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Afghanistan: Why the Taliban are Winning - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...nistan_why_taliban_are_winning geopolitics afghanistan
shared by anonymous on 01 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Almost 150,000 U.S. and allied troops are now in Afghanistan, some 30,000 more than the number of Soviet troops at the height of their occupation in the 1980s. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is now at the pinnacle of its strength, which is expected to start declining, one way or another, by the latter half of 2011, a trend that will have little prospect of reversing itself. Though history will undoubtedly speak of missed or squandered opportunities in the early years of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, this is now the decisive moment in the campaign.
  • In his analysis, McChrystal made two key assertions: The strategy then being implemented would not succeed, even with more troops. A new counterinsurgency-focused strategy just proposed would not succeed without more troops.
  • When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Washington had originally intended to install a stable, pro-American government in Baghdad in order to fundamentally reshape the region. Instead, after the U.S. invasion destroyed the existing Iraqi-Iranian balance of power, Washington found itself on the defensive, struggling to prevent the opposite outcome — a pro-Iranian regime.
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  • But the foreign jihadists ultimately overplayed their hand with Iraq’s Sunnis, a decisive factor in their demise. Their attempts to impose a harsh and draconian form of Islamism and the slaying of traditional Sunni tribal leaders cut against the grain of Iraqi cultural and societal norms. In response, beginning well-before the surge of 2007, Sunni Awakening Councils and militias under the Sons of Iraq program were formed to defend against and drive out the foreign jihadists.
  • At the heart of this shift was Sunni self-interest.
  • the strategy relied heavily on capitalizing on a shift already taking place: the realignment of the Sunnis, who not only fed the U.S. actionable intelligence on the foreign jihadists but also became actively engaged in the campaign against them.
  • In Afghanistan, the problem is the opposite. The initial American objective in Afghanistan was to disrupt and destroy al Qaeda, and while certain key individuals remain at large, the apex leadership of what was once al Qaeda has been eviscerated and no longer presents a strategic threat. This physical threat now comes more from al Qaeda “franchises” like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
  • Most of what remains of the original al Qaeda prime that the United States set out to destroy in 2001 now resides in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
  • Despite — or perhaps because of — the remarkably heterogeneous demography of Afghanistan, there is no sectarian card to play. Nor is there a regional rival, as there is in Iraq with Iran, that U.S. grand strategy dictates must be prevented from dominating the country.
  • Faced with a superior force, they declined combat and refused to fight on American terms, only to resurge after American attention shifted to Iraq.) But it is not the Afghan Taliban per se that the United States is opposed to, it is their support for transnational Islamist jihadists — something to which the movement does not necessarily have a deep-seated, non-negotiable commitment.
  • And as a light-infantry force both appropriate for and intimately familiar with the rugged Afghan countryside, the Taliban enjoy superior knowledge of the terrain and people as well as superior intelligence (including intelligence from compromised elements of the Afghan security forces). The Taliban are particularly well-suited for waging a protracted insurgency and they perceive themselves as winning this one — which they are.
  • The Taliban are winning in Afghanistan because they are not losing.
  • The United States is losing because it is not winning. This is the reality of waging a counterinsurgency.
  • First, the core strengths of the Taliban as a guerrilla force are undisputed, and the United States and its allies are unwilling to dedicate the resources and effort necessary to fully defeat it.
  • In reality (if not officially), the end objective now appears to be political accommodation with the Afghan Taliban and their integration into the regime in Kabul.
  • there is no Afghan analogy to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq
  • The underlying point here is that the United States does not intend to defeat the Taliban; it seeks merely to draw them into serious negotiations.
  • The application of military power, as Clausewitz taught, must be both commensurate with the nation’s political objectives and targeted at the enemy’s will to resist.
  • Political accommodation can be the result of both fear and opportunity. Force of arms is meant to provide the former. And the heart of the problem for the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan is that the counterinsurgency strategy does not target the Taliban directly and relentlessly to create a sense of immediate, visceral and overwhelming threat. By failing to do so, the military means remain not only out of sync with the political objectives but also, given the resources and time the United States is willing to dedicate to Afghanistan, fundamentally incompatible. As an insurgent force, the Taliban is elusive, agile and able to seamlessly maneuver within the indigenous population even if only a portion of the population actively supports it. The Taliban is a formidable enemy. As such, they are making the political outcome appear unachievable by force of arms — or at least the force of arms that political realities and geopolitical constraints dictate.
  • anonymous on 01 Sep 10
     
    "With additional troops committed and a new strategy in place, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is making its last big push to win the war in Afghanistan. But domestic politics in ISAF troop-contributing nations are limiting the sustainability of these deployments while the Taliban maintain the upper hand. It is not at all clear that incompatibilities between political climates in ISAF countries and military imperatives in Afghanistan can ever be overcome. And nothing the coalition has achieved thus far seems to have resonated with the Taliban as a threat so dangerous and pressing it cannot be waited out." At StratFor on September 1, 2010.
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6 Powerful Characteristics of Great Critical Thinkers - 0 views

critical-thinkers.com/...ics-of-great-critical-thinkers criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 02 Sep 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 02 Sep 10
     
