Political Analysis : Top 10 Global Issues in 2015

By Adnan Khan

There were a num­ber of events in 2014 that affected global pol­i­tics. Such as the bat­tle for Ukraine, the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the global econ­omy strug­gling to grow and the rever­sal of the Arab spring to name a few. With this in mind, Rev­o­lu­tion Observer high­lights 10 global issues that deserve the atten­tion of the polit­i­cal observer for the year 2015.

1. Egypt Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tions – The Arab spring has been com­pletely reversed in Egypt. Abdel Fat­tah al-Sisi, as the sole can­di­date in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in May 2014, insti­tu­tion­alised his posi­tion as dic­ta­tor of Egypt. In the midst of eco­nomic tur­moil par­lia­men­tary elec­tions will be held from Feb­ru­ary 2014 – March 2014. Sisi and the mil­i­tary need to find a replace­ment for the defunct for­mer rul­ing National Demo­c­ra­tic Party. Two camps will be the pri­mary forces par­tic­i­pat­ing for this. The first camp is the al-Nour Party, which came in sec­ond place behind the Mus­lim broth­er­hood in the 2011-12 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, but has sided with Sisi all the way. The sec­ond camp is the country’s highly frag­mented anti-Islamic camp. There is also an effort to form a cen­trist coali­tion led by for­mer Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader and pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Abdel Mon­eim Aboul Fotouh, who is try­ing to gather other mod­er­ate forces.

2. Uzbek­istan Elec­tions - In March 2014 Islam Kari­mov made con­sti­tu­tional changes trans­fer­ring many of his pow­ers to the Uzbek par­lia­ment and the Prime Minister’s posts. How­ever inter­nal dis­putes within his own fam­ily and clans in the coun­try are get­ting big­ger as there are no clear suc­ces­sors to Kari­mov. Islam Kari­mov is now 75 years old and is aging and suf­fered a severe heart attack on 19th March 2013. His health prob­lems have con­tributed to com­pe­ti­tion among dif­fer­ent clans. Inves­ti­ga­tions into his daugh­ter, Gul­nara Kari­mova, by the Swedish author­i­ties due to cor­rup­tion charges has been deeply embar­rass­ing for Kari­mov and the signs all point to Kari­mov los­ing con­trol. With elec­tions due in Decem­ber 2015 it remains to be seen if Kari­mov really gives up power.

3. Turk­ish Gen­eral Elec­tions - Turkey will head to the polls in June 2015 to elect 550 new mem­bers of the coun­tries grand assem­bly. A major­ity of 276 seats is needed to form the gov­ern­ment and the Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Party (AKP), since it emerged in power in 2002 has won the elec­tions well in excess of a sim­ple major­ity. This allowed its leader Erdo­gan to push through many reforms. The rules of the AKP lim­ited Erdo­gan to three terms as prime min­is­ter, which would have ended in June 2015. How­ever Erdo­gan gave up the prime minister’s posi­tion and ran for the president’s posi­tion in August 2014, which was the first time the posi­tion was directly elected by the peo­ple and not par­lia­ment. The prob­lem Erdo­gan now faces is his posi­tion does not pos­sess the pow­ers the Prime Minister’s role did. Erdogan’s sup­port­ers have talked of rewrit­ing Turkey’s con­sti­tu­tion to give the pres­i­dency greater pow­ers. Erdo­gan has weak­ened the army’s grip on power and used the state secu­rity to sup­press oppo­si­tion to his Pro-US agenda, but with the pres­i­dent lack­ing exec­u­tive power, a con­sti­tu­tional change will be needed. This requires the draft­ing of a new con­sti­tu­tion, which has to be passed through par­lia­ment with at least a three fifths major­ity and then suc­cess­fully passed via a pub­lic ref­er­en­dum. The AKP cur­rently is 3 seats short of 330 to pro­pose con­sti­tu­tional changes to a ref­er­en­dum with­out the sup­port of other par­ties in par­lia­ment. All of this will take place with Erdo­gan con­tin­u­ing his efforts to strengthen his party at the expense of the sec­u­lar elements.

4. Dis­in­te­gra­tion of Sykes-Picot - Sir Mark Sykes and Fran­cois Georges-Picot were British and French diplo­mats who redrew the map of the region between the Mediter­ranean Sea and Per­sia after World War I. They invented coun­tries like Lebanon, Jor­dan, Syria and Iraq. Some of these nation-states are in tur­moil and their sus­tain­abil­ity is now a per­ti­nent ques­tion. With con­flicts flow­ing across inter­na­tional bound­aries and cen­tral gov­ern­ments becom­ing mere fac­tions amongst among many other fac­tions, the region is where it was 100 years ago. The Mid­dle East as we know it was crafted to divide and weaken the Mus­lims. Weak groups and eth­nic­i­ties that would remain loyal to the west were brought to power. This is why coun­tries such as Kuwait, Jor­dan and Lebanon are arti­fi­cial nations. In Syria today, Basher al-Assad is just one fac­tion amongst many and in Iraq the gov­ern­ment in Bagh­dad is strug­gling to be more than just another fac­tion. In 2015 the frag­men­ta­tion and the crip­pling of national gov­ern­ments will erode the Sykes-Picot Mid­dle East.

