Fascinating set of articles in this morning's Washington Post about the US military's efforts to develop an effective strategy for dealing with the IEDs -- improvised explosive devices -- that are involved in something like half of the combat deaths in Iraq (and many other deaths of non-combat personnel). IEDs are low-tech explosive devices, but by virtue of this low-tech character they are both cheap to produce and virtually undetectable, and both aspects combine to make them a very difficult weapon to protect against. Despite the expenditure of thousands of hours and millions of dollars, the US military does not yet have a particularly effective way of dealing with the threat that IEDs pose.
But what's most fascinating to me about this is not the continued ineffectiveness of the US military against these kinds of attacks; that was probably overdetermined by the basic design problem of the US occupation of Iraq in the first place, in that the US went in with a skewed understanding of what it was likely to discover on the ground, and as a result finds itself in the position of an imperial occupier instead of the welcomed liberator it was expecting to be hailed as. Counterinsurgency is always a difficult operation to perform, and IEDs are in a way just an updated version of the Molotov cocktails and other cheap-but-effective bombs long-favored by guerrillas and other resistance fighters. But the striking thing about the articles to me was the way that the problem of IEDs is framed, and not by the article's author as much as by the military officials he interviewed: according to those officials, IEDs are primitive weapons deployed by primitive people against the technologically advanced and sophisticated US military -- and they have social trajectories of deployment, as opposed to the purely physical trajectories of the US's weaponry. The insurgents are primitive and social; the US military is advanced and a-social.
I am not exaggerating or taking liberties here. Insurgents using IEDs are compared to "guys with spears and loincloths, and their ability to quickly modify their strategies to account for whatever the US military does on the ground is conveyed in the following terms:
. . . as an officer writing in Marine Corps Gazette recently put it, "The Flintstones are adapting faster than the Jetsons."
There seems to be a pervasive sense of frustration among US officials that the technological powers of the US military cannot root out these primitive assaults; faith continues to be put in various kinds of bomb-sniffers, robotic investigation devices, advanced armor, and the like. This despite the fact that these techniques do not seem to have been particularly effective against IEDs thus far. This is an old article of Enlightenment faith: science will save us, because ultimately knowing more about the nature of nature will be sufficient to solve all significant problems that we might face. Everything, in a way, reduces to a technical problem, and the solution to a technical problem is of course a technical solution.
The interesting thing is that this faith persists even though a) military officials themselves acknowledge the limits of this paradigm, and b) at least one high-ranking military official (Montgomery Meigs, head of the Joint IED Defeat Organization) implicitly admits that the problem is actually of a very different character:
Three 152mm rounds underneath a tank, which will blow a hole in it, are artillery rounds. But they didn't come through three-dimensional space in a parabolic trajectory. They came through a social trajectory and a social network in the community.
The network-sociological side of me is of course overjoyed to hear anyone in a position of authority speaking in these terms -- at last someone is getting to the actual problem, which involves patterns of social action and the way that they are organized so as to make something like an IED roadside bomb placement possible in the first place. What is most significant, to this way of thinking with which I am very much in sympathy, is less the various physical components of an IED and the knowledge of how to assemble them to lethal effect (information which, incidentally, is readily available on the 'Net -- just google it and you'll see what I mean) and more the arrangement of social ties that makes such a course of action both thinkable and justifiable, even legitimate. That's the issue, and that's the challenge for those directing the occupation: how does one alter social ties and mechanisms such that a particular course of action becomes more or less unfeasible?
But as the military giveth, the military also taketh away. The insight that General Meigs delivers also comes connected to a blindness that undermines it and virtually ensures that the insight will not be acted on in the most effective manner. Note that Meigs contrasts the social trajectory of the IEDs with the putatively non-social, technologically sophisticated trajectory of the weaponry deployed by the US military and other developed/advanced members of the occupying forces, as though that weaponry was not itself equally deliverd through a social trajectory. Indeed, the equation seems to be: social = primitive = them, technological = advanced = us/US. Not only is this analytically absurd -- just think for a moment about the social infrastructure needed to deliver three 152mm rounds through the air, both to enable that course of action and to render the action legitimate -- but it is also positively harmful to any effort to take social relations seriously. The same mechanisms (especially things like "legitimation") operate on both sides of the US/insurgent divide; what differers is how they interact and concatenate and play themselves out.
And continuing to think of ourselves as somehow advanced beyond such social mechanisms to the point where we can operate in a purely technical space will keep hindering any effort to really address the problem posed by IEDs, let alone solve it. Because in the end, the problem isn't IEDs or any other piece of military technology; it's the patterns of social action within which those pieces of military technology and the ways that they can and should be used become meaningful. Those patterns are what we ought to be combating and striving to change.
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Secretary of State Condi Rice and President George Bush made news this week by calling for global action to prevent global warming. However, neither one even really hinted at caps, limits, or mandatory cuts in so-called greenhouse gases.
