Skip to main content

Home/ Long Game/ Group items tagged energy

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
anonymous

New Statesman - Facebook, capitalism and geek entitlement - 0 views

www.newstatesman.com/...social-facebook-geek-women

economics society technology

shared by anonymous on 06 Oct 10 - Cached
  • The film's basic formula is the familiar blogs-to-bling-and-bitches redemptive parable of male geek culture, with the added bonus that it happens to be based on real events. The protagonist, Facebook's co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, is a brilliant 19-year-old coder. His painful social ineptitude, as told here, gets him savagely dumped by his girlfriend, after which, drunk and misunderstood, he sets up a website to rate the physical attractiveness of the women undergraduates of Harvard, thus exacting his revenge upon the female sex that has so cruelly spurned his obvious genius.
  • The Social Network is an expertly crafted and exhaustively modern film, and one of its more pertinent flashpoints is the reminder that a resource that redefined the human interactions of 500 million people across the globe was germinated in an act of vengeful misogyny.
  • This is no reflection on the personal moral compass of Sorkin, who is no misogynist, but who understands that in rarefied American circles of power and privilege, women are still stage-hands, and objectification is hard currency.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • This is what Facebook is about, and ultimately what capitalist realism is about: life as reducible to one giant hot-or-not contest, with adverts.
  • There is a certain type of nerd entitlement that is all too easily co-opted into a modern mythology of ruthless capitalist exploitation, in which the acquisition of wealth and status at all costs is phrased as a cheeky way of getting one's own back on those kids who were mean to you at school.
  • The protagonist is invariably white and rich and always male -- Hollywood cannot countenance female nerds, other than as minor characters who transform into pliant sexbots as soon as they remove their glasses -- but these privileges are as naught compared to the injustice life has served him by making him shy, spotty and interested in Star Trek. He has been wronged, and he has every right to use his l33t skills to bend the engine of humanity to his purpose.
  • For me, being a geek is about community, energy and celebration of difference -- but in the sterile fairytale of contemporary capitalism, successful geekery is about the rewards of power and the usefulness of commodifying other humans as a sum of likes, interests and saleable personal data.
  • anonymous on 06 Oct 10
     
    "The Social Network is an elegant psychodrama of contemporary economics. " By Laurie Penny at New Statesman on October 1, 2010. Referred to by Nicholas Schiller.
anonymous

A Lost Generation - 0 views

www.tnr.com/...a-lost-generation

america election

shared by anonymous on 03 Nov 10 - Cached
  • This economic downturn structurally resembles the depressions of the 1890s and the 1930s rather than the cyclical recessions that have recurred since World War II. The American people, mired in debt, with one in six lacking full-time employment, are not spending; and businesses, uncertain of demand for their products, are not investing no matter how low interest rates fall. With the Fed virtually powerless, the only way to stimulate private demand and investment is through public spending. Obama tried to do this with his initial stimulus program, but it was watered down by tax cuts, and undermined by decreases in state spending. By this summer, its effect had dissipated.
  • Many voters have concluded that Obama’s stimulus program actually contributed to the rise in unemployment and that cutting public spending will speed a recovery. It’s complete nonsense, as the experience of the United States in 1937 or of Japan in the 1990s demonstrated, but it will guide Republican thinking in Congress, and prevent Obama and the Democrats from passing a new stimulus program.
  • as the Obama administration recognized, much of the new demand will focus on the development of renewable energy and green technology. As the Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans understand, these kinds of industries require government coordination and subsidies. But the new generation of Republicans rejects this kind of industrial policy. They even oppose Obama’s obviously successful auto bailout.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Obama has to share some of the blame. Structural crises like the Civil War or the two Great Depressions present presidents with formidable challenges, but also great opportunities. If they fail, they discredit themselves and their party, as Hoover did after 1929; but if they succeed, as McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt did after 1896 or Franklin Roosevelt did after 1932, they not only help the country, but also create enduring majorities for their party.
  • According to exit polls, 53 percent of voters in House races had an unfavorable view of the Republican Party and only 41 percent had a favorable view. I found this myself in interviewing suburban Philadelphia voters last weekend. Even those who said they were Republicans had grave doubts about what the party stood for and regarded the Tea Partiers as “wackos.”
  • In 2001, Karl Rove believed that George W. Bush had created a new McKinley majority that would endure for decades; and when Obama was elected, many Democrats, including me, thought that he had a chance to create a Roosevelt-like Democratic majority. But instead, like Japan, we’ve had a succession of false dawns, or what Walter Dean Burnham once called an “unstable equilibrium.”
  • anonymous on 03 Nov 10
     
