Ukraine, Iraq and a Black Sea Strategy (Stratfor, 2014/09/02)

Geopolitical Weekly

Tuesday, September 2

By George Friedman
The United States is, at the moment, off balance. It faces challenges in the Syria-Iraq theater as well as challenges in Ukraine. It does not have a clear response to either. It does not know what success in either theater would look like, what resources it is prepared to devote to either, nor whether the consequences of defeat would be manageable. 
A dilemma of this sort is not unusual for a global power. Its very breadth of interests and the extent of power create opportunities for unexpected events, and these events, particularly simultaneous challenges in different areas, create uncertainty and confusion. U.S. geography and power permit a degree of uncertainty without leading to disaster, but generating a coherent and integrated strategy is necessary, even if that strategy is simply to walk away and let events run their course. I am not suggesting the latter strategy but arguing that at a certain point, confusion must run its course and clear intentions must emerge. When they do, the result will be the coherence of a new strategic map that encompasses both conflicts. 
The most critical issue for the United States is to create a single integrated plan that takes into account the most pressing challenges. Such a plan must begin by defining a theater of operations sufficiently coherent geographically as to permit integrated political maneuvering and military planning. U.S. military doctrine has moved explicitly away from a two-war strategy. Operationally, it might not be possible to engage all adversaries simultaneously, but conceptually, it is essential to think in terms of a coherent center of gravity of operations. For me, it is increasingly clear that that center is the Black Sea.

Ukraine and Syria-Iraq

There are currently two active theaters of military action with broad potential significance. One is Ukraine, where the Russians have launched a counteroffensive toward Crimea. The other is in the Syria-Iraq region, where the forces of the Islamic State have launched an offensive designed at a minimum to control regions in both countries -- and at most dominate the area between the Levant and Iran.
In most senses, there is no connection between these two theaters. Yes, the Russians have an ongoing problem in the high Caucasus and there are reports of Chechen advisers working with the Islamic State. In this sense, the Russians are far from comfortable with what is happening in Syria and Iraq. At the same time, anything that diverts U.S. attention from Ukraine is beneficial to the Russians. For its part, the Islamic State must oppose Russia in the long run. Its immediate problem, however, is U.S. power, so anything that distracts the United States is beneficial to the Islamic State.
But the Ukrainian crisis has a very different political dynamic from the Iraq-Syria crisis. Russian and Islamic State military forces are not coordinated in any way, and in the end, victory for either would challenge the interests of the other. But for the United States, which must allocate its attention, political will and military power carefully, the two crises must be thought of together. The Russians and the Islamic State have the luxury of focusing on one crisis. The United States must concern itself with both and reconcile them.
The United States has been in the process of limiting its involvement in the Middle East while attempting to deal with the Ukrainian crisis. The Obama administration wants to create an integrated Iraq devoid of jihadists and have Russia accept a pro-Western Ukraine. It also does not want to devote substantial military forces to either theater. Its dilemma is how to achieve its goals without risk. If it can't do this, what risk will it accept or must it accept? 
Strategies that minimize risk and create maximum influence are rational and should be a founding principle of any country. By this logic, the U.S. strategy ought to be to maintain the balance of power in a region using proxies and provide material support to those proxies but avoid direct military involvement until there is no other option. The most important thing is to provide the support that obviates the need for intervention.
In the Syria-Iraq theater, the United States moved from a strategy of seeking a unified state under secular pro-Western forces to one seeking a balance of power between the Alawites and jihadists. In Iraq, the United States pursued a unified government under Baghdad and is now trying to contain the Islamic State using minimal U.S. forces and Kurdish, Shiite and some Sunni proxies. If that fails, the U.S. strategy in Iraq will devolve into the strategy in Syria, namely, seeking a balance of power between factions. It is not clear that another strategy exists. The U.S. occupation of Iraq that began in 2003 did not result in a military solution, and it is not clear that a repeat of 2003 would succeed either. Any military action must be taken with a clear outcome in mind and a reasonable expectation that the allocation of forces will achieve that outcome; wishful thinking is not permitted. Realistically, air power and special operations forces on the ground are unlikely to force the Islamic State to capitulate or to result in its dissolution. 
Ukraine, of course, has a different dynamic. The United States saw the events in Ukraine as either an opportunity for moral posturing or as a strategic blow to Russian national security. Either way, it had the same result: It created a challenge to fundamental Russian interests and placed Russian President Vladimir Putin in a dangerous position. His intelligence services completely failed to forecast or manage events in Kiev or to generate a broad rising in eastern Ukraine. Moreover, the Ukrainians were defeating their supporters (with the distinction between supporters and Russian troops becoming increasingly meaningless with each passing day). But it was obvious that the Russians were not simply going to let the Ukrainian reality become a fait accompli. They would counterattack. But even so, they would still have moved from once shaping Ukrainian policy to losing all but a small fragment of Ukraine. They will therefore maintain a permanently aggressive posture in a bid to recoup what has been lost.
U.S. strategy in Ukraine tracks its strategy in Syria-Iraq. First, Washington uses proxies; second, it provides material support; and third, it avoids direct military involvement. Both strategies assume that the main adversary -- the Islamic State in Syria-Iraq and Russia in Ukraine -- is incapable of mounting a decisive offensive, or that any offensive it mounts can be blunted with air power. But to be successful, U.S. strategy assumes there will be coherent Ukrainian and Iraqi resistance to Russia and the Islamic State, respectively. If that doesn't materialize or dissolves, so does the strategy. 
The United States is betting on risky allies. And the outcome matters in the long run. U.S. strategy prior to World Wars I and II was to limit involvement until the situation could be handled only with a massive American deployment. During the Cold War, the United States changed its strategy to a pre-commitment of at least some forces; this had a better outcome. The United States is not invulnerable to foreign threats, although those foreign threats must evolve dramatically. The earlier intervention was less costly than intervention at the last possible minute. Neither the Islamic State nor Russia poses such a threat to the United States, and it is very likely that the respective regional balance of power can contain them. But if they can't, the crises could evolve into a more direct threat to the United States. And shaping the regional balance of power requires exertion and taking at least some risks.

