The Two Likeliest Political Outcomes for Mubarak. By Stephen J. Hadley
Egyptian society needs time to prepare for free elections and to remediate years of government oppression.
WSJ, Jan 31, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703833204576114252976824050.html
All eyes are now on Egypt and an Obama administration struggling to find its footing. The truth is that once revolutionary fervor emerges and a situation descends into crisis, any administration is largely hostage to events and the dilemmas are acute. Do we desert a longstanding ally, only to raise doubts about our staying power in the minds of other longstanding allies? Do we remain loyal to a longstanding ally even after he has clearly lost public support, only to alienate a people struggling to win their freedom? In the midst of a crisis like this, the options are few.
Before the current crisis, there were good options. They were urged on the Egyptian government by a series of American administrations—including especially the administration of George W. Bush, in which I served. The United States pressed President Hosni Mubarak publicly and privately to encourage the emergence of non-Islamist political parties. Our calls for action were generally ignored and non- Islamist parties were persecuted and suppressed.
The result was a political landscape that offered the Egyptian people just two choices: the government party (the National Democratic Party or NDP) and the underground Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. This sad outcome was President Mubarak's own creation. He did it in part so that he could argue to successive U.S. administrations and his own people that the only alternative to his rule was an Islamist state. But it didn't have to be this way.
Some critics argue that no U.S. administration went far enough in pressing President Mubarak—including the administrations in which I served. As important as the "freedom agenda" was to President Bush, there were other issues—terrorism, proliferation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to name a few—that required us to deal with the Egyptian government. Perhaps as important, the Egyptians are a proud people. No nation wants to be seen to be giving in to public pressure from another state—even a close ally. In the end, the decision was President Mubarak's. He made it, and he is now facing the consequences.
At present, the two most probable outcomes of the current crisis are a lame-duck Mubarak administration or a Mubarak departure from power in favor of a transitional government backed by the Egyptian military.
Under the first outcome, President Mubarak rides out the current crisis. Presidential elections are expected in September of this year. It seems unlikely that either President Mubarak or his son Gamal will conclude that under current circumstances they can run and win. That will leave President Mubarak presiding over a lame-duck administration. The issue will be whether he seeks to transfer power to another authoritarian strongman backed by the army or dramatically changes course and uses the upcoming presidential election to create a democratic transition for his country.
The precedents for this latter outcome are few but not nonexistent. It is essentially the role that the Bush administration urged on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, which he played successfully in 2008. The resulting government is admittedly a weak one that continues to cause the U.S. real problems in Afghanistan. But it is a democratic government, and by its coming to power we avoided the kind of Islamist regime that followed the fall of the Shah of Iran and that has provoked three decades of serious confrontation with the U.S. and totalitarian oppression of the Iranian people.
Under the second outcome, President Mubarak surrenders power and is replaced by a transitional government supported by the Egyptian military. The presidential elections then become the vehicle for transferring power to a government whose legitimacy comes from the people.
Either way, Egyptian society needs time to prepare for these elections and to begin to remediate the effects of years of government oppression. The Egyptian people should not have to choose only between the government-backed NDP and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Non-Islamist parties need an opportunity to emerge to fill in the intervening political space. Time is short even if the presidential elections go forward as expected in September. The U.S. should resist the temptation to press for an accelerated election schedule. Hopefully wise heads in Egypt will do the same.
Time and a full array of political alternatives are critical in the upcoming presidential election and the parliamentary elections that undoubtedly will follow. If given an array of choices, I believe that the Egyptian people will choose a democratic future of freedom and not an Islamist future of imposed extremism. While the Muslim Brotherhood, if legalized, would certainly win seats in a new parliament, there is every likelihood that the next Egyptian government will not be a Muslim Brotherhood government but a non-Islamist one committed to building a free and democratic Egypt.
Such a government would still pose real challenges to U.S. policy in many areas. But with all eyes in the region on Egypt, it would be a good outcome nonetheless. With a large population and rich cultural heritage, Egypt has always been a leader in the Middle East. Now it has the opportunity to become what it always should have been—the leader of a movement toward freedom and democracy in the Arab world.
Mr. Hadley was national security adviser to President George W. Bush.
Showing posts with label national interest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national interest. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Beijing's leaders have concluded that the U.S. is in decline and that now is the time to seek more global influence
The New Era of U.S.-China Rivalry. By Aaron Friedberg
Beijing's leaders have concluded that the U.S. is in decline and that now is the time to seek more global influence.
WSJ, Jan 17, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704323204576085013620618774.html
When he meets with President Barack Obama this week, China's paramount leader Hu Jintao will probably be looking to soothe concerns over his country's recent behavior. The last two years have seen a marked increase in tensions between the two Pacific powers, as well as between China and many of its Asian neighbors. In the past 12 months alone Beijing has:
• Shielded North Korea from tough international sanctions, despite Pyongyang's unprovoked sinking of a South Korean naval vessel and deadly shelling of a small island;
• Intensified its long-standing claim to virtually all of the resource-rich South China Sea by suggesting that the region was a "core national interest," a term previously used to refer only to areas (like Tibet and Taiwan) over which China is willing to go to war.
• Declared publicly that, when it comes to resolving competing claims over this region "China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact."
• Threatened for the first time to impose sanctions on U.S. companies that participate in arms sales to Taiwan.
• Conducted unprecedentedly large and complex naval exercises in the waters of the Western Pacific.
• Revealed the existence of a new stealth fighter aircraft.
• Begun initial deployments of a new antiship ballistic missile targeting U.S. aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific.
Not surprisingly, all of this activity has stirred anxiety across Asia, and it has begun to provoke responses from the United States as well. President Obama's recent swing through Asia included stops in India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, but it pointedly excluded Beijing. American and Japanese defense officials have since announced their intention to devote more resources to counter China's rising power, and the U.S. and South Korea have enhanced their military cooperation. Despite a history of animosity, Seoul and Tokyo have taken steps in the same direction.
Beijing's behavior has thus triggered reactions that could make it harder to achieve its long-term goal of re-establishing China as the dominant power in East Asia. A well-timed campaign of "smile diplomacy" could help.
But how meaningful will any of this week's theater be? The answer depends in large part on what lies behind China's recent assertiveness. Some Western analysts have sought to explain it away as an incidental by-product of political infighting in the run-up to the planned 2012 leadership succession, or a passing outburst of belligerence by some elements of the People's Liberation Army. Cooler heads have now prevailed, we are told, and they are now trying to put the country back on the less confrontational path it has followed for the past three decades.
Unfortunately, the problem is more deeply rooted than these reassuring assertions suggest. While Chinese leaders may disagree on questions of tactics and timing, there is no reason to believe they differ over fundamental questions of strategy. Beijing may be willing to dial back its rhetoric, but it is not going to abandon its goal of regional preponderance.
Since the start of the 2008-09 financial crisis, many Chinese strategists have concluded that the U.S. is declining, while China is rising much faster than expected. Belief that this is the case has fed an already powerful nationalism that appears to be increasingly widespread, especially among the young.
In this view it is time for China to "stand up," to right some of the wrongs suffered when the country was relatively weak, and to reclaim its rightful role in Asia and the world. Such sentiments are not the exclusive preserve of the military, although it may seek to tap them for its own ends. The rising generation of Chinese leaders cannot afford to ignore these views, and they may well share them.
If this assessment is correct, then the last two years are not a temporary deviation but a portent. Rather than signaling the start of a new interval of cooperation and stability, Hu Jintao's visit may mark the end of an era of relatively smooth relations between the U.S. and China.
Mr. Friedberg is a professor at Princeton University. His new book, "A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia" is forthcoming from W.W. Norton.
Beijing's leaders have concluded that the U.S. is in decline and that now is the time to seek more global influence.
WSJ, Jan 17, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704323204576085013620618774.html
When he meets with President Barack Obama this week, China's paramount leader Hu Jintao will probably be looking to soothe concerns over his country's recent behavior. The last two years have seen a marked increase in tensions between the two Pacific powers, as well as between China and many of its Asian neighbors. In the past 12 months alone Beijing has:
• Shielded North Korea from tough international sanctions, despite Pyongyang's unprovoked sinking of a South Korean naval vessel and deadly shelling of a small island;
• Intensified its long-standing claim to virtually all of the resource-rich South China Sea by suggesting that the region was a "core national interest," a term previously used to refer only to areas (like Tibet and Taiwan) over which China is willing to go to war.
