Enclaves for the cell-less

ARTICLE: The Cell Refuseniks, an Ever-Shrinking Club, By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, New York Times, October 22, 2009

I think there will always be a core of 15-20% who don't want the connectivity--anywhere you travel in this world.

Eventually, there will be countries based on this principle--but on a voluntary basis. In effect, vacation spots and resorts are already based somewhat on the idea.

May seem counter-intuitive, but more dense the connectivity, the greater the need for enclaves.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

The wages of sin

ARTICLE: Delaware Diocese Files for Bankruptcy in Wake of Abuse Suits, By IAN URBINA, New York Times, October 19, 2009

Frankly, a whole lot of priests and bishops and cardinals should have gone to jail for criminal conspiracy re: the priest sex-abuse scandals.

That would have been a lot more just than depriving parishioners of their churches.

If Christ tosses the money-changers from the temple, imagine what he does to the pedophiles.

Cardinal Law, our (then) man in Boston (we lived in RI when it broke finally), escaped his perp walk only to be rewarded--and rescued in Roman Polanski-like fashion--by the Pope with a cozy spot in the Vatican. It was easily the most shameful thing John Paul ever did. No sainthood for those who participate in the covering-up of crimes against children.

But Dante's got a circle for them all.

Parenting, spanking and yelling

ARTICLE: For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking, By HILARY STOUT, New York Times, October 21, 2009

I will confess to this one.

Problem is, my kids yell back.

I don't remember spanking working that way.

Good Economist overview on rise of decriminalization of drugs around the world

INTERNATIONAL: "Drugs: Virtually legal; In many countries, full jails, stretched budgets and a general weariness with the war on drugs have made prohibition harder to enforce," The Economist, 14 November 2009.

Fits very nicely with my recent WPR column: Europe and Latin America moving way out ahead on this, but signs that more and more states in the U.S. will be experimenting along these lines.

The surprising victim of the global economic downturn: the war on drugs.

Shortcut on Obama speech

Nicely delivered, but strategically unimaginative in an off-putting way. Too much talking down to the American people. We're more sophisticated; we can handle more complex arguments.

Overall then: good on the 30k decision, bad on specific timetable, and boat missed completely on articulating a larger regionalization of the solution.

Afghanistan is not a vacuum or an island. Just mentioning Pakistan isn't enough.

Check the map, Mr. President. China has a border with Afghanistan.

To be amplified in the my Thursday Esquire column.

Just finished 6,600-word essay for Esquire--the print magazine

Wish me luck actually getting it into "the book," as it is known (the major features part).

Since the financial crash, it's been an entirely different world when it comes to making it into any one issue. Since the 75th anniversary issue in the fall of 2008, I've only scored a small piece (Obama's New Map) in connection with the release of Great Powers, and that movie review last summer.

But it was fun to write this mini-behemoth over the past couple of weeks. Makes me realize I will inevitably want to do something book length on international affairs every several years--if only to keep the intellectual muscle tone.

Anyway, it's about time for me to publish something big like this, so rest assured, it will see the light of day somewhere. It's that good.

But no, even if it does get it, it will not be that large. Those days seem gone.

Iranian revolution's uncomfortable middle age

ARTICLE: Iran Expanding Effort to Stifle the Opposition, By ROBERT F. WORTH, New York Times, November 23, 2009

No surer sign of the revolution settling uncomfortably into its middle years: the need for state-run education efforts with youth to re-convince them of the greatness of the movement and why it should matter in their eyes.

Iran now enters its version of a cultural revolution-phase, because all the confusion it will cause will serve the Guard well in their continuing consolidation of their power under the increasing figurehead of the Supreme Leader.

As such, the backtracking on nukes makes a lot of sense, from the perspective of the Guard: time to shut out the world as much as possible.

China can't free ride forever

OP-ED: World Out of Balance, By PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times, November 15, 2009

The gap between China's responsibilities and its actions are the missing link in global stability right now.

The guts:

Some background: Most of the world's major currencies "float" against one another. That is, their relative values move up or down depending on market forces. That doesn't necessarily mean that governments pursue pure hands-off policies: countries sometimes limit capital outflows when there's a run on their currency (as Iceland did last year) or take steps to discourage hot-money inflows when they fear that speculators love their economies not wisely but too well (which is what Brazil is doing right now). But these days most nations try to keep the value of their currency in line with long-term economic fundamentals.

