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Monthly Archives
12:05AM

The Chinese are coming! The Chinese are coming!

Maddeningly inscrutable people! What could they possibly be thinking?

Old "Blueprint" citation said 100m Chinese tourists by 2020.  Chart in this FT piece showed 50m by 2010, so right on target.

The Chinese have something to learn on touring:  their tendency, just like when they emigrate, is to stay highly enclaved (one Balinese guide:  "The problem we have is they come on package tours with their own guides, stay in their own hotels, and east in their own restaurants.")

Training-wheels, perhaps, for now, but getting them to branch out will be natural enough over time:  they'll learn more foreign languages, and more of us will learn Chinese.

It is a common theme of great science fiction that someday, we'll all speak some Mandarin.

12:04AM

Iran: doing its best to block out sat TV

Iranians' love of foreign media is a well-documented fact, from the obsession with "Lost" to South Korea soaps.

Newsweek reports that the regime maintains its insane enmity to the Brits and the BBC, though.  After the putsch, the Revolutionary Guards made a supreme effort to block BBC's Persian TV channel. They blocked it by uplinking static to the satellite, but in doing so they scrambled a lot of popular fare from the same satellite.  

The problem:

Iran's domestic TV broadcasts--key to the regime's ability to maintain control and stability--depend on the very European satellites Iran is toying with to get its signals distributed across the country. (Arab-owned satellites have quit carrying Iran's broadcasts, and Iran has no satellies of its own.)

So chairman of broadcasting in Iran admits that when Iran messes with other people's broadcasts, they can easily retaliate, "So we have to make sure that we don't overreach ourselves."

Connectivity comes with code.

12:03AM

The Chaiwan free trade deal moves that much closer to fruition

The lastest on the deal's advance from the FT (6/14):

China and Taiwan have reached agreement on a wide-ranging trade deal that would be an important milestone for the warming of relations between the two cold war rivals.

The deal, called the Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement, or Ecfa, would also pave the way for Taiwan to join in the flurry of free trade deals being made by other Asian countries. China had previously blocked such efforts by Taiwan as it claims sovereignty over the democratically ruled island, but that opposition is expected to fade with the signing of the new agreement.

Without the opportunity to participate in trade deals, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan president, said last week that his country would be “sure to lag behind, to be forced out of the global economic sphere and to be marginalised”.

Negotiators from both sides said they had made key breakthroughs after a third round of talks held in Beijing on Sunday, particularly in the “early harvest list” of what sectors would be included in the initial round of opening. The contents of that list had been the main sticking pointin previous negotiations.

The breakthroughs allow the deal to be formally signed at the next semi-annual talks between the two sides. It also secures the centrepiece of Mr Ma’s policy of rapprochement with China, which is by far Taiwan’s biggest export market and where more than 1m Taiwanese already live and work.

The agreement, however, is facing strong political opposition within Taiwan, amid fears that economic integration could lead to political reunification and that the economic benefits of the deal will not be as great as Mr Ma has indicated.

My continuing point:  this is the third great member to join China's future Asian Union, after Macau and Hong Kong. Eventually, we are talking one Asia, many systems.

12:02AM

Jordan--the next nuclear power

WSJ story about Jordan's ambition to become a uranium-enriching, nuclear-power-using pillar in the region:

Jordan is among a slew of Arab countries, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, that are seeking to become among the first Mideast countries to develop a civilian nuclear-power industry. Israel is the lone country in the region believed to possess atomic weapons, but it hasn't moved to build nuclear power plants.

Jordan's nuclear ambitions are driven by economics. Wedged between Israel and oil giants Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the kingdom is 95% dependent on imported oil and has among the world's smallest reserves of potable water.

But the discovery of at least 65,000 tons of uranium ore in the deserts outside Amman in 2007 has led King Abdullah to order a drastic reshaping of his nation's economic strategy.

America wants to put Jordan on the same leash as Iran:  no producing its own enriched uranium but only ordering it from more trustworthy sources.

Jordan is balking at this, saying it's an NPT signatory and enjoys that right--and needs that economic payoff--the goal being to become a regional nuclear fuel source.

I have to go with Jordan on this one.  If you want lesser powers to act responsibly, you have to grant them responsibilities.

12:01AM

Chart of the day: China's dependency on foreign oil surpassing our own "addiction"!

NYT source.

This is why Sino-American cooperation--especially in the naval realm--on security access to oil is a crucial building block of global security.

The Chinese have already voiced this possibility.  We need to make it a reality, and end this pointless friction over the now-dead-in-the-water Taiwan scenario.

9:30AM

WPR's The New Rules: Chinaโ€™s Factory Unrest Signals Peak of Cheap Labor

China’s spreading labor unrest is rightfully portrayed in the Western press as an immense challenge to that country’s status as the “world’s factory floor.”  But to Beijing’s bosses, it’s likewise a tool for addressing rising income inequality, which is why the Communist Party has remained most reticent to address it head on.  Such a hands-off approach carries additional dangers, however, the most prominent being that, once emerging labor activists get a taste for pressing their collective demands, China’s political leaders could find themselves riding a Solidarnosc-like trade-union tiger that’s not easily tamed.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

12:06AM

Bergsten: the imbalance threat is still there

Fred Bergsten op-ed in FT.

The key logic:

Global imbalances are about to jump again. New estimates from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development suggest that the sharp decline in the exchange rate of the euro, along with tepid European growth, will produce eurozone surpluses of at least $300bn (€251bn, £208bn) annually within the next few years. The tightening of fiscal policies throughout Europe in response to the crisis, along with the new balanced budget amendment in Germany, will both depress domestic demand and require easier monetary policy that will weaken the euro further . . . 

