Divida dos estados: custo, como sempre, vai recair sobre os contribuintes, ou seja, voce mesmo leitor

Do sempre bem informado Ricardo Bergamini:

Oito Unidades da Federação (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Santa Catarina, Distrito Federal e Bahia) representam 76,6% do PIB brasileiro. (Fonte IBGE).
Os estados mais ricos da federação são os maiores beneficiários da “Bolsa da União para os Estados”.
Ricardo Bergamini

Programas de Ajuste Fiscal
Dívida Consolidada Líquida dos Estados e Municípios Com a União
Fonte MF

Base: Ano de 2015
Estados   -   R$ Bilhões  -  %
São Paulo - 220,1 - 37,52
Minas Gerais - 56,5 - 9,63
Rio de Janeiro - 56,5 - 9,63
Rio Grande do Sul - 40,7 - 6,94
Outros 23 estados - 89,0 - 15,18
Total - 462,8 - 78,90

Municípios  -  123,8 - 21,10
Total - 586,6 - 100,00

Considerações:

1) Somente o estado de São Paulo concentra 37,52% do total das dívidas dos Estados e Municípios com a União.

2) Apenas 4 estados (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro e Rio Grande do Sul) concentra 63,72% das dívidas dos Estados e Municípios com a União.

3) Em 31 de dezembro de 2015 a dívida total dos Estados e Municípios com a União montavam em R$ 586,6 bilhões.

4) Forma de pagamento e juros com base na Lei 9.496, de 11 de setembro de 1997:

4.1) O Governo Federal editou em 29/12/2015 o Decreto nº 8.616, para regulamentar a Lei Complementar 148/2014 que, entre outras disposições, autorizou a União a adotar novas condições nos contratos de refinanciamento de dívidas dos estados e municípios com a União.

O decreto, publicado ontem em edição extraordinária do Diário Oficial da União, estabelece as fórmulas para reprocessamento das dívidas pelos novos encargos autorizados, bem como para a apuração mensal do coeficiente de atualização monetária da dívida remanescente.

O decreto dispõe ainda sobre as providências a serem adotadas pelos devedores antes da celebração dos aditivos contratuais com a União para aplicação das disposições da LC 148/2014, como obtenção de autorização legislativa, conferência e concordância prévia com os cálculos, observação das exigências contidas na Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (LRF) para essas operações e desistência de ações judiciais eventualmente propostas sobre os contratos de refinanciamento.

De acordo com a Lei Complementar 151/2015, o prazo para celebração desses aditivos contratuais e aplicação dos novos encargos é 31 de janeiro de 2016. Após essa data, os devedores que não tiverem reunido as condições exigidas para o aditamento continuarão pagando suas dívidas com a União nas condições vigentes até que a alteração contratual seja feita.

LC 148/2014
A Lei Complementar nº 148 alterou os critérios de indexação aplicáveis aos contratos de refinanciamento de dívidas de Estados e de Municípios, firmados com a União no âmbito da Lei nº 9.496, de 11 de setembro de 1997, e da Medida Provisória nº 2.192-70, de 24 de agosto de 2001, bem como dos contratos de refinanciamento de dívidas de Municípios, celebrados ao amparo da Medida Provisória nº 2.185, de 24 de agosto de 2001.

Dentre as principais inovações trazidas, destacam-se:

- concessão de desconto sobre os saldos devedores dos contratos de refinanciamento de dívidas dos Estados e dos Municípios, correspondente à diferença entre os saldos existentes em 1º de janeiro de 2013 e aqueles apurados, naquela data, pelo recálculo das dívidas de acordo com a variação acumulada da taxa SELIC desde a data de assinatura dos contratos; e

- aplicação de novos indexadores a partir de 1º de janeiro de 2013, observada a menor das variações acumuladas entre o IPCA mais 4% a.a. e a taxa Selic, em substituição aos encargos contratuais originais, IGP-DI mais juros de 6% a 7,5% a.a. para Estados e Distrito Federal, e IGP-DI + 9% a.a. para os Municípios.

A aplicação da LC 148 impactará mais de 200 (duzentos) contratos de refinanciamento de dívidas celebrados entre estados, DF e municípios e a União e deverá permitir aos entes a possibilidade de redução em seus pagamentos futuros para a União. A LC 148 não traz impactos para a dívida pública e não afeta o resultado primário da União e dos entes.

 Grato ao economista Ricardo Bergamini (PRA)

Foreign Affairs: o fim do paradigma do Estado-falido (sera?) - Michael J. Mazarr

The Rise and Fall of the Failed-State Paradigm

Requiem for a Decade of Distraction

By Michael J. Mazarr

Foreign Affairs, January-February 2014

A broken globe in an abandoned school in Ukraine. (Fiona McAllister / Flickr)

For a decade and a half, from the mid-1990s through about 2010, the dominant national security narrative in the United States stressed the dangers posed by weak or failing states. These were seen to breed terrorism, regional chaos, crime, disease, and environmental catastrophe. To deal with such problems at their roots, the argument ran, the United States had to reach out and help stabilize the countries in question, engaging in state building on a neo-imperial scale. And reach out the United States did -- most obviously during the protracted campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

After a decade of conflict and effort with precious little to show for it, however, the recent era of interventionist U.S. state building is drawing to a close. And although there are practical reasons for this shift -- the United States can no longer afford such missions, and the public has tired of them -- the decline of the state-building narrative reflects a more profound underlying truth: the obsession with weak states was always more of a mania than a sound strategic doctrine. Its passing will not leave the United States more isolationist and vulnerable but rather free the country to focus on its more important global roles.

