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anonymous

Portfolio: Obstacles to a China-Russia Energy Deal - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...acles-china-russia-energy-deal

geopolitics russia china

shared by anonymous on 09 Jun 11 - Cached
  • Russia’s the largest exporter of raw commodities in the world. China’s the largest importer of raw commodities in the world. It seems that it should already be a very robust trading relationship between the two, but there’s not. Until now, most of the public and even private debate between the two, the negotiations of a natural gas deal, have focused on price.
  • The Chinese want to pay no more than about $100, $150 per thousand cubic meters, which they say is the domestic price of natural gas in their country, and they’re right. The Russians say they will accept nothing less than the European price, which is $350-$400 per thousand cubic meters, which is what they say they charge all their other customers, which is also right.
  • It’s not that price isn’t an issue but the real problem is not the price of natural gas but the price of the project.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Russia and China, while they seem to be right next to each other on a map, are very large places. Their population centers are wildly divergent, several thousand kilometers apart, and the natural gas in Russia for the most part is nowhere near the population centers in China.
  • This is a huge project. Conservatively, very conservatively, this is $100 billion infrastructure project. More realistically it’s more like $300 billion and that doesn’t even include the cost of building a natural gas grid in China in order to take advantage of the gas. Even now the Chinese do not have a unified system like most states.
  • And so the future of energy cooperation between the two countries will undoubtedly grow but $2-$300 billion infrastructure tag? That’s pretty doubtful. And timing is a big issue here too. The Russians have been working for the last 35 years to build one of these megaprojects starting in the Yamal Peninsula going down the Europe. That project is now finally nearing operational status but it took 35 years and tens of billions of dollars of investment. Even if the Chinese do agree with the Russians on every aspect of what would be the world’s largest infrastructure project ever, it’s not going to come online until 2030.
  • anonymous on 09 Jun 11
     
    "Vice President of Analysis Peter Zeihan discusses the logistical and geopolitical challenges to Sino-Russian energy integration."
anonymous

What the Norway Attack Could Mean for Europe | STRATFOR - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...orway-attack-could-mean-europe

geopolitics europe

shared by anonymous on 23 Jul 11 - Cached
  • At least 17 people have died and more have been injured in an explosion in downtown Oslo and a shooting at a Labor Party youth camp outside the Norwegian capital. Norwegian police arrested the shooter at the camp and believe he is connected with the explosion, though others could be involved.
  • The significance of the events in Norway for the rest of Europe will depend largely on who is responsible, and the identity of the culprits is still unclear.
  • The first scenario is that grassroots Islamist militants based in Norway are behind these seemingly connected attacks.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • If an individual, grassroots or organized domestic group with far-right or neo-Nazi leanings perpetrated the attack, the significance for the rest of Europe will not be large.
  • There is also the possibility that the attacks are the work of a skilled but disturbed individual with grievances against the Labor Party.
  • Another scenario is that the attack was carried out by an international group which may have entered the country some time ago.
  • The attack in Norway, if it involved cross-border movements, could therefore damage or even end the Schengen Agreement. Other European countries, particularly those where the far right is strong or where center-right parties have adopted an anti-immigrant message, could push for further amendments to the pact.
  • The last scenario is that the attack is linked to Norway’s involvement in the campaign in Libya. If the Libyan government is somehow connected to the bombing and/or shooting, the rest of Europe will rally behind Norway and increase their efforts in Libya. This scenario would essentially close off the opening in negotiations prompted by a recent move by Paris and other European governments saying they would be open to Moammar Gadhafi’s remaining in Libya.
  • anonymous on 23 Jul 11
     
    The July 22 explosion and shooting in Norway likely will have political and security ramifications across Europe. However, the significance of the attack will depend largely on who carried it out. Though the culprits have not yet been identified, STRATFOR can extrapolate the effects the attack could have on the rest of Europe based on four scenarios.
anonymous

Portfolio: Eurozone's Future To Rely Heavily On Germany - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...es-future-rely-heavily-germany

geopolitics germany

shared by anonymous on 30 Jul 11 - Cached
  • When the euro came into existence it granted unlimited volumes of cheap capital to states that had no history of having access to moderately priced capital whatsoever.
  • The result was a series of sovereign debt crises as the debt ballooned beyond the ability of these states to pay.
  • Normal bailouts share two characteristics.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • First, the terms are normally onerous.
  • Second, a bailout is only appropriate if the entity that you’re bailing out can’t in time repair its finances and get back in working order.
  • Neither of these conditions really apply to the weaker states in Europe.
  • First, the conditions of the European Financial Stability Fund, the ESFS, that’s the bailout program, are really not all that tough.
  • Second, many of the states under bailout or who have been flirting with bailouts simply do not have long-term income potential.
  • the Germans simply have not wanted to permanently take on responsibility for these weak states that can’t grow on their own.
  • But on July 21 the Germans made a decision that they were going to back the eurozone to the hilt. It all comes down to the way they changed the way that the ESFS works.
  • First, the ESFS no longer has to go back the Council of Ministers to get permission for a bailout
  • Second, the ESFS can really take any action it deems fit.
  • Germany’s commitment to this new program means that for us, the eurozone crisis is over. But there are two things you must keep in mind.
  • First is why did Germany change its mind?
  • Finally, European banks are some of the most unhealthy in the world
  • anonymous on 30 Jul 11
     
    Vice President of Analysis Peter Zeihan explains how the German redesign of the European Financial Stability Fund will secure its influence over the financially troubled states of Europe.
anonymous

The Geopolitics of the United States, Part 1: The Inevitable Empire - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...tates-part-1-inevitable-empire

geopolitics u.s.

shared by anonymous on 24 Aug 11 - Cached
  • All of the New World entities struggled to carve a modern nation and state out of the American continents. Brazil is an excellent case of how that struggle can be a difficult one. The United States falls on the opposite end of the spectrum.
  • The Greater Mississippi Basin together with the Intracoastal Waterway has more kilometers of navigable internal waterways than the rest of the world combined. The American Midwest is both overlaid by this waterway, and is the world’s largest contiguous piece of farmland. The U.S. Atlantic Coast possesses more major ports than the rest of the Western Hemisphere combined.
  • Two vast oceans insulated the United States from Asian and European powers, deserts separate the United States from Mexico to the south, while lakes and forests separate the population centers in Canada from those in the United States.
  • ...109 more annotations...
  • The United States has capital, food surpluses and physical insulation in excess of every other country in the world by an exceedingly large margin. So like the Turks, the Americans are not important because of who they are, but because of where they live.
  • Climatically, the continent consists of a series of wide north-south precipitation bands largely shaped by the landmass’ longitudinal topography.
  • The Rocky Mountains dominate the Western third of the northern and central parts of North America
  • Farther east of this semiarid region are the well-watered plains of the prairie provinces of Canada and the American Midwest
  • East of this premier arable zone lies a second mountain chain known as the Appalachians.
  • North of the Great Lakes region lies the Canadian Shield, an area where repeated glaciation has scraped off most of the topsoil.
  • The continent’s final geographic piece is an isthmus of varying width, known as Central America, that is too wet and rugged to develop into anything more than a series of isolated city-states, much less a single country that would have an impact on continental affairs. Due to a series of swamps and mountains where the two American continents join, there still is no road network linking them, and the two Americas only indirectly affect each other’s development.
  • The most distinctive and important feature of North America is the river network in the middle third of the continent.
  • Very few of its tributaries begin at high elevations, making vast tracts of these rivers easily navigable. In the case of the Mississippi, the head of navigation — just north of Minneapolis — is 3,000 kilometers inland.
  • The unified nature of this system greatly enhances the region’s usefulness and potential economic and political power.
  • shipping goods via water is an order of magnitude cheaper than shipping them via land.
  • in the petroleum age in the United States, the cost of transport via water is roughly 10 to 30 times cheaper than overland.
  • This factor is the primary reason why the major economic powers of the past half-millennia have been Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
  • the watershed of the Greater Mississippi Basin largely overlays North America’s arable lands.
  • The vast bulk of the prime agricultural lands are within 200 kilometers of a stretch of navigable river.
  • the river network’s unity greatly eases the issue of political integration.
  • All of the peoples of the basin are part of the same economic system, ensuring constant contact and common interests. Regional proclivities obviously still arise, but this is not Northern Europe, where a variety of separate river systems have given rise to multiple national identities.
  • It is worth briefly explaining why STRATFOR fixates on navigable rivers as opposed to coastlines.
  • First, navigable rivers by definition service twice the land area of a coastline (rivers have two banks, coasts only one).
  • Second, rivers are not subject to tidal forces, greatly easing the construction and maintenance of supporting infrastructure.
  • Third, storm surges often accompany oceanic storms, which force the evacuation of oceanic ports.
  • coastal regions are a poor second compared to lands with navigable rivers.
  • There are three other features — all maritime in nature — that further leverage the raw power that the Greater Mississippi Basin provides.
  • First are the severe indentations of North America’s coastline, granting the region a wealth of sheltered bays and natural, deep-water ports.
  • Second, there are the Great Lakes.
  • Third and most important are the lines of barrier islands that parallel the continent’s East and Gulf coasts.
  • Thus, the Greater Mississippi Basin is the continent’s core, and whoever controls that core not only is certain to dominate the East Coast and Great Lakes regions but will also have the agricultural, transport, trade and political unification capacity to be a world power — even without having to interact with the rest of the global system.
  • There are many secondary stretches of agricultural land as well
  • The rivers of the American Atlantic coastal plain — flowing down the eastern side of the Appalachians — are neither particularly long nor interconnected. This makes them much more like the rivers of Northern Europe in that their separation localizes economic existence and fosters distinct political identities, dividing the region rather than uniting it. The formation of such local — as opposed to national — identities in many ways contributed to the American Civil War.
  • What is now Mexico lacks even a single navigable river of any size. Its agricultural zones are disconnected and it boasts few good natural ports.
  • Canada’s maritime transport zones
  • Its first, the Great Lakes, not only requires engineering but is shared with the United States.
  • The second, the St. Lawrence Seaway, is a solid option (again with sufficient engineering), but it services a region too cold to develop many dense population centers.
  • So long as the United States has uninterrupted control of the continental core — which itself enjoys independent and interconnected ocean access — the specific locations of the country’s northern and southern boundaries are somewhat immaterial to continental politics.
  • The eastern end of the border could be anywhere within 300 kilometers north or south of its current location (at present the border region’s southernmost ports — Brownsville and Corpus Christi — lie on the U.S. side of the border). As one moves westward to the barren lands of New Mexico, Arizona, Chihuahua and Sonora, the possible variance increases considerably. Even controlling the mouth of the Colorado River where it empties into the Gulf of California is not a critical issue, since hydroelectric development in the United States prevents the river from reaching the Gulf in most years, making it useless for transport.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Aug 11
       
