Weird     IR

John Bolton's recent appointment to National Security Advisor was among the most controversial personnel decisions that President Trump has made this year. And, that's saying a lot. 

We at Weird IR are watching this development with great interest. Not just because Bolton is now one of the most influential US foreign policymakers-- who will be steps away from the West Wing-- but also because his persona has been used by Iranian hackers to steal passwords and sensitive information from some of DC's elites. We covered this story in 2014, but you can revisit it here. In short: If John Bolton wants to connect with you on LinkedIn, tread carefully.

While we have you... did you know that our book is coming out soon? That's right! Weird IR: Deviant Cases in International Relations is hitting shelves in August. More information to follow. 

Recent convert to anti-migrant xenophobia and longtime perv Silvio Berlusconi is poised to become the next prime minister of Italy.

The guy whom Americans might know as the weirdo who gave Michelle Obama the creepy crawlies won big (but not too big) in yesterday's elections. If that's not enough, Silvio has been accused of multiple crimes, including bribing senators and soliciting underage prostitutes. His accomplishments include being a billionaire, presiding over Italy's decline in the global economy, and avoiding prison time. His interests are dominating Italian media and soccer. His turn-ons are well documented by court proceedings.

The man who was Trump before Trump had a perfectly Berlusconi-esque moment at the ballot box, when a topless protester stood from FEMEN stood on a desk and confronted the leader of Forza Italia for his many alleged crimes and indiscretions against women.

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but Phil and I have been hard at work on our new book. 

I just had to write a quick post about Mikheil Saakashvili, the former President of Georgia. If you're not familiar, he was a busy guy when he was in office. Among his accomplishments:

Spearheading the 2004 Rose Revolution, which brought democratic reforms to Georgia

Starting and then losing a war with Russia

Getting NATO's attention but never sealing the deal with membership

Losing control of his country's military

Hey, you win some and you lose some. That's life, right? Anyway, Saakashvili's turn to the weird side began when his second term as president ended. He spent some time in the United States, writing op-eds about how Russia sucks and teaching a few courses at the Fletcher School. One of those op-eds was a passionate defense of the Ukrainian government, which had just lost chunks of its territory to Russia. 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was so amped by Saakashvili's essay that he offered him citizenship. And the former Georgian President accepted it. At the time, he was under investigation for multiple crimes in Georgia, and relished the opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge, so to speak. Georgian law bans dual citizenship, so when Saakashvili took his Ukrainian citizenship, he gave up his Georgian citizenship.

The bromance between Poroshenko and Saakashvili lasted for a while. Saakashvili became the governor of Odessa oblast, a bizarre and unpredicted turn of events for everyone. Eventually, however, Poroshenko grew tired of Saakashvili's shit. Saakashvili lost his position in Poroshenko's government and did what any annoying privileged person would do-- he moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. From there, he began to coordinate an electoral challenge to Poroshenko's ruling party. 

He would also rail against Poroshenko's government, accusing it of widespread corruption. (As if Ukraine's government didn't have enough on its plate.) Eventually, enough was enough, and Ukraine stripped Saakashvili of his citizenship.

Thus, in late July 2017, Saakashvili became stateless. This is where the story gets really sketchy. By early August, he somehow got from the United States to Lithuania. He quickly hopped the border to Poland-- without credentials-- and tried to sneak into Ukraine. 

He was stopped, of course. Saakashvili remained trapped in Poland for a few more days, until he snuck onto a bus and made it into Ukraine. He spent a few weeks with loyalists, plotting his return to Kiev to confront his old political rivals. That never happened, though. Yesterday, a group of commandos grabbed Saakashvili while he was eating lunch and kicked his ass out of the country. As of this writing, he is in Poland, no doubt plotting another return. He might also want to find a passport while he's at it. 

Actually, never mind. He clearly doesn't need one. I've never seen a stateless person be so mobile in my life. Props, Mikheil.

Given the totality of the 2003 US-Iraq War and the ensuing occupation - the huge costs in lives, money, and resources on both sides, not to mention the loss of international prestige for the US - it's easy to forget all the strange events that preceded the US invasion. The event that people are most likely to remember from the lead-up to war is Sec of State Colin Powell presentation of fake evidence of Iraq seeking WMD to the UN. That was quite a doozy, so it's easy to see why it's so memorable.

