Stark vote, complex choices - The NY Times
Crowds turned out for voting - BBC - and profile of the main actors
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Mixed results of the European elections
BBC Live
The steading declining turnout allowed the organized, party members vote, and encouraged the populist and extreme-right representatives - The Telegraph, Voice of America, AP.
The far-right made gains all across Europe - from Germany to Hungary and Romania as, in the context of the economic crisis, many ruling parties, mainly from the left side, are expected to suffer serious defeats.
What is the European Parliament and how it is elected - Reuters
The steading declining turnout allowed the organized, party members vote, and encouraged the populist and extreme-right representatives - The Telegraph, Voice of America, AP.
The far-right made gains all across Europe - from Germany to Hungary and Romania as, in the context of the economic crisis, many ruling parties, mainly from the left side, are expected to suffer serious defeats.
What is the European Parliament and how it is elected - Reuters
Saturday, June 6, 2009
D-Day anniversary
President Barack Obama is paying tribute to D-Day veterans, including one who visited the Normandy cemetery on the eve of the invasion's 65th anniversary and then died.
Obama on Saturday remembered Jim Norene (nor-EEN), a member of the 101st Airborne who died in his sleep after visiting the American cemetery a day earlier. Obama says Norene was ill when he left his home and knew he might not make it back to the United States.
Obama says Norene returned to Normandy for the same reason so many visit: to remember the sacrifices that helped turn the tide against the Nazis and win World War II.
Obama also mentioned his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who arrived at Normandy six weeks after D-Day, and his great-uncle who liberated a Nazi concentration camp.
Obama on Saturday remembered Jim Norene (nor-EEN), a member of the 101st Airborne who died in his sleep after visiting the American cemetery a day earlier. Obama says Norene was ill when he left his home and knew he might not make it back to the United States.
Obama says Norene returned to Normandy for the same reason so many visit: to remember the sacrifices that helped turn the tide against the Nazis and win World War II.
Obama also mentioned his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who arrived at Normandy six weeks after D-Day, and his great-uncle who liberated a Nazi concentration camp.
D-Day Veterans return to Normandy
An 88-year-old D-Day veteran who was one of eight brothers to fight during World War II has returned to the site of the Normandy landings.
Len Smith, of Druids Heath, Birmingham, was one of 16 children and joined the Army aged 18.
His brothers were also survivors of the war.
He said he was determined to go back for the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings but said he feared it would be the last time he would go back.
He said: "I can never understand why I managed to drive straight up on the beach.
"Nothing on earth could have trained you for the experience that you were witnessing with your own eyes and ears."
He added: "I've read lots of stories and some of these stories are really glossy, you know, about all the guts and thunder and that, but I don't like that side of it at all."
Len Smith, of Druids Heath, Birmingham, was one of 16 children and joined the Army aged 18.
His brothers were also survivors of the war.
He said he was determined to go back for the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings but said he feared it would be the last time he would go back.
He said: "I can never understand why I managed to drive straight up on the beach.
"Nothing on earth could have trained you for the experience that you were witnessing with your own eyes and ears."
He added: "I've read lots of stories and some of these stories are really glossy, you know, about all the guts and thunder and that, but I don't like that side of it at all."
Obama at Buchenwald
Beyond politics and symbolical, well weighted, gestures it is a speech as Elie Wiesel's who will always be the warning clock, because it shows where we are in fact and what we still have to do.
Elie Wiesel's intervention - from the White House official site
"I was so hopeful. Paradoxically, I was so hopeful then. Many of us were, although we had the right to give up on humanity, to give up on culture, to give up on education, to give up on the possibility of living one's life with dignity in a world that has no place for dignity.
We rejected that possibility and we said, no, we must continue believing in a future, because the world has learned. But again, the world hasn't. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia and no Rwanda and no Darfur and no Bosnia.
Will the world ever learn? I think that is why Buchenwald is so important -- as important, of course, but differently as Auschwitz. It's important because here the large -- the big camp was a kind of international community. People came there from all horizons -- political, economic, culture. The first globalization essay, experiment, were made in Buchenwald. And all that was meant to diminish the humanity of human beings.
You spoke of humanity, Mr. President. Though unto us, in those times, it was human to be inhuman. And now the world has learned, I hope. And of course this hope includes so many of what now would be your vision for the future, Mr. President. A sense of security for Israel, a sense of security for its neighbors, to bring peace in that place. The time must come. It's enough -- enough to go to cemeteries, enough to weep for oceans. It's enough. There must come a moment -- a moment of bringing people together.
And therefore we say anyone who comes here should go back with that resolution. Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart. Memories here not to sow anger in our hearts, but on the contrary, a sense of solidarity that all those who need us. What else can we do except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition.
A great man, Camus, wrote at the end of his marvelous novel, The Plague: "After all," he said, "after the tragedy, never the rest...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate." Even that can be found as truth -- painful as it is -- in Buchenwald.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Lebanese elections, any changes to expect?
The new generation is challenging the traditional politics and politicians.
National Democratic Institute - Lebanese elections in brief
Council on Foreign Relations - background guide and other useful links and resources
National Democratic Institute - Lebanese elections in brief
Council on Foreign Relations - background guide and other useful links and resources
Dept. of State Taps eDiplomacy to Spread Obama's Message Through Cairo
President Obama called for a new relationship between the United States and Muslims around the world during his speech in Cairo, Egypt on Thursday, June 4, 2009, and the State Department went to high- tech lengths to make sure that the mesage resonated to as many citizens of the Muslim world as possible. The U.S. Department of State utilized text messaging as a global communications tool, initiating an eDiplomacy program where people from around the world could sign up to receive SMS and text messages with highlights from Pres. Obama's speech. The updates were not available to U.S. citizens since the State Department paid for the text messaging and has a policy of only using funds to address foreign audiences. The text message highlights were available in 13 languages and sent out to more than 200 countries. By completing an online registration form on America.gov, available in English, Arabic, Urdu and Persian, enrolled participants were able to receive the speech highlights and invited to send in their comments. The New York Times reported that the State Department has had difficulty reaching those located in remote areas to inform them that the text messages were available and considers this first eDiplomacy text blast a pilot program. Duncan MacInnes, a State Department spokesman, told the NYT, "It won't be perfect. It is an area we will spend a lot of time thinking about." The White House has a full transcript of the speech posted in 15 different languages and released a short video soon after Obama's speech featuring featuring three Muslim Americans who work for the federal government. Photos of Obama giving the speech are posted on flickr.
