A Ridiculous Answer to a Silly Question

In a recent moment of jocularity, a Patterson School professor sent out a waggish list of sample comprehensive exam questions, among them: “Which countries constitute the “Axis of Obsolescence?”

Obsolescence is defined as the state of being no longer useful, current or desired. I’ll kick off the Axis, and hopefully we’ll have enough additional contributions to form a new international organization I call the Quad U-N (Union of Unwanted, Unnecessary and Untimely Nations). First among the obsolete? Moldova.

What happened, Moldova? We used to be cool…

Things were really heating up between us after you declared your independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. You had a big fight with your ex over the Transdnestrian region on your border with Ukraine, and it got ugly, but you made it through. You had elections, you introduced a market economy and liberalized prices…. I mean sure, times were tough, but you powered through, and from 2001 to 2008 you were doing so well! I mean, stable annual growth between 5% and 10% annually? So hot!

But then all of a sudden, it was like you’re the old you again. You go and elect a majority of Communist Party members to parliament last April. You said it was a mistake, you dissolved parliament and said you’d never do it again, but three months later, you vote to send a plurality of Communists right back to parliament.

I mean, it’s obvious to everyone that Russia is just using you as a buffer against the West. It’s weird enough that their troops are still right next door in Transdniestria “keeping the peace.” I bet that’s exactly what they said about Georgia, too. This is going to make it really awkward if you still want to come to NATO with us, let alone get with the EU.

Whatever. We never really wanted you anyway. It’s obvious you were never over the Soviet Union, or whatever it’s calling itself now. We gave you support, we hooked you up with our friends in Europe who totally gave you a loan and some odd jobs to do. When we said those three special words, Most Favored Nation, I thought it was going to last forever. But you just don’t have the internal political unity to keep this relationship on track. You’re stuck in the past and you’re just not useful anymore.

Baby, you’re obsolete.

Does this comic have it right?

Click on the comic for full image

Defeating Divisiveness At Home & Securing the State

Sometime in the still vague future the men accused of orchestrating the devastating events of September 11, 2001 will be put on trial. In the past week, it was decided that those men would face a civilian court in lower Manhattan, where the attacks were focused. U.S. Attorneys from Manhattan and eastern Virginia, home to the Pentagon, will be responsible for prosecuting the case as a team. This series of decisions has brought many raised eyebrows and much worried wringing of hands. Though President Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo Bay has been hanging around for some time now, for many it has remained a difficult-to-imagine proposition. With the announcement that some of the Bay’s most volatile and threatening inmates will be leaving its confines to face public trial, many, from civilians to government officials, have raised considerable concerns about the wisdom of allowing these men a day in a public courtroom and taking them out of their high-security vacuum. There is worry about the trial inspiring anti-American propaganda (or worse, action) from sympathetic extremists, or about the move to a little-used, less-secure Illinois prison enabling the possibility of escape.
Of course, those that put forth these concerns offer no other solutions, but are doing sufficiently well at getting their names and comments in newspapers and scaring others into sharing their fears. The problem with these trepidations is that reverting to the opposite position would certainly irritate just as many individuals (in truth, many of the same individuals). To leave the men in Guantanamo Bay and deal with them in military tribunals where they would most certainly be dealt a more severe hand, would get those ever-reliable activist groups in a tizzy over unfair living conditions and the lack of a democratic trial by peers.
As we are now discussing the structure of the national security state, this issue is of primary importance. Regardless of how individual citizens or policy makers may feel, the decision has already been made to give these men a public trial and move them (most likely) to Illinois. The path that has been chosen is a civilian one. Inciting fear and concern for the impact of such a decision must now be put aside. It is thus the responsibility of citizens and officials to ensure that the United States puts forth a strong unified face against those who have attacked us in the past. Offering up shirking fears about the wisdom of the decision made by the Attorney General only displays the divisiveness possible in the American public. Such actions do not deter those who seek to harm our nation, but instead encourage them. It is rare that the American people have something they can all have a hand in effecting; the public trial of the men who are accused of killing our neighbors, friends, and family members is certainly one. We must prove to these perpetrators, as well as those who aspire to their actions, that we will give them a fair trial with a just outcome and prove that on issues of our national security, this nation stands as one.
In short, if the American people will support those attorneys from Manhattan and eastern Virginia and remain staunch believers in the effectiveness and efficiency of our judicial system, any fears still maintained will be proved unnecessary and divisiveness overcome. In doing so, each citizen has a hand in making our state stronger and more secure.