• Declared publicly that, when it comes to resolving competing claims over this region "China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact."
• Threatened for the first time to impose sanctions on U.S. companies that participate in arms sales to Taiwan.
• Conducted unprecedentedly large and complex naval exercises in the waters of the Western Pacific.
• Revealed the existence of a new stealth fighter aircraft.
• Begun initial deployments of a new antiship ballistic missile targeting U.S. aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific.
Not surprisingly, all of this activity has stirred anxiety across Asia, and it has begun to provoke responses from the United States as well. President Obama's recent swing through Asia included stops in India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, but it pointedly excluded Beijing. American and Japanese defense officials have since announced their intention to devote more resources to counter China's rising power, and the U.S. and South Korea have enhanced their military cooperation. Despite a history of animosity, Seoul and Tokyo have taken steps in the same direction.
Beijing's behavior has thus triggered reactions that could make it harder to achieve its long-term goal of re-establishing China as the dominant power in East Asia. A well-timed campaign of "smile diplomacy" could help.
But how meaningful will any of this week's theater be? The answer depends in large part on what lies behind China's recent assertiveness. Some Western analysts have sought to explain it away as an incidental by-product of political infighting in the run-up to the planned 2012 leadership succession, or a passing outburst of belligerence by some elements of the People's Liberation Army. Cooler heads have now prevailed, we are told, and they are now trying to put the country back on the less confrontational path it has followed for the past three decades.
Unfortunately, the problem is more deeply rooted than these reassuring assertions suggest. While Chinese leaders may disagree on questions of tactics and timing, there is no reason to believe they differ over fundamental questions of strategy. Beijing may be willing to dial back its rhetoric, but it is not going to abandon its goal of regional preponderance.
Since the start of the 2008-09 financial crisis, many Chinese strategists have concluded that the U.S. is declining, while China is rising much faster than expected. Belief that this is the case has fed an already powerful nationalism that appears to be increasingly widespread, especially among the young.
In this view it is time for China to "stand up," to right some of the wrongs suffered when the country was relatively weak, and to reclaim its rightful role in Asia and the world. Such sentiments are not the exclusive preserve of the military, although it may seek to tap them for its own ends. The rising generation of Chinese leaders cannot afford to ignore these views, and they may well share them.
If this assessment is correct, then the last two years are not a temporary deviation but a portent. Rather than signaling the start of a new interval of cooperation and stability, Hu Jintao's visit may mark the end of an era of relatively smooth relations between the U.S. and China.
Mr. Friedberg is a professor at Princeton University. His new book, "A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia" is forthcoming from W.W. Norton.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Medvedev seeks to boost India arms sales
Russia Is Chasing Delhi Arms Sales, by TOM WRIGHT
WSJ, Dec 21, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703886904576031351139805830.html
Excerpts:
NEW DELHI—Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrives Tuesday in India on a two-day trip aimed at solidifying Moscow's role as New Delhi's largest arms supplier in the face of increased competition from the U.S. and Europe.
Mr. Medvedev is the fifth and final leader of a member nation of the United Nations Security Council to visit India in 2010, underscoring New Delhi's rising importance as a global political and economic power.
India's fast-expanding economy and growing military budget offers Russia enormous potential to increase sales of military equipment. A U.S.-India nuclear deal in 2008, which paved they way for civilian nuclear exports to India, also has opened the door for Russia to sell civilian nuclear technology to New Delhi.
New Delhi, meanwhile, is hoping Moscow will allow Indian oil and gas companies a larger role in developing Russian energy assets. India is a net importer of crude oil.
Russia and India will sign agreements in defense, economic and space sectors during Mr. Medvedev's visit, Indian officials said, without giving details.
India is one of Russia's largest customers for military equipment, accounting for a third of the sector's exports—a legacy of the Cold War when New Delhi sided with Moscow against Beijing. About three-quarters of India's current military hardware is of Russian origin.
But in recent years, India has begun courting other suppliers of military hardware from the U.S., France and the U.K., all of whose leaders have used visits here this year to clinch deals.
"Russia's defense industry is not as capable as it used to be during the Cold War," said Laxman Kumar Behera, an expert on India's military at the New Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. "India is trying to diversify its supply sources."
The U.S., during a visit to India by President Barack Obama in November, announced a $4 billion deal for Boeing Co. to supply the Indian air force with 10 C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft.
In July, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron used a trip to the country to announce a $1.1 billion deal to supply 57 Hawk trainer jets.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited India in December, during which the two nations signed a deal for France to supply two nuclear reactors valued at $9 billion.
Mr. Sarkozy also lobbied for France to win an $11 billion deal to supply 126 fourth-generation fighter jets to India's air force. Moscow is competing for that deal, which New Delhi is scheduled to award next year.
Russia wants India to chose the MiG-35 fighter, made by RSK MiG, but has to compete against a number of other suppliers including U.S.'s Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp., France's Dassault Aviation, and a consortium of European bidders.
To boost its chances next year, Russia has been emphasizing how it is jointly developing military equipment with India.
Both nations are planning to build a fifth-generation fighter aircraft, which could be valued at tens of billions of dollars, but is unlikely to enter production until 2020. Indian media have reported one of the deals likely to be signed this week could include details of this joint production.
"Russia and India have moved to a new level of cooperation in the military-technology area, from the relationship of buyer-seller to joint development and production of modern weapons," Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said in late 2009 after a regular meeting of an intergovernmental commission.
But Russia also has disappointed India on some orders. An aircraft carrier, due for delivery in 2008, has been delayed until 2012, while the cost has doubled to $2 billion. Spare parts for Russian planes also have been hard to come by.
Russia—like the U.S., U.K. and France—also is keen to help India develop its civilian nuclear industry to meet growing power needs.
Russia and India in December 2009 signed a civilian nuclear-cooperation agreement, much like the U.S.-India deal. Moscow already is helping to construct two power plants in India's southern Tamil Nadu state, which are nearing completion.
The stakes are high for Moscow, whose trade with India is skewed toward military sales. While other countries, notably China, have tapped in to India's booming economy, selling a range of manufactured goods from power equipment to telecoms hardware, Russia's trade has remained relatively small.
Russia's two-way trade with India in the year ended March 31 stood at $4.6 billion, a decline of 16% over the previous year, and only about a tenth of China's bilateral trade.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spent three days in New Delhi last week, during which India and China agreed to boost trade to $100 billion by 2015.
Still, India continues to see Russia as an important counterweight to China, says Naresh Chandra, chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, which advises India's prime minister on security matters.
[...]
India and Russia have targeted to grow bilateral trade to $20 billion by 2015, of which military sales to India will play an important role.
New Delhi is planning to spend $32 billion on the military in the current fiscal year, almost double the amount five years ago, as it modernizes its armed forces as a deterrent to Pakistan and China.
India is hoping greater access to Russia's oil and gas fields will reduce its dependence on imported energy. India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. said this month it is in talks to take part in the development of Russia's massive Trebs and Titov oil and gas in northwest Russia.
ONGC already has a 20% stake in a consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp. which is developing Russia's Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field.
—Gregory L. White in Moscow contributed to this article.
WSJ, Dec 21, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703886904576031351139805830.html
Excerpts:
NEW DELHI—Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrives Tuesday in India on a two-day trip aimed at solidifying Moscow's role as New Delhi's largest arms supplier in the face of increased competition from the U.S. and Europe.
Mr. Medvedev is the fifth and final leader of a member nation of the United Nations Security Council to visit India in 2010, underscoring New Delhi's rising importance as a global political and economic power.
India's fast-expanding economy and growing military budget offers Russia enormous potential to increase sales of military equipment. A U.S.-India nuclear deal in 2008, which paved they way for civilian nuclear exports to India, also has opened the door for Russia to sell civilian nuclear technology to New Delhi.
New Delhi, meanwhile, is hoping Moscow will allow Indian oil and gas companies a larger role in developing Russian energy assets. India is a net importer of crude oil.
Russia and India will sign agreements in defense, economic and space sectors during Mr. Medvedev's visit, Indian officials said, without giving details.
India is one of Russia's largest customers for military equipment, accounting for a third of the sector's exports—a legacy of the Cold War when New Delhi sided with Moscow against Beijing. About three-quarters of India's current military hardware is of Russian origin.