Regional Balances of Power and the Black Sea

The rational move for countries like Romania, Hungary or Poland is to accommodate Russia unless they have significant guarantees from the outside. Whether fair or not, only the United States can deliver those guarantees. The same can be said about the Shia and the Kurds, both of whom the United States has abandoned in recent years, assuming that they could manage on their own. 
The issue the United States faces is how to structure such support, physically and conceptually. There appear to be two distinct and unconnected theaters, and American power is limited. The situation would seem to preclude persuasive guarantees. But U.S. strategic conception must evolve away from seeing these as distinct theaters into seeing them as different aspects of the same theater: the Black Sea.
When we look at a map, we note that the Black Sea is the geographic organizing principle of these areas. The sea is the southern frontier of Ukraine and European Russia and the Caucasus, where Russian, jihadist and Iranian power converge on the Black Sea. Northern Syria and Iraq are fewer than 650 kilometers (400 miles) from the Black Sea. 
The United States has had a North Atlantic strategy. It has had a Caribbean strategy, a Western Pacific strategy and so on. This did not simply mean a naval strategy. Rather, it was understood as a combined arms system of power projection that depended on naval power to provide strategic supply, delivery of troops and air power. It also placed its forces in such a configuration that the one force, or at least command structure, could provide support in multiple directions. 
The United States has a strategic problem that can be addressed either as two or more unrelated problems requiring redundant resources or a single integrated solution. It is true that the Russians and the Islamic State do not see themselves as part of a single theater. But opponents don't define theaters of operation for the United States. The first step in crafting a strategy is to define the map in a way that allows the strategist to think in terms of unity of forces rather than separation, and unity of support rather than division. It also allows the strategist to think of his regional relationships as part of an integrated strategy.
Assume for the moment that the Russians chose to intervene in the Caucasus again, that jihadists moved out of Chechnya and Dagestan into Georgia and Azerbaijan, or that Iran chose to move north. The outcome of events in the Caucasus would matter greatly to the United States. Under the current strategic structure, where U.S. decision-makers seem incapable of conceptualizing the two present strategic problems, such a third crisis would overwhelm them. But thinking in terms of securing what I'll call the Greater Black Sea Basin would provide a framework for addressing the current thought exercise. A Black Sea strategy would define the significance of Georgia, the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Even more important, it would elevate Azerbaijan to the level of importance it should have in U.S. strategy. Without Azerbaijan, Georgia has little weight. With Azerbaijan, there is a counter to jihadists in the high Caucasus, or at least a buffer, since Azerbaijan is logically the eastern anchor of the Greater Black Sea strategy.
A Black Sea strategy would also force definition of two key relationships for the United States. The first is Turkey. Russia aside, Turkey is the major native Black Sea power. It has interests throughout the Greater Black Sea Basin, namely, in Syria, Iraq, the Caucasus, Russia and Ukraine. Thinking in terms of a Black Sea strategy, Turkey becomes one of the indispensible allies since its interests touch American interests. Aligning U.S. and Turkish strategy would be a precondition for such a strategy, meaning both nations would have to make serious policy shifts. An explicit Black Sea-centered strategy would put U.S.-Turkish relations at the forefront, and a failure to align would tell both countries that they need to re-examine their strategic relationship. At this point, U.S.-Turkish relations seem to be based on a systematic avoidance of confronting realities. With the Black Sea as a centerpiece, evasion, which is rarely useful in creating realistic strategies, would be difficult. 

The Centrality of Romania

The second critical country is Romania. The Montreux Convention prohibits the unlimited transit of a naval force into the Black Sea through the Bosporus, controlled by Turkey. Romania, however, is a Black Sea nation, and no limitations apply to it, although its naval combat power is centered on a few aging frigates backed up by a half-dozen corvettes. Apart from being a potential base for aircraft for operations in the region, particularly in Ukraine, supporting Romania in building a significant naval force in the Black Sea -- potentially including amphibious ships -- would provide a deterrent force against the Russians and also shape affairs in the Black Sea that might motivate Turkey to cooperate with Romania and thereby work with the United States. The traditional NATO structure can survive this evolution, even though most of NATO is irrelevant to the problems facing the Black Sea Basin. Regardless of how the Syria-Iraq drama ends, it is secondary to the future of Russia's relationship with Ukraine and the European Peninsula. Poland anchors the North European Plain, but the action for now is in the Black Sea, and that makes Romania the critical partner in the European Peninsula. It will feel the first pressure if Russia regains its position in Ukraine. 
I have written frequently on the emergence -- and the inevitability of the emergence -- of an alliance based on the notion of the Intermarium, the land between the seas. It would stretch between the Baltic and Black seas and would be an alliance designed to contain a newly assertive Russia. I have envisioned this alliance stretching east to the Caspian, taking in Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Poland-to-Romania line is already emerging. It seems obvious that given events on both sides of the Black Sea, the rest of this line will emerge. 
The United States ought to adopt the policy of the Cold War. That consisted of four parts. First, allies were expected to provide the geographical foundation of defense and substantial forces to respond to threats. Second, the United States was to provide military and economic aid as necessary to support this structure. Third, the United States was to pre-position some forces as guarantors of U.S. commitment and as immediate support. And fourth, Washington was to guarantee the total commitment of all U.S. forces to defending allies, although the need to fulfill the last guarantee never arose.
The United States has an uncertain alliance structure in the Greater Black Sea Basin that is neither mutually supportive nor permits the United States a coherent power in the region given the conceptual division of the region into distinct theaters. The United States is providing aid, but again on an inconsistent basis. Some U.S. forces are involved, but their mission is unclear, it is unclear that they are in the right places, and it is unclear what the regional policy is.
Thus, U.S. policy for the moment is incoherent. A Black Sea strategy is merely a name, but sometimes a name is sufficient to focus strategic thinking. So long as the United States thinks in terms of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq as if they were on different planets, the economy of forces that coherent strategy requires will never be achieved. Thinking in terms of the Black Sea as a pivot of a single diverse and diffuse region can anchor U.S. thinking. Merely anchoring strategic concepts does not win wars, nor prevent them. But anything that provides coherence to American strategy has value. 
The Greater Black Sea Basin, as broadly defined, is already the object of U.S. military and political involvement. It is just not perceived that way in military, political or even public and media calculations. It should be. For that will bring perception in line with fast-emerging reality.

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"Ukraine, Iraq and a Black Sea Strategy is republished with permission of Stratfor."

From Estonia to Azerbaijan: American Strategy After Ukraine

Geopolitical Weekly

Tuesday, March 25, 2014



By George Friedman

As I discussed last week, the fundamental problem that Ukraine poses for Russia, beyond a long-term geographical threat, is a crisis in internal legitimacy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent his time in power rebuilding the authority of the Russian state within Russia and the authority of Russia within the former Soviet Union. The events in Ukraine undermine the second strategy and potentially the first. If Putin cannot maintain at least Ukrainian neutrality, then the world's perception of him as a master strategist is shattered, and the legitimacy and authority he has built for the Russian state is, at best, shaken. 

Whatever the origins of the events in Ukraine, the United States is now engaged in a confrontation with Russia. The Russians believe that the United States was the prime mover behind regime change in Ukraine. At the very least, the Russians intend to reverse events in Ukraine. At most, the Russians have reached the conclusion that the United States intends to undermine Russia's power. They will resist. The United States has the option of declining confrontation, engaging in meaningless sanctions against individuals and allowing events to take their course. Alternatively, the United States can choose to engage and confront the Russians. 

A failure to engage at this point would cause countries around Russia's periphery, from Estonia to Azerbaijan, to conclude that with the United States withdrawn and Europe fragmented, they must reach an accommodation with Russia. This will expand Russian power and open the door to Russian influence spreading on the European Peninsula itself. The United States has fought three wars (World War I, World War II and the Cold War) to prevent hegemonic domination of the region. Failure to engage would be a reversal of a century-old strategy.

The American dilemma is how to address the strategic context in a global setting in which it is less involved in the Middle East and is continuing to work toward a "pivot to Asia." Nor can the United States simply allow events to take their course. The United States needs a strategy that is economical and coherent militarily, politically and financially. It has two advantages. Some of the countries on Russia's periphery do not want to be dominated by her. Russia, in spite of some strengths, is inherently weak and does not require U.S. exertion on the order of the two World Wars, the Cold War or even the Middle East engagements of the past decade. 

The Russian and U.S. Positions

I discussed Russian options on Ukraine last week. Putin is now in a position where, in order to retain with confidence his domestic authority, he must act decisively to reverse the outcome. The problem is there is no single decisive action that would reverse events. Eventually, the inherent divisions in Ukraine might reverse events. However, a direct invasion of eastern Ukraine would simply solidify opposition to Russia in Kiev and trigger responses internationally that he cannot predict. In the end, it would simply drive home that although the Russians once held a dominant position in all of Ukraine, they now hold it in less than half. In the long run, this option -- like other short-term options -- would not solve the Russian conundrum.