Secretary Rice kicked off the White House's climate summit by declaring "it is our responsibility as global leaders to forge a new international consensus on how to address climate change." In the end, however, Rice sounded like a confirmed libertarian -- or maybe an "artiste", or gnarly surfer dude -- unwilling to be bound by any rules, man:
"Every country will make its own decisions, reflecting its own needs and its own interests...all nations should tackle climate change in the ways that they deem best."
Righteous,
girl.
In
his speech, Bush embraced the
pollyanna principle to explain how unilateral voluntary approach would solve the problem:
We will set a long-term goal for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem. And by setting this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it.
Something about that
sounded familiar to me....hmmm.
In any event, the President has arguably advanced a long way from
2001. He's now confident that some concerted effort can bring the world all the way up to
the status quo, 1992.
The Europeans are quite openly fed up with the US on this issue. From the Washington Post September 29: "This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind," Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said after Bush's speech at the State Department before representatives of the nations that are the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. "In substance, we are still far apart."
The anonymous complaints were far more critical. This is from The Guardian from the 29th: "It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade," the [senior European] diplomat said. "I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He [Mr Bush] was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure."
The diplomat, as they say, was "speaking on condition of anonymity."
Even the British, with whom the United States has a "special relationship," are quite angry at Bush. The Post story again: John Ashton, a special representative on climate change for the British foreign secretary, said: "One of the striking features of this meeting is how isolated this administration has become. There is absolutely no support that I can see in the international community that we can drive this effort on the basis of voluntary efforts."
C. Boyden Gray, the U.S. ambassador to the E.U. had the audacity to say in response that "The British might be isolating themselves."
One concrete policy measure Bush touted -- though it too is a voluntary "coalition of the willing" -- was the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The GNEP promotes nuclear energy and has been framed as an anti-proliferation measure by the administration.
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While I've been fascinated by goings-on in southeast Asia, I've missed events going on in my intellectual backyard: political turmoil in the Republic of Georgia.
Earlier this week, President Mikheil Saakashvili and his former defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, had a very public falling out. First, Okruashvili launched his an opposition party, "For a United Georgia". Then he alleged that Saakashvili instructed him to kill several public figures, including businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili, who owns the television station on which Okruashvili made these claims. He also accused Saakashvili of involvement in the death of his one-time political ally Prime Minister Zurab Zhavania, who died in 2005 of carbon-monoxide poisoning, and of far-ranging corruption.
Yesterday, Okruashvili was arrested in Tbilisi on charges of money-laundering, abuse of power, and extortion.
Today, demonstrators marched in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi; a crowd estimated at over 5,000 (ITAR-TASS reports as many as 10,000) gathered outside the parliament, accusing Saakashvili of being corrupt himself and demanding his resignation. However, the one of the main opposition parties, the New Right Party, chose to sit this one out, arguing that Saakashvili and Okruashvili are birds of a feather.
Saakashvili, however, missed out on all the excitement: he was in New York, making an inflammatory address to the UN General Assembly (it's that time of year, again), in which he accused Russia of attempting to destabilize Georgia through "terror" missions (a reference to recent clashes in the disputed Kodori Gorge area of the break-away republic Abkhazia).
Although one might be tempted to think that, given the generally nasty tone of Russian-Georgian relations, the Kremlin would be poised to capitalize on Okruashvili's challenge to Saakashvili, as defense minister Okruashvili took an aggressive stance toward both Abhkazia and South Ossetia, As a result, Russia does not seem to regard him as a welcome alternative. Kommersant quotes a Kremlin source thusly: "Saakashvili set up the playing field for Okhruashvili himself by practically destroying the central opposition. But that had the opposite effect. What’s going on now is a fight between Hitler and Goebbels.” Nasty.
Deciphering the right path in the ongoing sparring between Russia and Georgia is tough. It's pretty clear that Russia is a bad actor in this conflict, supporting separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting repressively against Georgians in Russia, and generally throwing its weight around. But Georgia doesn't appear to be an innocent victim either: it behaves provocatively at every opportunity. The penchant for trouble-making on both sides is very dangerous.
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The government crackdown on democracy protesters continues in Burma. The official death toll is nine, including a Japanese photo-journalist, but opposition sources claim that the true number is many times higher. One report I heard claimed that there are over 100 bodies in hospital morgues, and more bodies in the streets. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to get good information about what is going on. The junta has realized the effect of the dramatic photos being electronically sent out of the country and has been actively working to sever internet and telephone connections to the outside world. Internet cafes have been closed, and the main internet service provided has been raided by government troops. There are also reports that troops are actively targeting anyone carrying a camera. Hundreds, maybe thousands of monks have been arrested, and those protesters who remain in the streets are now overwhelmingly civilians.
