StrategyUnit

Quick Post: Towards a Broader view of Energy Security?

Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post does an excellent job in “What ‘Energy Security’ Really Means” on broadening the general public’s view of energy security. Read on.

What everyone thinks about energy security:

“For many American leaders, energy security means producing energy at home and relying less on foreigners. But the United States imports three-fifths of its oil, and the share is heading up. For the foreseeable future, alternative fuel is unlikely to change that.”

The alternative view:

“Energy interdependence can actually be good for energy security: Just look at natural gas markets. Right now nearly all the natural gas that Americans consume comes from U.S. and Canadian fields; only 3 percent comes into the country by tanker in the form of liquefied natural gas. This renders the United States highly vulnerable to disruptions on its home continent. If terrorists or a hurricane took out a key pipeline, it would be hard to bring in alternative supplies from outside North America, and prices would spike upward. By buying more liquefied natural gas from a diverse range of foreigners, the United States would reduce its energy independence but enhance its energy security.”

Also see Daniel Yergin’s Foreign Affairs article, “Ensuring Energy Security“.

Introduction
Tyler Cowen (from Marginal Revolution) presents an excerpt for this interesting paper:

Results of the experiment demonstrated dramatic cultural differences in financial value estimations, as well as on the influence of variables such as framing effects. Chinese participants made higher object value estimates than Americans did, even when adjusting for differing national inflation rates. In addition, the results showed that contextual information, such as framing, morality information, and group membership affected judgments of financial values in complex ways, particularly for Chinese participants. The results underscore the importance of understanding the influence of cultural background on economic decision-making. The authors discuss the results in the context of behavioral law and economics, and propose that importing cultural competence into behavioral models can lead to cognitive debiasing, both temporary and permanent.

Realism, Decision Making and Culture
One of the fundamental flaws of the school of realism is the belief that all actors are self-interested rational actors. We can assume that all actors are rational, yet we need to recognize that different value systems (as influenced by one’s culture and enviorment) can bring about very logical, but very different decisions.

From my own personal college experience in International Relations courses, I never once remembered a serious considering on how cultural values shaped decision-making, policy objectives and grand strategy objectives. Yet despite all this, we know there’s a difference. There are business consultants who consult on the different business styles of Americans, Indonesians, the French, Russians and others.

While I am sure those inside the walls of the State Dept., DoD and other policy-making and shaping groups know this, there should be a more frank open discussion by the mainstream media, which too are policy-shappers in the area of public opinion.

Econbrowser’s Menzie Chinn

Menzie Chinn, while discussing the new appointed Sec. Treasurer Henry Paulson, puts out to a laundry lists of major and mounumental challenges the U.S. economy is facing. His full article, “Does a new economic team mean a new economic policy?“, is worth the read.

the economy has both underperformed along a number of dimensions, and faces serious challenges in the future.

Regarding the past and present:

• Real compensation has been stagnant.
• Job creation has been lackluster.
• Income inequality has been increasing.
• Federal debt has been exploding and is set to explode further, as the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are extended.
• Federal government entitlements-based liabiities have been expanded tremendously by the Bush Administration and Congress(Medicare Part D) even as the Bush Administration attempted to modify Social Security.
• Tradable sector output share has been declining.

Regarding future challenges:

• The trade and current account deficits are increasing without seeming end.
• The determination of interest rates on government debt in the US are ever more in the hands of foreign governments and other actors.
• The net income account in the balance of payments is set to go into the negative range.
• High energy dependence exacerbates the problems reserve accumulation in oil exporting countries.
• The possibility of a “hard landing” for the dollar.

Sobering Look at Brazil’s Energy Independence as a Model for the US

“Lessons from Brazil“, TheOilDrum’s Robert Rapier:

Yes, Brazil has in fact “figured it out” with respect to energy independence. But the reason they achieved energy independence is primarily because of their frugal energy usage, not because of ethanol. Increase their energy usage to U.S. levels, and the “energy independence miracle” would quickly vanish. This is the factor that the media and the politicians have overlooked. On the other hand, if the U.S. had the same per capita energy consumption as Brazil, we would be net oil exporters. In fact, our per capita energy consumption could be 11 barrels per person per year - triple the consumption of Brazil - and our production and demand would be in balance. We would be energy independent.

