WPR's The New Rules: Whatever Happened to Deglobalization?

In the midst of deep crisis, cooler heads rarely hold sway -- at least in the public discourse.  Thus it was that just a year ago, we heard from many experts -- and joyous activists -- that globalization was on its deathbed: The global economy was on the verge of a great and permanent unraveling.  It was to be an inexorable and exact reversal of everything that defined the go-go globalization of the 1990s, replete with social and political unrest of the highest order.  In effectively re-enacting the Great Depression of the 1930s, we even faced the incredible prospect of resumed great-power war.

Read the rest at World Politics Review's "The New Rules" column.

Holiday observed: Have a nice Memorial Day!

Pic here

A scene from my youth, although I never had the hat or the shorts.

Best to you and yours.

My regular WPR column will be posted near the start of the non-business day.

Nice capture of Obama's tendency to lead from behind in foreign affairs

Comes from Roger Cohen's 20 May NYT column.

The guts of the argument:

Iran has been producing, under International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, LEU (enriched to about 5 percent). It is this LEU that would have to be turned into bomb-grade uranium (over 90 percent) if Iran were to produce a nuclear weapon. The idea behind the American deal in Geneva last October was to get a big chunk of LEU out of Iran to build confidence, create some negotiating space, and remove material that could get subverted. In exchange, Iran would later get fuel rods for a medical research reactor in Tehran.

Iran, doing the bazaar routine, said yes, maybe and no, infuriating Obama. Iran now wanted the LEU stored on Iranian soil under I.A.E.A. control, phased movement of the LEU to this location, and a simultaneous fuel rod exchange. Forget it, Obama said.

Well, Turkey and Brazil have now restored the core elements of the October deal: a single shipment of the 1,200 kilograms of LEU to a location (Turkey) outside Iran and a one-year gap — essential for broader negotiations to begin — between this Iranian deposit in escrow and the import of the fuel rods.

And what’s the U.S. response? To pursue “strong sanctions” (if no longer “crippling”) against Iran at the United Nations; and insist now on a prior suspension of enrichment that was not in the October deal (indeed this was a core Obama departure from Bush doctrine).

Obama could instead have said: “Pressure works! Iran blinked on the eve of new U.N. sanctions. It’s come back to our offer. We need to be prudent, given past Iranian duplicity, but this is progress. Isolation serves Iranian hard-liners.”

No wonder Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, is angry. I believe him when he says Obama and U.S. officials encouraged Turkey earlier this year to revive the deal: “What they wanted us to do was give the confidence to Iran to do the swap. We have done our duty.”

Yes, Turkey has. I know, the 1,200 kilograms now represents a smaller proportion of Iran’s LEU than in October and it’s no longer clear that the fuel rods will come from the conversion of the LEU in escrow. But that’s small potatoes when you’re trying to build a tenuous bridge between “mendacious” Iranians and “bullying” Americans in the interests of global security.

The French and Chinese reactions — cautious support — made sense. The American made none, or did only in the light of the strong Congressional push for “crushing” sanctions. Further sanctions will not change Iran’s nuclear behavior; negotiations might.

I sense no overriding vision whatsoever, and when the administration's top people try to articulate any, it just comes off as so reactive--nuanced to the point of incoherence.  I read through Obama's recent military academy speech previewing a new national security strategy:  it was all just nouns and verbs strung together in the most boiler-plate fashion.  There is the sense of care-taking of the system but nothing more.  We don't have leaders anymore; we have good stewards of the Earth--fine I guess, but oh so tiresome. There's nothing to push against with this bunch; it's like an entire administration of Condi Rices--full of points, neatly arranged, signifying nothing but intelligent coping with the world as they find it.  Leadership is left to others; we play zone defense.

Sad times for the grand strategist.

I cannot help but detect this tendency in Obama to give the people what they want in U.S. foreign policy--as quickly as possible.  People want out of Iraq; full speed ahead!  People want to deal our way out of Afghanistan; advantage Islamabad.  People want sanctions on "crazy" Iran; stitch that meaningless package together and spend all our diplomacy on UNSC resolutions.  

