Friday, January 15, 2010 at 10:37PM WORLD NEWS: "Manila's aid to cut poverty has strings attached," by Roel Landingin and Katherine Demopoulous, Financial Times, 4 January 2010.
Government aid to poor people mandates parents send kids to schools and everybody avails themselves of medical programs. Don't do it? Don't get the money.
The best form of bribery: micro-loans, behaviorial-style.
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 10:36PM YEAR-END REVIEW OF MARKETS & FINANCE: "Oil and Natural Gas Diverge on Fundamentals," by Liam Pleven, Wall Street Journal, 4 January 2010.
Oil prices rebounding and staying relatively high while gas descends.
An emerging reality as we continue to discover and exploit non-associated (with oil, that is) gas, to include unconventional sources like shale gas.
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 10:33PM ARTICLE: What's Our Line?, By MICHAEL KINSLEY, New York Times, January 4, 2010
A nice bit of reasoning from Kinsley:
There's a gruesome anomaly here, to be sure: the United States government will blow you to smithereens and consider it a good day's work if you're a Qaeda member dreaming of jihadist glory while residing somewhere outside the United States, but will pay for your lawyer if you get caught in the act within our borders. But this anomaly didn't arise with the Obama administration. It is built into our dual role as a liberal democracy and as a legitimately aggrieved superpower.
The charms of liberal democracy sometimes need to be defended by war, and Mr. Obama's critics are right that war can't be conducted with a high level of concern for individual justice. A liberal democracy aspires to punish only the guilty. But war is inherently unfair -- it distributes suffering arbitrarily among enemy combatants, civilians and one's own soldiers. A line has to be drawn somewhere to determine which of these utterly different standards of government behavior is applied where -- and the nation's border is as good a line as any.
Under no conditions do I want to conduct warfare inside the United States in the same way we prosecute it abroad, so yeah, it matters plenty where you get caught and where the crime occurred. Symmetricizing the conflict only plays into the hands of our non-state enemies. I see no reason to elevate them so while lowering ourselves so precipitously.
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 10:28PM ARTICLE: U.S. Dethroning Russia as Gas King, By Anatoly Medetsky, Moscow Times, 13 January 2010
Oh no! Russia is no longer gas king!
Another resource war averted!
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 11:40AM Hugh sent me an email mid-afternoon, while I was penning my WPR column (just got home today from Enterra trip that was supposed to be only a one-day jaunt and instead turned into five days: Monday NYC, Tuesday Philly, Wednesday NYC, Thursday DC and Friday DC to home). A bit blitzed from lack of sleep, so tried to talk Steve into doing it (he of the most on-the-spot experience), but he was even more blitzed and wrapping up another day of non-stop meets.
So I told Hugh I'd do it and then finished my column around 4:30, giving me a whopping 15 minutes to collect my thoughts before taping 10 minutes or so at 4:45.
Hugh said it would run in the 6pm EST hour, or in the next few minutes..
Quick heads-up, listen live or online afterwards.
I tried to make some quick basic points, worked Steve in and the Center for Excellence in Hawaii and Gen. (ret) Goodman out there. I may have babbled a bit due to fatigue (I am fading as I type this).
But I got my big tasks done today: get home and get the column written.
Tonight we start the first season of "Lost" in the home theater. Tomorrow I work the brief for Vegas and paint faces at the church fund-raiser. Sunday I fly to Vegas with two older kids (free fliers) and we all stay at the Mirage that night. Some sightseeing in the afternoon, then AV check, then dinner, then cocktails with hosts at 6pm and then I see the "Love" show again--this time with my kids (why I brought them).
Speak first thing Monday at Heavy Duty Equipment Manufacturers (return gig from 2007) convention. Then fly home with kids.
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 12:45AM ARTICLE: In Rebuke of China, Focus Falls on Cybersecurity, By MIGUEL HELFT and JOHN MARKOFF, New York Times, January 13, 2010
Naturally, Google's stance triggers a bandwagoning effect, as now all manner of dirty laundry is aired/reaired.
This can quickly become a highly damaging dynamic for Beijing's bosses, because the smile diplomacy needs continued success in Washington to achieve full impact worldwide.
You just knew China's government would push every IT envelope it could, eventually creating enough backpressure for a media/political mania to unfold on our side--not unwarranted.
China is just now starting to learn what a burden it can be to be perceived by the world as a superpower, because everything you do takes on supreme meaning.
Anyway, they asked for the recognition and now they've got it.
How they handle it will be interesting, because the reflexive defensiveness now competes with the rising arrogance/hubris, meaning mistakes will be harder to avoid.
All good and necessary developments.
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:54PM OPINION: Threats, by Steve Coll, The New Yorker, January 18, 2010
Very nice and sensible piece from Coll, which should be counterposed to the recent Hoffman op-ed.
