StrategyUnit

Quick Post: Update on “Getting India Right : Recreating the Anglosphere”
The Economist Writes on US-India relations

The StrategyUnit has recently posted several articles relating to India, with the strongest being “Getting India Right : Recreating the Anglosphere“, where it is declared:

“There has been discussion that just as Great Britain gracefully passed its world power status to the United States, the United States must look to do the same with India or else face decline in the face of a raising China.”

Now the Economist (Feb 25), ahead of Bush’s March visit to India, leads with two articles highlighting the Bush Administration’s approach with India. The second article, “The Great India Hope Trick“, goes through the three major topics: 1) the difficulty surrounding the Bush Administration’s nuclear technology deal with India; and 2) the American temptation to see India as part of an anti-China axis partner; 3) while India needs and wants to be seen as an equal in any partnership with the US.
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Quick Post - Francis Fukayama on Europe’s Identity Crisis and Islam
Europe, Muslims, Demographics and Eurabia

On Slate Magazine today, Francis Fukayama’s “Europe vs. Radical Islam” takes to tasks the rash of “decline of Europe, raise of Eurabia” books that have been hitting American shelves lately, specifically “The West’s Last Chance” by Tony Blankley and “While Europe Slept” by Bruce Bawer. However, Fukayama focuses on the most extreme and perhaps even founder of the “decline of the West” crowd: Pat Buchanan’s “Decline of the West”.

Oddly and disappointingly, Fukayama skips over Bat Ye’or “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis “, though he mentions the word. Its a shame because Eurabia is probably the most credible of all four books that addresses the subject with the fullest sense of reason and moderation with no wild scenerios like the type Blankey represents. Why this major omission?

Regardless, I believe Fukayama goes to the heart of the issue of Muslims in Europe and shifts the question on the need for Europeans to redefine what it means to be British, French, Germany…what it means to be European:

The problem that most Europeans face today is that they don’t have a vision of the kinds of positive cultural values their societies stand for and should promote, other than endless tolerance and moral relativism. What each European society needs is to invent an open form of national identity similar to the American creed, an identity that is accessible to newcomers regardless of ethnicity or religion. This was the idea behind Bassam Tibi’s concept of Leitkultur (guiding or reference culture), the notion that the European Enlightenment gave rise to a distinct and positive universalist culture based on the dignity of the individual. Muslims coming to Europe would be minimally expected to accept this perspective as their own. The German Christian Democrats timidly endorsed a version of this five years ago, only to retreat in the face of charges of racism and anti-immigrant prejudice from the left. Interest in a “demokratische Leitkultur” has been revived in the wake of recent events, however, and a vigorous debate has opened up over how to define it. There will be many missteps along the way: The state of Baden-Württemberg, for example, recently introduced a test that would require the respondent to support gay marriage as a condition for citizenship, something deliberately designed to exclude Muslims.

Time is getting short to address these questions. Europeans should have started a discussion about how to integrate their Muslim minorities a generation ago, before the winds of radical Islamism had started to blow. The cartoon controversy, while beginning with a commendable European desire to assert basic liberal values, may constitute a Rubicon that will be very hard to re-cross. We should be alarmed at the scope of the problem, but prudent in responding to it, since escalating cultural conflict throughout the Continent will bring us closer to a showdown between Islamists and secularists that will increasingly look like a clash of civilizations.

Fukayama nails on the head that Europe needs to find out what being European means before they began a process of incorporating other groups into their societies. The threat of a “Clash of Civlizations” in Europe is very real but fortunately has not fully materialized yet. Time is running short, but that doesnt mean its too late.

Summary
Many commentators have discussed the possibility of the Six-Party Talks on North Korea - which consist of China, Japan, US, Russia and the two Koreas - as the future basis for a security forum for Northeast Asia. East Asia is an important and dynamic region with growing economies and equally growing security needs, yet formal mechanism exist for communication and dialogue among the major players.

While the need for a security forum is apparent to all players involved, the specific issue that should help bring a security forum into fruitarian is Energy Security. The need for energy security coordination in a region highly dependent on imported oil is well overdue.

Indeed, even in the OSCE, the current chairman has called for a conference for all OSCE members to discuss the need for better coordination on energy security matters. It is time for the even more imported energy dependent nations of Asia to do the same and much more.
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Commentary

Back in January, StrategyUnit posted the article “Iran Crisis: Another War for Oil, Bourse and the US Dollar?” on the scheduled March opening of Iranian oil exchange (bourse), which is based on euros rather than US dollars:

This has fueled (no pun intended) speculation of the real cause of the Iranian crisis. The Iraq War has been criticized as a “War for Oil”. And now, as a second act, there are folks from Daily Kos to Asia Times saying the same of the Iran Crisis. The most aggressive promoter of this view appears to be from Krassimir Petrov.