Israel Wants a Pain Ray, too!

The "Pain Ray," developed by the Pentagon to provide a new form of weaponry to debilitate an enemy without causing significant bodily injury. These Active Denial Systems emit microwaves to heat the skin and cause intense pain but are "generally harmless." However, ADS has run up against approval issues from the Pentagon - despite years of human testing (how terrible would it be to be that private/"volunteer"?). Though the US military may not see these weapons in action any time soon, Israel is attempting to make headway on the use of the technology.

As opposed to the US system, which is pretty huge and takes hours to heat up in preparation for firing, Israel is championing a hand-held version which can be used like a taser (immediate use). The significant drawback to the smaller version is the radius affected: the US system covers an entire area but the Israeli version only hits a 100 feet ahead and four inches across, which only works for individual targets. Dr. Moshe Einat, the head of the Israeli research team from the University of Judea and Samaria, claims they have achieved a "unique know-how" to turn the pain ray technology into a smaller, portable version. Beyond this, it carries a meager price tag of $250,000. In the defense world, that's pennies.

Danger Room cites these Israeli developments (not by the IDF but by a university group) as a signal that other countries - Russia, China, anywhere else - could also harness and employ this technology in combat, or otherwise. This can lead to further issues of restraining the use of ADS technologies.

I perceive another problem with the Israelis obtaining a pain ray - its use on the populations of Gaza and the West Bank. Unless Israel engages in an armed conflict anytime soon (which everyone hopes won't happen), the only feasible use would be on Palestine. This is complicated by Israel's human rights record toward their Arab neighbors, which is not exactly untarnished.

The most useful role I foresee for ADS lies in domestic security,specifically police and paramilitary, rather than military. LAPD has already expressed serious interest in the devices. They can serve as a viable alternative to current crowd-control weaponry, such as rubber bullets and batons, which cause serious physical injury and carry a greater stigma.

Mexico our most immediate national security threat?

While America focuses on foreign terrorism and the resurgence of China and Russia, Mexico is emerging as perhaps the more immediate security threat. Mexican drug cartels have dominated the illegal drug market in the United States over the past two decades. The U.S. continues to be the largest purchaser of illicit drugs worldwide and the violent drug cartels move increasingly further into U.S. soil. Consequently, the problem is both right at our 2,000-mile doorstep and into major cities such as Atlanta, Phoenix, and Birmingham.

As of February of this year, more than 200 Americans have been killed since 2004 in “an escalating wave of violence, amounting to the highest number of unnatural deaths in any foreign country outside military combat zones.” There’s reason to believe the true number of Americans killed in Mexico is much higher, as many missing person and kidnapping cases remain unsolved. But again, this cannot be thought of as only a Mexican problem. Attorney General Eric Holder called the drug cartels a "national security threat," to the United States and stressed that “we simply can't afford to let down our guard." The Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that, as of December 2008, the cartels have established operations in at least 230 U.S. cities.

Narcotics trafficking is a national security problem because the issues of narcotics, criminal organizations, and terrorism are interrelated. We must avoid the modern presumption that terrorists are all Muslim fundamentalists interested in directly inflicting damage on the American state. Mexican drug cartels terrorize American interests and require a massive amount of law enforcement officers and resources to be positioned along our southern border. The most violence has occurred in Ciudad Juarez, just below the El Paso border, where many feel even the Mexican military is unable to ameliorate the situation.

An effective strategy at combating this problem must directly involve policies directed toward the Mexican state. We need to continue push reforms in the Mexican justice system to make it more accountable. The U.S. should revisit its gun control laws to prevent arms from falling into cartel hands, as the U.S. is the source of the vast majority of cartel armaments. Obama should also consider changes to the federal and local law enforcement presence along the border, which doesn’t seem to be working as effectively as it should. If we are considering sending 40,000 troops to Afghanistan on the other side of the world to reduce Islamic militancy, we should at least be willing to focus additional efforts in keeping Mexican drug runners from illegally entering the U.S. with automatic weapons, stockpiles of cash, and hard drugs.

"This is a war – and we are going to win."

Mauricio Fernandez, The mayor of San Pedro Garza Garcia, the wealthiest municipality in Mexico made this declaration at his swearing-in ceremony, after jubilantly announcing the death of Hector 'Black' Saldaña, a cartel leader who had previously threatened Fernandez's life.