Great opening bit:
Fortunately, there is abundant evidence that the United States is entering a new era in its struggle against terrorists, one in which government and society are proving to be self-correcting, while Al Qaeda, like Dick Cheney, is proving to be self-isolating.
I know, you miss the usual hysteric tone the minute you can't locate it in the text.
Then Coll begins to truly shine in terms of perspective-providing non-hype:
Osama bin Laden sought to lead the vanguard of a spreading revolution. Instead, he and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are hunkered down, presumably along the Afghan-Pakistani border, surrounded by only about two hundred hard-core followers. Their adherents in Yemen and Africa number no more than a few thousand. Al Qaeda in Iraq is a tiny fragment of its former self. Bin Laden's relations with the Taliban seem brittle. Unlike Hezbollah, Al Qaeda provides no social services and thus has built no political movement. Unlike Hamas, its bloody nihilism has attracted no states that are willing to defend its legitimacy. In a world of at least one and a half billion Muslims, this does not a revolution, or even a vanguard, make.
Many of bin Laden's declared goals, such as the removal of American soldiers from Muslim lands, still resonate in Islamic societies. Yet, in polls conducted across the Muslim world, large majorities repudiate Al Qaeda, and particularly its tactic of murdering civilians. It is common to observe that bin Laden's poll ratings have collapsed in recent years because his violence has taken the lives of Muslims as well as infidels. Actually, polling shows that citizens of Islamic countries, as elsewhere, overwhelmingly disapprove of any indiscriminate killing, whatever the victims' religious beliefs, and no matter the cause.
Since September 11th, American public opinion about how to respond to bin Laden's threats has also evolved. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, the electorate chose nominees in both major parties who opposed torture. Exit polls indicated that one of the reasons voters elected Barack Obama was to improve America's image abroad.
In office, Obama has begun to reframe counterterrorism strategy. He has crafted a posture of strategic patience, premised upon a forward defense and the durability of American constitutional values.
Then the annoying final bit of commonsense:
The United States is hardly the first democracy to have its nerves jangled and its values challenged by persistent terrorism. The lessons from Britain, India, Israel, Turkey, and elsewhere imply that democracies require time as well as trial and error to find a sustainable balance of politics and policy (as was true of the United States, with respect to Communism, during the Cold War).
It takes time for a democracy to find a balanced approach! Imagine that!
Again, the usual, very sensible stuff from Coll, who is like an island among terror experts in his complete inability to fear-monger.
Sean: add him to the blogroll. I have been quite remiss in not making this happen, given the guy's incredibly even output--a true rarity in the frightening uneven blogosphere.
Still, I read Coll and then I crave something bitter and unhinged! Just a habit, I guess.
(Thanks: NeoTrad Librarian)
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:52PM ARTICLE: Cancer Risks Debated for Type of X-Ray Scan, By MATTHEW L. WALD, New York Times, January 8, 2010
This, to me, will eventually be the biggest factor connected to the desired increase use of scanners at airports.
Been waiting for this story since Xmas and the calls immediately began.
Eventually, somebody's going to have to invent a scanning technology that's clear and doesn't involve cumulative doses of radiation, no matter how small it is in any one instance.
Or am I being too demanding (and alarmist) here?
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:06PM OP-ED: Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too., By Bruce Hoffman, Washington Post, January 10, 2010
With all due respect to Hoffman, I don't see anything particularly "new" in this description of al-Qaeda's perceived "strategy." Worse, I don't think he disproves the "AQ is losing coherence" proposition much at all and I guess I'm surprised that he thinks this laundry list gets it done.
As thousand-cuts-strategies go, this one frankly looks supremely underwhelming in a systemic sense. Yes, it will occasionally arise above globalization's normal noise, but that's more because things are so quiet right now.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:02PM OP-ED: Taking the Measure of Obama's Foreign Policy, By ELIOT A. COHEN, Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2010
You have to like the whining in this one: "Look at all the bad style points I've awarded Obama! Lucky for him there have been no serious crises!"
Ooh! Devastating critique whose killer bash point is saying Obama's Nobel win made him look bad. Sarkozy's famous question is raised--also devastating since you know how America takes its strategic cues from the French.
You read the whole thing through, looking for something bad to truly grab onto, and there's nothing there. Just bitchy carping from a Bush loyalista who should put his decent talents to better use.
Obama is annoying when it comes to possible critiques: he doesn't really make mistakes, being so anally careful, and so far has suffered no serious defeats.
