Must-reads

“Leaving Bangladesh? Not an easy choice for brands” – Jonathan Faney and Anne D’Innocenzio, Associated Press

The recent tragedy in Bangladesh is a reason for multinationals to take their business elsewhere. The average hourly wage of 24 cents in Bangladesh (compared to $0.45 in Cambodia, $0.52 in Pakistan, $0.53 in Vietnam, or $1.26 in China) may prove sufficient reason to stay.

“Making a hash of finding the cash” – The Economist

Why is it so hard to recover assets from former leaders who pilfered their countries while in power?

“Pakistan’s next prime minister wants to end decades-old feud with India” – Jon Boone, Jason Burke and Emma Graham-Harrison, The Guardian

Last weekend, Nawaz Sharif became prime minister in a resounding victory that was the first peaceful transfer of power from one civilian government to another in Pakistan’s 66-year history. Do Sharif’s decisive win and conservative credentials allow him to promote greater economic collaboration with India?

“Erdogan’s Great Gamble” – John Hannah, Foreign Policy

Is a watershed agreement with Turkey’s Kurds the next big step for Prime Minister Recep Erdogan? Or will a political challenge as old as the Turkish state itself prove too difficult to meet? 

“The Ayatollah’s Game Plan” – Mohsen Milani, Foreign Affairs

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may not be able to simply choose Iran’s next president—but he can influence the outcome of the upcoming presidential election in many different ways. 

Must-view

“The Rescue of Jessica Buchanan” – 60 Minutes

This 15-minute TV segment tells the story of Jessica Buchanan’s abduction in Somalia—and eventual rescue by a Navy SEAL team.

Must-play

Do you have an interest in geography…or procrastination? Via Google Maps, Geoguessr drops you at a random point in the world; you guess your location based on your surroundings and get points for proximity.

Scandal has visited the Obama administration, and thanks to the media narrative it’s larger than the sum of its parts. With a talking-point imbroglio after Benghazi, the IRS’s discriminatory practices and the Justice Department’s procurement of Associated Press phone records, the Obama administration and its allies are right to be worried.

But those of us invested in U.S. growth have little reason to fret. The past few years have proved that dysfunction in Washington has almost no effect on America’s attractiveness to investors. As the rates of U.S. Treasury bonds prove, America continues to be the place for investors to park their money. That’s because petty politics don’t control the fate of the country.

In major emerging markets, politicians have to behave to appeal to investors. In capitals like Moscow, Delhi and Pretoria, this is largely an act of optics, but it’s an important one for countries trying to earn the trust of investors who see opportunity, but not necessarily stability. For further proof of developing countries’ precarious position, look to Bangladesh, where a country’s economy has been threatened by its politicians’ negligence before, during and after the country’s latest garment industry catastrophe.

Things are not nearly as volatile in the United States, and they won’t be even if the Obama scandals metastasize. Growth has already been moving in the right direction, and the Unites States doesn’t need a pristine Obama administration to ensure that it continues.

On energy, the Obama administration has wisely shifted regulation to the state level, allowing states such as Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota to create drilling jobs even as a state such as New York wrestles with the environmental impact of fracking. This has helped control unemployment and keep energy prices down, and solidify the country’s long-term energy security. Nothing about that is likely to change.

On trade, Obama has led a remarkably pro-free trade administration, despite critics who say otherwise. His administration is remaking international trade architecture away from a failed Doha round and toward transatlantic and transpacific partnerships. None of that changes, either. 

Finally, Congress has not actually been that dysfunctional recently — and the recent scandals should not set it back. Policy items such as immigration reform, tax reform or another debt ceiling extension are framed by congressional incentives. On immigration, it’s a political win for both parties, one that has been driven by a bipartisan Senate initiative. not the White House. Now that Senate tax chief Max Baucus has announced his retirement, his focus has shifted from a grueling 2014 reelection campaign to his legacy: a bid for comprehensive tax reform. That gives us motivated committee chairs in the Senate and the House, where David Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has already pushed for a revenue-neutral reform effort. Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling so as not to be remembered for crashing the economy — and Republicans will be in a position to tie its passage to reasonable demands (perhaps even tax reform).

