Category Archives: Arsenal Pulse

Brief thoughts and mini-analyses on stories in the news.

France: Back to Africa

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From the BBC’s West Africa analyst, Paul Melly, today:

Central African Republic crisis: Another French intervention?
A fresh crisis in Africa – and once again French troops are on their way. This time around 1,000 extra soldiers are heading to the Central African Republic (CAR) to restore order after a rebel takeover. They will supplement the 400 odd French troops already on the ground in the country.

So what’s new? Is this just a case of Paris once again acting as gendarme in a former sub-Saharan colony?

Are we back to the days when the famously influential Jacques Foccart acted as Africa adviser in the Elysee Palace and French paratroops made and unmade governments, protecting allies – some of them deeply unsavoury – and displacing supposed troublemakers?

[…]

But the temptation to reach for old history should be resisted. We are not in the 1970s. Africa has changed. And so has France.

This piece is a very solid and detailed look at the major shift in Africa policy undertaken by the Socialists during the 1990s and then again since 2012. Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative from the UMP, also made contributions in the same direction — but his less diplomatic approach toward interventions angered many African leaders, whereas François Hollande works closely with regional leaders to get their approval prior to going into Mali, earlier this year.

Sarkozy’s biggest achievement, however, was crucial: ending France’s official support for “incumbent regimes” in Africa friendly toward France. Now, bad is bad and no dictators are automatically safe.

Further background on the situation in the Central African Republic: AFD Episode 65 and Episode 60.

Edison Rising: The Return of Direct Current

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For all the complaining about what a burden the German government’s energiewende policy (total denuclearization of the country’s power generation) is, we’re already seeing long-term benefits of forcing the power industry’s hand. Without having been pressed into getting creative, German engineers might have indefinitely put off critical research in power grid transmission upgrades, which are needed all over the world. This research & testing is already showing some of the improvement theories work in practice — and expand total grid capacity dramatically. Everyone stands to gain from this R&D.

 

Related News Clipping (Economist.com):

The decision, taken in 2011, to close down Germany’s nuclear power stations risks leaving parts of the country with insufficient electricity. This will have to be brought in from elsewhere. But to do that seems, on the face of things, to require the building of new transmission lines, which will be unpopular with those they pass by. One alternative is to make better use of existing lines.

Read the rest.

Cameroon repels major CAR rebel incursion

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From BBC Africa: Cameroon ‘repels CAR gun attack’…

Cameroon’s army has repelled a cross-border raid by gunmen from the Central African Republic (CAR), killing six of the attackers and capturing one of them, the defence ministry says.

A soldier and a villager were also killed in the clashes on Saturday, it said.

 
What this headline and blurb don’t say is that the total number of attackers was estimated to be four hundred. It’s believed the rebel group crossed the border in an effort to free their captured leader, who had previously been arrested by the government in Cameroon because he was trying to destabilize the Central African Republic from within their territory.

Basically, Cameroon doesn’t even have time for your mess, CAR.

Australia was spying on Indonesia

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New NSA/Five Eyes-related revelations in the Guardian: “Australia tried to monitor Indonesian president’s phone”

I’m not really surprised to find out the Australian government was spying on senior leadership in Indonesia. I think I’d be more surprised to learn they were definitely NOT.

That being said, the new jackass Prime Minister had a pretty weak response, besides incorrectly (see below) brushing it off as the work of the other party from whom he just took power. The government’s primary excuse? Australia’s activities were not so much “spying” as “research” [and] “We use the information that we gather for good, including to build a stronger relationship with Indonesia.”

Oh ok then. So you just needed to hack phones to find out their pets’ names or … what?

I really enjoy this “research” for better relations excuse. I mean, it’s seriously like saying Australia was just trying to Facebook-creep on Indonesia to see if Indonesia was “in a relationship” with anybody. 

And about the claim that this is all the other party’s fault? The docs show the spying on Indonesia actually started the very day the previous PM from his party left office, meaning their own party would have been in office when it was planned, even if Labor technically had taken office by the time it began.

Is the new UN Congo mission working?

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Tough to assess, but there’s a big reason to be skeptical of the progress they can make. The math.

With the stepped-up and increasingly militarized United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, launched earlier this year, there are now 19,000 UN troops on the ground. That still only works out to per capita coverage of about 47 square miles per soldier. For comparison, the U.S. alone brought 148,000 troops in 2003 to invade Iraq, a nation less than one fifth the size of the DRC. It’s unclear how many troops the DRC government has under its command at any given point, but on the low end they only have 144k troops, most of which aren’t particularly useful or competent at securing the peace.

African Al Qaeda now more funded by Europe than Persian Gulf

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In the past ten years, the GSPC/Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has made an estimated $116 million in ransom money. They now get more money from Europe than from the traditional source of Persian Gulf terror financiers.

I’m not a hardliner who says “we should never negotiate with terrorists” — never say never — but we’ve got to stop buying back prisoners for huge amounts of money. I can’t imagine how terrible it must be for them and their families, but that is an awful lot of money going to terrorists for financing and arming insurgencies all over Africa. A lot more innocent people will die because of all these ransom payments — and probably more people will be kidnapped.

Shutdown Myth 2: The Debt Ceiling Can Stop Spending

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Reality: The debt ceiling is a limitation set by Congress (originally in World War I) on the executive branch’s ability to borrow money to pay for expenses Congress has already authorized. Failure to raise the debt limit does not prevent these authorized expenditures happening because the executive branch is constitutionally required to spend the money Congress has ordered to be spent. Instead the executive branch is forced to attempt to borrow more money while halting re-payments on existing debt. This wouldn’t work very well and the world financial markets would go into a panic, since it’s tantamount to the government of the largest economy filing for bankruptcy, i.e. inability to pay creditors (while still trying to buy things!). Again, no new money is being spent when the ceiling is raised so this doesn’t somehow rein in the spending. It’s merely a cap on the ability to borrow to pay for expenditures Congress already directed the executive branch to make. It’s an idiotic device to have in place outside of the wartime blank-check appropriation context for which it was created. But as long as it exists, Congress needs to vote to raise it. It shouldn’t be subject to negotiation, because there’s nothing to negotiate.