Ian Bremmer

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By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own.

There are many surprising things about Kim Jong-il’s sudden death, not the least of which is that it took two days for the rest of the world to hear about it. Yet most surprising is the sanguine reaction of the global and especially the Asian markets. On Monday, or actually Sunday as we now know, the world woke up to its first leaderless nuclear power. Coming as close as anyone could to filling his seat was his youngest son, who is in his late twenties. There’s no way these facts were accurately priced into markets that took just a relatively minor dip as a first response. The news from North Korea appears to have been taken far too lightly, and just a few days out, it’s disappearing from the front pages.

While Kim Jong-un’s status as heir apparent seems to tie a nice bow around the situation, let’s get real for a moment. The son of the elder Kim only appeared on the North Korean stage after a stroke necessitated succession planning in Kim Jong-il’s regime in 2008. Consider that founder of the country Kim Il-sung put his son, Kim Jong-il, in front of the citizenry as his heir for more than a decade before his 1994 death. That decade was precious time; time Kim Jong-il spent consolidating power and putting his own people into high government office— and he was over 50 years old when his father passed away. Kim Jong-un has been deprived of that head start; he’s got to rely on whatever ground his dead father managed to clear for him since his 2008 stroke. A couple of years at his father’s side — and a promotion to four star general — is scant time for the younger Kim to have developed a real plan for ruling, or real allies in government.

That said, don’t expect Kim Jong-un to be deposed. There won’t be a North Korean spring — for real or for show — anytime soon. The country is too backward and too brainwashed to mount any sort of populist opposition to the ruling regime, and its people have little if any knowledge of the outside world. Even if Kim Jong-un proves unable to consolidate and retain power, all that would replace him as the head of state is a military junta or strongman; there’s no democracy on the horizon, given the country’s current sorry state of affairs.

The important relationship to watch going forward will be between North Korea and China. Kim will want to impress his people by letting more food into the markets and increasing their terrible standard of living in whatever marginal way he can. He’ll need cash to do so, and will probably call upon China to help. China is North Korea’s last substantial benefactor in the world. In a classic diplomatic sense, because North Korea is America’s enemy and South Korea is America’s friend, China has little choice but to keep propping up the North. If China changes its tack now, it could find North Korea inching towards reunification with the South, putting a firm American ally right on its border. The question is, will China support Kim Jong-un wholeheartedly, or will it too take a step back and see what emerges from the power struggles sure to be playing out behind the scenes at this very moment?

Meanwhile, the U.S. has taken the right approach to this complicated situation: the White House has decided to sit back, watch and wait. It could, and likely already is, offering behind-the-scenes humanitarian relief to the North Korean people. It should continue to offer any such assistance that it thinks will be accepted. The Obama administration should not by any means be applying diplomatic pressure to restart six party talks or anything else of the sort. In essence, the free world should be rooting for Kim Jong-un to stabilize the country so that it can again try to bring North Korea out of the dark ages in an orderly fashion.

The British SAS used to say that when securing a dangerous environment, you should shoot the first person who makes a move (hostile or otherwise) to ensure authority. While I’m not advocating violence, one has to hope Kim Jong-un can consolidate power sufficiently, so that the world at least knows who it’s dealing with when it comes to North Korea. We don’t know what kind of leader he’ll be, or if he’ll even be a leader for very long, but a country that treats its rulers as gods needs someone at the top of the pyramid to keep from devolving into chaos. Otherwise, the world is back to where it was the day after Kim Jong-il died — a day in which no one knew whose finger was on the North Korean nuclear button.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Photo: New North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un (C) pays his respects to his father and former leader Kim Jong-il (R) who is lying in state at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang in this still picture taken from video footage aired by KRT (Korean Central TV of the North) December 20, 2011. REUTERS/KRT via REUTERS TV

By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own.

After a week full of anti-government and pro-government protests, Russians woke up on Monday to big news. Mikhail Prokhorov, a political novice with billions of dollars—and the New Jersey Nets— to his name, announced his Presidential bid.  Alexei Kudrin, a longtime bureaucratic infighter, also declared his plans to re-enter the political arena. These developments were even more significant considering both were ousted in rather public quarrels with the powers that be just months ago. Kudrin said he would support and aid a pro-reform liberal party that would stand as a counterweight to the incumbent United Russia. Prokhorov intends to challenge Putin for the presidency in March 2012 on a platform that would appeal to Russia’s “disenchanted middle class.”

No matter what Kudrin and Prokhorov say in public, they both represent the same thing to Russia and the world: Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on power. As I’ve written before, Putin is the most powerful individual on the planet. To think that either man would risk his freedom or his fortune to oppose Putin’s Kremlin, no matter what their stated reasons are, is just wrong. That said, there are reasons to watch this “race” as it will give some insight into Putin’s inevitable third term as president.