Lone Wolf Lessons
June 3
At approximately 10:30 a.m. on June 1, as two young U.S. soldiers stood in front of the Army Navy Career Center in west Little Rock, Ark., a black pickup pulled in front of the office and the driver opened fire on the two, killing one and critically wounding the other.
Eyewitnesses to the shooting immediately reported it to police, and authorities quickly located and arrested the suspect as he fled the scene. According to police, the suspect told the arresting officers that he had a bomb in his vehicle, but after an inspection by the police bomb squad, the only weapons police recovered from the vehicle were an SKS rifle and two pistols.
At a press conference, Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas identified the suspect as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a 21-year-old African-American man who had changed his name from Carlos Leon Bledsoe after converting to Islam. In Arabic, the word mujahid is the singular form of mujahideen, and it literally means one who engages in jihad. Although Mujahid is not an uncommon Muslim name, it is quite telling that a convert to Islam would choose such a name — one who engages in jihad — to define his new identity. Muhammad was originally from Memphis, Tenn., but according to news reports was living and working in Little Rock.
Chief Thomas said Muhammad admitted to the shootings and told police that he specifically targeted soldiers. During an interrogation with a Little Rock homicide detective, Muhammad reportedly said that he was angry at the U.S. Army because of their attacks against Muslims overseas, that he opened fire intending to kill the two soldiers and that he would have killed more if they had been in the parking lot. These statements are likely what Chief Thomas was referring to when he noted in his press conference that Muhammad appears to have had political and religious motives for the attack and that it was conducted in response to U.S. military operations.
Chief Thomas also stated that the initial police investigation has determined that Muhammad acted alone and was not part of a wider conspiracy, but given that the shooting was an act of domestic terrorism directed against U.S military personnel, a thorough investigation has been launched by the FBI to ensure that Muhammad was not part of a larger group planning other attacks.
ABC News has reported that Muhammad had traveled to Yemen after his conversion, though the date of that travel and its duration were not provided in those reports. ABC also reported that while in Yemen, Muhammad was apparently arrested for carrying a fraudulent Somali passport and that upon his return from Yemen, the FBI opened a preliminary investigation targeting him.
The fact that the FBI was investigating Muhammad but was unable to stop this attack illustrates the difficulties that lone wolf militants present to law enforcement and security personnel, and also highlights some of the vulnerabilities associated with using law enforcement as the primary counterterrorism tool.
At approximately 10:30 a.m. on June 1, as two young U.S. soldiers stood in front of the Army Navy Career Center in west Little Rock, Ark., a black pickup pulled in front of the office and the driver opened fire on the two, killing one and critically wounding the other.
Eyewitnesses to the shooting immediately reported it to police, and authorities quickly located and arrested the suspect as he fled the scene. According to police, the suspect told the arresting officers that he had a bomb in his vehicle, but after an inspection by the police bomb squad, the only weapons police recovered from the vehicle were an SKS rifle and two pistols.
At a press conference, Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas identified the suspect as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a 21-year-old African-American man who had changed his name from Carlos Leon Bledsoe after converting to Islam. In Arabic, the word mujahid is the singular form of mujahideen, and it literally means one who engages in jihad. Although Mujahid is not an uncommon Muslim name, it is quite telling that a convert to Islam would choose such a name — one who engages in jihad — to define his new identity. Muhammad was originally from Memphis, Tenn., but according to news reports was living and working in Little Rock.
Chief Thomas said Muhammad admitted to the shootings and told police that he specifically targeted soldiers. During an interrogation with a Little Rock homicide detective, Muhammad reportedly said that he was angry at the U.S. Army because of their attacks against Muslims overseas, that he opened fire intending to kill the two soldiers and that he would have killed more if they had been in the parking lot. These statements are likely what Chief Thomas was referring to when he noted in his press conference that Muhammad appears to have had political and religious motives for the attack and that it was conducted in response to U.S. military operations.
Chief Thomas also stated that the initial police investigation has determined that Muhammad acted alone and was not part of a wider conspiracy, but given that the shooting was an act of domestic terrorism directed against U.S military personnel, a thorough investigation has been launched by the FBI to ensure that Muhammad was not part of a larger group planning other attacks.
ABC News has reported that Muhammad had traveled to Yemen after his conversion, though the date of that travel and its duration were not provided in those reports. ABC also reported that while in Yemen, Muhammad was apparently arrested for carrying a fraudulent Somali passport and that upon his return from Yemen, the FBI opened a preliminary investigation targeting him.
The fact that the FBI was investigating Muhammad but was unable to stop this attack illustrates the difficulties that lone wolf militants present to law enforcement and security personnel, and also highlights some of the vulnerabilities associated with using law enforcement as the primary counterterrorism tool.
Challenges of the Lone Wolf
STRATFOR has long discussed the threat posed by lone wolf militants and the unique challenges they pose to law enforcement and security personnel. Of course, the primary challenge is that, by definition, lone wolves are solitary actors and it can be very difficult to determine their intentions before they act because they do not work with others. When militants are operating in a cell consisting of more than one person, there is a larger chance that one of them will get cold feet and reveal the plot to authorities, that law enforcement and intelligence personnel will intercept a communication between conspirators, or that law enforcement authorities will be able to introduce an informant into the group, as was the case in the recently foiled plot to bomb two Jewish targets in the Bronx and shoot down a military aircraft at a Newburgh, N.Y., Air National Guard base.
Obviously, lone wolves do not need to communicate with others or include them in the planning or execution of their plots. This ability to fly solo and under the radar of law enforcement has meant that some lone wolf militants such as Joseph Paul Franklin, Theodore Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph were able to operate for years before being identified and captured.
Lone wolves also pose problems because they can come from a variety of backgrounds with a wide range of motivations. While some lone wolves are politically motivated, others are religiously motivated and some are mentally unstable. Even among the religiously motivated there is variety. In addition to Muslim lone wolves like Muhammad, Mir Amal Kansi, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet and John Allen Muhammad, we have also seen anti-Semitic/Christian-identity adherents like Buford Furrow and Eric Rudolph, radical Roman Catholics like James Kopp and radical Protestants like Paul Hill. Indeed, the day before the Little Rock attack, Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion lone wolf gunman, killed prominent abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kan.