    "Republicans might say it's the re-emergence of a conservative Republican majority, but that's not really what happened. What this election suggests to me is that the United States may have finally lost its ability to adapt politically to the systemic crises that it has periodically faced. The U.S emerged from the Civil War, the depression of the 1890s, World War I, and the Great Depression and World War II stronger than ever-with a more buoyant economy and greater international standing. A large part of the reason was the political system's ability to provide the leadership the country needed. But what this election suggests to me is that this may no longer be the case." By John B. Ludis at The New Republic on November 3, 2010.
anonymous

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

www.stratfor.com/...influence_part_4_major_players

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

Study: Today's youth aren't ego-driven slackers after all - 0 views

www.labspaces.net/..._ego_driven_slackers_after_all

shared by anonymous on 15 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Today's youth are generally not the self-centered, antisocial slackers that previous research has made them out to be, according to a provocative new study co-authored by a Michigan State University psychologist.
  • -Today's youth are more cynical and less trusting of institutions than previous generations. But Donnellan said this is generally true of the broader population. -The current generation is less fearful of social problems such as race relations, hunger, poverty and energy shortages. -Today's youth have higher educational expectations.
  • "Kids today are like they were 30 years ago – they're trying to find their place in the world, they're trying to carve out an identity, and it can be difficult," Donnellan said. "But lots of research shows that the stereotypes of all groups are much more overdrawn than the reality."
anonymous

Can nuclear power make a comeback? - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...100322taco_talk_hertzberg

longterm energy

shared by anonymous on 18 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The happy consensus did not last long. It was already breaking down by the nineteen-seventies, and by the late eighties it was gone, obliterated by the accidents at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979 (where no one was killed), and at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 (which caused thousands of deaths). But the giant anti-nuclear demonstrations of the time, in Europe and America, were fuelled at least as much by fear of nuclear war as by fear of nuclear reactors.
  • Such founding fathers of the environmental movement as Stewart Brand, the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, and Patrick Moore, an early stalwart of Greenpeace, now support nukes. James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a climate-change prophet, favors the so-called fourth-generation nuclear systems, which would substantially reduce the amount of nuclear waste. Hans Blix, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector, is another supporter. So, within limits, are liberal senators like John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. And so is President Obama.
  • anonymous on 18 Mar 10
     
    Hendrik Hertzberg looks at whether nuclear power can make a comeback in the U.S. Thanks to 3 Quarks Daily for pointing this one out (http://bit.ly/bFUiEq)
anonymous

Borrowing from our Children 04/07/2010 - 0 views

dilbert.com/...borrowing_from_the_future

criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 08 Apr 10 - Cached
  • I think future generations might like to have most of the things we're investing in, such as infrastructure, healthcare, schools, a clean environment, energy sources, and freedom, to name just a few. No one wants to inherit a country full of sickly, uneducated hobos, on the verge of being conquered by Cuba.
  • anonymous on 08 Apr 10
     
    Scott Adams Blog on April 7, 2010. We don't call it investing, do we?
anonymous

Venezuela: Putin's Busy Visit - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...02_venezuela_putins_busy_visit