    "I believe there are 6 characteristics needed to be a great critical thinker. Sure there may be more but together these are powerful. Do you have them?" By Lizzie Pauker at Critical Thinkers on September 2, 2010.
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Militancy and the U.S. Drawdown in Afghanistan - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...itancy_us_drawdown_afghanistan geopolitics war afghanistan
shared by anonymous on 02 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Indeed, with the United States having set a deadline of July 2011 to begin the drawdown of combat forces in Afghanistan — and with many of its NATO allies withdrawing sooner — the Taliban can sense that the end is near. As they wait expectantly for the departure of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, a look at the history of militancy in Afghanistan provides a bit of a preview of what could follow the U.S. withdrawal.
  • First, it is very important to understand that militant activity in Afghanistan is nothing new. It has existed there for centuries, driven by a number of factors.
  • One of the primary factors is the country’s geography.
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  • A second, closely related factor is culture. Many of the tribes in Afghanistan have traditionally been warrior societies that live in the mountains, disconnected from Kabul because of geography
  • A third factor is ethnicity. There is no real Afghan national identity.
  • Finally, there is religion. While Afghanistan is a predominantly Muslim country, there is a significant Shiite minority as well as a large Sufi presence in the country.
  • Any of these forces on its own would pose challenges to peace, stability and centralized governance, but together they pose a daunting problem and result in near-constant strife in Afghanistan.
  • Militant activity in Afghanistan is, therefore, not just the result of an outside invasion. Rather, it has been a near constant throughout the history of the region, and it will likely continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
  • Foreign Influence
  • The United States does not want the country to revert to being a refuge for al Qaeda and other transnational jihadist groups.
  • Russia does not want the Taliban to return to power.
  • Facing enemies on its borders with India and Iran, Pakistan must control Afghanistan in order to have strategic depth and ensure that it will not be forced to defend itself along its northwest as well.
  • This is exactly why India wants to play a big part in Afghanistan — to deny Pakistan that strategic depth.
  • Iran also has an interest in the future of Afghanistan and has worked to cultivate certain factions of the Taliban by providing them with shelter, weapons and training.
  • It may seem counterintuitive, but following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the casualties from militancy in the country declined considerably.
  • Although Mullah Omar is the dominant force and is without peer among Afghan insurgent leaders, there are a number of local and regional militant commanders who are fighting against the U.S. occupation beside the Taliban and who have post-U.S. occupation interests that diverge from those of the Taliban.
  • With the sheer size of the Taliban and its many factions, and the fact that many factions are receiving shelter and support from patrons in Pakistan and Iran, it is simply not possible for the U.S. military to completely destroy them before the Americans begin to withdraw next summer. This will result in a tremendous amount of pressure on the Americans to find a political solution to the problem. At this time, the Taliban simply don’t feel pressured to come to the negotiating table — especially with the U.S. drawdown in sight.
  • anonymous on 02 Sep 10
     
    "The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq has served to shift attention toward Afghanistan, where the United States has been increasing its troop strength in hopes of forming conditions conducive to a political settlement." By Scott Stewart at StratFor on September 2, 2010.
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Expectations and Reality in Afghanistan - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ations_and_reality_afghanistan Afghanistan geopolitics media
shared by anonymous on 08 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Most Afghans who live beyond the few urban enclaves in the country do not rely on these institutions in their day-to-day business. In other words, Afghanistan’s financial world has nowhere near as far to fall as the West’s, so even its utter collapse — not just a crisis of confidence in one bank — would not have the same geopolitical magnitude.
  • This is not to suggest that Western efforts in Afghanistan do not depend on aid and development. But after nearly nine years and tens of billions of dollars of Western aid, Afghanistan has not shown progress in terms of becoming a functional economy and the primordial goal of security has become increasing elusive.
  • Such views are based on an utter disregard for the simple reality that Afghanistan, which has not existed as a nation — let alone a state — for more than three decades, does not operate by the same rules as do most other countries.
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  • The United States appears to be coming to terms with the reality that graft is a way of life in Afghanistan and needs to be tolerated to the degree that allows Washington to work with local leaders (who are unlikely to be clean) in attempting to undermine the momentum of the Taliban insurgency.
  • anonymous on 08 Sep 10
     
    "That Afghanistan's largest private bank is in trouble is not as significant as the Western media coverage of the issue. The Western press is depicting it as a major crisis, with some saying it is a larger problem than the rapidly intensifying Taliban insurgency. This view does not take into account that modern financial institutions in a country like Afghanistan cannot be treated as they are in other countries and the West." At StratFor on September 8, 2010.
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9/11 and the 9-Year War - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...20100907_911_and_9_year_war geopolitics stratfor 9_11
shared by anonymous on 08 Sep 10 - Cached
  • It has now been nine years since al Qaeda attacked the United States. It has been nine years in which the primary focus of the United States has been on the Islamic world.
  • Any American not frightened on Sept. 12 was not in touch with reality. Many who are now claiming that the United States overreacted are forgetting their own sense of panic. We are all calm and collected nine years after.
  • At the root of all of this was a profound lack of understanding of al Qaeda, particularly its capabilities and intentions. Since we did not know what was possible, our only prudent course was to prepare for the worst. That is what the Bush administration did.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 08 Sep 10
       
