Skip to main content

Home/ Long Game/ Group items tagged time

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
anonymous

Implications of El Chango's Arrest - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...implications-el-changos-arrest

mexico cartel

shared by anonymous on 22 Jun 11 - Cached
  • A year ago this time, the La Familia or, as we call them, “LFM,” (La Familia Michoacana), the LFM cartel was an up-and-coming cartel, it was rising in power and prominence, and it had banded together with two other powerful cartel groups, the Sinaloa Federation and the Gulf Cartel, to assist them in their battle against the Zetas and their allies.
  • Now one of the things that we’ve seen happen over the years with the Mexican cartels is that when any one figure — especially in the Sinaloa Federation — gets too powerful, they have a tendency to run into accidents, and that’s what we saw happen last July.
  • Ignacio Coronel had an issue with the authorities, was taken out
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • this created a vacuum
  • the LFM cartel saw that vacuum of power
  • and they decided to move in and try to assume control of Jalisco and Guadalajara.
  • This then initiated a war between the Sinaloa Federation and the LFM
  • As LFM began fighting with Sinaloa, we saw Sinaloa Federation becoming really dominant
  • that struggle culminated in the death, late last year, of the leader of the LFM, a guy by the name of Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, “El Mas Loco,” (the craziest one).
  • what we saw happen was that it devolved into two different organizations that were basically coalescing around different powerful leaders — lieutenants of El Mas Loco.
  • The first of these lieutenants was Jose Mendez Vargas, “El Chango.” The second one was Servando Gomez, “La Tuta,” (the teacher).
  • over the last few months, as these organizations have formed up, we’ve seen them locked in a very bloody battle for control of Michoacan.
  • we’re going to be watching for indications of which way this is going to be going: whether or not this LFM faction will be able to stay united, whether they’ll be able to be able to fend off the offensive of the Knights Templar, and whether or not they could become more closely allied with Los Zetas.
  • anonymous on 22 Jun 11
     
    "Vice President of Tactical Intelligence Scott Stewart looks at the implications of the arrest of drug cartel leader Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas or "El Chango."" (at StratFor)
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.
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • 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

Stress in the city - 0 views

www.labspaces.net/...Stress_in_the_city

layscience urban

shared by anonymous on 22 Jun 11 - Cached
  • A new international study, which involved Douglas Mental Health University Institute researcher Jens Pruessner, is the first to show that two distinct brain regions that regulate emotion and stress are affected by city living.
  • "These findings suggest that different brain regions are sensitive to the experience of city living during different times across the lifespan," says Pruessner. "Future studies need to clarify the link between psychopathology and these affects in individuals with mental disorders.These findings contribute to our understanding of urban environmental risk for mental disorders and health in general. They further point to a new approach to interface social sciences, neurosciences and public policy to respond to the major health challenge of urbanization."
  • anonymous on 22 Jun 11
     
    "Being born and raised in a major urban area is associated with greater lifetime risk for anxiety and mood disorders."
anonymous

American vs. Russian notions of friendship - 0 views

marginalrevolution.com/...ian-notions-of-friendship.html

america russia culture friendship

shared by anonymous on 14 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Not long ago I attended an evening-long discussion group on this topic, comprised mostly of Russian emigrants and their spouses.  The Russians were generally keen to argue that they have deeper and closer friendships than do the Americans.  They also dislike that Americans will call their acquaintances “friends.”  In response I noted that:
  • 1. Relative to Americans, Russians are far more concerned with defining who is truly a friend, or not.
  • 2. Russians are far more likely to conduct purges of their friends.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • 3. American geographic mobility has been falling for some time and so we might move back toward some closer and more durable notions of friendship
  • are Russian lower-middle class friendships so much more “life and death” than American lower-middle class friendships, especially among the immobile?
  • anonymous on 14 Jul 11
     
    Thanks to Dave Gottlieb for this pointer to Tyler Cowen's observations about the notion of friendship, comparing American to Russian
anonymous