But in recent years, India has begun courting other suppliers of military hardware from the U.S., France and the U.K., all of whose leaders have used visits here this year to clinch deals.
"Russia's defense industry is not as capable as it used to be during the Cold War," said Laxman Kumar Behera, an expert on India's military at the New Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. "India is trying to diversify its supply sources."
The U.S., during a visit to India by President Barack Obama in November, announced a $4 billion deal for Boeing Co. to supply the Indian air force with 10 C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft.
In July, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron used a trip to the country to announce a $1.1 billion deal to supply 57 Hawk trainer jets.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited India in December, during which the two nations signed a deal for France to supply two nuclear reactors valued at $9 billion.
Mr. Sarkozy also lobbied for France to win an $11 billion deal to supply 126 fourth-generation fighter jets to India's air force. Moscow is competing for that deal, which New Delhi is scheduled to award next year.
Russia wants India to chose the MiG-35 fighter, made by RSK MiG, but has to compete against a number of other suppliers including U.S.'s Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp., France's Dassault Aviation, and a consortium of European bidders.
To boost its chances next year, Russia has been emphasizing how it is jointly developing military equipment with India.
Both nations are planning to build a fifth-generation fighter aircraft, which could be valued at tens of billions of dollars, but is unlikely to enter production until 2020. Indian media have reported one of the deals likely to be signed this week could include details of this joint production.
"Russia and India have moved to a new level of cooperation in the military-technology area, from the relationship of buyer-seller to joint development and production of modern weapons," Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said in late 2009 after a regular meeting of an intergovernmental commission.
But Russia also has disappointed India on some orders. An aircraft carrier, due for delivery in 2008, has been delayed until 2012, while the cost has doubled to $2 billion. Spare parts for Russian planes also have been hard to come by.
Russia—like the U.S., U.K. and France—also is keen to help India develop its civilian nuclear industry to meet growing power needs.
Russia and India in December 2009 signed a civilian nuclear-cooperation agreement, much like the U.S.-India deal. Moscow already is helping to construct two power plants in India's southern Tamil Nadu state, which are nearing completion.
The stakes are high for Moscow, whose trade with India is skewed toward military sales. While other countries, notably China, have tapped in to India's booming economy, selling a range of manufactured goods from power equipment to telecoms hardware, Russia's trade has remained relatively small.
Russia's two-way trade with India in the year ended March 31 stood at $4.6 billion, a decline of 16% over the previous year, and only about a tenth of China's bilateral trade.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spent three days in New Delhi last week, during which India and China agreed to boost trade to $100 billion by 2015.
Still, India continues to see Russia as an important counterweight to China, says Naresh Chandra, chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, which advises India's prime minister on security matters.
[...]
India and Russia have targeted to grow bilateral trade to $20 billion by 2015, of which military sales to India will play an important role.
New Delhi is planning to spend $32 billion on the military in the current fiscal year, almost double the amount five years ago, as it modernizes its armed forces as a deterrent to Pakistan and China.
India is hoping greater access to Russia's oil and gas fields will reduce its dependence on imported energy. India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. said this month it is in talks to take part in the development of Russia's massive Trebs and Titov oil and gas in northwest Russia.
ONGC already has a 20% stake in a consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp. which is developing Russia's Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field.
—Gregory L. White in Moscow contributed to this article.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Deutsche CEO: West's Levies on Banks May Lift Asia's Role
Deutsche CEO: West's Levies on Banks May Lift Asia's Role. By ALISON TUDOR And PETER STEIN
WSJ, Jul 18, 2010
HONG KONG — Asia's already rising importance as a profit center for financial services could gain more momentum as governments in the U.S. and Europe levy new taxes on global banking profits, according to Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Josef Ackermann.
"The relative importance of Asia will even increase" as a result of regulatory moves against banks in the West, Dr. Ackermann said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "Asian countries would be well advised not to copy levies which are so popular in many other parts of the world."
The German bank's chief , who has become a prominent voice for bank interests in the wake of the financial crisis and heads the global lobby group Institute of International Finance, was in Hong Kong to attend the listing ceremony Friday for Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.
The levies cumulatively could translate into a substantial hit for lenders with branches in many countries, such as Deutsche Bank, which generates about three-quarters of its revenue outside of its home market, Dr. Ackermann said. Instead, he called for a home bias to the levies because the country of domicile was the one called on most to help out in the banking crisis.
Emerging markets could even take advantage of the backlash against banks in the West to grab market share in financial services, he said. "A lot of governments are determined, including the Chinese, to build up financial hubs at a time when other countries are more skeptical about the financial sector," he said, noting that Turkey and Russia are making similar advances.
Dr. Ackermann also warned that the war for talent in Asia is causing a bubble in bankers' compensation that is detrimental to the industry, even as he hired another rainmaker to keep business flowing.
Late Sunday, Deutsche Bank named Henry Cai its corporate-finance chairman for Asia as well as head of its corporate and investment bank in China. Mr. Cai is known as one of China's most consistent deal makers and is well-connected with the business and political elites in Beijing. He resigned from UBS AG in recent weeks as investment-banking chairman for Asia. It isn't known how much he will be making at Deutsche Bank.
Other senior banking executives in Asia complain that increasing competition for talent in the region is leading to excessive pay packages for bankers working in such areas as mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings. Compensation, a key cost for banks, can cause serious problems for management when one division's or one region's pay is out of kilter with the rest. The buzz over bankers' pay in Asia comes at a time when governments in the U.S. and Europe are seeking to curb excesses that in recent years contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
"If the industry pushes compensation levels up by just poaching people from each other, in the long term it is not a sustainable model and not good for the culture of banks in the region," Dr. Ackermann said.
To combat this problem, Deutsche Bank has started recruiting more Asian graduates with the aim of steeping them in the bank's culture and later returning them to the region to run its businesses.
"It's not a short-term solution. It may take up to five years to see the first successes, but that is what we are working on," said Dr. Ackermann, who was also in Asia to give a speech at an International Monetary Fund conference in South Korea.
Like other banks weighing the prospects of the global economy, Deutsche Bank has made boosting its operations in Asia a top priority. "Europe's slow economic growth and the very competitive environment in the U.S. means Asia is a very attractive market, so it would be unwise not to do everything we can to be part of the market," Dr. Ackermann said.
The German bank is targeting four billion euros ($5.17 billion) in annual revenue from the Asian-Pacific region excluding Japan by next year, about double the amount it generated from the region in 2008.
Deutsche Bank already has a strong foothold, with operations in 17 Asian countries and over 17,000 employees.
Local regulators restrict foreign banks in ways that allow them to earn only about a third of their potential revenues, according to a recent report by consultancy McKinsey & Co., so the banks need to be careful not to compete in the same niches, such as high-profile underwriting deals in financial centers like Hong Kong. Deutsche Bank says only about 5% of its revenue in Asia comes from "public" deals such as initial public offerings.
One such deal that Deutsche Bank was involved in was the IPO for AgBank, which began trading Friday in Hong Kong. Clients like AgBank and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., which Deutsche Bank also helped take public four years ago, are potential competitors as their business grows in scope and sophistication.
"I have no doubt [China's banks] want to first strengthen their domestic operations by moving towards more fee income then expand internationally gradually," Dr. Ackermann said. "We will also be confronted with stronger competitors coming from China."
WSJ, Jul 18, 2010
HONG KONG — Asia's already rising importance as a profit center for financial services could gain more momentum as governments in the U.S. and Europe levy new taxes on global banking profits, according to Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Josef Ackermann.
"The relative importance of Asia will even increase" as a result of regulatory moves against banks in the West, Dr. Ackermann said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "Asian countries would be well advised not to copy levies which are so popular in many other parts of the world."
The German bank's chief , who has become a prominent voice for bank interests in the wake of the financial crisis and heads the global lobby group Institute of International Finance, was in Hong Kong to attend the listing ceremony Friday for Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.
The levies cumulatively could translate into a substantial hit for lenders with branches in many countries, such as Deutsche Bank, which generates about three-quarters of its revenue outside of its home market, Dr. Ackermann said. Instead, he called for a home bias to the levies because the country of domicile was the one called on most to help out in the banking crisis.
Emerging markets could even take advantage of the backlash against banks in the West to grab market share in financial services, he said. "A lot of governments are determined, including the Chinese, to build up financial hubs at a time when other countries are more skeptical about the financial sector," he said, noting that Turkey and Russia are making similar advances.