      This is another example of the American tradition of underestimating your opponents and then suddenly overestimating them once caught off guard.
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  • Al Qaeda learned from Soviet, Saudi, Pakistani and American intelligence during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and knew how to launch attacks without tipping off the target. The greatest failure of American intelligence was not the lack of a clear warning about 9/11 but the lack, on Sept. 12, of a clear picture of al Qaeda’s global structure, capabilities, weaknesses and intentions.
  • American policy became ready, fire, aim.
  • In looking back at the past nine years, two conclusions can be drawn: There were no more large-scale attacks on the United States by militant Islamists, and the United States was left with the legacy of responses that took place in the first two years after 9/11.
  • Even in hindsight, aligning U.S. actions with the apparent outcome is difficult and controversial. But still we know two things: It has been nine years since Sept. 11, 2001, and the war goes on.
  • an act of terrorism was allowed to redefine U.S. grand strategy.
  • the United States proceeded with a strategy whose goal, like that of the United Kingdom, was to nip potential regional hegemons in the bud. The U.S. war with Iraq in 1990-91 and the war with Serbia/Yugoslavia in 1999 were examples of this strategy.
  • The most significant effect of 9/11 was that it knocked the United States off its strategy. Rather than adapting its standing global strategy to better address the counterterrorism issue, the United States became obsessed with a single region, the area between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush.
  • as a long-term U.S. strategy — the long war that the U.S. Department of Defense is preparing for — it leaves the rest of the world uncovered.
  • The single most important result of 9/11 was that it shifted the United States from a global stance to a regional one, allowing other powers to take advantage of this focus to create significant potential challenges to the United States.
  • The fact that Afghanistan was the base from which the attacks were launched does not mean that al Qaeda depends on Afghanistan to launch attacks.
  • But let me state a more radical thesis: The threat of terrorism cannot become the singular focus of the United States. Let me push it further: The United States cannot subordinate its grand strategy to simply fighting terrorism even if there will be occasional terrorist attacks on the United States. Three thousand people died in the 9/11 attack. That is a tragedy, but in a nation of over 300 million, 3,000 deaths cannot be permitted to define the totality of national strategy.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 08 Sep 10
       
      Play the numbers again and you find that far more Americans died that year of far more mundane reasons. But this is never considered as one factor among many when tempers are flaring.
  • The issue there is not whether the United States can or can’t win, however that is defined. The issue is whether it is worth the effort considering what is going on in the rest of the world.
  • anonymous on 08 Sep 10
     
    "In order to understand the last nine years you must understand the first 24 hours of the war - and recall your own feelings in those 24 hours. First, the attack was a shock, its audaciousness frightening. Second, we did not know what was coming next. The attack had destroyed the right to complacent assumptions. Were there other cells standing by in the United States? Did they have capabilities even more substantial than what they showed on Sept. 11? Could they be detected and stopped? Any American not frightened on Sept. 12 was not in touch with reality. Many who are now claiming that the United States overreacted are forgetting their own sense of panic. We are all calm and collected nine years after." By George Friedman at StratFor on September 8, 2010.
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Better ways to engineer Earth's climate to prevent dangerous global warming - 0 views

www.labspaces.net/...event_dangerous_global_warming
shared by anonymous on 08 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Keith, a global leader in investigating this topic, says that geoengineering, or engineering the climate on a global scale, is an imperfect science. "It cannot offset the risks that come from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we don't halt man-made CO2 emissions, no amount of climate engineering can eliminate the problems – massive emissions reductions are still necessary."
  • Keith suggests two novel geoengineering approaches–'levitating' engineered nano-particles, and the airborne release of sulphuric acid
  • In his study–published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a top-ranked international science journal–Keith describes a new class of engineered nano-particles that might be used to offset global warming more efficiently, and with fewer negative side effects, than using sulphates.
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  • Keith stresses that whether geoengineering technology is ever used, it shouldn't be seen as a reason not to reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions now accumulating in the atmosphere. "Seat belts reduce the risk of being injured in accidents. But having a seat belt doesn't mean you should drive drunk at 100 miles an hour," he says.
  • anonymous on 08 Sep 10
     
    "There may be better ways to engineer the planet's climate to prevent dangerous global warming than mimicking volcanoes, a University of Calgary climate scientist says in two new studies." At Lab Spaces on September 7, 2010.
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Is organic farming good for wildlife? It depends on the alternative - 0 views

www.labspaces.net/..._It_depends_on_the_alternative sustainability nutrition layscience
shared by anonymous on 08 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Even though organic methods may increase farm biodiversity, a combination of conventional farming and protected areas could sometimes be a better way to maintain food production and protect wildlife.
  • The study is the first to seek to establish the trade-off between the most efficient use of farmland and the most effective way to conserve wildlife in our countryside and has important implications for how agricultural land in the UK should be managed
  • Lead author, Dr Jenny Hodgson, of the Department of Biology at York, said: "This research raises questions about how agri-environment schemes and incentives could be improved. There could be much more scope for restoring and maintaining permanent, high-quality wildlife habitat. This might involve neighbouring farmers clubbing together to achieve a larger area of restored habitat, or setting up a partnership with a conservation organisation."
  • anonymous on 08 Sep 10
     
    "Even though organic methods may increase farm biodiversity, a combination of conventional farming and protected areas could sometimes be a better way to maintain food production and protect wildlife." At Lab Spaces on September 7, 2010.
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Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 8 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...tivism-metaphysics-part-8.html criticalthinking objectivism
shared by anonymous on 08 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Rand’s axioms: Consciousness and the discovery of other minds
  • Even if I were to wave my previous objections to Rand's "axiomatic knowledge" and her foundationalist pretensions, I still don't see how Rand can justify the belief that other people's consciousness is axiomatic. Even if it were so for each individual, this knowledge would remain exclusively personal.
  • Each individual might regard his own consciousness as "axiomatic," but he could only accept the consciousness of others on purely non-foundationalist grounds. Such knowledge remains conjectural, even on Objectivist premises.
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  • The testimony of others is like memory: although often reliable, it can hardly be regarded as infallible or as the foundation of "self-evidence."
  • Contrary to Rand's ex cathedra assertions, the mind is not a blank slate.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 08 Sep 10
       