      As a fun project, I'd love to create a map that depicts what could be the outer edges of the American political map without changing its core strategic position.
  • In the north, the Great Lakes are obviously an ideal break point in the middle of the border region, but the specific location of the line along the rest of the border is largely irrelevant. East of the lakes, low mountains and thick forests dominate the landscape — not the sort of terrain to generate a power that could challenge the U.S. East Coast.
  • The border here could theoretically lie anywhere between the St. Lawrence Seaway and Massachusetts without compromising the American population centers on the East Coast
  • So long as the border lies north of the bulk of the Missouri River’s expansive watershed, the border’s specific location is somewhat academic, and it becomes even more so when one reaches the Rockies.
  • On the far western end of the U.S.-Canada border is the only location where there could be some border friction. The entrance to Puget Sound — one of the world’s best natural harbors — is commanded by Vancouver Island.
  • Most of the former is United States territory, but the latter is Canadian — in fact, the capital of British Columbia, Victoria, sits on the southern tip of that strategic island for precisely that reason.
  • It is common knowledge that the United States began as 13 rebellious colonies along the east coast of the center third of the North American continent. But the United States as an entity was not a sure thing in the beginning
  • France controlled the bulk of the useful territory that in time would enable the United States to rise to power, while the Spanish empire boasted a larger and more robust economy and population in the New World than the fledgling United States.
  • Most of the original 13 colonies were lightly populated by European standards — only Philadelphia could be considered a true city in the European sense — and were linked by only the most basic of physical infrastructure. Additionally, rivers flowed west to east across the coastal plain, tending to sequester regional identities rather than unify them.
  • But the young United States held two advantages.
  • First, without exception, all of the European empires saw their New World holdings as secondary concerns.
  • With European attentions diverted elsewhere, the young United States had an opportunity to carve out a future for itself relatively free of European entanglements.
  • Second, the early United States did not face any severe geographic challenges. The barrier island system and local rivers provided a number of options that allowed for rapid cultural and economic expansion up and down the East Coast.
  • This was not England, an island that forced the early state into the expense of a navy. This was not France, a country with three coasts and two land borders that forced Paris to constantly deal with threats from multiple directions. This was not Russia, a massive country suffering from short growing seasons that was forced to expend inordinate sums of capital on infrastructure simply to attempt to feed itself.
  • Instead, the United States could exist in relative peace for its first few decades without needing to worry about any large-scale, omnipresent military or economic challenges, so it did not have to garrison a large military.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Aug 11
       
      Maybe our obsession with some mythical, truly free market stems from these early roots and is nourished by continued favorable geographic conditions. I wonder if that's one reason we're incredulous that other nations don't adopt our various policies. We have unique circumstances and are oblivious to the fact. 
  • it is inevitable that whoever controls the middle third of North America will be a great power.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Aug 11
       
      In classic StratFor fashion, the monograph extensively lays out the geographic (and some brief historical relevance) situation without reference to founding fathers or 'sacred' mentalities. On a very personal note, this is a reason that I prefer this style. On the left and right, there's a strong desire to steer perceptions. Surely, StratFor is no different, but it steers perceptions to a particular frame of scale.
  • The United States’ strategic imperatives are presented here in five parts. Normally imperatives are pursued in order, but there is considerable time overlap between the first two and the second two.
  • 1. Dominate the Greater Mississippi Basin
  • The early nation was particularly vulnerable to its former colonial master.
  • There are only two ways to protect a coastal community from sea power. The first is to counter with another navy.
  • The second method of protecting a coastal community is to develop territories that are not utterly dependent upon the sea.
  • Achieving such strategic depth was both an economic and a military imperative.
  • The United States was entirely dependent upon the English imperial system not just for finished goods and markets but also for the bulk of its non-agricultural raw materials, in particular coal and iron ore.
  • The Appalachians may not be the Swiss Alps, but they were sufficiently rugged to put a check on any deep and rapid inland expansion.
  • The Ohio River faced the additional problem of draining into the Mississippi, the western shore of which was the French territory of Louisiana
  • The United States solved this problem in three phases.
  • First, there was the direct purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803.
  • At the time, Napoleon was girding for a major series of wars that would bear his name. France not only needed cash but also to be relieved of the security burden of defending a large but lightly populated territory in a different hemisphere.
  • The Louisiana Purchase not only doubled the size of the United States but also gave it direct ownership of almost all of the Mississippi and Missouri river basins.
  • The inclusion of the city of New Orleans in the purchase granted the United States full control over the entire watershed.
  • The second phase of the strategic-depth strategy was the construction of that different route: the National Road (aka the Cumberland Road).
  • This single road (known in modern times as Interstate 40 or Interstate 70 for most of its length) allowed American pioneers to directly settle Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri and granted them initial access to Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
  • For the better part of a century, it was the most heavily trafficked route in the country
  • the original 13 colonies were finally lashed to the Greater Mississippi Basin via a route that could not be challenged by any outside power.
  • The third phase of the early American expansion strategy was in essence an extension of the National Road via a series of settlement trails, by far the most important and famous of which was the Oregon Trail.
  • The trail was directly responsible for the initial settling of Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon. A wealth of secondary trails branched off from the main artery — the Mormon, Bozeman, California and Denver trails — and extended the settlement efforts to Montana, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California.
  • That project’s completion reduced East Coast-West Coast travel time from six months to eight days and slashed the cost by 90 percent (to about $1,100 in 2011 dollars).
  • Collectively, the Louisiana Purchase, the National Road and the Oregon Trail facilitated the largest and fastest cultural expansion in human history.
  • From beginning to end, the entire process required less than 70 years.
  • The Columbia River Valley and California’s Central Valley are not critical American territories.
  • among other things, they grant the United States full access to the Pacific trading basin — only that control of them is not imperative to American security.
  • 2. Eliminate All Land-Based Threats to the Greater Mississippi Basin
  • The first land threat to the young United States was in essence the second phase of the Revolutionary War
  • the British navy could outmatch anything the Americans could float
  • Geopolitically, the most critical part of the war was the participation of semi-independent British Canada.
  • Canadian forces, unlike the British, did not have a supply line that stretched across the Atlantic.
  • Canada is far enough north that its climate is far harsher than that of the United States, with all of the negative complications one would expect for population, agriculture and infrastructure.
  • What few rivers Canada has neither interconnect nor remain usable year round.
  • Most of these river connections also have rapids and falls, greatly limiting their utility as a transport network.
  • the St. Lawrence Seaway — a series of locks that link the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and allow full ocean access — was not completed until 1959.
  • Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island — are disconnected from the Canadian landmass and unable to capitalize on what geographic blessings the rest of the country enjoys
  • what population centers Canada does have are geographically sequestered from one another by the Canadian Shield and the Rocky Mountains.
  • All four provinces have been forced by geography and necessity to be more economically integrated with their southern neighbors than with their fellow Canadian provinces.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Aug 11
       
      Here's a key fact that I have never read anywhere else. I would love to learn more about this. It's surely plausible; I just find it funny that it's been omitted from view.
  • The British were exhausted from the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and, with the French Empire having essentially imploded, were more interested in reshaping the European balance of power than re-engaging the Americans in distant North America.
  • the Americans were mobilized, angry and — remembering vividly the Canadian/British sacking of Washington — mulling revenge.
  • This left a geographically and culturally fractured Canada dreading a long-term, solitary confrontation with a hostile and strengthening local power. During the following decades, the Canadians had little choice but to downgrade their ties to the increasingly disinterested British Empire, adopt political neutrality vis-a-vis Washington, and begin formal economic integration with the United States. Any other choice would have put the Canadians on the path to another war with the Americans (this time likely without the British), and that war could have had only one outcome.
  • Using a combination of illegal settlements, military pressure and diplomacy, the United States was able to gain control of east and west Florida from Madrid in 1819 in exchange for recognizing Spanish claims to what is now known as Texas
  • the United States’ efforts to secure its southwestern borders shifted to a blatant attempt to undermine and ultimately carve up the one remaining Western Hemispheric entity that could potentially challenge the United States: Mexico.
  • the United States quickly transformed itself from a poor coastal nation to a massively capital-rich commodities exporter.
  • But these inner territories harbored a potentially fatal flaw: New Orleans.
  • the biggest potential security threat to the United States was newly independent Mexico, the border with which was only 150 kilometers from New Orleans. In fact, New Orleans’ security was even more precarious than such a small distance suggested.
  • Just as the American plan for dealing with Canada was shaped by Canada’s geographic weakness, Washington’s efforts to first shield against and ultimately take over parts of Mexico were shaped by Mexico’s geographic shortcomings.
  • In the United States, the cheap transport system allowed early settlers to quickly obtain their own small tracts of land.
  • in time the wealth accumulated to the point that portions of the United States had the capital necessary to industrialize.
  • Mexico, in contrast, suffered from a complete lack of navigable rivers and had only a single good port (Veracruz).
  • First and most obviously, the lack of navigable waterways and the non-abundance of ports drastically reduced Mexico’s ability to move goods and thereby generate its own capital. Second, the disassociated nature of Mexico’s agricultural regions forced the construction of separate, non-integrated infrastructures for each individual sub-region, drastically raising the costs of even basic development.
  • Third, the highland nature of the Mexico City core required an even more expensive infrastructure, since everything had to be transported up the mountains from Veracruz.
  • the 410-kilometer railway linking Mexico City and Veracruz was not completed until 1873. (By that point, the United States had two intercontinental lines and roughly 60,000 kilometers of railways.)
  • very different economic and social structure
  • Instead of small landholdings, Mexican agriculture was dominated by a small number of rich Spaniards
  • The Mexican landowners had, in essence, created their own company towns and saw little benefit in pooling their efforts to industrialize. Doing so would have undermined their control of their economic and political fiefdoms.
  • This social structure has survived to the modern day, with the bulk of Mexican political and economic power held by the same 300 families that dominated Mexico’s early years, each with its local geographic power center.
  • In just two generations — by 1870 — the American population had ballooned to 38.6 million while Mexico’s was only 8.8 million.
  • The American effort against Mexico took place in two theaters.
  • The first was Texas, and the primary means was settlement as enabled by the Austin family.
  • anonymous on 24 Aug 11
     