With Congress finally making progress, an embattled Obama administration won’t hurt, and could even help, the passage of these measures. That’s because the administration’s problems are just that — the administration’s. If the 2014 coattail strategy becomes less palatable for congressional Democrats facing re-election, Democrats may be more eager to cut a deal with Republicans so they can run on their legislative accomplishments instead of their association with the president. Similar logic applies to a harried Obama, who may be more willing to get behind new legislation in the hopes of diverting attention from the scandals.

That a floundering Obama administration doesn’t necessarily equate to a floundering country is an uplifting story. Washington is working as it should — ills affecting the executive branch can largely be contained therein. The congressional agenda and the health of the American economy don’t have to suffer along with it.

This column is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: U.S. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder attend the National Peace Officers Memorial Service at the Capitol in Washington May 15, 2013. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Must-reads 

“U.S. Blames China’s Military Directly for Cyberattacks” – David E. Sanger, New York Times

For the first time, the Obama administration explicitly accused China’s military of responsibility for cyberattacks on American government computer systems. By some estimates, 90 percent of the cyberespionage in the US originates in China. 

“Russia’s Energy Bully Takes a Fall” – Alexandros Petersen, Foreign Policy

Is Russia’s coercive use of gas exports to bully its neighbors finally unraveling? Will cheaper gas worldwide exacerbate Russia’s “reverse dependence” on European markets? 

“Japan’s leading exporters say the weak yen is helping them, to a point” – Gwynn Guilford, Quartz

Is Abenomics for real?  It certainly had an impact on many exporters’ Q1 bottom line. The weaker yen accounted for ¥43.2 billion of Nissan’s ¥174.4 billion operating profit (up almost 50 percent from the same period last year).

“In China, Power Is Arrogant” – Yu Hua, New York Times

In 2001, hospital officials in Shenzhen stipulated that nurses should “show precisely eight teeth when smiling.”  This piece addresses the “wacky and arbitrary nature” of many Chinese regulations.  

“This Is The World’s First Entirely 3D-Printed Gun” – Andy Greenberg, Forbes

What happens when rapidly evolving technologies meet an age-old political debate?  25-year-old Cody Wilson is utilizing 3D printers to print guns—and sharing the blueprints in downloadable open source format on his website in a bid to undermine gun control efforts.  Here is a disturbing documentary from Vice on the process and its implications.

Through two years of Syrian crisis, the Obama administration has cautiously dragged its feet as the United States is further enmeshed in the conflict. That’s a sensible platform at home, with opinion polls showing that Americans don’t think the country has a responsibility to intervene. It has strategic merit, too, given that intervention against Bashar al-Assad is an implicit endorsement of a largely unknown opposition force with radical, sectarian factions. 

But the status quo in Syria is breaking down, and Obama’s worst option is to kick the can as the United States inexorably gets dragged deeper into the conflict. It may be politically painful, but it’s time to make a choice: Go all in with a no fly zone — or avoid anything more than diplomatic intervention and humanitarian/non-lethal aid. Here’s why.

Until recently, Obama’s strategy of hesitance and risk aversion was commendable and well executed. As the situation worsened, the United States took minimal, reactionary steps. First, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to put together a formal — and reasonably liberal — Syrian political opposition, but it quickly fragmented because it had no workable ties to the actual rebels doing the actual fighting. Then the United States turned to non-lethal aid for the rebels (including defensive military equipment) as well as supporting Qatar and other countries through intelligence and logistics. Furthermore, in August 2012, Obama drew a “red line” at “chemical weapons moving around or being utilized” by the regime. At the time, it seemed unlikely to come to fruition anytime soon.

A lot has changed in the past few weeks, which have been the most turbulent since the crisis began two years ago. Reports that Assad may have deployed chemical weapons have become too loud to ignore (along with conflicting assertions that the rebels may also have done so). The violence is intensifying, with reports of civilian slaughters at the hands of the government. Israel conducted two direct military strikes against Iranian missile supplies on Syrian soil. The refugee crisis continues to deteriorate, with more than a million people occupying ramshackle camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. Meanwhile, Assad is consolidating his military advantage.