THE BIRTH OF A PARADIGM

In the wake of the Cold War, contemplating a largely benign security environment, many U.S. national security strategists and practitioners concluded that the most important risks were posed by the fragility of state structures and recommended profound shifts in U.S. foreign and defense policy as a result. In an interconnected world, they argued, chaos, violence, and grievances anywhere had the potential to affect U.S. interests, and weak states were factories of such volatility. Experiences in Somalia, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia helped fuel the concern, and by 1994, the CIA was funding a state-failure task force to get a handle on the problem.

In 1997, the Clinton administration released Presidential Decision Directive 56, “Managing Complex Contingency Operations,” which began with the assertion that “in the wake of the Cold War, attention has focused on a rising number of territorial disputes, armed ethnic conflicts, and civil wars that pose threats to regional and international peace.” A new focus of U.S. policy, accordingly, would be responding to such situations with “multi-dimensional operations composed of such components as political/diplomatic, humanitarian, intelligence, economic development, and security.”

Critics of a realist persuasion objected to the emerging narrative, arguing that the Clinton administration’s forays into state building in peripheral areas represented a strategic folly. And during his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush ran as the candidate of foreign policy humility, arguing in part that nation building was a dangerous distraction. His adviser Condoleezza Rice grumbled that U.S. troops should not be asked to escort toddlers to school; his vice presidential candidate, Dick Cheney, suggested that a Bush administration would end U.S. participation in Balkan operations; and the day before the election, Bush himself declared, “Let me tell you what else I’m worried about: I’m worried about an opponent who uses ‘nation building’ and ‘the military’ in the same sentence.”

But the 9/11 attacks swept these hesitations aside, as the practical implications of an interventionist “war on terror” became apparent. The first page of the Bush administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy argued that “America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. We are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies in the hands of the embittered few.”

The new consensus was bipartisan. The Democratic foreign policy hand Susan Rice, for example, wrote in 2003 that Bush was “wise to draw attention to the significant threats to our national security posed by failed and failing states.” Where the right emphasized security and terrorism, the left added humanitarian concerns. Development specialists jumped on the bandwagon as well, thanks to new studies that highlighted the importance of institutions and good governance as requirements for sustained economic success. In his 2004 book, State-Building, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote, “Weak and failing states have arguably become the single most important problem for international order.” The Washington Posteditorialized the same year that “weak states can compromise security -- most obviously by providing havens for terrorists but also by incubating organized crime, spurring waves of migrants, and undermining global efforts to control environmental threats and disease.” This argument, the paper concluded, “is no longer much contested.” A year later, the State Department’s director of policy planning, Stephen Krasner, and its newly minted coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization, Carlos Pascual, argued in these pages that “in today’s increasingly interconnected world, weak and failed states pose an acute risk to U.S. and global security. Indeed, they present one of the most important foreign policy challenges of the contemporary era.”

From one angle, the concern with weak states could be seen as a response to actual conditions on the ground. Problems had always festered in disordered parts of the developing world. Without great- power conflict as an urgent national security priority, those problems were more clearly visible and harder to ignore. From another angle, it could be seen as a classic meme -- a concept or intellectual fad riding to prominence through social diffusion, articles by prominent thinkers, a flurry of attention from the mainstream press, and a series of foundation grants, think-tank projects, roundtables, and conferences.

From a third angle, however, it could be seen as a solution to an unusual concern confronting U.S. policymakers in this era: what to do with a surplus of national power. The United States entered the 1990s with a dominant international position and no immediate threats. Embracing a substantially reduced U.S. global role would have required a fundamental reassessment of the prevailing consensus in favor of continued primacy, something few in or around the U.S. national security establishment were prepared to consider. Instead, therefore, whether consciously or not, that establishment generated a new rationale for global engagement, one involving the application of power and influence to issues that at any other time would have been seen as secondary or tertiary. Without a near-peer competitor (or several) to deter or a major war on the horizon, Washington found a new foreign policy calling: renovating weak or failing states.

THE DECLINE OF A STRATEGIC NARRATIVE

The practical challenges of state-building missions are now widely appreciated. They tend to be long, difficult, and expensive, with success demanding an open-ended commitment to a messy, violent, and confusing endeavor -- something unlikely to be sustained in an era of budgetary austerity. But the last decade has driven home intellectual challenges to the concept as well.

The threat posed by weak and fragile states, for example, turned out to be both less urgent and more complex and diffuse than was originally suggested. Foreign Policy’s Failed States Index for 2013 is not exactly a roster of national security priorities; of its top 20 weak states, very few (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan) boast geostrategic significance, and they do so mostly because of their connection to terrorism. But even the threat of terrorism isn’t highly correlated with the current roster of weak states; only one of the top 20, Sudan, appears on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and most other weak states have only a marginal connection to terrorism at best.

A lack of definitional rigor posed a second problem. There has never been a coherent set of factors that define failed states: As the political scientist Charles Call argued in a powerful 2008 corrective, the concept resulted in the “agglomeration of diverse criteria” that worked to “throw a monolithic cloak over disparate problems that require tailored solutions.” This basic methodological flaw would distort state-building missions for years, as outside powers forced generic, universal solutions onto very distinct contexts.

