The Drunk Diplomat

I’m currently reading Cobra II, a book about the build up and eventual invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration. Even though I read about foreign policy on a daily (hourly really!) basis I sometimes find myself forgetting that the U.S. still has 130,000 troops in Iraq, as well as, 70,000 contractors, not to mention thousands of other U.S. government personnel from the State Department to the Agriculture department. As (former) President Bush stated in 2006 when he announced the surge strategy the main goal of the surge was to create stability so political compromise could be accomplished. Unfortunately, that goal has not been met. There is no national oil law, the status of Kirkuk is unknown, members of the Sunni awakening movement are being arrested by Maliki, Baghdad still has daily bombings, corruption is ubiquitous, the power and water service are still not at pre-2003 levels, Arab states still refuse to establish embassy’s in Iraq, and the list goes on….

Historians may look back hundreds of years from now and use Iraq as a case study. In the coming years an experiment that was initiated 6 years ago will come to a dramatic close as American soldiers begin to withdraw. After, trillions of dollars, the deaths of over 4,000 Americans, and the literal displacement and death of millions of Iraqi civilians – will a viable, free, stable, democratic Arab country actually exist in the Middle East? George Bush said it would exist, he also said Iraqi oil money, WMD’s would be found, and that Saddam was a major existential threat to the U.S. All lies, one can only be hopeful that the pessimists are wrong and Iraq pulls through… Is the glass half full or half empty? Because now is the time to start taking bets as American soldiers are definitely leaving en mass, can the Iraqi’s pull themselves together or will Iraq fracture? Will George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemptive action with a twist of nation building be successful?

I don’t know. The worst part about it, no one knows, not even the Iraqi’s.

Here are some things to consider:

1) Attacks have “decreased” but IED attacks and major bombings are still a daily occurrence, especially in Baghdad
2) National Iraqi elections take place in early 2010 – will Sunni participation be up? If the Shia faction lead by Nouri al-Maliki is the victor, will its legitimacy be honored by the loosing parties?
3) When American troops leave, will Iran or Saudi Arabia try to fill the power vacuum?
4) Will the Kurds cooperate with the Iraqi government about Kirkuk?
5) Will an oil law ever be passed?
6) Will Kurdish terrorists stop attacking Turkey and Iran?
7) Will fighting between Sunni’s and Shia’s flare up again?

And these are just the short term questions! There are too many for anyone to be certain what Mesopotamia will look like in 2 years, but think about 10 years! America may have just trained the most effective and leathal army in the Middle East and armed them with the best weapons on the market. It’s not talked about, but Iraq is not, by any stretch of the imagination, pro-Israel. How about another authoritative ruler comes into power in Iraq, allies with Iran, and goes on to wreak havoc on the Kuwaiti’s, Saudi’s, etc. Meanwhile the Kurds try to form their own state, bringing attacks from Turkey, a NATO ally, that in turn makes the U.S. choose between it’s NATO ally, Turkey, and the Kurds, one of the most pro-American people in the world. I still believe the Kurds secretly want their own state, just a FYI, the Kurds have their own oil law already, they fly their flag – not the Iraqi flag, and their are border checkpoints to get into Kuristan from Iraq – not to mention the Kurds are a Sunni, have been repressed by Arabs for over a hundred years, and have their own army. Sure smells like the beginnings of a viable state to me.

There are so many fractures in Iraq and so many unanswered questions it is impossible to see how the state will be intact in 10 years, but who knows! No one thought the surge would work and it did! Maybe I’m just looking to deep into the tea leaves…. I hope someday that I can visit Baghdad and tour the archeological remains of Babylon.

The Vietnamese apparently have no bad feelings towards American’s any longer. The “American War” as it is known in Vietnam is a distant memory only found it textbooks to the youth of the country. According to this video from World Focus 8 in 10 Vietnamese have a positive view of the United States. 80%! That would make Vietnam one of the most pro-American countries in the world. I posit two reasons for the amazing view the Vietnamese have of the United States. First, the Vietnamese have a belief that America is a land of opportunity, they like our culture, and our technology. Many Vietnamese dream of studying in the United States and returning to Vietnam to improve their country. The youth of Vietnam are experiencing something that the youth of Iran are experiencing. They are not getting 100% of their information from authoritative figures in the country, rather, they are connected to the internet and recieve information from a variety of sources. This is how Persian, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, etc. youth learn about America and democratic values. Second, Vietnam shares a large border with the rising Chinese giant. The Vietnamese elite may view a closer relationship with America will help balance the interests of Vietnam and in general Southeast Asia. This is a position that Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have taken to avoid Chinese dominance in Asia. It allows Japan to rely on American nuclear weapons and military strength without building its own – keeping an Asian arms race only a threat – not reality.