    "This installment on the United States, presented in two parts, is the 16th in a series of STRATFOR monographs on the geopolitics of countries influential in world affairs."
anonymous

Immaculate Intervention: The Wars of Humanitarianism - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ervention-wars-humanitarianism

shared by anonymous on 05 Apr 11 - Cached
  • Since World War II, a new class of war has emerged that we might call humanitarian wars — wars in which the combatants claim to be fighting neither for their national interest nor to impose any ideology, but rather to prevent inordinate human suffering.
  • In humanitarian wars, the intervention is designed both to be neutral and to protect potential victims on one side.
  • That no one intervened to prevent or stop these atrocities was seen as a moral failure. According to this ideology, the international community has an obligation to prevent such slaughter.
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • In international wars, where the aggressor is trying to both kill large numbers of civilians and destroy the enemy’s right to national self-determination, this does not pose a significant intellectual problem.
  • In internal unrest and civil war, however, the challenge of the intervention is to protect human rights without undermining national sovereignty or the right of national self-determination.
  • I call humanitarian wars immaculate intervention, because most advocates want to see the outcome limited to preventing war crimes, not extended to include regime change or the imposition of alien values.
  • They want a war of immaculate intentions surgically limited to a singular end without other consequences. And this is where the doctrine of humanitarian war unravels.
  • What we are seeing in Libya is a classic slow escalation motivated by two factors.
  • The first is the hope that the leader of the country responsible for the bloodshed will capitulate.
  • The second is a genuine reluctance of intervening nations to spend excessive wealth or blood on a project they view in effect as charitable.
  • The expectation of capitulation in the case of Libya is made unlikely by another aspect of humanitarian war fighting, namely the International Criminal Court (ICC).
  • While a logical extension of humanitarian warfare — having intervened against atrocities, the perpetrators ought to be brought to justice — the effect is a prolongation of the war. The example of Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, who ended the Kosovo War with what he thought was a promise that he would not be prosecuted, undoubtedly is on Gadhafi’s mind.
  • But the war is also prolonged by the unwillingness of the intervening forces to inflict civilian casualties.
  • The application of minimal and insufficient force, combined with the unwillingness of people like Gadhafi and his equally guilty supporters to face The Hague, creates the framework for a long and inconclusive war in which the intervention in favor of humanitarian considerations turns into an intervention in a civil war on the side that opposes the regime.
  • It should be remembered that many of Libya’s opposition leaders are former senior officials of the Gadhafi government. They did not survive as long as they did in that regime without having themselves committed crimes, and without being prepared to commit more.
  • At some point, the interveners have the choice of walking away and leaving chaos, as the United States did in Somalia, or staying for a long time and fighting, as they did in Iraq.
  • Regardless of the United States’ other motivations in both conflicts, it would seem that those who favor humanitarian intervention would have favored the Iraq war. That they generally opposed the Iraq war from the beginning requires a return to the concept of immaculate intervention.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 05 Apr 11
       
      For those generally anti-war, this is a less-than-delightful realization, but (I think) jibes with reality more. However, former President Bush and his advisers established justification (WMD's) that affected both intentions and expectations from people on all sides of the debate. Notwithstanding the good intentions of those who advocate humanitarian wars, the effect can never be what is desired.
  • Hussein was a war criminal and a danger to his people. However, the American justification for intervention was not immaculate.
  • That it also had a humanitarian outcome — the destruction of the Hussein regime — made the American intervention inappropriate in the view of those who favor immaculate interventions for two reasons.
  • First, the humanitarian outcome was intended as part of a broader war.
  • Second, regardless of the fact that humanitarian interventions almost always result in regime change, the explicit intention to usurp Iraq’s national self-determination openly undermined in principle what the humanitarian interveners wanted to undermine only in practice.
  • for the humanitarian warrior, there are other political considerations.
  • In the case of the French, the contrast between their absolute opposition to Iraq and their aggressive desire to intervene in Libya needs to be explained. I suspect it will not be.
  • Perhaps it was about oil in this case, but Gadhafi was happily shipping oil to Europe, so intervening to ensure that it continues makes no sense.
  • Sometimes the lack of a persuasive reason for a war generates theories to fill the vacuum. In all humanitarian wars, there is a belief that the war could not be about humanitarian matters.
  • Therein lays the dilemma of humanitarian wars. They have a tendency to go far beyond the original intent behind them, as the interveners, trapped in the logic of humanitarian war, are drawn further in. Over time, the ideological zeal frays and the lack of national interest saps the intervener’s will.
  • My unease with humanitarian intervention is not that I don’t think the intent is good and the end moral. It is that the intent frequently gets lost and the moral end is not achieved. Ideology, like passion, fades. But interest has a certain enduring quality.
  • A doctrine of humanitarian warfare that demands an immaculate intervention will fail because the desire to do good is an insufficient basis for war.
  • In the end, the ultimate dishonesties of humanitarian war are the claims that “this won’t hurt much” and “it will be over fast.”
  • If you must go in, go in heavy, go in hard and get out fast. Humanitarian warfare says that you go in light, you go in soft and you stay there long.
  • anonymous on 05 Apr 11
     
    "There are wars in pursuit of interest. In these wars, nations pursue economic or strategic ends to protect the nation or expand its power. There are also wars of ideology, designed to spread some idea of "the good," whether this good is religious or secular. The two obviously can be intertwined, such that a war designed to spread an ideology also strengthens the interests of the nation spreading the ideology."
anonymous

Iraq, Iran and the Next Move - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...110425-iraq-iran-and-next-move

shared by anonymous on 04 May 11 - Cached
  • What is actually going on is that the United States is urging the Iraqi government to change its mind on U.S. withdrawal, and it would like Iraq to change its mind right now in order to influence some of the events taking place in the Persian Gulf.
  • The American concern, of course, has to do with Iran. The United States has been unable to block Iranian influence in Iraq’s post-Baathist government.
  • Iraq is vulnerable to the influence of any substantial power, and the most important substantial power following the withdrawal of the United States will be Iran.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The American assumption in deciding to leave Iraq — and this goes back to George W. Bush as well as Barack Obama — was that over the course of four years, the United States would be able to leave because it would have created a coherent government and military. The United States underestimated the degree to which fragmentation in Iraq would prevent that outcome and the degree to which Iranian influence would undermine the effort. The United States made a pledge to the American public and a treaty with the Iraqi government to withdraw forces, but the conditions that were expected to develop simply did not.
  • The United States previously had an Iraq question. That question is being answered, and not to the American advantage. Instead, what is emerging is a Saudi Arabia question.
  • From the Saudi point of view, the critical element is a clear sign of long-term American commitment to the regime. American support for the Saudis in Bahrain has been limited, and the United States has not been aggressively trying to manage the situation in Yemen, given its limited ability to shape an outcome there.
  • Coupled with the American position on Iraq, which is that it will remain only if asked — and then only with limited forces — the Saudis are clearly not getting the signals they want from the United States.
  • If the United States is seen as unreliable, the Saudis have only two options.
  • One is to hold their position and hope for the best. The other is to reach out and see if some accommodation can be made with Iran.
  • The Obama administration appears to have adopted an increasingly obvious foreign policy. Rather than simply attempt to control events around the world, the administration appears to have selected a policy of careful neglect. This is not, in itself, a bad strategy. Neglect means that allies and regional powers directly affected by the problem will take responsibility for the problem. Most problems resolve themselves without the need of American intervention. If they don’t, the United States can consider its posture later. Given that the world has become accustomed to the United States as first responder, other countries have simply waited for the American response. We have seen this in Libya, where the United States has tried to play a marginal role. Conceptually, this is not unsound.
  • The problem is that this will work only when regional powers have the weight to deal with the problem and where the outcome is not crucial to American interests.
  • The pressure from Iran is becoming palpable. All of the Arab countries feel it, and whatever their feelings about the Persians, the realities of power are what they are. The UAE has been sent to ask the United States for a solution. It is not clear the United States has one. When we ask why the price of oil is surging, the idea of geopolitical risk does come to mind. It is not a foolish speculation.
  • anonymous on 04 May 11
     
    "The United States told the Iraqi government last week that if it wants U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as stipulated by the current Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad, it would have to inform the United States quickly. Unless a new agreement is reached soon, the United States will be unable to remain. The implication in the U.S. position is that a complex planning process must be initiated to leave troops there and delays will not allow that process to take place."
anonymous

U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...and-pakistan-afghan-strategies