Whatever the intent, these European developments will have effects similar to the overt steps taken by other major countries to enhance their trade competitiveness. The most extreme case is the massive intervention by China and surrounding countries to keep their currencies severely undervalued. Other emerging markets are likewise seeking to expand further their war chests of foreign exchange by running large external surpluses. . . The eurozone has joined this “new mercantilism” and the result will be a sharp rise in global imbalances.

The counterpart increases in deficits will again accumulate mainly in the US as no other country could attract the requisite financing. The large deficit countries within the eurozone must reduce their imbalances. Along with the large surpluses of China and other Asian countries, the new European surpluses will probably double the American current account deficit beyond its previous record of $800bn in 2006. The US could then maintain its recovery only by continuing to run large budget deficits and again tolerating debt-financed consumer demand. This is the opposite of the rebalancing strategy agreed by the Group of 20 leading economies as critically important for sustaining global expansion and reiterated by its finance ministers last weekend.

Many regard this scenario as a desirable resolution of the current European crisis . . . 

There are three glaring problems with this vision, however, all centred on the US. First, the sharp escalation of its own domestic and international imbalances would intensify the risk of future market attacks on the dollar and US financial assets. As soon as Europe and other alternatives regain their acceptability to investors, the unsustainability of the US situation would return to centre stage at even more dangerous levels.

Second, the higher imbalances themselves could sow the seeds of a new financial crisis just as they helped sow the seeds of the last crisis . . .

Third, a renewed explosion of the US trade deficit could well trigger the outbreak of protectionist trade policies that has been largely avoided to date.

My sense of the past two decades: every crisis of the global economy triggers fixes that eventually beget their own crisis, but nowadays that cycle is getting faster and faster because of the growing hyperconnectivity and interdependence.

I would expect more debates on ever-more ambitious rules.

12:05AM

If they're afraid to be seen with you, your COIN effort can only go so far

USA Today front-pager and Banyan column in Economist.

From the first:

Dur Mohammad doesn't walk a straight path to the school where he teaches. He takes a meandering route and then lingers in fields along the way to make it look as if he's a farmer tending his crops.

When U.S. Marines stop by the school, Mohammad begs them to be on their way.

"We cannot stand for a couple of minutes with you," he says. "If someone sees us, we'll be in trouble."

From Banyan:

The problem of knowing what Afghans think is an obstacle more generally. When World Bank workers attempt to take surveys, they have to memorise the questions and answers, since villagers speaking to strange folk with clipboards are at risk from insurgents. 

These anecdotes suggest a trust-building process unlikely to be much consummated by the summer of 2011. Obama will have to make a tough call:  stick with something that's working--but slowly, or cash in the Afghan people.

12:04AM

Gates to EU: I blame you on Turkey!

WSJ story.

Gates just being blunt.

The EU began membership talks with Turkey in 2004--about a half century after the country first expressed interest in joining anything Europe put together on economics.  The talks have gone nowhere, despite Ankara's heroic efforts to meet requirements.

Thank-you France and Germany:  your racism comes back to haunt you once again!

I agree with those who says Turkey's "turn east" is exaggerated, but you reap what you sow, my friends.

12:03AM

China to world: screw off on global warming, we got coal to burn

NYT piece analyzing China's future energy plans.

Bradsher story comes with pretty pics of solar panels and wind farms, but this photo from previous Bradsher story more applicable to the content.

Gist:  secure sources win out over the environment--meaning lots more coal to be used.  You have to understand that China's energy profile is already stunning skewed toward coal--like no other major economy on the planet.

But get used to this logic:

In other words, as China counts on more years of global leadership in economic growth, global warming remains a secondary concern. Secure sources of energy to fuel that growth are what matter most, whatever the implications for world energy markets and the global environment — not to mention foreign investors, who may or may not have a significant role to play in China’s energy industry under the draft law.

The proposed law, which is expected to be adopted by early next year, says that “energy supply should be where you can plant your foot on it,” meaning that as much as possible should come from within China, said Li Junfeng, a senior energy policy maker and member of the interagency committee drafting the law.

That belief has underpinned China’s rapid expansion in renewable energy, because it tends to be made in China, Mr. Li said. China has just emerged as the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels, and plans to be the world’s biggest builder of nuclear power plants in the coming decade. It invested nearly twice as much as the United States last year in renewable energy.

But energy security also explains the continued reliance on coal, for which China has the world’s third-largest reserves, after the United States and Russia. Burning coal, which produces four-fifths of China’s electricity, has already turned China into the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases by an ever-widening margin each year since 2006.
The vaunted China model will take a severe beating as the leadership stubbornly sticks to this path, because it will reveal to the world that China puts itself before the planet when it comes to energy--just like everybody else.
12:02AM

Mining co's: Exploitation of Afghan mineral resources years off

NYT's James Risen's second piece on the "miracle" find.  As the map (quickly Googled) above and left [click to enlarge] demonstrates, the notion of Afghanistan's mineral deposits not exactly a bolt from the blue.  Lack of security held up serious exploration in the past, and mining co's say the same is true today--go figure.

Given the high-risk, frontier environment, the most risk-tolerant explore first:

 A few high-risk investors are sufficiently intrigued by the country’s potential to take an early look. JP Morgan, for instance, has just sent a team of mining experts to Afghanistan to examine possible projects to develop.

“Afghanistan could be one of the leading producers of copper, gold, lithium and iron ore in the world,” said Ian Hannam, a London-based banker and mining expert with JP Morgan. “I believe this has the potential to be transforming for Afghanistan.”
But as for main-line efforts .  . . 
But executives with international mining firms said in interviews that while they believed that Afghanistan’s mineral deposits held great potential, their businesses were not planning to move into the country until the war was over and the country more stable.

