Skip to main content

Home/ Long Game/ Group items tagged analysis

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
anonymous

Who Fears the Russian Bear? - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0101207_who_fears_russian_bear

geopolitics russia

shared by anonymous on 08 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Rogozin was being sardonic for dramatic effect — Moscow is not actually surprised that NATO has an active war plan against it. Russia completed joint exercises — called “Zapad” (meaning west in Russian) — with Belarus at the end of 2009 that placed 13,000 troops on the borders of the Baltic states and had as its supposed aim the simulation of the liberation of Kaliningrad from NATO forces.
  • And ultimately, Western European — and specifically German — lobbying for inclusion of Russia as a “strategic partner” should be the writing on the wall for the region: Its fate was to either adopt a neutral posture and accept Russian security hegemony or keep being pressured by Moscow.
  • Poland feels spurned, especially by Washington’s decision first to pull out on the initial ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans in September 2009 and then, on a rotational basis, to deploy an unarmed Patriot missile battery to the country with a minimal contingent of 20-30 personnel, when Warsaw hoped for an armed deployment with a more robust — and more importantly, permanent — U.S. military presence.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • If we understand Tusk correctly, he essentially hints that the current public Polish-American relationship is an “illusion” and that, in reality, the U.S. security guarantees are insufficient.
  • To Americans, Poland looks like a country with no options. Sure, it feels spurned, but where will the Poles turn? As it did prior to WWII, Germany is making deals with Russia, and French and British security guarantees are unreliable. The United States, remembering its history of fighting wars to defend small allies for the sake of its credibility, would say that the Poles should know better than to doubt American guarantees.
  • Poland is not going to cease being an American ally — not considering its current geopolitical circumstances. But Polish officials also do not have the luxury of dismissing American horse-trading with the Russians over Polish security.
  • anonymous on 08 Dec 10
     
    "The global focus on Tuesday returned to the North European Plain, specifically east of the Oder and north of the Pripyat Marshes, where Russia, Poland, Belarus and the three Baltic states continue to share what is the geopolitical version of an awkward Soviet-era communal apartment. Russian envoy to NATO Dmitri Rogozin, referring to the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealing NATO plans to defend the three Baltic states from Russia, asked that the plans be formally withdrawn at the next NATO-Russia meeting. Rogozin pointed out that the recently penned NATO 2010 Strategic Concept speaks of a "true strategic partnership" - a direct quote from the mission statement - between the alliance and Russia and that the supposed "anti-Russian" military plan to defend the Baltics is incompatible with the document. Referring to the plan, Rogozin rhetorically asked, "Against who else could such a defense be intended? Against Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, against polar bears, or against the Russian bear?""
anonymous

The Love of One's Own and the Importance of Place - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...one_s_own_and_importance_place