Dr. Ackermann also warned that the war for talent in Asia is causing a bubble in bankers' compensation that is detrimental to the industry, even as he hired another rainmaker to keep business flowing.
Late Sunday, Deutsche Bank named Henry Cai its corporate-finance chairman for Asia as well as head of its corporate and investment bank in China. Mr. Cai is known as one of China's most consistent deal makers and is well-connected with the business and political elites in Beijing. He resigned from UBS AG in recent weeks as investment-banking chairman for Asia. It isn't known how much he will be making at Deutsche Bank.
Other senior banking executives in Asia complain that increasing competition for talent in the region is leading to excessive pay packages for bankers working in such areas as mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings. Compensation, a key cost for banks, can cause serious problems for management when one division's or one region's pay is out of kilter with the rest. The buzz over bankers' pay in Asia comes at a time when governments in the U.S. and Europe are seeking to curb excesses that in recent years contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
"If the industry pushes compensation levels up by just poaching people from each other, in the long term it is not a sustainable model and not good for the culture of banks in the region," Dr. Ackermann said.
To combat this problem, Deutsche Bank has started recruiting more Asian graduates with the aim of steeping them in the bank's culture and later returning them to the region to run its businesses.
"It's not a short-term solution. It may take up to five years to see the first successes, but that is what we are working on," said Dr. Ackermann, who was also in Asia to give a speech at an International Monetary Fund conference in South Korea.
Like other banks weighing the prospects of the global economy, Deutsche Bank has made boosting its operations in Asia a top priority. "Europe's slow economic growth and the very competitive environment in the U.S. means Asia is a very attractive market, so it would be unwise not to do everything we can to be part of the market," Dr. Ackermann said.
The German bank is targeting four billion euros ($5.17 billion) in annual revenue from the Asian-Pacific region excluding Japan by next year, about double the amount it generated from the region in 2008.
Deutsche Bank already has a strong foothold, with operations in 17 Asian countries and over 17,000 employees.
Local regulators restrict foreign banks in ways that allow them to earn only about a third of their potential revenues, according to a recent report by consultancy McKinsey & Co., so the banks need to be careful not to compete in the same niches, such as high-profile underwriting deals in financial centers like Hong Kong. Deutsche Bank says only about 5% of its revenue in Asia comes from "public" deals such as initial public offerings.
One such deal that Deutsche Bank was involved in was the IPO for AgBank, which began trading Friday in Hong Kong. Clients like AgBank and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., which Deutsche Bank also helped take public four years ago, are potential competitors as their business grows in scope and sophistication.
"I have no doubt [China's banks] want to first strengthen their domestic operations by moving towards more fee income then expand internationally gradually," Dr. Ackermann said. "We will also be confronted with stronger competitors coming from China."
Monday, June 14, 2010
Jordan's Nuclear Ambitions Pose Quandary for the U.S.
Jordan's Nuclear Ambitions Pose Quandary for the U.S. By Jay Solomon
WSJ, Jun 14, 2010
SAWAQA, Jordan—The Kingdom of Jordan is in a sprint to become the Arab world's next nuclear power. And America wants to help it succeed.
King Abdullah II says he wants to reduce Jordan's dependence on energy imports by developing nuclear energy.
U.S. and Jordanian officials are negotiating a nuclear-cooperation agreement that would allow American firms to export nuclear components and know-how to the Mideast country, America's closest Arab ally in the volatile region.
The Obama administration views Jordan as a key potential partner in its global program to promote the nonmilitary use of atomic energy—part of a broader plan to increase pressure on other Middle East countries, particularly Iran and Syria, to bring transparency to their own nuclear programs.
"I believe nuclear energy in Jordan will be done in such a way where it is a public-private partnership so everyone can see exactly what's going on," Jordan's King Abdullah II said in an interview. "If we can be the model of transparency, it will push others."
But it's a partnership that puts the Obama administration in a bind: It is trying to make good on its pledge to promote greater civilian use of atomic energy, without angering Israel and risking a Mideast arms race.
The deal has catches for the Jordanians, too: The U.S. is demanding that Amman not produce its own nuclear fuel. That's a right Jordan enjoys as a signatory to the United Nations key nonproliferation treaty—and is reluctant to surrender, thanks to its recent discoveries of big deposits of uranium ore.
The U.S. last week pushed through the United Nations a fourth round of economic sanctions against Iran in a bid to curtail its advancing nuclear work. Tehran says its program is purely for civilian purposes, a charge challenged by the U.N. and the West. U.S. officials worry the Arab states, fearing the Iranian threat, could one day seek to develop atomic weapons themselves.
Senior Jordanian officials say Amman can't renounce its right to produce nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, both for strategic and economic reasons. They say that if Jordan cuts a side agreement with the U.S. on this point it would undermine the integrity of the treaty. They also say such an agreement would limit Jordan's ambition to become a "regional nuclear fuel supply and export center."
Failure to reach consensus on this point, U.S. and Jordanian officials acknowledge, could kill the cooperation deal.
"We believe in the universality of the NPT," said Khaled Toukan, the head of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission. "We do not agree on applying conditions and restrictions outside of the NPT on a regional basis or a country-by-country basis."
[Known recoverable resources of uranium, 2008, in thousands or metric tons http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AV716_ARABNU_NS_20100613184437.gif]
Jordan is among a slew of Arab countries, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, that are seeking to become among the first Mideast countries to develop a civilian nuclear-power industry. Israel is the lone country in the region believed to possess atomic weapons, but it hasn't moved to build nuclear power plants.
Jordan's nuclear ambitions are driven by economics. Wedged between Israel and oil giants Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the kingdom is 95% dependent on imported oil and has among the world's smallest reserves of potable water.
But the discovery of at least 65,000 tons of uranium ore in the deserts outside Amman in 2007 has led King Abdullah to order a drastic reshaping of his nation's economic strategy.
French and Chinese geologists are combing southern, central and eastern Jordan in search of additional uranium deposits. In addition to fueling its own plants, Jordan hopes to use its projected four nuclear power plants to begin exporting electricity to neighbors including Iraq and Syria by 2030 and to commercially mine and export uranium. Even if it doesn't process any nuclear fuel itself, Jordan could still produce and export electricity by buying the fuel for its reactors on the international market.
"Now that we have a raw material, people are coming for the first time in our history and knocking on our door," King Abdullah said in the interview.
U.S. officials say they recognize Jordan's desire to achieve energy independence. They praise Jordan's early outreach to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Amman's willingness to allow international inspectors unhindered access to its growing nuclear infrastructure.
But U.S. negotiators are unwavering in their insistence that Amman commit to purchasing its reactor fuel from the international market to guard against its potential internal diversion for military purposes. Iran's insistence on producing its own nuclear fuel stands at the center of its current conflict with the West.
U.S. officials argue if Jordan doesn't surrender its rights to produce fuel, it raises proliferation risks. Countries with the complete nuclear fuel cycle—from mining uranium to processing it into fuel—can convert their civilian plants for military applications. Under terms of the U.S. agreement, Jordan could mine the ore but not convert it into fuel for nuclear power.
Such fears could hamstring Washington's ability to win necessary Congressional approval for a nuclear cooperation agreement with Jordan. Last year, Congress approved a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates only after the country agreed to buy its nuclear fuel overseas.
Jordan could pursue its nuclear ambitions without the U.S., but would face steep diplomatic and financial hurdles. Still, Amman is aggressively pressing forward: In March, it purchased a research reactor for a northern Jordanian university and is in talks with four international consortia to buy its first nuclear power plant.
Those moves are stoking tensions with neighboring Israel.
In the interview, King Abdullah said Israel has been pressuring countries like South Korea and France not to sell nuclear technologies to Jordan. He said Israel's "underhanded" actions have helped bring Jordan-Israeli relations to their lowest point since a 1994 peace agreement.
"There are countries, Israel in particular, that are more worried about us being economically independent than the issue of nuclear energy, and have been voicing their concerns," King Abdullah said. "There are many such reactors in the world and a lot more coming, so [the Israelis must] go mind their own business."
Israeli officials denied any effort to undermine Amman's nuclear procurement efforts.
Jordan's fixation on nuclear power is rooted in its near total dependence on imported oil.
When global oil prices spiked above $100 a barrel in 2007, Amman was forced to spend the equivalent of 20% of its total economic output on energy. That bill could rise sharply over the next decade, say Jordanian officials, as electricity demand is projected to double.