Whatever Putin does in Ukraine, he has two choices. One is simply to accept the reversal, which I would argue that he cannot do. The second is to take action in places where he might achieve rapid diplomatic and political victories against the West -- the Baltics, Moldova or the Caucasus -- while encouraging Ukraine's government to collapse into gridlock and developing bilateral relations along the Estonia-Azerbaijan line. This would prevent a U.S. strategy of containment -- a strategy that worked during the Cold War and one that the Europeans are incapable of implementing on their own. This comes down to the Americans.

The United States has been developing, almost by default, a strategy not of disengagement but of indirect engagement. Between 1989 and 2008, the U.S. strategy has been the use of U.S. troops as the default for dealing with foreign issues. From Panama to Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States followed a policy of direct and early involvement of U.S. military forces. However, this was not the U.S. strategy from 1914 to 1989. Then, the strategy was to provide political support to allies, followed by economic and military aid, followed by advisers and limited forces, and in some cases pre-positioned forces. The United States kept its main force in reserve for circumstances in which (as in 1917 and 1942 and, to a lesser degree, in Korea and Vietnam) allies could not contain the potential hegemon. Main force was the last resort. 

This was primarily a strategy of maintaining the balance of power. The containment of the Soviet Union involved creating an alliance system comprising countries at risk of Soviet attack. Containment was a balance of power strategy that did not seek the capitulation of the Soviet Union as much as increasing the risks of offensive action using allied countries as the first barrier. The threat of full U.S. intervention, potentially including nuclear weapons, coupled with the alliance structure, constrained Soviet risk-taking.

Because the current Russian Federation is much weaker than the Soviet Union was at its height and because the general geographic principle in the region remains the same, a somewhat analogous balance of power strategy is likely to emerge after the events in Ukraine. Similar to the containment policy of 1945-1989, again in principle if not in detail, it would combine economy of force and finance and limit the development of Russia as a hegemonic power while exposing the United States to limited and controlled risk.

The coalescence of this strategy is a development I forecast in two books, The Next Decade and The Next 100 Years, as a concept I called the Intermarium. The Intermarium was a plan pursued after World War I by Polish leader Jozef Pilsudski for a federation, under Poland's aegis, of Central and Eastern European countries. What is now emerging is not the Intermarium, but it is close. And it is now transforming from an abstract forecast to a concrete, if still emergent, reality.

Forces Leading to the Alliance's Emergence

A direct military intervention by the United States in Ukraine is not possible. First, Ukraine is a large country, and the force required to protect it would outstrip U.S. capabilities. Second, supplying such a force would require a logistics system that does not exist and would take a long time to build. Finally, such an intervention would be inconceivable without a strong alliance system extending to the West and around the Black Sea. The United States can supply economic and political support, but Ukraine cannot counterbalance Russia and the United States cannot escalate to the point of using its own forces. Ukraine is a battleground on which Russian forces would have an advantage and a U.S. defeat would be possible. 

If the United States chooses to confront Russia with a military component, it must be on a stable perimeter and on as broad a front as possible to extend Russian resources and decrease the probability of Russian attack at any one point out of fear of retaliation elsewhere. The ideal mechanism for such a strategy would be NATO, which contains almost all of the critical countries save Azerbaijan and Georgia. The problem is that NATO is not a functional alliance. It was designed to fight the Cold War on a line far to the west of the current line. More important, there was unity on the principle that the Soviet Union represented an existential threat to Western Europe. 

That consensus is no longer there. Different countries have different perceptions of Russia and different concerns. For many, a replay of the Cold War, even in the face of Russian actions in Ukraine, is worse than accommodation. In addition, the end of the Cold War has led to a massive drawdown of forces in Europe. NATO simply lacks the force unless there is a massive and sudden buildup. That will not occur because of the financial crisis, among other reasons. NATO requires unanimity to act, and that unanimity is not there. 

The countries that were at risk from 1945 to 1989 are not the same as those at risk today. Many of these countries were part of the Soviet Union then, and the rest were Soviet satellites. The old alliance system was not built for this confrontation. The Estonia-Azerbaijan line has as its primary interest retaining sovereignty in the face of Russian power. The rest of Europe is not in jeopardy, and these countries are not prepared to commit financial and military efforts to a problem they believe can be managed with little risk to them. Therefore, any American strategy must bypass NATO or at the very least create new structures to organize the region.

Characteristics of the Alliance

Each of the various countries involved is unique and has to be addressed that way. But these countries share the common danger that events in Ukraine could spread and directly affect their national security interests, including internal stability. As I observed, the Baltics, Moldova and the Caucasus are areas where the Russians could seek to compensate for their defeat. Because of this, and also because of their intrinsic importance, Poland, Romania and Azerbaijan must be the posts around which this alliance is built.

The Baltic salient, 145 kilometers (90 miles) from St. Petersburg in Estonia, would be a target for Russian destabilization. Poland borders the Baltics and is the leading figure in the Visegrad battlegroup, an organization within the European Union. Poland is eager for a closer military relationship with the United States, as its national strategy has long been based on third-power guarantees against aggressors. The Poles cannot defend themselves and the Baltics, given the combat capabilities necessary for the task. 

The Dniester River is 80 kilometers from Odessa, the main port on the Black Sea for Ukraine and an important one for Russia. The Prut River is about 200 kilometers from Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Moldova is between these two rivers. It is a battleground region, at least of competing political factions. Romania must be armed and supported in protecting Moldova and in organizing southeastern Europe. In Western hands, Moldova threatens Odessa, Ukraine's major port also used by Russia on the Black Sea. In Russian hands, Moldova threatens Bucharest.

At the far end of the alliance structure I am envisioning is Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea bordering Russia and Iran. Should Dagestan and Chechnya destabilize, Azerbaijan -- which is Islamic and majority Shiite but secular -- would become critical for limiting the regional spread of jihadists. Azerbaijan also would support the alliance's position in the Black Sea by supporting Georgia and would serve as a bridge for relations (and energy) should Western relations with Iran continue to improve. To the southwest, the very pro-Russian Armenia -- which has a Russian troop presence and a long-term treaty with Moscow -- could escalate tensions with Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. Previously, this was not a pressing issue for the United States. Now it is. The security of Georgia and its ports on the Black Sea requires Azerbaijan's inclusion in the alliance.

Azerbaijan serves a more strategic purpose. Most of the countries in the alliance are heavy importers of Russian energy; for instance, 91 percent of Poland's energy imports and 86 percent of Hungary's come from Russia. There is no short-term solution to this problem, but Russia needs the revenue from these exports as much as these countries need the energy. Developing European shale and importing U.S. energy is a long-term solution. A medium-term solution, depending on pipeline developments that Russia has tended to block in the past, is sending natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe. Until now, this has been a commercial issue, but it has become a strategically critical issue. The Caspian region, of which Azerbaijan is the lynchpin, is the only major alternative to Russia for energy. Therefore, rapid expansion of pipelines to the heart of Europe is as essential as providing Azerbaijan with the military capability to defend itself (a capability it is prepared to pay for and, unlike other allied countries, does not need to be underwritten).

The key to the pipeline will be Turkey's willingness to permit transit. I have not included Turkey as a member of this alliance. Its internal politics, complex relations and heavy energy dependence on Russia make such participation difficult. I view Turkey in this alliance structure as France in the Cold War. It was aligned yet independent, militarily self-sufficient yet dependent on the effective functioning of others. Turkey, inside or outside of the formal structure, will play this role because the future of the Black Sea, the Caucasus and southeastern Europe is essential to Ankara. 