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 02 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Putin’s visit is more than symbolic; Russia and Venezuela are expected to discuss a wide range of deals in the areas of energy, security, industry and defense.
  • In the electricity sector, an area where Venezuela is feeling acute pain, there is not much Russia can offer.
  • Russia reportedly looks to expand its automobile production industry into Venezuela.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • According to STRATFOR sources, Chavez is seeking help from the Russian Federal Security Services in training the Venezuelan security services.
  • Russia is in the process of extending Venezuela a flexible credit line.
  • These deals are not official: They are what STRATFOR has heard will be discussed.
  • anonymous on 02 Apr 10
     
    A look at what Putin's visit to Venezuela actually means.
anonymous

The Effects of the Gulf Oil Spill - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0100503_effects_gulf_oil_spill

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • how deep an impression the cumulative effect will make on the American psyche — and how it will affect the nation’s behavior.
  • At the current pace, in five days the amount of oil spilled will surpass the 75,000 barrels spilled when a Union Oil well blew out off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969. In 40 days the spill will surpass the 260,000 barrels spilled by ExxonMobil when the Valdez tanker hit a reef off the Alaska coast in 1989.
  • Both the Santa Barbara and the Valdez spills were significant political events in the United States, leading to a rise in environmentalism and stricter regulation on energy companies and offshore drilling. The Deepwater Horizon incident appears destined to have a similar or even greater impact. It has already prompted California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to abandon his push to expand regional offshore drilling, and caused pressure for U.S. President Barack Obama to suspend his recently announced plans to expand federal offshore drilling.
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    By StratFor on May 4, 2010. A look at the psychological affects to the American mind.
anonymous

The Turkish Role in Negotiations with Iran - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...turkish-role-negotiations-iran

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 11 Jan 11 - Cached
  • The Iranians have achieved a similar position. By far the weakest of the negotiators, they have created a dynamic whereby they are not only sitting across the table from the six most powerful countries in the world but are also, like the North Koreans, frequently being coaxed there.
  • If the United States withdraws from the region, Iran becomes the most powerful conventional power in the Persian Gulf, regardless of whether it has nuclear weapons.
  • Given that the United States is officially bound to leave Iraq by the end of this year, Iran is becoming substantially more powerful.
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • The drawdown of American forces in Iraq is the first step. As U.S. power declines in Iraq, Iranian power increases.
  • If it continues its withdrawal of forces from Iraq, Iraq will be on its way to becoming an Iranian satellite.
  • If Iraq becomes an Iranian ally or satellite, the Iraqi-Saudi and Iraqi-Kuwaiti frontier becomes, effectively, the frontier with Iran.
  • with the most strategically located country in the Middle East — Iraq — Iran now has the ability to become the dominant power in the Middle East and simultaneously reshape the politics of the Arabian Peninsula.
  • Assuming that the United States is not prepared to increase forces in Iraq dramatically, the Iranians now face a historic opportunity.
  • As STRATFOR has said and WikiLeaks has confirmed, it is the Saudis who are currently pressing the United States to do something about Iran, not because of nuclear weapons but because of the conventional shift in the balance of power.
  • The destruction of Iranian naval power is critical, since Iran’s most powerful countermove in a war would be to block the Strait of Hormuz with mines, anti-ship missiles and swarming suicide craft, cutting off the substantial flow of oil that comes out of the strait. Such a cutoff would shatter the global economic recovery. This is Iran’s true “nuclear” option.
  • Iran comes to the table with two goals
  • The first is to retain the powerful negotiating hand it has by playing the nuclear card. The second is to avoid an air campaign by the United States against Iran’s conventional capabilities.
  • The Iranians would not have to invade militarily to be able to reshape the region. It would be sufficient for there to be the potential for Iran to invade. It would shift the regime survival question away from Iran to Saudi Arabia.
  • the choices appear to be
  • accepting the shift in the regional balance in favor of Iran, reversing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq or attempting to destroy Iran’s conventional forces while preventing the disruption of oil from the Persian Gulf.
  • There is, of course, the option of maintaining or intensifying sanctions.
  • The Europeans are hardly of one mind on any subject save one: They do not want to see a disruption of oil from the Persian Gulf.
  • Therefore, at the table next week will be the Americans, painfully aware that its campaigns look promising at the beginning but frequently fail; the Europeans and Chinese, wanting a low-risk solution to a long-term problem; and the Russians, wanting to appear helpful while hoping the United States steps in it again and ready to live with soaring energy prices. And there are the Iranians, wanting to avoid a conventional war but not wanting to forego the opportunity that it has looked for since before the Islamic Republic — domination of the Persian Gulf.
  • The Turks opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq because they expected it to fail to establish a viable government in Baghdad and thereby to destroy the balance of power between Iraq and Iran.
  • the United States was unprepared for the unilateral role Turkey and Brazil played at the time they played it.
  • It is all very good to want to negotiate as a neutral party, but the most important party isn’t at the table: Saudi Arabia. Turkey wants to play a dominant role in the Muslim world without risking too much in terms of military force. The problem for Turkey, therefore, is not so much bringing the United States and Iran closer but bringing the Saudis and Iranians closer, and that is a tremendous challenge not only because of religious issues but also because Iran wants to be what Saudi Arabia opposes most: the dominant power in the region.
  • The nuclear issue is easy simply because it is not time-sensitive right now. The future of Iraq is time-sensitive and uncertain.
  • If Turkey wants to play a constructive role, it must find a formula that satisfies three needs.
  • The first is to facilitate the American withdrawal
  • The second is to limit the degree of control Iran has in Iraq
  • The third is to persuade Saudi Arabia that the degree of control ceded to Iranians will not threaten Saudi interests
  • Having regional power is not a concept. It is a complex and unpleasant process of balancing contradictory interests in order to prevent greater threats to a country’s interests emerging in the long run.
  • As the Americans have learned, no one will thank them for it, and no one will think better of them for doing it. The only reason for a deeper involvement as mediator in the P-5+1 talks is that stabilizing the region and maintaining the Persian-Arab balance of power is in Turkey’s national interest. But it will be a wrenching shift to Turkey’s internal political culture. It is also an inevitable shift. If not now, then later.
  • anonymous on 11 Jan 11
     
