Politics and Government

The U.S. and Iowa state flags fly at a rally for Mitt Romney in West Des Moines on December 30, 2011. (Brian Snyder/courtesy Reuters) Above the Fold. As the Roy Schneider character says at the start of All That Jazz, “Showtime!” After months of speeches, innumerable cable news interviews, hundreds of polls, a dizzying array of attack ads, and more than a dozen debates, we will finally learn what voters think when Iowan Republicans caucus next Tuesday night. (Who thought it was a good idea to schedule the caucus opposite the start of the All State Sugar Bowl? Thank goodness the Iowa Hawkeyes are playing in the Insight Bowl tonight. Otherwise, no one would show up for the caucuses.) If Mitt Romney wins big, the race will likely be over before it has really begun. He is a heavy favorite to win New Hampshire, and momentum builds on itself. But if Romney only ekes out a victory or finishes behind Ron Paul, something that the polls suggest is possible if not likely, the race could drag on for a while. The GOP has taken a page out of the Democratic playbook this year and allowed states to drop winner-takes-all rules and instead award delegates in proportion to the votes each candidates win. So struggling candidates could stay in the race longer. Whatever the results of next Tuesday night’s vote, one thing know for certain is that there will be a spate of stories and blog posts over the next month lamenting that a small, largely rural state that is 95 percent white (actually, 91.3 percent) has such an outsize impact on our presidential selection. The merits of that argument can wait for another time. For now I have to confess that I will miss all the attention being paid to Iowa. I spent eleven wonderful years there, so it’s a trip down memory lane to see places like Ankeney, Pella, Graettinger, Council Bluffs, and Waterloo in the news. Thank you Iowans for enduring more campaign ads and robo calls than any state should have to bear. And don’t worry. Despite all the kvetching about the cold and the corn, the candidates (and the journalists) will be back in 2015, if not sooner. CFR Event of the Week. CFR has (quite sensibly) been on a holiday schedule this week, which means no events. So I dug into the archives to come up with one of my favorite CFR events of 2011, a visit from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Army (Ret.) back in October. He sat down with legendary news anchor Tom Brokaw to discuss where things stood in Afghanistan ten years after the war began. McChrystal noted that the United States continues to face difficulties in creating a stable and legitimate Afghan government, and he said that “we still don’t know enough” about Afghan culture and history. The problems the general cites haven’t gone away in the past three months, and they are likely to bedevil U.S. efforts going forward to draw down its forces in Afghanistan while creating a stable government. You can download the audio of the talk to listen at the gym, watch the video below, or read the transcript. http://youtu.be/zBX_D80_oFQ Click here to view this video on YouTube. Read of the Week. 2011 may be best remembered as the year in which all the world got to see how dysfunctional Washington politics has become. Tea Party Republicans bitterly resisted the move to raise the national debt ceiling even though they themselves voted for a budget plan that would have run deficits for years to come. The outcome of the game of chicken between Democrats and Republicans was a few modest spending cuts and a deal to dump the problem in the lap of a congressional super committee. The result was the first-ever downgrade of the U.S. credit rating and three months of news stories asking if the super committee could save the day. It didn’t. Given that U.S. economic growth isn’t emulating China’s, that means, as