Blogging Is Legacy Technology: The Proof - 0 views

andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/...gacy-technology-the-proof.html

shared by anonymous on 14 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • They fall into a few categories.
  • "You're Comparing Apples and Oranges." The blogosphere is intended to be ephemeral, so accept it on its own terms.
  • "So's Your Mother." There's lots of bad stuff in old media, so nyah-nyah.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "You're a Geezer." I don't get it, I'm old fashioned, I don't understand the new media, I don't use the right filter doodads on my thingamajiggy, etc.
  • "Average Quality Doesn't Matter." As long as you and your RSS thingamajiggy can find good stuff in the numerator, it's irrelevant if the denominator gets more and more common.
  • Every time someone who could have done good science does sloppy science, or does worse journalism instead of better journalism, or mediocre writing instead of fine writing, it's a loss. When resources are scarce—and of course human talent is the most scarce and precious resource of all—it matters if blogging is inducing ADD in many of our best writers and thinkers, or driving talent away altogether.
  • anonymous on 14 Jul 11
     
    My doughty, authoritative criticisms (here and here) seem to have just about brought the blogosphere to its knees. Looking over some of the responses, I'd have to say that a lot of people either help make my point or miss it altogether. You can look here, here, here, and here for some of the smarter responses. They fall into a few categories.
anonymous

The Greater Game in Bahrain - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...20110628-greater-game-bahrain

bahrain geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 29 Jun 11 - Cached
  • STRATFOR has also picked up indications that Iran was playing a much more deliberate game — taking care to conserve its resources while counting on the perception of a Wahhabist occupation of Shiite-majority land to exacerbate local grievances and stress the GCC states over time. With the Arab states on edge, Iran’s primary aim is to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq — an area where threats to the Islamic republic have historically originated.
  • Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies are left wondering if the United States will temporarily set aside its broader conflict with Tehran and forge a short-term understanding with the Islamic republic. Such an understanding could expand Iran’s sphere of influence in the region on U.S. terms, leaving Saudi Arabia with a deep sense of betrayal and vulnerability. There are no clear indications that negotiations between the United States and Iran have reached such a juncture, but the Saudis have to reckon with the possibility.
  • This logic is what led STRAFOR today to take a closer look at what was happening behind the scenes
  • anonymous on 29 Jun 11
     
    "According to rumors cited by anonymous Bahraini and Saudi government sources on Tuesday, the 1,000-plus Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) force, deployed to Bahrain in the spring to quell a Shia-led uprising, has begun to withdraw now that the security situation on the island has largely stabilized. STRATFOR sources in the Saudi and Bahraini governments clarified that there will be a reduction of GCC forces, but not a full withdrawal. A Saudi source went on to explain that a permanent base will be built to station a stripped-down Saudi-led force, ready to deploy on short notice, with Saudi reinforcements less than three hours away across the Bahrain-Saudi causeway."
anonymous