But one short vignette that is unfortunately forgotten is Iraq's proposal to solve the US-Iraq dispute over WMD and Saddam's continuing rule by holding a duel. That's right, an old-school, Hamilton-and-Burr, man-to-man, ​armed confrontation between the leaders of the two countries. Unfortunately, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer rejected the proposal, replying that "there can be no serious response to an irresponsible statement like that."

Naturally, it would have been a much better way to avoid all those lost lives. But who would have won? On one hand, Saddam was a military man, and Bush had avoided the Vietnam War by joining the Texas Air National Guard. On the other hand, Bush was nine years younger than Saddam - Saddam was 66 in 2003, and Bush was 57.

Bush was a Texas rancher, used to pulling out his gun to deal with vermin to protect his livestock; Saddam had to deal with vermin to protect his hold on power. Saddam probably would have resorted to dirty tricks, but Bush's father probably taught him a thing or two about dirty tricks when he was the CIA chief. Saddam stood 186 cm, while Bush is 182, giving Saddam a small reach advantage. We'll never know!

The whole thing reminds me of one of the best music videos of the '80s: Frankie Goes to Hollywood's video for Two Tribes, which featured a Reagan look-alike wrestling against a Leonid Brezhnev look-alike. Maybe Saddam was a Frankie fan?

​China nominated two regional strongmen for its 2017 Confucius Peace Prize - President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia. The winner will be announced soon.

In case you're not aware, Duterte has instituted extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers and users, has sacked and undermined politicians who oppose him, and made light of the rape and murder of a nun. But he also pivoted to a friendlier, conciliatory foreign policy toward China in the past year, making him Beijing's man in Manila.

And Hun Sen has cracked down on the free press and the main opposition party in Cambodia, but he also enjoys a growing close relationship with China. He travels to Beijing to seek aid money, and in return he blocks anti-China statements on the South China Sea in ASEAN.

So China clearly equates peace with kissing ass. It's funny though that the case award for the Confucius Prize is only a measly $15,000, which is surprising for cash-abundant China. 

It should be noted that the recently deposed dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, who led his country to economic ruin and abused human rights throughout his long reign in power, was given the Confucius Prize in 2015. For some reason, he turned it down. I guess he thought the $15,000 prize was an insult as far as bribes go.

Malaysian police are now saying that Kim Jong-nam, the older half-brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un who was murdered at Kuala Lumpur Airport on Feb 13, 2017, was carrying vials of nerve gas antidote in his bags. Kim Jong-nam was accosted and poisoned with VX nerve gas by two women hired by North Korean intelligence (the women claim that they were hired to play a joke).

If  this is true, this would mean that Kim could have easily prevented his own murder. It was known that there was a standing order in the North Korean government to have Kim killed, so it could be possible that Kim was carrying the nerve gas antidote just for such an occasion. If so, then what an idiot. But what do you expect from someone who threw away inheriting his father's rule in order to try to sneak into Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland?

On the other hand, maybe he was carrying or smuggling the antidote on his person as part of a business venture - the guy had to make money after all - and he had no idea what he was carrying. But that's a pretty big coincidence. Hopefully, the news in the coming weeks will shed more light on this revelation.

(Note: given the current focus on Russia in the U.S. news, we thought this post from 2012 deserved a reposting)
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One of my former students wrote a great thesis for her Russian major on blat networks in Russia. What's blat, you ask?...it's the only way to get anywhere in the Russian business world. 

Blat networks have their origins in the Soviet era, when shortages of needed items were frequent. A blat consisted of networks of friends, relatives, and other contacts, who procured those hard to find items for you in exchange for whatever you can get your hands on. 

As the Soviet economy transitioned to a market economy, one that has been particularly marked by corruption, so the blat tradition has changed. As deeply embedded in Russian culture as it was, the blat way of doing business did not go away, it just transformed. Now, to do business in Russia, one must be tapped into a blat network. You want to open a new store, you better know the people who will let that happen: bureaucrats, laborers, local businessmen, etc. 

So, contrary to what we think about globalization and its power to break down obstacles for entry into new markets, the blat tradition in Russia ensures that barriers to foreign entry remain high. 

Ikea learned this the hard way. After trying to break into the newly opened Russian market for a decade, Ikea finally opened its first store in 2000. Ikea knew they had to make contacts at the official level: Ikea's founder for instance met with President  Vladimir  Putin. But Ikea didn't know how deeply their schmoozing would have to travel.