In addition to the wide spectrum of ideologies and motivations among lone wolves, there is also the issue of geographic dispersal. As we’ve seen from the lone wolf cases listed above, they have occurred in many different locations and are not just confined to attacks in Manhattan or Washington, D.C. They can occur anywhere.
Moreover, it is extremely difficult to differentiate between those extremists who intend to commit attacks from those who simply preach hate or hold radical beliefs (things that are not in themselves illegal due to First Amendment protections in the United States). Therefore, to single out likely lone wolves before they strike, authorities must spend a great deal of time and resources looking at individuals who might be moving from radical beliefs to radical actions. With such a large universe of potential suspects, this is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Obviously, lone wolves do not need to communicate with others or include them in the planning or execution of their plots. This ability to fly solo and under the radar of law enforcement has meant that some lone wolf militants such as Joseph Paul Franklin, Theodore Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph were able to operate for years before being identified and captured.
Lone wolves also pose problems because they can come from a variety of backgrounds with a wide range of motivations. While some lone wolves are politically motivated, others are religiously motivated and some are mentally unstable. Even among the religiously motivated there is variety. In addition to Muslim lone wolves like Muhammad, Mir Amal Kansi, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet and John Allen Muhammad, we have also seen anti-Semitic/Christian-identity adherents like Buford Furrow and Eric Rudolph, radical Roman Catholics like James Kopp and radical Protestants like Paul Hill. Indeed, the day before the Little Rock attack, Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion lone wolf gunman, killed prominent abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kan.
In addition to the wide spectrum of ideologies and motivations among lone wolves, there is also the issue of geographic dispersal. As we’ve seen from the lone wolf cases listed above, they have occurred in many different locations and are not just confined to attacks in Manhattan or Washington, D.C. They can occur anywhere.
Moreover, it is extremely difficult to differentiate between those extremists who intend to commit attacks from those who simply preach hate or hold radical beliefs (things that are not in themselves illegal due to First Amendment protections in the United States). Therefore, to single out likely lone wolves before they strike, authorities must spend a great deal of time and resources looking at individuals who might be moving from radical beliefs to radical actions. With such a large universe of potential suspects, this is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Limitations on Both Sides
Due to the challenges lone wolf militants present, the concept of leaderless resistance has been publicly and widely embraced in both the domestic terrorism and jihadist realms. However, despite this advocacy and the ease with which terrorist attacks can be conducted against soft targets, surprisingly few terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by lone wolf operatives. In fact, historically, we have seen more mentally disturbed lone gunmen than politically motivated lone wolf terrorists. A main reason for this is that it can be somewhat difficult to translate theory into action, and as STRATFOR has frequently noted, there is often a disconnect between intent and capability.
Because of the difficulty in obtaining the skills required to conduct a terrorist attack, many lone wolves do not totally operate in a vacuum, and many of them (like Muhammad) will usually come to somebody’s attention before they conduct an attack. Many times this occurs as they seek the skills or materials required to conduct a terrorist attack, which Muhammad appears to have been doing in Yemen.
However, in this case, it is important to remember that even though Muhammad had been brought to the FBI’s attention (probably through information obtained from the Yemeni authorities by the CIA in Yemen), he was only one of the thousands of such people the FBI opens a preliminary inquiry on each year. A preliminary inquiry is the basic level of investigation the FBI conducts, and it is usually opened for a limited period of time (though it can be extended with a supervisor’s approval). Unless the agents assigned to the inquiry turn up sufficient indication that a law has been violated, the inquiry will be closed.
If the inquiry indicates that there is the likelihood that a U.S. law has been violated, the FBI will open a full-field investigation into the matter. This will allow the bureau to exert significantly more investigative effort on the case and devote more investigative resources toward solving it. Out of the many preliminary inquiries opened on suspected militants, the FBI opens full-field investigations only on a handful of them. So, if the information reported by ABC News is correct, the FBI was not conducting surveillance on Muhammad because to do so it would have had to have opened a full-field investigation.
Of course, now that Muhammad has attacked, it is easy to say that the FBI should have paid more attention to him. Prior to an attack, however, intelligence is seldom, if ever, so black and white. Sorting out the individuals who intend to conduct attacks from the larger universe of people who hold radical thoughts and beliefs and assigning law enforcement and intelligence resources to monitor the activities of the really dangerous people has long been one of the very difficult tasks faced by counterterrorism authorities.
This difficulty is magnified when the FBI is looking at a lone wolf target because there is no organization, chain of command or specific communications channel on which to focus intelligence resources and gather information. Lacking information that would have tied Muhammad to other militant individuals or cells, or that would have indicated he was inclined to commit a crime, the FBI had little basis for opening a full-field investigation into his activities. These limitations, and the FBI’s notorious bureaucracy (as seen in its investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui and the 9/11 hijackers), are the longstanding shortfalls of the law-enforcement element of counterterrorism policy (the other elements are diplomacy, financial sanctions, intelligence and military).
However, politics have proved obstructive to all facets of counterterrorism policy. And politics may have been at play in the Muhammad case as well as in other cases involving Black Muslim converts. Several weeks ago, STRATFOR heard from sources that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to “back off” of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts. At this point, it is unclear to us if that guidance was given by the White House or the Department of Justice, or if it was promulgated by the agencies themselves, anticipating the wishes of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.
As STRATFOR has previously noted, the FBI has a culture that is very conservative and risk-averse. Many FBI supervisors are reluctant to authorize investigations that they believe may have negative blow-back on their career advancement. In light of this institutional culture, and the order to be careful in investigations relating to Black Muslim converts, it would not be at all surprising to us if a supervisor refused to authorize a full-field investigation of Muhammad that would have included surveillance of his activities. Though in practical terms, even if a full-field investigation had been authorized, due to the caution being exercised in cases related to Black Muslim converts, the case would most likely have been micromanaged to the point of inaction by the special agent in charge of the office involved or by FBI headquarters.
Even though lone wolves operate alone, they are still constrained by the terrorist attack cycle, and because they are working alone, they have to conduct each step of the cycle by themselves. This means that they are vulnerable to detection at several different junctures as they plan their attacks, the most critical of which is the surveillance stage of the operation. Muhammad did not just select that recruiting center at random and attack on the spot. He had cased it prior to the attack just as he had been taught in the militant training camps he attended in Yemen. Law enforcement officials have reported that Muhammad may also have researched potential government and Jewish targets in Little Rock, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, Louisville and Memphis.