Energy shortages have also threatened Amman's ability to address its severe water deficiency with power-hungry desalination plants near the Red Sea.
The oil-price shock led King Abdullah and his ministers in 2007 to fashion a new energy strategy. The project calls for Jordan to draw 10% of its energy from solar and wind by 2020; 30% from natural gas; and 14% from oil shale. The strategy foresees a special role for nuclear power: 30% of Jordan's overall energy needs by 2030.
The center of Jordan's uranium push is the desolate Bedouin village of Sawaqa, an hour south of Amman. Here the French nuclear-power giant, Areva SA, is partnering with Jordanian mining firms and geologists to try to transform the area into a major center for uranium production.
An encampment of rowed housing units, a cafeteria and sheds used to store and test mineral samples stands amid central Jordan's barren, gravely landscape. A lone camel occasionally meanders past the walled site.
Jordanian geologists have explored the Sawaqa area for decades, confirming sizable deposits of phosphates and oil shale. But the joint Areva-Jordanian camp's general manager, Gilles Recoche, has been tasked to ensure the uranium ore found here and nearby can be mined on a commercially viable scale. He then hopes to process the ore on-site into the powdery substance known as yellowcake, which can in turn be processed into the low-enriched uranium used to power nuclear reactors.
On a recent afternoon outside the Sawaqa camp, Mr. Recoche and his Jordanian colleague, Allam Saymeh, walked through a dug-out excavation trench with gamma-radiation guns.
Moving through the narrow sandy passage, they point out the yellow stains on the trench's rock walls that indicate uranium ore. They then pass their guns over the yellow markings to gauge the grade of the uranium—anything over 100 particles-per-million is judged to have commercial prospects.
"This project is my child," said the 52-year-old Mr. Saymeh, noting that he'd explored the areas around Sawaqa since the 1980s.
Jordan's government is also putting in place the bureaucracy and infrastructure to run its nuclear program. Parliament has passed laws establishing the country's first nuclear regulatory body and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Amman has signed nuclear-cooperation agreements with eight countries, including France, China and Russia. Negotiations have begun with such companies as Russia's Rosatom Corp. and Seoul's Korea Electric Power Corp. to construct Jordan's first power reactor.
The nuclear program's point man is Mr. Toukan, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained nuclear scientist and a former education minister. As chairman of the country's Atomic Energy Commission, the 55-year-old has broad powers, overseeing everything from choosing the reactor's construction site to negotiating the cooperation agreement with the U.S. He views Jordan's nuclear program as providing the base for a scientific resurgence across the Middle East.
A focal point is the nuclear-engineering department at the Jordan University of Science and Technology in the northern city of Irbid. Here, Mr. Toukan's agency contracted in March with a South Korean consortium to build Jordan's first 5-megawatt research reactor, which could break ground later this year.
Students and teachers on the expansive palm-tree-lined campus talk excitedly of the research reactor's arrival. The nuclear-engineering department is only three years old, with just 100 students.
"Right now, we have nothing practical to work on here," says Abtihal Almalahim, a 21-year old junior and one of the program's female candidates. The reactor's arrival "will make our study a lot more real."
A key to achieving King Abdullah's ambitions, however, remains the cooperation agreement with the U.S., say Jordanian officials.
[Jordan's energy sources, 2007 http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AV717_ARABNU_NS_20100613184448.gif]
They say it could prove difficult to secure some of the core technologies for their nuclear infrastructure without the Obama administration's seal of approval. The U.S. is a leading player in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a Vienna-based body aimed at controlling the flow of nuclear technologies internationally. Many reactors from France, Japan and Canada contain significant U.S. components and would require Washington's approval for a sale.
Mr. Toukan nearly concluded a nuclear-cooperation pact with George W. Bush's administration in 2008, according to Jordanian and American officials. It got sidelined in the final months of Mr. Bush's term as Washington aggressively pushed forward and completed a separate nuclear deal with the United Arab Emirates, which does not have its own uranium reserves and agreed to purchase all its reactor fuel from international suppliers.
The Obama administration views the U.A.E. deal as a model for its nonproliferation drive. American experts say it would be virtually impossible for the Emirates or any other nation to develop atomic weapons without the ability to produce highly enriched uranium at home.
The White House has good reason to stick to its guns in its talks with Jordan: the U.A.E., in its agreement with the U.S., won the right to negotiate a new deal if another Mideast country concludes a nuclear pact with the U.S. on more favorable terms.
King Abdullah, is pushing ahead. He met one-on-one with President Obama during Washington's nuclear security summit in April to discuss regional peace and nonproliferation issues, according to Jordanian officials.
The king also instructed his foreign minister to formally reprimand Israel's ambassador to Jordan over the charges that Israel has been seeking to block the sale of the South Korean or French reactors to Jordan.
On the outskirts of the port city of Aqaba, just miles from the Israeli resort city of Eilat, international contractors have been conducting feasibility studies to gauge whether the site can house Jordan's first nuclear-power reactor. Aqaba also lies close to a seismic fault line. Israeli officials have publicly voiced concerns about a reactor being situated so close to the fault.
"We are way ahead of Israel" when it comes to securing new reactor technology, King Abdullah said. "And if you have the private sector involved in nuclear power, it's difficult to do anything sinister."
WSJ, Jun 14, 2010
SAWAQA, Jordan—The Kingdom of Jordan is in a sprint to become the Arab world's next nuclear power. And America wants to help it succeed.
King Abdullah II says he wants to reduce Jordan's dependence on energy imports by developing nuclear energy.
U.S. and Jordanian officials are negotiating a nuclear-cooperation agreement that would allow American firms to export nuclear components and know-how to the Mideast country, America's closest Arab ally in the volatile region.
The Obama administration views Jordan as a key potential partner in its global program to promote the nonmilitary use of atomic energy—part of a broader plan to increase pressure on other Middle East countries, particularly Iran and Syria, to bring transparency to their own nuclear programs.
"I believe nuclear energy in Jordan will be done in such a way where it is a public-private partnership so everyone can see exactly what's going on," Jordan's King Abdullah II said in an interview. "If we can be the model of transparency, it will push others."
But it's a partnership that puts the Obama administration in a bind: It is trying to make good on its pledge to promote greater civilian use of atomic energy, without angering Israel and risking a Mideast arms race.
The deal has catches for the Jordanians, too: The U.S. is demanding that Amman not produce its own nuclear fuel. That's a right Jordan enjoys as a signatory to the United Nations key nonproliferation treaty—and is reluctant to surrender, thanks to its recent discoveries of big deposits of uranium ore.
The U.S. last week pushed through the United Nations a fourth round of economic sanctions against Iran in a bid to curtail its advancing nuclear work. Tehran says its program is purely for civilian purposes, a charge challenged by the U.N. and the West. U.S. officials worry the Arab states, fearing the Iranian threat, could one day seek to develop atomic weapons themselves.
Senior Jordanian officials say Amman can't renounce its right to produce nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, both for strategic and economic reasons. They say that if Jordan cuts a side agreement with the U.S. on this point it would undermine the integrity of the treaty. They also say such an agreement would limit Jordan's ambition to become a "regional nuclear fuel supply and export center."
Failure to reach consensus on this point, U.S. and Jordanian officials acknowledge, could kill the cooperation deal.
"We believe in the universality of the NPT," said Khaled Toukan, the head of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission. "We do not agree on applying conditions and restrictions outside of the NPT on a regional basis or a country-by-country basis."
[Known recoverable resources of uranium, 2008, in thousands or metric tons http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AV716_ARABNU_NS_20100613184437.gif]
Jordan is among a slew of Arab countries, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, that are seeking to become among the first Mideast countries to develop a civilian nuclear-power industry. Israel is the lone country in the region believed to possess atomic weapons, but it hasn't moved to build nuclear power plants.
Jordan's nuclear ambitions are driven by economics. Wedged between Israel and oil giants Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the kingdom is 95% dependent on imported oil and has among the world's smallest reserves of potable water.
But the discovery of at least 65,000 tons of uranium ore in the deserts outside Amman in 2007 has led King Abdullah to order a drastic reshaping of his nation's economic strategy.