Ugly as the situation was, it’s now much uglier — and faster-moving.

And so it appears the United States is slipping deeper into the fray. This week, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel became the first senior official in the administration to say “arming the rebels — that’s an option.” Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced legislation that would provide weapons to the Syrian opposition. The committee’s ranking member, Bob Corker, said, “I think that we will be arming the opposition shortly … We are doing a lot more there on the ground than really is known.”

All of this means the calculus is no longer what it was a year ago, or even six months ago — but Obama is using the same reluctant tactics of minimal engagement. As it became clear that Assad may have crossed his “red line,” Obama simply redrew it, saying the “systematic use” of chemical weapons was the new line in the sand. But the current policy is a one-way street: The United States is only becoming more deeply involved, arming rebels who may or may not be better stewards of a country riven with sectarian conflict.

Offering arms to the rebels doesn’t solve Syria’s problems. It certainly doesn’t decrease the bloodshed — in the near term, it will almost assuredly do the opposite — and it is bad policy for the United States, for two reasons. First, the United States would be arming a largely unknown opposition force, and once it offers military aid, it will increasingly be attached to the rebels — and to any atrocities they commit before or after toppling Assad. Ultimately, if the rebels are able to defeat Assad, the war’s legacy will leave sectarian warlords grappling for power, keeping the country violent and volatile going forward.

Second, what if the rebels lose? In the past few weeks, Assad has been consolidating his military position and regaining the edge in the civil war. The Iranians have been arming the regime. A rebel victory will thus be bloodier — and more unlikely. Once the United States arms the rebels, it’s an implicit backstop: Should the rebels require a no-fly zone down the road, the United States would feel political pressure to provide it. The United States would have to assume whatever cost is necessary to keep the rebels afloat. 

So what should the United States do? It should recognize where things are heading and take decisive action — one way or the other — as soon as possible. Delays and incremental steps toward military intervention cost lives and undermine the eventual strategy that the United States chooses to pursue. It’s time to pull back or dive in.

The first option is difficult to navigate politically but has its merits. Obama could announce that the United States will not take sides in the war — America won’t support the rebels, just like it won’t support Assad — and it will focus on humanitarian and diplomatic efforts. Obama could assert that while a humanitarian crisis that has resulted in more than 70,000 deaths is atrocious, the United States does not have the resources, authority or direct security interests necessary to take sides or engage militarily to keep the peace. The United States would essentially take a backseat and glue itself to the chair — a “risk repulsion” strategy as opposed to the risk aversion that Obama has been practicing — but it would keep up diplomatic pressure (however ineffective it might prove to be). That means more initiatives like Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to Moscow. He has spent the week trying to persuade Russian officials to convene an international conference on Syria’s future. In Russia, the United States dropped its hard line on Assad, not stipulating to the Russians that Assad has to go. In return, the Russians have shied away from their platform that Assad has to stay.

The drawback to this strategy is that it will likely prove ineffectual, and the humanitarian disaster in Syria will worsen. But our current trajectory has the same two drawbacks — and this approach will keep America out of direct military engagement. 

The second option is more violent, more expansive and more dangerous, but it’s safer in the long term for Americans and can be more productive for Syrians: The United States could bomb Assad’s anti-aircraft defenses to set up a no-fly zone over Syria.

Imposing the no-fly zone is going to take allies, just like it did in Libya. Obama will have to assemble a coalition of the willing, including partners such as Britain, France, Canada, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The pitch is simple: The no-fly zone will (hopefully) impede much of the violence that the regime’s air force can inflict on the rebels. It would help create the conditions for a cease-fire once that imminent threat against the rebels is removed. That, in turn, would allow for a massive humanitarian intervention, including military troops on the ground to separate the regime from the rebels. With some semblance of economic normalcy restored, the refugees can move back, localized governments can be established and the regional crisis can be limited even while Syria’s crisis continues.

We are, of course, a long way from all of this working. A no-fly zone will likely anger the Russians, the Iraqis and the Iranians — though it’s unclear how much Washington need care about the last. It’ll also be expensive and put Americans in harm’s way. It’s incredibly messy, expensive and it’s no panacea.

