul, without Peter’s consent. So, one way to think about political systems and political ideologies is to ask: when is it permissible to take from Peter and give to Paul?
In 1776, the American government was the first government in the history of the world to give a clear and unambiguous answer to the question of when the government can give to Peter what is taken from Paul. The Declaration of Independence leaves nothing to doubt. People have the right to pursue their own happiness. Government is justified in interfering with that right only if there is some overriding general welfare purpose.
By implication, it is never justified to take from Peter and give to Paul for no other reason than the fact that Paul has more votes than Peter. This is consistent with the writings of Adam Smith, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson and many other classical liberals.
Twentieth century liberalism began by calling itself “progressivism,” then “liberalism,” and then “progressivism” again. But under whatever name, it is the view that government may legitimately take from Peter and give to Paul, even if the general welfare is not promoted, and even if the general welfare is diminished.
One way to understand this distinction is to consider Lochner v. New York in 1905. In that case, the Supreme Court struck down a state law prohibiting bakery workers from working as long as 10 hours per day or 60 hours per week.
Adam Smith would have understood this law very well. It not only served a special interest; it was motivated by ethnic prejudice. Established New York bakers sought the restriction in order to suppress competition from Italian and Jewish bakers who were willing to work longer hours. The restriction was like something you might find in the medieval guild system.
Between 1897 and 1937, in what is known as the Lochner era, the Supreme Court struck down 184 laws. For the most part, these were laws that limited freedom of contract – usually for some obvious special interest reason, without any compelling “general welfare” rationale.
If you ask a modern liberal if he thinks that government should act to promote the general welfare, he will almost certainly say “yes.” But Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson would have said the same thing. So, how are they different?
Here is an important distinction. Communism did not describe what the Russian and Chinese governments actually did. Instead, the communists were the ideological apologists for Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China. Similarly, fascism didn’t describe what the German government actually did. Fascism was the intellectual apology for Hitler’s Germany.
This is the best way to understand what was happening at the same time in the United States. Modern liberalism did not advocate what liberal government did. It apologized for it and defended it against classical liberalism.
Elsewhere I have written that when democratic political systems have the ability to take from Peter and give to Paul or vice versa, without any requirement to promote the general welfare, we will get a “public choice equilibrium” that will almost always be suboptimal. That is, society as a whole will be less well-off than it could have been. Since this equilibrium is almost impossible to defend on any grounds, twentieth century liberalism rose to the challenge by arguing (falsely in my opinion) that these suboptimal outcomes are better than living in a classical liberal world. Inevitably, they made this argument by mischaracterizing what life in a classical liberal society is like.
If you ask modern liberals what they think, they will tell you they are against racism (especially segregated public schools); they favor clean air and clean water; they want to help the poor; they oppose inequality, etc. Yet if you look at what happens where liberals govern, all these problems seem to be worse than they are anywhere else.
- Nearly half the homeless people in the country now live in California.
- Seven of the 10 cities with the most polluted air are in California, and California has some of the worst water pollution problems as well.
- According to the New York Times, the New York City school system is among the most segregated in the country; and nationwide, liberal states tend to have the most segregated schools.
- In Washington DC, black students attend schools with 55 percent higher poverty rates than white students and score an average of 5.1 grades lower on achievement tests.
All of these bad outcomes result from public policies enacted by liberal politicians, elected by liberal voters, often with benevolent intentions. Further, no prominent Democratic politician running for office seems willing to talk about them – let alone promise to correct them.
In the mid-twentieth century it was common to view the great ideological divide as one between capitalism and socialism. The democratic, developed countries, by contrast, were called “mixed-economy welfare states.”
Modern liberalism effectively functions as the premier defender of the mixed-economy welfare state.
- This article was published by AIER