    "The P-5+1 talks with Iran will resume Jan. 21-22. For those not tuned into the obscure jargon of the diplomatic world, these are the talks between the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia), plus Germany - hence, P-5+1. These six countries will be negotiating with one country, Iran. The meetings will take place in Istanbul under the aegis of yet another country, Turkey. Turkey has said it would only host this meeting, not mediate it. It will be difficult for Turkey to stay in this role."
anonymous

Libya, the West and the Narrative of Democracy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...libya-west-narrative-democracy

geopolitics libya

shared by anonymous on 22 Mar 11 - Cached
  • There is no question that the intervention is designed to protect Gadhafi’s enemies from his forces. Gadhafi had threatened to attack “without mercy” and had mounted a sustained eastward assault that the rebels proved incapable of slowing.
  • they want to intervene to protect Gadhafi’s enemies, they are prepared to support those enemies (though it is not clear how far they are willing to go in providing that support), but they will not be responsible for the outcome of the civil war.
  • Three assumptions have been made about this unrest.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The first was that it represented broad-based popular opposition to existing governments
  • Second, it assumed that these revolutions had as a common goal the creation of a democratic society.
  • Third, it assumed that the kind of democratic society they wanted was similar to European-American democracy, in other words, a constitutional system supporting Western democratic values.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 22 Mar 11
       