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 10 - Cached
  • The study of geopolitics tries to identify those things that are eternal, those things that are of long duration and those things that are transitory. It does this through the prism of geography and power.
  • there is a huge gulf between the uncertainty of a prediction and the impossibility of a prediction.
  • There is no action taken that is not done with the expectation, reasonable or not, erroneous or not, of some predictable consequence.
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • Nature is the most predictable thing of all, since it lacks will and cannot make choices. Scientists who like to talk about the “hard sciences” actually have it easy.
  • First, human beings have choices as individuals. Second, and this is the most important thing, we are ourselves human. Our own wishes and prejudices inevitably color our view of how things will evolve.
  • Successful forecasting should begin by being stupid.
  • By being stupid we mean that rather than leaping toward highly sophisticated concepts and principles, we should begin by noting the obvious.
  • we should begin by noticing the obvious about human beings.
  • they are born and then they die
  • Human beings are born incapable of caring for themselves
  • Humans protect themselves and care for their young by forming families
  • Who should you ally with and where would you find them?
  • Why should you trust a relative more than a stranger?
  • The idea that romantic love should pre-empt the love of one’s own introduces a radical new dynamic to history, in which the individual and choice supersede community and obligation.
  • Which love is prior? Is it the love to which you are born — your family, your religion, your tradition — the love of one’s own? Or is it the acquired love, the one you have chosen because it pleases you as an individual?
  • one married out of love for one’s parents, and out of the sense of duty that grew out of that love.
  • Romantic love is acquired love.
  • This notion is embedded in the American Declaration of Independence, which elevates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness over obligation.
  • Ideology is an acquired value. No child can be a Jeffersonian or a Stalinist. That can only be chosen after the age of reason, along with romantically acquired spouses.
  • Tradition is superseded by reason and the old regime superseded by artificially constructed regimes forged in revolution.
  • As a citizen, you have a relationship to an artificial construct, the constitution, to which you swear your loyalty. It is a rational relationship and, ultimately, an elective relationship. Try as one might, one can never stop being an American. One can, as a matter of choice, stop being a citizen of the United States. Similarly, one can elect to become a citizen of the United States. That does not, in the fullest sense of the word, make you an American. Citizenship and alienage are built into the system.
  • Loving America is simple and natural. Loving the United States is complex and artificial.
  • For modern regimes, birth is an accident that gives no one authority.
  • In post-revolutionary society, you may know who you were but that in no way determined who you would become.
  • Traditional society was infinitely more constrained but infinitely more natural.
  • This leads us to nationalism — or, more broadly, love and obligation to the community to which you were born, be it a small band of nomads or a vast nation-state.
  • Modern liberalism and socialism do not know what to do with nationalism.
  • For economists, self-interest is a natural impulse. But if it is a natural impulse, it is an odd one, for one can see widespread examples of human beings who do not practice it. Consider the tension between the idea that the United States was created for the purpose of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and the decision of a soldier to go to war and even willingly give his life.
  • Dying for a regime dedicated to the pursuit of happiness makes no sense. Dying for the love of one’s own makes a great deal of sense. But the modern understanding of man has difficulty dealing with this idea.
  • There is an important paradox in all this. Modern liberal regimes celebrate the doctrine of national self-determination, the right of a “people” to choose its own path. Leaving apart the amazing confusion as to what to do with a nation that chooses an illiberal course, you have the puzzlement of precisely what a nation is and why it has the right to determine anything.
  • Europe had been ruled by dynasties that governed nations by right of birth. Breaking those regimes was the goal of Europe’s revolutionaries.
  • In the case of the American founders, having acted on behalf of national self-determination, they created a Bill of Rights and hoped that history would sort through the contradiction between the nation, the state and the individual.
  • Why should we love those things that we are born to simply because we are born to them? Why should Americans love America, Iranians love Iran and Chinese love China? Why, in spite of all options and the fact that there are surely many who make their lives by loving acquired things, does love of one’s own continue to drive men?
  • Wherever one chooses to go, whatever identity one chooses to claim, in the end, you cannot escape from who you are.
  • anonymous on 10 Dec 10
     
    The study of geopolitics tries to identify those things that are eternal, those things that are of long duration and those things that are transitory. It does this through the prism of geography and power. What it finds frequently runs counter to common sense. More precisely, geopolitical inquiry seeks not only to describe but to predict what will happen. Those predictions frequently - indeed, usually - fly in the face of common sense. Geopolitics is the next generation's common sense. William Shakespeare, born in 1564 - the century in which the European conquest of the world took place -- had Macbeth say that history is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If Macbeth is right, then history is merely sound and fury, devoid of meaning, devoid of order. Any attempt at forecasting the future must begin by challenging Macbeth, since if history is random it is, by definition, unpredictable. By George Friedman at StratFor on May 26, 2008.
anonymous

EU, Somalia: Targeting 'Mother Ships' in Anti-Piracy Efforts - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...other_ships_antipiracy_efforts

africa

shared by anonymous on 08 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Foreign forces conducting anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia have started targeting pirates’ “mother ships” — vessels used to increase pirates’ attack range — in a shift from defensive to offensive tactics.
  • The mandates of the anti-piracy missions have not changed, but the European Union and NATO have shifted their tactics to target key pirate vessels. As more mother ships are seized, pirates’ capabilities are expected to weaken since their attack ranges will shrink. If foreign naval attacks on mother ships continue, the number of pirate hijackings off the Somali coast could decrease substantially.
  • Disabling pirates’ offshore capabilities will have a short-term effect, but pirates’ ships and personnel are easily replaceable. (In fact, the pirates likely will respond to the foreign naval offenses by seizing more ships to use as offshore bases.) Anti-piracy missions do not address the underlying issue of the lack of governance and abundance of sanctuary for pirates in Somalia. Furthermore, pirate villages in the otherwise impoverished Somalia are awash with money. Until the underlying conditions that gave rise to piracy in the region are addressed, it will remain a challenge.
anonymous