There are unconfirmed reports of "unusual" troop movements in Yangon. A caller to this morning's Diane Rehm Show, who claimed to have sources on the Thai-Burmese border, asserted that the wife of one of the junta leaders has been spirited out of the country (to a hotel in Dubai) and that the army has split into two factions, pro and anti-regime. There are also reports that there is disagreement among the leadership over the crackdown. The Irrawady News Magazine has a running account on its homepage; the site is very slow, probably due to heavy traffic.
Much seems to rest on where China chooses to put its weight. Few expect that China would support the democracy movement, but given the importance of economic ties to the west, they may be reluctant to support the regime if it engages in a Tiananmen-style massacre--both because of the bad publicity associated with its support for the junta and for the inevitable comparisons (like the one I just made).
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After nine days of mass, peaceful protests in Myanmar, the
crackdown has begun. Government troops have beaten demonstrators and fired tear gas and live bullets. The government currently claims that there has been one death and three injuries; independent accounts confirm the death of at least one monk. There are
unconfirmed reports of as many as six protesters killed. There are also reports that hundreds of monks have been arrested around the country.
Nevertheless, the demonstrations continued on Wednesday, despite the imposition of a curfew and a ban on gatherings of more than five people. The BBC reports that at least 10,000 protesters took to the streets today, including a large contingent of civilians.
There are numerous photos are available here, at a blog titled Ko Htike's Prosaic Collection; the author seems to be a medical worker in a Yangon hospital, though most of the blog is written in Burmese.
The Washington Post's story on the crisis contains some interesting details about attitudes within the Burmese military:The soldiers who put down [the 1988] uprising had been transferred to Rangoon from outlying areas because of fears that the city's regular garrison would not move against civilians. According to Maung, there were signs that similar hesitations are arising in the Burmese military this time.
A declaration from a group calling itself the People's Patriotic Armed Forces Alliance was circulated among exile groups. In it, the authors depicted themselves as military officers and called on fellow officers to disobey if ordered to fire against protesting monks, students or democracy activists.
"On behalf of soldiers, we the People's Patriotic Armed Forces Alliance seriously and categorically warn the SPDC's top brass that if they solve the present situation with violence rather than seek peace, divergences would emerge inside the armed forces and defiance or mutiny would break out," the statement said.
Maung said there was no way to judge the authenticity of the statement or how many officers it represented. But he added that someone identifying himself as a Burmese intelligence officer had posted comments on an exile blog Wednesday morning saying similar sentiments have emerged in Burma's internal security services.
Seeking to play on the doubts, protesters sat in front of soldiers in the street and chanted, "People's soldiers, our soldiers," according to reports received by exiles.
Whither goest the military, goest the revolution. Bringing in soldiers from outside to suppress unrest is a well-used tactic. The soldiers who put down the Tiananmen Square protests were brought in from the provinces; during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, troops were brought into Kiev from Crimea.
If the protesters can turn the military, then there perhaps there really will be a revolution. They don't have to participate--just choose to sit it out. But if the military is willing to follow the orders to shoot, there is little chance that the protests will successfully oust the regime.
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Putin has named his new cabinet. Despite heated speculation in the media, the changes are fairly small. Almost all the ministers kept their jobs. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin kept his post, but has also been elevated to deputy prime minister. Minister of Economic Development and Trade Germain Gref is out, replaced by his former deputy Elvira Nabiullina. Gref's departure was widely expected, so no big surprises there. Dmitri Kozak, former envoy to the South Federal District (southern Russia and the Caucasus), has been appointed minister of regional development. Lastly, Deputy Finance Minister Tatyana Golikova takes over as minister of health and social development. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov retains his position, as Putin refused to accept the resignation he tendered last week (due to his familial relationship with incoming Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov).
Both Kozak and Kudrin are old Putin colleagues from his St. Petersburg days, and are thus identified more with the "liberals" than with the "siloviki" (the men of power). Elvira Nabiullina is also generally viewed as part of the liberal faction. Their new positions could suggest that the star of the liberals--and thus, potentially, Dmitri Medvedev--is on the rise. At the very least, it helps to keep things balanced--and everyone guessing, two primary goals for Putin these days, it seems.
It is also worthwhile to note that Putin's new cabinet includes two women. Despite Soviet-era official protestations of gender equality, Russian politics have remained a resolutely male preserve.
Kommersant, however, draws our attention to the growing importance of familial ties within the government: nepotism is alive and well in contemporary Russia. Not only is Defense Minister Serdyukov the son-in-law of Prime Minister Zubkov, but Tatyana Golikova is married to Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko. Kommersant's quick investigation shows multiple instances of familial relationships that might violate Russian laws against supervisory relationships between close relatives within Russian government entities.