      As regards item #3, I call 'projection.' As usual, the West interprets events in a manner that reinforces our own sense of self importance and historical righteousness.
  • Whether they supported the demonstrators in Tahrir Square is a matter of conjecture. They might have, but the demonstrators were a tiny fraction of Egyptian society
  • a narrative on what has happened in the Arab world has emerged and has become the framework for thinking about the region.
  • The narrative says that the region is being swept by democratic revolutions (in the Western sense) rising up against oppressive regimes. The West must support these uprisings gently. That means that they must not sponsor them but at the same time act to prevent the repressive regimes from crushing them.
  • Gadhafi did not run Libya for the past 42 years because he was a fool, nor because he didn’t have support. He was very careful to reward his friends and hurt and weaken his enemies, and his supporters were substantial and motivated.
  • Italy has an interest in Libyan oil, and the United Kingdom was looking for access to the same. But just as Gadhafi was happy to sell the oil, so would any successor regime be; this war was not necessary to guarantee access to oil. NATO politics also played a role. The Germans refused to go with this operation, and that drove the French closer to the Americans and British. There is the Arab League, which supported a no-fly zone (though it did an about-face when it found out that a no-fly zone included bombing things) and offered the opportunity to work with the Arab world.
  • Waging war for ideological reasons requires a clear understanding of the ideology and an even clearer understanding of the reality on the ground. In this intervention, the ideology is not crystal clear, torn as it is between the concept of self-determination and the obligation to intervene to protect the favored faction. The reality on the ground is even less clear. The reality of democratic uprisings in the Arab world is much more complicated than the narrative makes it out to be, and the application of the narrative to Libya simply breaks down. There is unrest, but unrest comes in many sizes, democratic being only one.
  • anonymous on 22 Mar 11
     
    "Forces from the United States and some European countries have intervened in Libya. Under U.N. authorization, they have imposed a no-fly zone in Libya, meaning they will shoot down any Libyan aircraft that attempts to fly within Libya. In addition, they have conducted attacks against aircraft on the ground, airfields, air defenses and the command, control and communication systems of the Libyan government, and French and U.S. aircraft have struck against Libyan armor and ground forces. There also are reports of European and Egyptian special operations forces deploying in eastern Libya, where the opposition to the government is centered, particularly around the city of Benghazi. In effect, the intervention of this alliance has been against the government of Moammar Gadhafi, and by extension, in favor of his opponents in the east."
anonymous

Riyadh and Tehran's Negotiation for Regional Balance - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...s-negotiation-regional-balance

geopolitics iran saudiarabia

shared by anonymous on 30 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Specifically, the two are discussing the situation in Bahrain, where the Saudis are backing a Sunni monarchy against a Shiite majority population that is considered a potential proxy of the Iranians.
  • The Saudis hope to reach an understanding that can contain the increasingly assertive Iranians, while Iran hopes that it can advance its position by forcing Saudi Arabia to accept it as a major stakeholder in the region’s security
  • it is extremely unlikely that the Saudis and the Iranians can learn to balance each others’ interests. The strategic goals of the two states, shaped by their respective ideologies, are in direct contrast.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Iran is a Shiite Islamist polity that aims to become the regional hegemon by exploiting sectarian tensions and popular sentiment in the Arab world against the United States
  • Saudi Arabia is a conservative power that wants to contain Iran’s ambitions by keeping Tehran’s Shiite Arab allies in check, and ensuring the Islamic republic is not able to take advantage of the fault lines that run through the largely Sunni Arab states.
  • after a history of ethnic and sect-based enmity that goes back centuries, neither side can trust the other.
  • The Saudis are well aware that if the Iranians can successfully play games with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency
  • Riyadh knows that any agreement with Tehran affords the Persians time and space to enhance their position. In other words, the Saudis do not have any good options. They cannot afford to ignore the Iranians, nor can they negotiate comfortably.
  • anonymous on 30 Jul 11
     
    Iran's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Javad Mahallati, said on Wednesday that his country is ready to allow experts from Saudi Arabia to access its nuclear facilities. The concession is an effort to placate Riyadh's concerns about the nature of Tehran's nuclear program.
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