shared by anonymous on 22 Jun 11 - Cached
  • Any withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly an accelerated one, will leave a power vacuum in Afghanistan that the Kabul government will not be able to fill.
  • There is a prior definition of success that shaped the Bush administration’s approach to Afghanistan in its early phases. The goal here was the disruption of al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan and the prevention of further attacks on the United States from Afghanistan.
  • It was more modest and, in many ways, it was achieved in 2001-2002. Its defect, of course, was that the disruption of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, while useful, did not address the evolution of al Qaeda in other countries.
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  • The ultimate Iraq strategy was a political settlement framed by an increase in forces, and its long-term success was never clear. The Obama administration was prepared to repeat the attempt in Afghanistan, at least by using Iraq as a template if not applying exactly the same tactics.
  • However, the United States found that the Taliban were less inclined to negotiate with the United States, and certainly not on the favorable terms of the Iraqi insurgents, simply because they believed they would win in the long run
  • As we pointed out after the death of Osama bin Laden, his demise, coupled with the transfer of Petraeus out of Afghanistan, offered two opportunities.
  • The first was a return to the prior definition of success in Afghanistan
  • Second, the departure of Petraeus and his staff also removed the ideology of counterinsurgency
  • The conventional understanding of war is that its purpose is to defeat the enemy military. It presents a more limited and focused view of military power.
  • Counterinsurgency draws its roots from theories of social development in emerging countries going back to the 1950s.
  • In the view of this faction, defeating the Taliban was impossible with the force available and unlikely even with a more substantial force. There were two reasons for this.
  • First, the Taliban comprised a light infantry force with a superior intelligence capability and the ability to withdraw from untenable operations
  • Second, sanctuaries in Pakistan allowed the Taliban to withdraw to safety and reconstitute themselves, thereby making their defeat in detail impossible.
  • The United States can choose to leave Afghanistan without suffering strategic disaster. Pakistan cannot leave Pakistan.
  • while Afghanistan is a piece of American global strategy and not its whole, Afghanistan is central to Pakistan’s national strategy. This asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani interests is now the central issue.
  • After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States became indifferent to Afghanistan’s future. Pakistan could not be indifferent. It remained deeply involved with the Islamist forces that had defeated the Soviets and would govern Afghanistan, and it helped facilitate the emergence of the Taliban as the dominant force in the country.
  • Sept. 11, 2001, posed a profound threat to Pakistan.
  • On one side, Pakistan faced a United States in a state of crisis, demanding Pakistani support against both al Qaeda and the Taliban.
  • On the other side Pakistan had a massive Islamist movement hostile to the United States
  • The Pakistani solution was the only one it could come up with
  • they did as much as they could for the United States without completely destabilizing Pakistan while making it appear that they were being far more cooperative with the Americans and far less cooperative with their public.
  • The United States wanted to disrupt al Qaeda regardless of the cost. The Pakistanis wanted to avoid the collapse of their regime at any cost. These were not compatible goals.
  • The United States accepted this publicly because it made Pakistan appear to be an ally at a time when the United States was under attack for unilateralism. It accepted it privately as well because it did not want to see Pakistan destabilize. The Pakistanis were aware of the limits of American tolerance, so a game was played out.
  • That game is now breaking down, not because the United States raided Pakistan and killed bin Laden but because it is becoming apparent to Pakistan that the United States will, sooner or later, be dramatically drawing down its forces in Afghanistan.
  • First, Pakistan will be facing the future on its western border with Afghanistan without an American force to support it.
  • Second, Pakistan is aware that as the United States draws down, it will need Pakistan to cover its withdrawal strategically.
  • Finally, there will be a negotiation with the Taliban, and elements of Pakistan, particularly the ISI, will be the intermediary.
  • Publicly, it is important for them to appear as independent and even hostile to the Americans as possible in order to maintain their domestic credibility.
  • From the American point of view, the war in Afghanistan — and elsewhere — has not been a failure. There have been no more attacks on the United States on the order of 9/11, and that has not been for al Qaeda’s lack of trying.
  • In the end, the United States will leave Afghanistan (with the possible exception of some residual special operations forces). Pakistan will draw Afghanistan back into its sphere of influence.
  • A play will be acted out like the New Zealand Haka, with both sides making terrible sounds and frightening gestures at each other.
  • The United States is furious at Pakistan for its willingness to protect American enemies. Pakistan is furious at the United States for conducting attacks on its sovereign territory. In the end it doesn’t matter. They need each other. In the affairs of nations, like and dislike are not meaningful categories, and bullying and treachery are not blocks to cooperation. The two countries need each other more than they need to punish each other. Great friendships among nations are built on less.
  • anonymous on 22 Jun 11
     
    "U.S. President Barack Obama will give a speech on Afghanistan on June 22. Whatever he says, it is becoming apparent that the United States is exploring ways to accelerate the drawdown of its forces in the country. It is also clear that U.S. relations with Pakistan are deteriorating to a point where cooperation - whatever level there was - is breaking down."
anonymous

Borderlands: Hungary Maneuvers - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...borderlands-hungary-maneuvers

shared by anonymous on 20 May 14 - No Cached
  • For me, Hungarian was my native language. Stickball was my culture. For my parents, Hungarian was their culture. Hungary was the place where they were young, and their youth was torn away from them.
  • For them, it was always the Germans who were guilty for unleashing the brutishness in the Hungarians.
  • This was my parents' view: Except for the Germans, the vastness of evil could not have existed. I was in no position to debate them.
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  • This debate has re-entered history through Hungarian politics.
  • Some have accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban of trying to emulate a man named Miklos Horthy, who ruled Hungary before and during World War II.
  • It has become a metaphor for the country today, and Hungarians are divided with earnest passion on an old man long dead.
  • Adm. Miklos Horthy, a regent to a non-existent king and an admiral in the forgotten Austro-Hungarian navy, governed Hungary between 1920 and 1944.
  • Horthy ruled a country that was small and weak. Its population was 9.3 million in 1940. Horthy's goal was to preserve its sovereignty in the face of the rising power of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Caught between the two -- and by this I mean that both prized Hungary for its strategic position in the Carpathian Basin -- Hungary had few options.
  • Horthy's strategy meant a great deal to the Jews. He was likely no more anti-Semitic than any member of his class had to be. He might not hire a Jew, but he wasn't going to kill one. This was different from the new style of anti-Semitism introduced by Hitler, which required mass murder.
  • Thousands were killed early on, and anti-Jewish laws were passed. But thousands are not hundreds of thousands or millions, and in that time and place it was a huge distinction.
  • Horthy conceded no more than he had to, but what he had to do he did. Some say it was opportunism, others mere cowardice of chance. Whatever it was, while it lasted, Hungary was not like Poland or even France. The Jews were not handed over to the Germans.
  • Horthy fell from his tightrope on March 19, 1944. Realizing Germany was losing the war, Horthy made peace overtures to the Soviets. They were coming anyway, so he might as well welcome them.
  • Hitler, of course, discovered this and occupied Hungary
  • Horthy signed off on this. But that signature, as he pointed out, was meaningless. The Germans were there, they could do as they wanted, and his signature was a meaningless act that spared his sons' lives.
  • My parents were grateful to Horthy. For them, without him, the Holocaust would have come to Hungary years earlier. He did not crush the Hungarian Nazis, but he kept them at bay. He did not turn on Hitler, but he kept him at bay.
  • What Horthy did was the dirty work of decency.
  • He made deals with devils to keep the worst things from happening.
  • Hungary is in a very different position today, but its circumstances still bear similarities to Horthy's time.
  • This is the old argument about Horthy, and in fact, in Hungary there is a raging argument about Horthy's role that is really about Orban. Is Orban, like Horthy, doing the least he can to avoid a worse catastrophe, or is he secretly encouraging Jobbik and hastening disaster?
  • This discussion, like all discussions regarding Budapest, is framed by the tenuous position of Hungary in the world.
  • Orban sees the European Union as a massive failure. The great depression in Mediterranean Europe, contrasted with German prosperity, is simply the repeat of an old game.
  • Hungary is in the east, in the borderland between the European Peninsula and Russia. The Ukrainian crisis indicates that the tension in the region is nearing a flashpoint. He must guide Hungary somewhere.
  • There is little support from Hungary's west, other than mostly hollow warnings. He knows that the Germans will not risk their prosperity to help stabilize the Hungarian economy or its strategic position.
  • Nor does he expect the Americans to arrive suddenly and save the day.
  • The Ukrainian crisis can only be understood in terms of the failure of the European Union. Germany is doing well, but it isn't particularly willing to take risks. The rest of northern Europe has experienced significant unemployment, but it is Mediterranean Europe that has been devastated by unemployment. The European financial crisis has morphed into the European social crisis, and that social crisis has political consequences.
  • The middle class, and those who thought they would rise to the middle class, have been most affected.
  • The contrast between the euphoric promises of the European Union and the more meager realities has created movements that are challenging not only membership in the European Union but also the principle of the bloc
  • Compound this with the re-emergence of a Russian threat to the east, and everyone on Ukraine's border begins asking who is coming to help them. The fragmentation of Europe nationally and socially weakens Europe to the point of irrelevance. This is where the failure of the European Union and the hollowing out of NATO become important. Europe has failed economically. If it also fails militarily, then what does it all matter? Europe is back where it started, and so is Hungary.
  • Orban is a rare political leader in Europe. He is quite popular, but he is in a balancing act.
  • To his left are the Europeanists, who see all his actions as a repudiation of liberal democracy. On the right is a fascist party that won 20 percent in the last election. Between these two forces, Hungary could tear itself apart. It is in precisely this situation that Weimar Germany failed.
  • Orban knows what Horthy did as well. Hungary, going up against both Germany and Russia, needs to be very subtle. Hungary is already facing Germany's policy toward liberal integration within the European Union, which fundamentally contradicts Hungary's concept of an independent state economy.
  • Orban's strategy is to create an economy with maximum distance from Europe without breaking with it, and one in which the state exerts its power.
  • This is not what the Germans want to see.
  • I think Orban anticipated this as he saw the European Union flounder earlier in the decade. He saw the fragmentation and the rise of bitterness on all sides. He constructed a regime that appalled the left, which thought that without Orban, it would all return to the way it was before, rather than realizing that it might open the door to the further right. He constructed a regime that would limit the right's sense of exclusion without giving it real power.
  • if the United States enters the fray, it will not happen soon, and it will be even later before its role is decisive.
  • For Horthy, the international pressure finally overwhelmed him, and the German occupation led to a catastrophe that unleashed the right, devastated the Jews and led to a Russian invasion and occupation that lasted half a century. But how many lives did Horthy save by collaborating with Germany? He bought time, if nothing else.
  • Orban isn't Horthy by any means, but their situations are similar. Hungary is a country of enormous cultivation and fury. It is surrounded by disappointments that can become dangers. Europe is not what it promised it would be. Russia is not what Europeans expected it to be. Within and without the country, the best Orban can do is balance, and those who balance survive but are frequently reviled.
  • anonymous on 20 May 14
     
    "I am writing this from Budapest, the city in which I was born. I went to the United States so young that all my memories of Hungary were acquired later in life or through my family, whose memories bridged both world wars and the Cold War, all with their attendant horrors. My own deepest memory of Hungary comes from my parents' living room in the Bronx. My older sister was married in November 1956. There was an uprising against the Soviets at the same time, and many of our family members were still there. After the wedding, we returned home and saw the early newspapers and reports on television. My parents discovered that some of the heaviest fighting between the revolutionaries and Soviets had taken place on the street where my aunts lived. A joyous marriage, followed by another catastrophe -- the contrast between America and Hungary. That night, my father asked no one in particular, "Does it ever end?" The answer is no, not here. Which is why I am back in Budapest."
anonymous