China is the great exception. Despite huge trade surpluses and the desire of many investors to buy into this fast-growing economy -- forces that should have strengthened the renminbi, China's currency -- Chinese authorities have kept that currency persistently weak. They've done this mainly by trading renminbi for dollars, which they have accumulated in vast quantities.

And in recent months China has carried out what amounts to a beggar-thy-neighbor devaluation, keeping the yuan-dollar exchange rate fixed even as the dollar has fallen sharply against other major currencies. This has given Chinese exporters a growing competitive advantage over their rivals, especially producers in other developing countries.

What makes China's currency policy especially problematic is the depressed state of the world economy. Cheap money and fiscal stimulus seem to have averted a second Great Depression. But policy makers haven't been able to generate enough spending, public or private, to make progress against mass unemployment. And China's weak-currency policy exacerbates the problem, in effect siphoning much-needed demand away from the rest of the world into the pockets of artificially competitive Chinese exporters.

Krugman continues to sound this alarm, but . . .

Unfortunately, the Chinese don't seem to get it: rather than face up to the need to change their currency policy, they've taken to lecturing the United States, telling us to raise interest rates and curb fiscal deficits -- that is, to make our unemployment problem even worse.

The pressure grows for the Chinese to step up and stop free riding on economics--in addition to security.

Practicing for Afghanistan in Indiana

ARTICLE: In Indiana, practice for 'civilian surge' in Afghanistan, By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, November 21, 2009

Another sign of the Army adjusting itself to the world as it finds it versus the wars some dream about.

Personally, it's been interesting to witness the shift at Camp Atterbury, because the personnel who flow through there live, in large numbers, at the apartment complex where we stayed for ten months when our house was being built.

Who'd have thunk it: we leave RI and all that military ambiance to come to the middle of Indy, and then bump into this growing community?

As Africa dries up, income is even more important

ARTICLE: Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow, By NEIL MacFARQUHAR, New York Times, October 21, 2009

The usual hand-wringing over future food production requirements:

The track record of failing to feed the hungry haunts the effort. But other important uncertainties also give pause. The effect climate change will have on weather and crops remains an open question. The so-called green revolution of the 1960s and '70s ended the specter of mass famines then, but the environmental cost of chemical fertilizers and heavy irrigation has spurred a bitter divide over the right ingredients for a second one.

But, of course, the real issue remains income levels, not production.

We know how to raise production:

Then there is the question of genetically modified crops. No issue provokes such an emotional division among agronomists, who debate whether they constitute the building blocks of a second green revolution or a health menace.

"Who is steering this fear and global paranoia about the G.M. cotton and all these G.M. crops?" said Hans P. Binswanger-Mkhize, a South African agriculture consultant. "Show us where the corpses are -- the corpses of earthworms, the corpses of bees, the corpses of antelopes and the corpses of humans. Nobody has yet ever shown us a corpse."

Opponents respond that organic farming is critical to producing healthy food and reducing global warming. Widespread use of nitrogen fertilizers has contributed heavily to greenhouse gases, and the vast water resources required for irrigation are not sustainable, they contend.

This debate will only heat up as Africa gets drier and more are put at risk of famine.

Turkey's path to nukes

OP-ED: Opinion: It's getting chilly between Turkey and Israel, By HDS Greenway, GlobalPost, October 21, 2009

I know some analysts are playing this "rift" down, but I do see a calculated reorientation on the part of the Turks, whom I believe are shrewdly looking ahead to joining the nuclear race under the right conditions--hence the need to distance some and to clear up neighbor issues.

Why?

Turkey, I believe, would be hard-pressed not to be at the inevitable table with the Israelis, Iranians and Saudis. Note the rumors already of Iranian-Israeli secret talks in Cairo.

Such a move will invariably strain ties with Israel, but Ankara will do it to claim its rightful place as the most with-it Muslim great power in the region.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

Get smarter on Brazil

STRATEGIC POSTURE REVIEW: Brazil (free registration required), By Monica Hirst, WPR

Worth the effort to register. Brazil is THE single most innovative player right now, and yes, Lula's showing some hubris heading out the door with his entertaining of states both respectable and rogue. But no one has done more to bridge Core-Gap divides--or done it better.

Saudi Arabia already is China's biggest source of oil

WORLD NEWS: "U.S. Urges Arab States to Lift Oil Exports to China," by Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2009.