Second Quarter Forecast 2011 - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...7-second-quarter-forecast-2011

shared by anonymous on 11 Apr 11 - Cached
  • When the Tunisian leadership began to fall, we were surprised at the speed with which similar unrest spread to Egypt. Once in Egypt, however, it quickly became apparent that what we were seeing was not simply a spontaneous uprising of democracy-minded youth (though there was certainly an element of that), but rather a move by the military to exploit the protests to remove Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose succession plans were causing rifts within the establishment and opening up opportunities for groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • We are entering a very dynamic quarter. The Persian Gulf region is the center of gravity, and the center of a rising regional power competition. A war in or with Israel is a major wild card that could destabilize the area further. Amid this, the United States continues to seek ways to disengage while not leaving the region significantly unbalanced. Off to the side is China, more intensely focused on domestic instability and facing rising economic pressures from high oil prices and inflation. Russia, perhaps, is in the best position this quarter, as Europe and Japan look for additional sources of energy, and Moscow can pack away some cash for later days.
  • Libya probably will remain in a protracted crisis through the next quarter.
  • anonymous on 11 Apr 11
     
    "In our 2011 annual forecast, we highlighted three predominant issues for the year: complications with Iran surrounding the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the struggle of the Chinese leadership to maintain stability amid economic troubles, and a shift in Russian behavior to appear more conciliatory, or to match assertiveness with conciliation. While we see these trends remaining significant and in play, we did not anticipate the unrest that spread across North Africa to the Persian Gulf region. "
anonymous

The Continuing Challenge of Mideast Peace | STRATFOR - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...inuing-challenge-mideast-peace

shared by anonymous on 22 Apr 11 - Cached
  • Given the circumstances, the early collapse of Obama’s peace initiative was not surprising. It has now been nearly eight months since Obama painted himself into a corner with a September deadline, but the prospects for peace are not looking any brighter and the stakes in the dispute are rising.
  • Israel cannot be sure that domestic pressures within Egypt, particularly in an Egypt attempting to move the country toward popular elections, will not produce a shift in Egyptian policy toward Israel.
  • Israel is now in a bind: If it refuses negotiations and Abbas moves forward with his plans, it will risk having to deal with a unilaterally declared Palestinian state. Israel will then have to invest a great deal of energy in lobbying countries around the world to refrain from recognition, in return for whatever concessions they try to demand.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The Obama administration has maintained that the path to Palestinian statehood must come through negotiations, and not a unilateral declaration. Such a declaration would place Washington in an uncomfortable position of having to refuse recognition while trying to restart the negotiation process after a red line has already been crossed. Obama can align his presidency with another peace initiative and try to use it to offset criticism in the Islamic world over Washington’s disjointed policies in dealing with the current Mideast unrest. On the other hand, if this initiative collapses as quickly as the last, Obama will have another Mideast foreign policy failure on his hands while also struggling to both keep in check a military campaign in Libya and shape exit strategies for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • No matter who ends up announcing their terms for peace first, there is one player that could derail this latest Mideast peace effort in one fell swoop: Hamas. Not a participant to the negotiations in the first place, Hamas wants to deny Fatah a political opportunity and sustain tension between Israel and Egypt. As Israel knows well, past attempts at the peace process have generated an increase in militant acts and that in turn lead to Israel not making meaningful concessions. A hastily organized negotiation operating under a deadline five months from expiration is unlikely to lead to progress in peace, but does provide Hamas with golden militant opportunity.
  • anonymous on 22 Apr 11
     
    "Another attempt at Israeli-Palestinian peace talks may be on the horizon. But this time, the United States appears reluctant to play host. This is a marked contrast from September 2010, when U.S. President Barack Obama's administration optimistically relaunched Israeli-Palestinian talks and declared that the negotiations should be concluded by September 2011. Obama reiterated his proposed deadline in his September 2010 speech to the U.N. General Assembly in which he stated, "When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations - an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.""
anonymous