5. Bashar al-Assad – In 2014 the upris­ing in Syria reached four years. The US posi­tion has been clear from the out­set, the regime must sur­vive at all costs and the upris­ing must be diverted, divided and thwarted. This can be seen from the rhetoric from Wash­ing­ton being in com­plete con­trast to its actions. How­ever four years on, the peo­ple of Syria con­tinue with their upris­ing unabated and refuse to nego­ti­ate with the regime or put down their weapons in the face of apoc­a­lyp­tic con­di­tions. US strate­gies of arm­ing cer­tain groups over oth­ers, deal­ing with cer­tain fac­tions over oth­ers and giv­ing cover to the regime to put down the upris­ing have failed to stop the peo­ple of Syria. The Syr­ian regime despite receiv­ing out­side help is vir­tu­ally bank­rupt, its army has shrunk due to defec­tions and the longer this goes on, al-Assad may come to be seen as a lia­bil­ity by his own people.

6. Libya Cri­sis - For three years, Libya has been with­out a func­tion­ing gov­ern­ment, police force, or army. The coun­try has been ripped apart by war­ring ex-rebels who helped oust Gaddafi. Var­i­ous rival fac­tions have emerged who are vying for con­trol of Libya. On one side is the newly elected par­lia­ment that has been ban­ished to the east­ern city of Tobruk — sup­ported by the frac­tured remains of Gaddafi sol­diers who defected dur­ing the upris­ing. On the other side is Libya Dawn, a self-described rev­o­lu­tion­ary coali­tion of mili­ti­a­men and politi­cians that orig­i­nated in the West­ern city of Mis­rata. Then there is an army fac­tion led by for­mer Gen­eral Khal­ifa Haf­tar, who has rapidly emerged as a pow­er­ful fig­ure. In 2015 all these fac­tions will bat­tle it out for the country.

7. New US air­craft car­rier - The first in a new gen­er­a­tion of US air­craft car­ri­ers is due to launch in 2015. Air­craft Car­ri­ers as a part of Car­rier Strike Group (CSG) are the key to US dom­i­nance of the world’s oceans. A CSG is cen­tred on an air­craft car­rier, which projects USnaval and air power. The US cur­rently has 10 active air­craft car­ri­ers, which are of the Nimitz class. The lead ship of this class, was com­mis­sioned in 1975, andUSS George H.W. Bush, the tenth and last of the class, was com­mis­sioned on 10 Jan­u­ary 2009. From 2015 this age­ing fleet will be replaced by the Ger­ald R. Ford-class. This new class of ship includes some major improve­ments over pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions. Ten car­ri­ers are com­mis­sioned in total, at a cost of $14bn each (includ­ing research and devel­op­ment). The 10th and final ship is sched­uled to be launched by 2040.

8. The Eurasian Union - The Eurasian Union (EAU) is due to offi­cially come into exis­tence on Jan­u­ary 1st 2015. The polit­i­cal and eco­nomic union will con­sist of Rus­sia, Belarus, Kaza­khstan, Arme­nia and Kyr­gyzs­tan. It will cre­ate a sin­gle eco­nomic mar­ket of 171 mil­lion peo­ple and a gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP) of $3 tril­lion. The idea, based on the EU’s inte­gra­tion, was brought to atten­tion in Octo­ber 2011 by then-Prime Min­is­ter of Rus­sia, Vladimir Putin, in an effort to con­sol­i­date Russia’s posi­tion in Eura­sia. With the Russ­ian econ­omy in cri­sis and ten­sions in Ukraine, this union will play an impor­tant role in Russia’s future strategy.

9. Oil Cri­sis - When oil prices move in either direc­tion, there are win­ners and losers. High oil prices are good for oil pro­duc­ers, as they make more prof­its, but bad for oil con­sumers who have to pay more. Low oil prices are good for oil con­sumers as they can con­sume more as the price of oil is cheap. But this eats into the prof­its of oil pro­duc­ers. Oil pro­duc­ers around the world receive most of their bud­get rev­enues from oil and energy sales and have a breakeven oil price which bal­ances their bud­gets. When oil prices falls below this point, then gov­ern­ment rev­enues are affected, gov­ern­ment expen­di­ture is affected and energy depen­dent economies as a whole are also affected. In the space of a year oil prices have fallen from around $130 per bar­rel to around $80 per bar­rel, a fall of over 50%. As oil is the world’s most impor­tant com­mod­ity it affects a country’s stand­ing in the world, and as we can see with Rus­sia it is lead­ing to its col­lapse. In 2015, nations depen­dent on oil will need to deal with falling oil prices.

10. US Afghan Depar­ture – After 13 years of war, nearly 2000 mil­i­tary deaths of its ser­vice­men and costs of around $3 tril­lion, the US will end its mis­sion on 1st Jan­u­ary 2015. The US has failed in defeat­ing the Tal­iban and sub­se­quently sta­bi­lis­ing the coun­try. The Tal­iban still con­trol most of the coun­try, the Afghan cen­tral gov­ern­ment remains incom­pe­tent and cor­rupt and the country’s US trained national army is in no posi­tion to main­tain order. Nego­ti­a­tions with the Tal­iban never mate­ri­alised and the US will leave a coun­try that remains in dis­ar­ray. To deal with this the US will leave around 13,000 troops in the coun­try under a new two-year mis­sion named Res­olute Sup­port, which began on Jan­u­ary 1st 2015. It remains to be seen if the US con­structed polit­i­cal archi­tec­ture remains stand­ing in 2015.