Foreign Policy Briefing: Professor Charles Hill

Last Friday we hosted a call with Diplomat-In-Residence at Yale, Charles Hill. A replay link is included below along with a brief summary:

https://app.hedgeye.com/feed_items/35987-foreign-policy-briefing-with-prof-charles-hill?page=1&with_category=3-macro

Prior to his current position as professor of Grand Strategies, Charles Hill has held a number of posts including but not limited to the following:

• Senior Adviser to George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, and Ronald Reagan
• Deputy Assistant Secretary
• Chief of Staff for the Middle-East at the State Department

On a high-level Professor Hill touched on four major geopolitical hotspots and painted a clear picture of a somewhat opaque interconnectedness between the four:

1. Russia
2. China
3. Syria
4. Iran

As a precursor to Professor Hill’s view of the current geopolitical reality, he described the differences in the current dynamic from the Cold War:

Throughout the Cold War, there were three main centers of influence:

1. Western (free-world)
2. Communism
3. Third-World

Our current globalized society has now shifted into an entirely different but by no means antonymic world:

1. Corporate circle of globalization:  fueled by rapidly evolving technology and social media. Those on the inside are either flourishing or sitting on the opportunity to flourish
2. Structural Foundation: a world referred to as an “international state system” in which treaties, ambassadors, and global alliances rule. This system is being aggressively and deliberately challenged and is currently in poor shape
3. National Identity Crisis: The West, Middle-East, Europe, and especially China are all experiencing an identity crisis currently 

Russia: Russia has suffered an identity crisis after the desecration of traditional Russian values from years of communist experimentation during the cold war. Attempts to return to a more democratized society over the last decade have been largely unsuccessful. Putin has addressed this situation by combining communism with, more traditional, pre-communism values.

Putin’s intent is to take advantage of an apparent deterioration in the power of the nations that have sat atop of the current international system. The takeover of Crimea and involvement in Eastern Ukraine is a violation in and of itself, but the fact that Russia is infiltrating into eastern Ukraine in guerilla-like fashion confirms the speculation that he believes the current structural foundation, dominated by the West and EU, is highly vulnerable.

Syria: Russia has both supplied a helped strengthen Assad's regime in Syria. A Russian intelligence agenda has taken deliberate steps to obstruct those in opposition. With this direct involvement, Russia is gaining leverage in the Middle-East. The Arab Spring movement in 2011 was suppressed with deadly violence and terrorism. A more-traditional, Islamist movement into Syria led by Al-Queda influence has succeeded with brute force and terrorism. This radical camp is gaining steam in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. The militarism that has signified the Assad regime is being legitimized as the international community has been largely unsuccessful in intervening.         

Iran: Iran has played the international scene perfectly by building nuclear capabilities while adhering to the minimal requirements of remaining a part of the U.N. The Iranian government has taken a revolutionary roll to help Assad remain in power and free itself of nuclear sanctions (November 2013). In a sense they are opposing the order of the structural foundation of today’s international law while still remaining a part of it.

China: China faces a severe identity crisis with the experimentation of communism and capitalism. Recent moves in the East and South China Sea prove that, like Russia, they believe the current structural foundation of a world policed by the United States and Western Europe is badly bruised. Other than the verbal disdain over Chinese strategy in the Senkaku Island dispute, Washington has been largely unresponsive to China’s direct violation of international law, especially as it pertains to the more recent moves (i.e. planting an oil rig in Vietnamese waters).  

Conclusion: The global powers in charge of the international state system are being directly challenged, and if the current trend of structural deterioration continues, we will see a shift to a much different world. The flourishing globalized economy is going to be effected if this current system is uprooted. The maintenance of an international network dominated by computers has not been kept up, and the threat of an attack in this channel is ever-increasing.

 

Macro Team