Stacy Kaper and Catherine Hollander point out in the National Journal, that we could witness another debt ceiling debate next fall as we head into the election season. Ugh. Blog Post of the Week. Last week Stephen Walt blasted Matt Kroenig’s call in the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs for the United States to attack Iran. This week Steve offered Matt a chance to respond, and he did. Of course, when you post a rebuttal on someone else’s blog you are inviting them to return fire, which Steve did. You can be the judge of who has the better of the argument. Either way, I will put aside my general aversion to making predictions to predict that we will all be hearing a lot about the Iran issue—and the arguments and counterarguments that Steve and Matt make—in 2012. Poll Question of the Week. Are you optimistic about 2012? If so, you are in the majority. An Associated Press-GFK poll done in mid-December found that 62 percent of Americans are optimistic about what 2012 will bring for the country, while 36 percent are pessimistic. Is this a good omen? Perhaps not. A year ago 58 percent of Americans thought that 2011 would be better than 2010. Yet, as 2011 wraps up, 54 percent of Americans think that 2011 was a bad year overall for the country. Chart of the Week. So what was the top story in the American news media in 2011? No surprise here: the faltering U.S. economy. What may be surprising is that the Middle East uprisings come in second. (I thought it would have been Kim Kardashian’s wedding-honeymoon-divorce saga for sure.) Don’t be surprised if both economics and the Middle East dominate the news in 2012. The U.S. economic recovery faces strong head winds, most notably from the eurozone crisis. And the troubles in Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, and elsewhere in the Arab world aren’t going to be resolved soon. Chart source: Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Too Good Not to Note. If you just can’t let go of 2011, CFR.org has more than a few things for you. It begins with a Year in Review Issue Guide, includes Eleven World-Shaking Developments in 2011, adds Eleven Foreign Policy Insights from my colleagues, and offers up an Issue Guide on the Arab Spring One Year On. If you prefer to look forward rather than back, CFR.org had five top economists identify what they see as the critical economic trends in 2012. Robert Danin flags the ten most significant developments in the Middle East in 2011. Sheila Smith looks back at a tough year for Japan. Micah Zenko has his top government quotes of 2011. Richard Haass thinks that the greatest threat to China lies inside the Middle Kingdom and not outside it. Adam Davidson asks whether China will outsmart the United States. Sean Goforth reports that Latin America’s two largest economies had very different experiences in 2011. Coral Davenport examines the unfortunate coupling of Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz with the call to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Nate Silver assesses the Santorum surge in Iowa. Matt Bai looks at Newt Gingrich’s glory days, which may come to an end next week at the Iowa caucuses. CATO offers a handy guide to the GOP presidential candidates’ proposals for cutting spending. Megan McArdle waits until after all the Christmas and Hanukkah presents are bought to tell us we need to save more. Perils of Prediction. "[M]y judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it." Sen. John Kerry, March 16, 2011. Things have not gone as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hoped. The Assad regime has rejected reform and dug in its heels. More than 5,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting so far. Quote to Ponder. “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” Thomas Jefferson A Reason to Smile. The Sugar Bowl.