Indeed, DailyKos writters has also been furthering the Iranian Bourse conspiracy:

“Of course most of the saber-rattling is over Iran’s nuclear program and the word “bourse” is never mentioned. But the IAEA has consistently stated that Iran is in full compliance with its regulations and the conditions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That doesn’t negate Iran’s political alignment and support for terrorism, but their nuclear energy program is hardly the threat it’s made out to be.

Only time will tell whether regime change is in the cards for Iran, especially at the hands of the United States. But the Fed’s quiet decision to no longer print the M3 is definitely quite ominous.”

Yet, interestingly recently (Feb 24) a writter on DailyKos, Jerome a Paris, writes to counter the other DailyKos writters:

“Crazy scenarios involving Iran’s purported attempts to create an oil bourse to start selling oil in euros make the rounds regularly, and even get recommended with alacrity on DKos.

These things WILL NOT HAPPEN, and we have, as a supposedly reality-based community, to focus on real issues and not imaginary ones.

So let me explain why an Iranian oil bourse will not work for the foreseeable future. I hope that this diary can be used as a handy reference when this crops up again in the future.
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So, say that Iran decides to sell its oil in euros. Fine. Both the Iranians and their clients will determine the price for the transaction in dollars, on one of the established markets, and will trade these dollars for euros for the actual payment operation. It will give banks active on the forex markets a little bit of income, but will change nothing to how oil is traded.
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So please, let’s stop the fantaisies, or the conspiracy theories about a switch to euros or a new bourse. If any transaction, whether by Saddam, the Iranians or anyone else is expressed in euros, it is purely cosmetic. The underlying market is in dollars, and will remain that way.

We are badly undermining the credibility of the site by recommending silly scaremongering stories on that topic.”

Congrats to Jerome a Paris and DailyKos for keeping the balance.

Spook86’s “In From the Cold” is a blog folks need to check out. Spook86 mentions some possible motives behind Bush Administration’s support for the UAE port deal:

From Port Call:

Cancelling the port deal could mean the end of U.S. basing rights in the UAE, strained relations with other regional partners, and the potential loss of a key defense contract, all viewed as critical in fighting the War on Terror. Collectively, those factors probably explain why the deal hasn’t already been nixed, and why the Bush Administration may put up a fight–even with political allies.
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Cancellation of the contract would be viewed as an insult to the UAE and its leadership; regional critics would accuse the U.S. of hypocrisy–anxious to utilize UAE bases and sell its defense hardware to the Dubai, but unwilling to let a UAE company manage operations in U.S. ports. Such criticism, in turn, would cause other Gulf allies to question Washington’s long-term committment to the region, and make it more difficult for the U.S. to sustain basing rights in such countries as Qatar and Bahrain.

In the domestic area, the Bush Administration is in a tightspot as it defends the deal, while the Democrats are taking advantage of the UAE deal to look strong in homeland security. However, as Spook86 mentions, the deal has wide geopolitical implications. There’s a lot at stake for the US, the Middle East and the War on Terror (GWOT). Congress has a right to be concerned, but these concerns must be placed in greater political and international context.

For more on US Military Bases in UAE check out GlobalSecurity.org

Down at the Winds of Change.net, the Armed Liberal and Trent Telenko have been discussing what to do with the Iranian situation. I have made my own comments at WoC, but I am repeating them here because I think laying out the choices in this manner really helps in providing constructive discussion on the Iranian Question.

Weighing the Concequences: Doing some Bombing v. Just Doing Nothing
Note that the “Doing Some Bombing” concequences are mostly short-term issues, while “Just Doing Nothing” are long term issues.

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Today’s Quick Links
1. Hamas: Winning the Candidates, not Votes?

Via Chief Wiggum and Coming Anarchy, comes this interesting story:

A close look at the final results of last month’s Palestinian election shows that the apparent landslide that gave Hamas 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council and only 45 to the once-dominant Fatah movement was, in the words of one analyst, “an optical illusion.”

Read more Here

2. Can “Psiphon” Beat China’s State Censorship?

Non-State actors continues to undermine state control over information:

[A] band of Internet volunteers headquartered in Cambridge has launched the Tor Project, which uses people’s spare Internet bandwidth to help others bypass the censors. And in Canada, computer scientists at the University of Toronto are working on a similar project, called Psiphon.