The U.S. Withdrawal From Iraq - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...al_coverage_us_withdrawal_iraq

geopolitics middle east

shared by anonymous on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The United States plans to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, with the drawdown slated to accelerate following the March 7 parliamentary elections. However, those elections could upset the fragile political situation that has held in Baghdad for five years, albeit with considerable U.S. oversight. Internal ethno-sectarian tensions and external forces with interests in Iraq also threaten to complicate matters. STRATFOR examines the factors that could affect the withdrawal and determine the fate of the region for years to come.
  • The United States is attempting to roll back its military commitment to Iraq substantially, not only to extract itself from Iraq but also to better focus its resources and efforts in Afghanistan. It has done all it can militarily and is essentially waiting out the durability of domestic political circumstances in the country during and following the elections. In other words, the U.S. military is no longer the keeper of the peace in Iraq. The elections and following transition of power will be a test of whether the Iraqis can keep the peace themselves, and the U.S. withdrawal may depend on how the Iraqis answer that test.
anonymous

Georgia: A New Military Strategy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/..._georgia_new_military_strategy

military asia

shared by anonymous on 04 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The Georgian government is undertaking a comprehensive review of the country’s military, taking into account lessons learned in — and circumstances created by — the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. Georgia’s strategy will focus on improving its own military abilities while moving toward membership in NATO.
  • Although the military review is ongoing, the Georgians have already defined the two areas of focus for their strategy: independent territorial defense, and political deterrence achieved by moving ever closer to NATO membership.
  • But despite these hurdles, Georgia is following Poland’s model. Even without a formal membership action plan (MAP) extended by NATO, it is doing everything it can to act as though it does have a MAP and is working independently to meet NATO standards, cooperating with willing NATO members bilaterally where possible.
anonymous

China: Reforming the State-Owned Sector - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...na_reforming_stateowned_sector

foreignpolicy asia china

shared by anonymous on 04 Mar 10 - Cached
  • China may be developing another organization to assist in reforming its state-owned enterprises (SOEs), according to media reports. China has long sought to improve the performance of its SOEs, and already has two such organizations tasked with conducting reforms. The emergence of this new group, called the Guoxin Asset Management Corp., underscores the importance Beijing places on salvaging its SOEs, legacies of the Maoist era that still hold influence in the country.
  • The advantage of this strategy is that it attempts to salvage productive sectors from a larger morass of inefficiency, state dependency and corruption. The disadvantage is that the consolidation process results in behemoth SOEs that are not well integrated or able to function as a whole, but that have a greater concentration of political power — mainly due to their $3.3 trillion worth of sales in 2009, and their role as major employers — and are able to preserve aspects of the state sector from private competition, demand continued public funds for support, and serve as vehicles for government officials’ pet projects, in turn squeezing private sector development.
anonymous

Russia's Expanding Influence, Part 4: The Major Players - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...influence_part_4_major_players

shared by anonymous on 12 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Russia is working to form an understanding with regional powers outside the former Soviet sphere in order to facilitate its plans to expand its influence in key former Soviet states. These regional powers — Germany, France, Turkey and Poland — could halt Russia’s consolidation of control if they chose to, so Moscow is working to make neutrality, if not cooperation, worth their while.
  • Moscow is working to cultivate an understanding with regional powers outside the former Soviet Union that are critical to its expansion: Germany, France, Turkey and Poland.
  • Russia throughout the 19th century coveted territory held by the crumbling Ottoman Empire — especially around the Black Sea and in the Balkans — and had plans for dominating Poland. Currently, however, Moscow understands that the two regional powers with most opportunities to subvert its resurgence are Poland (in Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states) and Turkey (in the Caucasus).
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • If it chose to, Germany could become Russia’s greatest roadblock. It is geographically more of a threat than the United States, due to its position on the North European Plain and the Baltic Sea, and it is a leader in the European Union and could offer Ukraine and Belarus substantial political and economic alternatives to their ties to Russia.
  • France and Germany are important partners for Russia because Moscow needs guarantees that its resurgence in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus will not face opposition from a united EU front.
  • Russia has less leverage over France than over any of the other regional powers discussed. In fact, Russia and France have few overlapping geopolitical interests.
  • Russia gives France and Sarkozy the respect reserved for Europe’s leader, for example by allowing Sarkozy to negotiate and take credit for the peace deal that ended the Russo-Georgian war in August 2008.
  • Russia wants to manage its relationship with Turkey for two main reasons: to guarantee its dominance of the Caucasus and assure that Turkey remains committed to transporting Russia’s — rather than someone else’s — energy to Europe. Russia also wants to make sure that Turkey does not use its control of the Bosporus to close off the Black Sea to Russian trade, particularly oil exports from Novorossiysk.
  • Russia maintains a considerable military presence in nearby Kaliningrad, with more than 200 aircraft, 23,000 troops and half of Russia’s Baltic fleet stationed between Poland and Lithuania.
  • Ultimately, Moscow’s strategy is to assure that Germany, France, Turkey and Poland stay out of — or actively support — Russia’s consolidation efforts in the former Soviet sphere. Russia does not need the four powers to be its allies — although it certainly is moving in that direction with Germany (and possibly France). Rather, it hopes to reach an understanding with them on where the Russian sphere ends, and establish a border that is compatible with Russian interests.
anonymous