“There are huge deposits there,” said David Beatty, chief executive of Rio-Novo Gold, a mining company based in Toronto. “But as chief executive, would I send a team to Kandahar?  And then call a guy's wife after he gets shot?  No."
After all the hype triggered by his original piece, which was obviously spoon-fed by the Administration's team for maximum effect, this Risen piece seems decidedly designed to reduce expectations and present a more realistic appraisal.  I do like the goofily Biblical "covet" in the headline, though.
It has long been known that Afghanistan had significant deposits of gemstones, copper and other minerals, but United States officials say they have discovered and documented major, previously unknown deposits, including copper, iron, gold and industrial metals like lithium.

A Pentagon team, working with geologists and other experts, has shared its data with the Afghan government, and is working with the Afghan Ministry of Mines to prepare information for potential investors in hopes of placing some mineral exploration rights up for auction within the next six months. On Thursday, Afghan officials said they believed that the American estimates of the value of the mineral deposits — nearly $1 trillion — were too conservative, and that they could be worth as much as $3 trillion . . .

At a news conference in Kabul, Wahidullah Shahrani, the mines minister, pledged to make the bidding and contracting of mining rights as transparent as possible to reduce the possibility of corruption. He said the ministry would post contracts on its Web site.

Mr. Shahrani and his advisers cautioned against overly high expectations, underscoring that development would take years and that there were many obstacles to overcome, not least of all the lack of security in some of the areas with the most minerals and the lack of a transportation infrastructure.

International mining officials and independent experts echoed that view. Jim Yeager, a Colorado-based geologist and former consultant to the Afghan mines ministry, said that poorly written mining regulations could also hamper future development.
Remember that NorKo has about $6T in minerals--for comparison's sake.
12:01AM

Chart of the day: smartphone operating system world shares

FT story.

I was just attracted to the notion that fighting over smartphone operating systems shares is now as important in many people's minds as the same fight over OSs in personal computers.

Theme of piece: Mac has ruled here over Microsoft, with Android now replacing previously dominant RIM as the great alternative.

To me, just a fascinating evolution.

The big reason why I tried a Blackberry and then shifted to Android:  I wanted the experience of using them.  I love the Apple OSs in general (my family has four Macs and no PCs), and I love my iPod, but I didn't want to go all-Mac and lose that sense of the alternatives. 

Also why I still use MS Office.

12:04AM

Obama popular abroad where it really counts: New Core pillars

NYT story on global poll (Pew) that indicates Obama is popular abroad, with a particular strength in New Core pillars like Russia and China but a growing weakness in the Middle East.

Frankly, this is more than enough improvement in US standing abroad. Given what is going on in the Middle East and will continue to go on there for years as globalization's embrace deepens, we will never be popular there because of our bodyguarding role (to include our support for Israel). 

But it's absolutely crucial that the image-mending and bridge-building continue with the rising great powers--China especially as its own arrogance and hubris balloons in coming years (an inevitable cost of all that success).  I know it's not easy to play the humble card right now, but it will pay off over time in ways that our own past assertiveness never could.

So no complaints on this score.

I continue to give Obama high grades on the realignment--my theme in "Great Powers."  I nonetheless remain ambivalent if we need 4 or 8 years of this.  His success works against a second term, in my mind, even as I appreciate it greatly.

12:02AM

Deep Reads: "Religious Literacy" (2007)

Great book that I used in "Great Powers," the basic thesis is that as Americans become more religious over time, they nonetheless know less about their faiths.  So we believe more intensely even as we observe less and understand less.  The "illiteracy" theme is so strong that I frequently refer to the book as "Religious Illiteracy."

That theme can get a bit tedious (How crucial is it really to know the Bible is all its arcane and conflicting imagery?), but what really marks this book as great is the short history of religion in the United States that is Chapters 3 and 4.  Without those, the book would have been a waste of time in many ways, but with them, you get a history lesson that's worth the entire book's somewhat bitchy and condescending attitude.

So I say read the opening chapters that describe "The Problem" and most definitely read the two chapters (pp. 59-124) for the history (fascinating), but skip the proposal part that follows.  The "dictionary of religious literacy" is a cool skim.

12:01AM

Movie of My Week: Shutter Island (2010)

Hard not to like or be intrigued by anything Scorsese does, but I've really liked him more and more over the years, as I found the early stuff just TOOO gritty and dark.  So big fan of "Goodfellas," "Casino," and especially his remake of the Asian films ("Infernal Affairs" series) in "The Departed."

Being a fan of Hitchcock, I felt this was going to be Scorsese' homage in that direction, and I wasn't disappointed.  I didn't see this in theaters, although my wife and daughter did, so I came at it totally fresh (no knowledge of Lehane novel) in my home theater last week, and I simply loved it--almost frame by frame. Thelma Schoonmaker, as always, is the film editor, with Robert Richardson as cinematographer. From the opening shot, I fell in love with the texture, the crisp lighting, the swooping camera work (there is an opening shot as DiCaprio approaches the facility in a truck that is textbook stunning), and especially the eye-popping clarity of the shots--all very Hitchcock. Music sometimes overwhelmed but was nonetheless fascinating, because it was all pre-recorded stuff adapted--a Scorsese trademark but here a lot of classical and some Brian Eno tossed in!

DiCaprio is a worthy muse for Scorsese, and I've liked everything they've done together (incl. "Aviator").  Mark Ruffalo was at his best, and totally sold the time-frame (1950s).  Kingsley and Sydow their usual fab.

But again, it was the way the film was shot that really grabbed my attention, right from the start. It had a dream-like quality to it that served the film's purposes incredibly well.  

My advice: get and watch but learn nothing beforehand about the plot, because it's worth all the surprises and guessing. Having now seen it and been blown away by all the plot twists, I still want to view it again, just to drink in the look and feel and the acting--a sign of a classic.