But it will allow America to dictate the terms in which it enters the fray — and not to take sides. It will mean bombing Assad’s defenses, yes, but it will do it for humanitarian reasons, not, at least ostensibly, to help install the rebels. You can make a case that attacking Assad’s defenses is tantamount to supporting the rebels, but you could also claim that pushing for a cease-fire is tantamount to letting Assad remain in power. The no-fly zone is an attempt at neutralizing the damage that both sides can inflict on the other, while allowing governance and refugees to return to Syria. 

Clearly, the reason the Syria decision is so difficult is because there’s no right answer. There are only bad and worse choices. Today, the worst choice is unfortunately the most politically expedient: continuing with the current trajectory. More people die in the interim, and when the United States wakes up to find itself mired in direct involvement, it will be too late to pull out — or to coordinate its military engagement in an optimal, predetermined manner. Its intervention will be piecemeal, inefficient and leave all parties worse off. 

For the United States, the Syrian crisis has come to an inflection point. This was not the case just six months ago, but it is apparent now. America has a hard choice to make: Say no to arming the rebels or yes to deeper military engagement. Unfortunately, inaction is the simplest path forward — and the worst one of all.

This column is based in part on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: A torn picture of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is seen on a government building in Raqqa province, east Syria May 8, 2013. REUTERS/Hamid Khatib

Must-reads

“Lebanon squanders its finest human assets” – David Gardner, Financial Times

Lebanon is losing talent…and electricity. Last year, the country got an average of 11.4 hours of electricity a day.

“Remote Control: Our Drone Delusion” – Steve Coll, The New Yorker

Bush oversaw forty-eight drone strikes in Pakistan while in office. Since 2009, Obama has authorized more than three hundred.

“China’s Drone Program Appears to Be Moving Into Overdrive” – Christopher Bodeen, Huffington Post

“If the U.S. can do it, so can we.” China may trail the U.S. in drone technology, but it’s narrowing the gap.

Longer reads

“The End of the Gandhis” – James Traub, Foreign Policy

The Gandhis are the paradox of Indian politics: they are both the deliverers of democracy, and the nepotistic exception to the rule.

Weekly bonus

“Disruptions: Brain Computer Interfaces Inch Closer to Mainstream” – Nick Bilton, New York Times

Soon we might interact with smartphones with our minds—because fingers are just too clumsy.

“14 Hairless Cats That Look Like Vladimir Putin” – Elizabeth F. Ralph, Foreign Policy

The headline says it all. Enjoy.

Editor’s note: This list is also published on Foreign Policy’s The Call blog.

How do you solve a problem like Korea? Or Syria? Or the euro zone? Or climate change?

Don’t look to Washington. The United States will remain the world’s most powerful nation for years to come, but the Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers are now focused on debt, immigration, guns and growth. A war-weary, under-employed American public wants results at home, leaving U.S. officials to look for allies willing to share costs and risks abroad.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to build and sustain alliances in a world where America can’t afford its traditional share of the heavy lifting. No wonder then that the Obama administration’s greatest foreign policy successes haven’t depended on such alliances. Withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t require consensus among the world’s powers. President Barack Obama’s single indisputable foreign policy triumph, the killing of Osama bin Laden, needed buy-in only from the members of Seal Team 6.

Nor should we look to Europe for help. Its leaders are still hard at work duct-taping the euro zone, and cash-strapped governments consider an activist European foreign policy prohibitively expensive. Nor will next-wave powers look to shoulder new burdens. Economic slowdowns in China, India and Brazil remind us that not every emerging market will fully emerge, much less accept the costs and risks that come with a share of global leadership.

In this G-Zero world, where no single government or alliance can lead others toward compromise, solutions to transnational problems range from ad hoc to beyond reach. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the U.N.’s Conference on Sustainable Development last June with a warning: This gathering is too big to fail. But for Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, the event was simply too big to attend. None of them has the muscle, individually or together, to force compromise on the policies that fuel climate change — and they know it.