Special Report: Espionage with Chinese Characteristics - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...spying_chinese_characteristics

shared by anonymous on 24 Mar 10 - Cached
  • China’s covert intelligence capability seems vast mainly because of the country’s huge population and the historic Chinese diaspora that has spread worldwide. Traditionally focused inward, China as an emerging power is determined to compete with more established powers by aiming its intelligence operations at a more global audience. China is driven most of all by the fact that it has abundant resources and a lot of catching up to do.
  • Together, these cases exemplify the three main Chinese intelligence-gathering methods, which often overlap. One is “human-wave” or “mosaic” collection, which involves assigning or dispatching thousands of assets to gather a massive amount of available information. Another is recruiting and periodically debriefing Chinese-born residents of other countries in order to gather a deeper level of intelligence on more specific subjects. The third method is patiently cultivating foreign assets of influence for long-term leverage, insight and espionage.
  • To Western eyes, China’s whole approach to intelligence gathering may seem unsophisticated and risk-averse, particularly when you consider the bureaucratic inefficiencies inherent in the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) administrative structure. But it is an approach that takes a long and wide view, and it is more effective than it may seem at first glance.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • China’s first intelligence advocate was military theorist Sun Tzu who, in his sixth century B.C. classic The Art of War, emphasized the importance of gathering timely and accurate intelligence in order to win battles.
  • Since the time of Sun Tzu, perhaps the most successful Chinese spy has been the legendary Larry Wu-Tai Chin (Jin Wudai), an American national of Chinese descent who began his career as a U.S. Army translator and was later recruited by the MSS while working in a liaison office in Fuzhou, China, during the Korean War.
  • Chin had the same handler for 30 years, which means both agent and case officer had a high level of experience and the ability to keep all knowledge of the operation within narrow channels of the MSS. And the Chinese government never acted on Chin’s intelligence in a way that would reveal his existence.
  • (click here to enlarge image) Today, China’s intelligence bureaucracy is just that — a vast array of intelligence agencies, military departments, police bureaus, party organs, research institutions and media outlets.
anonymous

The United States, Europe and Bretton Woods II - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...es_europe_and_bretton_woods_ii