I have no idea why the film wasn't embraced more by audiences, although it did well. To me, the best film I've seen so far this year.

12:06AM

The long pole in the tent of markets' emergence

India: "When's that train coming?"

NYT story with the usual gripe for emerging markets:  external infrastructure better than internal.

S. K. Sahai’s firm ships containers 2,400 nautical miles from Singapore to a port here in four or five days. But it typically takes more than two weeks to make the next leg of the journey, 870 miles by rail to New Delhi.

For most of that time the containers idle at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port near Mumbai because railway terminals, trains and tracks are severely backlogged all along the route. Counting storage and rail freight fees, Mr. Sahai estimates the cost of moving goods from Mumbai to Delhi at up to $840 per container — or about three times as much as getting the containers to India from Singapore.The problem is presented as a symptom of democracy, in contrast with China's authoritarian ability to build networks on demand.
Old story:  dictators good at building networks, but democracies/markets better at running them.
12:03AM

Brief Reminder: From the diamond to the hourglass

Classic PNM slide:  our capabilities "thick" at the state level during Cold War, but in post-Cold War era, we tend toward the extremes (renewed fear of system-level weapons and focus on non-state-actors).

RMA refers to the Revolution in Military Affairs; GWOT refers to Global War on Terror.

12:01AM

Blast from my past: "Globalization and Maritime Power" (2002)

Chapter 10

of

Globalization and Maritime Power
Sam J. Tangredi, editor (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2003), pp. 189-200.

 

Asia’s Energy Future: The Military-Market Link

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Globalization has resulted in the expansion of market capitalism throughout much of the world, particularly in East Asia.1 Even China, with its recent entry into the World Trade Organization, appears poised to open its markets and unleash its commercial potential. China could be the world’s largest auto market by 2020, increasing the oil needs of its enormous population by 40 percent. Obviously, this would have significant effects on the already-globalized energy market. In light of these global effects, both the Pentagon and Wall Street must understand their interrelationship: economic and political stability are crucial to reducing energy market risk.

As is evident in chapter 6, the Department of Navy is continuing its effort to enunciate the presumed linkage between the Navy’s worldwide operations and the progressive unfolding of economic globalization. The goal is nothing less than the Holy Grail of naval presence arguments: proof positive that ship numbers—especially aircraft carriers—matter to international stability.Some of this analytic effort will be rightly dismissed as pouring old wine into new bottles because many “Navy-as-the-glue-of-globalization” formulations sound an awful lot like the old bromides about the “Navy as the glue of Asia.” Nice work if you can get it, but given the relative lack of naval crisis response in East Asia since the end of the Vietnam War, it is a hard story to sell. Simply put, once the Shah of Iran fell in 1979, U.S. naval crisis response activity quickly became concentrated on Southwest Asia—a pattern that continues to this day.As far as “proving” the utility of naval presence, East Asia has long remained the dog that did not bark.

But all that is about to change, if you believe the stunning Department of Energy projections of growing Asian energy consumption over the next 20 years.4 Not only do a lot of bad things have to not happen over the next 2 decades, but also a lot of good things must occur in both East Asia and the Middle East—and across all paths in between—to ensure the region’s much-anticipated economic maturation will actually occur. In short, if you want a Pacific Century, you will need a U.S. Pacific Fleet—strong in numbers and forward deployed.

Asian Energy: A Globalization Decalogue

For several years, a Naval War College project (NewRuleSets.Project) on how globalization alters definitions of international security has provided considerable opportunity for an examination of the views of Wall Street executives, as well as of regional security experts (both military and civilian), on Asia’s future economic and political development.5 The following decalogue (summarized in table 10–1) distills the essential rule sets our project has identified concerning Asia’s energy future:6

Global energy market has the necessary resources

Asia as a whole currently uses about as much energy as the United States, or about 100 quadrillion British thermal units.7 By 2020, however, Asia will roughly double its energy consumption, while U.S. consumption will rise just more than 25 percent. Asia’s plus-ups are significant no matter what the energy category, as evidenced in the following current estimates:

  • oil consumption to increase by roughly 88 percent
  • natural gas by 191 percent
  • coal by 97 percent
  • nuclear power by 87 percent when Japan is included, but 178 percent for the rest
  • hydroelectric and other renewables by 109 percent.

This is a genuine changing of the guard in the global marketplace—a shifting of the world’s “demand center.” Today, North America accounts for just under a third of the world’s energy consumption, with Asia second at 24 percent. But within one generation, those two regions will swap both global rankings and percentage shares. In short, Asia becomes the world’s center of gravity for energy flows, giving it virtually the same market clout as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries—or North America and Western Europe combined.

The good news is that there’s plenty of fossil fuel to go around. Confirmed oil reserves have jumped almost two-thirds over the past 20 years, according to the Department of Energy, while natural gas reserves have roughly doubled. Meanwhile, our best estimates on coal say we have enough for the next 2 centuries. So supply is not the issue, and neither is demand, leaving only the question of moving the energy from those who have it to those who need it—and therein lies the rub.

Slide from old NewRuleSets.Project brief

But no stability, no market

Asia comes close to self-sufficiency only in coal, with Australia, China, India, and Indonesia the big producers. All told, Asia self-supplies on coal to the tune of 97 percent, a standard it will maintain through 2020. That is important, because virtually all of the global growth in coal use over the next generation will happen in Asia, mostly in just China and India.