The specified dangers were never unique to weak states, moreover, nor would state-building campaigns necessarily have mitigated them. Take terrorism. The most effective terrorists tend to be products of the middle class, often from nations such as Saudi Arabia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, not impoverished citizens of failed states. And terrorist groups operating in weak states can shift their bases of operations: if Afghanistan becomes too risky, they can uproot themselves and move to Somalia, Yemen, or even Europe. As a result, “stabilizing” three or four sources of extremist violence would not render the United States secure. The same could be said of threats such as organized crime, which finds comfortable homes in functioning but troubled states in Asia, eastern Europe, and Latin America.

As the scholar Stewart Patrick noted in a 2006 examination of the purported threats issuing from weak states, “What is striking is how little empirical evidence underpins these assertions and policy developments. Analysts and policymakers alike have simply presumed the existence of a blanket connection between state weakness and threats to the national security of developed countries and have begun to recommend and implement policy responses.”

And although interconnectedness and interdependence may create risks, the dangers in such a world are more likely to come from strong, well-governed states with imperfect regulations than weak ones with governance deficiencies. Financial volatility that can shake the foundations of leading nations and cyberattacks that could destabilize energy or information networks pose more immediate and persistent risks than, say, terrorism.

A third problem was misplaced confidence about the possibility of the mission’s feasibility. The last decade has offered an extended, tragic reminder of the fact that forcible state building simply cannot be accomplished by outsiders in any sustainable or authentic way. When a social order has become maladapted to the globalizing world -- when governing institutions are weak, personalized, or kleptocratic; corruption is rampant; and the rule of law is noticeable by its absence -- there are simply no proven methods for generating major social, political, economic, or cultural change relatively quickly.

As the Australian political scientist Michael Wesley argued in a brilliant 2008 essay, state weakness is primarily a political problem, and yet state building is often conceived and executed as if it were an apolitical exercise. “The intention of remaining aloof from politics while concentrating on technocratic reforms has proved unrealistic,” he wrote. “Even seemingly technocratic tasks confront international administrators with essentially political decisions: the nature and basis of elections; which pressure groups to consult; the reintegration or de facto separation of ethnic communities; school curricula; degrees of public ownership of enterprises; the status of women; and so on. However technocratic their intention, state-building missions inevitably find themselves factored into local rivalries.”

In trying to force change on recalcitrant governments and societies, moreover, outside interventions undermine internal motives for reform by transferring responsibility for a better future from local leaders to external actors. The outside power needs cooperation from its local clients more than they need its sponsorship. The result is a dependency paradox that impedes reform. As success stories from South Korea to Chile show, the path from state weakness to strength has to be traveled by the states themselves, gradually and fitfully, most often under the influence of strong, decisive leadership from visionary architects of governance. It is an organic, grass-roots process that must respect the unique social, cultural, economic, political, and religious contexts of each country. And although it can be encouraged and even modestly shaped by outside contributions and pressure, it cannot be imposed.

A fourth problem with the state-building obsession was that it distorted the United States’ sense of its central purpose and role in global politics. Ever since World War II, the United States has labored mightily to underwrite the stability of the international system. It has done this by assembling military alliances to protect its friends and deter its enemies, by helping construct a global architecture of trade and finance, and by policing the global commons. These actions have helped buttress an interdependent system of states that see their dominant interests in stability rather than conquest.

Playing this role well demands sustained attention at all levels of government, in part to nurture the relationships essential to crisis management, diplomacy, and multilateral cooperation of all kinds. Indeed, the leading danger in the international system today is the peril that, assaulted by a dozen causes of rivalry and mistrust, the system will fragment into geopolitical chaos. The U.S. experience since the 1990s, and growing evidence from Northeast Asia, suggests that if the relatively stable post–Cold War era devolves into interstate rivalry, it will be not the result of weak states but that of the escalating regional ambitions, bitter historical memories, and flourishing nationalisms of increasingly competitive states. The U.S. role in counteracting the broader trends of systemic disintegration is therefore critical. The United States is the linchpin of a number of key alliances and networks; it provides the leadership and attractive force for many global diplomatic endeavors, and its dominant military position helps rule out thoughts of aggression in many quarters.

The weak-state obsession has drawn attention away from such pursuits and made a resurgence of traditional threats more likely. Focusing on two seemingly endless wars and half a dozen other potential “stability operations” has eroded U.S. global engagement, diminished U.S. diplomatic creativity, and distracted U.S. officials from responding appropriately to changes in the global landscape.

When one reads the memoirs of Bush administration officials, the dozen or more leading global issues beyond Afghanistan, Iraq, and the “war on terror” begin to sound like background noise. Top U.S. officials appear to have spent far more time between 2003 and 2011, for example, managing the fractious mess of Iraqi politics than tending to relationships with key global powers. As a consequence, senior U.S. officials have had less time to cultivate the leaders of rising regional powers, from Brazil to India to Turkey. Sometimes, U.S. actions or demands in state-building adventures have directly undermined other important relationships or diplomatic initiatives, as when Washington faced the global political reaction to the Iraq war.

Such tradeoffs reflect a hallmark of the era of state building: secondary issues became dominant ones. To be fair, this was partly the fault of globalization; around-the-clock media coverage now constantly shoves problems a world away onto the daily agendas of national leaders. Combined with the United States’ self-image as the indispensable nation, this intrusive awareness created political pressure to act on issues of limited significance to core U.S. interests. Yet this is precisely the problem: U.S. perceptions of global threats and of the country’s responsibility to address them have become badly and perhaps permanently skewed. A great power’s reservoir of strategic attention is not infinite. And the United States has become geopolitically hobbled, seemingly uninterested in grand strategic initiatives or transformative diplomacy, as its attention constantly dances from one crisis to another.