One complication: Saldaña's body wasn't found by police for another three hours, and wasn't identified for two days. Fernandez responded to this development by saying: "Sometimes there are coincidences in life … it's better to look at it this way."

According to the story in the Guardian:

"But in a series of interviews this week, he was more vague, apparently willing to allow speculation that he had set up a paramilitary death squad to keep his town safe from kidnappers.

Fernandez said the information about Saldaña's death came from an intelligence group he had set up to orientate the activities of a "cleansing group" intended to take on kidnappers and other criminals "by fair means or foul".

Asked by one interviewer whether such a group would be acting outside the law, he said: "I don't understand why I should respect all the laws when they [the criminals] respect none."

He told another: "If these people want to kidnap and extort people [in San Pedro], then they will get what is coming to them.'"

Are local government death squads the future of the drug fight in Mexico?

Another possibility is that the mayor has sided with his local cartel, the Beltrán Levya Cartel, against kidnappers and other criminals (transcripts and audio in Spanish here (There is evidence that Saldaña was killed by the Levya Cartel, for which he had been working). Can stability and security be gained by siding with a local criminal organization? This meshing of governments and criminal organizations cannot be good for the future of Mexico, and allows the narco-traffickers to further capture the Mexican State.

These extreme options show the desperate security situation in Mexican politics. Drug cartels have the ability to threaten government officials and police. As the central government fails to protect many areas of Mexico, local leaders there will seek protection elsewhere, either through local security or vigilante forces or alliances with cartels themselves. Small "victories" over individual criminals at the cost of disregarding law, or institutionalizing the larger crime organizations: is this "winning the war" or is it giving up?

Teach a Man a Fish?

Education…Alternative Option for Stabilizing Afghanistan

In a recent article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29kristof.html?scp=2&sq=schools%20in%20afghanistan&st=cse) NYTimes columnist Nikolas Kristof identified an alternative to the current options up for debate regarding sending American soldiers to Afghanistan: he proposes allocating money for starting and supporting schools as opposed to military operations. In the midst of such contentious debate about American military involvement, this fresh idea provokes some alternative questions and ideas about how best to maximize resources in the fight against terror.

So much of the argument surrounding the next phase of US involvement in Afghanistan has focused on General Stanley McChrystal’s report, an assessment that calls for more troops and a greater focus on counterinsurgency efforts in order to “win over” the Afghan population. While the goal has merit, are there alternative approaches to achieving said goal via military efforts? From this arm-chair perspective, guns provide superficial protection and while simultaneously creating enemies. Schools educate and empower – a far more effective form of self-sustaining protection.

This old proverb seems to relate:
If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Similarly, if you send a soldier (or 40,000) to Afghanistan, you make a population and weak government dependent on your presence, and you provide your enemies and critics with continued motivation to antagonize you. However, if you focus your energy on educating the population, providing them with skills and knowledge that will enhance their collective capacity to cultivate food and ideas, you can empower them to transform their own country.

Furthermore, providing education is providing protection. US forces can and should train additional Afghan National Security Forces, but our investment should also be in the non-military population of Afghanistan. By raising the level of education among the population – albeit a long-term project – we set the stage for the people to enhance their productivity and transform their governance. Is that an echo of Paul Collier I hear? By investing in education, we provide greater potential for domestic stability, which in turn serves our security interests by suppressing and eradicating radicalism.

However, efforts to increase education must be accompanied by incentives to keep educated people in Afghanistan; we don’t want to cause a brain drain that further bankrupts the country.

Ultimately, funding educational ventures would garner far greater support domestically and among the international community. After so much debate and hesitation, why not try a fresh approach to counterinsurgency? Let us sow seeds of education and self-sustaining development, rather than enabling dependency and risking additional lives.

I’ll bring the worms…

Our clichéd decision

"Mr Eikenberry’s 11th-hour intervention could tip the scales in the White House." This is a line from the Economist article General disarray: America’s senior men in Kabul disagree over sending more troops to Afghanistan
How many clichés can we apply to our current situation? We all know that Obama is as busy as a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest, but putting off the decision about Afghanistan any longer is an invitation for dissention.  Too many cooks spoil the pot and the longer Mr. President waits the more opinions will be presented. In the meantime we are running around like a dog lost in the high weeds, leaderless and losing what little popular support we had.