The Signs Pile Up
StratFor’s George Friedman writes in “Civil Liberties and National Security” (05.16.06):

“The release of the data-mining story to USA Today obviously was intended as a means of shooting down his nomination — which it might. But what is important here is not the fate of Hayden, but the fact that the Bush administration clearly has lost all control of the intelligence community — extended to include congressional oversight processes. That is not a trivial point.
…
Leaks of information about secret projects to a newspaper is a symptom of the disease: a complete collapse of any consensus as to what this war is, what it means, what it risks, what it will cost and what price Americans are not willing to pay for it. A covert war cannot be won without disciplined covert operations. That is no longer possible in this environment. A serious consensus on the rules is now a national security requirement.” (Emphasis Mine)

Last week on Thomas Barnett’s blog:

“Putin’s backtalking, along with Ahmadinejad’s and all the rest around the world, just signals the growing awareness internationally that the Bush Administration is a spent force. This crew is not inclined to change their spots now, and the world knows it.

So, quite frankly, our debates should focus most on who and what comes next for America. The conversation is basically over with the Bush Administration. So it’s time to focus on the new ideas, the new leaders, and the lifers within the bureaucracy who will both rule–for all practical purposes–in the meantime and be there when the new crew arrives.”(Emphasis Mine)

Comment
At a moment the US is facing many critical issues domestically (immigration to domestic intelligence) to challenging foreign policy issues (Iran, Iraq, to Latin America) and overarching issues regarding energy and the environment, the United States is quickly finding itself in a rut with a sitting-duck presidency. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has lost control of any stern party leadership, control over its own agencies and department and directions on policies.

While the “sitting-duck presidency” is a sickness befalling just about every president on his/her last term, its only May, 2006. What happens six-months from now?

Bottom Line:
Will the security environment deteriorate vis-à-vis the US? What power plays will foreign adversaries, competitors and even some allies pursue against the US while we are in this state of flux?

In the coming months, we should expect to see interesting maneuverings from China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran – among others.

The Observer reports leaks regarding the July 7 London subway bombing inquiry by the British Government:

The official inquiry into the 7 July London bombings will say the attack was planned on a shoestring budget from information on the internet, that there was no ‘fifth-bomber’ and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan.

While this is not surprising news in itself (if indeed, these leaks are accurate), this confirms the difficulty and the nature of the threat in this (for a lack of a better name) the Global War on Terror (GWOT). The enemy we face is larger, bigger than Al-Qaida or Bin Laden - it is a worldview, an idea - something that cannot be easily stopped.

According to the report, the attacks were largely motivated by concerns over foreign policy and the perception that it was deliberately anti-Muslim, although the four men were also driven by the promise of immortality.

As mentioned in earlier post, “Global Swarm: Explaining GWOT through Thomas Barnett, Huntington, Global Guerillas “, the threat we face is a cocktail mix of religion and issues of social justice (mix of real/exaggerated/false etc) with an overall feeling of the persecution of Muslims (The Ummah) around the world. Defeating such a “movement” will indeed be a Long War.

Special Note: With Internet finally here, this is my first posting in 3-4 weeks. I am looking forward to ramping-up to normal blogging operations soon…

This week John Reid, the British Defence Sec, called for a revamp of the Geneva Convention due to the changing nature of modern (post-modern?) warfare at the Royal United Services Institute.

“We risk trying to fight 21st-century conflict with 20th-century rules which, when they were devised, did not contemplate the type of enemy which is now extant,” he said. “The laws of the 20th century placed constraints on us all which enhanced peace and protected liberty. We must ask ourselves whether, as the new century begins, they will do the same.” (2)

Reid makes the argument that Geneva Conventions was not designed for a time where “non-state actors [are] capable of operating on a global scale, crossing international borders” and where “accelerating scientific and technological progress which has facilitated the proliferation of, and easier access to, the means of wholesale human destruction – particularly in the form of chemical, biological or radiological weaponry.”

Put simply, in today’s changed circumstances are we convinced that it adequately covers:
• the contemporary threat from international terrorists?
• The circumstances in which states may need to take action in order to avert imminent attack?
• Those situations where the international community needs to intervene on grounds of overwhelming humanitarian necessity in order to stop internal suppression - mass murder and genocide – as opposed to external aggression? (3)

Conclusion
“Laws such as the Geneva Convention had been drawn up at a time when the main threat of war was between states but the 21st-century world was under threat from terrorist groups unconstrained by any sense of morality or adherence to any conventions. “We now have to cope with a deliberate regression towards barbaric terrorism by our opponents,” he said. “The legal constraints upon us have to be set against an enemy that adheres to no constraints whatsoever.”

The phrase “unconstrained by any sense of morality” is somewhat inaccurate. The type of warfare (fourth-generation) we are seeing today is not driven by any sense of immorality. It is the gulf (asymmetry) between Western-style militaries (and their societies) against enemies that have radically differing ethics, moral code, organization, structure and motivations. Not superior or inferior, but rather on an entirely on a different plane.

Indeed, the beginnings of the Geneva Conventions go back as far as the 1864 - a very different world from today. Yet, for better or worse, these conventions are a part of the West’s sacred documents that cannot be thrown into the dustbin of history - least the West loses its own identity and values.