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Source: Mandalay Gazette
The revolution may not be televised, but you can rest assured that it will be blogged. The
large scale protests continue, despite yesterday's threats. The ruling military junta has banned foreign journalists, but the locals are snapping photos and emailing them to the western press. There is a great collection at
Mandalay Gazette, a Burmese language paper based in California. Photos continue below the fold.
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I've been trying to follow what's going on right now in Myanmar. I know pretty much next to nothing about Myanmar, other than it used to be Burma, but it certainly looks like a people-power revolution is in progress. Thousands of Buddhist monks have taken to the streets and the government has been reluctant to crack down, perhaps hoping that if they just ignore them, the demonstrations will lose steam. Instead, the opposite seems to be happening: momentum appears to be gathering and the crowds are growing larger by the day. The protests are also spreading to cities besides Yangon (Rangoon).
A couple months ago, I wrote that one of the things that can produce a crisis in an otherwise stable authoritarian regime is an exogenous economic shock. That seems to have been the trigger here: unrest first surfaced after the government was forced to sharply raise fuel prices in mid-August: diesel prices doubled, while the cost of compressed natural gas quintupled. Consumer prices, naturally, also jumped, and public transit was disrupted.
The first wave of protests against the fuel price hike were organized by dissidents who were promptly arrested. However, beginning in late August, the protests were joined by Buddhist monks, who generally enjoy a high level of social deference in Burmese society. Although there have been some repressive moves made towards the monks, the government seems reluctant to engage in a crackdown against a group with such high social capital. Monks were even permitted to march to the home of democracy activist (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Aun San Suu Kyi and engage in prayer with her; it was her first public appearance in over four years. Nevertheless, today the regime has started to talk tough, threatening to take action if senior clerics don't put a stop to the actions of their followers.
A violent crackdown, sadly, remains the most likely outcome of the current crisis. Nonetheless, many are hoping that if the student activists and the monks can maintain a united front, the protests will reach the sort of critical mass where ordinary people start to join in, and the regime will no longer be able to hold on.
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There's a brick building at the corner of P and 18th Streets near Dupont Circle that used to be an overgrown wreck. I first noticed it in the fall of 2003. The grass was tall and unmowed, and there was a bare, dead tree inside the fence. It seemed abandoned. For various reasons I was rarely in the Dupont Circle area between spring 2004 and fall 2006. But one day in fall 2006, I was waiting for a bus to arrive at the bus shelter immediately in front of the building. The building had been spruced up and the exterior was neatly groomed. It also bustled with activity.
As I waited endlessly for the bus to show up, I noticed a plaque that I had missed in the past, which identified the building: Embassy of Iraq.
Ah, I thought, that explains its formerly run-down state, as well as its recent rehabilitation.
Blake Hounshell notes the similarly dilapidated status of the embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is also located on a prime bit of Dupont Circle real estate. Ironically, Iraq is higher on FP's failed state list than the DPC. But I guess it would be pretty embarrassing if Iraq couldn't keep its US Embassy functioning. I wonder what the embassies of remainder of the top 10 failed states are like.
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The controversy over the Israeli raid into Syria rages on. The Sunday Times has peeled back another layer of the onion, one that only deepens the mystery as to what Israel actually bombed in northern Syria. This latest tidbit seems to support the notion that it was in fact a North Korean supplied nuclear site in Syria. If true, it is perhaps only the tip of a much larger iceberg, and per Landis:
"If this story is true," a Syrian friend of mine just told me, "Asad should fire his top generals, instantly."
The Times reports:ISRAELI commandos from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit – almost certainly dressed in Syrian uniforms – made their way stealthily towards a secret military compound near Dayr az-Zawr in northern Syria. They were looking for proof that Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear programme.
Israel had been surveying the site for months, according to Washington and Israeli sources. President George W Bush was told during the summer that Israeli intelligence suggested North Korean personnel and nuclear-related material were at the Syrian site.
Israel was determined not to take any chances with its neighbour. Following the example set by its raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak 1981, it drew up plans to bomb the Syrian compound.
But Washington was not satisfied. It demanded clear evidence of nuclear-related activities before giving the operation its blessing. The task of the commandos was to provide it.
Today the site near Dayr az-Zawr lies in ruins after it was pounded by Israeli F15Is on September 6. Before the Israelis issued the order to strike, the commandos had secretly seized samples of nuclear material and taken them back into Israel for examination by scientists, the sources say. A laboratory confirmed that the unspecified material was North Korean in origin. America approved an attack.
Now that's a bold move, to say the least. It also means that 1) There is much more, and more tangible, evidence behind this raid--evidence that could be revealed in the future with diligent reporting; 2) US involvement is much more significant than previously thought--it seems the US had to green-light the raid, it didn't just get a courtesy notice; and 3) this maybe part of a much larger problem for both the US and Israel, namely much more aggressive North Korean nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
The extent of North Korea's involvement remains unclear, but indirect evidence seems to be emerging that it was more than just cursory. The Times reported:The growing assumption that North Korea suffered direct casualties in the raid appears to be based largely on the regime’s unusually strident propaganda on an issue far from home. But there were also indications of conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials and intelligence reports reaching Asian governments that supported the same conclusion, diplomats said.