The Olympics? Puh-leaaze! Copenhagen? Oh yeah, I see America forcing a global consensus on that one. Name the huge screw-ups on either Iraq or Afghanistan? You can't. As for Iran, we luck out with the putsch triggering the Green Movement. So we're reduced to making Underwear Bomber the latest sign of the coming Apocalypse, which is just plain sad and pathetic, but Americans do love to complain.
The biggest legitimate gripe I can come up with on Obama (setting aside the nonsense about instituting "socialism")? He's caretaking internationally on security while trying to work the global economy and deal with what he considers to be the most substantial domestic issue--pretty much the early Clintonian mix. Deep down, frankly, it's what most Americans wanted after Bush-Cheney, but it ain't much when it comes to leadership.
What would the GOP do differently? Hard to say, because nobody on that side is speaking coherently right now--another sad advantage to Obama.
Perhaps Obama's biggest accomplishment after the big financial crisis of 2008-09 is that he's succeeded in making politics seem so irrelevant again--so quickly.
That's an incredibly unsettling thing for those who like to fantasize that politics rules everything and thus Washington is the center of everything. There were so many proclamations, as the crisis unfolded, that Washington suddenly outranked NYC and other financial centers to a fantastic degree, but like so many magazine cover proclamations, it all seems like a lot of BS in retrospect.
So we're left to this sad sort of partisan bitching, which is a good indicator of how boring most op-ed pages are right now.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 10:59PM ARTICLE: Iran's opposition spreads to heartland, By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2010
An encouraging sign worth noting:
Defying the predictions of some who dismissed it as a phenomenon limited to big cities, the "green" opposition movement appears to have spread to the heartland, with video and credible reports emerging from towns in the provinces.
Also important, the ability of the external press to continue reporting like this and working outside Tehran.
(Via WPR's Media Roundup)
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 10:19PM EDITORIAL: A president's duty, Washington Post, December 15, 2009
The clear pattern of the Chavez clones:
THE SAME night that he won election to a second term as Bolivia's president earlier this month, Evo Morales began hinting about plans to stand for a third. That was no surprise: The elimination of presidential term limits has been a common feature of the new authoritarian populism in Latin America. After two tries, Venezuela's Hugo Ch√°vez managed to remove the limit on his tenure through a referendum; Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega relied on a decision by the country's Supreme Court, which he had previously stacked with his followers. Suspicions that Honduran President Manuel Zelaya wanted to lift a presidential term limit prompted the prolonged political crisis in that country.
This systematic erosion of political institutions and the rule of law is one of the ways in which Mr. Chávez and his followers threaten to drag Latin America back to its bad old days of caudillos and coups. Nations that have tried to leave that history behind have an obligation to establish a clear alternative model based on rule by the people, not a series of strongmen. That is why it is so important that the man who in many ways embodies the alternative to Chavismo, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, firmly commit himself against seeking a third term in next year's presidential election.
We can only hope Uribe is smart enough to rest on his well-deserved laurels.
That's where I don't think the Chinese get enough credit. Yes, the competition is limited within the Party, but the system is smart enough to know that two terms at the top is enough and that anything more is decidedly unhealthy.
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 10:17PM ARTICLE: Rape and murder, funded by cell phones, By Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast, CNN, December 8, 2009
The beginnings of the concept of "conflict minerals" akin to "conflict diamonds":
Armed groups in eastern Congo that control minerals, mines and trading routes generate an estimated $180 million each year by trading four main minerals: tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold.
This money enables the armed groups to purchase large numbers of weapons and continue their campaign of brutal violence against civilians. Conflict minerals are key components in the manufacture of cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, video games and portable music players.
Because of increasing awareness of the links between electronics products and the worst sexual violence in the world, change is afoot.
Already on Hillary's radar. More and more talk of replicating the Kimberly Process on conflict diamonds.
Inevitable and good.
(Thanks: Jacob)
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 10:12PM ARTICLE: Iran's Foreign Policy Strategy after Saddam, by Kayhan Barzegar, The Washington Quarterly, 33:1, 2010
This piece, by an Iranian academic with ties to Harvard, is worth reading.
It presents a rather dispassionate elucidation of Iran's enduring national security interests, the theme being that Iran views its national security as part of a regional security scheme, so when it feels scared, it acts up by increasing regional insecurity.
This is, of course, the most benign presentation of Iran's interests you will find, but it tracks very nicely in terms of their behavior--once you get past Ahmadinejad's rhetorical pokes and the emotionalism that so many bring to the table on the nuke issue.