A fifth problem flowed directly from the fourth. To perform its global stabilizing role, the United States needs appropriately designed, trained, and equipped armed forces -- forces that can provide a global presence, prevail in high-end conflict contingencies, enable quick long-range strike and interdiction capabilities, and build and support local partners’ capacities. The state-building mission has skewed the operations, training, equipping, and self-conception of the U.S. military in ways that detract from these responsibilities.

Much of the U.S. military has spent a decade focusing on state building and counterinsurgency (COIN), especially in its training and doctrine, to the partial neglect of more traditional tasks. Massive investments have gone into COIN-related equipment, such as the MRAP (mine-resistant, ambush-protected) vehicles built to protect U.S. troops from improvised explosive devices, draining billions of dollars from other national security resources. The result of these choices has been to weaken the U.S. military’s ability to play more geostrategic and, ultimately, more important roles. Between a demanding operational tempo, the requirements of refitting between deployments, and a shift in training to emphasize COIN, the U.S. military, especially its ground forces, lost much of its proficiency in full-spectrum combat operations. Simply put, the U.S. military would be far better positioned today -- better aligned with the most important roles for U.S. power, better trained for its traditional missions, better equipped for an emerging period of austerity -- had the state-building diversion never occurred.

AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL

None of this is meant to suggest that a concern for the problems posed by weak or failing states can or should disappear entirely from the U.S. foreign policy and national security agendas. Counterterrorism and its associated tasks will surely remain important, and across the greater Middle East -- including Afghanistan after 2014 -- internal turmoil may well have external consequences requiring some response from Washington. Effective local institutions do contribute to stability and growth, and the United States should do what it can to nurture them where possible. The difference is likely to be in the priority Washington accords such efforts. The January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, for example, reflected the judgment that “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations” and announced an intention to pursue “innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches” to achieving objectives. Recently, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James “Sandy” Winnefeld, went even further: “I simply don’t know where the security interests of our nation are threatened enough to cause us to lead a future major, extended COIN campaign.”

In the future, the United States is likely to rely less on power projection and more on domestic preparedness, replacing an urgent civilizing zeal with defensive self-protection. This makes sense, because the most appropriate answer to the dangers inherent in an era of interdependence and turbulence is domestic resilience: hardened and redundant networks of information and energy, an emphasis on local or regional self-sufficiency to reduce the cascading effects of systemic shocks, improved domestic emergency-response and cybersecurity capacities, sufficient investments in pandemic response, and so forth. Equally important is a resilient mindset, one that treats perturbations as inevitable rather than calamitous and resists the urge to overreact. In this sense, the global reaction to the recent surge in piracy -- partly a product of poor governance in African states -- should be taken as a model: no state-building missions, but arming and protecting the ships at risk.

When it does reach out into the world to deal with weak states, the United States should rely on gradual progress through patient, long-term advisory and aid relationships, based on such activities as direct economic assistance tailored to local needs; training, exchanges, and other human-capacity-development programs; military-to-military ties; trade and investment policies; and more. The watchwords should be patience, gradualism, and tailored responses: enhancing effective governance through a variety of models attuned to local patterns and needs, in advisory and supportive ways.

As weak states continue to generate specific threats, such as terrorism, the United States has a range of more limited tools available to mitigate them. It can, for example, return terrorism to its proper place as a law enforcement task and continue to work closely with foreign law enforcement agencies. It can help train and develop such agencies, as well as local militaries, to lead in the fight. When necessary, it can employ targeted coercive instruments -- classic intelligence work and clandestine operations, raids by special operations forces, and, with far greater selectivity than today, remote strikes -- to deal with particular threats, ideally in concert with the militaries of local allies.

Some will contend that U.S. officials can never rule out expeditionary state building because events may force it back onto the agenda. If al Qaeda were to launch an attack that was planned in restored Taliban strongholds in a post-2014 Afghanistan, or if a fragmentation and radicalization of Pakistani society were to place nuclear control at risk, some would recommend a return to interventionist state building. Yet after the United States’ recent experiences, it is doubtful that such a call would resonate.

The idea of a neo-imperial mission to strengthen weak states and stabilize chaotic societies always flew in the face of more important U.S. global roles and real mechanisms of social change. There is still work to be done in such contexts, but in more prudent and discriminate ways. Moving on from the civilizing mission will, in turn, make possible a more sustainable and effective national security strategy, allowing the United States to return its full attention to the roles and missions that mean far more to long-term peace and security. One of the benefits of this change, ironically, will be to allow local institutional development to proceed more organically and authentically, in its own ways and at its own pace. Most of all, the new mindset will reflect a simple facing up to reality after a decade of distraction.

O Afeganistao tem solucao? Provavelmente nao! Nem sem rima. Um Estado mais que falido...

Certos Estados, reconhecidos como tais pela ONU, não reunem, na verdade, condições mínimas para figurar nessa categoria, e isso não tem nada a ver com o colonialismo, com a dominação ocidental, as invasões imperialistas, e outras bobagens do gênero.

Isso tem a ver com a incapacidade de suas elites de governarem o país de uma forma minimamente racional, o que provocou uma situação de anomia absoluta que impede qualquer forma de governança de se estabelecer como Estado normal. Eles estão além da falência, já passaram para a situação de caos permanente.

O Haiti arriscou cair nessa situação e só escapou de cair no precipício por causa da intrevenção estrangeira. Agora, ele vai cair no colo da assistência pública internacional e vai viver nessas situação pelos próximos 50 anos, até dispor de elites capazes de assumir suas responsabilidades.