An important article this Sunday caught my eye in the NY Times. Europe is beginning to grapple with the carbon limits it imposed upon itself by building a massive solar power plant in Morocco. The plant will transmit clean, renewable, solar energy through an advanced electric grid to Europe. It will be the largest solar plant of its kind in a region that receives vast amounts of sun light. Building a solar plant of this scale would not be practical in Europe because the strength of sunlight hitting Europe is weaker, therefore, the solar plant would be less efficient than one located in the Moroccan desert. Furthermore, land is cheaper and the population is vastly less dense in Morocco. There is a bevy of international organizations working together including: TREC, the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation; Eumena, or European Union, the Mediterranean and North Africa; the Union of the Mediterranean; and the Club of Rome.

This experiment will hopefully become a model for international cooperation on the use of solar power in the most efficient areas (areas that receive the most sunlight) and then transmitted to the more densely populated areas. By 2050 Europe can be completely powered by solar energy from North Africa and the Middle East. However, the catch to this would be an almost complete dependence on North Africa for energy. Replacing one source of power: oil and gas – supplied from the Middle East and Russia with another source: Solar energy supplied from North Africa. Actually increasing Europe’s reliance on Islamic and autocratic governments for its energy, rather than decreasing it. However, there are two relatively radical ideas that I would suggest to solve this problem.

1) The Possible Addition of North African Countries to the EU.
2) A Euro-North African-West Asian Power grid
3) In addition to large thermal energy power plants, millions of small photovoltaic solar panels on houses, businesses, etc.

Obviously the first two ideas are extremely far fetched in 2009, the third idea is already happening to some extent in Germany, but not nearly fast enough or extensive enough across Europe. Europe and North Africa already have a framework of cooperation in the EuroMediterranean Partnership, but the partnership was created to promote peace, stability, and economic opportunity – not the development of a common energy relationship. Don’t get me wrong – there are ways to create a power system that could exist outside of the EU, but to calm European fears about North Africa hypothetically producing the vast majority of its energy a very close partnership would have to exist, and I believe that “EU” membership would enhance not only energy cooperation between Europe and N. Africa, but social development, economic development, and create perpetual peace in the Mediterranean region. EU membership would also allay fears in North Africa that the Europeans are colonizing vast tracks of their land again for solar power plants, considering the vast majority of investment would be European. Geographically this relationship just makes sense. Europe has vast population centers demanding energy, N. Africa has vast deserts teeming with the possibility of unlimited solar energy. The only foreseeable impediment’s are transmission, cultural fears, and initial investment costs. These are large, possibly politically impossible impediments, but I’m an optimist.

What I would love to see is the United States lead the way by creating numerous thermal solar plants in the Southwest U.S. and Northwest Mexico. Similar problems exist for the U.S.; transmission, and initial investment are the biggest, but I would like to see a power sharing grid that spans the North American continent to reduce redundancy.

Nuclear energy, wind energy, and geothermal energy (and frankly coal and natural gas plants if they’re clean) could be used to supplement the mainly solar power charged grid to compensate for night, and clouds, as well as, smaller solar photovoltaic panels on cars, buildings, etc. around the country. A grid like this would almost completely reduce European and North American reliance on fossil fuels and the unstable regimes that peddle them like drugs. A massive alternative energy power grid would put the liberal democratic states on much more solid footing at home and abroad.

Source:
Europe Looks to Africa for Solar Power
TOM ZELLER Jr.
NY Times June 21, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/business/energy-environment/22iht-green22.html?ref=world

It’s to early to tell what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will evolve into. The SCO was founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as a security organization to fight extremism in the region. However, I could envision a time when the SCO evolves into something similar to OPEC for natural gas, or the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) for mutual economic development, or even a military organization to counter NATO. Maybe it will be a hybrid of all of these models.