Just before the opening of one of their stores in Moscow, local officials cut off the electricity. Ikea officials deftly sidestepped this maneuver by purchasing and running their own generators. This led Ikea to place generators in all of their stores. It was only a little later however, that Ikea found out that they had paid about $200 million (U.S. dollars) for the generators, the result of local contractor some greasing of the palms of blat buddies. When Ikea tried to sue in Russian court, they were fined 5 million euros for their trouble.​
​

There are many other stories like this. When Ikea tried to open a store in Samara, they were delayed by local officials nine times, lasting in total over four year. The final complaint was that the store was not up to hurricane proof standards. Samara is not very close to any hurricane prone regions. 

Needless to say, Ikea had insufficient blat for their Russian business venture.
​

When I read my student's work on Ikea's troubles in Russia, it made me think of a bizarre episode in international business that took place back in 2005. Maybe the concept of blat can shed a light on why President Putin pocketed New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's 4.94 carat, 124 diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring.

This occurred during a meeting of major corporate CEOs with Putin, including execs from IBM, Intel, and Citigroup.  Putin admired Kraft's ring, so Kraft took it off and let Putin try it on. Putin admired it for a while, then took it off......and placed it in his own jacket pocket! Kraft tried to play it off later. Given our new knowledge of how business is done in Russia, it's likely that Putin thought the business leaders were paying the first of many costs for doing business in Russia. Better save some of that jewelry for the local electric utilities.
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​In the study of politics, there is a saying, “Where one stands depends on where one sits.” What is means is that your position on things depends on what position you hold. The textbook example of this is Colin Powell, whose job it was as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to represent the U.S. military in George HW Bush’s government, ensuring that the military was not misused or taken for granted. But as the Secretary of State under Bush 43, the head diplomat for the U.S., Powell’s mission changed to maintaining the primacy of the State Department’s in U.S. foreign policy (note: he didn’t do a very good job at this). 

​A more recent and glaring example of “Where one stands...” is former House Representative and current White House Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney. While in the House, Mulvaney was a member of both the hard-right House Tea Party Caucus and the Freedom Caucus and one of the fiercest deficit hawks. In his opinion, every budget he saw had too much spending and contributed too much to the budget deficit. 

Now that he is a new position however, as the Trump Administration’s Budget Director, Mulvaney is advocating for more deficits! He stated this on Fox News,  “We need to have more deficits.” He advocates for new spending and tax cuts that will add fo the deficit because, of course, he’s now a member of the executive branch. That’s quite a turn-around for a deficit hawk.

So now, trying to apply this principle to Weird IR, we present the current (and improbable) British Foreign Minister, Boris Johnson. The bumbling, Benny Hill-look alike and former mayor of London has been known to make racist, xenophobic comments and is a supporter of Brexit from the EU.

 
​Following our “Where one stands...” idea, we might think that becoming Foreign Minister – the highest ranking representative of the British government overseas– would tame Johnson’s overt xenophobia. While it does not mean he will turn into an opponent of Brexit, he should at least adopt a sympathetic and well, diplomatic, disposition which would permit the maintenance and betterment of British relations with other countries.
 
Well, FM Johnson has proved gone on to show that “Where one stands...” does not hold everywhere. In the last week, Johnson visited Myanmar, where upon ringing a large bell in an historic temple, he proceeded to recite a pro-colonialist Rudyard Kipling poem, “The Road to Mandalay” that waxed nostalgically about the good ol’ days of British Empire and belittled Eastern religions and customs. The British Ambassador to Myanmar Andrew Patrick had to stop him from continuing.

In May, he won The Spectator’s President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition, with this short ditty,
There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.
 
He then had to meet Erdogan in person four months later...
 
Another example comes from early October 2017. When speaking at a Conservative Party conference, Johnson started talking about the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, which has seen heavy fighting in Libya’s civil war. Johnson said of the city:
 
"I look at Libya, it's an incredible country. Bone-white sands, beautiful sea, Caesar's Palace, obviously, you know, the real one. Incredible place. It's got a real potential and brilliant young people who want to do all sorts of tech.
 