      Thank you. Rand's acceptance of the blank slate is unfathomable given her surface-level worship of science.
  • anonymous on 08 Sep 10
     
    "By saying "one exists possessing consciousness," she is making the tacit assumption that everyone exists possessing conscious. But how does she know (in the axiomatic sense of the term) that other people are conscious?" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on September 3, 2010.
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U.S.-Chinese Thaw Before Midterm Elections? - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0908_us_chinese_thaw_elections geopolitics china
shared by anonymous on 09 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Heightened activity of the world’s most powerful navy along China’s maritime periphery struck a nerve, since China has fallen victim to several invasions from powerful foreign navies over the past two centuries. Beijing, for its part, staged several military exercises in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and protested loudly against Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in pursuing a strategy of containment against China. Washington frequently pointed out that if Beijing had not severed military communications, the two sides would have a better understanding of each other’s activities and intentions.
  • Heightened activity of the world’s most powerful navy along China’s maritime periphery struck a nerve, since China has fallen victim to several invasions from powerful foreign navies over the past two centuries. Beijing, for its part, staged several military exercises in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and protested loudly against Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in pursuing a strategy of containment against China. Washington frequently pointed out that if Beijing had not severed military communications, the two sides would have a better understanding of each other’s activities and intentions.
  • Heightened activity of the world’s most powerful navy along China’s maritime periphery struck a nerve, since China has fallen victim to several invasions from powerful foreign navies over the past two centuries. Beijing, for its part, staged several military exercises in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and protested loudly against Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in pursuing a strategy of containment against China. Washington frequently pointed out that if Beijing had not severed military communications, the two sides would have a better understanding of each other’s activities and intentions.
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  • Heightened activity of the world’s most powerful navy along China’s maritime periphery struck a nerve, since China has fallen victim to several invasions from powerful foreign navies over the past two centuries. Beijing, for its part, staged several military exercises in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and protested loudly against Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in pursuing a strategy of containment against China. Washington frequently pointed out that if Beijing had not severed military communications, the two sides would have a better understanding of each other’s activities and intentions.
  • Now, however, both sides have taken steps to reduce these tensions.
  • It seems both the United States and China, which are economically intertwined, would prefer not to upset relations at a time of deepening global economic uncertainty.
  • With midterm elections in November and a number of incumbents’ seats endangered by angry voters, the chorus against China’s trade policies is rising, as is the political risk of not taking action. Beijing may therefore soften its stance and seek ways to allay and deflect U.S. pressure.
  • anonymous on 09 Sep 10
     
    "The thaw in Sino-American relations comes after a summer that saw a significant ramp up in tensions. Following the South Korean conclusion in late May that North Korea sank the ChonAn, one of its naval corvettes, the United States and South Korea launched a series of military exercises to demonstrate the strength of their alliance." At StratFor on September 9, 2010.
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Gauging the Threat of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ectromagnetic_pulse_emp_attack geopolitics
shared by anonymous on 09 Sep 10 - Cached
  • as with any issue involving massive amounts of money, the debate over guarding against EMP has become quite politicized in recent years.
  • It has long been proven that EMP can disable electronics. Its ability to do so has been demonstrated by solar storms, lightning strikes and atmospheric nuclear explosions before the ban on such tests.
  • High-altitude nuclear testing effectively ended before the parameters and effects of HEMP were well understood. The limited body of knowledge that was gained from these tests remains a highly classified matter in both the United States and Russia. Consequently, it is difficult to speak intelligently about EMP or publicly debate the precise nature of its effects in the open-source arena.
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  • In order to have the best chance of causing the type of immediate and certain EMP damage to the United States on a continent-wide scale, as discussed in many media reports, a nuclear weapon (probably in the megaton range) would need to be detonated well above 30 kilometers somewhere over the American Midwest.
  • Despite some theorizing that a HEMP attack might be somehow less destructive and therefore less likely to provoke a devastating retaliatory response, such an attack against the United States would inherently and necessarily represent a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland and the idea that the United States would not respond in kind is absurd. The United States continues to maintain the most credible and survivable nuclear deterrent in the world, and any actor contemplating a HEMP attack would have to assume not that they might experience some limited reprisal but that the U.S. reprisal would be full, swift and devastating.
  • In other words, for the countries capable of carrying out a HEMP attack, the principles of nuclear deterrence and the threat of a full-scale retaliatory strike continue to hold and govern, just as they did during the most tension-filled days of the Cold War.
  • It is unlikely that a terrorist group like al Qaeda or Hezbollah can develop its own nuclear weapons program. It is also highly unlikely that a nation that has devoted significant effort and treasure to develop a nuclear weapon would entrust such a weapon to an outside organization.
  • There are considerable technical barriers that separate a crude nuclear device from a sophisticated nuclear warhead. The engineering expertise required to construct such a warhead is far greater than that required to construct a crude device.
  • Make no mistake: EMP is real. Modern civilization depends heavily on electronics and the electrical grid for a wide range of vital functions, and this is truer in the United States than in most other countries. Because of this, a HEMP attack or a substantial geomagnetic storm could have a dramatic impact on modern life in the affected area. However, as we’ve discussed, the EMP threat has been around for more than half a century and there are a number of technical and practical variables that make a HEMP attack using a nuclear warhead highly unlikely.
  • Hardening national infrastructure against EMP and HPM is undoubtedly important, and there are very real weaknesses and critical vulnerabilities in America’s critical infrastructure — not to mention civil society. But each dollar spent on these efforts must be balanced against a dollar not spent on, for example, port security, which we believe is a far more likely and far more consequential vector for nuclear attack by a rogue state or non-state actor.
  • anonymous on 09 Sep 10
     