Cohen on the same:

Presidents must lead on major foreign policy initiatives, not be bullied by domestic political considerations, in this case incandescent Iran ire on the Hill in an election year.

Hillary's response to the Brazil-Turkey deal was snide to the point of condescension--so much for the multi-partner world.

This is what you get with a lot of lawyers running the show, I suppose.  They want to win in court, no matter how mendacious they come off at various points.

I know, I know. You make your bed and then you have to lie in it. Problem is, the alternative sucked worse, not that that makes my disillusionment any less painful.

Nice piece by Cohen though.  It scratched one mighty intellectual itch.

Fascinating piece by Matt Armstrong in WPR on next-generation UN peacekeeping

 The starting premise intrigues:

A subtle evolution of United Nations peacekeeping operations is underway. If the first of these missions kept an agreed-upon peace, and later missions sought to make peace, several countries now use these operations to advance their foreign and economic policy agendas, and raise their global profile. This shift, selective as it is to date, may potentially raise the standard of conduct in U.N. peacekeeping operations increasingly fraught with charges of criminal behavior, corruption, lack of accountability, and general ineffectiveness. However, there are significant downsides to this approach. 

China, Brazil and India are thereupon presented for being "well-positioned to leverage this new facet of peacekeeping."

Some cool background precedes the country analyses, to include the factoid that, "Since 2001, more than half of all U.N. peacekeeping forces have come from seven countries: Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Jordan, Nepal and Ghana."  Body-intensive operations, occurring at heightened frequency, means the UN ends up turning to cheaper militaries--in every sense--that are rich in numbers.

Africa, we are told, is China's primary target for public diplomacy through peacekeeping.  I myself have been surprised, whenever I met with Chinese military officers, how many of them have done time on the continent. It is really viewed as a prime operational experience.  True to form, the Chinese provide purely SysAdmin troops (docs, police, observers, engineers) and no combat-capable personnel.  China explicitly explains its expanding role as filling the vacuum created by the decline of Western military participation in such peacekeeping ops.  

As natural as the day is long to me.  You go with the frontier integrators of the age--not last century's version.

Brazil is presented as seeking more peacekeeping roles as part of its long campaign to win a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, although the geographic purview of its participation remains tight on LATAM.

India, a long-time supplier of peacekeepers, is presented as lacking the tight strategic focus of China--as in, it's not yet sure what it wants to become as a great power.

Conclusion:  mostly upside for the UN with some danger that rising great powers will pick only their preferred missions.

Smart piece.

Deep Reads: Conrad Black's Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Anyone who followed the blog over the last year knows how much I loved this book.  It started me reading again at night before bed, largely in response to the tremendous insomnia and angst I was going through as a result of all those non-stop sinus infections across 2009 that just kept getting worse and worse, until my surgery late last October set me on an infection-free path (seven months and counting--knock on wood).

Well, I was in bad shape and really needed something to occupy my mind during those long nights, and "Franklin Delano Roosevelt:  Champion of Freedom" did it.  It's arguably now my all-time favorite biography. 

It is huge, and goes on for almost 1200 pages.  It is detailed, but never dull.  I never found myself scanning pages.  

The book is also unabashedly in love with FDR's historical accomplishments, something I've always felt was lacking in other books I've read on him (too much revisionism), and really treats him like the supreme grand strategist he was--not always getting his way but achieving the next best iteration possible.  

I also love Black's many and entertaining counterfactual explorations, especially involving Douglas MacArthur (the best surrounding FDR's decision to go with Ike over MacArthur to run the invasion of Europe).

Black, BTW, is now serving a 6-7 year term in a Florida prison for mail fraud stemming from his stint as CEO of a publishing entity. Like FDR, he was born into money. Fabulous historian, though--at least he's the kind I like.

I actually miss reading the book, although I recently loaned it out to my father-in-law.

Like my sister with the "Firefly" DVDs, I will want it back!

Movie of My Week: Serenity (2005)

I have never connected on the whole Joss Whedon thing, but I've been long attracted to the work of Nathan Fillion (particularly his work in "Waitress" and "Castle").  So my sister Cathie visits a while back for son Kevin's confirmation and she insists, if we like great series like "Lost" etc., we have to watch the 2002 single season of "Firefly"--his beloved Western in space  (14 episodes, several of which were never aired due to early cancellation).