Misattribution of Arousal - 3 views

youarenotsosmart.com/...misattribution-of-arousal

criticalthinking yanss emotions

shared by anonymous on 11 Jul 11 - Cached
  • In 1974, psychologists Art Aron and Donald Dutton hired a woman to stand in the middle of this suspension bridge. As men passed her on their way across, she asked them if they would be willing to fill out a questionnaire. At the end of the questions, she asked them to examine an illustration of a lady covering her face and then make up a back story to explain it.
  • The scientists knew the fear in the men’s bellies would be impossible to ignore, and they wanted to know how a brain soaking in anxiety juices would make sense of what just happened.
  • they had their assistant go through the same routine on a wide, sturdy, wooden bridge standing fixed just a few feet off of the ground.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • After running the experiment at both locations, they compared the results and found 50 percent of the men who got them digits on the dangerous suspension bridge picked up a phone and called looking for the lady of the canyon. Of the men questioned on the secure bridge, the percentage who came calling dropped to 12.5. That wasn’t the only significant difference. When they compared the stories the subjects made up about the illustration, they found the men on the scary bridge were almost twice as likely to come up with sexually suggestive narratives.
  • Arousal comes from deep inside the brain, in those primal regions of the autonomic nervous system where ingoing and outgoing signals are monitored and the glass over the big fight-or-flight button waits to be smashed.
  • Misattribution of arousal falls under the self-perception theory.
  • Arousal can fill up the spaces in your brain when you least expect it. It could be a rousing movie trailer or a plea for mercy from a distant person reaching out over YouTube. Like a coterie of prairie dogs standing alert as if living periscopes, your ancestors were built to pay attention when it mattered, but with cognition comes pattern recognition and all the silly ways you misinterpret your inputs.
  • The source of your emotional states is often difficult or impossible to detect. The time to pay attention can pass, or the details become lodged in a place underneath consciousness. In those instances you feel, but you know not why. When you find yourself in this situation you tend to lock onto a target, especially if there is another person who fits with the narrative you are about to spin. It feels good to assume you’ve discovered what is causing you to feel happy, to feel rejected, to feel angry or lovesick. It helps you move forward. Why question it?
  • The research into arousal says you are bad at explaining yourself to yourself, but it sheds light on why so many successful dates include roller-coasters, horror films and conversations over coffee.
  • There is a reason playful wrestling can lead to passionate kissing, why a great friend can turn a heaving cry into a belly laugh. There is a reason why great struggle brings you closer to friends, family and lovers. There is a reason why Rice Krispies commercials show moms teaching children how to make treats in crisp black-and-white while Israel Kamakawiwo’ole sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow. When you want to know why you feel the way you do but are denied the correct answer, you don’t stop searching. You settle on something – the person beside you, the product in front of you, the drug in your brain. You don’t always know the right answer, but when you are flirting over a latte don’t point it out.
  • anonymous on 11 Jul 11
     