    "Over the past decade there has been an ongoing debate over the threat posed by electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to modern civilization. This debate has been the most heated perhaps in the United States, where the commission appointed by Congress to assess the threat to the United States warned of the dangers posed by EMP in reports released in 2004 and 2008. The commission also called for a national commitment to address the EMP threat by hardening the national infrastructure." By Scott Stewart and Nate Hughes at StratFor on September 9, 2010.
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Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 9 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...tivism-metaphysics-part-9.html criticalthinking
shared by anonymous on 09 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Rand’s axioms: Identity.
  • The phrase A is A and A thing is itself do not necessarily use the term is in the same sense.
  • In noting that a A is A, you are merely noting an obvious identity of an essence or a sense-datum with itself.
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  • When one asserts a thing is itself, one is not asserting pure identity; on the contrary, one is both asserting the existence of the thing and predicating its attributes. These are very different matters from asserting the identity of a term of thought with itself.
  • Now it is my contention that Rand and her disciples confuse identity with predication and existence (in other words, Rand confuses A is A with A is B and A is). Consider the following statement, from Galt's speech:
  • when Rand berates her ideological opponents for evading "the fact that A is A," she means something different from what is encaspulated in her axiom of identity. Her opponents, even when wrong, are not guilty of evading A is A. Who denies that a term of thought is equal to itself? If her opponents have evaded any facts of reality, they are guilty of two possible errors: (1) of denying the existence of something that really exists; or (2) denying that some existent has a specific property. In other words, they are guilty of evading, not identity, but either existence or predication (i.e., they are guilty of evading A is or A is B).
  • This rationalistic quest to be "fully integrated" from first premises all the way up to choice of chewing gum is not only impossible, it also gives Objectivism its authoritarian turn. In Objectivism, every day is Judgement Day.
  • I've seen objectivists tie themselves in knots over things they've said, fearing that they've outed themselves as non-Objectivist (qua non-human) charlatans.
  • anonymous on 09 Sep 10
     
    "Identity is the most equivocal of Rand's axioms. The equivocation centers around the word is." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on September 9, 2010.
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America May Have Overreacted to September 11 … but Americans Didn't - 0 views

www.tnr.com/...nt-overreact-to-september-11th geopolitics reflections
shared by anonymous on 11 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Predictably, but unwisely, Democrats and Republicans demanded ludicrous amounts of funding for security and intelligence institutions whose functions they barely understood, and to counter a threat that had no resemblance to any the United States had confronted before.
  • Predictably, but unwisely, Democrats and Republicans demanded ludicrous amounts of funding for security and intelligence institutions whose functions they barely understood, and to counter a threat that had no resemblance to any the United States had confronted before.
  • Predictably, but unwisely, Democrats and Republicans demanded ludicrous amounts of funding for security and intelligence institutions whose functions they barely understood, and to counter a threat that had no resemblance to any the United States had confronted before.
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  • Whatever the subject, “smaller-is-better” arguments seldom win the day in Washington.
  • Now for the good news: I just peeked outside and we are emphatically not becoming a police state.
  • The conclusion: Contrary to received wisdom, Americans have been, if anything, more tentative and cautious in their approach to the jihadist threat than many of our European allies, who routinely use surveillance, administrative detention, and prosecutorial methods much more intrusive than those employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, our primary counterterrorist organization on the home front.
  • anonymous on 11 Sep 10
     
    Did America overreact to September 11? In a recent column in Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria answered that with an emphatic and mournful "yes." In Mr. Zakaria's telling, we've squandered billions of dollars heedlessly feeding our national security bureaucracies, which hardly provide us, as the French nicely put it, a very good rapport qualité-prix. Worse, we've created an intrusive, abrasive, civil-rights-mauling security and intelligence apparatus that "now touches every aspect of American-life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism." By Reuel Marc Gerecht at The New Republic on September 11, 2010.
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What America Has Lost - 0 views

www.newsweek.com/...overreacted-to-9-11.print.html news media terrorism
shared by anonymous on 11 Sep 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 11 Sep 10
     
    "Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden's terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself. Today, Al Qaeda's best hope is to find a troubled young man who has been radicalized over the Internet, and teach him to stuff his underwear with explosives." By Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek on September 4, 2010.
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China, Russia and the World Beyond Afghanistan - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...a_and_world_beyond_afghanistan geopolitics russia china
shared by anonymous on 14 Sep 10 - Cached
  • What is of interest is what is not being discussed in the Situation Room. By this, we do not mean Iraq — or even Iran. We mean the countries that will define American foreign policy for the next decade (or decades): Russia and China. These two heavyweights have interests most at odds with those of the United States and the power to do something about it.
  • The lack of meaningful competitors, in other words, allowed a relatively weak entity to take center stage.
  • Moscow is in the process of consolidating its influence all across its periphery from Eastern Europe to the Caucasus to South Central Asia. It is driven by an awareness of a looming demographic crisis that will force it to turn inward in the years ahead to sustain itself, meaning that the way it settles matters along its periphery and the strength of those arrangements will define Russian security far beyond the immediate future.
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  • China, meanwhile, is crafting an ever more powerful and robust anti-access and area denial capability to slow the approach of American naval power toward its shores. China, too, is driven by a need to achieve what it can in foreign policy while the United States is looking in another direction as China also works to contain and manage powerful internal tensions and cross currents that span the political spectrum from fiscal to cultural.
  • Ultimately, the strength and breadth of American national power that Washington has at its disposal is immense. But the potential adversaries that the United States will find itself faced with in Eurasia when it does finally break free of that focus will present far more daunting challenges than they did a decade ago.
  • anonymous on 14 Sep 10
     