How solid this is, who knows.... But, it appears more credible than former Bush Administration officials with an ax to grind. It also suggests that this is not a neo-con fantasy story to drive policy or launch a war. Rather, its indicative of a very very serious problem--not just for the US, but for Asia, the Middle East, and any other countries concerned about Nuclear Proliferation.
Still, as the Times report notes, there remain far more questions than answers.But details of the raid are still tantalisingly incomplete. Some analysts in America are perplexed by photographs of a fuel tank said to have been dropped from an Israeli jet on its return journey over Turkey. It appears to be relatively undamaged. Could it have been planted to sow confusion about the route taken by the Israeli F-15I pilots?
More importantly, questions remain about the precise nature of the material seized and about Syria’s intentions. Was Syria hiding North Korean nuclear equipment while Pyongyang prepared for six-party talks aimed at securing an end to its nuclear weapons programme in return for security guarantees and aid? Did Syria want to arm its own Scuds with a nuclear device?
Or could the material have been destined for Iran as John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, has suggested? And just how deep is Syrian and North Korean nuclear cooperation anyway?
And, if it is actual proliferating, which crosses a clear Red Line the Bush Administration has put in place for North Korea, how does the US respond? Its a critical question of US credibility in this case--this kind of proliferation is the thing the US fears most from a North Korean nuclear program, the kind of thing the Agreed Framework, Six Party Talks, and recent nuclear deal are meant to avoid.
With juicy nuggets like the one reported by the Times, this story and its political and policy fall-out certainly aren't going away any time soon.
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I swear I'm not making this up.
According to the Jamestown Foundation's excellent Eurasia Daily Monitor, the Russian Department of Defense's 12th Directorate, which is responsible for Russia's nuclear weapons, has been assigned a patron saint by the Russian Orthodox Church: St. Seraphim of Sarov.
St. Seraphim seems an appropriate choice for several reasons. First, he was a favorite saint of the last tsar, Nicholas II; his association with one of the primary continuing symbols of Russian claims to great power status is eminently sensible in climate in which the tsarist past and ideology of "Pravoslavie, Samoderzhavie, i Narodnost'" (Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and National Spirit*) are being rehabilitated. Second, St. Seraphim hails from the city of Sarov, in the Nizhny-Novgorod oblast. Known during the Cold War as Arzamas-16, Sarov is home to the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF)--the nuclear weapons research and design facility where the first Soviet nuclear weapons were developed. Sarov, appropriately, is a sister city to Los Alamos, New Mexico [warning: pdf]. Lastly, the saint's name, "Seraphim", which he adopted upon taking monastic vows at the age of 27, comes from Hebrew for "fiery" or "burning". Seraphim are fiery angels with the power to purify the sinful. So, purifying fire from the heavens = nukes. Nice, eh?
* Narodnost' is a notoriously difficult concept to translate. "Nationalism" doesn't quite work, "populism" doesn't quite work, "national feeling" doesn't really get there either. I'm not really all that happy with "national spirit," but it'll do.
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A friend forwarded me this interesting article by Dennis Ross in the New Republic on why we should be paying more attention to Russia. I have to say, that I certainly agree that we should be paying more attention to Russia. And I think that he gets some stuff very right: (continued below the fold)
Russia tends to pale in comparison to these other concerns [unrest in the Middle East, the rise of China, climate change, etc.], and the tendency will be to pay it little heed. That would be a mistake. The less attention we pay to Russia, the more incentive we give Vladimir Putin and his successors to demonstrate that they are a power to be reckoned with and to act in ways that will be increasingly problematic. Already we see Russia staking out claims to the Arctic and its riches; manipulating its oil and gas supplies for political purposes; supporting separatist movements in neighboring states or what it calls the "near abroad"; and selling arms to rogue regimes like Iran and Syria. (The Russians are in the process of upgrading significantly Iran's air defense and have also been providing Syria large numbers advanced anti-air and anti-tank missiles; when the Syrians turned over some of these weapons to Hezbollah, the Russians looked the other way.)
To understand Russia's behavior and develop the right strategies for dealing with it, we need to appreciate the impact that lost status has had on the Russian psyche and the imperative it has created to restore the country's standing as a world power. Few non-Russians mourned the passing of the Soviet Union, but within the country, there is deep resentment of the United States for winning the cold war. Putin has called the collapse of the USSR one of the greatest geopolitical "tragedies of the twentieth century."