Had the FBI opened a full-field investigation on Muhammad, and had it conducted surveillance on him, it would have been able to watch him participate in preoperational activities such as conducting surveillance of potential targets and obtaining weapons.
There is certainly going to be an internal inquiry at the FBI and Department of Justice — and perhaps even in Congress — to determine where the points of failure were in this case. We will be watching with interest to see what really transpired. The details will be extremely interesting, especially coming at a time when the Obama administration appears to be following the Clinton-era policy of stressing the primacy of the FBI and the law enforcement aspect of counterterrorism policy at the expense of intelligence and other elements.
Because of the difficulty in obtaining the skills required to conduct a terrorist attack, many lone wolves do not totally operate in a vacuum, and many of them (like Muhammad) will usually come to somebody’s attention before they conduct an attack. Many times this occurs as they seek the skills or materials required to conduct a terrorist attack, which Muhammad appears to have been doing in Yemen.
However, in this case, it is important to remember that even though Muhammad had been brought to the FBI’s attention (probably through information obtained from the Yemeni authorities by the CIA in Yemen), he was only one of the thousands of such people the FBI opens a preliminary inquiry on each year. A preliminary inquiry is the basic level of investigation the FBI conducts, and it is usually opened for a limited period of time (though it can be extended with a supervisor’s approval). Unless the agents assigned to the inquiry turn up sufficient indication that a law has been violated, the inquiry will be closed.
If the inquiry indicates that there is the likelihood that a U.S. law has been violated, the FBI will open a full-field investigation into the matter. This will allow the bureau to exert significantly more investigative effort on the case and devote more investigative resources toward solving it. Out of the many preliminary inquiries opened on suspected militants, the FBI opens full-field investigations only on a handful of them. So, if the information reported by ABC News is correct, the FBI was not conducting surveillance on Muhammad because to do so it would have had to have opened a full-field investigation.
Of course, now that Muhammad has attacked, it is easy to say that the FBI should have paid more attention to him. Prior to an attack, however, intelligence is seldom, if ever, so black and white. Sorting out the individuals who intend to conduct attacks from the larger universe of people who hold radical thoughts and beliefs and assigning law enforcement and intelligence resources to monitor the activities of the really dangerous people has long been one of the very difficult tasks faced by counterterrorism authorities.
This difficulty is magnified when the FBI is looking at a lone wolf target because there is no organization, chain of command or specific communications channel on which to focus intelligence resources and gather information. Lacking information that would have tied Muhammad to other militant individuals or cells, or that would have indicated he was inclined to commit a crime, the FBI had little basis for opening a full-field investigation into his activities. These limitations, and the FBI’s notorious bureaucracy (as seen in its investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui and the 9/11 hijackers), are the longstanding shortfalls of the law-enforcement element of counterterrorism policy (the other elements are diplomacy, financial sanctions, intelligence and military).
However, politics have proved obstructive to all facets of counterterrorism policy. And politics may have been at play in the Muhammad case as well as in other cases involving Black Muslim converts. Several weeks ago, STRATFOR heard from sources that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to “back off” of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts. At this point, it is unclear to us if that guidance was given by the White House or the Department of Justice, or if it was promulgated by the agencies themselves, anticipating the wishes of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.
As STRATFOR has previously noted, the FBI has a culture that is very conservative and risk-averse. Many FBI supervisors are reluctant to authorize investigations that they believe may have negative blow-back on their career advancement. In light of this institutional culture, and the order to be careful in investigations relating to Black Muslim converts, it would not be at all surprising to us if a supervisor refused to authorize a full-field investigation of Muhammad that would have included surveillance of his activities. Though in practical terms, even if a full-field investigation had been authorized, due to the caution being exercised in cases related to Black Muslim converts, the case would most likely have been micromanaged to the point of inaction by the special agent in charge of the office involved or by FBI headquarters.
Even though lone wolves operate alone, they are still constrained by the terrorist attack cycle, and because they are working alone, they have to conduct each step of the cycle by themselves. This means that they are vulnerable to detection at several different junctures as they plan their attacks, the most critical of which is the surveillance stage of the operation. Muhammad did not just select that recruiting center at random and attack on the spot. He had cased it prior to the attack just as he had been taught in the militant training camps he attended in Yemen. Law enforcement officials have reported that Muhammad may also have researched potential government and Jewish targets in Little Rock, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, Louisville and Memphis.
Had the FBI opened a full-field investigation on Muhammad, and had it conducted surveillance on him, it would have been able to watch him participate in preoperational activities such as conducting surveillance of potential targets and obtaining weapons.
There is certainly going to be an internal inquiry at the FBI and Department of Justice — and perhaps even in Congress — to determine where the points of failure were in this case. We will be watching with interest to see what really transpired. The details will be extremely interesting, especially coming at a time when the Obama administration appears to be following the Clinton-era policy of stressing the primacy of the FBI and the law enforcement aspect of counterterrorism policy at the expense of intelligence and other elements.
The European elections - The Europeans are making choices
When, what, and why?
Information for the media and for the voters
The nationalist movements are getting more votes and support, the expected success of the anti-immigration Dutch party being an example in this respect:
WSJ
Times on-line
Le Figaro
Anxious moments, waiting for the results in the Czech Republic and Ireland.
Media reports about candidates and general apathy.
Also, for the first time ODIHR is deploying a monitoring mission to 15 of the 27 EU countries.
In terms of e-politics, Europe is still at the beginning of a long way to catch up with the US.
Information for the media and for the voters
The nationalist movements are getting more votes and support, the expected success of the anti-immigration Dutch party being an example in this respect:
WSJ
Times on-line
Le Figaro
Anxious moments, waiting for the results in the Czech Republic and Ireland.
Media reports about candidates and general apathy.
Also, for the first time ODIHR is deploying a monitoring mission to 15 of the 27 EU countries.
In terms of e-politics, Europe is still at the beginning of a long way to catch up with the US.
The hedgehog and the fox
or how difficult is, on the ground to overcome the scars of the past. A December 2008 article of Bret Stephens, for the WSJ. The big problem is how to go beyond a past - of misunderstanding, of hate, of killings, of building and fighting an enemy. Obama itself recognized it is not easy. But, in some respects, it is tremendously complicate. And any faith will be able to restore this past, but very physical and individual beings, with projects and initiatives and good wills and full desire to build up a decent and conflict free - past free life for themselves, their children and their community.