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 30 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The conventional wisdom is that Bretton Woods crafted the modern international economic architecture, lashing the trading and currency systems to the gold standard to achieve global stability.
  • The origin of Bretton Woods lies in the Great Depression.
  • Economically, World War II was a godsend. The military effort generated demand for goods and labor. The goods part is pretty straightforward, but the labor issue is what really allowed the global economy to turn the corner.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • The war removed tens of millions of men from the labor force, shipping them off to — economically speaking — nonproductive endeavors.
  • Policymakers of the time realized that the prosecution of the war had suspended the depression, but few were confident that the war had actually ended the conditions that made the depression possible.
  • When all was said and done, the delegates agreed to a system of exchangeable currencies and broadly open rules of trade. The system would be based on the gold standard to prevent currency fluctuations, and a pair of institutions — what would become known as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank — would serve as guardians of the system’s financial and fiduciary particulars.
  • In fact, we are still using Bretton Woods, and while nothing that has been discussed to this point is wrong exactly, it is only part of the story.
  • Think back to July 1944. The Normandy invasion was in its first month. The United Kingdom served as the staging ground, but with London exhausted, its military commitment to the operation was modest.
  • The shape of the Cold War was already beginning to unfold. Between the United States and the Soviet Union, the rest of the modern world — namely, Europe — was going to either experience Soviet occupation or become a U.S. protectorate.
  • The Continental states — and even the United Kingdom — were not simply economically spent and indebted but were, to be perfectly blunt, destitute.
  • This was not World War I, where most of the fighting had occurred along a single series of trenches. This was blitzkrieg and saturation bombings, which left the Continent in ruins, and there was almost nothing left from which to rebuild.
  • For the United States, the issue was one of seizing a historic opportunity.
  • The United States entered World War II late and the war did not occur on U.S. soil. So — uniquely among all the world’s major powers of the day — U.S. infrastructure and industrial capacity would emerge from the war larger (far, far larger) than when it entered.
  • The United States had to have not just the participation of the Western Europeans in holding back the Soviet tide, it needed the Europeans to defer to American political and military demands — and to do so willingly. Considering the desperation and destitution of the Europeans, and the unprecedented and unparalleled U.S. economic strength, economic carrots were the obvious way to go.
  • Put another way, Bretton Woods was part of a broader American effort to extend the wartime alliance — sans the Soviets — beyond Germany’s surrender.
  • The United States would allow Europe near tariff-free access to its markets, and turn a blind eye to Europe’s own tariffs so long as they did not become too egregious — something that at least in part flew in the face of the Great Depression’s lessons.
  • The “free world” alliance would not consist of a series of equal states. Instead, it would consist of the United States and everyone else.
  • When loans to fund Western Europe’s redevelopment failed to stimulate growth, those loans became grants, aka the Marshall Plan.
  • And fast-forwarding to when the world went off of the gold standard and Bretton Woods supposedly died, gold was actually replaced by the U.S. dollar. Far from dying, the political/military understanding that underpinned Bretton Woods had only become more entrenched.
  • For many of the states that will be attending what is already being dubbed Bretton Woods II, having this American centrality as such a key pillar of the system is the core of the problem.
  • a crisis in the U.S. economy becomes global.
  • The U.S. economy remains the largest, and dysfunctions there affect the world. That is the reality of the international system, and that is ultimately what the French call for a new Bretton Woods is about.
  • Relying on a currency that is not in the hands of a sovereign taxing power, but dependent on the political will of (so far) 15 countries with very different interests, does not make for a reliable reserve currency.
  • The French in particular look at the current crisis as the result of a failure in the U.S. regulatory system.
  • The Bretton Woods institutions — specifically the IMF, which is supposed to serve the role of financial lighthouse and crisis manager — proved irrelevant to the problems the world is currently passing through.
  • Fundamentally, the Europeans are not simply hoping to modernize Bretton Woods, but instead to Europeanize the American financial markets. This is ultimately not a financial question, but a political one.
  • Far more important, any international system that oversees aspects of American finance would, by definition, not be under full American control, but under some sort of quasi-Brussels-like organization. And no American president is going to engage gleefully on that sort of topic.
  • anonymous on 30 Mar 10
     
    An article about this misunderstood institution. From StratFor back on October 20, 2008.
anonymous

Iraq: Parliamentary Elections and Iraq's Future - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ary_elections_and_iraqs_future

foreignpolicy middle east

shared by anonymous on 07 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The ultimate outcome is significant for doing more than just testing the viability of the post-Baathist Iraqi republic. It is also of great importance to the United States, which wants to stick to its timetable for withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Meanwhile, Iran wants to see its Iraqi Shiite allies consolidate — and even enhance — their domination of Iraq. Turkey wants the outcome to contain Kurdish and Shiite power, thereby enhancing Turkey’s role in Iraq. And Saudi Arabia wants limits on Shiite power to emerge as a counter to Riyadh’s regional rival, the increasingly aggressive Iran. Naturally, not everyone in Iraq and abroad will get the outcome they want.
anonymous