Post by James M. Lindsay December 30, 2011 The Water's Edge

Guest Post: Kate Collins on Five Hot Spots to Watch in Africa in 2012

Children show burnt election ballots outside a polling station in Kinshasa on November 29, 2011. (Emmanuel Braun/courtesy Reuters) In recent months, the news out of sub-Saharan Africa has often been positive. The International Monetary Fund projects 5.8 percent growth for the region in 2012. That’s not bad, especially when compared with a projected 1.3 percent average growth rate for advanced economies. The Economist followed up with a story arguing that Africa has “a real chance to follow in the footsteps of Asia.” But the continent still confronts old demons of political violence and instability. I asked my assistant, Kate Collins, to identify what potential conflicts in Africa should be on our radar screens for 2012. Here is what she had to say: Africa’s economic prospects make it a good place today for optimists, but as Jim points out, a number of security headaches threaten to turn from bad to worse in 2012. Five potential hot spots stand out. Will Congo Spiral into Civil War? Since the Democratic Republic of Congo’s second ever quasi-democratic vote on November 28, the country has been staring at the possibility of a return to civil war. The fighting that gripped Congo from 1998 through 2003 was the most deadly conflict since World War II, involving nine nations and twenty different armed groups. Last month’s election, held in the world’s least-developed country, was marked by violence and fraud. According to the nation’s election authorities, Joseph Kabila, president since 2001, won with a plurality of votes in a field crowded with eleven candidates. His most popular rival, Étienne Tshisekedi, promptly denounced the results, declaring himself president. Last week, Kabila was sworn in at a heavily guarded ceremony while riot police patrolled the capitol city. A few days later Tshisekedi held his own inauguration, during which government security forces reportedly killed eight of his supporters. The stand-off continues, and the situation in Kinshasa is tense. Kabila has the support of the nation’s security forces and political elite, while Tshisekedi has an angry and large following in the streets of Kinshasa—a city of ten million. Tshisekedi has called on the security forces to abandon Kabila; so far, they show no signs of doing so. If Tshisekedi’s supporters continue to riot without the support of any militias, we will see heavy protester casualties in Congo’s urban centers. If, however, organized militias or even parts of the security apparatus abandon Kabila, Congo may be headed back into war. What Next for Somalia? Somalia bled anew this year with a devastating famine and fresh skirmishes between the al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist group fighting for control of Somalia, and the weak transitional government’s African Union backers. This fall, Kenya used the repeated incursions into its territory by Somali fighters and bandits to justify invading its northern neighbor. Kenya wants to rout al-Shabab, which it considers a “clear and present danger,” and to bring stability to a land that has been a failed state for more than twenty years. The Kenyan invasion weakened al-Shabab; it has been pushed pushed back from the Kenyan border and is resorting to guerrilla tactics. Somalia, however, does not look to be any closer to stability. Kenya’s invasion promoted Ethiopia to reenter Somalia to assert its own interests, stirring memories of Ethiopia’s failed 2006 invasion that ultimately left al-Shabab in power. So Somalia, a Muslim-majority country, now has not one but two Christian invaders. The fundamentalist sentiment that put al-Shabab in power in the first place is on the rise and other militant groups are filling gaps in the power structure. Even if al-Shabab is gone come 2013, it is unlikely that Somalia will be any closer to a peaceful and prosperous future. What If Sudan Invades South Sudan? The South Sudanese people rejoiced this summer when they formed an independent nation and seceded from Sudan after decades of brutal civil war. Despite the historic change and break with the African Union’s traditional aversion to redrawing borders, the formal separation was largely peaceful. That said, numerous security issues remain unresolved and have the potential to reignite a broader conflict. Particular areas of contention are the status of oil-rich Abyei and the continued presence of pro-South Sudan forces in the Sudanese states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. For the most part, the conflict over these regions has not gone beyond name calling between Juba and Khartoum. However, in November, Sudan complained to the UN Security Council that South Sudan continues to support rebels inside Sudan, and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir accused Sudan of plotting an invasion. Should the conflict between the neighbors escalate into another war, what will the United States do? The Bush administration played a crucial role in negotiating the peace agreement that led to South Sudan’s independence, and some worry that the Obama administration has not been sufficiently engaged in the peace process. Will Islamist Violence in Nigeria Spread? Though Nigeria made it through a harrowing political transition after the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010 and a relatively fair presidential election in 2011, its domestic turmoil is far from over. Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, has an ugly history of sectarian violence, and a third of its population is both young and underemployed. Boko Haram made international headlines last summer with its bombing of the UN headquarters in Abuja. Over the Christmas holiday, Boko Haram launched another high-profile attack, killing thirty-two people in bombings of churches. There are signs that the violence stoked by Boko Haram is devolving into all-out sectarian conflict. Just yesterday, a madrasa in southern Nigeria was bombed. CFR’s John Campbell observes that Boko Haram may be increasingly identifying Christianity with the national government, and U.S. guarantees of assistance to Abuja put both nations at risk of attacks. To stay on top of this story, follow John’s blog “Africa in Transition,” where he is sure to continue covering Nigeria’s complex politics. Will Ugandan and U.S. Forces Bring Down Kony? President Obama notified Congress in October that he had sent about one hundred armed military advisers to central Africa to help the Ugandan Army capture or kill Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Kony is wanted by The Hague on numerous war crimes and is blamed for the deaths of more than 30,000 people. U.S. troops are primarily providing logistical support out of Uganda, but they have also set up a frontline base in the Central African Republic. Kony’s foes face a tough battle. Though the LRA has been reduced to about 300 fighters, they are hidden deep within central Africa’s jungles, which lack even the most basic infrastructure. The fight has now focused in on a 500 km area in the Central African Republic that has not a single road. Previous Ugandan efforts to root out Kony with American help have backfired in the bloodiest of ways. Despite the risks and challenges, U.S. troops are likely to remain in the region until Kony is gone. Hopefully 2012 will bring good news for the people of central Africa who have lived under the menace of the LRA for more than twenty years.