Somália e Afeganistão, República Centro-Africana, Sudão do Sul e alguns outros já estão numa, ou se dirigem rapidamente para, uma situação terminal.

Não vejo nenhuma solução fácil ou minimamente aceitável, sem enormes custos humanos, no futuro previsível. Não existem elites nacionais capazes de endireitar a situação. Daí o sacrifício do Ocidente, que em outros tempos se chamava o fardo do homem branco.

Isso apenas nos confirma que certos indivíduos, determinadas sociedades e pelo menos uma religião em particular não pertencem ainda ao século 20, mas a um universo muito primitivo, eu até diria troglodita. Assim é o mundo, infelizmente, um lugar que está mais para Hobbes do que para Locke ou Kant. Um dia virá, mas para certos povos, isso ainda vai exigir pelo menos três ou quatro gerações. Isso se o Ocidente não desistir, claro.

Mas o preço a pagar é esse aí, como figura na matéria abaixo.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Atentado em Cabul deixa 16 mortos, a maioria estrangeiros

Representante do FMI e três membros da ONU estão entre as vítimas do ataque

Forças de segurança afegãs deixam o local de um ataque suicida em um restaurante de Cabul, no Afeganistão. O restaurante libanês é popular entre os estrangeiros e afegãos ricos (Massoud Hossaini/AP)

Um atentado suicida reivindicado pelo grupo terrorista Talibã deixou ao menos dezesseis mortos em um restaurante de Cabul, no Afeganistão. Entre as vítimas estão três funcionários da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) e um representante do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI). O atentado foi perpetrado na hora do jantar, em um popular restaurante libanês no distrito de Wazir Akbar Khan, que abriga muitas embaixadas.

O secretário-geral da ONU, Ban Ki-moon condenou o ataque e lamentou a morte dos membros das Nações Unidas. "Estes ataques voltados contra civis são completamente inaceitáveis", afirmou. Em um comunicado, a diretora do FMI, Christine Lagarde, informou que o libanês Wabel Abdallah, de 60 anos, que chefiava o escritório da organização em Cabul desde 2008, é uma das vítimas. "É uma notícia trágica e nós estamos devastados", disse ela.

Leia também:
Ataque suicida no Afeganistão mata 3 soldados da Otan
Após 12 anos, Austrália anuncia retirada do Afeganistão

A explosão no local abriu caminho para dois atiradores entrarem no restaurante e começarem a disparar contra as pessoas que estavam no estabelecimento. Os tiros puderam ser ouvidos durante vários minutos (entre 10 e 20 minutos, segundo relatos) e a principal rua que leva à área foi isolada. O porta-voz do Ministério do Interior, Sediq Sediqi afirmou que dois atiradores foram mortos pelas forças de segurança.

Estratégia terrorista - Segundo o jornal The New York Times, fontes afegãs e ocidentais disseram que pelo menos treze mortos eram estrangeiros. O jornal pontua que o atentado representa uma mudança na estratégia regular do Talibã, que geralmente prefere atacar alvos cercados de segurança, como prédios do governo e símbolos da presença ocidental no país, como a embaixada americana.

Leia mais:
EUA descobrem plano de colaboração entre Afeganistão e Talibã

Retirada – O atentado ocorre no momento em que a maior parte das forças estrangeiras se preparam para deixar o Afeganistão este ano, depois de mais de uma década marcada por ataques frequentes. Washington negocia com o presidente Hamid Karzai um acordo que permitiria a permanência de algumas tropas americanas no país.

As preocupações com segurança aumentaram no Afeganistão com a proximidade da eleição presidencial marcada para abril, quando a população vai eleger o sucessor de Karzai. Se nenhum acordo for alcançado entre os EUA e o governo local, as forças afegãs terão de enfrentar os terroristas por conta própria.

(Com agência Reuters)

Estados falidos: o Ocidente e' sempre o culpado...

Parece que as elites dos Estados falidos não têm nada a ver com o fato de seus países serem um fracasso completo. O que quer que o Ocidente faça, ele sempre é culpado de alguma coisa.
Se o Ocidente deixasse os Estados falidos à sua mercê, eles se converteriam rapidamente em centros de corrupção, de tráfico de drogas e de todos os tipos de criminalidade transnacional, de piratas, fontes de miséria e desespero para suas próprias populações. Então a "opinião pública" internacional -- isto é ocidental, exclusivamente -- pressiona seus governos para intervir e colocar ordem na casa. Raramente dá certo, pois construir Estados, reconstruir sociedades é uma tarefa hercúlea, que nunca pode ser feita a partir de fora, mas dependeria do engajamento de suas próprias elites. Se estas são incompetentes ou incapazes, nada de bom pode resultar dessa intervenção.
Por que culpar o Ocidente, então?
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Interview with Ahmed Rashid The West Should 'Change Its Approach to Failing States'

Der Spiegel, 31/12/2012

REUTERS

Ahmed Rashid, one of the world's foremost experts on Afghanistan, once welcomed US intervention in the failed state. But in a SPIEGEL interview, the Pakistani journalist says the West's model for development is fundamentally flawed and must be changed.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Rashid, in 2014 the West will withdraw from Afghanistan. To what extent have they failed?