These countries, diverse as they are, share a desire not to be dominated by the Russians. That commonality is a basis for forging them into a functional military alliance. This is not an offensive force but a force designed to deter Russian expansion. All of these countries need modern military equipment, particularly air defense, anti-tank and mobile infantry. In each case, the willingness of the United States to supply these weapons, for cash or credit as the situation requires, will strengthen pro-U.S. political forces in each country and create a wall behind which Western investment can take place. And it is an organization that others can join, which unlike NATO does not allow each member the right to veto.

The Practicality of the U.S. Strategy

There are those who would criticize this alliance for including members who do not share all the democratic values of the U.S. State Department. This may be true. It is also true that during the Cold War the United States was allied with the Shah's Iran, Turkey and Greece under dictatorship and Mao's China after 1971. Having encouraged Ukrainian independence, the United States -- in trying to protect that independence and the independence of other countries in the region -- is creating an alliance structure that will include countries, such as Azerbaijan, that have been criticized. However, if energy does not come from Azerbaijan, it will come from Russia, and then the Ukrainian events will dissolve into tragic farce. The State Department must grapple with the harsh forces its own policies have unleashed. This suggests that the high-mindedness borne of benign assumptions now proven to be illusions must make way for realpolitik calculations.

The balance of power strategy allows the United States to use the natural inclination of allies to bolster its own position and take various steps, of which military intervention is the last, not the first. It recognizes that the United States, as nearly 25 percent of the world's economy and the global maritime hegemon, cannot evade involvement. Its very size and existence involves it. Nor can the United States confine itself to gestures like sanctions on 20 people. This is not seen as a sign of resolve as much as weakness. It does mean that as the United States engages in issues like Ukraine and must make strategic decisions, there are alternatives to intervention -- such as alliances. In this case, a natural alliance structure presents itself -- a descendant of NATO but shaped for this crisis, much like the alliance I forecast previously. 

In my view, Russian power is limited and has flourished while the United States was distracted by its wars in the Middle East and while Europe struggled with its economic crisis. That does not mean Russia is not dangerous. It has short-term advantages, and its insecurity means that it will take risks. Weak and insecure states with temporary advantages are dangerous. The United States has an interest in acting early because early action is cheaper than acting in the last extremity. This is a case of anti-air missiles, attack helicopters, communications systems and training, among other things. These are things the United States has in abundance. It is not a case of deploying divisions, of which it has few. The Poles, Romanians, Azerbaijanis and certainly the Turks can defend themselves. They need weapons and training, and that will keep Russia contained within its cauldron as it plays out a last hand as a great power.

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"From Estonia to Azerbaijan: American Strategy After Ukraine is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Poland: From Tragedy to Triumph (Foreign Affairs; January/February 2014)

By Mitchell A. Orenstein

 

Anyone who knows Polish history cannot help but marvel at the country’s emergence from the ashes of its traumatic past. Over the last 25 years, Poland, after centuries of war and subjugation, has enjoyed peace, a stable and booming economy, and integration with the rest of Europe.

 

An independent kingdom for the previous 800 years, in 1795, Poland was wiped off the map of Europe and absorbed into three great neighboring powers -- the Prussian, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires -- a state of affairs that lasted until 1918. Reborn following World War I, Poland spent a few short years as a democracy before proving ungovernable, succumbing to dictatorship, and then once again being conquered and divided, this time by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, in 1939. Over the next six years, Poland found itself at the center of what the historian Timothy Snyder has called the “bloodlands” of Europe; an estimated five million Poles died between 1939 and 1945, more than half of them Polish Jews. The Nazis and the Soviets also wiped out the cream of the crop of Poland’s intelligentsia and clergy. Warsaw was reduced to rubble, and mass graves were sown across the landscape. Then came four gray and sooty decades of communist domination. Only the Catholic Church offered Poles any hope.

 

Since communism collapsed in 1989, however, Poland has experienced a remarkable reversal of fortune. After leading the protest movement that toppled the old regime, the trade union Solidarity won democratic elections and initiated aggressive, market-oriented economic reforms. The communist Polish United Workers’ Party turned into the capitalist Democratic Left Alliance, which won elections in 1993 and 1995 and led the country into NATO in 1999. And in 2004, Poland joined the European Union as a full member, cementing its close alliance with Germany, its erstwhile antagonist.

 

The Polish economy, meanwhile, has grown rapidly for two decades -- at more than four percent per year, the fastest speed in Europe -- and garnered massive investment in its companies and infrastructure. Poland’s is now the sixth-largest economy in the EU. Living standards more than doubled between 1989 and 2012, reaching 62 percent of the level of the prosperous countries at the core of Europe. All of this led the World Bank economist Marcin Piatkowski to conclude in a recent report that Poland “has just had probably the best 20 years in more than one thousand years of its history.”

 

How did Poland manage so decisively to move beyond the repeated tragedies of its past? The question is rarely asked by market analysts, whose sense of Poland seems to go no further back than the economic reforms of the 1990s. Those reforms are indeed part of the story -- but only part it, and focusing exclusively on them obscures the deeper causes of the country’s resurgence. Explaining Poland’s economic boom -- and why it is likely to last -- requires a deeper look into its troubled history.

 

WESTWARD HO!

 

For centuries, Poland’s tragedy was one of geography. Situated on the flat, open plains of northern Europe, with no natural boundaries separating it from Germany to the west and Russia to the east, Poland was often torn between the two. From 1569 to 1795, Poland had an eastward-looking empire of its own: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which included large parts of present-day Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Today, however, Poland has decidedly joined the West -- so much so that Poles hate when their country is considered a part of eastern Europe, insisting that they live in central Europe. Although some attribute this shift to the warm embrace of the EU, the real author of Poland’s Western transformation was none other than Joseph Stalin.

 

Stalin’s unwitting contribution stemmed from the way the Soviet leader forcibly reshaped the country’s borders after World War II. His top priority was to expand the Soviet Union, and so he kept all the parts of eastern Poland that he had annexed in 1939 and compensated the country with a large chunk of the eastern German territories of Silesia, Pomerania, and East Prussia. Apart from increasing the size of his own empire, Stalin was focused on punishing the Germans, and indeed, millions of them were expelled from their homes in the new Polish territories. Millions of Poles were then driven from the annexed east into the newly emptied west.

 

Today, Moscow’s decision to push Poland to the west must seem a massive strategic error. That’s because its long-term effect was to move Poland solidly into the orbit of Germany. Indeed, today’s Poland, to a large extent, is Germany, inhabited by Poles. Since Germany accepted this situation by signing a peace treaty with Poland in 1990, it has sought to draw Poland closer. And Warsaw has proved a willing partner.

 

Part of what makes Poland such a good place to invest today is the depth of the bond it has forged with Europe’s leading economy. The relationship benefits both countries. A large part of the German export machine is now based in Poland. Poland gets German investment and markets for its goods, and Germany profits from the opportunity to use Poland as a low-cost, high-quality production platform to compete with East Asia. Indeed, some German industries are able to produce goods in Poland for less than what they would cost to make in China. And Poland offers Germany a friendly business climate, plenty of skilled labor, and, above all, proximity.

 

Germany owes much of the success of its automobile industry to its eastern neighbor. At its factory in Poznan, Volks­wagen employs 6,900 workers who produce intake-pipe modules, cylinder heads, and steering-gear housings, as well as 155,000 commercial vehicles each year. The MAN Group employs 4,000 workers in Poland who build heavy trucks, city buses, and bus chassis at three different factories. Cars and automotive components are now Poland’s leading export, despite the fact that the country has no internationally known brand; a large share end up as German marques. The same holds true for industries as diverse as household appliances and clothing; the German fashion house Hugo Boss, for example, produces its shoes at a factory in the Polish city of Radom.