Today, the perception in Russia is not only that the United States sought to exploit Russian weakness but also to keep it weak. Expanding NATO into Eastern Europe might have been one thing but to extend it to include the Baltic states was something else. And President Bush's decision to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty at the beginning of his administration was one final crushing blow. Here was a pillar that had established the Russians as the strategic equal of the United States, and we dismissed it--and the Russians were powerless to do anything about it.
But I'm disappointed at the easy reliance on the caricature of Russia as an "energy super-power". This notion that Russia is an "energy superpower" really needs to be unpacked--it's a facile and deceptive formulation that plays into fear-mongering about a resurgent Russia. We've seen Russia attempt to wield its energy reserves as a political tool against its neighbors in the near-abroad--usually in the form of convenient unscheduled maintenance or a sudden shortage of coal cars or the like. But how effectively can Russia use this power elsewhere? Pipelines are funny things--they only go to where they are built. Most of Russia's energy exports travel through pipelines--the seller is locked into a limited set of buyers. And western Europeans may be better positioned to diversify their energy imports than Russia is to diversify its customer base (former Soviet bloc countries, though, are much more over the barrel, so to speak). Russia needs its energy buyers as much, if not more, than the western Europeans need the energy. The energy sector represents about 20 percent of Russia's GDP, while energy products make up over 60 percent of exports. If it weren't for the constant influx of oil and gas revenue, the federal budget would be in deficit. Russia needs to sell oil and gas. If the EU members can ever act in concert on this issue, they could have the upper hand (yes, I know that's a big "if").
I'm not saying that this should make us feel all warm and fuzzy about Russia's intentions--rather, we should recall that at some base level, this is a bluff that they can't afford to have called. But loudly and publicly trying to prick the bubble of Russia's perceived power probably isn't the ideal strategy either [see above: resentment, festering]. Instead, we should avoid falling for the panicky hype and treat Russia as a important world player rather than the afterthought of a past era's failure. Constructive engagement reduces the incentive to act out--from the perspectives of both domestic and international posturing.
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Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave a fascinating speech Monday to the World Forum on the Future of Democracy addressing "a 'realist's' view of promoting democracy abroad."
The whole speech is worth reading (here). In it, Gates reflects on the longstanding debate between the "realists" and "idealists" in US Foreign Policy. It is very closely related to the great debate between Liberals and Realists in IR Theory. It also happens that many Intro IR and Intro to IR Theory classes (such as mine this semester) are covering these very topics right now.
In IR theory, we like to look back to Woodrow Wilson as the paragon of Idealism, and study EH Carr's withering criticism of the 20 Year's Crisis as the paragon of realism. As Gates reminds us, this debate has even deeper roots than that:[W]e Americans continue to wrestle with the appropriate role this country should play in advancing freedom and democracy in the world. It was a source of friction through the entire Cold War. In truth, it has been a persistent question for this country throughout our history: How should we incorporate America’s democratic ideals and aspirations into our relations with the rest of the world? And in particular, when to, and whether to try to change the way other nations govern themselves? Should America’s mission be to make the world “safe for democracy,” as Woodrow Wilson said, or, in the words of John Quincy Adams, should America be “the well-wisher of freedom and independence of all” but the “champion and vindicator only of our own”?...
...In short, from our earliest days, America’s leaders have struggled with “realistic” versus “idealistic” approaches to the international challenges facing us. The most successful leaders, starting with Washington, have steadfastly encouraged the spread of liberty, democracy, and human rights. At the same time, however, they have fashioned policies blending different approaches with different emphases in different places and different times.
Gates recalls his own career as a realist, opposing the Helsinki Final Acts, for example, and comes to terms with the value they ultimately had, both as idealist goals and realist tools of national interest.
The obvious backdrop for this is Gate's realist reputation contrasted with Bush's crusading idealism (epitomized in his second Inaugural speech) to democratize the World Middle East Iraq. This administration has been particularly hostile to some traditional realists (ie Scowcroft) but the failure of its grandest Idealistic project in Iraq has prompted a reconciliation of sorts. Gates attempts just such a balancing act:It is our country’s tragedy, and our glory, that the tender shoots of freedom around the world for so many decades have been so often nourished with American blood. The spread of liberty both manifests our ideals and protects our interests – in making the world “safe for democracy,” we are also the “champion and vindicator” of our own. In reality, Wilson and Adams must coexist.
How well does he do?
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Something is brewing in the Middle East that merits close attention, because the more we learn about it, the more intriguing it becomes. It also brings home some chickens to roost, so to speak, for earlier Bush Administration foreign policy failures.
Last week, Israel launched a highly secret air-strike deep into Syria. Despite the fact that Israel and Syria share a border (the direct route), the squadron of Israeli F-15's flew over the Med, through Turkey (a very close Israeli military ally), and dropped significant ordinance onto a Syrian target. The entire operation has been cloaked in secrecy--Syria didn't denounce the attack for over 12 hours after it happened, and has been unusually quiet about the entire incident. Israel has said nothing, and the US is also tight-lipped. The loudest condemnations have come from North Korea, recently rumored to be cooperating with Syria on nuclear issues.