Anonymizer and Tor have attracted strong support from the US government. American military and intelligence services are major customers of Anonymizer, because it lets them scan foreign Internet sites without revealing their identities. The Voice of America, a broadcasting service sponsored by the US government, uses Anonymizer to help people in Iran tune in, despite their country’s efforts to block the signal.

Read More

3. Forget Russia, China and Russia, there’s also Japan in Central Asia

From PINR (published by Asia Times):

Japan added a new dimension to its engagement with Central Asia with the formation of the Central Asia Plus Japan (including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan) initiative in August 2004. While low-key compared with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), Japan through the Central Asia Plus Japan initiative is likely to play an increasingly significant geopolitical role, not just in Central Asia but also in Eurasia. An important question is how Japan’s new regional initiative will impact the SCO, which is largely considered the de facto regional organization in Central Asia.

Read More

4. John Yoo on FISA and the War on Terror

Interesting short interview by Foreign Policy:

While an attorney with the U.S. Justice Department after September 11, his legal memos helped lay the groundwork for what some see as the Bush administration’s constitutional power grabs—from the treatment of enemy prisoners to domestic wiretapping. FP recently asked Yoo, now a law professor at Berkeley, about amending FISA, ending the war on terror, and whether torture works.

Read More

5. Refrigerator with Built-In Beer Tap!

Words cannot describe StrategyUnit’s Joy:

Introduction
Back in November, StrategyUnit wrote on the “War on Drugs” escalation in Mexico and the great danger it poses for US security:

The U.S. and its “War on Drugs” is partially the cause of the escalation of the drug war. The US and other states have escalated the war, only to encourage the development and spread of fourth generation gangs, increasing the corruption of governments - and the growing nexus of gangs and corrupt officials leading to a narco-state.
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If Mexico slides towards Colombization, two threats will gather strength: 1) the number and strength of potential gangs that could work with groups Al-Qaida will increase; and 2) the spill over of violence and nacro-trafficking from Mexico to the southwestern U.S. states.

While Mexico isn’t Colombia yet, these major threats are more than sufficient enough for the U.S. to strongly reconsider its approach to the War on Drugs and its own domestic drug policies.

The US-Mexican Borderlands
Source: http://www.epa.gov

Follow-Up Since November 2005 Posting: Yes, things are pretty bad

Fast forward to February 2006, the headlines on what’s going on in the US-Mexican border are not encouraging:

Guns and money: U.S.-Mexico border besieged by crime, terror:

Following separate raids on Jan. 12, 26 and 27, U.S. authorities announced they had seized two homemade bombs, materials for making 33 more, military-style grenades, 26 grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bulletproof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics and cash.

Differing views on Texas/Mexico border incursion:

The chief of the Border Patrol today urged U-S House members not to lose sight of the danger agents face each day along the Mexican border.

The situation has drawn more attention after last month’s confrontation between officers in West Texas and military-uniformed drug smugglers along the Rio Grande.

Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar says agents regularly encounter individuals hurling rocks at them from across the border, ramming their vehicles and sometimes firing at them. (Empahsis mine)

New York Times: US Cites Rise in Violence Along Border With Mexico P

Mexican criminal syndicates are stepping up their attacks on American agents patrolling the border as officials of the Homeland Security Department intensify efforts to stem the flow of immigrants and drugs into the United States, American officials said this week.

In recent months, scores of Border Patrol agents have been fired upon or pelted with large stones as well as with cloth-covered stones that have been doused with flammable liquid and set ablaze. Since October, agents have been attacked in more than 190 cases, officials said on Thursday.

ON THE BORDER: Within hours, violence claims 2 Mexican lawmen:

The police chief of a wealthy suburb of this bustling industrial city was gunned down Monday, shortly after the top police official of another northern Mexican community was kidnapped and shot dead.

Hector Ayala, chief of police for the town of San Pedro Garza Garcia, was driving in nearby Monterrey, whose sprawling metro area is Mexico’s third-largest, when a car overtook his vehicle and opened fire.

Times Online UK: Huge tunnel undermines border

Mexican officials have discovered the deepest tunnel ever gouged under the US border, equipped with electricity and ventilation and concealing two tonnes of cannabis.
The scale of the tunnel — the 21st discovered in more than four years — stunned authorities, who said that the passageway revealed the lengths to which smugglers would go to evade detection.