The End of Consensus Politics in China - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...end-consensus-politics-china

shared by anonymous on 05 Aug 14 - Cached
  • What is the fundamental purpose of Xi's anti-corruption campaign? An attempt to answer this question will not tell us China's political future, but it will tell us something about Xi's strategy -- not only for consolidating his personal influence within the Party, government and military apparatuses, but also and more important, for managing the immense social, economic, political and international pressures that are likely to come to a head in China during his tenure.
  • The announcement July 29 of a formal investigation into retired Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang marked something of an end to the first major phase of Xi's anti-corruption campaign.
  • Zhou was known to sit at the apex of at least these three power bases, and his influence likely extended deep into many more, making him not only a formidable power broker but also, at least in the case of his oil industry ties, a major potential obstacle to reform.
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  • Now begins another phase. There are indications that it will center on the military. There are other signs that it will target Shanghai, the primary power base of Jiang Zemin and the locus of financial sector reform in China.
  • the formation of a unified National Security Council chaired by Xi himself and his apparent wresting of the reins of economic and social reform from Premier Li Keqiang, suggest that some other and deeper shift is underway
  • Stratfor believes this shift involves nothing less than an attempt to rework not only the way the Communist Party operates but also the foundations of its political legitimacy.
  • China is in the midst of an economic transformation that is in many ways unprecedented. The core of this transformation is the shift from a growth model heavily reliant on low-cost, low value-added exports and state-led investment into construction to one grounded in a much greater dependence on high value-added industries, services and above all, domestic consumption.
  • China is not the first country to attempt this. Others, including the United States, achieved it long ago. But China has unique constraints: its size, its political system and imperatives, and its profound regional geographic and social and economic imbalances. These constraints are exacerbated by a final and perhaps greatest limit: time
  • China is attempting to make this transition, one which took smaller and more geographically, socially and politically cohesive countries many decades to achieve, in less than 20 years.
  • For the past six years, the Chinese government has kept the economy on life support in the form of massively expanded credit creation, government-directed investment into urban and transport infrastructure development and, most important, real estate construction. In the process, local governments, banks and businesses across China have amassed extraordinary levels of debt. Outstanding credit in China is now equivalent to 251 percent of the country's gross domestic product, up from 147 percent in 2008. Local governments alone owe more than $3 trillion. It is unknown -- deliberately so, most likely -- what portion of outstanding debts are nonperforming, but it is likely far higher than the official rate of 1 percent. 
  • Despite claims that China's investment drive was and is irresponsible -- and certainly there are myriad anecdotal cases of gross misallocation of capital -- it nonetheless fulfills the essential role of jumpstarting the country's effort to "rebalance" to a new, more urban and more consumption-based economic model.
  • This means that in the next few years, China faces inexorable and potentially very rapid decline in the two sectors that have underpinned economic growth and social and political stability for the past two or more decades: exports and construction.
  • And it does so in an environment of rapidly mounting local government and corporate debt, rising wages and input costs, rising cost of capital and falling return on investment (exacerbated by new environmental controls and efforts to combat corruption) and more.
  • Chinese household consumption is extraordinarily weak. In 2013, it was equivalent to only 34 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 69-70 percent in the United States, 61 percent in Japan, 57 percent in Germany and 52 percent in South Korea.
  • Whatever the Chinese government's stated reform goals, it is very difficult to see how economic rebalancing toward a consumption- and services-based economy succeeds within the decade. It is very difficult to see how exports recover. And it is very difficult, but slightly less so, to see how the government maintains stable growth through continued investment into housing and infrastructure construction, especially as the real estate market inevitably cools.
  • The pressures stemming from China's economy -- and emanating upward through Chinese society and politics -- will remain paramount over the next 5-10 years.
  • The above has described only a very small selection of the internal social and economic constraints facing China's government today. It completely neglects public anger over pollution, the myriad economic and industrial constraints posed by both pollution and pervasive low-level corruption, the impact of changes in Chinese labor flows and dynamics, rising education levels and much more. It completely neglects the ambivalence with which many ordinary Chinese regard the Communist Party government.
  • It also neglects external pressures and risks, whether economic or military.
  • Xi knows this. He and his advisers know China's virtually insurmountable challenges better than anyone.
  • The anti-corruption campaign is one of those steps. It serves many overlapping functions: to clear out potential opponents, ideological or otherwise
  • Underlying and encompassing these, we see the specter of something else. The consensus-based model of politics that Deng built in order to regularize decision-making and bolster political stability during times of high growth and that effectively guided China throughout the post-Deng era is breaking down.
  • anonymous on 05 Aug 14
     
    "Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign is the broadest and deepest effort to purge, reorganize and rectify the Communist Party leadership since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the rise of Deng Xiaoping two years later. It has already probed more than 182,000 officials across numerous regions and at all levels of government. It has ensnared low-level cadres, mid-level functionaries and chiefs of major state-owned enterprises and ministries. It has deposed top military officials and even a former member of the hitherto immune Politburo Standing Committee, China's highest governing body. More than a year after its formal commencement and more than two years since its unofficial start with the downfall of Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, the campaign shows no sign of relenting."
anonymous

If the Earth Stood Still - What Would Happen if the Earth Stopped Spinning? - 0 views

www.esri.com/...nospin.html

shared by anonymous on 25 Sep 12 - Cached
  • Typically, we do not pay much attention to the delineation of the sea because it seems so obvious and constant that we do not realize it is a foundation of geography and the basis for our perception of the physical world.
  • Why is the sea level where we currently observe it? What controls the sea level? How stable are the forces that determine the sea level? This article does not refer to the climate change and the potential increase of the water level in the global ocean but rather to the geometry of the globe and the powerful geophysical energies that determine where oceans lie.
  • Sea level is—and has always been—in equilibrium with the planet's gravity, which pulls the water toward the earth's center of mass, and the outward centrifugal force, which results from the earth's rotation. After a few billion years of spinning, the earth has taken on the shape of an ellipsoid (which can be thought of as a flattened sphere). Consequently, the distance to the earth's center of mass is the longest around the equator and shortest beyond the polar circles.
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  • What would happen if the earth's rotation slowed down and finally stopped spinning over a period of a few decades? ArcGIS lets us model the effects of this scenario, performing calculations and estimations and creating a series of maps showing the effects the absence of centrifugal force would have on sea level.
  • The lack of the centrifugal effect would result in the gravity of the earth being the only significant force controlling the extent of the oceans. Prominent celestial bodies such as the moon and sun would also play a role, but because of their distance from the earth, their impact on the extent of global oceans would be negligible.
  • If the earth's gravity alone was responsible for creating a new geography, the huge bulge of oceanic water—which is now about 8 km high at the equator—would migrate to where a stationary earth's gravity would be the strongest.
  • anonymous on 25 Sep 12
     
    "The following is not a futuristic scenario. It is not science fiction. It is a demonstration of the capabilities of GIS to model the results of an extremely unlikely, yet intellectually fascinating query: What would happen if the earth stopped spinning? ArcGIS was used to perform complex raster analysis and volumetric computations and generate maps that visualize these results."
anonymous

The Israeli Periphery - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...israeli-periphery

shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 12 - Cached
  • Security, in the Israeli sense, is thus often characterized in terms of survival. And for Israel to survive, it needs just the right blend of geopolitical circumstance, complex diplomatic arrangements and military preparedness to respond to potential threats nearby. Over the past 33 years, a sense of complacency settled over Israel and gave rise to various theories that it could finally overcome its dependency on outside powers. But a familiar sense of unease crept back into the Israeli psyche before any of those arguments could take root. A survey of the Israeli periphery in Egypt, Syria and Jordan explains why.
  • To Israel's southwest lies the Sinai Desert. This land is economically useless; only hardened Bedouins who sparsely populate the desert expanse consider the terrain suitable for living. This makes the Sinai an ideal buffer.
  • Its economic lifelessness gives it extraordinary strategic importance in keeping the largest Arab army -- Egypt's -- at a safe distance from Israeli population centers. It is the maintenance of this buffer that forms the foundation of the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
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  • Over the past month, the military's role in this new Muslim Brotherhood-run Egypt quietly revealed itself.
  • There will be plenty of noise and confusion in the lead-up to the Dec. 15 referendum as the secular, anti-Muslim Brotherhood civilian opposition continues its protests against Morsi. But filter through that noise, and one can see that the military and the Muslim Brotherhood appear to be adjusting slowly to a new order of Nasserite-Islamist rule.
  • Unlike the 1979 peace treaty, this working arrangement between the military and the Islamists is alive and temperamental. Israel can find some comfort in seeing that the military remains central to the stability of the Egyptian state and will thus likely play a major role in protecting the Sinai buffer. However, merely observing this dance between the military and the Islamists from across the desert is enough to unnerve Israel and justify a more pre-emptive military posture on the border.
  • Israel lacks a good buffer to its north. The most natural, albeit imperfect, line of defense is the Litani River in modern-day Lebanon, with a second line of defense between Mount Hermon and the Sea of Galilee. Modern-day Israel encompasses this second barrier, a hilly area that has been the target of sporadic mortar shelling from Syrian government forces in pursuit of Sunni rebels.
  • Israel does not face a conventional military threat to its north, nor will it for some time.
  • It is only a matter of time before Alawite forces will have to retreat from Damascus and defend themselves against a Sunni majority from their coastal enclave. The conflict will necessarily subsume Lebanon, and the framework that Israel has relied on for decades to manage more sizable, unconventional threats like Hezbollah will come undone.
  • Somewhere along the way, there will be an internationally endorsed attempt to prop up a provisional government and maintain as much of the state machinery as possible to avoid the scenario of a post-U.S. invasion Iraq. But when decades-old, sectarian-driven vendettas are concerned, there is cause for pessimism in judging the viability of those plans. Israel cannot avoid thinking in terms of worst-case scenarios, so it will continue to reinforce its northern defenses ahead of more instability.
  • The vulnerability that the Hashemites felt as a foreign entity in charge of economically lackluster terrain created ideal conditions for Israel to protect its eastern approach.
  • In short, the Hashemites were vulnerable enough for Israel to be considered a useful security partner but not so vulnerable that Israel couldn't rely on the regime to protect its eastern approach.
  • That arrangement is now under considerable stress. The Hashemites are facing outright calls for deposition from the same tribal East Bankers, Palestinians and Islamists that for decades formed the foundation of the state.
  • the state itself is weakening under the pressure of high oil prices
  • In this fluctuating strategic environment, Israel cannot afford to be isolated politically. Its need for a power patron will grow alongside its insecurities in its periphery. Israel's current patron, the United States, is also grappling with the emerging Islamist order in the region. But in this new regional dynamic, the United States will eventually look past ideology in search of partners to help manage the region.
  • As U.S.-Turkish relations in recent years and the United States' recent interactions with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood reveal, it will be an awkward and bumpy experience while Washington tries to figure out who holds the reins of power and which brand of Islamists it can negotiate with amid messy power transitions. This is much harder for Israel to do independently by virtue of ideology, size and location.
  • The irony is that while Israel is a western-style democracy, it was most secure in an age of Arab dictatorships. As those dictatorships give way to weak and in some cases crumbling states, Israeli survival instincts will again be put to the test.
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 12
     