Some quotes from the one year ago intervention
"I have long understood Israel's quest for peace and need for security. But never more so than during my travels there two years ago. Flying in an IDF helicopter, I saw a narrow and beautiful strip of land nestled against the Mediterranean. On the ground, I met a family who saw their house destroyed by a Katyusha Rocket. I spoke to Israeli troops who faced daily threats as they maintained security near the blue line. I talked to people who wanted nothing more simple, or elusive, than a secure future for their children".
"Our alliance is based on shared interests and shared values. Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel has always faced these threats on the front lines. And I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel's security.
That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage. I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat - from Gaza to Tehran. Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As President, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade - investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO. And I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself in the United Nations and around the world".
That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage. I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat - from Gaza to Tehran. Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As President, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade - investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO. And I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself in the United Nations and around the world".
"The long road to peace requires Palestinian partners committed to making the journey. We must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations. That is why I opposed holding elections in 2006 with Hamas on the ballot. The Israelis and the Palestinian Authority warned us at the time against holding these elections. But this Administration pressed ahead, and the result is a Gaza controlled by Hamas, with rockets raining down on Israel".
Let me be clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper - but any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided".
"Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel. Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation. But that only makes diplomacy more important. If we must use military force, we are more likely to succeed, and will have far greater support at home and abroad, if we have exhausted our diplomatic efforts".
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Obama's German Itinerary Fuels Speculation Of U.S.-German Row
Bernd Volkert
June 4
Squeezed between visits to Egypt and France, the brevity and itinerary of U.S. President Barack Obama's trip to Germany have fueled media speculation of a rift between Washington and Berlin. Official German requests that Obama make room for a high-level program were declined, with Washington stressing the private nature of the president's visits to a former concentration camp and to a U.S. military base ahead of this weekend's D-Day anniversary. Notwithstanding the media's dire read on the situation, German politicians generally appear content with the state of German-American relations. After wrapping up a brief meeting in Dresden early on June 5, Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were expected to depart together for Buchenwald, site of the former Nazi concentration camp.
Obama's two-day trip to Germany was largely motivated by his interest in honoring his great uncle Charles Payne's participation in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a forced-labor camp that was a satellite of Buchenwald. From there, the U.S. leader will head to a Ramstein hospital to visit U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, before participating in weekend ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France.
'Tug-Of-War'
The lack of a major public appearance in Dresden and the absence of a stop in the capital or in Weimar are being cited as evidence of discord. The speculation centers mainly on purported U.S. disappointment over Germany's outspoken criticism of its handling of the global economic crisis, the level of German commitment to the Afghan war effort, and Germany's reluctance to take in Guantanamo inmates.The German weekly "Der Spiegel," writing about the government's failure to convince the U.S. administration to make room for a higher-profile agenda that could have played well ahead of upcoming German parliamentary elections, described it as "a diplomatic tug-of-war" that Berlin lost.Whatever the case, German pundits say Merkel will have to put on a good face during her time with Obama.But representatives of Germany's main political parties don't necessarily agree with the media's assessment of an American snub.Eckart von Klaeden, the foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, for example, extols the German-American relationship.
"The question is not if there are any conflicts or different points of view, but how they are handled," von Klaeden said. "And it can be said that both sides handle them with great trust and responsibly. For that reason, I cannot see any discord at all."Gert Weisskirchen, foreign policy spokesman for Germany's Social Democrats in parliament, contradicted his CDU/CSU counterpart on the issue of German-U.S. differences, but says they indicate a "revolutionary" and conceptual turn against the conservative approach of von Klaeden's party.Weisskirchen said he sees a "very clear and unequivocal signal" in the strikingly low-profile character of Obama's visit and its specific route, but says it merely reflects historical realities."Germany earned its position in the West and in the North Atlantic alliance," Weisskirchen said, "but this position will always be set against the background of the Nazi dictatorship."Media 'Fuss'German politicians have generally welcomed the Obama visit, even if it seems sandwiched between much-heralded trips to the Middle East and France.
Karsten Voigt, a longtime Social Democrat who serves as the Foreign Ministry's coordinator of German-American cooperation, dismissed reports of discord as "mainly fuss made up by the media."Addressing qualms expressed over Obama's choice of Dresden, whose firebombing by Allied forces as the end of World War II resulted in enormous civilian casualties that are frequently held up as an example of war crimes committed against Germans, Voigt said he sees an opportunity for new openness in the debate about the afflictions of history."Seen in this light, Buchenwald is a symbol for both [countries] at the same time: for the Americans because they liberated Buchenwald, and for the Germans because their anti-Hitler victims died there. And Buchenwald has also been used by the Soviets as a camp after World War II," Voigt said. "Dresden, again, is symbolic. It is an important place in Eastern Germany, it is a place that has suffered Allied bomb attacks and -- in spite of this -- now again works closely together with the Americans, and it is a symbol for East German reconstruction."
Christian Democrat Eckart von Klaeden offered a similarly positive assessment of Obama's schedule. By visiting Dresden and Buchenwald, both located in the former German Democratic Republic, von Klaeden said he sees a historical reference made to "both of the totalitarian systems in Germany.""Reunification would not have been possible without American help, the concentration camp would not have been liberated without American soldiers," von Klaeden said. "And Dresden stands for the reconstruction of Germany and for the reunification. Therefore, this is a very well planned and symbolic visit."Apart from symbolism, the White House stressed ahead of the presidential trip that Germany and the United States "have a robust agenda on the bilateral front," saying that Afghanistan, Iran, and nonproliferation would be among the major topics of discussion between Obama and Merkel.
See also:
For a new American policy in the Middle East
Obama's speech in Cairo.
A couple of observations:
A couple of observations:
- what during the electoral campaign was rather an argument against him, was used as an element of unity and common understanding with the Muslim world - his personal story, the Muslim ties and the youth spent in Indonesia
- it is time for a partnership between America and Islam
- criticism against some "liberal" Western countries trying to impose to the Muslims what to wear
- Israeli government should stop the policy of settlements (while denouncing the "inacceptable" situation of the Palestinians) and accept a Palestinian state it is in its interest too. Hamas should stop violence and play a role in unifying Palestinian people and recognize the state of Israel. Jerusalem should be the place of praying for Jews, Muslism and Christians
- the discourse was rather faced on the religious aspects and the need for an inter-faith dialogue, rather than on the variety institutionalized Islam took in the Muslim world
Never forget June 4
Tiananmen Square 20 years ago. The events were marked under the repression of the Chinese authorities.