The underground smuggling route began near the airport in Tijuana, Mexico, and ended 2,400ft (720m) away in a warehouse in San Diego in the US, Michael Unzueta, special agent in charge of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego, said. It was unclear how long the tunnel had been in operation, he added.

The 60ft-deep (18m) tunnel had a concrete floor, electric lights that ran down one of the hard soil walls and air piped from the surface. An adult could nearly stand in the 5ft-high (1.5m) shaft. “It was like being in a cavern or a cave,” Mr Unzueta said. “It’s just huge, absolutely incredible.”

Conclusion
The instability along the US-Mexican border areas demonstrate the increasing vulnerability of a US that is no longer protected by its vast oceans nor its once-calm borders. If the narcot-gangs continue its viral infection of the US-Mexico borderlands, intertwining with terrorism and corruption, the US will have a soft and vulnerable underbelly threatened by modern, globally connected and resourceful gangs. Nation-states have difficulty adapting fighting such organizations.

Unlike other countries, such as Russia, the US is not accustomed with border instability issues, it will be challenging for the US to understand how to control it borders - a very basic act for a nation-state. Before it was simply about illegal immigration, but now the stakes are higher: narco-fueled terrorism, narco-fueled corruption, nexus between narco-gangs and Islamic terrorism and so on.

But the situation has not reached the tipping point yet, the US must act boldly and strongly reconsider its “War on Drugs” program as the only effective method to de-escalate the narco-gangs driven violence and the instability it brings.

QuickPost on QDR

Via Oxblog, comes a harsh but truthful critque of the QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review) by two MIT grad students:

The Pentagon’s guide to military spending for the next four years will disappoint anyone who believes the U.S. military must adapt to a world where threats come from insurgents and terrorists rather than nation-states.
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The Navy still gets to build seven DD(X) destroyers, at $2.5 billion apiece, even though the war on terror is not fought on the high seas. The Army keeps its Future Combat System, a $145 billion network of unproven technologies largely irrelevant to defeating insurgents.

Worse, the review recommends building 183 of the Air Force’s F-22A fighters at $165 million each. Designed to counter Soviet fighters in the 1980s, the F-22A is virtually useless in a world where countries prefer surface-to-air missiles over expensive air forces of their own. Moreover, the United States already has a large arsenal of F-15 and F-16 fighters and is building more than 2,000 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

The QDR does nothing to shift funding to the services most relevant to today’s threats.

In a $440 billion budget (excluding war costs), the Army gets about 25 percent, the Air Force 33 percent, and the Navy and Marines another 33 percent. The rest goes to departmentwide operations.

If the QDR took its own analysis of threats seriously, it would reduce the Navy and Air Force’s budgets to fund the Army and Marines. Ground forces fight insurgencies and stabilize broken states like Bosnia and Haiti. If the United States ever occupied Iran, North Korea or Pakistan, these would be the forces needed to keep order.

The QDR does bless the Army’s decision to increase the number of its combat brigades from 33 to 42, but this is sleight of hand. The new brigades take soldiers from the old ones, meaning the same forces are simply spread into more units. The QDR preserves a military built to fight China or Russia, not the wars we are fighting.

While saying nothing groundbreakingly new, it succintly sums up what’s wrong with the QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review). Read it all here.

More all around QDR bashing found at Christian Science Monitor and the Council on Foreign Relations. Does anyone support the QDR?

Note: Apologies for the light posting…we’ll resume back to normal soon!

Update 01: Max Boot Joins the QDR Bashing

In today’s Christian Science Monitor, Max Boot throws in his two-cents regarding the QDR: “Needed: more troops, not high-tech gadgets“. Excerpt below:

What gives? Why is the Pentagon still throwing money into high-tech gadgets of dubious utility while ignoring the glaring imperative for more boots on the ground? Part of the answer may be politics: Big-ticket weapons have more champions on Capitol Hill than do ordinary grunts. But there also appears to be a large element of strategic miscalculation here.

For all the QDR’s genuflections toward irregular warfare, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld still seems to think that Iraq and Afghanistan are the exceptions, not the norm - that in the future we won’t need so many ground troops. The US has already paid a high price for the misguided decisions not to send enough troops to secure Iraq or to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. Now, it appears, we are fated to make the same mistake on future battlefields, simply because we won’t have enough troops available.