Post by Guest Blogger for James M. Lindsay December 29, 2011 The Water's Edge

Politics and Government

Ten Who Will Be Missed

A worker installs some of the 288 new Waterford crystals on the Times Square New Year's Eve Ball. (Mike Segar/courtesy Reuters) Year’s end is time for taking stock, to count up successes and assess failures. It is also time to remember those who are no longer with us. Here are ten people who made a significant mark on the American foreign policy debate who died this past year. Warren Christopher (b. 1925) served as secretary of state during Bill Clinton’s first term. Christopher served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II, clerked on the Supreme Court, had a successful career as a lawyer in private practice, and served as deputy attorney general at the end of the Johnson administration. He served as deputy secretary of state throughout the Carter administration; his greatest success was negotiating for the release of the fifty-two American hostages held in Iran. As secretary of state, Christopher also oversaw the signing of the 1995 Dayton accords, although much of the credit for the achievement went to assistant secretary Richard Holbrooke. Lawrence Eagleburger (b. 1930) was the sixty-second secretary of state. He replaced James Baker as secretary of state in August 1992 on an acting basis after President George H.W. Bush convinced Baker to take over his reelection campaign. Eagleburger held the “acting” title until December 8, 1992, when President Bush made him secretary of state with a recess appointment. Eagleburger’s fifty-three days as secretary of state is the second shortest tenure ever. (The shortest was for eleven days.) Eagleburger was a career foreign service officer (FSO) whose posts included ambassador to Yugoslavia. He was the first FSO ever to become secretary of state. William Eagleton (b. 1926) served for forty-two years as an FSO, becoming one of the State Department’s leading Middle East experts along the way. Eagleton joined the Foreign Service after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was posted across the Middle East, eventually serving as chief U.S. diplomat in Algeria, Libya, and Iraq, U.S. ambassador to Syria, and for six years as deputy commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). After leaving the Foreign Service, Eagleton worked at the United Nations as the Special Coordinator for Sarajevo and then Director of UN Operations in Western Sahara. In 2003, he rejoined the State Department to serve as Special Adviser for Northern Iraq. Eagleton was an expert on the Kurds and wrote a highly regarded book on Kurdish rugs. Christopher Hitchens (b. 1949) was a polemicist par excellence who wrote on such varied subjects as the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, his personal experience with waterboarding, and his militant atheism. Hitchens was born in Britain but moved to the United States as an adult and became an American citizen. He wrote widely and often, and especially for publications like The Nation and Vanity Fair. Foreign policy was a frequent topic. He wrote The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, and The Enemy among other books. Hitchens, who began his career as a leftist, is perhaps best known in foreign policy circles for his adamant support of the Iraq war and for popularizing the term “Isalmofascism.” Mark Hatfield (b. 1922) served as U.S. senator from Oregon from 1967 to 1996. He is best remembered by Americans of a certain age for his opposition to the Vietnam War, a position that put him at odds with his fellow Republican, President Richard Nixon. He also co-sponsored a nuclear freeze resolution in the early 1980s, a stance that won him fans with a younger generation of Americans. Hatfield served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He was a college professor and administrator before serving two terms as Oregon’s governor. Hatfield remains the longest-serving Oregon senator in history. Bayless Manning (b 1923) was the first full-time president of the Council on Foreign Relations. During his service in the Army during World War II, he helped break the Japanese naval code. After graduating first in his class from Yale Law School, Manning clerked for the Supreme Court. He later returned to Yale, and then became Dean of the Stanford Law School. He published pioneering work on corporate law and legal ethics. Manning coined the term “intermestic” to describe the growth of issues that crossed traditional foreign and domestic policy lines. The term never really caught on, but it aptly described (long before most people recognized it) one of the fundamental realities of a globalized, interconnected world. Charles Percy (b. 1919) was a three-time U.S. senator from Illinois and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1981 to 1985. Percy was something of a boy wonder. He became president of Bell & Howell, a manufacturer of motion picture equipment, at the age of 29. A liberal Republican, Percy was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1966. He often was at odds with Richard Nixon; in 1973 he sponsored a Senate resolution, which was unanimously adopted, demanding that Nixon appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the Watergate scandal. He tried to champion a bipartisan foreign policy during his tenure as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, telling the Chicago Tribune: "I don’t want foreign policy developed just by one party and ride roughshod over the other party." Percy narrowly lost his bid for a fourth term in 1984 to Paul Simon. John Shalikashvili (b. 1936) was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997. Born in Poland to Georgian refugees, he became the first person born overseas to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Drafted into the Army a few months after he became an American citizen, Shalikashvili also became the first draftee to rise to the military’s top spot. Shalikashvili’s many positions in the U.S. Army included supreme allied commander for NATO and commander of all U.S. armed forces in Europe. After retiring from the military, Shalikashvili made headlines for changing his mind on “don’t ask don’t tell,” a policy he supported as chairman. Sargent Shriver (b. 1915) was the founding director of the Peace Corps and President John Kennedy’s brother-in-law. Shriver initially opposed U.S. entry into World War II, and he helped found the America First Committee at Yale Law School. After Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for the Navy. After the war he met and married Eunice Kennedy, John Kennedy’s sister. After Kennedy’s assassination, Shriver remained in politics, helping President Johnson craft the “War on Poverty” and the Office of Economic Opportunity. He served as ambassador to France at the end of the Johnson administration. Shriver was the vice presidential candidate on George McGovern’s 1972 presidential ticket, and he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 1976. Howard Wolpe (b. 1939) was a seven-term Democratic representative for Michigan who is best remembered for being the lead sponsor of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which placed sanctions on American companies that did business in South Africa and helped end white-only rule in Pretoria. (The Anti-Apartheid Act is the last significant piece of foreign policy legislation to be passed over a presidential veto.) When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, four years after the bill passed, one of his first calls was to Wolpe to say thank you. Trained as a political scientist, Wolpe chaired the Subcommittee on Africa for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and remained involved in Africa issues after his retirement from the House in 1992. During the Clinton administration, Wolpe was a Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region, working to end the civil wars in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Post by James M. Lindsay December 28, 2011 The Water's Edge