Putin has had to deal with a growing sense of dissatisfaction in Russia as of late.  Growth and living standards are stagnating, while economic inequality persists. It is unclear whose pockets are being lined with the wealth generated by Russia’s massive natural resources. The lack of freedom of the press, centralized control over economic opportunity, and pervasive corruption that makes a mockery of the justice and security systems and other institutions, are Putin’s levers of power– and also the focal points for protesters. The protestors’ complaints crystallized last week over United Russia, Putin’s party, winning a smaller but still strong majority in the parliamentary elections. Accusations of election fraud were widespread and tens of thousands took to the streets in protest over the course of last week. Putin has not been in a position to crack down on these protests — they’re too visible and too widespread — but be sure that the oligarchs and ruling classes in Russia are on Putin’s side. While his tactics for retaining power have had to change, the outcome is the same.

Monday, a pro-United Russia rally in Moscow had the distinct air of a made-for-media event, with the college kids in attendance complaining their classes had been cancelled in order to compel them to turn out to show their “support” for the current regime. But the numbers, even if not to the extent that the state television claims, were there. Though Prokhorov and Kudrin will deny it endlessly, their candidacies are without a doubt sanctioned by the Kremlin. Just this year, Prokhorov was the leader of a pro-business liberal party that was created by and quite obviously aligned with the Kremlin. He quit because of a falling out with one of Putin’s Kremlin advisors — but it was not a falling out so great that Prokhorov became persona non grata. Quite the opposite, Prokhorov’s political resurrection may prove too useful for either Putin or the Kremlin middlemen to pass up.

Prokhorov has not forgotten that he owes his fortune and therefore his allegiance to Putin. As he already stated in his press conference, he doesn’t plan to dwell on attacking Putin (no more than 10% of his platform will be anti-Putin), but rather would like to talk about his plans for Russia. Kudrin has all but ignored Putin in laying out his case for a new party. Imagine if Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney came out tomorrow and said they were done attacking President Obama and wanted to focus solely on their plans for the U.S. Both Kudrin and Prokhorov represent ‘acceptable opposition’ to Moscow. That’s a recipe for a gracious but certain defeat. Kudrin owes his allegiance to Putin for slightly different reasons, but the result is the same: both candidates exist to draw off votes and appease the intellectual classes who are disenchanted with Putin’s leadership. But they will do nothing to keep Putin from a third term as President.

Putin will run a campaign — he will go to a supermarket, complain that prices are too high, and prices will be lowered. He will find some way to distribute a token amount of the natural resource wealth to the public, such as ordering a price cap on gasoline.  He will spend the money it takes to make a noticeable impact for his base. He’ll make the gestures to the public and the media that he deserves a third term. And he’ll get it.

What will be interesting is whether Putin makes any adjustments to his leadership style upon winning that third term. Will he embrace some limited reforms? Will he attempt to prepare Russia for a day when he is no longer president? Putin, as president and now prime minister, has spent years gutting Russia’s institutions, in order to consolidate power. Could that, in the face of these protests, begin to be reversed, ever so slightly?

Whatever occurs in Russia, be sure that this is no Arab Spring. Changes are a long way off in Putin’s Russia. But the reemergence of Prokhorov and Kudrin in the political arena may just indicate that the Kremlin is toying with an idea of reform.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Photo: Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov speaks during a news conference in Moscow December 12, 2011. Prokhorov announced on Monday his intention to run for president during the March 2012 election. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own.

It seems every Monday morning, the U.S. newspapers greet their readers with the latest news of the euro zone’s painful sovereign debt negotiations, not to mention all the politics, institutions and personalities wrapped therein. The tick-tock accounts of every phone call and meeting are important and fascinating reading, but they’re not as important as the real news coming out of this crisis: Europe is changing — painfully and haltingly, but for the better.

The Continent is moving to a point where increased fiscal coordination will redefine the nature of sovereignty for euro zone member states. Economists have long been saying that it’s going to take an extraordinary amount of pain to right the wrongs of the euro zone’s finances. Europe has already suffered through a lot: liquidity crunches in the banks (see today’s ECB rate drop), recession, riots and technocratic governments taking over the peripheral states. But what must be noted is that Europe would never be where it is today — on the verge of a sounder fiscal path forward — but for all this pain. It has all been necessary, in order to right the course of a euro zone that was, like the U.S., on an unsustainable path.

This may sound like strong medicine, so strong that it may cure the disease but kill the patient, but ask yourself this: Would any of the austerity and return to fiscal sanity have happened in Europe if Germany had simply cut the debtor nations a fat check one and a half years ago, when this crisis came to light? Would the problems of Europe have been solved? The answers to both are, of course, no.