So after she gets home, she sends us the series DVDs and the follow-on movie from 2005 ("Serenity," named for the "firefly" style ship in question, which in turn was named by its captain Malcolm Reynolds (played by Fillion in his most handsome period) in honor of a losing battle in which he fought for the losing side--the rebels against the "alliance").

We watch the series and I'm hooked maybe three episodes in, especially because the women are so interesting and so hot!  Gene Roddenberry, with his original "wagon train to the stars" Star Trek could have learned a thing or two about casting and employing women in strong roles from Mr. Whedon (although Gene did far better in ST: The Next Generation).  I especially fell for Morena Baccarin, who now plays the lead alien on "V" (which I may have to start watching as a result).

The great bonus!  Ron Glass back from "Barney Miller" in a sweet role that any actor of age would love (very Obi Wan). 

But frankly, I lived for the moments when Inara was on-screen.

Anyway, a great frontier backdrop with space travel added in, the stories are right out of "Gunsmoke" or "Wild Wild West"--just done with tremendous flair, a rare discipline on the lack of sounds in space, and that amazing Whedon ability on dialogue, which here celebrates pioneer/Western language.

To wit, from the Wikipedia entry on the show:  

Whedon developed the concept for the show after reading The Killer Angels, a novel chronicling the Battle of Gettysburg during theAmerican Civil War. He wanted to follow people who had fought on the losing side of a war and their experiences afterwards aspioneers and immigrants on the outskirts of civilization, much like the post-American Civil War era of Reconstruction and the American Old West culture.^[8] He intended the show to be "a Stagecoach kind of drama with a lot of people trying to figure out their lives in a bleak pioneer environment.

How could I not love this?

So we finished the series and then teed up the movie.  It was fantastic:  suitably darker and faster paced and with the principals in greater dangers, it tied up the series nicely and even had the decency to kill off the most annoying character--in my opinion.

Good sign:  I watched with kids on night when Vonne was busy, but I'm really looking forward to watching it again with her before sending the whole kit and kaboodle back to my sister, who is understandably proprietary about the discs.

I include a bonus movie poster just for the neat sight of Inara packing heat (far left):

The importance of language--and its abuse: when "swaps" really mean "insurance"

Wikipedia graphic

A simple but compelling observation by Floyd Norris in the NYT:  "swaps" used to mean swaps, but then they were expanded to include protections that were tantamount to insurance:

As it happened, however, clever people on Wall Street followed the prescription laid down by Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass:”

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

When Alice protested, Humpty Dumpty replied that the issue was “which is to be master — that’s all.”

The word here is “swap.” It used to mean, well, a swap. In a currency swap, one party will win if one currency rises against another and lose if the opposite happens.

Credit-default swaps are, in reality, insurance. The buyer of the insurance gets paid if the subject of the swap cannot meet its obligations. The seller of the swap gets a continuing payment from the buyer until the insurance expires. Sort of like an insurance premium, you might say.

But the people who dreamed up credit-default swaps did not like the word insurance. It smacked of regulation and of reserves that insurance companies must set aside in case there were claims. So they called the new thing a swap.

In the antiregulatory atmosphere of the times, they got away with it. As Humpty would have understood, Wall Street was master. Because swaps were unregulated, calling insurance a swap meant those who traded in them could make whatever decisions they wished.

That decision, perhaps more than anything else, enabled the American International Group to go broke — or, more precisely, to fail into the hands of the American government. Had it been forced to set aside reserves, A.I.G. would have stopped selling swaps a lot sooner than it did.

The decision that swaps were not insurance meant that anyone could buy or sell them — or at least anyone who could find a counterparty.

Had credit-default swaps been classified as insurance, the concept of “insurable interest” might have been applied. That concept says that you cannot buy insurance on my life, or on my house, unless you have an insurable interest.

Meaning, you have to have skin in the game to ensure your reasonably non-self-destructive behavior.

Pretty sensible and a nice explanation that I've missed up to now.  Simple works.