Washington Post
The Guardian
BBC
AFP
FT
NPR
Washington Post
The Guardian
BBC
AFP
FT
NPR
An European perspective on Guantanamo
ECFR Press Release
The Justice and Home Affairs Council is meeting today and Friday to discuss Europe's action on resettling Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Anthony Dworkin, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and author of ECFR's recent policy brief, Beyond the "War on Terror": Towards a new transatlantic framework for counterterrorism, says:
"President Obama has promised to close Guantanamo, and Europe applauds him. But so far the EU has been slow to offer support. Europe has a huge interest in rebuilding a counterterrorism partnership with the US based on the rule of law, but it cannot expect to have influence in Washington if it is not prepared to help resettle Guantanamo Bay detainees.
It now seems likely that the European Union will agree a framework this week that makes a very positive start - it is the initial, necessary step towards Europe working with the US in closing Guantanamo.
The EU ought to endorse this framework. Member states must then urgently agree with the US how many and which detainees they are willing to take. As part of the deal, the US should be willing to admit some detainees itself."
Dworkin calls for:
1. The EU must endorse a joint framework for resettling detainees that includes a supporting statement that member states consider accepting some former prisoners, as well as providing an information sharing protocol - which will help allay concerns over freedom of movement in the Schengen area. Giving the stance Obama is taking and the hurdles he is facing in closing Guantanamo, such a statement will contribute to improved US-EU relations.
There are 50 detainees whom the United States is willing to release if a country can be found to take them. Since Obama became president, the UK has accepted a former resident and France has taken a non-citizen with family members in France. Several other EU countries-including Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania and Belgium-have said they will consider doing so.
2. Member states must move quickly to reach agreement with the US on a specific number of prisoners they are willing to take as Obama works to follow through on his promise to accept some detainees in the US.
For press interviews and comment, Anthony Dworkin can be reached at: anthony.dworkin@ecfr.eu or on +44 7879 636701.
For all other press enquiries, please email press@ecfr.eu or call +44 (0)207 031 1623.
For more information, please click here for ECFR's latest policy brief on counterterrorism.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council is meeting today and Friday to discuss Europe's action on resettling Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Anthony Dworkin, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and author of ECFR's recent policy brief, Beyond the "War on Terror": Towards a new transatlantic framework for counterterrorism, says:
"President Obama has promised to close Guantanamo, and Europe applauds him. But so far the EU has been slow to offer support. Europe has a huge interest in rebuilding a counterterrorism partnership with the US based on the rule of law, but it cannot expect to have influence in Washington if it is not prepared to help resettle Guantanamo Bay detainees.
It now seems likely that the European Union will agree a framework this week that makes a very positive start - it is the initial, necessary step towards Europe working with the US in closing Guantanamo.
The EU ought to endorse this framework. Member states must then urgently agree with the US how many and which detainees they are willing to take. As part of the deal, the US should be willing to admit some detainees itself."
Dworkin calls for:
1. The EU must endorse a joint framework for resettling detainees that includes a supporting statement that member states consider accepting some former prisoners, as well as providing an information sharing protocol - which will help allay concerns over freedom of movement in the Schengen area. Giving the stance Obama is taking and the hurdles he is facing in closing Guantanamo, such a statement will contribute to improved US-EU relations.
There are 50 detainees whom the United States is willing to release if a country can be found to take them. Since Obama became president, the UK has accepted a former resident and France has taken a non-citizen with family members in France. Several other EU countries-including Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania and Belgium-have said they will consider doing so.
2. Member states must move quickly to reach agreement with the US on a specific number of prisoners they are willing to take as Obama works to follow through on his promise to accept some detainees in the US.
For press interviews and comment, Anthony Dworkin can be reached at: anthony.dworkin@ecfr.eu or on +44 7879 636701.
For all other press enquiries, please email press@ecfr.eu or call +44 (0)207 031 1623.
For more information, please click here for ECFR's latest policy brief on counterterrorism.
The Geography of Recession
Peter Zeihan
Stratfor.com
June 2
Related Link
Special Series: The Recession Revisited
Special Series: The Financial Crisis
The global recession is the biggest development in the global system in the year to date. In the United States, it has become almost dogma that the recession is the worst since the Great Depression. But this is only one of a wealth of misperceptions about whom the downturn is hurting most, and why.
Let’s begin with some simple numbers.
As one can see in the chart, the U.S. recession at this point is only the worst since 1982, not the 1930s, and it pales in comparison to what is occurring in the rest of the world. (Figures for China have not been included, in part because of the unreliability of Chinese statistics, but also because the country’s financial system is so radically different from the rest of the world as to make such comparisons misleading. For more, read the China section below.)
But didn’t the recession begin in the United States? That it did, but the American system is far more stable, durable and flexible than most of the other global economies, in large part thanks to the country’s geography. To understand how place shapes economics, we need to take a giant step back from the gloom and doom of the current moment and examine the long-term picture of why different regions follow different economic paths.
The United States and the Free Market
The most important aspect of the United States is not simply its sheer size, but the size of its usable land. Russia and China may both be similar-sized in absolute terms, but the vast majority of Russian and Chinese land is useless for agriculture, habitation or development. In contrast, courtesy of the Midwest, the United States boasts the world’s largest contiguous mass of arable land — and that mass does not include the hardly inconsequential chunks of usable territory on both the West and East coasts.
Second is the American maritime transport system. The Mississippi River, linked as it is to the Red, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee rivers, comprises the largest interconnected network of navigable rivers in the world. In the San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound/New York Bay, the United States has three of the world’s largest and best natural harbors. The series of barrier islands a few miles off the shores of Texas and the East Coast form a water-based highway — an Intercoastal Waterway — that shields American coastal shipping from all but the worst that the elements can throw at ships and ports.