ANZEIGE

Rashid: In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure. The West does not understand how to deal with states that no longer have any authority and are threatened by dissolution. Their efforts failed in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. They are simply not capable of promoting the indigenous economy. Neither USAID nor Germany's international technical cooperation agency, the GIZ, are able to get a grip on it. They provide temporary assistance, no more than that. Many billions of dollars flooded into Afghanistan, but without any significant effect. SPIEGEL: There is rarely a lack of monetary aid in such countries. So why does the Western model fail in building up a country such as Afghanistan?
Rashid: It would be better if the private sector would participate to a larger extent. Dysfunctional states like Afghanistan need business people who are deeply rooted in their country and invest in it. They can add stability. But all development programs of the United States and the European countries unfortunately exclude the private sector, which could make investments based on profitability.
SPIEGEL: Presumably it would also be quite difficult to persuade companies to invest in countries like Afghanistan or Somalia.
Rashid: Yes, I am aware of the challenges. But I am confident that there are hedge funds, banks or investment companies that could allocate five percent of their portfolios for risky investments. In any event, for countries like Afghanistan the formation of an entrepreneurial class is of vital importance.
SPIEGEL: The United States is trying to establish a more peaceful environment prior to the withdrawal of their troops and to initiate talks with the Taliban -- also with limited success.
Rashid: Evidently, the US also isn't capable of mediation. This lesson can be drawn from the failure of the talks with the Taliban in Qatar. Here too it would be better to involve the private sector, such as with respectable organizations that are preferably trusted by both sides. States should limit themselves to facilitating mediation. For example, the International Red Cross has the best contact to the Taliban. The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan has for the past fifteen years managed three hundred schools in an area of Afghanistan that is under Taliban control. The Swedes have to deal with the Taliban on an almost daily basis so the schools can be kept open for boys and girls. This remarkable local initiative could be transformed into a nationwide initiative for dialogue and mediation.
SPIEGEL: What you are proposing is a paradigm shift.
Rashid: Exactly, the West would be well advised to change its approach towards failing states. At present, no major power can find the correct ways and means --and the numbers of failing states are increasing, almost as if there were a race going on. This year we watched the collapse of Mali, a consequence of the Libyan civil war. The south of Libya and Mali, and Niger too, are well on the way to becoming a no-man's land. After 9/11, George W. Bush and Tony Blair made the promise that they would not tolerate failed states because they could become a haven for terrorists. And today? The number increases. Last year it was Yemen, this year it is the southern Sahara.
SPIEGEL: What do you suggest? A military intervention surely can no longer be an alternative.
Rashid: It would have been better if the United Nations had sent a team to Mali right away to mediate between the government and the rebels. But where is the political initiative? The Americans make their usual recommendations. They want to train the army for the fight with the rebels. US special forces are already in Mali.
SPIEGEL: The promise that Bush and Blair made can hardly be kept after the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the near future, the United States can probably not be persuaded to launch military interventions.
Rashid: The United States only knows one form of intervention and that is the military one. Everything depends on drawn weapons. We should, however, develop a wider scope of action. And we should learn to be patient.
SPIEGEL: But did you not welcome the military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001?
Rashid: At that time, I assumed that the Afghans were incapable of dealing with the Taliban. They were exhausted from the civil war, they had suffered defeats, they were economically destitute, the unrest in the country was enormous. They had a famine. India, Pakistan and Iran waged a proxy war in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida supported the Taliban financially, which provided a basis for them. There was no alternative to America's military intervention. Therefore I welcomed it, yes.
SPIEGEL: You have always complained that the United States neglected Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq. What should have been the second step after the occupation?
Rashid: Very simple, economic development. The civil war was over and the Taliban was no longer there. Troops were necessary to guarantee security. To that end, back then the United States stationed 20,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, but that was not enough. And so they left the security to the Afghan warlords. The CIA consulted with them and by doing so destroyed the morale of the Afghans. They hated the warlords.
SPIEGEL: But quite a few billion dollars also went into building up the country. What happened with that money?
Rashid: In 2001 USAID, the American governmental organization for international development that was founded during the Cold War, invited me and several others to give them suggestions on how development should be carried out after 9/11. We told them that in the next 10 years the United States should make $5 billion available for Afghanistan every year -- enough to revitalize the economy, invest in infrastructure and rebuild education and health. A third-world country like Afghanistan could not possibly absorb more than these five billion. Five billion was peanuts back then. Much money came in but it went to the wrong things, such as making payoffs to the warlords. There was insufficient investment in infrastructure until much later, and the same went for building a self-sustaining economy and agriculture. We suggested major investments in agriculture, as Afghanistan happens to be a land of farmers. Until 2010 nothing was allocated. Richard Holbrooke, whom Obama appointed special envoy of the region, was the first who saw the necessity of investing in agriculture.
SPIEGEL: Obama changed quite a few things in his Afghanistan policy. He increased the number of troops and at the same time set the US withdrawal date to 2014. That was America's next mistake.
Rashid: That was the biggest mistake Obama could have made. Now the United States has to ensure that Afghanistan does not immediately collapse after being left to itself in 2014.
SPIEGEL: In your lifetime, you have witnessed the interventions of two super powers. What did the Soviet Union leave behind?
Rashid: The Soviets held to the tradition of colonialism. They raped the country and killed many people. But they also built dams, electrical power plants, streets, and technical schools. They were communists and had the same vision for Afghanistan that Stalin and Lenin had for the Soviet Union: Progress is communism plus electrification. And today? Today Kabul gets its electrical power from Uzbekistan, Herat from Iran and Jalalabad from Pakistan.
SPIEGEL: And what is the West's legacy in Afghanistan?
Rashid: America does not hold to the colonial tradition. America came, liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban and al-Qaida, came to an arrangement with Hamid Karzai, wanted to organize elections as soon as possible and then withdraw. The Bush administration had an obsession with democracy building. They thought that once there is a democracy, everything else will fall into place. If today you speak to the architects of the 2001 Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, they will tell you that instead of being fixated on elections, we should have built a state with an army and a police force first.
SPIEGEL: Even after the withdrawal, some US troops will remain in Afghanistan. How many should stay?
Rashid: The Americans estimate that 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers will fight terrorists from their various bases. That makes me think of Iraq, where the US also wanted to station 20,000 soldiers. The Iraqis encouraged them to leave.
SPIEGEL: Do you think that something similar will happen in Afghanistan?
Rashid: If Afghan soldiers continue to kill American soldiers as is happening these days, it can hardly be assumed that they will stay in Afghanistan in the long term. And what role are they to play? There will not be enough soldiers to ensure the security of the country. But will the US still be permitted to kill terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan with un-manned drones? That could worsen the situation in the neighboring states and they could view Afghanistan as a threat.
SPIEGEL: After 2014, will the Taliban again play a role in Afghanistan, whether the West likes it or not? Is Mullah Omar still the same stone-age Islamist he was 11 years ago?
Rashid: I believe that the Taliban are just as worn out from war as all of the other parties are. Perhaps they realize that they cannot win another civil war, particularly since Iran and India are boosting and protecting their own allies against the Taliban. Therefore, the Taliban cannot defeat the North. Should they aim to conquer the whole country, the world would turn its back on Afghanistan, including the United Nations. Then there would be no more money for Afghanistan, and that also goes for the $4 billion the West promised in Tokyo for the economic build-up. The Taliban would be well advised to come to an agreement with the government in Kabul, because they have the access to the money from the West.
SPIEGEL: But then the Taliban of today would no longer be the Taliban of yesterday.
Rashid: I think they are ready to compromise.
SPIEGEL: You have known Hamid Karzai for decades. What do you think of him today?
Rashid: He is a survivalist. But he has also deepened the ethnic divide in the country. He has neither fought against corruption nor against crime. He has not reformed the justice system. He has personalized his leadership, and in that respect he is similar to his father. During his father's lifetime there was the king, and he negotiated matters with the tribal leaders. Fifty years ago this form of rule was pretty normal, but today that is no longer the case.
SPIEGEL: In 2014 the new president of Afghanistan will be elected. Karzai cannot run again after two terms. Who will be his successor?
Rashid: Someone from his cabinet, someone whom he trusts. In any event it will be a Pashtun. If, however, the fighting in the country still continues in 2014, matters will be difficult. In 2008, Karzai rigged the election in part because a large number of Pashtuns in areas with a lot of fighting going on could not cast their vote. If that dilemma is repeated in 2014, a candidate from the North could win the majority. But Afghanistan is not yet ready for a president who is not a Pashtun. For that reason too, an armed truce in 2014 is important.
SPIEGEL: The emerging world powers India and China border on Afghanistan and Pakistan. What are the opportunities this neighborhood offers to the smaller countries?
Rashid: The neighbors have for many decades been accustomed to exerting control in Afghanistan. But Pakistan, with its fundamentalism, with its multitude of terrorist groups, with its declining economy can hardly be curtailed. The key for any change to this permanent and ever-increasing calamity is the relationship to India. India will not trust Pakistan as long as its secret service and army allow tens of thousands of militants to fight in Kashmir, and as long as it has to anticipate another assassination plot like that in Mumbai in 2008.