I will admit that I knew the swaps in question functioned like insurance; that's how I usually explained them--in rudimentary fashion.  What I was missing was the knowledge that expanded function purposefully leveraged a rule-set gap.  It makes the achieved abuse a lot easier to understand.

Krugman: our fear of deficits may doom us to a Japanese-style "lost decade"

Pic/graphic here

Krugman argues against our popular instinct not to see our government get insanely in debt, saying:

But the truth is that policy makers aren’t doing too much; they’re doing too little. Recent data don’t suggest that America is heading for a Greece-style collapse of investor confidence. Instead, they suggest that we may be heading for a Japan-style lost decade, trapped in a prolonged era of high unemployment and slow growth.

But the truth is that policy makers aren’t doing too much; they’re doing too little. Recent data don’t suggest that America is heading for a Greece-style collapse of investor confidence. Instead, they suggest that we may be heading for a Japan-style lost decade, trapped in a prolonged era of high unemployment and slow growth.

If that isn't a vigorous enough statement, consider this:

I strongly suspect that some officials at the Fed see the Japan parallels all too clearly and wish they could do more to support the economy. But in practice it’s all they can do to contain the tightening impulses of their colleagues, who (like central bankers in the 1930s) remain desperately afraid of inflation despite the absence of any evidence of rising prices. I also suspect that Obama administration economists would very much like to see another stimulus plan. But they know that such a plan would have no chance of getting through a Congress that has been spooked by the deficit hawks.

In short, fear of imaginary threats has prevented any effective response to the real danger facing our economy.

I will admit:  as much as this scenario scares me, I am still more scared by the crowding-out phenomenon associated with that massive federal debt.  I sense that we'd be better off facing tough challenges in the shorter-run than assuming recovery of government revenues for a long-enough stretch to make good on all this debt.  That just strikes me as too optimistic, given our demographics and love of medical technology and our enduring commitment to fielding a large military--all of which will have to give.  I also agree with Krugman's suspicion that more stimulus is a political non-starter.

Underground banking in China

Pic here

Interesting FT piece on the underground banking in China known as minjian jeidai.

Basically it's Chinese companies borrowing short-term money from wealthy households instead of banks via a broker.  Households want better opportunities to use their investment money and banks find it hard to get such loans from banks, so everybody happy!

The problem is that anything that unregulated can have surprising impact, depending on the size of the flow, which nobody really knows.  Some bankers guess it's equal to about 10% of any locality's ongoing finance.

Point of piece by Gillian Tett:  compared to the now vilified West, China's state capitalism isn't exactly lacking in unregulated financing, and it's overall lack of financial transparency suggests that underground banking may be just a fraction of what we don't know.

Bottom line:  lots of bets being placed on future Chinese growth, even though "very few western investors really know that much about what is--or is not--happening at the grass roots in China now."

Not all that different from the US housing market five years ago, she ends.

Sobering thought.

Arrgh! They've stolen my content!

Pic here

I cite Lars Ulrich on this subject because my older son idolizes him and because he always impressed me WRT his vehemence on the subject (even more than his ferocious drumming, which I've witnessed close up).

In Indy last year, I snapped while accompanying my son to the concert, ear plugs firmly in place.

Anyway, what caught my eye on the article was this quote from the deputy chief exec of Penguin (the publisher that owns G.P. Putnam, publisher of my trilogy, and which in turn is owned by Pearson, which also owns the FT):

The only way to fight piracy is to publish digital content across as many formats as possible, through as many channels, at a fair price.  If we go for exclusive or proprietary formats, we're completely screwed.

You fight illegal connectivity by embracing connectivity all the more--not by putting up firewalls.

Brief Reminder: Speaking in Mumbai

Having just turned 48 yesterday, I like this slide mostly for my hairline.

The backstory here is kind of funny:  the Indian commodore who invited me knew who I was, but in presenting me to his superiors, he sort of let slide their impression that they were getting Roger Barnett, another older and then better known Naval War College prof (but about as far from my thinking ideologically as you can get).  They were all happy in the end, as was I.  I described the trip in the book, The Pentagon's New Map.