The real beauty is that the two overlap with near perfect symmetry. The Intercoastal Waterway and most of the bays link up with agricultural regions and their own local river systems (such as the series of rivers that descend from the Appalachians to the East Coast), while the Greater Mississippi river network is the circulatory system of the Midwest. Even without the addition of canals, it is possible for ships to reach nearly any part of the Midwest from nearly any part of the Gulf or East coasts. The result is not just a massive ability to grow a massive amount of crops — and not just the ability to easily and cheaply move the crops to local, regional and global markets — but also the ability to use that same transport network for any other economic purpose without having to worry about food supplies.
The implications of such a confluence are deep and sustained. Where most countries need to scrape together capital to build roads and rail to establish the very foundation of an economy, transport capability, geography granted the United States a near-perfect system at no cost. That frees up U.S. capital for other pursuits and almost condemns the United States to be capital-rich. Any additional infrastructure the United States constructs is icing on the cake. (The cake itself is free — and, incidentally, the United States had so much free capital that it was able to go on to build one of the best road-and-rail networks anyway, resulting in even greater economic advantages over competitors.)
Third, geography has also ensured that the United States has very little local competition. To the north, Canada is both much colder and much more mountainous than the United States. Canada’s only navigable maritime network — the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway —is shared with the United States, and most of its usable land is hard by the American border. Often this makes it more economically advantageous for Canadian provinces to integrate with their neighbor to the south than with their co-nationals to the east and west.
Similarly, Mexico has only small chunks of land, separated by deserts and mountains, that are useful for much more than subsistence agriculture; most of Mexican territory is either too dry, too tropical or too mountainous. And Mexico completely lacks any meaningful river system for maritime transport. Add in a largely desert border, and Mexico as a country is not a meaningful threat to American security (which hardly means that there are not serious and ongoing concerns in the American-Mexican relationship).
With geography empowering the United States and hindering Canada and Mexico, the United States does not need to maintain a large standing military force to counter either. The Canadian border is almost completely unguarded, and the Mexican border is no more than a fence in most locations — a far cry from the sort of military standoffs that have marked more adversarial borders in human history. Not only are Canada and Mexico not major threats, but the U.S. transport network allows the United States the luxury of being able to quickly move a smaller force to deal with occasional problems rather than requiring it to station large static forces on its borders.
Like the transport network, this also helps the U.S. focus its resources on other things.
Taken together, the integrated transport network, large tracts of usable land and lack of a need for a standing military have one critical implication: The U.S. government tends to take a hands-off approach to economic management, because geography has not cursed the United States with any endemic problems. This may mean that the United States — and especially its government — comes across as disorganized, but it shifts massive amounts of labor and capital to the private sector, which for the most part allows resources to flow to wherever they will achieve the most efficient and productive results.
Laissez-faire capitalism has its flaws. Inequality and social stress are just two of many less-than-desirable side effects. The side effects most relevant to the current situation are, of course, the speculative bubbles that cause recessions when they pop. But in terms of long-term economic efficiency and growth, a free capital system is unrivaled. For the United States, the end result has proved clear: The United States has exited each decade since post-Civil War Reconstruction more powerful than it was when it entered it. While there are many forces in the modern world that threaten various aspects of U.S. economic standing, there is not one that actually threatens the U.S. base geographic advantages.
Is the United States in recession? Of course. Will it be forever? Of course not. So long as U.S. geographic advantages remain intact, it takes no small amount of paranoia and pessimism to envision anything but long-term economic expansion for such a chunk of territory. In fact, there are a number of factors hinting that the United States may even be on the cusp of recovery.
Russia and the State
If in economic terms the United States has everything going for it geographically, then Russia is just the opposite. The Russian steppe lies deep in the interior of the Eurasian landmass, and as such is subject to climatic conditions much more hostile to human habitation and agriculture than is the American Midwest. Even in those blessed good years when crops are abundant in Russia, it has no river network to allow for easy transport of products.
Russia has no good warm-water ports to facilitate international trade (and has spent much of its history seeking access to one). Russia does have long rivers, but they are not interconnected as the Mississippi is with its tributaries, instead flowing north to the Arctic Ocean, which can support no more than a token population. The one exception is the Volga, which is critical to Western Russian commerce but flows to the Caspian, a storm-wracked and landlocked sea whose delta freezes in the winter (along with the entire Volga itself). Developing such unforgiving lands requires a massive outlay of funds simply to build the road and rail networks necessary to achieve the most basic of economic development. The cost is so extreme that Russia’s first ever intercontinental road was not completed until the 21st century, and it is little more than a two-lane path for much of its length. Between the lack of ports and the relatively low population densities, little of Russia’s transport system beyond the St. Petersburg/Moscow corridor approaches anything that hints of economic rationality.
Russia also has no meaningful external borders. It sits on the eastern end of the North European Plain, which stretches all the way to Normandy, France, and Russia’s connections to the Asian steppe flow deep into China. Because Russia lacks a decent internal transport network that can rapidly move armies from place to place, geography forces Russia to defend itself following two strategies. First, it requires massive standing armies on all of its borders. Second, it dictates that Russia continually push its boundaries outward to buffer its core against external threats.
Both strategies compromise Russian economic development even further. The large standing armies are a continual drain on state coffers and the country’s labor pool; their cost was a critical economic factor in the Soviet fall. The expansionist strategy not only absorbs large populations that do not wish to be part of the Russian state and so must constantly be policed — the core rationale for Russia’s robust security services — but also inflates Russia’s infrastructure development costs by increasing the amount of relatively useless territory Moscow is responsible for.
Russia’s labor and capital resources are woefully inadequate to overcome the state’s needs and vulnerabilities, which are legion. These endemic problems force Russia toward central planning; the full harnessing of all economic resources available is required if Russia is to achieve even a modicum of security and stability. One of the many results of this is severe economic inefficiency and a general dearth of an internal consumer market. Because capital and other resources can be flung forcefully at problems, however, active management can achieve specific national goals more readily than a hands-off, American-style model. This often gives the impression of significant progress in areas the Kremlin chooses to highlight.
But such achievements are largely limited to wherever the state happens to be directing its attention. In all other sectors, the lack of attention results in atrophy or criminalization. This is particularly true in modern Russia, where the ruling elite comprises just a handful of people, starkly limiting the amount of planning and oversight possible. And unless management is perfect in perception and execution, any mistakes are quickly magnified into national catastrophes. It is therefore no surprise to STRATFOR that the Russian economy has now fallen the furthest of any major economy during the current recession.