 

Because Poland is now a key part of the German supply chain, it has become a great exporting economy -- exports now make up 46 percent of its GDP. A recent Morgan Stanley report estimated that 30 to 40 percent of Poland’s exports to Germany now end up as German exports to the rest of the world. This interdependence explains why Germany is by far Poland’s largest trade partner, buying or selling 25 percent of Poland’s exports and imports, which total about 12 percent of the overall Polish economy.

 

None of this could have happened if the German-Polish relationship were not embedded in the broader EU. Since Poland joined in 2004, the EU has done wonders for it and the rest of eastern Europe, ensuring democratic freedoms and administrative reforms and helping the region liberalize its markets. In the last decade, the EU has invested nearly 40 billion euros in Polish infrastructure, building the autobahns that Poland never had; replacing its outmoded, overcrowded, and often deadly two-lane highways; renovating its decrepit train stations and train lines; cleaning up its rivers; and setting up broadband infrastructure. In the process, Poland has become Europe’s biggest construction site. Between 2000 and 2013, the aggregate length of Polish highway and express roads grew fivefold, dramatically reducing the cost and the time it takes to transport goods to the west. And the benefits should keep coming: between 2014 and 2020, the EU is expected to pump 106 billion more euros into the country. That infusion of cash will equal nearly two percent of Poland’s annual GDP, a level of funding similar to what Washington provided to Europe under the Marshall Plan.

 

MANAGING POLAND’S RISE

 

Because of the centrality of foreign investment to Poland’s economy (most of its major banks and enterprises are foreign-owned), its reliance on foreign trade, and the fact that so many Poles work outside the country, political economists often characterize Poland as a “dependent market economy.” This dependence creates a fundamental dilemma: to attract foreign business and maintain its competitiveness, Poland must keep down its wages, which today stand at about one-third of those in the more developed countries of the EU. But Polish workers live adjacent to the rest of Europe, traveling and working there in great numbers, and thus aspire to a higher standard of living. This fact will make it difficult for Poland to maintain the advantages that come with cheap labor.

 

Poland should be especially worried about this dilemma given the presence of other low-wage countries in its neighborhood that could serve as manufacturing bases. In 2009, when the computer manufacturer Dell moved its main European factory from Limerick, Ireland, to Lodz, Poland, the mayor of Limerick predicted, with deep schadenfreude, that “Dell will probably head for Ukraine in six to eight years’ time.” One could say the same about the many call centers that have become mainstays of Polish employment.

 

To overcome this challenge, Poland must rise up the value-added ladder and begin producing more high-tech and knowledge-intensive exports. At the moment, Poland does not invest much in research and development relative to its more developed neighbors -- only 0.7 percent of GDP, compared with about 2.0 percent in the EU as a whole. But there is reason to believe that Poland can change course. The country’s greatest asset is its mass education system. One of the very few benefits of communist rule was that it left Poland with one of the highest literacy rates in the world. And since 1989, Poles have continued to invest heavily in their education, learning English, building new private universities, and participating in the Erasmus student-exchange program among European universities. Poland now has the second-highest rate of college enrollment in the Organ­ization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Meanwhile, as small, innovative Polish technology companies boom, the path to a high-tech future is presenting itself.

 

Yet the greatest long-term risk to Poland is that its consumption and wages will rise too fast, crowding out domestic investment and deterring foreign business. In managing their country’s rise, Polish politicians must walk a fine line between satisfying voters’ concerns and maintaining the country’s cheap labor costs.

 

This dilemma of dependence also explains why Poland is unlikely to join the eurozone, at least not anytime soon. Although the Polish government and Polish elites initially clamored to adopt the common currency, the financial and sovereign debt crises changed their minds. Part of the reason Poland weathered the 2008 global financial crisis well was that it was able to devalue the zloty, which helped Warsaw maintain its exports and keep jobs in the country. And when the sovereign debt crisis hit in 2009, Poland relied on devaluation and government stimulus to avoid a recession, making it the only European country to do so. Warsaw knows that keeping its own currency means that investors will pay transaction costs, but it will also help the country keep wages down. So don’t expect to see euro notes on the streets of Krakow or Gdansk until Poland’s and the eurozone’s living standards get much closer to each other.

 

WHY POLAND?

 

A final challenge facing Poland, and one potential investors should take note of, is the extent to which it, like other countries in its neighborhood, has struggled to build an effective bureaucracy. Poland still ranks only 41st and 55th, respectively, on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index -- below all western European countries with the exception of Italy. Although there is little political risk to doing business in Poland -- especially compared with doing business in Russia -- it takes months to establish a company there, with as many as 33 separate stamps needed from different agencies. Some businesses complain that Warsaw favors partially-state-owned enterprises, using regulation as a tool to pick winners, or that the government has not worked aggressively enough to remove administrative barriers to growth. Even though opportunities for investment abound, the government is unlikely to help.

 

Although some other central and eastern European countries offer similar opportunities, Poland is still an attractive choice relative to its neighbors. Its population of 38 million -- approximately four times the population of the Czech Republic or Hungary -- means that it has a large domestic market. Whereas the Czech Republic and Hungary have richer and more open economies, Poland has much lower labor costs and has grown more rapidly. At the same time, its governance structures are more rule-bound than those of its low-wage competitors, such as Bulgaria, Romania, or others outside the EU. All these countries need to continue to move into more technologically sophisticated industries over time, in order to enable their citizens to increase their living standards.

 

In some ways, Poland is the template for the Europe that German Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes to create. It has carved out a profitable niche in the German production machine, and it can thrive with an export-oriented economy based on a strong currency and dampened domestic demand. This German model has provoked the ire of southern Europe, but for Poland, it works.

 

Warsaw is sometimes called “the phoenix city” because of the way it rose, like the mythical bird, from the ashes of World War II. Today, many ordinary Poles and investors are wondering just how high the phoenix can fly. Economic projections suggest that Poland’s economy will grow by about 2.5 percent per year through 2030, becoming one of the top 20 economies in the world before eventually succumbing to demographic decline. If the country can create a more hospitable business environment, build a knowledge-based economy, and encourage immigration and higher birthrates, it may keep growing even faster. After all, the Poles have a knack for beating expectations.

Warsaw - the Capital

Zostać rentierem

Wynajem nieruchomości może być wciągającym i dochodowym biznesem. Zwłaszcza jeśli jest to najem krótkoterminowy. Jak wygląda ten coraz bardziej popularny biznes od środka?

Centrum stolicy. Z okien klimatyzowanego apartamentu na 20. piętrze wieżowca rozciąga się panorama Warszawy. Najlepiej ogląda się ją, siedząc na stylowej kanapie z kieliszkiem białego wina w ręku. Na stoliku kawowym czekają bilety na premierę nowego spektaklu. Skoro tak może wyglądać scenariusz biznesowej wizyty w Warszawie, dlaczego nie wybrać go zamiast noclegu w sieciowym hotelu?

Wynajem apartamentów stał się ostatnio popularną alternatywą dla tych, którzy nie lubią anonimowości hoteli, ale cenią sobie wysoki standard pokoi. Są skłonni zapłacić sporo, bo takie lokum zapewnia większą prywatność, dostęp do własnej kuchni, a zdarza się, że właściciele oferują też dodatkowe usługi, jak drobne zakupy czy rezerwacje biletów.