"There's a group of UK business people, actually, some wonderful guys who want to invest in Sirte on the coast, near where Gaddafi was captured and executed as some of you may have seen. They have got a brilliant vision to turn Sirte into the next Dubai...The only thing they have got to do is clear the dead bodies away."
 
Obviously, Johnson isn’t letting the demands of his office change his personality as a racist idiot.
 
And in a future installment on this theme, we’ll take a look at Johnson’s US counterpart, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (if he’s still in office).

Famed Japanese businessman and politician (and former pro wrestler) Antonio Inoki made news this week when he traveled to North Korea for five days to attend North Korea's Foundation and to conduct talks over NK's recent nuclear tests.

While in NK, Inoki met with Ri Su Yong, vice chairman of Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, to discuss the North's development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.. Ri served as the ambassador to Switzerland when NK leader Kim Jong Un was a student there, and is thought to have some influence. The pair only met for about one hour and 15 minutes though.

At a news conference at Haneda Airport upon his return, Inoki quoted Ri as saying (from an Asahi News article), "that North Korea will continue to experiment and raise (its weapons’) level even more as long as the United States and the international community continue to apply pressure upon the country."

We've blogged about retired basketball star Dennis Rodman's many pseudo-diplomatic trips to North Korea, but Inoki has been to North Korea nearly 30 times (!) to conduct diplomatic missions and cultural exchanges. Inoki has stated that he feels that diplomatic isolation is useless since cutting off communications can only worsen relations.

Inoki also is popular in the North. Not only did he train with Rikidozan, a famous Korean-Japanese wrestler who was the sport's top draw in the 1950s, but in 1995, he staged a major wrestling promotion in Pyongyang called the Collision in Korea, which drew a world record tv audience for a wrestling event. Inoki brought then-popular American wrestler Ric Flair for the main event match between Flair and himself.

​North Korea isn't the only dangerous place that Inoki has conducted his unofficial one-man diplomatic missions. In 1990, before the start of the Persian Gulf War, Inoki traveled to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein to successfully secure the release of 41 Japanese hostages being held by Iraq. He also managed to put on a wrestling event in Iraq during that time, as part of the hostage negotiation. A wrestling event and the release of hostages! Who else could have managed that feat?

If you've ever driven between the Brooklyn and Queens boroughs of NYC, then chances are that you've driven over Kościuszko Bridge. An old truss bridge, Kościuszko (opened in 1939) has been torn down over the last two months and replaced by a more modern construction. (Note: we found a second Kościuszko Bridge, also in New York State, located near Albany!).

The news about Kościuszko Bridge got us to thinking about another famous thing called Kościuszko, the 1984 song by the great politically-charged Australian rock band, Midnight Oil. That song was actually named after Mt. Kościuszko (of the Kościuszko National Park), located in New South Wales. Just who was this Kościuszko that he had such an influence in such different places? And how exactly do you pronounce his name?
​

Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko (1746-1817) was a Polish military officer who at the age of 30 traveled to the U.S. upon hearing about the War of Independence. Since the Continental Army desperately needed trained officers, he was given a commission as a colonel and sent to help northern military campaign against the British in upstate New York. Given his training as an engineer, Kościuszko designed fortifications at Fort Ticonderoga and West Point, and helped win the Battle of Saratoga (Oct 1777). After 1780, Kościuszko spent the rest of the war in the southern colonies where he served as the chief engineer for the southern branch of the Continental Army. 

After his seven years of service (for which he was never paid!), Kościuszko left the U.S. with the rank of brigadier general to return to Poland. In 1789, he commissioned as a major general in the Polish army and fought against the Russians in the 1792 Polish-Russian War. Despite proving his brilliance on the battlefield, the war was a lost cause and Poland was broken up once again by Prussia and Russia in the Second Partition of Poland (1793). Kościuszko started an uprising against the Russians and Prussians, which saw success until his capture by Russian forces.

Aside from his military and engineering prowess, Kościuszko is famous for his early abolitionist position. His view on human rights and democratic governance are what drove him to fight for American independence and become friends with Thomas Jefferson. His will asked that his estates be sold and the money used to purchase the freedom of black slaves, though this was never accomplished, despite court cases that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 19th century Polish explorer Paul Edmund de Strzelecki named Mt Kościuszko, the tallest mountain in Australia, after him because he noted the mountain's similarity to Kościuszko's famous burial mound back in Krakow.