With the latest euro summit meeting about to happen, we’ll likely see a good political story as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy smooth over their differences and start to steer the EU ship of state towards a better treaty. But a good political story is not the same as a good market story — the markets, as we know too well, are crueler. They want to see the fat check. They want the problems resolved, even before they start. But nothing changes when a fat check is written, and what the euro zone member states needed much more than a bailout was the type of structural change that is now underway. Markets will have to wait for Angela Merkel to sign on before any bailout happens, and until then, they will continue to inflict pain on the euro zone by cutting credit, playing tug-of-war with bond spreads and complaining, as a JP Morgan analyst recently did, about the “intertemporal dimension” of the crisis.

If it sounds like I’m blaming the markets for riots and political upheaval in the real world, that’s not exactly true either. As I’ve said before, Europe’s path was unsustainable. The markets, after all, had to inflict this pain in response to the perceived collision course.  It’s only through market pain that governments and political institutions will realize they have no choice but to fix their spending habits and resolve the crisis. We should cheer that Merkel hasn’t been bullied into writing a check just yet– because as soon as this crisis is on the road to resolution, the next question will be “could this all happen again?” The re-writing of the EU treaty that Merkel and Sarkozy are proposing is a solid step in making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself — and a step that might not have been taken had the fat check been cut.

In a G-Zero world, the U.S. is no longer the country holding the bailout checkbook, as it did in financial crises in Russia, Latin America, Mexico and Asia over the last two decades. For the first time in modern history, countries and regions are going to have to navigate these crises themselves. Europe is merely the first to go it alone, but others will follow. It’s hugely important that Europe take steps to prevent a crisis like this from happening again, not only for its own viability, but to help draft a new blueprint for the rest of the world. By all accounts, the endless euro zone summit meetings, though frustrating and painful for Europe’s citizens and its bankers, are putting the euro zone on the right path.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy (C) sits next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (R) after he delivered his speech at the Conservative European People’s Party (EPP) congress in Marseille, December 8, 2011. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own.

As Syria’s Assad faces civil war, Egypt struggles to elect a new government, Iranian students storm the British embassy, and Israel’s Netanyahu worries over what it all means, it’s remarkable that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just touched down in Myanmar. Rather than sending his chief diplomat off to the Middle East to fight fires and broker deals, President Obama appears intent on minimizing US exposure there and concentrating his attention elsewhere.

Clinton becomes just the second U.S. official of her rank to visit Myanmar, once known as Burma, a country run by an isolated, paranoid military regime that represses its people from a fortified enclave in the middle of the jungle. Clinton made the trip knowing that the Obama administration and her State Department might face accusations at home, from both left and right, that she is endorsing that country’s leaders. But in fact, Clinton’s boldness has proven to be a strength for the administration. And Obama’s foreign policy savvy benefits him politically relative the lack of a coherent Republican view of US foreign policy. (See Herman Cain’s newly published map of the world or my recent column on the lack of serious foreign policy in the GOP debates.)

The visit is all the more noteworthy because, following President Obama’s recent Pacific tour, it highlights just how much time the Obama team is devoting to Asia.

Obama sees an important new opening. For years, Asia’s powers have aligned their policies according to the moment’s defining trends: Cold War rivalries or opportunities for trade liberalization. Those debates are decided. Here is the region’s new defining question: What does China’s rise mean for everyone else? Anxiety is growing among the neighbors. Chinese officials were surely taken aback by widespread complaints from its neighbors during the recent ASEAN conference about Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. From India to South Korea and Indonesia to Vietnam, Washington now has a chance to revive old friendships and build a few new ones.

It won’t be easy. Shifting public opinion and political calculations inside these countries will remind US officials that they are welcome as valued allies, not as saviors. But the key variable in Asia’s future—and for America’s future in Asia—is the fate of Beijing’s profoundly ambitious economic reform plans. Some economists argue that China’s economy is headed for a hard landing. The country’s coming leadership transition makes matters especially unpredictable.

China itself will make matters worse. Just as America’s economic populists love to demonize China, so Beijing’s patriots are about to indulge in a bout of anti-American nationalism. It’s a tried-and-true way to drum up support from hawks within the leadership as the next generation of leaders begins to hand out jobs. But any ostentatious display of national pride inside China will only make other Asian governments that much more uncomfortable—and more likely to turn to Washington to hedge their bets on China’s next moves.

The benefits for America are already obvious. Witness the spike in US exports to Asia as a growing number of US lawmakers embrace the idea that increased trade is an important antidote to the country’s long-term economic ills.

Obama and Clinton have shown that they get it, that they are following events in Asia closely, and that they are ready to seize new opportunities—even in a place like Myanmar.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pours water over a statue of Buddha at the Shwedegon Pagoda in Yangon December 1, 2011. REUTERS/Saul Loeb/Pool