China and Separatism
China also faces significant hurdles, albeit none as daunting as Russia’s challenges. China’s core is the farmland of the Yellow River basin in the north of the country, a river that is not readily navigable and is remarkably flood prone. Simply avoiding periodic starvation requires a high level of state planning and coordination. (Wrestling a large river is not the easiest thing one can do.) Additionally, the southern half of the country has a subtropical climate, riddling it with diseases that the southerners are resistant to but the northerners are not. This compromises the north’s political control of the south.
Central control is also threatened by China’s maritime geography. China boasts two other rivers, but they do not link to each other or the Yellow naturally. And China’s best ports are at the mouths of these two rivers: Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze and Hong Kong/Macau/Guangzhou at the mouth of the Pearl. The Yellow boasts no significant ocean port. The end result is that other regional centers can and do develop economic means independent of Beijing.
(click image to enlarge)
With geography complicating northern rule and supporting southern economic independence, Beijing’s age-old problem has been trying to keep China in one piece. Beijing has to underwrite massive (and expensive) development programs to stitch the country together with a common infrastructure, the most visible of which is the Grand Canal that links the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. The cost of such linkages instantly guarantees that while China may have a shot at being unified, it will always be capital-poor.
Beijing also has to provide its autonomy-minded regions with an economic incentive to remain part of Greater China, and “simple” infrastructure will not cut it. Modern China has turned to a state-centered finance model for this. Under the model, all of the scarce capital that is available is funneled to the state, which divvies it out via a handful of large state banks. These state banks then grant loans to various firms and local governments at below the cost of raising the capital. This provides a powerful economic stimulus that achieves maximum employment and growth — think of what you could do with a near-endless supply of loans at below 0 percent interest — but comes at the cost of encouraging projects that are loss-making, as no one is ever called to account for failures. (They can just get a new loan.) The resultant growth is rapid, but it is also unsustainable. It is no wonder, then, that the central government has chosen to keep its $2 trillion of currency reserves in dollar-based assets; the rate of return is greater, the value holds over a long period, and Beijing doesn’t have to worry about the United States seceding.
Because the domestic market is considerably limited by the poor-capital nature of the country, most producers choose to tap export markets to generate income. In times of plenty this works fairly well, but when Chinese goods are not needed, the entire Chinese system can seize up. Lack of exports reduces capital availability, which constrains loan availability. This in turn not only damages the ability of firms to employ China’s legions of citizens, but it also removes the primary reason the disparate Chinese regions pay homage to Beijing. China’s geography hardwires in a series of economic challenges that weaken the coherence of the state and make China dependent upon uninterrupted access to foreign markets to maintain state unity. As a result, China has not been a unified entity for the vast majority of its history, but instead a cauldron of competing regions that cleave along many different fault lines: coastal versus interior, Han versus minority, north versus south.
China’s survival technique for the current recession is simple. Because exports, which account for roughly half of China’s economic activity, have sunk by half, Beijing is throwing the equivalent of the financial kitchen sink at the problem. China has force-fed more loans through the banks in the first four months of 2009 than it did in the entirety of 2008. The long-term result could well bury China beneath a mountain of bad loans — a similar strategy resulted in Japan’s 1991 crash, from which Tokyo has yet to recover. But for now it is holding the country together. The bottom line remains, however: China’s recovery is completely dependent upon external demand for its production, and the most it can do on its own is tread water.
Discordant Europe
Europe faces an imbroglio somewhat similar to China’s.
Europe has a number of rivers that are easily navigable, providing a wealth of trade and development opportunities. But none of them interlinks with the others, retarding political unification. Europe has even more good harbors than the United States, but they are not evenly spread throughout the Continent, making some states capital-rich and others capital-poor. Europe boasts one huge piece of arable land on the North European Plain, but it is long and thin, and so occupied by no fewer than seven distinct ethnic groups.
These groups have constantly struggled — as have the various groups up and down Europe’s seemingly endless list of river valleys — but none has been able to emerge dominant, due to the webwork of mountains and peninsulas that make it nigh impossible to fully root out any particular group. And Europe’s wealth of islands close to the Continent, with Great Britain being only the most obvious, guarantee constant intervention to ensure that mainland Europe never unifies under a single power.
Every part of Europe has a radically different geography than the other parts, and thus the economic models the Europeans have adopted have little in common. The United Kingdom, with few immediate security threats and decent rivers and ports, has an almost American-style laissez-faire system. France, with three unconnected rivers lying wholly in its own territory, is a somewhat self-contained world, making economic nationalism its credo. Not only do the rivers in Germany not connect, but Berlin has to share them with other states. The Jutland Peninsula interrupts the coastline of Germany, which finds its sea access limited by the Danes, the Swedes and the British. Germany must plan in great detail to maximize its resource use to build an infrastructure that can compensate for its geographic deficiencies and link together its good — but disparate — geographic blessings. The result is a state that somewhat favors free enterprise, but within the limits framed by national needs.
And the list of differences goes on: Spain has long coasts and is arid; Austria is landlocked and quite wet; most of Greece is almost too mountainous to build on; it doesn’t get flatter than the Netherlands; tiny Estonia faces frozen seas in the winter; mammoth Italy has never even seen an icebreaker. Even if there were a supranational authority in Europe that could tax or regulate the banking sector or plan transnational responses, the propriety of any singular policy would be questionable at best.
Such stark regional differences give rise to such variant policies that many European states have a severe (and understandable) trust deficit when it comes to any hint of anything supranational. We are not simply taking about the European Union here, but rather a general distrust of anything cross-border in nature. One of the many outcomes of this is a preference for using local banks rather than stock exchanges for raising capital. After all, local banks tend to use local capital and are subject to local regulations, while stock exchanges tend to be internationalized in all respects. Spain, Italy, Sweden, Greece and Austria get more than 90 percent of their financing from banks, the United Kingdom 84 percent and Germany 76 percent — while for the United States it is only 40 percent.
And this has proved unfortunate in the extreme for today’s Europe. The current recession has its roots in a financial crisis that has most dramatically impacted banks, and European banks have proved far from immune. Until Europe’s banks recover, Europe will remain mired in recession. And since there cannot be a Pan-European solution, Europe’s recession could well prove to be the worst of all this time around.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Diplomatic nominations
by the Obama administration, for Paris, Tokyo, Great Britain, Vatican and New Delhi, former campaign donors.
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