    "What is of interest is what is not being discussed in the Situation Room. By this, we do not mean Iraq - or even Iran. We mean the countries that will define American foreign policy for the next decade (or decades): Russia and China. These two heavyweights have interests most at odds with those of the United States and the power to do something about it." At StratFor on September 14, 2010.
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Elections and Obama's Foreign Policy Choices - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/..._obamas_foreign_policy_choices geopolitics politics
shared by anonymous on 14 Sep 10 - Cached
  • While we normally do not concern ourselves with domestic political affairs in the United States, when the only global power is undergoing substantial political uncertainty, that inevitably affects its behavior and therefore the dynamics of the international system.
  • three things
  • First, while Obama won a major victory in the Electoral College, he did not come anywhere near a landslide in the popular vote.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Second, he entered the presidency off balance.
  • Third, while in office, Obama tilted his focus away from the foreign affairs plank he ran on to one of domestic politics. In doing so, he shifted from the area where the president is institutionally strong to the place where the president is institutionally weak.
  • This is not because of the prospect of midterm reversals — that has happened any number of times. It is because Obama, like Bush, was off balance from the beginning.
  • This would indicate that Obama’s best strategy is to go into opposition, government against Congress. But there are two problems with this.
  • One of the underlying themes of the Obama presidency is that he is ineffective in getting his economic agenda implemented. That’s not really true, given the successes he has had with health-care reform and banking regulation, but it is still a theme. The other problem he has is the sense that he has surged in Afghanistan while setting a deadline for withdrawal and that his Afghan policy is merely a political gesture.
  • We come back to foreign policy as a place where Obama will have to focus whether he likes it or not. He takes his bearings from Franklin Roosevelt, and the fact is that Roosevelt had two presidencies. One was entirely about domestic politics and the other about foreign policy, or the Depression and then World War II
  • Obama will come out of the November election having to turn over his cards on the only area where he can have traction — Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. The question is what he might do.
  • a strike against Iranian nuclear targets alone would be the riskiest.
  • In 1971, Richard Nixon reached out to China while Chinese weapons were being used to kill American soldiers in Vietnam. Roosevelt did the same with the Soviets in 1941. There is a tradition in the United States of a diplomatic stroke with ideological enemies to achieve strategic ends.
  • The Republicans would be appalled, but Obama can’t win them over anyway so it doesn’t matter. Indeed, he can use their hostility to strengthen his own base.
  • I wouldn’t be so bold as to predict his actions, but I would argue that he faces some unappetizing choices that he could solve with a very bold move in foreign policy. His options on the domestic side will disappear if the polls are right.
  • anonymous on 14 Sep 10
     
    "We are now nine weeks away from the midterm elections in the United States. Much can happen in nine weeks, but if the current polls are to be believed, U.S. President Barack Obama is about to suffer a substantial political reversal." By George Friedman at StratFor on September 14, 2010.
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War and the American Republic - 0 views

www.3quarksdaily.com/...and-the-american-republic.html war geopolitics america ideas
shared by anonymous on 14 Sep 10 - Cached
  • I offer three reasons that I believe, taken together, provide an answer: (a) The demographics of the American military (b) Historical inexperience of war and the world, and (c) The impetus from corporate capitalism.
  • The Demographics of the American Military 
  • The composition of most militaries today, including the U.S., suggests that this is indeed the case. The economic and political elites tend not to serve in the military, but very much dictate its priorities. They increasingly have no skin in the game, and a diminishing sense of its human cost.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Thucydides clearly cautioned against such trends: ‘The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.’
  • Historical Inexperience of War and the World
  • The last real war on the U.S. mainland was the Civil War, 150 years ago. Not since then has the U.S. experienced war at home.
  • Europeans are also shrewder than Americans about non-Western societies—a byproduct of Europe’s geography, colonial empires, and in some ways, their salad-bowl model of immigration
  • and of this Kantian insight: ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.’ Keener than the Americans that is, whose relative naivete, insularity, and evangelical instincts (religious, political, and economic) only make them more vulnerable to demagogues who cry wolf about threats from foreign cultures.
  • The Impetus from Corporate Capitalism
  • Not usually through boardroom conspiracies, which surely happen, but by staying true to its dominant class character, like an animal who cannot help being any other way, whose one authentic instinct is to sustain and engorge itself. To that end, it uses every tool at its disposal.
  • One such tool is the news media, which has changed drastically in recent decades.
  • It tends to employ company men and women who uphold their bosses’ values and viewpoints—not from coercion but consent, in exchange for some of the spoils.
  • War often boosts the economy (especially via the military-industrial complex) and is usually good for the media.
  • anonymous on 14 Sep 10
     