Ale nie trzeba oferować luksusów, by znaleźć chętnych na wynajem na krótki okres. Rodziny podróżujące z dziećmi i grupy znajomych chętnie wynajmują całe mieszkania, bo przy większej grupie jest to bardzo opłacalne. W Warszawie noc w apartamencie dla dwóch osób kosztuje 150–240 zł, trzypokojowe mieszkanie dla sześciu osób to koszt ok. 350 złotych za noc. Chętnych jest coraz więcej także dzięki serwisom społecznościowym jak Wimdu czy Airbnb, które popularyzują najem pokoi i mieszkań zamiast miejsc noclegowych w hostelach.

Mając zatem do dyspozycji wolne mieszkanie, warto zastanowić się, czy najem krótkoterminowy nie jest bardziej opłacalny od wynajmu na długi okres. Są tacy, którzy uczynili z tego prężny biznes. Tak jak każdy ma on jednak swoje cienie, a i konkurencja na rynku jest już niemała.

Euro 2012 – złote czasy dla wynajmu

Sylwia Pochelska ma 28 lat. Od trzech utrzymuje się z wynajmu apartamentów. Obecnie jej firma Mieszkanie na Zawołanie ma ich w ofercie sześć, a wkrótce dojdą dwa. Żadne nie jest jej własnością – wynajmuje je od osób, które wolą podpisać długoterminową umowę i mieć święty spokój. Zachęcona sukcesami w lutym otworzyła hostel w centrum Warszawy. W tym celu wynajęła 200-metrowe mieszkanie w starej kamienicy, które starannie wyremontowała. Czy odniesie sukces? Za wcześnie, by to oceniać, bo sezon wakacyjny dopiero się rozpoczął, ale Sylwia jest dobrej myśli.

Przygodę ze stołecznym rynkiem nieruchomości zaczęła jeszcze jako studentka od jednego mieszkania, które udostępniono jej na kilka miesięcy w zamian za odświeżenie wnętrz. Remont przeprowadziła za pieniądze z dotacji unijnej dla młodych przedsiębiorców. Z czasem do oferty dołączała kolejne lokale, które wyposażała już za własne pieniądze. W czasie rozgrywek Euro 2012 miała do dyspozycji aż 15 mieszkań w Warszawie i cztery we Wrocławiu.

– Okres piłkarskich mistrzostw Europy to było prawdziwe szaleństwo. Ceny dwukrotnie wyższe niż normalnie, a zainteresowanie ogromne – wspomina. – Zaraz potem rynek się jednak gwałtownie skurczył i wiele firm, które powstały w tym czasie, dziś już nie istnieje.

Podobne obserwacje ma Piotr Iwaniuk, właściciel PiotrApartments.pl, w branży wynajmu krótkoterminowego od trzech lat. Na rynek nieruchomości uciekł z etatu w sektorze bankowym. Za oszczędności i kredyty kupił cztery małe mieszkania, które wykończył w wysokim standardzie. Choć na etacie nie narzekał na wynagrodzenie, dopiero jako przedsiębiorca poczuł wiatr w żaglach.

– Wcześniej pracowałem osiem godzin dziennie. Dziś pracuję także osiem, ale tygodniowo. I zarabiam tyle samo – przyznaje Piotr Iwaniuk.

Od czasu do czasu zatrudnia do pomocy jedną osobę, ale większość spraw, np. porządki w mieszkaniach czy przekazywanie kluczy, załatwia sam. W zależności od pory roku, bo wynajem nieruchomości to biznes sezonowy, na czy­sto zostaje mu nawet kilka tysięcy.

Piotr utrzymuje obłożenie w apartamentach na poziomie 80 procent. W porównaniu z innymi firmami to bardzo dużo. Jak mu się to udaje? Dzięki rosnącej grupie stałych klientów, głównie biznesmenów, których ku­si zniżkami. Ceni sobie długofalowe relacje, bo znając swoich gości, nie musi się martwić o ewentualne zniszczenia i skargi sąsiadów. Mniej więcej jedna czwarta jego klientów pochodzi z serwisu Wimdu, rzadziej z Airbnb.

Sylwii Pochelskiej udaje się utrzymać obłożenie w swoich mieszkaniach w granicach 60–70 procent. Wylicza, że z każdego ma po odliczeniu kosztów około tysiąca złotych miesięcznie. Z tego trzeba odliczyć ok. 1,5–2 tys. rocznie na drobne naprawy i doposażanie lokali.

Jak sama przyznaje, finansowo bywało lepiej. Od roku przyjeżdża do niej coraz mniej rodzin, które kryzys zmusił do oszczędności. Sytuację ratują rodziny polonijne, które spędzają w Polsce nawet po kilka tygodni.

Inwestowanie w przyszłość

Nieco inaczej wygląda sytuacja Jana Szumowskiego, który ze wspólnikiem, Dariuszem Olszewskim, od pięciu lat prowadzi firmę Apartment4You. Na rynku apartamentów są znaczącymi graczami – oferują w sumie 75 mieszkań: 55 w Warszawie i 20 w Poznaniu.

Zatrudniają ponad 20 osób; do sprzątania, do prac biurowych, obsługi telefonicznej, drobnych napraw. Szacują, że pełne obłożenie mają przez 6–7 miesięcy w roku. Z serwisów społecznościowych nie korzystają, bo przy takiej skali są one kłopotliwe w obsłudze. Ale Szumowski przyznaje, że samo ich pojawienie się zwiększyło obroty o 3–5 procent.

Obaj weszli na rynek wynajmu z doświadczeniem w zupełnie innych branżach. Jan Szumowski pracował w marketingu i reklamie, Dariusz Olszewski – w finansach. Startowali z niedużą pulą własnych lokali. Około połowy z nich jest ich własnością. Podnosząc standard, w zakupach posiłkowali się kredytami. W każdy lokal zainwestowali ok. 1,5 tys. złotych na metr kwadratowy.

– Jako firma nie dostaliśmy kredytu na dobrych warunkach, zatem rentowność tych mieszkań nie jest bardzo wysoka – przyznaje Jan Szumowski. – Ale przecież nie chodzi o to, by odkładać zarobione pieniądze na kupkę, tylko by inwestować w przyszłość. Na przykład w przyszłość moich dzieci.

Spłacanie kredytów nie spędza mu snu z powiek, bo pożyczki zostały wzięte pod hipotekę.

Piotr Iwaniuk, który też spłaca kredyty, radzi, by pamiętać o sezonowości biznesu i mieć odłożone pieniądze na czas, kiedy rynek przeżywa okres zastoju.

– Najlepszy okres to miesiące od września do października, a potem wiosna – od kwietnia do czerwca. Wbrew pozorom latem nie ma aż tak wielu zainteresowanych, bo zamiast do miasta ludzie wolą pojechać nad morze czy do lasu. Nie ma w tym czasie także wielu konferencji, które zapewniają mi klientów – tłumaczy.

– Wrzesień, październik rzeczywiście są świetne. Grudzień jest za to fatalny. W ogóle miesiące świąteczne nie są najlepsze – potwierdza Jan Szumowski.

Sezonowość jest jeszcze bardziej widoczna w mieście targów – w Poznaniu.

– W tygodniach targowych mamy stuprocentowe obłożenie. Ale gdyby nie targi, utrzymywanie mieszkań w Poznaniu byłoby dla nas nieopłacalne – przyznaje współwłaściciel Apartment4You.

Życie rentiera nie jest wolne od stresów

Na rynku najmu długoterminowego można rozważnie dobrać najemcę, a przed stratami zabezpieczyć się choćby wysoką kaucją i odpowiednimi zapisami w umowie. W przypadku najmu krótkoterminowego wpływ na to, kto wynajmuje lokal, jest znacznie mniejszy, a żądanie kaucji nie jest powszechne.