This leadership vacuum continues to expand. The risk of confrontation in Asia has grown — between China and Japan (the world’s second- and third-largest economies) in the East China Sea, and between China and several Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea. Making matters even more dangerous, the U.S. transition toward a sharper foreign policy focus on Asia, progress toward a massive U.S.-led transpacific trade deal that excludes China and conflict in the under-governed expanse of cyberspace are worsening tensions between Washington and Beijing. Fights over commercial and investment rules and the clash between the state-driven and free-market varieties of capitalism have gathered momentum. In years to come, no ties will be more important for global peace and prosperity than those that bind America and China, the world’s most powerful developed and developing states, and no development would more quickly exacerbate the G-Zero dilemma than a dramatic worsening of relations between them.

In the Middle East, Syria’s civil war grinds on with worrisome implications for Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and even Russia. Sectarian tensions are again stoking violence in Iraq. Attacks on U.S. diplomatic targets in Libya, Egypt and Yemen have heightened Washington’s aversion to direct involvement in the region’s conflicts. This is another region in which a lack of global leadership and rivalries among local heavyweights ensure that pain will get worse before real progress can be made.

Ironically, the nation most likely to fill the leadership vacuum left by America the Vulnerable is America the Resilient. A technology-driven U.S. energy boom has begun to create jobs, revitalize U.S. manufacturing and offer Washington the chance to use exports of natural gas, technology and knowhow to reverse the decline in U.S. international influence.

Over the longer term, Washington will have to address the growing imbalances on U.S. books, but as the financial crisis reminded us, when volatility and fear are the order of the day, safety becomes the world’s most valuable commodity. That’s why the United States remains the world’s investment safe haven — and why, for better and worse, not even ratings agency downgrades can make it more difficult for America’s government to borrow money, at least for the moment.

Nor is it inevitable that America and China will collide. Washington and Beijing seem at times destined for conflict, a dispute more likely to be fought in financial markets and in cyberspace than on more familiar battlegrounds. Yet heavy volumes of bilateral trade and investment ensure that neither side has much to gain from the other’s weakness.

The two countries can’t afford a zero-sum, Cold War-style confrontation, and both governments know it. It remains to be seen, however, if Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping have the vision and political will to build the sort of pragmatic partnership that might finally bring the G-Zero era to an end.

For more on this theme, Every Nation for Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World, by Ian Bremmer, is now available in paperback.

PHOTO: Leaders of the G20 nations gather for a group photo at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, June 18, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed

In Bangladesh, the search for survivors has become an effort to recover the dead. After a garment factory building collapsed in the Dhaka suburb of Savar last week, residents and rescue workers spent days digging through the rubble hoping to save the lives of people caught in yet another Bangladeshi industrial accident. At least 390 people are thought to have died.

This type of accident is all too common in Bangladesh. In November, more than 100 people died in a garment factory fire when workers could not easily escape the building. In 2006, 84 people were killed in a blaze because fire exits were locked.

This is what happens when a $20 billion industry accounts for 3.2 million jobs and 80 percent of a country’s exports. It needs the industry too much, especially when those jobs have helped push female participation in the workplace from 26.1 percent in 2002-03 to a still-insufficient 36 percent in 2010. The globalized economy demands that Bangladesh provide cheap goods, and cheap goods are easier to manufacture when there aren’t strict rules to follow — or at least when they’re not enforced.

It also helps when those rules are set by the same people who own the factory buildings. A sector that is too big to fail can repel government-induced regulation. Mohammed Sohel Rana, who owned the building that collapsed, was escorted to court yesterday in body armor and a helmet. But the factory wasn’t his only project — he was also a local leader of the ruling party’s youth wing. This is partly why it’s so hard for developing countries to bite the hand that feeds: It would require the powerful to bite themselves.

A groundswell of protest might change things, and we’re seeing the beginnings of that. Bangladeshis have burned factories to the ground to make clear that the garment industry is not as invincible as it seems. Citizens want action, and with an election coming later this year, they’ll have the government’s attention.

Sensing this, Bangladeshi officials, after reportedly refusing rescue help from Britain, have promised to take action to prevent accidents like this from happening again. Rana built his factory on swampland and then kept the building open after long cracks were discovered in its pillars. In a country as reliant on one industry as Bangladesh, regulations are just the first step; success depends on consistent enforcement.