Defense and Security

Friday File: Three Good News Stories—Latin America, Burma, and HIV/AIDS Prevention

The headquarters of Brazil's central bank in Brasilia. (Ueslei Marcelino/courtesy Reuters) Above the Fold. The newspapers spread across my desk are a sea of bad news. Iraq looks to be descending once again into sectarian warfare. Portable surface-to-air missiles are unaccounted for in Libya. A twenty-something now controls a nuclear arsenal. The eurozone crisis persists, leaving a dark cloud over the entire global economy. I could go on. But I won’t. It’s two days before Christmas and the fourth night of Hanukkah. Some good news is needed. Here are three trends that run counter to the steady diet of bad news. First, Latin America has thus far bucked the tough economic winds that have buffeted the rest of the global economy. The region’s GDP grew at nearly 6 percent last year, and the percentage of the population living in poverty has fallen from a peak of 48 percent in 1990 to 30 percent today. Second, to the surprise of most experts, Burma’s political opening looks to be genuine. The new government has freed political prisoners, relaxed censorship rules, and openly talked with the political opposition. Third, progress is being made in the battle against HIV. UNAIDs reports that the global incidence of HIV infections has stabilized and even begun to decline. One reason is advancements in antiretroviral drugs. A research study concluded this past May that antiretroviral drugs not only help manage AIDS but also prevent its spread. (Science magazine named the study the “Breakthrough of the Year.”) And here’s a bonus piece of good news: an eight-year old Indonesian girl who was swept away by the horrific December 26, 2004 tsumani was re-united with her family this week. My fingers are crossed that 2012 brings many more good news stories. CFR Event of the Week. Kim Jong-Il’s death was the big foreign policy news this week. My colleagues Scott A. Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies, and Paul B. Stares, General John Vessey senior fellow for conflict prevention, sat down for a media conference call to discuss what Kim’s death means for the two Koreas and U.S. policy in the region. You can listen to the audio here, or read the transcript here. Read of the Week. Matthew Kroenig, an assistant professor at Georgetown University who is spending the year at CFR as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow, writes in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs (which by the way is a must-read) that a military attack on Iran is the least bad option in stopping Iran’s nuclear program. I come down on the containment side of this debate, and scholars like Daniel Drezner and Stephen Walt have already penned sharp (perhaps excessively so) criticisms of Matt’s argument. Nonetheless, it will get a lot of attention—don’t be surprised when GOP presidential candidates start waving copies of Foreign Affairs on the campaign trail. The question of whether to attack Iran could become the issue of 2012. So read Matt’s piece and decide for yourself how much of a gamble it would be to exercise the military option. Blog Post of the Week. Fred Kaplan observes that we know little about North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, which is why the North Korean transition is so scary. Poll Question of the Week. In case you were wondering, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the United States. Gallup calculates based on more than 325,000 interviews that 52.5 percent of Americans are Protestant, 23.6 percent are Catholic, 1.9 percent are Mormon, 1.6 percent are Jewish, and 0.5 percent are Muslim. Slightly more than one in seven Americans say they are atheists or agnostics. Chart of the Week. Let’s stick with the Christianity theme. A century ago, more than nine in ten of the world’s Christians lived in either Europe or the Americas. Today, Europe and the Americas account for slightly more than six in ten of the world’s Christians. One in four live in sub-Saharan Africa, and one in eight live in Asia. (About half the world’s Christians are Catholic, slightly more than a third Protestant, and a twelfth Orthodox.) The changing face of Christendom reflects both differing demographic trends around the world—Europe’s population has grown much more slowly than any other region in the world—and active efforts by Christian churches to proselytize. In all, there are about 2.2 billion Christians around the world, making it the most widely practiced religion. (Islam is the second most widely practiced religion, with an estimated 1.6 billion practitioners.) How do I know all this? Because the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released an impressive study this week that looks at the size and distribution of the world’s Christian population. May they all have a Merry Christmas. Chart Source: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Too Good Not to Note. Richard Haass notes that 2011 was a dangerous year for the world’s bad guys. Steven Cook thinks that things are spinning out of control in Egypt and that the military is not the only one to blame. Robert Danin offer his impressions from a recent visit to Jerusalem of what Israelis and Palestinians are thinking. Sheila Smith looks back at the year of “triple disasters” in Japan. Michael Moran picks out the winners and losers one year into the Arab uprisings. John Lee Anderson says that we are not going to get a “decent interval” after the U.S. departure from Iraq before things start to unravel. Toby Jones thinks that the United States should withdraw from the entire Middle East. Scott Clement asks whether Republican voters are as worried about Iran and radical Islam as their presidential candidates are. Jeff Madrick has his list of the ten worst economic ideas of 2011. Perils of Prediction. "Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people." Hillary Clinton, January 25, 2011. As both we and Secretary Clinton now know, January 25 marks the start of the uprising that swept Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak from power. Quote to Ponder. “Older generations are living proof that younger generations can survive their lunacy.” Cullen Hightower A Reason to Smile. Christmas lights

