Quickly: China barred from Libya?

In my second post about Occidentalism in China, I put forth the argument that the revolution in Libya was backed by the west in part to remove Chinese influence from the region. Over a year has passed since the Chinese had to evacuate their workers and abandon their investments in Libya because of the western-backed revolution and have yet to return to the North African country to restart their investment projects.  With Libya now under the control of a western-backed, and therefore pro-western, Libyan government, the Chinese will not be allowed back into the North Africa country at pre-revolution levels any time soon.  The west is exerting pressure on the new Libyan government to exclude China from various Libyan markets, specifically the energy sector, because western companies does not want Chinese influence or competition in the North African region at this time for two reasons:

1) Libya is the largest holder of known oil reserves on the African continent and the west wants to control China’s access to such reserves and 2) the west is trying to develop the off-shore gas finds in the Mediterranean Sea without Russian or Asian competition.

The problem with excluding China from Libya’s energy sector lies within the depression-like economic condition of the west

Quickly: Is there a civil war in Greece’s near future?

Elections held on Sunday, May 6th in Greece left the country with a splintered group of political parties vying for control of the parliament. Voter anger gave seats to parties on both of the extreme ends of the political spectrum, including for the first time, the ultra-nationalist party Golden Dawn. These further-leaning parties gained seats at the expense of the previous coalition government parties who accepted EU austerity measures and allowed Lucas Papademos, a former EU banker who was not democratically elected, to be appointed prime minister in a constitutionally questionable manner. With parliamentary seats spread across seven parties and no party with a clear majority, a coalition government must be formed. If the economic situation in Greece was normal, the creation of a coalition government would not be a challenge beyond the typical political jockeying that takes place in such a procedure. The economic situation in Greece is anything but normal however, and the EU-mandated austerity measures that caused people to vote in new leadership are thwarting any efforts to form a coalition as well. As this week is bearing out, there is no chance a coalition government will be formed in Greece and so the people will go back to the voting booth to try again.

A crash-course on how to form a coalition government in Greece.

The anger Greek voters took with them to the polls on Sunday will not have ebbed by the next round of voting, so it is likely that the Greek people will continue to vote for those parties on the ends of the political spectrum offering relief from austerity measures which will only exacerbate the failure of

Quickly: Le Coup D’oeil in about 500 words

Stripped of metaphor and of the restrictions imposed on it by the phrase, the concept merely refers to the quick recognition of a truth that the mind would ordinarily miss or would perceive only after long study and reflection. – Clausewitz, On War

This blog was founded on an adapted use of the phrase le coup d’oeil and as such its authors have focused on larger issues with global ramifications in an attempt  “to illuminate, however slightly, the opacity of this world.”  Though the format has been adjusted several times, the content has stayed true to the original idea.  In an attempt to create shorter, more frequent posts, the writers of this blog are creating an additional format that adheres more to Clausewitz’s original definition of le coup d’oeil, namely the idea of a “quick recognition of truth.”  These short posts, called Quicklies, will stake a position which attempts to predict the outcome of a current event.

The goal is to increase our own le coup d’oeil and as such, we will occasionally get the outcome wrong. As with all posts, we encourage you to challenge our assertions or agree with them.

- Michael Ross & C. Ryan Knight

Could Kony 2012 incite a Ugandan Revolution?

Thanks to the viral Kony 2012 video, millions of people around the world believe that the U.S. sent in military advisors for humanitarian efforts rather than to secure access to some of the largest energy reserves on the planet. The non-profit group Invisible Children (IC), creators of the Kony 2012 video, attempts to take credit for U.S. military intervention by saying that “[a]fter eight years of work, the government finally heard us, and in October of 2011, 100 American advisors were sent to Central Africa to assist the Ugandan Army in arresting Kony and stopping the LRA.” Such a statement is meant to refute and appear to triumph over an earlier, pessimistic statement made in the video that “[t]here is no way the United States will ever get involved in a conflict where our national security or financial interests aren’t at stake.” The Kony 2012 video is a well-crafted piece of humanitarian propaganda aimed at affluent and educated 20-and-30-somethings who one blogger self-describes as being “hipster humanitarians” who are “extraordinarily cause driven” and “convicted to help fix the world.”[1] What makes this piece of propaganda so deadly is that it disguises the true reason for U.S. attempts to gain a military toehold in the African Great Lakes Region