Blast from my past: the UK version of shrinking the Gap

Sent to me by a reader (suspect it was Michal Migurski, because that's where I find the graphic today.

A day long anticipated

Tonight, on my 48th birthday, my 16-year cancer survivor graduates from high school with academic honors.

For parents who worried about the long-term impact of chemotherapy on her cognitive abilities, her department award in Japanese (memory, concentration) was especially gratifying.

When I waited for Emily to come out of that original, dangerous surgery to remove her kidney, this was one of the days I dreamed about. 

Post-colonial approaches to Africa

FT analysis full-pager by Tom Burgis highlights China's relationship with Niger over uranium mining.

The opening gambit:

Following the same bargain it has struck across the continent – swapping infrastructure and cash for resources to sustain its breakneck growth – China has secured access not only to another source of African oil but also to what is perhaps the single commodity considered more sensitive than crude: uranium. It has also turned Niger into a bellwether for those who fear that the struggle to secure the continent’s resources risks re-creating the ruinous brinkmanship of the cold war.

The loser in this particular thrust?  France's Areva, which enjoyed a 40-year monopoly on Niger uranium. Given the level of development in Niger, I would say that competition wouldn't be a bad step.

Naturally, any such journey is contentious:

From 2004, when he became the first president in Niger’s history to be re-elected, Mr Tandja set about loosening Niamey’s umbilical bond to Paris. From 2007, Niger granted some 150 new permits to prospect for uranium, which accounts for up to half its export earnings. Relations with France reached their nadir when his government accused Areva of funding the Tuareg rebels of the Sahara who kidnapped expatriates and laid landmines in the northern mining region, demanding a greater share of the uranium spoils. Two senior Areva officials were ejected from the country in spite of French denials.

The fruits of Mr. Tandja's boldness became quickly apparent:

The competition has seen work start on Niger’s first refinery and a $700m hydroelectric barrage, not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars in “signature bonuses”, courtesy of Beijing. It helped the country wring tougher terms from France before granting permission for Areva’s vast new mine, which will make the country the world’s second-biggest uranium producer after Kazakhstan.

But apparently Mr. Tandja's closeness to China led to his political downfall:

Yet a February coup d’etat heightened the anxiety of those who see danger in a stand-off. Although ethnic rivalries and opportunism played their part in the putsch, Mamadou Tandja became the first African leader whose downfall could be traced directly to his embrace of Chinese suitors. “It was because Tandja had Chinese money that he felt he could mock the European Union, Ecowas [the regional bloc], the US,” says Mohamed Bazoum, a former minister who now serves on the “consultative council” created by the military junta that seized power.

The US concern?  Naturally, it's all about terrorists getting their hands on WMD --namely, Al-Qaeda's local offshoot.

China's take on things?  The usual:

Perhaps Mr Tandja had not acquainted himself with China’s policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of African states. When young officers stormed the presidential palace on February 18, Beijing was as silent as it had been while he amassed power. The toppled president remains under lock and key. The junta pledged elections by February and has barred its own members from contesting them – so those overseeing the transition are not themselves participants. The soldiers have signalled they have no plans to break with China, although they intend to audit all Tandja-era mining permits.

They will do business with whomever is in power--not a particularly Chinese trait.

And don't think the Chinese are backing off due to the recent volatility:

Xia Huang, China’s ambassador in Niamey, says Beijing’s bonds to Niger are unshaken and that grander projects are in the offing, including pipelines and coal-fired power stations. China, he says, has offered Africa a “more profitable option” than other partners have. With a little overstatement, he adds: “This country has already seen uranium extraction for nearly 40 years. But when one sees that the direct revenues from uranium are more or less equivalent to those derived from the export of onions each year, there’s a problem.”

Nice point, great piece.

Ankara's simple rule-set: fix your own problems first if you want larger influence

The guts of an FT column by Philip Stephens:

For Mr Erdogan's government the attempt to broker a deal is a natural extension of Ankara's active regional diplomacy. The last few years have seen a marked rise in both Turkey's economic prosperity and its political confidence. As France, Germany and others have found reasons to exclude it from the European Union, Turkey has turned eastwards.