A key point made repeatedly: trying to isolate the nuke issue will not work, because the pursuit of an independent capacity is desired across the elite. While everybody on both sides likes to harp on about the CIA coup back in the early 1950s as the big sore point, or the hostage thing with Carter, most Iranians I interact with will tell you that you need only look back to the Iran-Iraq war and our support to Saddam and the heavy losses suffered by Iran to understand why a lot of the elite see the bomb as a very good insurance policy (as in, if we had had the bomb, we never would have gone through such agony). Fast forward to 2001, Iran's immediate help on both Afghanistan and then Iraq, and then realize their sense of betrayal once Bush slaps the "axis of evil" label on them. And then you're into the logic I have long cited: you took down my neighbor on the left and then on the right and told me I was on the list, so yeah, meanwhile I reached for the one thing I knew would prevent your fulfilling of that prophesy--and THAT'S ENTIRELY RATIONAL. Of course, at that point, our side of the dialogue consists of repeating the "irrationality" argument over and over again in our minds, citing every little stupid poke that Ahmadinejad offers.
And what does this policy get us? Obstructionism in Iraq and Afghanistan (not foolhardly, but awfully clever and calculated) and no opportunities for exploitation of common interests.
Will we now press Iran harder via sanctions? Yes. Will those specifically targeting the Revolutionary Guard have some real impact? You bet, and I support those.
But no, they will not stop Iran's reach for the bomb. Nothing will. Israel can degrade through Mossad's continued sabotage and assassination campaign, but, in the end, we're talking only delay and not actually preventing the capability from eventually coming online.
Is this the worst path? If it were only about Iran, then I'd say no. Why not just drag it out as long as possible, giving both sides the maximum amount of time to get more sensible on the subject?
The trouble is, of course, our desires to keep Iraq on path (probably not too subject to Iranian pressure, although their "meddling," as we naturally define it, will continue) and our desire to stabilize Af-Pak (where Iran can mess us up some, but not that much). So yeah, I don't agree with this path, but I think it's inevitable, given the lack of any strategic imagination or boldness among the Obama team, and not all that bad over the medium term.
Why? You almost always need Rightists on both sides of the ledger to make a detente work, and that won't happen again until Obama leaves office and we get used to the reality of Iranian nukes.
So I basically agree with this guy: I don't see rapprochement working any time soon. We don't have the nerves for it, and Iran's leadership is in power-consolidation mode at home.
As always, if I had my druthers, I'd backburner the nuke issue and focus heavily on human rights and the Green Movement, giving them all the support I could. I'd suffer whatever retaliation Iran might mount (minimal, in my mind) and I wouldn't lose any sleep over a single-digit collection of weapons in the making. Why? As I have long argued, I just don't see any magical quality to a Shiia bomb compared to anything else we're encountered in history. We know how to play this game and only we have displayed the nerve to actually use nukes. And Israel is both well-stocked and well-defended strategically.
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 10:09PM ARTICLE: Up to 56,000 more contractors likely for Afghanistan, congressional agency says, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, December 16, 2009
Keeping to the reality of SysAdmin ops: we surge 37,000 troops (30 US and 7 NATO) and yet up to 56,000 more contractors expected!
We saw this with Iraq at the height of the surge (180k contractors compared to peak 170k U.S. troops) and we've already noted the dynamic in Afghanistan.
So back to my old bit: the SysAdmin is more civilian than uniform, more USG (not yet, but ultimately) than DoD, more Rest-of-the-World (only ideally for now, and yet track the investment like with China) than USA, and more FDI-driven than ODA-enhanced (Foreign Direct Investment v Official Developmental Aid; a tipping point already looming in Iraq as the oil industry kicks into serious gear).
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 11:24PM ARTICLE: Thousands feared dead in Haiti quake; global rescue and relief efforts underway, By William Branigin, Debbi Wilgoren and Michael D. Shear, Washington Post, January 13, 2010
As always, Haiti's latest woes remind us that we don't sked the SysAdmin's workload. The world does.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 11:19PM ARTICLE: Elite Revolutionary Guard's expanding role in Iran may limit U.S. options, Washington Post, By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, January 10, 2010
Decent-to-okay overview of the Revolutionary Guard's increasing domination of Iran's economy.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 11:17PM ARTICLE: Iran blames U.S., Israel in bombing death of physicist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, By Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post, January 13, 2010
Israel, while eschewing the major bombing route for now, is clearly working the discrete sabotaging/assassination route -- to no surprise.
I don't have any problems with this whatsoever, as I consider this proper symmetricizing to Iran's standard-issue mischief in the neighborhood. It's also Israel's logical contribution to a targeted sanctioning (call it sanctioned targeting) of the Revolutionary Guard at this, their current moment of vulnerability.
So I say we quietly approve.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 11:14PM ARTICLE: With Defense Test, China Shows Displeasure of U.S., By ANDREW JACOBS and JONATHAN ANSFIELD, New York Times, January 12, 2010
Contrasting the NYT coverage with Gertz's usual breathlessness at the Wash Times: I have to--surprise!--go with the Times' analysis on this one.