Israel, Palestinian Territories: Rumors of a Third Intifada - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ritories_rumors_third_intifada

shared by anonymous on 22 Mar 10 - Cached
  • While the United States and Israel attempt to sort out the thorny issues of East Jerusalem settlement building and how to prevent a nuclear-capable Iran, Hamas and Fatah back in the Palestinian Territories are trying to cobble together a unified — and possibly militant — response to Israel, with some likely nudging from Iran.
  • While Hamas would prefer an intifada to be waged from rival territory in the West Bank, Fatah would like Hamas to initiate conflict through rocket fire targeting southern Israel, thus inviting the bulk of Israeli retaliatory action to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and sparing Fatah most of the damage.
  • The overall goal is thus to exploit the breach in the U.S.-Israeli relationship to reunify the Palestinian leadership and encourage Israeli military action in the territories that would further undermine Israel’s diplomatic efforts in building a coalition against Iran. While this is by no means an intifada, or popular uprising in the traditional sense of the word, it does point to another potential crisis in Israeli-Palestinian relations that would consequently complicate U.S. designs for the region.
  • anonymous on 22 Mar 10
     
    March 22, 2010.
anonymous

Intelligence Guidance (Special Edition): Israel - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...tion_israel_takes_center_stage

shared by anonymous on 19 Mar 10 - Cached
  • While in the immediate future, Washington isn’t going to do what Israel wants on Iran, the close relationship with the United States represents a long-term foundation of Israeli national security and a huge psychological foundation for the Israeli public.
  • On the other hand, and not to be ignored, was the firing of Qassam rockets at Israel and the death of a Thai. Rocket fire is another red line in Israeli politics, and it is enormously difficult for Netanyahu not to respond. But a response at this moment would really exacerbate relations with the United States.
  • The thing to study now is Washington. Is Washington going to cut Netanyahu some slack and get him off the hook domestically, or will it squeeze him, forcing a political crisis in Jerusalem? Washington has the power to do just that. But Washington loses all power if there are further rocket attacks and it insists that Israel do nothing. Washington has the initiative now: Netanyahu has handed Obama a big present. What will Obama do with it and how far will he press it?
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Something is clearly happening with Hamas as well.
  • anonymous on 19 Mar 10
     
    From March 18, 2010. A look at Israel's predicament.
anonymous

Russia's Expanding Influence (Part 2): The Desirables - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...g_influence_part_2_desireables

shared by anonymous on 10 Mar 10 - Cached
  • After Russia consolidates control over the countries it has deemed necessary to its national security, it will turn its focus to a handful of countries that are not as important but still have strategic value. These countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — are not necessary to Russia’s survival but are of some importance and can keep the West from moving too close to Russia’s core.
  • There are six countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — where Moscow would like to reconsolidate its influence if it has the opportunity.
anonymous

U.S., Mexico: A Mission to Meet with Calderon - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...s_mexico_mission_meet_calderon

geopolitics americas

shared by anonymous on 22 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The United States has allocated nearly half a billion dollars worth of counternarcotics aid for Mexico under the Merida Initiative, but the situation south of the border continues to deteriorate. While there has been an increase in cooperation between the two countries, there is still much room for improvement, and corruption and political issues (mostly on the Mexican side) still stand in the way.
  • Two of the people killed in Juarez were U.S. citizens employed at the consulate, some of the latest victims in the increasingly violent Mexican drug wars, which have killed more than 18,000 people since Calderon took office in 2006.
  • There is one way that the United States could avoid relying on Mexican communication networks — actually helping to conduct countercartel operations.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • So far, the possibility of allowing U.S. personnel to actually operate on the ground in Mexico has been completely out of the question. Mexican politicians and civilians alike reject the idea as a direct violation of Mexico’s sovereignty, and the Mexican government has refused to budge from this position. Nevertheless, embedding U.S. intelligence analysts and operatives in the Juarez intelligence center suggests there may be some room to maneuver on this issue.
anonymous

U.S., Israel: Netanyahu Goes to Washington as Tensions Rise - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/..._goes_washington_tensions_rise

shared by anonymous on 22 Mar 10 - Cached
  • In the ongoing struggle between the Palestinians and the Israelis, it is important to note the difference between armed conflict and intifada. The former involves factionalized clashes with Israel primarily in the form of gunbattles and Israeli airstrikes in which Israel, while taking a diplomatic hit, is able to inflict great damage on one faction, (e.g., Hamas in Gaza) to the benefit of another faction (Fatah in the West Bank). An intifada, however, is a sustained, collaborative uprising against Israel that involves ordinary Palestinian citizens and is agreed on by competing factions.
  • Hamas has a strategic interest in encouraging an intifada from the West Bank, where Israel occupies territory and thus presents a target for attacks and where Hamas’ main rival Fatah is politically entrenched.
anonymous