What does this mean for Western corporations? In a situation like this, a company’s imperative is to get ahead of government, to make rather than simply accept new standards. But until government acts, don’t expect much from the private sector. Bangladesh isn’t the kind of country that will shame a company into compliance by tarring its reputation — it’s too small, and media coverage of its labor practices pales in comparison to China’s. Until pressure is added from outside Bangladesh, action inside the country won’t force change in the private sector.

We’ve seen mass protest of labor practices in the past, most famously when sweatshops became a cause célèbre in the 1990s. It was mounting progress and pressure that changed work conditions then, thanks to non-governmental organizationss, celebrities and major American brands transforming consumer behavior in the United States. But Bangladesh doesn’t have its own Kathie Lee. Aside from disasters like this, the country rarely makes headlines in the West, despite a population bigger than that of Germany and France combined.

When there’s money to be lost, it’s harder to build momentum for change. This was a horrific disaster — and a preventable one. Let’s hope its human cost convinces Bangladesh’s government and its private sector that it can no longer afford not to act.

This column is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: A view of rescue workers attempting to find survivors from the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Savar, around 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka April 30, 2013. At least 390 people have been confirmed dead in what is just the latest incident to raise serious questions about worker safety and low wages in the poor South Asian country that relies on garments for 80 percent of its exports. REUTERS/Khurshed Rinku

But the American Decline is now over (if it ever really began in the first place).

Compared with other major powers, America’s future is looking brighter than before the financial crisis. The dollar remains remarkably attractive relative to other currencies. This resilience extends to American companies. In a March report, Goldman Sachs found that foreign investors owned a larger percentage of the U.S. equity market than at any time in the 68-year history of the study. The housing market is picking up, and dependence on foreign energy is falling.

Gridlock remains the order of the day in Washington, and Congress still has record-low approval ratings. But there are policy bright spots. Congress and the administration are not standing in the way of America’s energy revolution. The Keystone XL pipeline will likely be approved. The pipeline, along with the Obama administration’s emphasis on energy independence, helps strengthen the domestic economy.

On trade, the administration has managed to convince Japan to join Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. Should the trade consortium of countries ranging from the United States and Chile to Canada and Mexico to Singapore and Vietnam get off the ground, it will liberalize trade between members that represent nearly 40 percent of global GDP — and boost American trade and manufacturing. Then there is the nascent transatlantic equivalent that Obama mentioned in this year’s State of the Union. 

The third major policy positive: the forward movement in Washington on immigration reform. If that effort is successful, it could entice millions of illegal immigrants to pay U.S. taxes for the first time — and it could provide the labor force, skilled and unskilled, that many companies desperately need to ensure growth. A recent study by the Center for American Progress found that immigration reform could inject more than a trillion dollars into the U.S. economy.

So at a time when recession-riddled Europe is muddling through, and major developing economies like China have huge looming question marks, the United States is looking pretty good from the top down.

Now for the bad news: Things don’t look as good from the bottom up, because an empowered minority at the top of American society will reap most of the benefits of this resurgence. The number of Americans who have participated in the rebound is smaller than in the past. Corporate profits remain high, but so does unemployment. According to a new study by a pair of economists at Northeastern University, those unemployed for more than six months have an especially tough time returning to the workforce.

It’s not easy for a country with such disparities to maintain prosperity and domestic tranquility, but there is no guarantee that the benefits of even an extended rebound will narrow the growing wealth gap. 

America’s decline is a myth. The United States’ relative position in the world is improving, and Washington won’t stand in the way. Some of the gains we see will improve the U.S. standard of living at every level: Cheaper energy means less pressure at the pump, and a comprehensive immigration reform bill could empower many yet-to-be Americans who deserve a voice. But for still-jobless and underemployed Americans, it’s the recovery that’s a fiction.

Welcome to America’s relative rise: Wall Street is back. Main Street? Maybe not.

This column is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Must-reads 

“Baby milk rationing: Chinese fears spark global restrictions” – Celia Hatton, BBC News

What’s worse than glow-in-the-dark pork? The recent craze in subpar Chinese product safety standards is all about baby milk formula.