This is a situation of damned if you do and damned if you don’t: no plan has a quick fix and none of them will give the situation any more support at home, but any plan is going to be better than banging your head against a wall while your generals argue. I might be barking up the wrong tree, but I say listen to Ambassador Eikenberry. As experienced as Gen. McChrystal is, Eikenberry provides a political insight on the ground could be the most accurate view of Karzai since the highly contested election. His opposition to substantially more troops would also allow Obama to buy an option for the price of a skinny chicken by focusing on a narrow counter-terror operation.

            While I’m glad our nation’s leader isn’t just flying by the seat of his pants, I’m worried it’s a sign of weakness that we haven’t gotten the ball rolling. Mr. President, most people who voted for you thought you were the best thing since sliced bread. Now I have to ask you: Are you a man or a mouse?

 

Reversing Japan's Demographic Trends

Despite recent gains, Japan's total fertility rate (TFR) stands at 1.37, well below the two children per woman average needed to stabilize the country's population. Unless Japan's current demographic trajectory is reversed, it's population will decrease by 20 percent by 2050. Consequently, an aging Japan, unable to replenish its workforce, will see its substantial manufacturing base diminish. Additionally, as China continues to rise, Japan is likely retain less and less regional and global influence. For decades, Japan has spent a relatively small fraction of its GDP on military expenditures when compared to the expenditures of other industrial nations. Yet just when many would like to see Japan reassert itself militarily in the region, its looming economic and demographic constraints threaten to check its ability to do so.

Child-rearing support became notable campaign issue leading up to the 2009 Japanese general elections, with the then ruling coalition, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) attempting to lure young voters with generous child-rearing support packages and commitments to free education. Since coming to power, the DPJ has proposed a generous assistance package to encourage child-rearing. The plan includes increases to the child-birth allowance, monthly allowances to parents of middle school children, and financial assistance for students attending private schools. Such efforts will undoubtedly entail significant costs. For instance, the child-allowance program currently cost ¥5.3 trillion ($59.2 million). The DPJ plans to pay for this package by restructure existing taxes and allowances, increasing the burden on individuals that do not benefit from the plan.

While well-intended incentives may increase childbirths marginally, the DPJ will need to look beyond allowances and tax breaks to other, less material factors. One such factor may be the uncertainty generated by Japan's volatile employment environment. Other factors to consider include traditional values and social norms regarding the workplace and the roles of men and women in family life. Japanese women are delaying marriage - or even choosing not to marry at all - because marriage is often viewed as "a loss of liberty" in Japanese society. The pervasive attitude that mothers, for the sake of their children's psychological and emotional health, must be physically present for at least the first three years of their children's lives may explain why one in four mothers leave their job when they have their first child.

Regardless of the measures the new Japanese government decides to employ, results may not come quickly enough. Incentives may have a small short-term effect but would take a generation to impact the country's supply of workers. If the DPJ wants to have an immediate effect on the nation's demographic crisis, it may have to tackle one of the country's perennially sensitive issues, immigration.

Obama and Asi(e)an Economics

President Obama is in the midst of a trip (picture courtesy of the Economist) to Asian states as a part of the administration's attempt to better engage with many states that have been all but ignored by previous administrations. One is the state of Myanmar, whose junta has held the leader of a democratic movement. Though mispronouncing her name, Obama urged the nation to let her go but did not address greater concerns that Myanmar may threaten within ASEAN, probably in part as an effort to minimize backlash at least until he returns stateside.

Also, in the two stops thus far (Tokyo and Singapore), Obama stressed that relations with the region, particularly China, don't have to be a zero-sum game, and that in fact America does not fear China's rise. As he has done countless times in the past, the President has focused on common interests - particularly the global economy and climate change with respect to China. This approach to foreign policy has brought criticism as Obama often ignores what many believe to be core American interests. He is expected to play down China's poor human rights record in order to focus exclusively on common economic interests. At his last stop in South Korea, Mr. Obama will dedicate more talk time to free trade (as well as North Korea), according to this story.