– Inne firmy nie żądają na wejściu kaucji, więc gdybym ją wprowadziła, byłabym po prostu niekonkurencyjna – przyznaje Sylwia Pochelska. – Parę razy się na tym przejechałam. Jeden z gości gasił papierosy na parapecie, ramie lustra, kanapie... Wszędzie zostały po nim wypalone dziury.

Znacznie gorsze doświadczenia ma założyciel Apartment4You. Zniszczenia i kradzieże w mieszkaniach to dla niego chleb powszedni, więc w biznesplanie ma wkalkulowane, że 10–15 proc. przychodu za mieszkanie trzeba reinwestować w skradzione sprzęty i drobne prace remontowe. Ale nigdy nie zapomni dnia, kiedy do jednego z jego lokali musiał się wdzierać oddział antyterrorystów.

– W mieszkaniu urządzono głośną imprezę. Sąsiedzi trzykrotnie wzywali policję, która próbując dostać się do mieszkania, zorientowała się, że przebywają tam kryminaliści. Przyjechała grupa antyterrorystów, wyłamali drzwi, użyli nawet gazu łzawiącego. Panów wyprowadzano w kajdankach – wspomina.

Dziś Jan Szumowski uważa, że lata doświadczenia nauczyły go pewnego wyczucia. – Kiedy widzimy kogoś, kto ewidentnie przyjechał balować, pobieramy pewną kwotę na poczet ewentualnych zniszczeń – mówi.

Jak zatem wygląda rentowność tego typu biznesu? Wszyscy podkreślają, że krótki termin nie opłaca się przy jednym, dwóch  mieszkaniach, bo zachodu jest sporo, a dochody nie większe niż przy długofalowej umowie. Sensowne zarobki zaczynają się wtedy, kiedy pod opieką wynajmującego znajdzie się co najmniej 4–5 apartamentów. Wtedy częste wizyty w mieszkaniu i czas poświęcony na poszukiwanie klientów są wynagradzane wynikami finansowymi.

Według Sylwi Pochelskiej przy 10 mieszkaniach różnica w zarobkach wcale nie jest proporcjonalna, ponieważ na tym etapie trzeba już opłacić osoby do pomocy, a to pożera sporą część dochodu. Dopiero przy 15 lokalach zaczyna na dobre działać efekt skali.

Zrodlo: http://pierwszymilion.forbes.pl/zarabianie-na-wynajmie-mieszkan-zostac-rentierem,artykuly,158294,1,3.html

Inwestycja Polic w Senegalu (zrodlo: gazeta.pl)

Police za 28 mln dol. przejęły kopalnię w Senegalu. 'Afrykański przyczółek'

Wojciech Matusiak 2013-08-29

• Inwestycja Polic w Senegalu 
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• Inwestycja Polic w Senegalu 
• Polska grupa chemiczna z Polic podpisała wczoraj umowę kupna większościowego pakietu akcji firmy African Investment Group, która posiada w Senegalu dostęp do złóż fosforytów używanych do produkcji nawozów

- Z Afryką Subsaharyjską, na terenie której leży Senegal, mamy historycznie bardzo mało związków. Ograniczają się one w zasadzie do znajomości Stasia i Nel, bohaterów powieści Henryka Sienkiewicza "W pustyni i w puszczy" - żartował podczas konferencji prasowej Grupy Azoty Zakłady Chemiczne Police prof. Witold Orłowski, ekonomista z PwC. Teraz ma się to zmienić za sprawą przejęcia przez polską firmę większościowego pakietu akcji w spółce African Investment Group, która wydobywa w Senegalu fosforyty - podstawowy składnik nawozu używanego przy uprawie roślin. Będzie to kosztować bagatela 28,85 mln dol. To pierwsza tego typu inwestycja w branży chemicznej w Polsce.

Afrykański przyczółek

Jak zaznacza prezes Polic Krzysztof Jałosiński, nie chodzi tylko o niezbędne firmie surowce, ale też o stworzenie przyczółku do ekspansji na rynki afrykańskie.

- Senegal będzie stanowić centrum produkcji i dystrybucji nawozów do innych krajów w Afryce. Aby zoptymalizować cały proces, statki transportujące surowce do Polic w drogę powrotną będą przewozić nawozy przeznaczone na sprzedaż na rynki afrykańskie. Za kilka lat planujemy uruchomić własną produkcję kwasu fosforowego - zakłada.

Jednak przyznaje, że wejście do Senegalu to naprawdę duże wyzwanie: - Poruszamy się tam dopiero od 1,5 roku i nie jest łatwo. Ale damy radę - kwituje Jałosiński.

Zakup African Investment Group zostanie sfinansowany w trzech transzach uzależnionych od postępu prac eksploatacyjnych. Jeśli się okaże, że coś pójdzie nie tak, jak powinno, np. przeszacowane złoża czy ryzyko polityczne, to Police mogą wstrzymać się z kolejną wpłatą.

Surowiec o połowę tańszy

Z Senegalu do Polski może przypływać docelowo do miliona ton surowca fosforowego rocznie. Początkowo plany to 200-300 ton rocznie. Szacunkowa wielkość złóż to ok. 56 mln ton fosforytów i półtora miliona ton piasków ilmenitowych. Według szacunków Azotów uniezależnienie się od dostawców zewnętrznych już w przyszłym roku pozwoli zaoszczędzić ok. 30 mln zł. Ernst & Young wskazuje, że fabryka w Policach kupuje fosforyty średnio po 180 dol.w za tonę. To kilkanaście procent kosztów produkcji nawozu. Główni konkurencji wydobywają surowiec po ok. 60 dol. za tonę plus koszty transportu na poziomie 30 dol. za tonę.

Czy jest tam bezpiecznie?

W Afryce Północnej wrze, o czym przekonali się turyści wyjeżdżający chociażby do Egiptu. Z Syrii ciągle dochodzą makabryczne doniesienia na temat kolejnych ofiar i możliwej interwencji wojsk amerykańskich. Czy Senegal to bezpieczny kierunek?

- To kraj stabilny politycznie i gospodarczo. To jedno z ośmiu państw Zachodnioafrykańskiej Unii Gospodarczej i Walutowej. Jest też jednym z najszybciej rozwijających się demokratycznych państw Afryki, co potwierdzają agencje ratingowe - mówi Orłowski. Stabilizację polityczną ma potwierdzać to, że od uzyskania niepodległości w 1960 r. w tym kraju nie doszło do zamachu stanu (w Afryce to norma) i kolejne władze są wybierane w demokratycznych wyborach.

Dobre prognozy na przyszłość

Firma PwC, która doradzała Policom przy przejęciu AIG, wskazuje, że na koniec 2012 r. Senegal liczył 13,1 mln mieszkańców. Według danych Banku Światowego produkt krajowy brutto tego kraju w roku 2012 wyniósł 14,4 mld dol., co oznacza dochód na mieszkańca w wysokości około 1100 dol. i plasuje Senegal poniżej średniej dla kontynentu, która wynosi ok. 1600 dol. W najbliższych latach gospodarka Senegalu według prognoz Międzynarodowego Funduszu Walutowego będzie rozwijać się coraz szybciej. Wzrost gospodarczy będzie stopniowo zbliżał się do tempa rozwoju całego regionu Afryki Subsaharyjskiej i będzie rósł z 3,5 proc. w roku 2012 do 5,2 proc. w roku 2018.