Ankara's rising stature in the region has been based on the brilliantly simple proposition that nations that want to project influence should start by fixing their own disputes. Mr Erdogan has settled long-running arguments with Syria and Iraq and sought to lower tensions in the Caucasus.

The neighbourhood problem-solving has not been universally successful but it has been sufficiently so to turn Turkey into a big regional player. Mr Erdogan's government now shows the political confidence that comes with understanding that it has opened up options for itself beyond frustrating and fruitless negotiations in Brussels about the terms under which it might at some point qualify as a "European" power. Here, I think, lies a source of the irritation in Washington and elsewhere about the latest initiative.

The off-stated ambition of western governments is that the world's rising powers should bear some of the burden of safeguarding international security and prosperity. The likes of China, India and, dare one say, Turkey and Brazil, are beneficiaries of a rules-based global order and, as such, should be prepared to contribute. They should, in a phrase coined some years ago by Robert Zoellick, act as stakeholders in the system.

Seen from Ankara or Brasilia, or indeed from Beijing or New Delhi, there is an important snag in this argument. They are not being invited to craft a new international order but rather to abide by the old (western) rules. As I heard one Chinese scholar remark this week, it is as if the rising nations have been offered seats at a roulette table only on the strict understanding that the west retains ownership of the casino.

Ownership in the system comes with the ability to alter the existing rules or propose new ones.  If that's not allowed, no ownership can be had.

We are getting exactly what we asked for re: "stakeholders."  The challenge for us is not to referee, but to compete with even better ideas, more innovative rules, and more imaginative diplomacy.

Venter's achievement

Pic here  FT story.

"We have passed through a critical psychological barrier," says Dr. Craig Venter, after unveiling his achievement--the world's first synthetic cells.  It comes after a 15-year effort, this creation of a new bacteria.

An ethics professor at Oxford puts it this way:

Venter is creating open the most profound door in humanity's history.  This is a step towards . . . creation of living beings with capacities and natures that could never have naturally evolved.

Venter's near-term goals include creating algae that can capture CO2 from the air and produce hydrocarbon fuels.  He's got a $600m deal with Exxon to this end.

The bare bones description:  Venter creates a synthetic genome, then transfers it into the shell of an existent bacteria that--apparently, had its genome stripped out.  The new synthetic genome thereupon booted-up the host cell and took it over.

You have to believe this is a big step toward the possibility of engineering human replacement organs--perhaps to the point of improving them dramatically or creating better babies through chemistry (ever seen the movie "Gattaca"?).  

It also portends biowarfare possibilities, of course.  

Venter admitted as much by calling the technology "dual-use," a term of art in my community to denote technology that can be used for civilian and military purposes.

Oil is too fungible for effective sanctioning--to wit, Iran's thriving oil trade with West

None of the tougher sanctions proposed for Iran, says this WSJ front-pager, will target its oil sales, which account for 1/2 of government revenue.  The market is so fungible and international and sensitive, that doing so would likely push gas up a $1 here in the States, even though we don't import any Iranian oil--openly.

As a result, no big trick to buy resold Iranian oil, a la the chart above.

"Everyone buys from the Iranians—governments, states, other companies," says Mark Ware, a spokesman for Vitol Group, an energy-trading company that continues to deal in Iranian crude and is one of the few companies willing to talk about it. "It's not subject to any legislation."

This is the reality of a sophisticated global market:  all demand affects all production affects all prices.

US Coast Guard: "Technology has outrun the current regulations"

WSJ piece that says oil rig blowout in Gulf "has prompted scrutiny of the U.S. Coast Guard's ability to carry out even its limited role in preventing disaster on rigs."

CG naturally replies that it's short on resources.

Title quote comes from Lt. Cmdr. Michael Odom, who--career-wise--is just the right age to offer that judgment (been in long enough to spot the rule-set gap, and with enough of a career ahead of him to take it seriously).

The facts:  USCG regs for the massive moving regs date back to 1978, when they were smaller and operated mostly just offshore.

Even when the USCG does get involved, it's mostly paperwork, because the regulation of the rigs lies with the Interior Dept's Minerals Management Service.

Most experts argue to revisit this regulatory split in light of the recent disaster.