Chart says it all: Saudi Arabia is #1 with 740k bpd (barrels per day), then Iran with 544, then Angola with 451, Russia with 299, Oman with 275, Sudan with 217, Kuwait with 171, Congo with 115, Kazakhstan with 37 and Libya with 33.

Why we push Arab (not Persian) states to increase exports to China is to convince Beijing that isolating Iran won't cost them supplies. The UAE, for example, recently agreed to triple or quadruple its current flow of 50k bpd.

But this is why the effort will fail: China fears that sanctions leading to conflict will destabilize the region and put all these sources at risk.

So this is a shuffling-the-deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic effort as far as Beijing is concerned.

Plus, given China's huge needs, it simply refuses to give up its Iranian ties just because the Americans--always fickle on these things--say to do so right now.

OOTB* prediction: biopix of Satchmo

Saw picture of Louis Armstrong as young man, and saw total resemblance to former Nick star and current SNL cast member Kenan Thompson, who has a real gift for playing spacey, artistic types. I've been a fan of his work for a long time, and it's been cool to see him grow his talent.

If I am Hollywood producer (secret dream) and I see this pic, then I'm searching for right vehicle to pitch to Kenan's agent, thinking it's the first coming of the Ray Charles story that cemented Jamie Fox's stardom. Satchmo is mightily underappreciated as a jazz musician and precursor of a lot of African-American stars.

You heard it here first.

*Out of the Blue

The Bottom Line on Nation-Building

"Rebalancing" has been the watchword of President Barack Obama's foreign policy to date: rebalancing the global economy between East and West, rebalancing domestic needs and foreign responsibilities, and -- soon enough -- rebalancing the international security burden among the world's great powers. One number explains why that last rebalancing is necessary: It costs the United States $1 million a year to keep a soldier inside a theater of operations such as Afghanistan. The math is easy enough: For every thousand troops, the price comes out to $1 billion a year.

Continue reading this week's New Rules column at WPR.

We will bring Iran in from the cold

ARTICLE: Iranian lawmaker: Iran could leave nuclear treaty, By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, AP, November 28, 2009

Yes, Iran will eventually leave the non-proliferation treaty. That's not the treaty it's looking to sign. That treaty is a few years off from happening, but we have seriously begun the journey toward it.

Many secret meetings between here and there--much historic diplomacy. But we have brought players in from the cold before over nukes, and we will do it again with Iran.

Again, the bright side: once Iran negotiates with the Devil, the revolution is dead. And that's when we get to start seriously messing with that place. Iran seeks regime security with nukes, and will most definitely avoid an invasive war on that basis (even as Israel is likely to strike), but Israel's loss of its regional monopoly on WMD will set in motion all manner of events and dynamics beyond Tehran's control.

In the end, it will be the worst thing that ever happened to the mullahs and the Guard and the revolution.

How soon should China de-peg?

OP-ED: Grim truths Obama should have told Hu, By Martin Wolf, Financial Times, November 17 2009

Martin Wolf is getting highly impatient on the question of China's pegged currency.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

When ignorance is non-bliss...

POST: 'The Geographic Gap', By Juan Cole, Informed Comment, November 27, 2009

A basic reality: the Gap lacks connectivity and thus transparency. We know plenty about the Core, but little about the Gap. We prefer, out of habit, to dream up future wars inside the Core, but we have fought exclusively inside the Gap for decades now.

And yet, our ignorance remains our non-bliss--time and time again.

(Thanks: rblx)

An idea to improve interagency

ARTICLE: Improving U.S. Strategic Planning, By James Locher, WPR, 20 Nov 2009

From the Project on National Security Reform, an interesting case for a strategic planning group within the NSC to overcome the daily grind of the fantastically engrossing tactical flow of events.

Naturally, creating anything like this would appear to trigger competition with similar bodies within State and DoD (although the latter could be described as having a small universe of such bodies), but if you want interagency that doesn't always come off as painfully ad hoc, this suggestion appears to have real merit.

(Thanks: James Jeansonne)

A Castro by any other name...

ARTICLE: Poll shows unhappiness, pessimism in Cuba, By Lesley Clark, McClatchy, November 16, 2009

Latest polls of Cubans dismiss any notion of their hopes for improvement under Raul. Gist: 80% say the country is in terrible shape.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)