French and Chinese geologists are combing southern, central and eastern Jordan in search of additional uranium deposits. In addition to fueling its own plants, Jordan hopes to use its projected four nuclear power plants to begin exporting electricity to neighbors including Iraq and Syria by 2030 and to commercially mine and export uranium. Even if it doesn't process any nuclear fuel itself, Jordan could still produce and export electricity by buying the fuel for its reactors on the international market.
"Now that we have a raw material, people are coming for the first time in our history and knocking on our door," King Abdullah said in the interview.
U.S. officials say they recognize Jordan's desire to achieve energy independence. They praise Jordan's early outreach to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Amman's willingness to allow international inspectors unhindered access to its growing nuclear infrastructure.
But U.S. negotiators are unwavering in their insistence that Amman commit to purchasing its reactor fuel from the international market to guard against its potential internal diversion for military purposes. Iran's insistence on producing its own nuclear fuel stands at the center of its current conflict with the West.
U.S. officials argue if Jordan doesn't surrender its rights to produce fuel, it raises proliferation risks. Countries with the complete nuclear fuel cycle—from mining uranium to processing it into fuel—can convert their civilian plants for military applications. Under terms of the U.S. agreement, Jordan could mine the ore but not convert it into fuel for nuclear power.
Such fears could hamstring Washington's ability to win necessary Congressional approval for a nuclear cooperation agreement with Jordan. Last year, Congress approved a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates only after the country agreed to buy its nuclear fuel overseas.
Jordan could pursue its nuclear ambitions without the U.S., but would face steep diplomatic and financial hurdles. Still, Amman is aggressively pressing forward: In March, it purchased a research reactor for a northern Jordanian university and is in talks with four international consortia to buy its first nuclear power plant.
Those moves are stoking tensions with neighboring Israel.
In the interview, King Abdullah said Israel has been pressuring countries like South Korea and France not to sell nuclear technologies to Jordan. He said Israel's "underhanded" actions have helped bring Jordan-Israeli relations to their lowest point since a 1994 peace agreement.
"There are countries, Israel in particular, that are more worried about us being economically independent than the issue of nuclear energy, and have been voicing their concerns," King Abdullah said. "There are many such reactors in the world and a lot more coming, so [the Israelis must] go mind their own business."
Israeli officials denied any effort to undermine Amman's nuclear procurement efforts.
Jordan's fixation on nuclear power is rooted in its near total dependence on imported oil.
When global oil prices spiked above $100 a barrel in 2007, Amman was forced to spend the equivalent of 20% of its total economic output on energy. That bill could rise sharply over the next decade, say Jordanian officials, as electricity demand is projected to double.
Energy shortages have also threatened Amman's ability to address its severe water deficiency with power-hungry desalination plants near the Red Sea.
The oil-price shock led King Abdullah and his ministers in 2007 to fashion a new energy strategy. The project calls for Jordan to draw 10% of its energy from solar and wind by 2020; 30% from natural gas; and 14% from oil shale. The strategy foresees a special role for nuclear power: 30% of Jordan's overall energy needs by 2030.
The center of Jordan's uranium push is the desolate Bedouin village of Sawaqa, an hour south of Amman. Here the French nuclear-power giant, Areva SA, is partnering with Jordanian mining firms and geologists to try to transform the area into a major center for uranium production.
An encampment of rowed housing units, a cafeteria and sheds used to store and test mineral samples stands amid central Jordan's barren, gravely landscape. A lone camel occasionally meanders past the walled site.
Jordanian geologists have explored the Sawaqa area for decades, confirming sizable deposits of phosphates and oil shale. But the joint Areva-Jordanian camp's general manager, Gilles Recoche, has been tasked to ensure the uranium ore found here and nearby can be mined on a commercially viable scale. He then hopes to process the ore on-site into the powdery substance known as yellowcake, which can in turn be processed into the low-enriched uranium used to power nuclear reactors.
On a recent afternoon outside the Sawaqa camp, Mr. Recoche and his Jordanian colleague, Allam Saymeh, walked through a dug-out excavation trench with gamma-radiation guns.
Moving through the narrow sandy passage, they point out the yellow stains on the trench's rock walls that indicate uranium ore. They then pass their guns over the yellow markings to gauge the grade of the uranium—anything over 100 particles-per-million is judged to have commercial prospects.
"This project is my child," said the 52-year-old Mr. Saymeh, noting that he'd explored the areas around Sawaqa since the 1980s.
Jordan's government is also putting in place the bureaucracy and infrastructure to run its nuclear program. Parliament has passed laws establishing the country's first nuclear regulatory body and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Amman has signed nuclear-cooperation agreements with eight countries, including France, China and Russia. Negotiations have begun with such companies as Russia's Rosatom Corp. and Seoul's Korea Electric Power Corp. to construct Jordan's first power reactor.
The nuclear program's point man is Mr. Toukan, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained nuclear scientist and a former education minister. As chairman of the country's Atomic Energy Commission, the 55-year-old has broad powers, overseeing everything from choosing the reactor's construction site to negotiating the cooperation agreement with the U.S. He views Jordan's nuclear program as providing the base for a scientific resurgence across the Middle East.
A focal point is the nuclear-engineering department at the Jordan University of Science and Technology in the northern city of Irbid. Here, Mr. Toukan's agency contracted in March with a South Korean consortium to build Jordan's first 5-megawatt research reactor, which could break ground later this year.
Students and teachers on the expansive palm-tree-lined campus talk excitedly of the research reactor's arrival. The nuclear-engineering department is only three years old, with just 100 students.
"Right now, we have nothing practical to work on here," says Abtihal Almalahim, a 21-year old junior and one of the program's female candidates. The reactor's arrival "will make our study a lot more real."
A key to achieving King Abdullah's ambitions, however, remains the cooperation agreement with the U.S., say Jordanian officials.
[Jordan's energy sources, 2007 http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AV717_ARABNU_NS_20100613184448.gif]
They say it could prove difficult to secure some of the core technologies for their nuclear infrastructure without the Obama administration's seal of approval. The U.S. is a leading player in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a Vienna-based body aimed at controlling the flow of nuclear technologies internationally. Many reactors from France, Japan and Canada contain significant U.S. components and would require Washington's approval for a sale.
Mr. Toukan nearly concluded a nuclear-cooperation pact with George W. Bush's administration in 2008, according to Jordanian and American officials. It got sidelined in the final months of Mr. Bush's term as Washington aggressively pushed forward and completed a separate nuclear deal with the United Arab Emirates, which does not have its own uranium reserves and agreed to purchase all its reactor fuel from international suppliers.
The Obama administration views the U.A.E. deal as a model for its nonproliferation drive. American experts say it would be virtually impossible for the Emirates or any other nation to develop atomic weapons without the ability to produce highly enriched uranium at home.
The White House has good reason to stick to its guns in its talks with Jordan: the U.A.E., in its agreement with the U.S., won the right to negotiate a new deal if another Mideast country concludes a nuclear pact with the U.S. on more favorable terms.
King Abdullah, is pushing ahead. He met one-on-one with President Obama during Washington's nuclear security summit in April to discuss regional peace and nonproliferation issues, according to Jordanian officials.
The king also instructed his foreign minister to formally reprimand Israel's ambassador to Jordan over the charges that Israel has been seeking to block the sale of the South Korean or French reactors to Jordan.
On the outskirts of the port city of Aqaba, just miles from the Israeli resort city of Eilat, international contractors have been conducting feasibility studies to gauge whether the site can house Jordan's first nuclear-power reactor. Aqaba also lies close to a seismic fault line. Israeli officials have publicly voiced concerns about a reactor being situated so close to the fault.
"We are way ahead of Israel" when it comes to securing new reactor technology, King Abdullah said. "And if you have the private sector involved in nuclear power, it's difficult to do anything sinister."
Monday, May 31, 2010
Seoul Reviews U.S. Military Ties
Seoul Reviews U.S. Military Ties. By JAY SOLOMON
WSJ, May 31, 2010
In the wake of North Korea's alleged sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's government is reviewing its long-term defense policy in ways that could significantly impact the Washington-Seoul military alliance, according to officials engaged in the reform process here and in the U.S.
Over the past week, U.S. and South Korean leaders have outlined plans to conduct new war games and strategy sessions to better equip the South for combating the type of submarine attack Pyongyang is accused by international investigators to have staged this March, killing 46 South Korean sailors.
But longer-term, Mr. Lee's conservative government also could seek to alter the alliance's command structure and Seoul's weapons arsenal in ways that would challenge the Pentagon's current strategic planning for Northeast Asia, according to these officials.