Change must happen and John Reid is right in pointing this out, but it must be examined critically least the West loses its identify in the fight against its enemies.

Links and Sources
1) Reid calls for Geneva Convention to be rewritten
2) Reid urges review of Geneva Convention on prisoner treatment
3) Full transcript RUSI - Event - Lecture: Secretary of State for Defence

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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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.
…
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

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.
…
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.
…
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.

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.

Note: Posting has been and will be very light for a 1-2 weeks with work projects due and a vacation trip to Tahoe coming this weekend. As mentioned earlier, article contributions are welcomed.
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Introduction
While oil, the Middle East and terrorism steal the headlines, we must not forget the need to seriously consider the security challenges from a range of issues from the changing climates to shifting demographics. This past week we have seen in the media concern on the cold spell in Europe (climate change?) and the rapid population decline in Scotland and Germany (demographic shift).

These topics are less sexy than terrorism and oil prices; and addressing its challenges will be far more difficult too. Changing climates and changing demographics will cause major shifts on a very wide horizontal level- it will effect every aspect of the state from domestic issues like pensions to the state’s relative global power.

Because these changes will cause ripples on a wide horizontal space of issues, these challenges can reset the global configuration of power more so than terrorism can; this fact must not be forgotten.
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Quick Post on the Iran and Iraq

In the Wretchard’s “The Coming of the Bomb” at Belmont Club, he excerpts from the US Army War College’s “Getting Ready For A Nuclear-Ready Iran” monograph:

“[An] ever more nuclear-ready Iran will try to lead the revolutionary Islamic vanguard throughout the Islamic world by becoming the main support for terrorist organizations aimed against Washington’s key regional ally, Israel; America’s key energy source, Saudi Arabia; and Washington’s prospective democratic ally, Iraq.”

The Wretchard extends this analysis to declare, “It could mark the final end of efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and provide Islamic terrorism with a nuclear deterrent.”

If the prediction above holds true than the Iraqi project will fail before it even has a chance to really succeed. The great hope for the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was to help galvanize democracy and openness in the Middle East with the chance to be a Shia counterweight to the mullahs in Iran and bring hope to the Iranian people by showing them an alternative route.

An emboldened nuclear Iran that would be able to leverage its nuclear power status to aggressively support Islamic terrorist organizations and would contribute to even more instability to the security environment in the Middle East and many Muslim nations.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intentions for the nuclear weapons are still not quite clear. His extreme rhetoric has caused much alarm and, indeed, the cause of the escalation of the crisis. Here are just some possible motives:
1) Deterrent against the US. The US surrounds Iran on three sides: Iraq in the west, Afghanistan in the south, and in the Persian Gulf where the US superior naval forces can be sent.
2) To generate a crisis that will consolidate Ahmadinejad’s political base? This would be in line with his stark political rhetoric, which has captured the political discourse.
3) Leverage to propel Iranian Republic as the revolutionary vanguard of Islam (despite the Shi’a vs. Sunni differences)?

I don’t think we have enough information on this to move beyond such speculation and until the only logical route with Iran is through engagement, exchanging the world’s acquiesce of Iran’s nuclear development for some sort of economic openness (a way to tie and restrain Tehran’s action). Short of a risky military action or regime change, we sadly have no options left.

PS: As a side note Officer’s Club (via DefenseTech) points to a Washington Post’s article on a “bolt-out-of-the-blue” plan for rapid global strike, a supposed plan called CONPLAN 8022 that deals specifically with Iran and North Korea. Unless the world stands behind the US (with the pen and the sword), such a plan would be very unlikely.

Introduction

Tom Friedman’s recent NYT column, “Axis of Order?”, is a very interesting article not because of its main topic, dealing with Iran, but its recognition that we need to adjust to new realities of the new-core states. In essence, the need for bringing in the new-core states like China, Russia and India into the interntional process to be stakeholders:

Why has this now become a stakeholder test for China, Russia and India? Because if the Iranian mullahs who are now awash in petro- dollars know one thing, it is how to read power and weakness. The Iranians know that the United States has already put all the sanctions on Iran that it can. They seriously doubt that the Europeans will ever impose sanctions. And this is the key even if the Security Council censures Iran, and Europe miraculously joins the U.S. in imposing sanctions, the Iranians assume that China, Russia and India that’s half the world will never follow.

Only if China, Russia and India make it clear that they are not only willing to let Iran’s case be taken up by the Security Council, but that they will also join in stringent economic sanctions, will Iran back down. Western threats, which Iran’s radical president dismissed with the back of his hand Thursday as some little “fuss,” are no longer credible.