    "The Misconception: You always know why you feel the way you feel. The Truth: You can experience emotional states without knowing why, even if you believe you can pinpoint the source."
anonymous

Iraq and Syria Follow Lebanon's Precedent - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...yria-follow-lebanons-precedent

shared by anonymous on 26 Aug 14 - Cached
  • For nearly 100 years, Sykes-Picot defined the region. A strong case can be made that the nation-states Sykes-Picot created are now defunct, and that what is occurring in Syria and Iraq represents the emergence of those post-British/French maps that the United States has been trying to maintain since the collapse of Franco-British power.
  • Sykes-Picot, named for French diplomat Francois Georges-Picot and his British counterpart, Sir Mark Sykes, did two things.
  • First, it created a British-dominated Iraq.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Second, it divided the Ottoman province of Syria on a line from the Mediterranean Sea east through Mount Hermon.
  • The British named the area to the west of the Jordan River after the Ottoman administrative district of Filistina, which turned into Palestine on the English tongue.
  • The British had promised postwar power to both. It gave the victorious Sauds the right to rule Arabia -- hence Saudi Arabia. The other tribe, the Hashemites, had already been given the newly invented Iraqi monarchy and, outside of Arabia
  • And thus, along with Syria, five entities were created between the Mediterranean and Tigris, and between Turkey and the new nation of Saudi Arabia.
  • The most important interest, the oil in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula, was protected from the upheaval in their periphery as Turkey and Persia were undergoing upheaval. This gave the Europeans what they wanted.
  • What it did not do was create a framework that made a great deal of sense of the Arabs living in this region.
  • The Europeans used the concept of the nation-state to express divisions between "us" and "them." To the Arabs, this was an alien framework, which to this day still competes with religious and tribal identities.
  • It was Lebanon that came apart first. Lebanon was a pure invention carved out of Syria. As long as the Christians for whom Paris created Lebanon remained the dominant group, it worked, although the Christians themselves were divided into warring clans.
  • Lebanon's issues were not confined to Lebanon. The line dividing Lebanon from Syria was an arbitrary boundary drawn by the French.
  • From the outside it appeared to be strictly a religious war, but that was an incomplete view. It was a competition among clans for money, security, revenge and power. And religion played a role, but alliances crossed religious lines frequently.
  • The complexity of Lebanon goes far beyond this description, and the external meddling from Israel, Syria, Iran and the United States is even more complicated.
  • The point is that the clans became the reality of Lebanon, and the Lebanese government became irrelevant.
  • But in the end, the state existed at the forbearance of the clans. The map may show a nation, but it is really a country of microscopic clans engaged in a microscopic geopolitical struggle for security and power.
  • A similar process has taken place in Syria. The arbitrary nation-state has become a region of competing clans.
  • Something very similar happened in Iraq. As the Americans departed, the government that was created was dominated by Shia, who were fragmented. To a great degree, the government excluded the Sunnis, who saw themselves in danger of marginalization. The Sunnis consisted of various tribes and clans (some containing Shiites) and politico-religious movements like the Islamic State. They rose up in alliance and have now left Baghdad floundering, the Iraqi army seeking balance and the Kurds scrambling to secure their territory.
  • It is a three-way war, but in some ways it is a three-way war with more than 20 clans involved in temporary alliances.
  • the most likely outcome is what happened in Lebanon: the permanent power of the sub-national groups, with perhaps some agreement later on that creates a state in which power stays with the smaller groups, because that is where loyalty lies.
  • The boundary between Lebanon and Syria was always uncertain. The border between Syria and Iraq is now equally uncertain. But then these borders were never native to the region. The Europeans imposed them for European reasons.
  • Therefore, the idea of maintaining a united Iraq misses the point. There was never a united Iraq -- only the illusion of one created by invented kings and self-appointed dictators. The war does not have to continue, but as in Lebanon, it will take the exhaustion of the clans and factions to negotiate an end.
  • The idea that Shia, Sunnis and Kurds can live together is not a fantasy. The fantasy is that the United States has the power or interest to re-create a Franco-British invention crafted out of the debris of the Ottoman Empire.
  • There are two issues here.
  • The first is how far the disintegration of nation-states will go in the Arab world.
  • But the second issue is what regional powers will do about this process.
  • All of this aside, the point is that it is time to stop thinking about stabilizing Syria and Iraq and start thinking of a new dynamic outside of the artificial states that no longer function.
  • anonymous on 26 Aug 14
     