South Korean defense strategists already are publicly pressing Mr. Lee to delay the planned 2012 transfer of operational control of the combined U.S.-South Korean fighting force to Seoul from Washington, arguing South Korea isn't prepared yet to oversee American forces. The agreement between Washington and Seoul has a clause that allows South Korea's president to formally request a suspension of the transfer. The U.S. currently deploys 29,000 troops in South Korea, and the South Korean military deploys 600,000.
Some South Korean officials involved in the president's military-reform drive also are calling for Seoul to develop more offensive strategic weapons as a means to deter the nuclear-armed North from future aggression. Currently, South Korea isn't allowed by its defense agreement with the U.S. to deploy precision-guided missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers.
"We need to have our own ways to threaten North Korea," said Kim Tae-woo, a South Korean defense expert who sits on one of two committees President Lee has established to assess Seoul's military preparedness. "We need to have this dialogue with our allies."
Mr. Lee took office in 2008 calling for an overhaul of South Korea's military apparatus, which his party had charged was weakened during 10 years of liberal rule in Seoul. But South Korea's new government initially agreed with its predecessor's plans to shrink the size of Seoul's military ranks while reining in defense spending.
Many in South Korea have viewed North Korea's million-man military as largely targeted at the U.S. South Korea's late President Roh Moo-hyun successfully pushed for the U.S. to lower it military profile in his country and to transfer control of the joint-military command to South Korea's defense department.
The North's alleged attack March 26 on the South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, however, has shaken up Seoul's strategic thinking, according to South Korean and U.S. officials. A major concern here now is that Pyongyang's development of nuclear technologies has provided leader Kim Jong Il with a deterrent against the more-advanced militaries of the U.S. and South Korea. This, in turn, could allow Pyongyang to stage more-aggressive conventional attacks on the South, with the belief that Seoul won't retaliate for fear of an escalation.
This fear seems to have been borne out in recent days as Mr. Lee's government has shown a reluctance to take some new steps to challenge Pyongyang over the Cheonan incident. Seoul, for example, stepped back from an initial pledge to use loudspeakers to blast pro-South Korean propaganda across the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas after the North threatened to attack the broadcasting infrastructure.
South Korea's leaders also have publicly sought to play down the idea that the North's two recent nuclear tests have given it a military advantage or that it has succeeded in developing atomic weapons. "Regarding North Korea's nuclear capabilities, we have not been able to verify those capabilities," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said last week at a joint-news conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Still, many leading defense thinkers in Seoul said Pyongyang's growing nuclear technologies are "game changers" that now require South Korea to significantly upgrade its own capabilities. In addition to developing longer-range missiles, many are calling for the purchases of advanced new strike-fighters and antiballistic-missile batteries. They also are calling for the Pentagon to remain in charge of the joint-military command in South Korea beyond 2012, given the lethal effectiveness displayed by North Korea's mini-submarine fleet during the Choenan attack.
"There has been an asymmetrical shift that has weakened our deterrence structure," said Kim Byungki of Seoul's Korea University. "We are supposed to have air, ground and sea dominance."
South Korea's effort to renegotiate in the coming months its decades-old nuclear-cooperation agreement with the U.S. could now prove particularly tricky, according to current and former U.S. officials.
South Korea, under the 1974 pact, faces strict guidelines on its ability to store and reprocess the spent nuclear fuel produced by the country's 20 power reactors, because of fears it could be diverted for military purposes. The U.S. is seeking to limit any major alterations in the treaty, which expires in 2014, so as not to undermine Washington's efforts to contain the nuclear advances of countries like North Korea and Iran.
South Korean officials have said they are seeking to amend the agreement to in a bid to allow Seoul to better manage the storage of its nuclear waster. They are specifically citing South Korea's need to reprocess the spent fuel into a form that can be more easily disposed. But some analysts said Mr. Lee's government also could resist the constrictive terms being sought by the U.S. by citing the North's flouting of a 1992 agreement calling for the removal of all atomic weapons on the Korean Peninsula.
"This incident with the Cheonan could be the spark for turning around a number of things" between the U.S. and South Korea, said Victor Cha, who served as a senior White House official working on Asia during President George W. Bush's second term.
WSJ, May 31, 2010
In the wake of North Korea's alleged sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's government is reviewing its long-term defense policy in ways that could significantly impact the Washington-Seoul military alliance, according to officials engaged in the reform process here and in the U.S.
Over the past week, U.S. and South Korean leaders have outlined plans to conduct new war games and strategy sessions to better equip the South for combating the type of submarine attack Pyongyang is accused by international investigators to have staged this March, killing 46 South Korean sailors.
But longer-term, Mr. Lee's conservative government also could seek to alter the alliance's command structure and Seoul's weapons arsenal in ways that would challenge the Pentagon's current strategic planning for Northeast Asia, according to these officials.
South Korean defense strategists already are publicly pressing Mr. Lee to delay the planned 2012 transfer of operational control of the combined U.S.-South Korean fighting force to Seoul from Washington, arguing South Korea isn't prepared yet to oversee American forces. The agreement between Washington and Seoul has a clause that allows South Korea's president to formally request a suspension of the transfer. The U.S. currently deploys 29,000 troops in South Korea, and the South Korean military deploys 600,000.
Some South Korean officials involved in the president's military-reform drive also are calling for Seoul to develop more offensive strategic weapons as a means to deter the nuclear-armed North from future aggression. Currently, South Korea isn't allowed by its defense agreement with the U.S. to deploy precision-guided missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers.
"We need to have our own ways to threaten North Korea," said Kim Tae-woo, a South Korean defense expert who sits on one of two committees President Lee has established to assess Seoul's military preparedness. "We need to have this dialogue with our allies."
Mr. Lee took office in 2008 calling for an overhaul of South Korea's military apparatus, which his party had charged was weakened during 10 years of liberal rule in Seoul. But South Korea's new government initially agreed with its predecessor's plans to shrink the size of Seoul's military ranks while reining in defense spending.
Many in South Korea have viewed North Korea's million-man military as largely targeted at the U.S. South Korea's late President Roh Moo-hyun successfully pushed for the U.S. to lower it military profile in his country and to transfer control of the joint-military command to South Korea's defense department.
The North's alleged attack March 26 on the South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, however, has shaken up Seoul's strategic thinking, according to South Korean and U.S. officials. A major concern here now is that Pyongyang's development of nuclear technologies has provided leader Kim Jong Il with a deterrent against the more-advanced militaries of the U.S. and South Korea. This, in turn, could allow Pyongyang to stage more-aggressive conventional attacks on the South, with the belief that Seoul won't retaliate for fear of an escalation.
This fear seems to have been borne out in recent days as Mr. Lee's government has shown a reluctance to take some new steps to challenge Pyongyang over the Cheonan incident. Seoul, for example, stepped back from an initial pledge to use loudspeakers to blast pro-South Korean propaganda across the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas after the North threatened to attack the broadcasting infrastructure.
South Korea's leaders also have publicly sought to play down the idea that the North's two recent nuclear tests have given it a military advantage or that it has succeeded in developing atomic weapons. "Regarding North Korea's nuclear capabilities, we have not been able to verify those capabilities," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said last week at a joint-news conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Still, many leading defense thinkers in Seoul said Pyongyang's growing nuclear technologies are "game changers" that now require South Korea to significantly upgrade its own capabilities. In addition to developing longer-range missiles, many are calling for the purchases of advanced new strike-fighters and antiballistic-missile batteries. They also are calling for the Pentagon to remain in charge of the joint-military command in South Korea beyond 2012, given the lethal effectiveness displayed by North Korea's mini-submarine fleet during the Choenan attack.
"There has been an asymmetrical shift that has weakened our deterrence structure," said Kim Byungki of Seoul's Korea University. "We are supposed to have air, ground and sea dominance."
South Korea's effort to renegotiate in the coming months its decades-old nuclear-cooperation agreement with the U.S. could now prove particularly tricky, according to current and former U.S. officials.
South Korea, under the 1974 pact, faces strict guidelines on its ability to store and reprocess the spent nuclear fuel produced by the country's 20 power reactors, because of fears it could be diverted for military purposes. The U.S. is seeking to limit any major alterations in the treaty, which expires in 2014, so as not to undermine Washington's efforts to contain the nuclear advances of countries like North Korea and Iran.