Natural gas is a far different story. In 2001, Asia will used around 10 trillion cubic feet, with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan representing the lion’s share of consumption. The three of them already buy virtually all of the region’s currently available methane (for example, from Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia). The trick is this: Asia’s demand for natural gas skyrockets to perhaps 25 trillion cubic feet by 2020, with the majority of the increase occurring outside of that trio. So if those three countries already buy what is available in-region, that means the rest of Asia will have to go elsewhere—namely, the former Soviet Union (Russia with 33 percent of the world total) and the Middle East (Iran with 16 percent). This is what futurists might call an historical inevitability.

Finally, even though oil will decline as a percentage share in every major Asian economy over the coming years, absolute demand will grow by leaps and bounds. Asia currently burns about as much oil as the United States, or roughly 20 million barrels/day (mbd). Since oil is mostly about transportation nowadays, and Asia is looking at a quintupling of its car fleet by 2020, there is a huge swag placed on this projection. The latest Department of Energy forecast is roughly 36 mbd, but even that means Asia as a whole has to import an additional 12 mbd from out of region, or close to double what it imports today from the Persian Gulf region.8

Asia already buys roughly two-thirds of all the oil produced in the Persian Gulf, and by 2010 that share will rise to approximately 75 percent.9 Meanwhile, the West’s share of Gulf oil will drop from just under a quarter today to just over a tenth in 2010. The strategic upshot is that the two most anti-Western corners of the globe are inexorably coming together over energy and money over the coming years. Increasingly, the Middle East becomes dependent on economic stability in Asia, and Asia on political-military stability in the Gulf. If either side of that equation fails, the energy market is put at risk.

No growth, no stability

All this predicted growth engenders social expectations. In other words, Asia’s developing societies have been placed on consumption trajectories that are nothing short of revolutionary. As a middle class develops in these countries (small as a percentage but enormous as an absolute number), a significant portion of the global population is being rapidly promoted from an 18th- or 19th-century lifestyle into a 20th- or even 21st-century consumption pattern—and they will get used to it pretty darn fast.

Moreover, if Thomas Friedman’s “electronic herd” of international investors decides to take it all away one afternoon in a flurry of currency attacks and capital flight, the struggling segment of the population that suddenly finds itself expelled from the would-be middle class is likely to get upset. This is basically what happened in Indonesia following the tumultuous events of the Asian Flu of 1997–1998. Huge portions of Indonesia’s economy had experienced rapid development in the preceding generation, only to see it disappear virtually one fickle market day.

Yes, some good resulted; Suharto’s crony capitalism collapsed, but with it went much of the country’s emerging middle class. Now, as the country disintegrates into pockets of chaos, the machetes are flying as disoriented villagers work nightly to dispatch the “sorcerers” and “black ninjas” purported to be behind this continuing economic decline. In short, Indonesia loses its growth trajectory and suddenly finds itself transported back in time several centuries.10

No resources, no growth

Asia cannot grow without a huge influx of out-of-area energy resources. The quintupling of cars is impressive enough, when you consider that General Motors predicts China will indeed be the world’s largest car market in 2020.11 But even more stunning is the three-fold increase in electricity consumption, which will be generated mostly by coal and—increasingly—natural gas. Put those two together, and we are talking about an Asia that must open up to the outside world to a degree unprecedented in modern history. Or to put it in another way, Asia’s choice of energy will largely determine its attitude on globalization. China is the classic example here.

One can think of China’s decisions about its pattern of energy consumption as a choice between the past (coal), the present (oil), and the future (methane, or natural gas). If China chooses to remain, as much as possible, in the “past” with coal, this decision will essentially delay its full-fledged absorption into the global economy. This is clearly the path of least resistance for Beijing, and there lies the temptation, for the perception of autonomy afforded by coal allows China to:

  • remain more opaque to outside scrutiny
  • retain more control over its energy future
  • continue the more easily directed top-down path of extensive growth (that is, more inputs versus more productivity).

If China chooses to move—as much as possible—into the “future” with natural gas, this decision will speed up its full-fledged absorption into the global economy. This is obviously a far more difficult path, because it:

  • opens the country to greater interdependency with the outside world
  • forces more transparency upon its financial systems
  • asks it to trade control for calculated risk (nothing is guaranteed in the free market)
  • demands a far greater push for intensive-style economic growth.

The bigger point, however, is this: neither China nor Asia as a whole can develop without opening to the outside world economically, and energy is the essential driving force in this process.

No infrastructure, no resources

Asia’s infrastructure requirements over the next 2 decades will be unprecedented in human history. Simply put, never have so many people developed an economy at such a rapid pace in such a concentrated chunk of global real estate. This rough doubling of energy consumption will place extraordinary demands on the environment. The combination of rapid rises in energy consumption, population, urbanization, and water usage (especially for agriculture) will further damage an already battered regional ecosystem, creating great political pressures on national governments—both from within and outside—to limit the pollution associated with energy production.

Cleaner cars and more mass transportation are important, but even more so is the choice of how all that electricity is to be generated. Asia will attempt to grow its nuclear and renewables capacity to the fullest extent possible, but as a combined share of total energy production (that is, 10 percent), these categories will not grow—even as they double in absolute amounts to keep pace with economic development. The story is roughly the same with coal, which stands at just over 40 percent of total energy production now and still will in the year 2020. The real shift in Asia’s energy profile comes in oil and natural gas, with the former declining from roughly 40 percent to 30 percent, and the latter basically doubling from 10 to 20 percent.

This 275 percent increase in the absolute amount of methane energy employed across the region highlights the story-within-the-story of Asia’s energy future: the push for energy is really a push for infrastructure. Regarding natural gas, this infrastructure comes in three forms:

  • For the near term, the vast majority of natural gas that flows into Asia will arrive in a liquid form on ships. That means port facilities on both ends of the conduit, plus liquidification plants on the supplier’s end and regasification plants on the buyer’s end.
  • Over the longer haul, pipelines become the answer to meet the rising demand—both by land (for example, Kazakstan-to-China, Russia-to-China) and sea (Russia-to-Japan, Iran-to-India).
  • Finally, there is the domestic infrastructure required to pipe all that gas to the final consumers.