The current speculation, per the NYT, is that Israel hit a nascent North Korean supplied nuclear facility in Syria. This speculation is fueled by China's abrupt cancellation of talks over North Korea's nuclear program--a program they had just agreed (with the US) to give up.
So, what are we to make of all this? It was clearly a very aggressive move by Israel, but what is most interesting, to me, about it, is the muted response by Syria and the rest of the Arab world. Syria and Israel are taking this very seriously--there are reports that both are mobilizing their armed forces and reserves along the border. But the public statements have been muted--more so on the Israeli side (total silence) than on Syria (who did formally protest to the UN).
Its the North Korea connection that I find most fascinating. North Korea and Syria have a longstanding relationship buying and selling weapons. Its the nuclear aspect that is troubling--in part that Syria was taking steps to proliferate, and in part that North Korea was willing to facilitate that proliferation.
It also highlights the consequences of several years of failure of the Bush Administration's North Korea policy. Coming into office back in 2001, there was an opportunity to re-engage North Korea and reach a nuclear deal. The Bush Administration opted for confrontation and containment, and while isolated, North Korea tested several new ballistic missiles and, most significantly, tested a nuclear device, entering the nuclear club. Only after all of this, did the Administration relent and re-engage in meaningful diplomacy, reaching a deal whereby North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program and subject itself to inspections.
And now this. Hard-liners such as John Bolten, a staunch opponent of any talks with North Korea both while at the State Department and while outside of government, will point to this as proof-positive that North Korea can't be trusted, that any deal with them isn't worth the paper its printed on, that North Korea is cheating.
But consider the alternative scenario--had the US engaged in meaningful nuclear diplomacy in 2002, giving Charles Prichard the same brief as Christopher Hill now has, its quite possible that a situation such as this could have been avoided. With nuclear inspectors in North Korea, there would have been a much better accounting of the DPRK nuclear program. Had this happened earlier, the recent breakthroughs that allowed North Korea to test a weapon would not have happened. And, in a functioning deal with the US, North Korea would probably have been less likely to risk upsetting that deal by working with the Syrians.
How much of this idle speculation looks at the situation with rose-colored glasses? Perhaps some. But not all. Indeed, had the Bush Administration placed nuclear proliferation and North Korea at the top of its national security priority list instead of, say, Iraq, back in 2002, most of the antecedent conditions that led to this raid could have been avoided.
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The September Atlantic had a brief note in its Primary Sources section about how "Terrorists are turning more and more to crime to fund violence." The piece references a Congressional Research Service report that apparently included "bootlegging Viagra" as one source of income.
I guess they've moved on from infant formula.
In any case, I did a bit of searching around and found this MSNBC/Newsweek piece from August 2006, which describes an alleged criminal ring in Detroit that was funneling funds to Hizbullah in 2002:By 2002, Hammoud and some of his colleagues were believed to be running $500,000 worth of cigarettes a week across state lines and expanding into stolen contraband and counterfeit goods, including Viagra tablets. During a three-month period that year, authorities allege, more than 90,000 Viagra knockoffs were purchased, with a plan to sell them as the real thing. "They're small, they're high in demand and they're easily transportable," says Bob Clifford, a senior FBI agent. "They're the perfect medium."
I guess that does sound easier to market than stolen baby food.
It's not good news for the average American suburbanite.
First using drugs and then driving SUVs promoted terror? Now sex?
Looks like all that's left is rock and roll...wait.
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No, I don't know what to make of this either:
In a meeting with the Valdai Discussion Group, a group of academics and journalists, in the Black Sea town of Sochi (now best known for its successful Olympic bid), Vladimir Putin commented, "Now, at least five people are named who can really stake their claim to be elected president in March 2008. Well, if another real candidate appears, then the Russian people will be able to choose among several people."
The only person (other than opposition candidates without a prayer) who has explicitly expressed interest in running is Viktor Zubkov (who, as you recall, was a complete unknown before, oh, Wednesday). First Deputy Prime Ministers Sergei Ivanov and Dmitri Medvedev are generally understood to be contenders, though neither has publicly expressed interest or intent.
But who are the remaining two? No one knows and everyone is talking about it.
And that noise coming from over there in the corner? That's Comrade Vladimir Vladimirovich, laughing heartily at the big joke he's playing on us.
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The Duma hasn't even confirmed Viktor Zubkov as Russia's new prime minister, and already he's raising eyebrows. Early commentary on Zubkov pegged him as a quietly competent bureaucrat who was unlikely to make waves or alter the balance of the intra-Kremlin jockeying over succession.
But it's so much fun to confound the pundits: today Zubkov told reporters that a run for the presidency is not off the table.