Communist Russia and China opposed the United States during the Cold War, and socialist India was neutral. But since the end of the Cold War, all three countries have embraced capitalism and become huge players and beneficiaries of today’s global economy, with Russia providing oil and gas, China manufacturing and India software. All three now have a huge stake in the stability of the international system.

But these countries have basically been cruising along as free riders on a stable international order, which has been maintained largely by the United States, with help from the European Union, NATO and Japan. Both Russia and China have actually used their clout at times to protect international bad actors like Iran, Sudan and North Korea out of a narrow economic self-interest and a kind of residual third-world, gotta-counter-the-Americans reflex.
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That helped keep Iran on the fence for a while. But now Iran has gotten off the fence, and so must Russia, China and India. For their own sakes, if not America’s, these emerging big three have got to become the Axis of Order. The old cops on the beat can’t deal with the Axis of Evil alone anymore. Pay attention to how this one ends, folks. The structure of the whole post-Cold-War world is at stake.

Commentary

On the Evolving International System

Friedman is correct that the Iran Crisis will be an interesting test on how the new New Core members - India, China, and Russia - will react to a major crisis that is ocurring in: 1) near their neighborhood; and 2) a country with which they have substantial energy and financial connections with.

Calling the trio of New Core states to be an “Axis of Order” is cute, but doesnt address the bigger questions: How do these New Core states fit in to the international system? And, how do we ensure that these New Core states will adjust to the new international system in a way beneficial to the United States and the world?

For the United States, at the very least we need a Big Four Alliance system composing of the UK-US-Japan-India. Thomas Donnelly at AEI has written an excellent essay, Big Four Alliance on this. The only fault is that Donnelly’s focus is too narrow - focusing on anglosphere countries and it needs to be more ambitious. There should be a “Big Four Alliance” for sure, but this should be part of a larger framework of institutions that include the Big Four, as well as, Russia, China and Brazil.

On Iran and Nuclear Proliferation
The bigger question to ask in Iran is: Can we honestly say we can stop nuclear proliferation? And if not, what are our options?

In The Atlantic (Jan/Feb 06), William Langewiesche correctly argues in “The Point of No Return” that in this current world we cannot stop proliferation. Here’s a choice anonymous quote from the article:

You cannot have a world order in which you have five or eight nuclear-weapons states on the one hand, and the rest of the international community on the other. There are many places like Pakistan, poor countries that have legitimate security concerns—every bit as legitimate as yours. And yet you ask them to address those concerns without nuclear weapons—while you have nuclear weapons and you have everything else? It is not a question of what is fair, or right or wrong. It is simply not going to work.

Indeed, the world has changed and with it - to quote Thomas Barnett - we need new “rule-sets”.

Related:
If you would like a good roundup on events surrounding Iran, I suggest checking out this excellent posting by The Moderate Voice by Joe Gandelman.

Quick Weekend Reading Post (Update 01)

Just added: Check out Foreign Policy (Jan/Feb06) on “China Rising” with contribution from Zbigniew Brzezinski, John J. Mearsheimer, Minxin Pei and the like. Definately worth the lengthy read.

Victor Davis Hanson’ s “A Letter to the Europeans” - A nice “State of Europe” piece by the ever controversial VDH.

Dan tdaxp: “Good News from Iraq” - Excellent argument for the dividing of Iraq in the context of Thomas Barnett’s Core-Gap perspective.

Dan tdaxp: “Mother’s MILC and the Department of the MISCellaneous” - Highlighting events in South Korea, China and elsewhere, Dan puts forward the the need for a “Military-Industrial-Leviathan-Complex” all within the context of Thomas Barnett’s “Reverse Domino Theory”.

More to come…

Quick Posting

The Strategic Overview: Tigerhawk’s Update

Back in 2003, Den Beste of USS Clueless wrote the greatest touchstone piece on the *Islamofacist war, writting out in a relatively short 20 pages the strategic overview of the war.

Today, Tigerhawk writes an excellent update to Den Beste’s essay. Its a must read piece.

Econbrowser on Peak Oil

Econbrowser blogger, James Hamilton economics prof of UCSF, speaks at the American Enterprise Institute on Peak Oil. Check out his transcript at Peak Oil News. Hamilton gets to the finer points on how the oil market works, the power of the market to manage Peak Oil (it wont be like the Long Emergency) And in the end, we’ll see three things:

• We’ll rely on “cruder” oil (more sulpher) which means more expensive to process to refine with stricter enviormental standards
• Intead of getting oil from Texas (which once pumped more oil than Saudi Arabia), we’re now relying on the Middle East…and after that’s done think Nigeria and Central Asian states or rough enviorments difficult places like ANWR
• All this points to higher likelihood of supply disruption and higher oil prices

*Some have asked why I haved used this term. I will post up a reply on this topic.