SPIEGEL: The next intervention will likely not be military, but economic, and one initiated by China and India. Why not to the advantage of Pakistan? Rashid: Our elites are spoiled by permanent foreign aid and therefore find it difficult to change course. Pakistan needs someone who stands up and says: Fundamentalism is bad, capitalism is good. This region harbors enormous potential. Pakistan could become the hub for the energy that is transported from Central Asia to South Asia. That could change the whole region. Or, India could invest in Pakistan, build factories and pipelines. Pakistan could provide engineers, drivers, workers, and forge alliances with the neighboring states. Twice the world powers have intervened and Pakistan has tried to play games with them. The third intervention will be economic, and we should participate.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Rashid, thank you for this conversation.

Interview by Gerhard Spörl

Pessoal, sinto muito: a empresa faliu, vamos fechar a barraca...

Pera aí: estamos falando de um país!!!
Será que dá para decretar a falência de um país, encerrar o empreendimento e mandar o pessoal procurar emprego em outra parte?
Acho que sim: o Haiti está tão devastado, que ele pode virar terreno de tiro para o exército americano, e acomodar os haitianos no Alaska (pagam um bom subsídio para quem quiser morar lá, talvez como proteção contra ursos selvagens, não que isso seja um problema para Sarah Palin...).
Bem, falando sério, acho que é preciso reconhecer que certos países não deram certo -- Somália, Haiti, Afeganistão -- e que talvez seja o caso de considerar outras hipóteses...


When do we pull the plug on a country?
David Rothkopf
Foreign Policy, 13.07.2010

What if the idea of Haiti as a country simply won't work?