If the President really believes in achieving positive sum gains on both sides as a consequence of pursuing common interests, the administration should take the following steps. Engaging in a trade war with China (over tires, poultry, and other goods in the last two months) while advocating freer trade policies probably won't go over well. In fact, Mexico's Felipe Calderon criticized that recent U.S. trade policies are "going in the opposite sense of free trade." Many Asians agree, as The Economist states "a new engagement, however welcome, is not thought to be enough." Lowering unnecessary tariffs with our Asian allies and seeking free trade agreements with ASEAN nations would be the right step. Further, as a condition of such action, the U.S. could require the Chinese and Burmese to take action on certain issues such as human rights violations that the U.S. condemns. Such an end result would be more positive-sum than many policies followed thus far.

U.S. Cyber Command-Too Little, but Not Too Late

Recent years have seen a huge increase in crime, infiltrations, and espionage conducted in cyberspace. Several large U.S. companies have been infiltrated and it is thought that cyber spies “steal $40 billion to $50 billion in intellectual property from U.S. organizations each year, according to U.S. intelligence agency estimates.” Just this week, the FBI busted a cyber ring that stole $9 million from over 2,000 ATMs around the world. The U.S. government has also had problems with cyber espionage. In 2007 alone, the Departments of Defense, Commerce, State, Energy, and NASA were all compromised and terabytes of information were stolen. Earlier this year the F-35 program was compromised. There is also an elevated threat of cyber attacks is because the only difference between cyber espionage and cyber attack is the intent of the hacker. Mike McConnell, a former Director of National Intelligence, stated recently that he thinks cyber attacks already have the capability of taking down the U.S. power grid.
Last month, the new U.S. Cyber Command was created underneath Strategic Command. The head of the National Security Agency, General Keith Alexander, has been put in charge of the new Cybercomm which is responsible for offensive and defensive cyber security. However, the new system protects only parts of the federal government, let alone civilian and private-sector infrastructure. President Obama, when announcing the new Cyber Command, remarked that the military cannot monitor the civilian Internet, but can only defend itself. One commentator remarked that is “like telling the military if there’s another 9/11 to protect the Pentagon but not the World Trade Center.” The Department of Homeland Security is supposed to defend the private-sector, but DHS does not have anywhere near the capability that the military has. Many civilian agencies, state and local governments, the White House, Congress, contractors, and businesses also need help securing sensitive information. Private businesses, including contractors, have been a huge target for cyber espionage and if the U.S. does not want to lose its technological advantage then private companies need to be protected as well.
The military, which includes the NSA, clearly has better capabilities than DHS. They would likely do the best job of defending the country in cyber space. However, many Americans are wary of the NSA and its history of domestic espionage, but where is the line between foreign and domestic in cyberspace? The U.S. would just create duplication and wasteful spending by creating separate cyber defenses. Americans need to adjust their expectation of “reasonable privacy” to permit the military operate in “domestic” and “civilian” cyberspace in order to prevent catastrophic harm. The divide between foreign and domestic intelligence contributed to the intelligence failure of 9/11. Such a divide would be huge in cyberspace where everything happens much faster. The U.S. needs to come up with a coherent cyber defense plan or it will remain extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks and espionage.

When will (or should) Obama make up his mind on sending troops?

Recent news reports seem to suggest that Obama will soon make a decision on the number of troops he will deploy to Afghanistan. Currently there are 68,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan. At the end of August, General McChrystal issued an assessment of Afhganistan in which he suggested the President increase that number by an additional 40,000. This number, McChrystal argues, is needed to secure population centers and train additional Afghan forces. (McChrystal stated he wanted Afghan troop levels to increase from 220,000 to 400,000.)

Despite his general's suggestions, Obama seems to be focused on a number less than the General's suggestions. The proposals talked about in the press include increasing troop sizes by some number in the range of 10,000 to 40,000 troops.

Last week, Ambassador Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, expressed reservations about sending additional troops until the Karzai government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise.

Another reason for Obama's delay in making a decision could be a desire to wait and assess the public sentiment over the Karzai's victory in the election. Obama is likely to want to be less engaged in war which supports an unpopular government. Defense Secretary Gates said a central focus in Mr. Obama's deliberation was figuring out an attempt to signal resolve while at the same time signaling to the Afghans that US commitment to Afghanistan is not open-ended.

While it is almost universally agreed that more troops are needed, the effects of recently deployed troops have probably not yet been felt. Currently there are approximately 68,000 US troops on the ground, while back in April 2009, there were less than 40,000. A full 40,000 troops may not be necessary after the evaluation of the abilities of forces there now since the latest surge.