    "The state of Israel has a basic, inescapable geopolitical dilemma: Its national security requirements outstrip its military capabilities, making it dependent on an outside power. Not only must that power have significant military capabilities but it also must have enough common ground with Israel to align its foreign policy toward the Arab world with that of Israel's. These are rather heavy requirements for such a small nation."
anonymous

The Social Effects of the European Crisis - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...social-effects-european-crisis

shared by anonymous on 05 Mar 13 - Cached
  • Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Lisbon and other Portuguese cities March 2 to demand an end to the government's austerity measures and, in some cases, to call for the resignation of Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. The European Union considers the Portuguese government a success story in implementing austerity measures after it received a bailout in 2011. However, unemployment doubled in Portugal between 2008 and 2012 and currently affects more than 16 percent of the country's workforce.
  • In Spain, the government announced March 4 that more than five million people in the country are unemployed -- the highest rate seen there in more than three decades -- and a series of suicides committed by people who were to be evicted from their homes has spurred widespread protests.
  • In Greece, reports suggest that the country is going through a shortage of medicines; hundreds of drugs, including antibiotics and anesthetics, are in short supply.
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  • In Portugal, the Secretary of State for Emigrant Communities recently said that up to 240,000 people (roughly 2 percent of the nation's population) have left the country since 2011, due in large part to unemployment and economic contraction.
  • As the recurrent protests in Spain, Greece and Portugal show, there is a growing dissatisfaction in many of the EU member states with the austerity measures proposed by the European Union and applied by national governments.
  • Independent of their ideological orientation, most EU governments have applied the austerity policies proposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The traditional parties' lack of alternatives to austerity has generated a growing unease among local populations.
  • Such crises of legitimacy are often accompanied by an increase in euroscepticism, since many of these new parties blend anti-establishment rhetoric with opposition to the European Union or Germany's leadership of the bloc.
  • The combination of economic, social and political crises growing in Europe concerns Brussels for a number of reasons.
  • First, political uncertainty often generates instability in the financial markets.
  • Second, and perhaps most important, the economic crisis creates an environment conducive to the growth of extremist political views, both from the left and from the right.
  • anonymous on 05 Mar 13
     
    "In recent weeks, many European bureaucrats and national leaders have expressed optimism about the future of the economic situation in the European Union and have suggested that the worst of the crisis has passed. However, events over the past few days show that the crisis is not over and that it continues to have a deepening social impact on eurozone states."
anonymous

The First Latin American Pope - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...first-latin-american-pope

shared by anonymous on 14 Mar 13 - Cached
  • The selection of Bergoglio, who took the name Francis, was a surprise due to his nationality and because he was not discussed as a top candidate by the media in the weeks since the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. 

  • Because of its Spanish and Portuguese colonial history, Latin America has the highest number of Catholics in the world. An estimated 483 million Catholics live in Latin American countries -- 200 million more than in Europe. Moreover, some 50 million Hispanics live in the United States, most of whom are Catholic.


  • In addition, the markedly different birth rates in Europe and in Latin America make it likely that the gap in Catholic populations will continue to widen in the coming decades.
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  • Catholicism in Latin America is under threat by the expansion of evangelical churches and various Afro-Latin American creeds. Still, the selection of a Latin American pope confirms that the church has ceased to be a preeminently European institution and is seeking to strengthen its influence outside the Continent.
  • Another surprise is the new pope's religious background. Francis is a Jesuit -- a member of one of the most reform-minded and outspoken orders of the Catholic Church.
  • The Jesuits have been characterized by two elements: their deep educational efforts -- the order founded thousands of schools and universities around the world -- and their active participation in politics.
  • Because of the latter trait, the Society of Jesus often clashed with the European monarchies, to the point that the order was temporarily suppressed in the late 18th century. 
  • A core feature of liberation theology is outspoken criticism of social injustice in Latin America, a position that has led many priests to criticize governments in the region -- a large number of which have been dictatorships.
  • Though he has criticized liberation theology, Bergoglio has also been a constant critic of social inequalities in his native Argentina. This stance has led the Argentine church to clash on numerous occasions with the governments of former President Nestor Kirchner and his wife, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
  • In keeping with the philosophy of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, Francis will likely be very vocal in denouncing inequalities. His choice of name was highly symbolic and undoubtedly intentional.
  • As criticism of austerity measures grows in Europe, the new pope will likely align with the demands of the peripheral governments. 
  • One of the biggest issues in Latin America where the Church could have real influence is violence. Some gangs in Mexico and Central America are actively religious, and the church could play a unique role in denouncing their violent tactics.
  • Benedict XVI's relatively short tenure marked a transitional period for the Catholic Church after the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005 -- arguably the most geopolitically significant pope in modern history because of his prominent role in the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
  • For his part, Francis faces the challenge of leading a church that is still physically and politically present around the world but the influence of which has been significantly diminished over the past century.
  • anonymous on 14 Mar 13
     
    "The appointment of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new pope could indicate a change in strategy for the Roman Catholic Church. After a conclave that lasted just two days, the Vatican elected the first non-European pope in more than 13 centuries. The selection of Bergoglio, who took the name Francis, was a surprise due to his nationality and because he was not discussed as a top candidate by the media in the weeks since the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI."
anonymous

Machiavelli's Virtue - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...machiavellis-virtue

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 20 Mar 13 - Cached
  • For the state must organize the lives of millions of strangers and protect their need to selfishly acquire material possessions. If everyone stole from everyone else there would be anarchy. So the state monopolizes the use of force, taking it away from criminals. The state appeals not to God, but to individual selfishness. Thus, it clears the path for progress.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 20 Mar 13
       
      I positively *love* these 'meta' discussions about the state. I also love the idea that right-wing StratFor subscribing nutjobs, normally excited to learn about American military power, also have to wade through hard thoughts about the nature of the state.
  • Thomas Hobbes conceived of the modern state in his Leviathan, published in 1651. Hobbes is known wrongly as a gloomy philosopher because of his emphasis on anarchy. Hobbes was actually a liberal optimist, who saw the state as the solution to anarchy, allowing people to procure possessions and build a community. Hobbes knew that in the path toward a better world, order first has to be established. Only later can humankind set about making such order non-tyrannical.
  • But what did Hobbes' philosophy ultimately build on? It built on the first of the moderns, the early 16th century Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli, whose masterpiece, The Prince, was written 500 years ago in 1513. Here is an anniversary as important as the 500th anniversary of Columbus discovering America, celebrated in 1992.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • By taking politics away from the narrowing fatalism of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, Machiavelli created the very secular politics from which Hobbes could conceive of the idea of the state.
  • The Prince may be less a work of cynicism than an instructional guide to overcome fate -- the fatalism of the Roman Catholic Church at that time. Thus, Machiavelli, more than Michelangelo perhaps, was the true inventor of the Renaissance.
  • The founders of the American Republic, who conceived of a polity in which church and state were separate and in which government existed to lay the rules for individuals to compete freely in the struggle to acquire wealth, owed much to Machiavelli and Hobbes.
  • But it is with Machiavelli, more than with Hobbes, where the principles of Western modernity truly begin.
  • Harvard Professor Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. Mansfield knows that it is more important to tell hard truths than it is to be liked and to get good reviews.
  • For by setting the terms for political reality, Machiavelli helps lay the foundation for geopolitics.
  • necessity frees people from religious faith. People may pray to God and go to church or synagogue or the mosque, but they must also acquire food and possessions for the sake of their loved ones, and thus they must enter into competition with their fellow human beings
  • just as nations must enter into competition with other nations.
  • Self-interest informs compromise with other human beings, and thus a state governed by self-interest is likely to compromise with other states: whereas a person or state governed solely by religious or moral virtue will tend to delegitimize as immoral those with whom he or it disagrees -- and therein lies conflict.
  • Virtue, in other words, is fine. But outstanding virtue -- because it tempts sanctimoniousness -- is dangerous. It is ultimately with this maxim that we find philosophical justification for moderation in contemporary politics and statecraft.
  • Those who find such thinking dark or cynical may be under the illusion that politics can bring respite from primitive necessity. Machiavelli, as Mansfield explains, is doubtful of this.
  • Yes, politicians may announce their intention to strive for truth and justice, but their unspoken concerns and desires, even in a democracy -- especially in a democracy -- are really about satisfying the selfish needs of their constituents.
  • Face it, primitive necessity is a fixture of the human condition. And, therefore, the only way to reduce conflict and suffering is through anxious foresight: the ability to foresee danger and necessities ahead. Thus are intelligence agencies more likely to prevent atrocities than humanitarians.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 20 Mar 13
       
      Ouch... This hurts. Probably because, though my monkey mind keeps resisting, I suspect it is very true.
  • In politics, explains Machiavelli (through Mansfield), one who does good often cannot be good. One must even learn how to be bad, or at least devious, for the sake of the common good. This is not necessarily the end justifies the means, for Machiavelli is careful to stipulate that only the minimum amount of cruelty should be applied for the sake of the greatest amount of good.
  • Machiavelli is all about results. He believes that you define something in politics not by its inherent excellence, but by its outcome.
  • A leader may be honest, unselfish and moral, but if he starts a war that later proved unnecessary and killed many people, he lacks virtue -- despite being on a personal level very sympathetic.
  • Conversely, a leader may be cynical, selfish and excessively ambitious, but if he keeps his countrymen away from danger he can still be said to have virtue -- despite being personally unappealing.
  • Likeability has nothing to do with virtue, it turns out.
  • For politics -- and especially geopolitics -- is concerned, according to Machiavelli, with knowing about the world rather than knowing about heaven. Indeed, precisely because Machiavelli was concerned with men and not with God, he was a humanist.
  • Machiavelli has his limits. For example, he could not have foreseen 20th century totalitarianism that mirrored the self-righteousness of the medieval Church with which he was in conflict, but on a much larger scale.
  • Because the stakes are arguably higher now because of weapons of mass destruction, there is a danger of taking Machiavelli too far and using his philosophy to justify all sorts of risky subterfuges.
  • But there is a greater danger in simply dismissing his philosophy as unworthy of our so-called enlightened age. For our age is determined less by globalization than by the battle of space and power, both between states and between groups within states themselves -- as witnessed most recently by the ethnic and sectarian turmoil throughout the Greater Middle East. An American leader who is forced to grapple with such anarchy, even as he must take care to adopt the right tone with a militarily ascendant China and with an economically rising Latin America, could do worse than act "Machiavellian." And thanks to Professor Mansfield, we now know the true meaning of that adjective.
  • anonymous on 20 Mar 13
     