Post by James M. Lindsay December 23, 2011 The Water's Edge

The World Next Year: 2012 Edition

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong use umbrellas to write "2012" (courtesy Reuters). Bob McMahon and I sat down for our usual weekly podcast session but with a twist. Rather than discussing what’s on the horizon for next week, we talked about how things look to be shaping up for 2012. We discussed the transition of government leaders across the globe; the ascent of political Islam after the Arab uprisings; the continuing economic turmoil in Europe and elsewhere; the looming crises of governance across the globe; the frayed U.S.-Pakistan relationship; and the possible emergence of Africa. [audio: http://i.cfr.org/content/publications/media/podcast/2011/20111216_TWTY.mp3] The highlights: 2012 is a presidential election year in the United States and France, and neither Barack Obama nor Nicolas Sarkozy are shoe-ins to be reelected. China, Russia, and Mexico are among the countries that we know will undergo leadership transitions. The fact that so many countries are in the midst of potential or actual leadership transitions will complicate diplomacy around the world. New leaders are likely to seek to consolidate power before tackling tough issues, and leaders up for reelection will likely shy away from decisions that could cost them domestic political support. The uprisings that shook the Arab world in 2012 created new political opportunities in places like Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, but they did not magically wave away longstanding economic challenges. Meanwhile, the Assad regime in Syria teeters on the brink, and the potential remains for political unrest to spread elsewhere in the region. 2011 was a forgettable year in economics. The major issue was the eurozone crisis, which shows no signs of abating. Should Europe’s financial problems intensify, the repercussions will likely spread well beyond its borders and could trigger economic and security crises elsewhere around the globe. The crisis of governance that was visible around the world in 2011 will likely continue into 2012. Governments are caught between high public expectations on the one hand and what they are able to deliver on the other. The result has been growing public disenchantment that has no obvious outlet. The successful raid by U.S. Navy Seals on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan last May highlighted just how problematic the U.S.-Pakistan relationship has become. Washington will try to repair relations with Islamabad in 2012. Don’t be surprised if that effort fails. One wild card that could scramble everything is a terrorist attack on India that originates in Pakistan. Most discussions about Africa involve violent conflict and humanitarian disaster. While some of those problems persist across the continent, there is also good news to watch in 2012: a growing middle class, better governance, and improved infrastructure. Bob’s Figure of the Year is Angela Merkel. My Figure of the Year is $14.3 trillion. Listen to the podcast to find out why. Of course, December is the time for “best of” and “top ten” lists. Time has the top ten everything of 2011. Yahoo picks the top news stories of 2011. CFR.org picks eleven world-shaking developments in 2011. Booz Allen identifies what it sees as the top ten cyber security trends for financial services in 2012. The Institute for Human Rights and Business has its top ten business and human rights issues. Joshua Keating lists the ten worst predictions for 2011, thereby saving me some time in compiling the Friday File. Thank you, Joshua. The New York Times Book Review names the top ten books of 2011, some of which I have read. The Atlantic.com has the most important economic graphs of the year and what films to look forward to in 2012. Frommer’s has its top travel destinations in 2012. (Curacao sounds mighty appealing right about now.) BaseballInstinct.com lists the Boston Red Sox’s top ten prospects in 2012, one or more of whom will eventually break my heart. That’s the only prediction I know I will get right. Bob and I are taking a break next week from podcast duties. We will be back on January 5. In the meantime, we wish you and yours a safe and happy holidays.

Post by James M. Lindsay December 23, 2011 The Water's Edge