The ECSC, founded in 1957, was the precursor of the European Union. The organization was created to unite the Western European powers against the Soviet Union and create common markets for Western Europe. There were visions of what the ECSC would evolve into, if it would evolve at all, but I doubt that many foresaw the breadth of integration the Maastricht Treaty would bring in 1992 to create the European Union, a short 35 years. Furthermore, the Schengen Agreement signed in 1985 provided the rights for Western European citizens free movement across borders without passports.

Could the Schengen Agreement be something of a precursor for the status of Eastern Russia and Siberia? Russia is in the midst of a massive demographic decline, especially in the East. With such vast sparsely populated areas, the general decline in population of the entire country, and the declining power of their conventional military – is it really a stretch to see Russia, China, and the Stans create some kind of free movement treaty in 30 years? There are three factors beyond Russia’s demographic and military decline that lead me to believe the SCO will provide the framework for some kind of freedom of movement to the Chinese in Siberia.

The first is the enormous amounts of pollution, garbage, and toxic waste the Chinese are producing and will produce at an ever accelerting pace the next 30 years. There are estimates that China, alone, will produce as much greenhouse gases that the entire world produces today by 2050. That’s a lot of smog and health problems. The climate change caused by China’s greenhouse gas emissions alone may force massive migrations to areas that have clean water and away from the polluted mess that China’s mainland may become.

The second is the emerging middle class in China. The demand for natural resources, land, food, and water may not be sustainable when China has a middle class parrellel in wealth to the US. Imagine 300 million (possibly more out of 1.5 billion) more people on the planet living like the average US consumer, in China alone. Their demands may eventually push the Chinese government to create some kind of access to the verdant lands in the North.

The third is that Chinese immigration to Russia is the fastest it’s been in recent history. Since the fall of the Soviet Union Chinese laborers and traders have been flooding into Siberia and the Far East. Also, an ultimatum the Chinese have issued to Russia in regards to it’s WTO bid is that it must allow Chinese laborers into Russia at some pace.

In my opinion something like a Schengen Treaty is really for the SCO is not that far fetched in the future. It’s difficult to keep 300 million Chinese crammed together in Northern China while there are millions of empty acres of land to the North. Russia may decide it cannot fight history any more and create some kind of agreement through the SCO so the Chinese can have access to their far East before they loose it completely.

Wow, we could possibly have a major geopolitical event on our hands here. If the opposition lead my Mousavi, Rafsanjani, and Khatamei can pull off a coup d’état of their own against Khamenei and Ahmadinejad…. then rapprochement with the U.S. is very likely. A new leader like Mousavi that was legitimately elected in Iran will give Obama plenty of maneuvering room for negotiations and face to face talks. It would be almost impossible to have a Camp David like situation where Obama and Ahmadenijad meet face to face for negotiations like Sadat and Begin had with Carter, however, a Mousavi – Obama meeting would be much more likely. The best coverage of the situation on the ground can be found at Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish.

He is getting twitter feeds and emails from Iranians on the ground. His website is also hammering the main stream media for its lack of coverage and I agree. A regime change or revolution in Iran would be a huge deal to the United States. It would also be nice if the MSM gave a little background and context to the Iranian elections. I doubt most American’s know that Iran has elections, and women vote in those elections. Yet, there is no coverage or analysis on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox explaining the importance of the resistance in Iran, nor the implications the success or failure of the resistance will have on the Iranian nuclear program, Iranian support for Shia groups in Iraq, Iranian support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and the flow of oil in the world.

The Death of the Main Stream Media
The (fraudulent) election results came in on Saturday, but the major American news organizations were either slow or shallow with their coverage. Iran has been, and will be, a major story in the United States so I was very surprised that the coverage was so light. However, as events progressed on the ground in Iran, riots, protests, government shutting down cell phone and internet networks, Media 2.0 took over. Blogs, twitter feeds, facebook status updates, cell phone text messaging, etc. Raw data was flowing into the internet for the world to see and to rally support inside Iran. A kind of Pandora’s Box is opened when a country embraces the use of information technology. The “essence” of the internet is freedom of information. It is the ultimate Library at Alexandria, printing press, newspaper, organizational tool, and more, rolled into an ever expanding massive blob. As much as the mullahs try to censor the internet and cell phones people will find a way around them. I think it may be impossible to censor the internet due to it’s sheer size and variety.
The vast majority of Iranian citizens are under 30 and tech savvy. This crowd demands reform, voted in what they thought was a free, and it was stolen from them. Being young, using new powerful information technology to organize, and feeling cheated will ultimately lead to some change in Iran… Whether Mousavi becomes president, Khamenei is ejected as Supreme Leader by the Guardian Counsel, or something dramatically different happens is yet to me seen, but the winds are defiantly blowing the right direction for change.

