Category Archives: United States of America

Sanction Hong Kong, For Its Own Sake

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 10, October 2018 

A Silhouette of man standing on top of mountain with an urban cityscape below.

Silhouette of man standing on top of mountain with an urban cityscape below. Source: Pexels.

Ho-fung Hung

Johns Hopkins University

The decision of the Hong Kong government to expel Financial Times Asia editor Victor Mallet from Hong Kong has already provoked widespread concern about freedom of speech and autonomy of Hong Kong in the international community. Mr. Mallet broke no law, and the Hong Kong government’s decision is obviously based on his role as moderator of an August 14 talk by pro-independence activist Andy Chan at the Foreign Correspondents Club. This unprecedented expulsion of a foreign journalist takes Hong Kong a big step closer to the status quo in mainland China.

The UK Foreign Office, US Consulate in Hong Kong, European Union, and American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, all issued statements criticizing the decision of the Hong Kong government. In particular, AmCham president Tara Joseph pertinently links the case to the concern about Hong Kong’s continuous viability as a financial center, saying that, “The rejection of a renewal of work visa for FT correspondent Victor Mallet sends a worrying signal. Without a free press, capital markets cannot properly function, and business and trade cannot be reliably conducted.”

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Remove Duterte And Modernize The Armed Forces Philippines

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3Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 10, October 2018 

A large group of soldiers are photographed standing to attention in their uniforms on a large tarmac. One soldier in the foreground at the front of the group is depicted holding a flag.

Filipino Armed Forces at Fort Magsaysay, 2003. Soure: NARA & DVIDS Public Domain Archive.

Anonymous Filipino

This is a critical time for the Philippines, in terms of economics, politics, and national defense. Immediately at the start of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term the congress was already submissive to him. There were just a few dissenting Senators. But Duterte is taking them down one by one, especially the opposition stalwarts. Senator Leila de Lima was accused of a sham case, conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading (1), and is now in prison. Senator Antonio Trillanes is having his amnesty revoked [2]. Duterte is under criminal investigation, breaking the Constitution, running the Philippines into the ground, and gradually giving our sovereignty away to China. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is slowly losing its allies and competitive edge against China, the Philippines’ biggest threat. Duterte should immediately be removed, and the AFP should seek the help from its traditional allies to quickly modernize.

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Forty Dollars and a Trip to Paradise

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The First Green on Blue Attack of Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 8, August 2018 

Heath B. Hansen

U.S. Army

A man in photographed from the side hold a large rifle. He appears to be in a guard tower and is looking through the rifle's scope.

PFC Michael Sall in the only guard tower that existed on FOB Zurmat at the time of the green-on-blue attack. Pictured is an M-240B machine gun. PFC Sall was in the tower on November 9, 2005 during the attack but did not use this weapon, oriented away from the base, to shoot the attacker. He instead made a split second decision to use his smaller M-4 rifle to shoot from the other side of the tower, down and into the base at the ANA soldier. Paktia Province, Afghanistan, 2005. Photographer: Heath Hansen.

We entered the base between the HESCO barriers covered in concertina razor-wire, unprepared for a betrayal from one of our supposed allies. On November 9, 2005, as the convoy snaked its way into the safety of the base walls, I could see Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers watching us from the perimeter. They didn’t wave; they didn’t smile; they just stared. Since the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, there had never been an instance of an Afghan soldier attacking Americans, known as a “green-on-blue attack.” But somehow I instinctively had little trust for them. We parked the Humvees and unloaded our equipment. I took off my helmet and body-armor, and set my weapon beside me.

The mission had been long and I was hungry. Before heading out for the operation, I had secured my favorite meal, and now it was time to relax and enjoy. “Hey, give me your jalapeño cheese. I’ll give you my peanut butter.” I told the guy next to me. “F*** you, I love jalapeño cheese.” My buddy was going to drive a hard bargain before relinquishing his cheese. “Bro, I always put cheese on my chicken-tetrazzini MRE. I’ll give you my M&M’s too.” He looked at my M&M’s and packet of peanut-butter for a moment. “F*** yeah, peanut-butter, M&M’s. Alright, cool. Here.” He threw the packet of cheese over. I was tired, uncomfortable, sore, and thousands of miles from home, but I was content. I got the “MENU 21 – CHICKEN TETRAZZINI” Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) and jalapeño cheese to top it off. It’s the little things in life that make you happy. The day was cold, but sunny, and in that moment, on that forward operating base (FOB) in Zurmat, Afghanistan, I had everything I wanted.

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Reason, Imagination and Invention in the South Pacific: The Laser Beam Kiwi

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 6, June 2018 

Three troops in uniform pose with the "Laser Kiwi" flag. A New Zealand flag is visible in the background.

Troops pose with the “Laser Kiwi” flag, submitted to the New Zealand Flag Consideration panel in 2015 by James Gray. Source: Reddit.

Bernard Cadogan, Ph.D.

Foreign Affairs and Diplomatic Advisor to King Tuheitia, the seventh King of the Maori Kiingitanga

Address to the U.K. Defence Academy, Shrivenham, 7th February 2018

New Zealand is proof that nature does not always abhor, a vacuum. The country is truly, “the last, the loneliest and the loveliest” as Rudyard Kipling declared Auckland to be in his “Song of the Cities”. Strategic systems never tolerate vacuums. They punish confusion and ambivalence. New Zealand is no redoubt, nor is it overlooked.

The intention of this address is to consider New Zealand’s sense of geopolitical reality. Are we proof that the Versailles Conference unassociated Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nation state has been outclassed in the 21st century Pacific? Are we a living fossil ?

Woodrow Wilson envisaged a world in which there would be no assemblages such as empires, nor alliance systems even. Sovereignty-pooling exercises such as the European Union and Mercosur or Caricom would have been anathema to Wilson. They are not an option for us.

When asked at the Versailles Conference, why we had made the effort we did in the Great War, our Prime Minister Bill Massey replied, “we did it for Civilisation”.

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Trade Strategy is a Proper Part of National Security

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 6, June 2018 

A ship, the Emerald Princess, is photographed crossing the new Cocoli Locks of the Panama Canal expansion in Panama City.

Emerald Princess crosses the new Cocoli Locks of the Panama Canal expansion in Panama City. A giant Chinese-chartered freighter nudged its way into the expanded Panama Canal on Sunday to mark the completion of nearly a decade of work forecast to boost global trade. Source: Craig Stanfill via Flickr.

William R. Hawkins

International Economics and National Security Consultant

On June 4, the Koch brothers (Charles and David) announced the launch of a “multi-year, multimillion-dollar” campaign against the tariffs and trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration; especially those levied on China. The billionaire brothers are regularly called “conservatives” because they make large campaign donations to Republican candidates. But they are not conservatives; they are libertarians, a very different breed of cat. And their donations to the GOP are meant to sway the party in their ideological direction, not merely support it. The liberal media tries to tarnish conservatism by placing libertarians on “the Right” even though this is not their intellectual origin. This is done to further the left-wing narrative that “conservatives” are self-interested, greedy individuals who are enemies of organized society and the common good. This is true for libertarians, who doubt the very legitimacy of the nation-state or the “higher” norms of society. Too often they define right and wrong on the basis of whether it turns a profit.

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