None of this comes cheaply, and as the recent history of regional electricity development makes clear, lots of outside money is required.12

No money, no infrastructure

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is the most significant scenario variable for Asia’s energy future. Energy infrastructure requirements could easily top $1 trillion by 2020, according to many estimates. Such numbers will overwhelm the region’s ability to self-finance, and that means Asia will have to open up its energy generation and distribution markets to far more joint or foreign ownership—a touchy subject, as former global energy giant Enron’s experience in India demonstrated.13

Right now, Asian states invest in one another to a very high degree, as many developing regional economies funnel upward of 90 percent of their external capital investments into their neighbors. But their combined resources are very limited compared to the West. A good estimate of Asia’s current outward stock—meaning the cumulative value—of foreign direct investment would be roughly $750 billion. In contrast, the United States and the European Union—even when one discounts intra-European investments—control roughly three times that amount of capital.14

Until now, Asia has relied on intra-Asian FDI for almost two-thirds of its cross-border capital needs, keeping the West at a certain distance in the mergers and acquisition trade. But this will have to change for Asia’s ambitious energy future to unfold according to plan. On an annual basis, the European Union and the United States routinely account for over 80 percent of all cross-border direct investment flows, far outdistancing their combined share of global gross domestic product, which sits as just under 60 percent.15 These two economic giants mostly invest in one another (and Europe in itself), creating an unbreakable trans-Atlantic bond. So if it seems inevitable that Asia must turn to the former Soviet Union and the Middle East for energy in the coming decades (the energy triad), it is just as inevitable that it must turn to the West for the money to finance this trade (the capital triad).

No rules, no money

Many on Wall Street voice the opinion that Asia has not sufficiently “cleaned up its act” as a result of the 1997–1998 financial crisis. The buzzword here is transparency, which refers primarily to internationally accepted accounting practices in the financial and corporate sectors. This is a huge challenge for Asia to overcome in terms of attracting the necessary foreign direct investment for future energy needs. Simply put, institutional investors need to feel confident in their ability to get a long-term return ofinvestment and not just a short-term return on investment, and that sort of confidence comes only with the firm rule of law.

Another problem with Asia’s energy investment climate is the current mix of private-sector investments and public-sector decisionmaking—in effect, too many bureaucrats with too much of other people’s money. In most Asian economies, the government still plays far too large a role as far as Western financiers are concerned. For the most part, Wall Street likes to see monopolies build networks but prefers them to be run by market forces once they are operational—their version of having a cake and eating it too. But so long as rule sets lag behind, the rise of private-sector market makers is delayed, for firm rules of play are required before deregulation of state-run energy markets can proceed.

Viewed from this angle, it might be said that the greatest long-term threat to Asia’s energy security is internal: its own proclivities for crony capitalism. Whether it is called Asian valuescapitalism with Chinese characteristics, or globalization on ourterms, all Asian claims to a particular brand of capitalism are ultimately self-defeating. In sum, money has to behave in Asia just like it does in the West if the region hopes to attract the investment necessary to secure its energy future.

No security, no rules

Foreign direct investment does not occur in a vacuum. Long-term certainty is the greatest attraction a country can offer to outside investors, whereas war and political-military instability (especially leftist revolutions) are the best methods to scare them away. Not surprisingly, the strongest FDI bonds exist between the three main pillars of the Cold War’s trilateral alliance structure: the United States, Western Europe, and Japan.

This triad controls 80 percent of the world’s stock in foreign direct investment, keeping two-thirds of that total invested in one another. That means the other 90 percent of the global population has to get by on the remaining half of global FDI capital available. In a nutshell, investment follows the flag far more than trade. For example, the United States does about a third of its trade with Western Europe and Japan but concentrates closer to a half of its FDI in these two markets.16

Developing Asia, in contrast, readily presents a handful of potential and/or existing security trouble spots that could negatively impact the region’s FDI climate in significant ways:

  • India-Pakistan nuclear standoff
  • Indonesia’s disarray
  • The Korean situation (especially the North’s nuclear/missile programs and/or “imminent collapse”)
  • China-Taiwan
  • Overlapping sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.

Bluntly stated, Asia is still a place where military conflict could dramatically alter the FDI landscape, unlike a Europe where the conflict in the former Yugoslavia had a negligible impact on economic integration and investment flows.

No (benign) Leviathan, no security

Many international experts agree that Asia’s current security situation belongs more to what Thomas Friedman calls the “olive tree” world, where backward tribes fight over little bits of land, even as its rising economic powerhouses clearly join the “Lexus” world, producing many of the global economy’s best high-end technology products.17 Lacking Europe’s crucible-like history of 20th-century warfare, as well as its currently robust regional security alliances, Asia remains the one place in the world where direct great power warfare seems possible over the next generation. This becomes especially true as previously authoritarian states experience greater amounts of political pluralism, typically the most dangerous time for interstate wars.18

In this region where the concepts of spheres of influence and security dilemma are still valid, there remains a viable long-term market for the services of an outside Leviathan—namely, the United States. In a part of the world where numerous states are still technically at war (dating back more than half a century), the United States enjoys healthier security relationships with virtually every government than any two governments there enjoy with one another. While it is easy to deride the notion of a “four-star foreign policy,” there is little doubt that the combatant commander of U.S. Pacific Command plays a special—even unique—role in working the security arrangements that underpin the region’s strong record of structural stability over the past quarter century (basically, since Vietnam was reunified).19

And if there was no U.S. military presence, then what? How comfortable could Japan be with China? Taiwan with China? South Korea with North Korea? India with Pakistan? India with China? Vietnam with China? The list goes on and on. Simply put, the U.S. military occupies both a physical and a fiscal space in Asia: our forward presence both reassures local governments and obviates their need for larger military hedges. Our presence is a moneymaker on two fronts: local governments spend less on defense and more on development (the ultimate defense), and FDI is encouraged, however subtly.