So who is this mysterious fellow?
Here's a summary from the various bios floating around the media. Like former president Yeltsin, he's originally from the Sverdlovsk region in the southern Urals (Sverdlovsk is once again known as Yekaterinburg). After receiving a degree in economics from the Leningrad Agricultural Institute, he was a collective farm manager in the Leningrad oblast. He first became associated with Vladimir Putin in the 1990s, when both worked for the St. Petersburg city administration. In 2001, Putin appointed him to the head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, which is responsible for combating money-laundering; as such Zubkov has been an important Putin ally in his campaign to reign in the oligarchs. He seems to be well-liked and respected within the business and financial community.
Putin is known to keep his St. Petersburg associates close, so that connection is unsurprising. There are no major resume gaps or foreign posting that would be suggestive of KGB service. Interestingly, Zubkov's daughter is married to acting Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov; such quasi-feudal alliances aren't that unusual in post-Soviet space, but it is suggestive of the ways in which the inner circles of power are tied to one another personally, not merely professionally.
I also think that the choice of a prime minister with clear anti-corruption credentials is no accident. Anti-corruption is a useful political stance, even if it's selective. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, as improbable as it may seem, originally rode into office on his name as an anti-corruption crusader. Kommersant also hints that should Zubkov successfully run for president on an anti-corruption platform, no one would be surprised if Zubkov, who is currently 66, declined to seek a second term, unlike Dmitri Medvedev or Sergei Ivanov, who are both comparatively young. The Russian constitution only prohibits presidents from serving more than two consecutive terms. Rumors have already been floating around that Putin could seek another term in 2012. The problem is finding a successor who isn't interested in holding onto the office as long as possible. Could Zubkov fit that bill?
In addition to his unexpected comments on his political future, Zubkov has also promised some cabinet changes. We'll be keeping an eye on those in the coming weeks.
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I like Foreign Policy's Passport blog. I really do. But this kind of thing BUGS the living daylights out of me.
They have a perfectly good post on a bizarre attempt by a Russian regional governor to increase the local birthrate. And it's illustrated with a stock photo of a rather bizarre postage stamp commemorating the "Week of the Child". At least, I'm pretty sure that's what it says. The reason I'm not totally positive?
The stamp is from Yugoslavia. It's in Serbian, which is written in Cyrillic, and, of course, has much similarity to Russian, but isn't Russian.
The bottom of the stamp reads "Belgrade, Oct 4-11, 1954". The initials across the child's chest are "FNRJ", for Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia.
Anything Soviet, of course, would have СССР on it, as those of us who are old enough to remember the Cold War may recall.
It's really not fair, because I'm sure that the poster doesn't read Russian--and the stock photo site that it came from has it tagged as Russian. Still, it's like nails on a chalkboard.
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Update below the fold--Ivanov is not the new PM.
Reuters is reporting that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has stepped down. No replacement has yet been named, though Vedomosti is reporting that First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov is the most likely candidate.
Prime ministers may come and go, but this is big news because of the open question: who will be the next president of Russia. While I wouldn't be entirely shocked if there was a sudden domestic crisis that necessitated a third term from Vladimir Putin, most Russia watchers believe that he wants to hand off the open reins of power to someone else. The presidential election is only six months away, and Putin still hasn't designated his preferred successor.
Ivanov's star is already perceived to be on the rise: earlier this year he was relieved of his position as Defense Minister, which was becoming tainted by scandals related to brutal hazing of recruits, and promoted to the position of first deputy prime minister, at an equal level with Dmitri Medvedev, who is widely perceived as Ivanov's main rival in the behind-the-scenes presidential race. If Ivanov is indeed named the new prime minister, it will be a powerful signal: Putin himself was named prime minister during the waning months of the Yeltsin administration.
Update: Vedomosti was wrong--the new PM is Viktor Zubkov. More later once I've had a chance to read up on him. Zubkov is surprising to just about everyone. Putin certainly does love to keep everyone guessing. In the meantime, there are some interesting comments from Dmitri Trenin, of the Carnegie Moscow Center, via FP's Passport blog.
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General Petraeus finished delivering his prepared remarks to the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees not long ago -- and I've already been interviewed about them by the local NPR station (WFPL).
Basically, I concluded that his report was not surprising. Most analysts expected an optimistic assessment that would not call for a substantial reduction in American troops. The General is only talking about returning the US troop level to pre-surge levels by mid-July 2008. A modest proposal, eh?
I also noted a few points that General Petraeus did not address (though many in the blogosphere have):- What about seasonal violence? Yes, violence is down since the surge began in mid-June. But violence goes down every summer when it is hot. How much different was it this year?
- What about the refugees? How much of the decline in ethnic violence is attributable to the fact that up to 100,000 Iraqis are fleeing the country every month?
- What about winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis? Petraeus did