Takie tempo rozwoju pozwoli zwiększyć rozmiary senegalskiej gospodarki do 20,2 mld dol., a dochód na mieszkańca do 1300 dolarów. Oczekiwanemu wysokiemu wzrostowi PKB sprzyja stabilna sytuacja makroekonomiczna kraju. Inflacja w roku 2012 wyniosła jedynie 1,5 proc. i była niższa niż we wszystkich krajach ościennych. Według prognoz MFW powolnemu obniżaniu ma także w najbliższych latach ulegać poziom deficytu obrotów bieżących (8 proc. PKB w roku 2012) oraz zadłużenia publicznego (47 proc. PKB w roku 2012).

42 proc. mieszkańców nie ma jeszcze 15 lat

Dodatkowo Senegal jest młodym krajem. Aż 42,7 proc. jego ludności nie ma jeszcze 15 lat. Ponad 60 proc. nie ukończyło jeszcze 24. roku życia. PwC zaznacza, że to wielki potencjał demograficzny. Według prognoz Międzynarodowego Funduszu Walutowego liczba ludności w Senegalu do roku 2018 wzrośnie o ponad 14 proc. i osiągnie 15,4 mln osób. 94 proc. Senegalczyków to muzułmanie, ok. 5 proc. to katolicy. Trzy największe grupy etniczne to plemiona Wolof, Pulaar i Jola stanowiące łącznie ponad 80 proc. ludności. 

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The Geopolitics of Shale

By Robert D. Kaplan

According to the elite newspapers and journals of opinion, the future of foreign affairs mainly rests on ideas: the moral impetus for humanitarian intervention, the various theories governing exchange rates and debt rebalancing necessary to fix Europe, the rise of cosmopolitanism alongside the stubborn vibrancy of nationalism in East Asia and so on. In other words, the world of the future can be engineered and defined based on doctoral theses. And to a certain extent this may be true. As the 20th century showed us, ideologies -- whether communism, fascism or humanism -- matter and matter greatly.

 

But there is another truth: The reality of large, impersonal forces like geography and the environment that also help to determine the future of human events. Africa has historically been poor largely because of few good natural harbors and few navigable rivers from the interior to the coast. Russia is paranoid because its land mass is exposed to invasion with few natural barriers. The Persian Gulf sheikhdoms are fabulously wealthy not because of ideas but because of large energy deposits underground. You get the point. Intellectuals concentrate on what they can change, but we are helpless to change much of what happens.

 

Enter shale, a sedimentary rock within which natural gas can be trapped. Shale gas constitutes a new source of extractable energy for the post-industrial world. Countries that have considerable shale deposits will be better placed in the 21st century competition between states, and those without such deposits will be worse off. Ideas will matter little in this regard.

 

Stratfor, as it happens, has studied the issue in depth. Herein is my own analysis, influenced in part by Stratfor's research.

 

So let's look at who has shale and how that may change geopolitics. For the future will be heavily influenced by what lies underground.

 

The United States, it turns out, has vast deposits of shale gas: in Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and elsewhere. America, regardless of many of the political choices it makes, is poised to be an energy giant of the 21st century. In particular, the Gulf Coast, centered on Texas and Louisiana, has embarked upon a shale gas and tight oil boom. That development will make the Caribbean an economic focal point of the Western Hemisphere, encouraged further by the 2014 widening of the Panama Canal. At the same time, cooperation between Texas and adjacent Mexico will intensify, as Mexico increasingly becomes a market for shale gas, with its own exploited shale basins near its northern border.

 

This is, in part, troubling news for Russia. Russia is currently the energy giant of Europe, exporting natural gas westward in great quantities, providing Moscow with political leverage all over Central and particularly Eastern Europe. However, Russia's reserves are often in parts of Siberia that are hard and expensive to exploit -- though Russia's extraction technology, once old, has been considerably modernized. And Russia for the moment may face relatively little competition in Europe. But what if in the future the United States were able to export shale gas to Europe at a competitive price?

 

The United States still has few capabilities to export shale gas to Europe. It would have to build new liquefaction facilities to do that; in other words, it would have to erect plants on the Gulf of Mexico that convert the gas into liquid so that it could be transported by ship across the Atlantic, where regasification facilities there would reconvert it back into gas. This is doable with capital investment, expertise and favorable legislation. Countries that build such facilities will have more energy options, to export or import, whatever the case may be. So imagine a future in which the United States exports liquefied shale gas to Europe, reducing the dependence that European countries have on Russian energy. The geopolitics of Europe could shift somewhat. Natural gas might become less of a political tool for Russia and more of a purely economic one (though even such a not-so-subtle shift would require significant exports of shale gas from North America to Europe).

 

Less dependence on Russia would allow the vision of a truly independent, culturally vibrant Central and Eastern Europe to fully prosper -- an ideal of the region's intellectuals for centuries, even as ideas in this case would have little to do with it.

 

This might especially be relevant to Poland. For Poland may have significant deposits of shale gas. Were Polish shale deposits to prove the largest in Europe (a very big "if"), Poland could become more of an energy producer in its own right, turning this flat country with no natural defenses to the east and west -- annihilated by both Germany and the Soviet Union in the 20th century -- into a pivot state or midlevel power in the 21st. The United States, in turn, somewhat liberated from Middle East oil because of its own energy sources (including natural gas finds), could focus on building up Poland as a friendly power, even as it loses substantial interest in Saudi Arabia. To be sure, the immense deposits of oil and natural gas in the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran will keep the Middle East a major energy exporter for decades. But the shale gas revolution will complicate the world's hydrocarbon supply and allocation, so that the Middle East may lose some of its primacy.

 

It turns out that Australia also has large new natural gas deposits that, with liquefaction facilities, could turn it into a principal energy exporter to East Asia, assuming Australia significantly lowers its cost of production (which may prove very hard to do). Because Australia is already starting to emerge as the most dependable military ally of the United States in the Anglosphere, the alliance of these two great energy producers of the future could further cement Western influence in Asia. The United States and Australia would divide up the world: after a fashion, of course. Indeed, if unconventional natural gas exploitation has anything to do with it, the so-called post-American world would be anything but.

The geopolitical emergence of Canada -- again, the result of natural gas and oil -- could amplify this trend. Canada has immense natural gas deposits in Alberta, which could possibly be transported by future pipelines to British Columbia, where, with liquefaction facilities, it could then be exported to East Asia. Meanwhile, eastern Canada could be the beneficiary of new shale gas deposits that reach across the border into the northeastern United States. Thus, new energy discoveries would bind the two North American countries closer, even as North America and Australia become more powerful on the world scene.

 

China also has significant deposits of shale gas in its interior provinces. Because Beijing is burdened by relatively few regulations, the regime could acquire the land and build the infrastructure necessary for its exploitation. This would ease somewhat China's energy crunch and aid Beijing's strategy to compensate for the decline of its coastal-oriented economic model by spurring development inland.

 

The countries that might conceivably suffer on account of a shale gas revolution would be landlocked, politically unstable oil producers such as Chad, Sudan and South Sudan, whose hydrocarbons could become relatively less valuable as these other energy sources come online. China, especially, might in the future lose interest in the energy deposits in such low-end, high-risk countries if shale gas became plentiful in its own interior.

 

In general, the coming of shale gas will magnify the importance of geography. Which countries have shale underground and which don't will help determine power relationships. And because shale gas can be transported across oceans in liquid form, states with coastlines will have the advantage. The world will be smaller because of unconventional gas extraction technology, but that only increases the preciousness of geography, rather than decreases it.

 

"The Geopolitics of Shale" is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Published on the Stratfor website on the 19th December 2012.