No U.S. Navy, no (benign) Leviathan

As noted earlier, what Asia needs in terms of future energy requirements is entirely available either in-region (for example, coal) or from the central portion of the Eurasian landmass (gas and oil from the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and Russia). These distances are all feasibly conquered by pipelines, and most of the involved sea lines of communication lie within the reach of the region’s naval forces—for good or ill.

Meanwhile, the West, which has come to rely less and less on Persian Gulf oil, is likewise becoming more regionally focused in its energy trade patterns. The United States, for example, imports more energy supplies from Canada than any other nation, and gets the bulk of its imported oil from North and South America.

None of these statements are meant to suggest that East-versus-West energy blocs are forming. In reality, the regionalization of energy trade occurs precisely because the commodities in question are behaving more and more as one would expect of a globally traded, highly fungible good. If price determines all, then reducing transportation distance makes sense.

In the end, all this regionalization comes about because the energy trade is no longer confined to the sort of strategic bilateral relationships of the Cold War era, so the new rules of energy are nothing more than that sector’s joining up with the global marketplace and losing its special status as a strategic asset.

Having said all that, the U.S. Government—and the U.S. Navy in particular—faces a far more complex strategic environment in the 21st century, whether or not it yet realizes the change: our national security interests in the Persian Gulf, while increasingly important for the global economy, no longer hold the same immediate importance to our national economy.

In effect, U.S. naval presence in Asia is becoming far less an expression of our nation’s forward presence than our exporting of security to the global marketplace. In that regard, we truly do move into the Leviathan category, for the product we provide is increasingly a collective good less directly tied to our particularistic national interests and far more intimately wrapped up with our global responsibilities.

And in the end, this is a pretty good deal. We trade little pieces of paper (our currency, in the form of a trade deficit) for Asia’s amazing array of products and services. We are smart enough to know this is a patently unfair deal—unless we offer something of great value along with those little pieces of paper. That product is a strong U.S. Pacific Fleet, which squares the transaction quite nicely.

Understanding the Military-Market Connection

The collapse of the Soviet bloc and its longstanding challenge (or rejection) of the Western economic rule set made possible—really for the first time in human history—a truly global rule set for how military power buttresses and enables economic growth and stability.

How so? For the first time in human history, we have a true global military Leviathan in the form of the U.S. military, and no peer competitor in sight—not even a coherent alternative economic philosophy (although one clearly brews in the anti-globalization protests that started with Seattle). This unparalleled moment in global history both allows and compels the United States to better understand the national security-market nexus, in large part because of its complete reversal of the priority from that of the Cold War era. During the strategic standoff with the Soviet Union, economic might was seen as supporting military power, but now that situation has been turned on its head: to the extent that the military matters, it matters because of the stabilization role it can play in the global economy.

How do we define this yin-yang relationship between the military and business worlds? First, we speak of stability, which flows from national security, and then we speak of transparency, which is both demanded and engendered by free markets. These two underlying pillars form the basis of the single global rule set that now essentially defines the era of globalization.

Within those two pillars, the United States clearly plays a crucial role:

  • The U.S. Government, through the U.S. military, supplies the lion’s share of system stability through its Leviathan-like status as the world’s sole military superpower.
  • The U.S. financial markets, which lead the way in fostering the emergence of a truly global equities market that will inevitably operate all day, every day, play the leading role in spreading the gospel of transparency—any country’s best defense against the sort of financial currency crises that have periodically erupted over the last decade (Mexico 1994, Asia 1997, Russia 1998, Brazil 1999, Turkey 2001).

As such, it is essential that these two worlds—the Pentagon and Wall Street—come to better understand their interrelationships across the global economy. Uncovering and comprehending this fundamental relationship is especially important because—the vast majority of the time—the security and financial communities operate in oblivious indifference to one another.

One is tempted to counter, “So what? They don’t need to be aware of one another on a day-to-day basis.” And in a basic sense, that is true. But if you consider the rise of system perturbations as a new form of international security threat, and if you understand that many of these perturbations first appear in the form of financial crises that can engender serious subnational violence (for example, Indonesia today), then perhaps this connectivity seems more pertinent. Ultimately, the global economy operates on trust, which is based on certainty, which in turn comes from the effective processing of risk.

In the end, the national security and financial establishments are in the same fundamental business: the effective assessment and mitigation of international risk. For the military, it is the risk of conflict and the disruption of normal life by large-scale violence, while in the financial world, it is the risk of bankruptcy (insolvency) and the disruption of normal business by large-scale panics or meltdowns.

Invariably, these two problem sets merge in the historical process that is economic globalization, so understanding the military-market connection is not just good business, it is good national security strategy. Osama bin Laden understood this connection when he selected the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as his targets. We ignore his logic at our peril.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is professor and senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College. He directed the NewRulesSet.Project, an effort to draw new “maps” of power and influence in the world economy through collaboration with financial corporations such as Cantor Fitzgerald. Currently, he is serving as the assistant for strategic futures in the recently formed Office of Force Transformation within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. His articles appear with frequency in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, and an abbreviated version of this chapter appeared in the January 2002 issue. The author would like to thank Bradd Hayes and Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, USN (Ret.), for their comments on the original draft.