“Murder mysteries: Official figures showing a sharp drop in China’s murder rate are misleading” – The Economist

According to official statistics, the murder rate in China surged from 10,000 in 1981 to 28,000 in 2000…and has since dropped steadily to 12,000. Is that credible?

“The global farm grab is on” – Michael Kugelman, CNN

Seven of the countries that were ranked most food insecure in the 2012 Global Hunger Index have given up 10 percent or more of their total agricultural area. Some are calling the push to buy arable land in developing countries a new wave of colonialism.

“Closing the Door on Hackers” – Marc Maiffret, New York Times

The debate surrounding cyber challenges has reached a fever pitch. But the blame doesn’t lie solely with aggressive perpetrators or unprepared victims: the infrastructure and software itself is insecure and prone to manipulation. 

Bonus pieces 

“Bitcoin Trading Boom is Bittersweet For Long-Time Traders, Who Fear Volatility Will Tarnish Currency” – Eleazar David Melendez, Huffington Post

What is this bitcoin phenomenon all about? This piece gives a good overview of the rise—and recent fall—in the virtual currency’s fortunes.

“These Three Countries Are Winning the ‘Game of Thrones’” – Katy Byron, CNBC

Which real-world countries are the geopolitical winners behind the Game of Thrones television show?

For an American emissary looking to have an impact, there’s no better place to visit than North Korea. Most of the world is shut out of Kim Jong-un’s country, and the U.S. government has so few levers to influence policy that any American who finds his way in will make news.

That doesn’t mean the news will be good news. Former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t accomplish much during their January visit, and basketball carny Dennis Rodman was as embarrassing as one would expect. In North Korea, even tourists can make headlines: Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained in 2009 after filming refugees on the China-North Korea border. They became flashpoints in the U.S.-North Korean standoff because Pyongyang had nothing else to work with.

Unfortunately, the latest outsiders to insert themselves into the picture are hackers that answer to the name Anonymous, the group that became famous by mixing digital activism with clandestine revenge. Anonymous has begun a campaign against North Korea, crashing several North Korean websites, hacking North Korean social media accounts, and perhaps infiltrating North Korea’s intranet. Anonymous is promising more attacks to come. There is a chance for serious trouble here.

North Korea, let’s remember, has proven nuclear capacity, the most militarized border in the world, and lies between South Korea, an advanced industrial democracy, and China, the world’s preeminent authoritarian state. The DPRK is governed by an untested 29-year-old princeling under unknown amounts of internal pressure to assert his leadership through demonstrations of militarist machismo, even if it starves his people. For outsiders, Kim is a wildcard. We can’t know how far he will go or how he might react if he doesn’t get what we think he wants. 

When Anonymous or Wikileaks targets a Western government or a multinational company, the result is a mosquito bite — annoying but not an essential threat. With secretive, brittle North Korea, Anonymous poses a much more serious threat, particularly in a moment when Kim Jong-un may feel backed into a corner.  

Plenty of wars have begun by accident or miscalculation. Kim Jong-un has already displayed a tendency toward conspiratorial thinking. What if he or those around him decide that Anonymous is attacking North Korea on behalf of the United States? Or South Korea? In September 2012, Egyptian protestors blamed Washington for the tasteless anti-Islamic work of a single American citizen. And North Korea may be the most information-restrictive country in the world: It may not understand actions originating in a country where freedom of expression is sacrosanct.

Anonymous knows how to hack, but it has no insight into how North Korea might respond to a cyber-invasion – and likely won’t be the target if North Korea decides it must retaliate. Western powers aren’t exactly anxious to defend cyber-anarchism or to pay the price for its excesses.

The United States would be happy to see the North Korean regime go. But right now, the United States will continue to rely on “first do no harm” foreign policy designed to keep as much control as possible over a potentially delicate situation.

If North Korea needs to bluster, let it bluster. The surest path to de-escalation is to give Kim Jong-un room to declare (some sort of) victory before his uninformed citizenry.  

When it comes to this particular problem, Anonymous is a problem nobody needs.

This column is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (L) looks at a computer screen as he visits the Air and Anti-air Force Command of the Korean People’s Army in this picture released by the North’s official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang May 5, 2012. Photo released May 5, 2012. REUTERS/KCNA