Introduction: India, the US and the Anglosphere

There has been discussion that just as Great Britain gracefully passed its world power status to the United States, the United States must look to do the same with India or else face decline in the face of a raising China. But something else that needs as much mentioning is the geopolitical significance of India, being so close to the Middle East and Central Asia (something that the map on the left I hope conveys). It is also India geography that makes it an attractive ally and partner for the United States and the West.

India has moved beyond its former position as “neutral” and leading the non-aligned movement of the Cold War. Today, we see India as a growing high-tech, financial services and biotech powerhouse; and, while India is modernizing its economy like China, it is taking an open and democratic route. And just as US has its roots in the UK, so does India in many ways (beyond colonialism). Indeed, it belongs every bit as much as the Anglosphere, as the other principal members of the Anlgosphere (US, UK, Australia).

In the February-March issue of PolicyReview, Parag Khanna and C. Raja Mohan’s “Getting India Right” outlines a very comprehensive view of the geopolitical history and direction of the Indian state. Its a length article, but worth the read.

Indeed, in order to grow and survive, the United States and the West needs an ally and partner in the New Core, India is that state.
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Here’s the weekend reading!

Must Read Merkel Speech. German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed an annual security conference declaring:

“Looking back to German history in the early 1930s when National Socialism (Nazism) was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said ‘It’s only rhetoric — don’t get excited’,” she told the assembled world defense policy makers.

“There were times when people could have reacted differently and, in my view, Germany is obliged to do something at the early stages … We want to, we must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program.”

Read it.

QDR Released. QDR is out and available via “The Project on Defense Alternatives“. Check out their “International Security Online” library, as well.

QDR Reviews. DefenseTech, as always, has a great round-up on the QDR

Dan at tdaxp on Fifth Generation Warfare. “5GW: Soundless + Formless + Polished + Leading“.

Ibn Warraq Article. Ibn Warraq, author and Muslim dissident, “Democracy in a Cartoon“. Excerpt: “If the west does not stand in solidarity with the Danish, he argues, then the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest.”

Belmont Club. Wretchard takes an interesting comparative look between the “Phony War” and the current Jyllands-Posten/Muhammed Cartoon Crisis. Here’s just one interesting insight provided by the Wretchard:

Yet the cartoon crisis has been cruelest to radical Islam because it has upset the timetable for the slow demographic conquest of Europe. It forced the crisis before the time was ripe to win an outright trial of strength. And it has deranged the carefully crafted plan to hold Europe politically neutral while the Islamists concentrated their force on their most dangerous enemy, the United States. Unless the Islamists can reverse or at least pause the process of confrontation it will find itself engaged on two fronts, against Europe and the United States simultaneously.

1.5 Million Missing Palestinians? Officer’s Club has the scoop on a recent census audit that seems to indicate that the PA overestimated the Palestinian population by ~1.5 million; and discusses the political consequences of the census numbers.

Commentary
Jyllands-Posten Cartoons: Sparking a Clash of Civilizations

The Jyllands-Posten cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have sparked a global culture clash being seen around the world. Brussels Journal has done an exemplery job covering this event as it unfolds and their article, “The War is On“, is among others a must read.

The implications on Islamic terror is profound, as the the Wretched has noted: “The holy grail of every agitator is to find an issue on which both sides are unalterably opposed. Radical Islam has found it the blasphemy of Mohammed and ironically gave those who would rouse the West a mirror issue of their own: the blasphemy of censorship and the extinction of freedom of speech.”

The Clash of Cultural: A Counterpoint

What is missing in the conservative blogosphere is any serious analysis about what is the perspective of the “other side”. In today’s Asia Times Online, Ehsan Ahrari presents us with this view. Aharai is a respected strategic analyst, former professor at Armed Forces Staff College and has written written numerous papers for the US Military’s Strategic Studies Institute. His views, though contrarian to many in the West, should be taken seriously.

Here are excerpts from Ahari’s “Cartoons and the clash of ‘freedoms’“:

What seems to be notably different about the era after the terror attacks in 2001 is that no subject, and nothing, is sacred in the West, especially when it comes to Muslims and Islam.
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In Austria, it is against the law to make any statements denying the occurrence of the Holocaust. But one can say anything about Islam and get away with it. Aren’t Muslims right when they take the position that there is an open season against their religion, and that the exercise of freedom of expression is used only as a “civilized” excuse for insulting them?
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In the West, freedom of expression is considered sacred. For a number of people, that freedom might even be regarded as absolute, thereby allowing an individual to insult even someone’s faith. Two issues must be clearly understood regarding this controversy. First, for Muslims, nothing and no one is above Islam. No one should be allowed to be disrespectful about anything remotely associated with Islam. Having an open discussion regarding the Islamic faith is perfectly acceptable. Insulting Islam is not. That old adage about disagreeing without being disagreeable (or offensive) is fully applicable here. Second, not many understand in the West that a requirement of the completion of the faith for Muslims is to love and respect the Prophet of their religion. That might also be an alien notion, especially among secular Westerners for whom freedom of expression has remained an integral part of their secular puritanism.