Dispatch: A Palestinian Unity Government - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...h-palestinian-unity-government

shared by anonymous on 04 May 11 - Cached
  • Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah held a ceremony May 4 commemorating a unity peace deal that in theory is supposed to end a very bitter four-year divorce between the two factions.
  • Islamist Hamas and secularist Fatah are longtime ideological rivals, split between Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and Fatah-controlled West Bank. The two factions not only have deep personal and ideological differences, but also disagree on a number of different issues; for example, how to manage the security affairs of the state, how to divide funding and how to divide political power. The two factions couldn’t even agree on who speak first at the ceremony.
  • Israel now has to spend a great deal of energy lobbying governments around the world to refuse dealing with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, as long as Hamas refuses Israel’s right to exist.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Ironically, Palestinian unity does not bode well for the peace process. Unless Hamas fundamentally changes it political platform and recognizes Israel’s right to exist — in addition to renouncing violence — then Israel can refuse negotiations on those grounds.
  • anonymous on 04 May 11
     
    "Analyst Reva Bhalla examines the implications of a unity government between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah."
anonymous

Russia's Evolving Leadership - 4 views

www.stratfor.com/...04-russias-evolving-leadership

russia leadership geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 05 Jul 11 - Cached
  • In the past decade, one person has consolidated and run Russia’s political system: former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
  • Under Putin’s presidential predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s strategic economic assets were pillaged, the core strength of the country — the KGB, now known as the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the military — fell into decay, and the political system was in disarray. Though Russia was considered a democracy and a new friend to the West, this was only because Russia had no other option — it was a broken country.
  • While an autocrat and KGB agent (we use the present tense, as Putin has said that no one is a former KGB or FSB agent), he hails from St. Petersburg, Russia’s most pro-Western city, and during his Soviet-era KGB service he was tasked with stealing Western technology. Putin fully understands the strength of the West and what Western expertise is needed to keep Russia relatively modern and strong. At the same time, his time with the KGB convinced him that Russia can never truly be integrated into the West and that it can be strong only with a consolidated government, economy and security service and a single, autocratic leader.
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • Putin’s understanding of Russia’s two great weaknesses informs this worldview.
  • The first weakness is that Russia was dealt a poor geographic hand.
  • The second is that its population is comprised of numerous ethnic groups, not all of which are happy with centralized Kremlin rule.
  • Russia essentially lacks an economic base aside from energy.
  • These geographic, demographic and economic challenges have led Russia to shift between being aggressive to keep the country secure and being accommodating toward foreign powers in a bid to modernize Russia.
  • However, Russia cannot go down the two paths of accommodating and connecting with the West and a consolidated authoritarian Russia at the same time unless Russia is first strong and secure as a country, something that has only happened recently.
  • Which face they show does not depend upon personalities but rather upon the status of Russia’s strength.
  • Putin, who had no choice but to appeal to the West to help keep the country afloat when he took office in 2000, initially was hailed as a trusted partner by the West. But even while former U.S. President George W. Bush was praising Putin’s soul, behind the scenes, Putin already was reorganizing one of his greatest tools — the FSB — in order to start implementing a full state consolidation in the coming years.
  • After 9/11, Putin was the first foreign leader to phone Bush and offer any assistance from Russia. The date marked an opportunity for both Putin and Russia. The attacks on the United States shifted Washington’s focus, tying it down in the Islamic world for the next decade. This gave Russia a window of opportunity with which to accelerate its crackdown inside (and later outside) Russia without fear of a Western response.
  • During this time, the Kremlin ejected foreign firms, nationalized strategic economic assets, shut down nongovernmental organizations, purged anti-Kremlin journalists, banned many anti-Kremlin political parties and launched a second intense war in Chechnya.
  • Western perceptions of Putin’s friendship and standing as a democratic leader simultaneously evaporated.
  • When Medvedev entered office, his current reputation for compliance and pragmatism did not exist. Instead, he continued on Russia’s roll forward with one of the boldest moves to date — the Russia-Georgia war.
  • By 2009, Russia had proven its power in its direct sphere and so began to ease into a new foreign and domestic policy of duality.
  • Only when Russia is strong and consolidated can it drop being wholly aggressive and adopt such a stance of hostility and friendliness.
  • With elections approaching, the ruling tandem seems even more at odds as Medvedev overturns many policies Putin put into place in the early 2000s, such as the ban on certain political parties, the ability of foreign firms to work in strategic sectors and the role of the FSB elite within the economy. Despite the apparent conflict, the changes are part of an overall strategy shared by Putin and Medvedev to finish consolidating Russian power.
  • These policy changes show that Putin and Medvedev feel confident enough that they have attained their first imperative that they can look to confront the second inherent problem for the country: Russia’s lack of modern technology and lack of an economic base
  • Russia thus has launched a multiyear modernization and privatization plan to bring in tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to leapfrog the country into current technology and diversify the economy. Moscow has also struck deals with select countries — Germany, France, Finland, Norway, South Korea and even the United States — for each sector to use the economic deals for political means.
  • two large problems
  • First, foreign governments and firms are hesitant to do business in an authoritarian country with a record of kicking foreign firms out.
  • At the same time, the Kremlin knows that it cannot lessen its hold inside of Russia without risking losing control over its first imperative of securing Russia.
  • The first move is to strengthen the ruling party — United Russia — while allowing more independent political parties.
  • While these new political parties appear to operate outside the Kremlin’s clutches, this is just for show. The most important new party is Russia’s Right Cause launched by Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.
  • Right Cause is intended to support foreign business and the modernization efforts.
  • The Popular Front is not exactly a political party but an umbrella organization meant to unite the country. Popular Front members include Russia’s labor unions, prominent social organizations, economic lobbying sectors, big business, individuals and political parties. In short, anything or anyone that wants to be seen as pro-Russian is a part of the Popular Front.
  • It creates a system in which power in the country does not lie in a political office — such as the presidency or premiership — but with the person overseeing the Popular Front: Putin.
  • The new system is designed to have a dual foreign policy, to attract non-Russian groups back into the country and to look more democratic overall while all the while being carefully managed behind the scenes.
  • In theory, the new system is meant to allow the Kremlin to maintain control of both its grand strategies of needing to reach out abroad to keep Russia modern and strong and trying to ensure that the country is also under firm control and secure for years to come.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 06 Jul 11
       