But here's the hitch, just like with ships, most of the rigs are under foreign flags, meaning the nation of registry is responsible for oversight.

The Transocean rig that went to the bottom was registered under the Republic of Marshall Islands, which in turn hired a private contractor to do any inspections--a common industry practice for such states.

When the USCG shows up to any rig, the difference in review shows:  foreign rigs get the hours-long treatment but US-registered rigs get the days-long review.

Underlying tone:  2007 independent assessment by fmr USCG Vice Admiral found that, once the USCG got sucked into the Department of Homeland Security, safety maintenance work went out the window in favor of c-terrorism.

Inside the Gap, birth control is much harder to find

The gist from NYT's Nicholas Kristof (via WPR's Media Roundup) as he crosses central Africa, a place I'll be visiting soon enough:

Here in Kinshasa, we met Emilie Lunda, 25, who had nearly died during childbirth a few days earlier. Doctors saved her life, but her baby died. And she is still recuperating in a hospital and doesn’t know how she will pay the bill.

“I didn’t want to get pregnant,” Emilie told us here in the Congolese capital. “I was afraid of getting pregnant.” But she had never heard of birth control.

In rural parts of Congo Republic, the other Congo to the north, we found that even when people had heard of contraception, they often regarded it as unaffordable.

Most appalling, all the clinics and hospitals we visited in Congo Republic said that they would sell contraceptives only to women who brought their husbands in with them to prove that the husband accepted birth control.

Condoms are somewhat easier to obtain, but many men resist them. More broadly, many men seem to feel that more children are a proud sign of more virility.

So the pill, 50 years old this month in the United States, has yet to reach parts of Africa. And condoms and other forms of birth control and AIDS prevention are still far too difficult to obtain in some areas.

Corollary to reality that abortions are far harder to receive inside the Gap--and often illegal:  it's much harder for women to get birth control inside the Gap, as a rule.

Speaking of which, a map:

Legend comes from an anti-abortion site, so the purplish prose is likely overstated, but it's the most detailed map I could find of any decent size.:

Green: Abortion never legal, or legal only when necessary to save the life of the mother or protect her physical health

Yellow: Abortion legal in "hard cases", such as rape, incest, and/or deformed child.

Red: Abortion legal for social reasons (e.g. mother says she can't afford a child), or to protect the mother's "mental health" (definitions and requirements vary).

Purple: Abortion legal at any time during pregnancy for any reason.

Where the Core-Gap map fails:  highly Catholic LATAM.  Otherwise it matches up quite nicely, suggesting that women's reproductive rights and economic development go hand-in-hand.

A signal defeat of the Obama administration? Only because of its chosen signature vision

Per the Wikipedia entry on nuclear programs:

Red: Five "nuclear weapons states" from the NPT.
Dark orange: Other known nuclear powers.
Yellow: States suspected of having possession of, or suspected of being in the process of developing, nuclear weapons and/or nuclear programs.
Purple: States which at one point had nuclear weapons and/or nuclear weapons research programs.
Green: Other states capable of developing nuclear weapons within several years if the decision to do so were made.

The cited article is a Bret Stephens column in the WSJ lambasting Obama over the Turkey-Brazil-Iran deal, which presents all the same face-saving potential as the old Russian deal we pushed a while back (and Iran rejected).  In short, it buys us maybe 10 months of stockpile setback from the Iranians.

But Stephens point is a larger and more valid one:  the south-south diplomacy here outmaneuvers the braindead American approach on sanctions.  The Iranians don't even have to resort to chess:  they're killing us at our own game of checkers.

My point--as usual:  check out the map, and note how membership in the Core tends to correlate with nuclear capacity, with all the newbies lying not far off the Seam.  People are knocking at the door.  You can let them in or keep them out, but their pursuit of nukes is a backdoor route toward recognition of great-power status that will not be wished away with sanctions. In the end, nukes are the symptom, not the driver.  The only solution that matters is effective integration into the Core, whereupon their ownership of nukes no longer matters.  So long as we keep nukes at the center of our foreign policy, the more hamstrung we become in the processing of their "applications"--as it were.