Viva la Revolution!

After browsing through this interesting Wikipedia list of countries by military expenditure then comparing that list to a list of countries by GDP (nominal) I find myself asking a lot of questions about the size of military expenditures and why the European expenditures are so low. From my reading of history, after World War II the United States continued to enlarge it’s global military presence to A) Contain and match the Soviet Union and B) to guarantee Western European and Eastern Asian security so they could rebuild their economies. This plan worked perfectly for a long time and Western ideals of democratic freedom and market capitalism beat Soviet Communism and Authoritarian rule. However, I look at these lists:

EU Military Expenditures: $312.259 billion
U.S. Military Expenditures: $651.163 billion
NATO Military Expenditures: $1.049 trillion
World Military Expenditures: $1.470 trillion

EU GDP: ~$18.342 trillion
US GDP: ~ $14.002 trillion
World GDP: ~ $54.863 trillion

The first thing I take away from this is the crazy amount of money NATO countries spend on their military’s compared with the rest of the world, about 70% of the entire world’s military expenditures come from NATO countries. However, it is actually BIGGER, consider these other American non-NATO allies: Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Israel. If we add their military expenditures to NATO, the total NATO and U.S. Allied military budget is a WHOPPING 1.1942 trillion or 81% of the entire world’s military expenditures. These totals do not even count allies such as Mexico, Pakistan, Columbia, Singapore and more, nor does it include countries that we will probably never have a conflict with such as Brazil and India.
But here is the question. Now that the Soviet threat has been removed and most likely not coming back anytime soon, nor have the Chinese expressed any interest in spreading an ideology such as Communism like the Soviets, but seem rather introverted. Why is the United States still footing the bill for Western European Security?
I assume that the Europeans would be just as affected, if not more so due to geography from terrorist threats coming out of Central Asia, East Africa, or the Middle East, or pirate activity around the straits of Malacca, or instability in the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, etc. The Europeans are the largest trading partner of China, therefore, any conflict on the Korean peninsula would have a major affect on their economies just like it would to the U.S., but we are the U.S. is footing the bill for security in East Asia.
Where do the Europeans spend the money that the U.S. is spending on the military? They spend it on their generous social welfare state, and agricultural and industrial subsidies that give their businesses undue advantages in the world economy and provide a better social safety net for their citizens.
I was extremely disappointed that the Europeans did not offer any more troops for the Afghanistan mission, nor increase their economic aid to at least pay for some American military expenditures. Past grievances aside, any major deterioration in the Middle East or Central Asia will cause serious geopolitical, energy, and economic damage to the United States and Europe.
A major European argument for this imbalance is their major contributions to educational, health, and infrastructure in the third world through foreign aid. I will discuss this more in a later post.

The news coming out of Pakistan today is the kind of news that we need to hear on a daily basis from the Af-Pak region if we are going to defeat and marginalize the Taliban. From the Washington Post:

Pakistani tribesmen seeking revenge for a deadly mosque bombing attacked militant strongholds for a second day Monday, while the country’s Taliban leader faced rare denunciation from within insurgent ranks.

the article continues…

In the most striking example of growing anti-Taliban sentiment, up to 1,600 tribesmen in the Upper Dir district formed a civilian militia force to fight militants they hold responsible for last Friday’s suicide bombing that killed at least 33 people in a packed mosque. Such militia are known in Pakistan as lashkars.

I’ll admit, I don’t completely understand the intricate tribal politics of South Eastern Afghanistan or North Western Pakistan, but this comes as good news to me. The United States has a perception problem with the vast majority of Pashtun’s in this region, and frankly with Muslims around the world. What the Pashtuns miss, due to a panoply of reasons, is that the U.S. is a benevolent country with no territorial ambitions in South Asia. Our objective is the spread of education, infrastructure, and rule of law in this region to prevent future attacks. The Taliban’s objective is Sharia law, selective Islamic education, and a return to the 11th century with an aggressive posture towards the free Western world. The choice seems stark to you and I because we have the benefits of education, wealth, and air conditioning… but imagine a Pashtun boy growing up in Waziristan whose only source of information is through a Madrassa. He has pride about his people, his country, and his religion. He hears rumors about the U.S. from authority figures such as his Imam, his family, or Taliban veterans. They say the U.S. is on a crusade to destroy Islam, they want our land, their education will brain wash you, they will take your women, etc. If the boy has no other source of information other than what these authority figures tell him, why should he believe the U.S. is benevolent and trust us? Now multiply this by a few generations and we reach the conclusion of Pashtun’s sheltering Talbian fighters from the United States and increased Taliban recruitment to fight the United States.