    "What is modernity? Is it skyscrapers, smart phones, wonder drugs, atomic bombs? You're not even close. Modernity, at least in the West, is the journey away from religious virtue toward secular self-interest. Religious virtue is fine for one's family and the world of private morality. But the state -- that defining political structure of modern times -- requires something colder, more chilling. "
anonymous

Science-Based Medicine » It's a part of my paleo fantasy, it's a part of my p... - 0 views

www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...y-its-a-part-of-my-paleo-dream

shared by anonymous on 22 Mar 13 - Cached
  • If I had to pick one fallacy that rules above all among proponents of CAM/IM, it would have to be either the naturalistic fallacy (i.e., that if it’s natural—whatever that means—it must be better) or the fallacy of antiquity (i.e., that if it’s really old, it must be better).
  • Basically, it’s a rejection of modernity, and from it flow the interest in herbalism, various religious practices rebranded as treatments
  • there is a definite belief underlying much of CAM that technology and pharmaceuticals are automatically bad and that “natural” must be better.
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • it’s hard not to note that cancer and heart disease are primarily diseases of aging, and life expectancy was so much lower back in the day that a much smaller percentage of the population lived to advanced ages than is the case today.
  • Even so, an implicit assumption among many CAM advocates is that cardiovascular disease is largely a disease of modern lifestyle and diet and that, if modern humans could somehow mimic preindustrial or, according to some, even preagricultural, lifestyles, that cardiovascular disease could be avoided.
  • Over the last decade, Cordain has become the most prominent promoter of the so-called “Paleo diet,” having written The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat and multiple other books advocating a paleolithic-mimetic diet as the cure for what ails modern humans.
  • But how does one determine what the prevalence of cardiovascular disease was in the ancient past?
  • there have been indications that the idea that ancient humans didn’t suffer from atherosclerosis is a comforting myth, the most recent of which is a study published a week ago online in The Lancet by Prof. Randall C. Thompson of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and an international team of investigators entitled Atherosclerosis across 4000 years of human history: the Horus study of four ancient populations.
  • Basically, it was a study of 137 different mummies from four different geographic locations spanning 4,000 years.
  • So, although there was a fair amount of evidence from studies of Egyptian mummies that atherosclerosis was not uncommon, in Egypt it was mainly the wealthy and powerful who were mummified after their deaths. Conceivably, they could have lived a very different lifestyle and consumed a very different diet than the average Egyptian living around that time.
  • So the authors obtained whole-body CT scans of the 137 mummies, either pre-existing scans or scans prospectively done, and analyzed them for calcifications.
  • The mummies to be included in the study were chosen primarily based on two factors, being in a good state of preservation with identifiable vascular tissue, and being adults.
  • The authors obtained identifying information from an extensive search of museum and other databases by a team of archeologists and experts in mummy restoration, and sex was determined by either analysis of the genitals and reproductive organs when present and by pelvic morphology when they were not present.
  • Age was estimated by standard analysis of architectural changes in the clavicle, femur, and humerus.
  • Finally, multiple anthropological and archeological sources were used in an attempt to estimate likely risk factors for the mummies.
  • Figure 2 summarizes the findings nicely: There’s also this video featured in a Nature report on the study showing the reconstructed scan of one of the mummies with atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary arteries.
  • As expected, more atherosclerosis correlates with advanced age, and the amount of atherosclerosis in the young and middle-aged (although the times in which the people who became these mummies after death lived age 50 was old) was less.
  • Although the sample number was far too small to draw definitive conclusions (as is often the case in archeological research), the prevalence of atherosclerotic disease in these mummies did not appear to correlate with the cultures in which the mummies lived.
  • As is noted in Thompson’s article, ancient Egyptians and Peruvians were agricultural cultures with farms and domesticated animals, Ancestral Puebloans were forager-farmers, and the Unangans were hunter-gatherers without agriculture. Indeed, the Peruvians and Ancestral Puebloans predated the written word and were thus prehistoric cultures.
  • One notes that no one, including the authors of this study, is saying that lifestyle and diet are not important factors for the development of atherosclerotic heart disease.
  • What they are saying is that atherosclerosis appears to be associated with aging and that the claims that mimicking paleolithic diets (which, one notes, were definitely not vegan) are overblown. In other words, there is a certain inherent risk of atherosclerosis that is related to aging that is likely not possible to lower further
  • I actually think that the authors probably went too far with that last statement in that, while they might be correct that atherosclerosis is an inherent component of human aging, it is quite well established that this inherent component of aging can at least be worsened by sedentary lifestyle and probably certain diets.
  • One notes that, although the Paleo Diet is not, strictly speaking, always sold as CAM/IM, the ideas behind it are popular among CAM advocates, and the diet is frequently included as part of “integrative medicine,” for example, here at the University of Connecticut website, where it’s under integrative nutrition.
  • In particular, the appeal to ancient wisdom and ancient civilizations as yet untouched by the evil of modernity is the same sort of arguments that are made in favor of various CAM modalities ranging from herbalism to vegan diets rebranded as being somehow CAM to the appeal to “natural” cures.
  • Indeed, the fetish for the “natural” in CAM is such that even a treatment like Stanislaw Burzynski’s antineoplaston therapy is represented as “natural” when in fact, if it were ever shown to work against cancer, it would be chemotherapy and has toxicities greater than that of some of our current chemotherapy drugs.
  • The book is by Marlene Zuk and entitled Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live. Zuk is an evolutionary biologist, and in particular she points out how the evolutionary arguments favored by advocates of the Paleo diet don’t stand up to scrutiny.
  • The interview begins with Zuk confronting Cordain at a conference on evolution and diseases of modern environments. At his lecture, Cordain pronounced several foods to be the cause of fatal conditions in people carrying certain genes.
  • These foods included, predictably, cultivated foods such as bread (made from grain), rice, and potatoes. Zuk couldn’t resist asking a question, namely why the inability to digest so many common foods would persist in the population, observing, “Surely it would have been selected out of the population.” Cordain’s response? That humans had not had time to adapt to these foods, to which Zuk retorted, “Plenty of time.” Apparently, in her book, Zuk produces numerous examples of evolution in humans occurring in a time frame of less than 10,000 years, including:
  • Blue eyes arose 6,000 to 10,000 years ago
  • Rapid selection for the CCR5-D gene variant that makes some people immune to HIV
  • Lactase persistence (production past the age of weening of the lactase enzyme that digests lactose in milk) probably dates back only around 7,500 to 10,000 years, around the time that cattle were domesticated
  • there is no one diet or climate that predominated among our Paleolithic ancestors:
  • Zuk detects an unspoken, barely formed assumption that humanity essentially stopped evolving in the Stone Age and that our bodies are “stuck” in a state that was perfectly adapted to survive in the paleolithic environment. Sometimes you hear that the intervention of “culture” has halted the process of natural selection. This, “Paleofantasy” points out, flies in the face of facts. Living things are always and continuously in the process of adapting to the changing conditions of their environment, and the emergence of lactase persistence indicates that culture (in this case, the practice of keeping livestock for meat and hides) simply becomes another one of those conditions.
  • For this reason, generalizations about the typical hunter-gatherer lifestyle are spurious; it doesn’t exist. With respect to what people ate (especially how much meat), the only safe assumption was “whatever they could get,” something that to this day varies greatly depending on where they live. Recently, researchers discovered evidence that people in Europe were grinding and cooking grain (a paleo-diet bugaboo) as far back as 30,000 years ago, even if they weren’t actually cultivating it. “A strong body of evidence,” Zuk writes, “points to many changes in our genome since humans spread across the planet and developed agriculture, making it difficult at best to point to a single way of eating to which we were, and remain, best suited.”
  • Oh, and, as Zuk tells us, paleolithic people got cancer, too.
  • we humans have long been known to abuse and despoil our environment, even back in those “paleo” days. Indeed, when I took a prehistoric archeology course, which was largely dedicated to the period of time of the hunter-gatherers, one thing I remember my professor pointing out, and that was that what he did was largely the study of prehistoric garbage and that humans have always produced a lot of it.
  • anonymous on 22 Mar 13
     
    "There are many fallacies that undergird alternative medicine, which evolved into "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), and for which the preferred term among its advocates is now "integrative medicine," meant to imply the "best of both worlds.""
anonymous

Elections Plunge Italy into Political Chaos - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...s-plunge-italy-political-chaos

shared by anonymous on 26 Feb 13 - Cached
  • While Grillo's party ended up in third place, one in four Italians voted for it, and the party became the most voted-for single party into the Chamber of Deputies (the two mainstream parties, the Democratic Party and the People of Freedom, competed as part of electoral coalitions).
  • Grillo's emergence as the referent of the protest against traditional politicians in Italy is not an entirely new phenomenon. In 1994, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took advantage of a corruption scandal that prompted the popularity of traditional political parties to plunge. Berlusconi campaigned as an outsider who criticized traditional politicians and their corrupt ways.
  • He combined the tools of mass politics of the mid-20th century with the media tools of the 21st century.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The rise of the Five Star Movement shares similar elements with the electoral growth of the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, in Greece.
  • Both are anti-system parties that have put the traditional parties against the ropes.
  • Grillo's remarkable performance reflects a growing fatigue among the Italian electorate with the German leadership during the European crisis.
  • When the total number of votes for these three parties are combined, it becomes clear that more than two-thirds of Italians said no to austerity measures. Monti's poor performance in the elections confirms this trend. No matter what happens with Italy's political future, the new Italian government will have this mandate in mind.
  • Italians went to the polls Sunday and Monday hoping that it would be the first step to bringing Italy out of its political and economic stagnation. But they woke up on Tuesday to a country fragmented into three political groups with similar levels of support, where alliances will be extremely difficult to forge.
  • anonymous on 26 Feb 13
     
    "When Italian comedian Beppe Grillo created his Five Star Movement three-and-a-half years ago, he probably wasn't expecting it to become the voice of a country beset by a deep economic and political crisis. The overwhelming performance of the Five Star Movement in the general elections that were held Sunday and Monday confirmed that the crisis of legitimacy that is threatening the traditional political parties in Europe has finally reached Italy. While Grillo's party ended up in third place, one in four Italians voted for it, and the party became the most voted-for single party into the Chamber of Deputies (the two mainstream parties, the Democratic Party and the People of Freedom, competed as part of electoral coalitions)."
anonymous