Freedom of speech is indeed a noble idea. To state that it should have no limits (or that it should be absolute) may be a useful academic exercise, but one should also keep in mind that such an exercise of freedom could also lead to the same kind of deleterious consequences as when one screams “fire” in a packed theater. Thus it is not enough to couch the whole argument about drawing caricatures of the Prophet under the rubric of freedom of speech, and thereby dismiss (or even be derisive about) the religious sensitivities of millions of Muslims. Why is it that the golden rule related to the insanity (or illegality) of yelling “fire” in a packed theater is not being applied here? That, in the final analysis, is the question the Western zealots of freedom of speech should answer. (Empahsis mine)

Read Ehsan Ahrari article over slowly. And then go over the quote from the Wretched again. It seems both cultures are at an impasse, but in the long run who will acquiescence?

The gulf and difference in values, assumptions and perception between millions of Muslims and what the West (esp. the sacredness of the freedom of speech) is not to be underestimated. This is a real division that exists between the cultures and a wedge that fundamentalist at both sides can drive and finally nail down to make the “Clash of Civlizations” a defacto truth.

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Update: The Brussel Journal points out that maybe the idea of freedom of speech being a sacred law in the West (at least in Europe) is not so true as it seems. Paul Belien, the author, has a point.

Update2: Tariq Ramadan discusses his own view of the matter here: Cartoon Controversy is not a Matter of Free Speech, but Civic Responsibility

In military strategy, its trendy to talk about Fourth Generation Warfare (4Gw) and the notion of the “multi-dimensional battlefield”, where understanding religion, social dynamics, culture, economics is as important as counting a state’s number of tanks and airplanes.

Back in November 2005, StrategyUnit discussed posed the question of obesity as a security threat and pointed to the “French Solution” as a possible method to combat obesity in the United States.

The Governor Huckabee of Arkansas (a Republican) seems to be following the same lines of thinking and tackling obesity as an issue of financial and economic security. Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times, writes the following in “Mike Huckabee Lost 110 Pounds. Ask Him How“:

Arkansas has become a national laboratory for using policy levers to try to encourage healthier lifestyles. Other states and the federal government should adopt the same steps — like curbing soft drinks in schools, informing all parents of their children’s body mass index as a step to encouraging fitness, giving exercise breaks as well as smoking breaks, paying for preventive health checks like mammograms and prostate examinations, subsidizing efforts to quit smoking and seeking to give food stamps more purchasing power when they are used to buy fruits or vegetables.
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Repeatedly, Mr. Huckabee came back to the same argument: Obesity is reducing not only the quality of life of Americans, but also the fiscal soundness of our government and the competitiveness of our businesses.

‘’This year, G.M. will spend more on health care for employees and pensioners than on steel,'’ Mr. Huckabee noted. ‘’Starbucks will spend more on health care than on coffee beans.'’

Obesity is linked to 112,000 deaths a year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and leads to an extra $75 billion in direct medical costs. Mr. Mike Huckabee [Governor of Arkansas] argues that it would be worth paying small sums — for a session with a fitness trainer or a diet counselor — to avoid paying the far greater costs of heart disease and diabetes later.

Consider type 2 diabetes — the ailment that afflicted Mr. Huckabee (but which has now gone away, thanks to his regimen of salads and exercise). It has increased tenfold among children in just the last 20 years. (Emphasis Mine)

In today’s State of the Union Address (SotU), President Bush spoke of the need to keep America competitive in the global marketplace. While obesity will not be the singular or the biggest factor in determining a state’s power and competitiveness, we would be foolish to ignore expanding the concept of security and consider a full “multi-dimensional” approach to security and the variables that go into that equation - from sea lanes that carry oil supplies to our diet.

If we are seeing the benefits of approach war studies from a “multi-dimensional” perspective,than why not for the whole realm of security issues?

Its good to see Gov. Huckabee leading the way with Kristoff bringing this up in the media, hopefully more leaders, politicans and pundits will follow suit.