They have been trying for two centuries. Even before the horrific tragedy of the earthquake six months ago, Haiti festered. The economy has averaged one percent growth per year for the past four decades. Haiti's per capita income places it 203rd among all nations. In purchasing power parity terms, it is $1,300 per year, putting it roughly on the same level as Uganda, Burkina Faso and Mali. In nominal terms, the per capita number is only $790, the lowest in the Western Hemisphere by far -- despite Haiti's proximity and ties to the richest economy on earth and aid flows and commitments nearing $10 billion since 1990.
This is not a new phenomenon. The Haitian experiment as a free republic that began with the successful slave rebellion of Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean Jacques Dessalines in the first years of the 19th century has by many measures been a failure since the beginning. Today, Haiti's per capita GDP is less than a sixth that of the country with which it shares the island of Hispaniola and therefore many characteristics and circumstances, the Dominican Republic.
Haiti has had dictatorships and democracy, external rule and global assistance. Throughout its history, its governments have failed virtually all the most rudimentary tests of administrative or policy competence. It has seen almost three dozen coups, averaging one every six years or so. Haiti ranks 126th in the world on education expenditures. Roughly half the population is illiterate. Something like 8 out of 10 college graduates emigrate. The country has only the most rudimentary telecommunications, power generation or transport infrastructure outside of Port au Prince. The majority of people didn't have access to basic health care even before January's earthquake. The leadership has consistently been viewed as corrupt, and its elites have consistently been viewed as out of touch with its people. The top one percent of the population control almost 50 percent of the country's assets. It is almost alone amongst the nations of the Caribbean to be unable to take advantage of the potential for tourism. Deforestation and ill-considered agricultural practices have decimated agri-business on the island-with a few notable exceptions. Manufacturing has never taken in a meaningful way despite much vaunted efforts to manufacture baseballs or clothing.

The human tragedy of Haiti is unspeakable. The promise of its people remains great.

But what if the concept of Haiti is the problem? Haitians speak French and Creole as a vestige of a colonial era that began its decline over two centuries ago. That the island is divided between French and Spanish speaking halves is yet another consequence of European historical caprice. The country's people are descendants of slaves who were torn from Africa and subjected to inhumane treatment as a consequence of a despicable and fundamentally immoral economic model that was recognized as intolerable and unsustainable also decades before the country's founding.

In other words, the country has been shaped in many important ways by conditions that are virtually irrelevant to the modern world. Which raises the question: When does the statute of limitations run out on the idea behind a country's existence?

That's not to say that a people's right to self-determination ever expires. Rather it is to say that there may well be a time that it is in the interest of the people of a country like Haiti and its neighbors to determine that the experiment has failed. I realize this is an incrediblly inflammatory notion. It is certainly neither offered lightly nor without regard for the Haitian people, for whom I have the greatest respect, admiration and affection.

Rather it is to say, how much longer can the world write checks for billions, undertake initiatives doomed to failure, deal with governments gutted either by circumstance (the earthquake) or incompetence (virtually every other Haitian government)? There is a cost to the Haitian experiment and of course, it is not just measured in the outlays of international institutions or NGOs. Its more painful toll is measured in the costs to the Haitian people -- either during natural disasters (and hurricane season will soon come to a nation which currently has a million people homeless or housed in flimsy tent camps) or as a consequence of the year-in and year-out inability of the government to educate them, raise their standard of living, create new jobs, mine some sort of hope from the despair of the country's shanty-towns and villages that are dirt poor but filled with vibrant, energetic people.

Should nations that can't stand alone consolidate with neighbors? Should they break into different pieces? Should they develop different relationships with large countries with whom they share affinities? Should they be able to enter periods of protected restructuring like companies in bankruptcy? Should they, at the very least, start to question more seriously the underlying concepts that have, after decades or centuries, left them chronically poor, uncompetitive, unstable?

We treat the "right to nation" like it were a theological construct. But countries, like companies, like families, like churches, like all human organizations are just conceptual structures designed to produce a better life for the people within them. If all evidence suggests that the concept is flawed in some key way, we need to ask: When does it become time to reconsider, reinvent and explore new avenues that might better serve those who currently suffer without real hope of change? We can all think of other countries that might benefit themselves and the global community at large from such reconsideration.

Does this mean we should stop trying to help Haiti rebuild or to re-emerge from the current disastrous conditions? Of course not. Indeed, given the amount of dithering around helping Haiti that has occurred over the past six months, decency demands we redouble our efforts ... and then some. It is appalling that the oversight commission has only met once and has yet to appoint an executive director. It is appalling that the government of Haiti -- devastated as it has been -- has been so devoid of leadership. The country can emerge stronger if the world unites to help it as we must.

No, the reason I raise the issue is that after decades of watching Haiti (and many other countries) struggle with resource limitations, cultural obstacles, competitive disadvantages and chronic crises, I just think it is worth asking whether we need to be bolder in our approach to finding solutions and to truly ask ourselves what we would and could do if we sought to truly serve the people of these countries rather than the ideas of long dead founders, the consequences of long-forgotten geopolitical twists and turns or the objectives of elites who benefit from old ideas that no longer benefit anyone other than the few.

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Biographical note on David Rothkopf:

David Rothkopf is the internationally acclaimed author of Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 2008), now available in over two dozen editions worldwide, and Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (PublicAffairs, 2005), hailed by The New York Times as "the definitive history of the National Security Council." His next book, on the tug of war between public and private power worldwide and its consequences, is due out from Farrar Straus & Giroux late this year.

Rothkopf is President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, an international advisory firm specializing in transformational trends especially those associated with energy choice and climate change, emerging markets and global risk. He is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where he chairs the Carnegie Economic Strategy Roundtable. He was formerly chief executive of Intellibridge Corporation, managing director of Kissinger Associates and U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Policy.

Rothkopf has also taught international affairs and national security studies at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, has lectured widely and is the author of over 150 articles for leading publications worldwide.