This is why the Lashkar militias are vital to the United States success in the region. Ironically, superior military power will not end this war. Pashtuns, and other citizens of the tribal areas must come to the conclusion that the Taliban does not have their interests at heart. That it is the Taliban bombing their Mosques, demanding bribes for protection, dealing drugs in their communities, etc. They must come to realize that the Taliban are no better than gangsters that use Islam to cover their atrocious deeds.

We need more Lashkar militias and less predator drones.

Source:
Pakistanis attack Taliban over mosque bombing
RIAZ KHAN
Washington Post, June 8, 2009

Without a preemptive strike on North Korea by the United States and South Korea Pyongyang could do some serious damage if this article from Foreign Policy is correct. I found this quote particularly intriguing.

As for North Korea’s Special Operations Forces (SOFs), South Korean estimates now place their numbers at as many as 180,000 men. North Korean SOFs are probably among the best- trained, best fed, and most motivated of all the forces in their military. They routinely undergo intense training that includes carrying 50 pounds of sand for 10 km in one hour, hiking in extreme cold weather, martial arts methodologies that include fighting with three to 15 opponents, and even using spoons and forks as weapons. Troops also engage in intense marksmanship training and even daily knife-throwing training. They can attack quickly, reaching key nodes in South Korea by aircraft, through tunnels in the DMZ, or even by maritime vessel.

Interesting stuff, I would still take the South Korean and U.S. military over the North any day, but it is often overlooked that the North takes its military readiness seriously. The entire country isn’t starving and it’s citizens have been brain washed for over 50 years, so I could perceive a situation where the North’s aristocracy get the army riled up and ready to fight like a Kamakazi pilots, 1,000,000 strong.

I am not arguing for a preemptive attack on North Korea, but it is terrifying to think the North has the power to completely decimate a country with the 15th highest GDP in the world and kill millions on a whim. No one knows the politics or mental stability of Kim Jong Ill’s son, Kim Ill su, the perceived successor. However, as a 26 year old kid, he will probably be influenced by the North Korea aristocracy, therefore, his top priority will be to maintain the North Korean regime, which rules out any kind of attack on the South.

Let’s hope the Obama administration does not underestimate the North Koreans.

Source:
Is North Korea a Paper Tiger?
Bruce Bechtol
Foreign Policy, June 2009

Great image of the financial crisis via The Big Picture

I just finished reading the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Hindu text that is over 2,000 years old yesterday. The book is essentially a long poem about Arjuna, a king that has a long conversation with Krishna (God in human form) about the cosmos, life, death, and more. I grew up as a Christian, studied Islam in college, and now learning more about Hinduism I cannot see how someone without knowledge of the great world religions can really understand international affairs or the local politics of a country. Americans are notorious for their lack of geographic knowledge and curiosity about other nations, but I would add to that list other religions as well.

For example, it is not possible to understand the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East without some understanding of Islam, it’s two main branches, and what country is majority Sunni or Shia. Furthermore, I believe that learning about Hinduism is a good start for someone wanting to understand India. Religious texts such as the Koran and the Upanishads provide insights into the history of a people, their values, their world view, and importantly how they treat others that do not believe in the same faith. Muslims, according to the Koran, should treat “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians) more favorably than other religions. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna, speaking to Arjuna, tells him that even if people pray to other gods they are really praying to him, they just don’t know it. Hinduism is benign to other religions, and will often incorporate other religions into Hinduism. Traits of Buddhism are strongly felt in Hinduism and to some Hindu’s Jesus is considered a god.

Unfortunately, religion’s role in international affairs will probably increase as globalization continues to rapidly accelerate. The “values” of people from Indonesia to America will feel threatened by new foreign ideas and immigrants. Conservatives have called for god to return to public schools, well, I agree, let’s create a world religion class for every public school in the country that teaches about the major religions of the world. Not espousing belief in a certain religion, but a general overview of the basic tenets of them all. This alone would make America’s children more world savvy and probably more tolerant of differing religious views.