    "War is always spoken of as an option; to be averse to it is taken as a sign of weakness. Indeed, why are the Americans so much more jingoistic today than, say, the Europeans? I offer three reasons that I believe, taken together, provide an answer: (a) The demographics of the American military (b) Historical inexperience of war and the world, and (c) The impetus from corporate capitalism. " By Namit Arora at 3 Quarks Daily on September 13, 2010.
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The Geopolitics of France: Maintaining Its Influence in a Changing Europe - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...tralized_system_guarding_plain geopolitics france
shared by anonymous on 14 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Mountain ranges inhibit trade and armies alike while peninsulas and islands limit the ability of larger powers to intimidate or conquer smaller ones. Because of such features, it isn’t as much of a surprise that Europe has never united under a single government as it is that anyone has ever tried.
  • two other geographic features that push Europe together
  • The first is the North European Plain
  • ...58 more annotations...
  • Northern Europe is home to the densest concentration of wealth in the world
  • The second feature — the Mediterranean Sea — plays a similar role to the continent’s south
  • Mix the geographic features that inhibit unification with the features that facilitate trade and communication and Europe becomes a very rich, very violent place.
  • three places on the Continent where this pattern of fragmentation does not hold
  • The first are the Seine and Loire river valleys
  • The second and third places where the fragmentation pattern does not hold are the Garonne and Rhone river valleys
  • The one thing these three geographic exceptions have in common is that they all have long resided in the political entity known as France.
  • France is nearly always engaged but is only rarely ascendant.
  • Mountain chains, rivers and seas therefore enclose France at all points save for one: the North European Plain.
  • Internally, aside from the Massif Central in the southeast, France is a country of relatively low-lying terrain with occasional hills.
  • The Beauce region is therefore the French core.
  • Paris is also close enough to the Atlantic — connected by the Seine — to benefit from oceanic trade routes but far enough away to be insulated somewhat from a direct naval invasion.
  • In comparison with its continental neighbors, France has almost always been at an economic advantage because of its geography.
  • Phase I: Centralization (843-1453)
  • The Beauce region of France has always been the core of the French state because of its fertile land and strategic location on the North European Plain.
  • Early France faced two problems, both rooted in geography.
  • The first dealt with the plains.
  • The solution to this military reality was feudalism.
  • French, one of the Langue d’oil, did not become the official tongue until the 1500s, and linguistic unification was not completed until the 1800s.
  • England considered continental France their playpen for much of the Middle Ages. In fact, the Norman leaders of England did not distinguish much between their French and English possessions
  • As in the conflict with the Muslims, it was a technological innovation that forced France’s political system to evolve, and this time the shift was toward centralization rather than decentralization.
  • The combination of the political disasters of the feudal period and the success of consolidation in the battles with the English served as the formative period of the French psyche.
  • Phase II: The Hapsburg Challenge and Balance of Power (1506-1700)
  • Europe’s Hapsburg era was a dangerous time for the French.
  • In three major wars — the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1754-1763, against Britain in North America) — France expended great financial resources in efforts to dominate one region or another, only to emerge at each war’s end with little to show for its efforts.
  • Phase III: Nationalism and the Rise of Germany (1789-1945)
  • two equally damning results
  • First, the depleted treasury led to a general breakdown in internal order, contributing to the French Revolution of 1789.
  • Second, Paris’ distraction with England and Spain led it to miss the emergence of Prussia as a serious European power that began to first rival and ultimately superseded Hapsburg Austria for leadership among the cacophony of German kingdoms.
  • One of the many unintended side effects of the French Revolution was the concept of nationalism,
  • From nationalism grew the nation-state, a political entity that harnesses all people sharing a similar ethnicity into a single governing unit.
  • The result was the one near-unipolar moment in European history.
  • Not only was France the only state to have embraced the concept of nationalism, but it also grafted the concept onto an already centralized system, allowing French power to pour forth across Europe and North Africa.
  • From 1803 to 1815, France nearly overwhelmed the rest of Europe before a coalition of nearly every major and minor power on the Continent combined forces to defeat her.
  • The lesson was a simple one, again rooted in geography. Even when France is united and whole, even when she is not under siege, even when her foes are internally distracted and off balance, even when she is led by one of the greatest organizational and military minds in human history, even when she holds the advantage of nationalism — she still lacks the resources and manpower to rule Europe.
  • But most of all the advantage of nationalism spread. Over the next few decades the political innovation of the nation-state spread throughout Europe and in time became a global phenomenon.
  • The culmination of this dichotomy was the events of May-June 1940, when the French military crumbled in less than six weeks. The defeat was by no means solely the result of geopolitical forces, but it sprang from the fundamental imbalance of power between France and a unified Germany.
  • Phase IV: Managing Germany
  • as France is concerned, however, STRATFOR views the entire post-World War II era as a single chapter in French history that has yet to come to a conclusion. In this phase, France is attempting to find a means to live with Germany, a task greatly complicated by recent shifts in the global political geography.
  • And far from being exposed and vulnerable, France found itself facing the most congenial constellation of forces in its history.
  • The stated gains of the EEC/EU have always been economic and political, but the deeper truth is that the European project has always been about French geopolitical fear and ambition.
  • Eventually the Cold War ended, and the Soviet collapse was perceived very differently in France. While most of the free world celebrated, the French fretted.
  • the Soviet collapse led to the reunification of Germany — and that was a top-tier issue.
  • Twenty years on, Germany cannot abandon the European Union without triggering massive internal economic dislocations because of the economic evolutions Maastricht has wrought.
  • that leaves the French with two long-term concerns.
  • First, the cage breaks, Germany goes its own way and attempts to remake Europe to suit its purposes.
  • Second, the cage holds, but it constrains France more than Germany.
  • Geopolitical Imperatives
  • Secure a Larger Hinterland
  • France is the only country on the North European Plain that has an option for expansion into useful territories beyond its core without directly clashing with another major power.
  • Always Look East
  • Being situated at the western end of the North European Plain makes France the only country on the plain that has only one land approach to defend against.
  • Maintain Influence in Regions Beyond Western Europe
  • Unlike the United Kingdom, whose expansion into empire was a natural step in its evolution as a naval power, France’s overseas empire was almost wholly artificial.
  • These colonial assets served one more critical role for Paris: They were disposable.
  • Louisiana was sold for loose change in order to fund the Napoleonic wars, while Algeria was ultimately abandoned — despite being home to some 1 million ethnic French — so that Charles de Gaulle could focus attention on more important matters at home and in the rest of Europe.
  • Be Flexible
  • Geopolitics is not ideological or personal, although few countries have the discipline to understand that.
  • anonymous on 14 Sep 10
     