    "Lebanon was created out of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. This agreement between Britain and France reshaped the collapsed Ottoman Empire south of Turkey into the states we know today -- Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and to some extent the Arabian Peninsula as well. For nearly 100 years, Sykes-Picot defined the region. A strong case can be made that the nation-states Sykes-Picot created are now defunct, and that what is occurring in Syria and Iraq represents the emergence of those post-British/French maps that the United States has been trying to maintain since the collapse of Franco-British power."
anonymous

The Paradox of America's Electoral Reform - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...adox-americas-electoral-reform

shared by anonymous on 10 Mar 15 - Cached
  • This election process matters to the world for two reasons.
  • First, the world's only global power will be increasingly self-absorbed
  • The United States sees itself as the City on the Hill, an example to the world. But along with any redemptive sensibility comes its counterpart: the apocalyptic.
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • Likely an archaic institution, the Electoral College still represents the founders' fear of the passions of the people — both the intensity of some, and the indifference of others.
  • They had two visions: that representatives would make the law, and that these representatives would not have politics as a profession.
  • The founders saw civil society — business, farms, churches and so on — as ultimately more important than the state, and they saw excessive political passion as misplaced.
  • First, it took away from the private pursuits they so valued, and it tended to make political life more important than it should be.
  • Second, they feared that ordinary men (women were excluded) might be elected as representatives at various levels.
  • They tried to shape representative democracy with standards they considered prudent — paralleling the values of their own social class, where private pursuits predominated and public affairs were a burdensome duty.
  • Of course it was the founders who created political parties soon after the founding. The property requirements dissolved fairly quickly, the idea that state houses would elect senators went away, and the ideological passions and love of scandal emerged. 
  • Political parties were organized state by state, and within state by counties and cities. These parties emerged with two roles.
  • The first was to generate and offer potential leaders for election at all levels.
  • The second was to serve as a means of mediation between the public — for multiple classes, from the wealthy to the poor — and the state.
  • The party bosses did not have visions of redemption or apocalypse. They were what the founders didn't want: professional politicians, not necessarily holding office themselves but overseeing the selection of those who would.
  • This was a system made for corruption, of course, and it violated the founders' vision, but it also fulfilled that vision in a way. The party bosses' power resided in building coalitions that they could serve.
  • The system was corrupt, but it produced leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, as well as some less illustrious people.
  • Starting in 1972, following Richard Nixon's presidency, the United States shifted away from a system of political bosses. This was achieved by broadly expanding primaries at all levels. Rather than bosses selecting candidates and controlling them, direct democratic elections were used for candidate selection. Since the bosses didn't select candidates, the candidates were beholden to the voters rather than the bosses. Each election year, the voters would select the candidates and then select the officeholder. Over time, the power of the political machine was broken and replaced by a series of elections. The founders did not want this level of democracy, but neither did they explicitly want the party boss.
  • This change had two unanticipated consequences.
  • The first was that the importance of money in the political process surged.
  • Corruption moved from favors for bosses to special treatment of fundraisers, but it was still there.
  • Reformers tried to limit the amount of money that could be contributed, but they ignored two facts.
  • First, a primary system for the presidency is fiendishly expensive simply because delivering the message to the public in 50 states costs a fortune. Second, given the stakes, the desire to influence government is difficult to curb.
  • The second unintended consequence was that it institutionalized political polarization.
  • The founders designed politics to be less important than private life, and in the competition on Election Tuesday, private life tends to win, particularly in off-year elections and primaries.
  • in the primaries, only two types of candidates win. One is the extremely well funded — and the passion of the wings make funding for them even more important. The other is the ideologically committed.
  • All of this applies equally to elections to the House and Senate. It has been said that there has never been less bipartisanship than there is now. I don't know if that is true, but it is certainly the case that the penalties for collaboration with the other party, or for moving to the center, are extremely high.
  • This is not meant to romanticize the bosses. We are, on the whole, better off without them, and we can't resurrect them. I am trying to explain why our elections have become so long, why they cost so much money, and why the wings of the parties get to define agendas and legislative and executive behavior.
  • Geopolitics, as Stratfor uses the concept, argues that the wishes and idiosyncrasies of individual leaders make little difference in the long run. This is because leaders are constrained by global realities. It is also because internal political processes define what must be done to take and hold power. Those internal political processes have their own origins in impersonal forces.
  • There has been a long struggle between the founders' vision of how politics should work and the reality of the process.
  • The American Republic was invented and it is continually being reinvented on the same basic theme. Each reform creates a new form of corruption and a new challenge for governance. In the end, everyone is trapped by reality, but it is taking longer and longer to enter that trap.
  • The political parties emerged against the founders' intentions, because political organization beyond the elite followed from the logic of the government. The rise of political bosses followed from the system, and simultaneously stabilized and corrupted it. The post-Watergate reforms changed the nature of the corruption but also changed the texture of political life. The latter is the issue with which the United States is now struggling.
  • The problem endemic in American culture is the will to reform. It is both the virtue and vice of the U.S. government. It has geopolitical consequences.
  • anonymous on 10 Mar 15
     
    "We are now in the early phases of selecting the president of the United States. Vast amounts of money are being raised, plans are being laid, opposition research is underway and the first significant scandal has broken with the discovery that Hillary Clinton used a non-government email account for government business. Ahead of us is an extended series of primaries, followed by an election and perhaps a dispute over some aspect of the election. In the United States, the presidential election process takes about two years, particularly when the sitting president cannot run for re-election."
anonymous

Why Moldova Urgently Matters - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...why-moldova-urgently-matters