Ancestor Worship is Efficient - 0 views

www.overcomingbias.com/...stor-worship-is-efficient.html

shared by anonymous on 16 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Maybe not “worship” exactly, but at least great respect and deference.  By “efficient” I mean that it increases economists’ standard “cost-benefit” concept of welfare.  That is: as usually estimated, the benefits of deferring greatly to distant ancestors far outweigh its costs.  And while this does suggest that we should defer more to ancestors, it also shows just how much distorted prices can break economists’ favorite tools.
  • Our unthinkingly repugnance at being controlled by the dead, and our eagerness to grab their resources, prevents us from enforcing long-term win-win deals.  This refusal to enforce deals increases interest rates, which distorts all our trade-offs across time, bringing economic welfare estimates into stark conflict with intuitive moral judgments about time trades (as in global warming), which then encourages people to turn to non-economic frameworks for policy analysis.
anonymous

The Perils Of Polarization - 0 views

www.tnr.com/...the-perils-polarization

generations

shared by anonymous on 05 Apr 10 - Cached
  • American politics now seems condemned to an extended period of intense polarization, with an expanding army of aroused conservatives fighting to halt and reverse what it sees as the deplorable Europeanization of our economy and society. I doubt that a politics so configured will be able to address our long-term economic problems—until a crisis forces us to. I hope I’m wrong.
  • It remains the case that Washington is more polarized than the nation as a whole. The most recent analysis using the standard political science scoring system  found zero ideological overlap between Democrats and Republicans in either chamber of Congress. Which means that in both the House and the Senate, the most conservative Democrat is more liberal than is the most liberal Republican. In the electorate, Democrats who consider themselves moderate or conservative still overlap with similar Republican identifiers. But as Republicans have shed liberals and moderates over the past generation, the overlap has diminished.
  • anonymous on 05 Apr 10
     
    From The New Republic on April 5, 2010. By William Galston.
anonymous

Backs to the Future - 0 views

ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/...backsfuture06.asp

science reflections time

shared by anonymous on 07 Apr 10 - Cached
  • New analysis of the language and gesture of South America’s indigenous Aymara people indicates a reverse concept of time.
  • “Until now, all the studied cultures and languages of the world – from European and Polynesian to Chinese, Japanese, Bantu and so on – have not only characterized time with properties of space, but also have all mapped the future as if it were in front of ego and the past in back. The Aymara case is the first documented to depart from the standard model,” said Nunez.
  • no one had previously detailed the Aymara’s “radically different metaphoric mapping of time” – a super-fundamental concept, which, unlike the idea of “democracy,” say, does not rely on formal schooling and isn’t an obvious product of culture.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Why, however, is not entirely certain. One possibility, Nunez and Sweetser argue, is that the Aymara place a great deal of significance on whether an event or action has been seen or not seen by the speaker.
  • This cultural, cognitive-linguistic difference could have contributed, Nunez said, to the conquistadors’ disdain of the Aymara as shiftless – uninterested in progress or going “forward.”
  • anonymous on 07 Apr 10
     
    By Inga Kiderra on June 12, 2006. Referred to by Dave Gottlieb. More thoughts about time, the future, and the past. Thanks, Dave.
anonymous

U.S., China: A Momentary Break in the Pressure - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...china_momentary_break_pressure

stratfor

shared by anonymous on 05 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Regardless of whether China feels ready to appreciate its currency, its fixed exchange rate is a blatant violation of international financial norms, and the United States has signaled it will no longer allow China to be an exception.
  • beneath the general comments about “working together,” a confrontation is brewing.
  • the United States is worried that continued unemployment and high levels of debt will prolong a lackluster U.S. recovery, which is a political liability for the Obama administration in a year that will see midterm elections.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Such underdevelopment of consumption, which the Chinese are well aware of, is seen as a major factor contributing to global imbalances in trade.
  • Nevertheless, one of China’s chief strategies is to avoid direct conflict with the United States, since U.S. market access is critical for China to maintain economic growth and in turn social stability and regime survival.
  • it is not clear that China can offer enough concessions to prevent the United States from increasing the pressure in the coming months.
  • The Obama administration’s primary concern is reducing joblessness, or at least appearing to be doing so, ahead of midterm elections in November
  • China now has trouble arguing for an exception as a developing economy since it is likely to surpass Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy in 2010.
« First ‹ Previous 241 - 260 of 326 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page