    "France is bound by the Alps in the southeast and the Pyrenees in the southwest, the Mediterranean Sea in the south and the Atlantic in both the west and north. In the east, France is bound by the river Rhine and the low mountains of the Ardennes, Vosges and Jura." At StratFor on September 13, 2010.
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A Temporary U.S.-Russian Detente - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...5_temporary_us_russian_detente geopolitics russia
shared by anonymous on 16 Sep 10 - Cached
  • the past three months have seen a warming — whether real or rhetorical — between Moscow and Washington, after years of deadlock between the former Cold War foes.
  • For Russia, it is more complicated than a short-term detente. Within the Russian cycle of resurgence and collapse, Moscow has reached out to the West once it is comfortable in its own security and strength.
  • Russia’s strategy for becoming a strong and secure state requires many steps.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • First, Russia must lock down its internal system
  • Russia also has to secure its food and energy supplies.
  • Finally, Moscow has to fold the states that serve as a buffer between Russia and the West back into alliances
  • anonymous on 16 Sep 10
     
    "Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov visited Washington on Wednesday to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. After a full day of meetings, Gates and Serdyukov signed two documents. The first was a new memorandum on military cooperation between Russia and the United States, replacing the outdated 1993 agreement, and the second was an accord to hold a regular yearly military and defense meeting between both sides. " At StratFor on September 16, 2010.
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The Tea Party and Insurgency Politics - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/..._party_and_insurgency_politics politics criticalthinking geopolitics
shared by anonymous on 17 Sep 10 - Cached
  • The political lesson, worth pondering in these times of Tea Party rumbling, is that serious protest movements such as the Perot phenomenon or today’s Tea Party revolt never just fade away. They linger in American politics, sometimes largely unseen but sometimes quite overt, and exert a continuing tug on the course of electoral decision-making. Eventually they get absorbed into one major party or the other. In the process, they often tilt the balance of political power in the country, occasionally for substantial periods of time.
  • What it represents and portends can best be scrutinized by trying to answer three fundamental questions:
  • First, is this movement for real and is it enduring? The answer is yes.
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  • The second question is, where did this movement come from? What precisely were the impulses, angers and fears that spawned this seemingly spontaneous wave of civic energy?
  • But most Tea Party leaders emphasize three general principles.
  • The first is “fiscal responsibility,” which includes a strong aversion to huge federal deficits and the yawning national debt.
  • The second principle is “constitutionally limited government,” which implies states’ rights and the protection of individual liberties from federal intrusion.
  • the third is “free markets,” seen by Tea Party adherents as the protection of intertwined “individual and economic liberty.
  • Both the Jackson and Clay traditions have reverberated through American politics for nearly 200 years.
  • The third question centers on how the Tea Party will influence American politics in the coming years.
  • Indeed, much of the flow of American politics that angers Tea Party adherents — increased federal spending, growing deficits, Washington’s earmark culture, the looming entitlement crises — were in full force during the Bush years. That’s why Tea Party adherents are so bent on busting up the Washington establishment by first busting up the GOP.
  • anonymous on 17 Sep 10
     
    "The political lesson, worth pondering in these times of Tea Party rumbling, is that serious protest movements such as the Perot phenomenon or today's Tea Party revolt never just fade away. They linger in American politics, sometimes largely unseen but sometimes quite overt, and exert a continuing tug on the course of electoral decision-making. Eventually they get absorbed into one major party or the other. In the process, they often tilt the balance of political power in the country, occasionally for substantial periods of time." By Robert W. Merry at StratFor on September 17, 2010.
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America's "Natural Aristocracy" and the Triumph of Elite Reason - 0 views

www.3quarksdaily.com/...e-triumph-of-elite-reason.html politics criticalthinking history
shared by anonymous on 20 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Who should rule America, the revolutionary and Constitution-writing generations of American leaders asked? Should it be an aristocratic elite bred to rule by the best families of the land? Or should it be direct representatives of the people whose knowledge of statecraft might be slight but who were reflective of the popular will?
  • America needed an aristocracy, they reasoned, but let it be a natural one drawn from the ranks of people like them, those whom in their conceit they decided were the best and the brightest. And so the concept of a “natural aristocracy” was born.
  • to the Federalists matters of government were quite different: government was a ‘complicated science, and requires abilities and knowledge, of a variety of subjects, to understand it.’ Only if the respected and worthy lent their natural intellectual abilities and their natural social influence to political authority could governmental order be maintained.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • That they worship in the temple of merit only obscures the fact that they are an elite convinced of their divinity like every other.
  • Forty years have passed since I was told to pay attention to early American history, and I finally understand why, petticoats and Pilgrims aside, it was such good advice. For it was their great concern about who should rule America that should now become ours.
  • anonymous on 20 Sep 10
     
    "Who should rule America, the revolutionary and Constitution-writing generations of American leaders asked? Should it be an aristocratic elite bred to rule by the best families of the land? Or should it be direct representatives of the people whose knowledge of statecraft might be slight but who were reflective of the popular will?" By Michael Blim at 3 Quarks Daily on September 20, 2010.
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