shared by anonymous on 10 Jul 14 - Cached
  • The president ran his finger over a map showing how Romania's neighbors such as Bulgaria and Hungary were almost completely dependent on Russian natural gas, while Romania -- because of its own hydrocarbon reserves -- still has a significant measure of independence. In the 21st century, the president explained, Gazprom is more dangerous than the Russian army.
  • The national security adviser then added: "Putin is not an apparatchik; he is a former intelligence officer," implying that Putin will act subtly. Putin's Russia will not fight conventionally for territory in the former satellite states, but unconventionally for hearts and minds, Fota went on. "Putin knows that the flaw of the Soviet Union was that it did not have soft power."
  • Thus, Moscow's strategy is about taking over countries from within. In this battle, it is precisely during the quiet periods, when an issue like Ukraine drifts off the front pages because of the Middle East, for example, that we should be worried.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • With this in mind I traveled to Iasi on Romania's northeastern frontier with Moldova. There I met Iasi's county council president, Cristian Mihai Adomnitei
  • "In his heart, he is a Bolshevik. He knows that you can conquer vast territories without big armies."
  • From Iasi I crossed the Prut River into Moldova -- historic Bessarabia, a territory that has been traded back and forth through the centuries between Romania and Russia but that, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has been independent.
  • Witness Balti, a city in northern Moldova, heralded by Soviet-era apartment buildings that resemble yellowing teeth. Here I met a local politician, Cecilia Graur, who told me that, "everyone is afraid. The situation in eastern Ukraine could happen here. We all know this because of our own divisions," political, ethnic and linguistic. "People talk about it all the time."
  • Comrat, in southern Moldova, is home to the Christian Orthodox and Russian-speaking Turkic Gagauz -- a potential fifth column that Putin could use to undermine Moldova. Vitaliy Kyurkchu, a local Gagauz politician, told me that with 160,000 Gagauz in Moldova and 40,000 over the border in Ukraine, "we have ongoing kitchen discussions -- discussions mainly among ourselves, I mean -- about the creation of a Greater Gagauzia" should Moldova and Ukraine weaken or ever collapse.
  • This was dangerous irredentism, of course. The Gagauz themselves are uncertain about their origins. Local identity is so complex that Georgetown's Charles King, among the leading experts in the field, calls nationality in Moldova a "decidedly negotiable proposition."
  • Then there is Transdniestria, a sliver of territory east of the Dniester River that is officially part of Moldova but that, with its heavily ethnic Russian population, seceded from Moldova after a brief war in the early 1990s. Transdniestria is now packed with Russian troops to act as a hammer against Moldova should the latter ever want to pivot toward the West. Transdniestria is the kind of legally murky, ill-defined smugglers' paradise that Putin wants to see multiply in eastern Ukraine.
  • For weeks I traveled around Moldova. Indeed, the common theme everywhere was that Russia is a reality while the West is only a geopolitical concept.
  • I am not here providing a fully fleshed-out policy toward Moldova or the other states facing Russia. I am saying only that there are incalculable human costs to Western inaction. And Western action must mean a whole-of-government approach -- political, intelligence, economics and so forth -- in order to counter what the Russians are doing.
  • anonymous on 10 Jul 14
     
    ""NATO's Article 5 offers little protection against Vladimir Putin's Russia," Iulian Fota, Romania's presidential national security adviser, told me on a recent visit to Bucharest. "Article 5 protects Romania and other Eastern European countries against a military invasion. But it does not protect them against subversion," that is, intelligence activities, the running of criminal networks, the buying-up of banks and other strategic assets, and indirect control of media organs to undermine public opinion. Moreover, Article 5 does not protect Eastern Europe against reliance on Russian energy. As Romanian President Traian Basescu told me, Romania is a somewhat energy-rich island surrounded by a Gazprom empire."
anonymous

The Military Reality of Israel's Operation in Gaza Sets In - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ty-israels-operation-gaza-sets

shared by anonymous on 17 Jul 14 - Cached
  • Palestinian militants have launched more than 1,200 rockets, but their limited range and accuracy combined with Israeli defensive capabilities have led to only one civilian death, less than 100 further casualties and disruptions to daily life over the past week.
  • Conversely, Israel Defense Forces have struck more than 1,500 targets in Gaza, inflicting much heavier destruction on the militants.
  • On the surface, the exchange of fire might seem balanced, but conflicts are measured by more than aggregate numbers of casualties and explosions.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Much of this cyclical nature is because both sides are operating under serious limitations, preventing either from gaining "victory" or some form of permanent resolution.
  • For Israel there are two main limitations. The first is the intelligence gaps created by monitoring from the outside and having no permanent presence on the ground.
  • This leads to the second constraint, which is the cost associated with overcoming this gap by doing a serious and comprehensive clearing of the entire strip.
  • But the longer the conflict lasts, the more complications the militants in Gaza face as they see their threat of force erode with time.
  • So militants seem to be in a position to maintain their tool, but that tool is becoming less effective and imposing fewer costs. This raises the question of what new tactic or capability the militants will adopt next to exert new costs on Israel.
  • anonymous on 17 Jul 14
     
    "Hamas and affiliate militant factions out of the Gaza Strip are so far rejecting an Egyptian-proposed cease-fire, having launched far more than 100 rockets since the cease-fire proposal. In exposing Israel's inability to stem the rocket flow, Hamas is trying to claim a symbolic victory over Israel. Hamas' spin aside, the military reality paints a very different picture."
« First ‹ Previous 541 - 551 of 551
Showing 20▼ items per page