David Stockman's Dystopia - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...david_stockman_s_dystopia

shared by anonymous on 06 Apr 13 - Cached
  • What's more, his perps would have to be held in separate cells, because they're of remarkably different stripes. Milton Friedman is implicated (his sin: advocating managing the money supply), but so is Paul Krugman (and of course his spiritual mentor John Maynard Keynes).  Franklin Roosevelt is on the list of "policy villains," but so is Richard Nixon, who dealt the final blow to the gold standard. Former Reagan economic advisor Art Laffer (Mr. Supply Side) is there, a few names away from Larry Summers (these days, Mr. Demand Side), who served, most recently, as Barack Obama's top economic advisor.
  • So what's the connection? I'll give you a hint: They all advocated economic interventions. They thought they could help boost growth, lower unemployment, raise revenues, stimulate investment, smooth out volatility, and so on. And, as Stockman sees it, the problem is not simply that they all failed miserably. It's that their failure has doomed America.
  • It's easy to poke fun at a rant like this, and most of it is just plain wrong (more on that in a moment). But what's more interesting is to figure out where Stockman is on target.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • There are, unquestionably, aspects of American capitalism that have been corrupted -- in no small part through money in politics, something Stockman vividly rails against. He's also right that the U.S. economy is seriously underperforming and bad policy is implicated. One of his hobbyhorses, crony capitalism -- a frequent target of the very progressive economist Dean Baker -- is surely holding back growth, skewing the distribution of income and wealth, and steering investment not toward its most productive uses, but to those most favored by the tax code.
  • Unfortunately, those points are not central to his argument.
  • What Stockman is most worked up about is that for almost a century, economic policymakers have ... um ... made policy, and that's led to cheap money, high indebtedness, and econo-moral turpitude.
  • Stockman insists that the market should work out its failures without all these meddlers trying to fix them (there must be "a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy"); no government investments in industry; central banks shouldn't mess with the money supply, and so on.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 06 Apr 13
       
      Sigh... standard LP refrain.
  • The reader gets tons of invective against interventionists from FDR to Obama, but never a compelling explanation as to why America would have been better off if we did nothing to lessen the economic pain caused by the Great Depression or the Great Recession by applying Keynesian stimulus. Nor is there any analysis of why mainstream economics is wrong to believe, based on decades of empirical evidence from economies across the globe, that such stimulus, both fiscal and monetary, actually works.
  • Similarly, not only is there absolutely no benefit assigned to any of the Federal Reserve's actions over the years to push back on inflation and joblessness (and no question, they've made mistakes), but Stockman, with apparent ignorance of the historical record, atavistically pines for the gold standard.
  • If you want to get rid of central banks, you'd better come up with some other stabilizing mechanism a whole lot better than gold buggery. And I'm quite certain that would lead you right back to independent central banks.
  • Moreover, sovereign debt is neither bad nor good -- its assessment must be situational. Even a cursory analysis should stress that debt that's paying for inefficient health care is a serious problem. Debt that's financing productivity-enhancing public goods or temporarily offsetting a large demand contraction is a very different story.
  • Stockman never explains how a market failure such as underinvestment in such sectors would be overcome by simply not having the government help directly by subsidizing research and development or backstopping credit to offset the high risk premiums investors would otherwise demand.
  • Instead, we get a "revisionist history of our era," as he puts it, where Keynes and FDR are villains, Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge heroes, gold is king, central bankers are legal counterfeiters, and debt is always evil.
  • anonymous on 06 Apr 13
     
    "Why Reagan's former budget chief is like a crazy person howling in the wind. Let's ignore him."
anonymous

Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature - 0 views

iopscience.iop.org/...article

shared by anonymous on 16 May 13 - Cached
  • anonymous on 16 May 13
     
    "We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991-2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research."
anonymous

Turkey is ... | Headrush - Ed Webb's Dickinson Blog - 0 views

the-ed-rush.blogspot.com/...turkey-is.html

shared by anonymous on 05 Jun 13 - Cached
  • What strikes me most about analyses I have looked at is the urge to compare. Taksim is or isn't Tahrir. Turkey is or isn't like Egypt/Tunisia/the USA. The protests in Gezi Park and elsewhere are more like #Occupy or more like the Arab uprisings of 2011.
  • Prime Minister Erdogan has little in common with Mubarak, Ben Ali or, even less, Qadhafi. He is a legitimately elected (and re-elected) and popular leader. Turkey is a multiparty democracy in a way that the North African states never were before the uprisings.
  • represent a broad frustration with the Prime Minister and his party (AKP/JDP)
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • That frustration appears to be driven by two key factors:
  • Erdogan's increasingly autocratic, populist governing style
  • pursuit of conservative social policy beyond many Turkish citizens' comfort zones
  • The ballot box is not, therefore, proving sufficiently responsive to that large segment of the population who feel underserved by the present government.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 05 Jun 13
       
      Man, that sounds familiar. ;)
  • Where comparative political analysis may be helpful, apart from providing some of the vocabulary to discuss these events, is in drawing attention to international forces that have played roles in the Turkish protests:
  • Demonstration effects
  • information and communications technologies
  • the context of neoliberalizing globalization
  • In Tunisia and Egypt this enabled crony capitalist reforms, enriching a small elite and excluding the vast majority. Social justice and dignity became central demands of the protestors there.
  • The protestors are not, by and large, economic victims of globalization. But the development of Gezi park was symptomatic of runaway gentrification and had the stench of corruption about it:
  • Protestors globally are confronting local interactions of their national political and economic systems with the dominant economic ideology and forces of the post-Cold War world.
  • Turkey is not Tunisia is not Egypt is not the USA. But neoliberal globalization has disrupted societies in all of those places, and some people have pushed back and are pushing back.
  • anonymous on 05 Jun 13
     
    An awesome look at Turkey from Ed Webb: "Students and others have been asking me for my thoughts on the protests in Turkey. There is much reporting and analysis already available, of varying quality, so I will be brief. I encourage those interested to keep an eye on my Twitter stream and my Diigo account where I have been collecting some of the more interesting interventions."
anonymous

The World Through Putin's Eyes - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...world-through-putins-eyes

shared by anonymous on 05 Jun 13 - Cached
  • Russia's flat topography affords little natural protection and is therefore bereft of natural borders. Land powers, as they have no seas to protect them, are more insecure than island nations and continents like the United States and Great Britain.
  • But Russia is particularly insecure.
  • Putin knows, therefore, that Russia cannot rule Eastern Europe. But he does require a degree of diplomatic and economic acquiescence in order to keep countries like Poland and Romania hobbled.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Putin is happy that Russia's geography grants him access to massive natural gas deposits, as well as the pathways to export that natural gas to Europe, particularly to Eastern Europe. This provides him with economic and, thus, political leverage over former Warsaw Pact states. But he is nervous.
  • Countries by the Baltic Sea are building or planning to build regasification plants that will allow them to import natural gas in liquid form from other parts of the world, thereby undermining Russia's energy monopoly in Eastern Europe. Then there are the shale gas deposits in Poland and Ukraine that might further increase the energy options of those geopolitical bellwether countries. Putin needs to be a worrier.
  • Are they aware that when I took power there was political chaos and criminal anarchy, with ordinary Russians robbed of their dignity? In Putin's mind, he restored a large measure of order -- without which no progress is possible in the first place. And whatever his numerous faults, he is painfully aware that he is not in total control.
  • American journalists, politicians and government officials must drive Putin to distraction. They assault him on moral grounds. After all, "He is a dictator!" they say. "He tolerates and even encourages corruption and rampant thuggery!" But do they know I am dealing with Russia -- not with the United States? Putin must think.
  • Putin wants a discussion with the Americans based on geopolitical interests, not values.
  • The Communists required totalitarianism to exercise real control. But he is no mass murderer like Stalin; he is not relocating whole populations to Siberia. He is just a ruler with strong autocratic tendencies, something common to Russia. What do the Americans want of me! Why do they interfere with my domestic affairs through the support of these human rights organizations? And, by the way, don't the Americans realize that toppling Bashar al Assad in Syria might mean a worse human rights situation there; not a better one?
  • President Richard Nixon went to China to negotiate with Mao Zedong because it was in America's interest to do so; the fact that Mao had just killed millions in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was not an over riding detail. So where is my Nixon? Putin must think.
  • The Russian Far East, an area roughly twice the size of Europe, has a paltry population of fewer than 7 million that may fall to fewer than 5 million in coming decades.
  • But geography dictates that Russia's alliance with China is mainly tactical. While Russia is delivering increasing amounts of oil (and probably natural gas soon, too) to China, something for which Beijing is grateful, the two giant nations share long borders in the Far East and in Central Asia that through the centuries have been volatile.
  • on the other side of the border Russia faces a population of 100 million people in Chinese Manchuria. Resource acquisition is the principal goal of Chinese foreign policy, and the Russian Far East is rich in reserves of natural gas, oil, timber, diamonds and gold.
  • Unless China itself implodes -- a possibility but not a probability -- China must be seen as a long-range threat to Russia.
  • Nixon would understand Russia's geopolitical insecurities and partially assuage them, in order to gain some leverage over China, just as four decades ago he had moved closer to China in order to gain some leverage over Russia.
  • Were the United States to give Russia more leeway in the Caucasus and Central Asia -- rather than trying to compete with Russia in those regions -- Russia might find ingenious ways to make China more nervous along its land borders. And that, in turn, would make China somewhat less able to devote so much of its energy to projecting power in the Pacific Basin, where it threatens American allies.
  • None of this would remotely fall into the category of aggressive or irresponsible international behavior, mind you. Trying to adjust the global balance of power in one's favor is a perennial goal of statesmanship.
  • In 1972, the American media praised Nixon for going to China and negotiating with a mass murderer. Now the same media would not let President Barack Obama go to Moscow to negotiate with a normal autocrat unless he delivers scolding lectures on human rights.
  • But even if Obama intellectually realizes such truths and opportunities, the public policy climate in the United States is not that of the Cold War, which would have allowed for a broader dynamic between Washington and Moscow to each side's mutual benefit. The result is that China profits, to the endless frustration of Putin. As for the United States, it gains little advantage in the outcome.
  • anonymous on 05 Jun 13
     
    "Few people comprehend Russia's vulnerabilities like its leader, Vladimir Putin. He must try to govern a country that extends through nearly half the longitudes of the earth but that has fewer people than Bangladesh. What's more, Russia's population is declining, not increasing. All the Arctic seas to Russia's north are ice-blocked many months of the year, so with the exception of its Far East, Russia is essentially a landlocked nation. "
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