      I would imagine that it seems that way to most Americans, but then we're tech-focused. We have a very hard time understanding that the only time Russia has ever felt geographically secure is *when* they're aggressive. This means upgrading tech, infrastructure, and social-glue all at the same time. Add: There are all those quotes from past leaders about feeling as though they had to expand their borders or influence just to feel secure at home. We Americans may as well be from Mars: We have two giant oceans and we culturally dominate our few neighbors with trade. This is why I agree with StratFor (read as: resignedly fear) that a confrontation with Russia is in the offing two decades hence. If they dominate central Asia and hold levers in Europe, as they are quite obviously trying to do, they will be perceived as a threat, and the U.S. is all too willing to help those who are afraid of Russia. All this strikes me as a prelude that we'll gloss over in future readings of the 'past'. But then, it's another case where I'm *begging* to be wrong.
  • anonymous on 05 Jul 11
     
    "Russia has entered election season, with parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in March 2012. Typically, this is not an issue of concern, as most Russian elections have been designed to usher a chosen candidate and political party into office since 2000. Interesting shifts are under way this election season, however. While on the surface they may resemble political squabbles and instability, they actually represent the next step in the Russian leadership's consolidation of the state."
  • Erik Hanson on 06 Jul 11
     
    I get the security concern, but Putin has always seemed to overemphasize and overextend the issue into something bigger and more offensive. It seems to me that the infrastructure and tech needs are much more pressing and would yield more results.
  • Erik Hanson on 06 Jul 11
     
    There are still plenty of places where we're not willing to push back (the Polish Belorussian genocides being a prominent example in my mind), but you're right at how foreign that mindset is. Foreign or bizarrely 19th century.
« First ‹ Previous 101 - 116 of 116
Showing 20▼ items per page