Notes

For the purposes of this article, the author defines Asia as extending from Afghanistan to Japan, but not including Australia and New Zealand (Oceania), although he identifies Australia as an in-region supplier of energy (coal and natural gas) due to its proximity. 

2For a good example of this sort of work, see Thomas P.M. Barnett and Linda D. Lancaster,Answering the 9–1–1 Call: U.S. Military and Naval Crisis Response Activity, 1977–1991 (Center for Naval Analyses Information Memorandum 229, August 1992). 

3For the best analysis on this subject, see Henry H. Gaffney, Jr., et al., U.S. Naval Responses to Situations, 1970–1999 (Center for Naval Analyses Research Memorandum DOOO2763.A2/Final, December 2000). 

See the Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Outlook 2000: With Projections to 2020, DOE/EIA–0484 (2000), March 2000, accessed at <www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html>.

5The NewRuleSets.Project was a multi-year research effort designed to explore how globalization and the rise of the New Economy are altering the basic “rules of the road” in the international security environment, with special reference to how these changes may redefine the U.S. Navy’s historic role as security enabler of America’s commercial network ties with the world. The project was hosted by the online securities broker-dealer firm, eSpeed (an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald LP), and involved personnel from the Decision Strategies Department of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies. Adm. William Flanagan, USN (Ret.), and Philip Ginsberg of Cantor Fitzgerald (then-senior managing director and executive vice president, respectively) served as informal advisers to the project, actively participating in all planning and design. The joint Wall Street-Naval War College workshops in the series involved energy, environmental issues and foreign direct investment in Asia. All research products relating to this effort can be found at <www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets>.

All the energy data presented in the decalogue, unless otherwise specified, comes from the Department of Energy’s International Energy Outlook 2001

7 A good rule of thumb for thinking about a quadrillion British thermal units (Btus) is that you can take the annual number for a region and divide it by two, giving you the rough equivalent in millions of barrels of oil per day the region would need to burn if it was achieving that entire energy amount by oil alone. For example, North America used about 110 quadrillion Btus in 1997, so that would equate to approximately 55 million barrels a day (mbd) of oil if that entire amount was achieved by oil alone. For point of comparison, note that the United States currently uses about 20 mbd, importing roughly half that number. 

8 For an excellent exploration of this, see Daniel Yergin, Dennis Eklof, and Jefferson Edwards, “Fueling Asia’s Recovery,” Foreign Affairs 77, no. 2 (March/April 1998), 34–50. 

The Middle East currently accounts for roughly 90 percent of all Asian oil imports; on this see Fereidun Fesharaki, “Energy and Asian Security Nexus,” Journal of International Affairs 53, no. 1 (Fall 1999), 97. 

10 For a frightening description of this situation, see Nicholas D. Kristof’s chapter, “Search for the Sorceror,” in Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia, ed. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 5–23. 

11 Cited in Clay Chandler, “GM’s China Bet Hits Snag: WTO (Car Shoppers Await Discount From Trade Deal),” The Washington Post, May 10, 2000, E1.

12 See “Foreign Investment in the Electricity Sectors of Asia and South America,” in International Energy Outlook 2001, 120–21. 

13 For a good description of Enron’s difficulties in the Indian electricity market, see Celia W. Dugger, “High-Stakes Showdown: Enron’s Right Over Power Plant Reverberates Beyond India,”The New York Times, March 20, 2001, C1. 

14 These figures are derived from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Investment Report 2000

15 In contrast, Asia accounts for less than 10 percent of global foreign direct investment flows, even though its gross domestic product share sits at 25 percent.

16 Estimates based on the figures taken from UNCTAD, World Investment Review and CIA, World Factbook, various years.

17 See Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus And The Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1999). 

18 On this subject, see the data analysis by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and War,” Foreign Affairs 74, no. 3 (May/June 1995), 79–97. 

19 For an excellent exploration of this concept, see Dana Priest, “A Four-Star Foreign Policy? U.S. Commanders Wield Rising Clout, Autonomy,” The Washington Post, September 28, 2000, A1. See also the second and third articles in the series (September 29–30).

12:11AM

Co-opting Turkey and Iran--in tandem

Fascinating Stephen Kinzer piece in The American Prospect, by way of WPR's Media Roundup.

The subtitle makes the statement boldly:

Why America's future partners in the Middle East should be Turkey and Iran -- yes, Iran.

Underlying argument:  two countries in the region have a long history of struggling with democracy--Turkey and Iran.  Both currently sport the Islamist veneer, but beneath lies a restive and vibrant civic culture.

In the future, it is not Turkey alone where "they come together." Improbable as it may seem right now, given the current regime in Iran, a partnership that unites Turkey, Iran, and the United States is the future and makes sense for two reasons: The three countries share strategic interests, and their people share values. Our evolving relationship with a changing Turkey offers a model for the kind of relationship we might one day--not necessarily tomorrow--have with a changing Iran. This is the tantalizing possibility of a new way for the U.S. to engage with the Middle East in the 21st century.

Why explore?  Because our Cold War stalwarts aren't working out:

Today we work in the region primarily through two bilateral relationships--with Israel and with Saudi Arabia. These pairings served Washington well during the Cold War. They have not, however, produced a stable Middle East. 

I like this piece very much.  Very intelligent, unemotional, and strategic in vision.

Also adapted from a new book (Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future).

12:10AM

Another American nation birthed--casino optionable!

pic here

NYT story of Long Island Native American tribe that successfully got recognized, after long battle, as the newest member of America's 500-plus collection of embedded independent nations.

Usual story nowadays: prime motivation is ability to build and operate a gambling casino.

What an American story!

But the dynamic is not that different when globalization births new nations: they too want a better deal with the larger economy and see independence as crucial to winning that.

So, in essence, a perfect American tale in a globalized age.