South Korean officials have said they are seeking to amend the agreement to in a bid to allow Seoul to better manage the storage of its nuclear waster. They are specifically citing South Korea's need to reprocess the spent fuel into a form that can be more easily disposed. But some analysts said Mr. Lee's government also could resist the constrictive terms being sought by the U.S. by citing the North's flouting of a 1992 agreement calling for the removal of all atomic weapons on the Korean Peninsula.
"This incident with the Cheonan could be the spark for turning around a number of things" between the U.S. and South Korea, said Victor Cha, who served as a senior White House official working on Asia during President George W. Bush's second term.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Obama's Russia Tribute - What he gave away in return for watered-down Iran sanctions
Obama's Russia Tribute. WSJ Editorial
What he gave away in return for watered-down Iran sanctions.WSJ, May 27, 2010
When the Obama Administration last week secured the Kremlin's support for U.N. sanctions on Iran, the White House touted a big dividend from its "reset" in relations with Russia. Now the price for Moscow's cooperation is becoming clearer, and the only ones who should be cheering are the Russians and Iranians.
Three days after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the deal on a diluted Security Council resolution, she quietly met an explicit demand from Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Buried in last Friday's Federal Register, the State Department announced it was ending long-standing sanctions against four Russian entities that had helped Iran's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The draft U.N. resolution also includes a loophole for Russia, which would be allowed to deliver the five S-300 surface-to-air missiles that Moscow agreed to sell Tehran in 2005. The S-300s can intercept missiles and aircraft but fall outside the U.N. resolution's ban on the sale of eight categories of conventional weapons to Iran. Mikhail Margelov, the head of the foreign affairs committee of Russia's upper house of parliament, crowed last Friday that sanctions "will not hit current contracts between Russia and Iran."
All of this came on top of the White House decision a week earlier to resubmit to Congress a civilian nuclear cooperation pact with Russia. This was another goodie for Moscow.
These so-called "123 agreements"—named after a section of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954—open the door to technology transfers, commerce in nuclear materials and joint research between the U.S. and select countries. The Bush Administration negotiated the deal with the Kremlin but shelved it after the Russians invaded Georgia in August 2008.
President Obama said that "the situation in Georgia need no longer be considered an obstacle" and that "the level and scope of U.S.-Russia cooperation on Iran are sufficient to justify" the deal. Unlike a treaty, Congress doesn't ratify the pact but has 90 days to act or the deal automatically goes into force. Democrat Edward Markey and Republican Jeff Fortenberry last week introduced a resolution in the House to stop the deal.
It's an uphill but worthy effort. Russia continues illegally to occupy Georgian territory, but the larger problem is its proliferation. Both Republican and Democratic Administration have turned a blind eye to Russian misbehavior. When the Bush Administration submitted the agreement for review, the Government Accountability Office criticized the mandatory accompanying "proliferation statement" on Russia as shoddy and incomplete.
Starting in the 1990s, Moscow sold Iran nuclear centrifuges and missile technology. One company sanctioned until last week, the state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, was put on the list as recently as 2008, while the Moscow Aviation Institute helped Iran develop ballistic missiles.
Nonetheless, the Obama Administration now says "Russia's approach to Iran has evolved," in the words of State spokesman P.J. Crowley. Gary Samore, the White House arms control coordinator, insists that "the Russians understand that the consequences [of shipping the S-300s] would be very severe."
These assurances don't square with Russian statements or actions. The week that President Obama sent the nuclear cooperation pact to Congress, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was in Damascus touting future nuclear business with Iran's close ally in terrorism. "Cooperation [with Syria] on atomic energy could get a second wind," he said.
In return for all this, the Administration gets weak sanctions similar to the three sets the Bush Administration won without paying such a high tribute. If this represents what the Administration calls "smart diplomacy," we'd hate to see what we give up when we're dumb.
What he gave away in return for watered-down Iran sanctions.WSJ, May 27, 2010
When the Obama Administration last week secured the Kremlin's support for U.N. sanctions on Iran, the White House touted a big dividend from its "reset" in relations with Russia. Now the price for Moscow's cooperation is becoming clearer, and the only ones who should be cheering are the Russians and Iranians.
Three days after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the deal on a diluted Security Council resolution, she quietly met an explicit demand from Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Buried in last Friday's Federal Register, the State Department announced it was ending long-standing sanctions against four Russian entities that had helped Iran's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The draft U.N. resolution also includes a loophole for Russia, which would be allowed to deliver the five S-300 surface-to-air missiles that Moscow agreed to sell Tehran in 2005. The S-300s can intercept missiles and aircraft but fall outside the U.N. resolution's ban on the sale of eight categories of conventional weapons to Iran. Mikhail Margelov, the head of the foreign affairs committee of Russia's upper house of parliament, crowed last Friday that sanctions "will not hit current contracts between Russia and Iran."
All of this came on top of the White House decision a week earlier to resubmit to Congress a civilian nuclear cooperation pact with Russia. This was another goodie for Moscow.
These so-called "123 agreements"—named after a section of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954—open the door to technology transfers, commerce in nuclear materials and joint research between the U.S. and select countries. The Bush Administration negotiated the deal with the Kremlin but shelved it after the Russians invaded Georgia in August 2008.
President Obama said that "the situation in Georgia need no longer be considered an obstacle" and that "the level and scope of U.S.-Russia cooperation on Iran are sufficient to justify" the deal. Unlike a treaty, Congress doesn't ratify the pact but has 90 days to act or the deal automatically goes into force. Democrat Edward Markey and Republican Jeff Fortenberry last week introduced a resolution in the House to stop the deal.
It's an uphill but worthy effort. Russia continues illegally to occupy Georgian territory, but the larger problem is its proliferation. Both Republican and Democratic Administration have turned a blind eye to Russian misbehavior. When the Bush Administration submitted the agreement for review, the Government Accountability Office criticized the mandatory accompanying "proliferation statement" on Russia as shoddy and incomplete.
Starting in the 1990s, Moscow sold Iran nuclear centrifuges and missile technology. One company sanctioned until last week, the state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, was put on the list as recently as 2008, while the Moscow Aviation Institute helped Iran develop ballistic missiles.
Nonetheless, the Obama Administration now says "Russia's approach to Iran has evolved," in the words of State spokesman P.J. Crowley. Gary Samore, the White House arms control coordinator, insists that "the Russians understand that the consequences [of shipping the S-300s] would be very severe."
These assurances don't square with Russian statements or actions. The week that President Obama sent the nuclear cooperation pact to Congress, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was in Damascus touting future nuclear business with Iran's close ally in terrorism. "Cooperation [with Syria] on atomic energy could get a second wind," he said.
In return for all this, the Administration gets weak sanctions similar to the three sets the Bush Administration won without paying such a high tribute. If this represents what the Administration calls "smart diplomacy," we'd hate to see what we give up when we're dumb.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Beijing is poised to project ever greater power in the Pacific. The U.S. doesn't appear up to the challenge
Farewell to America's China Station. By MARK HELPRIN
Beijing is poised to project ever greater power in the Pacific. The U.S. doesn't appear up to the challenge.
WSJ, May 17, 2010
The United States and China are on a collision course in the Western Pacific. Far sooner than once anticipated, China will achieve effective military parity in Asia, general conventional parity, and nuclear parity. Then the short road to superiority will be impossible for it to ignore, as it is already on its way thanks to a brilliant policy borrowed from Japan and Israel.
That is, briefly, since Deng Xiaoping, China has understood that, without catastrophic social dislocation, it can leverage its spectacular economic growth into X increases in per-capita GDP but many-times-X increases in military spending. To wit, between 1988 and 2007, a tenfold increase in per-capita GDP ($256 to $2,539) but a 21-fold purchasing power parity increase in military expenditures to $122 billion from $5.78 billion. The major constraint has been that an ever increasing rate of technical advance can only be absorbed so fast even by a rapidly modernizing military.
Meanwhile, in good times and in bad, under Republicans and under Democrats, with defense spending insufficient across the board the United States has slowed, frozen, or reversed the development of the kind of war-fighting assets that China rallies forward (nuclear weapons, fighter planes, surface combatants, submarines, space surveillance) and those (antisubmarine warfare capacity, carrier battle groups, and fleet missile defense) that China does not yet need to counter us but that we need to counter it.
We have provided as many rationales for neglect as our neglect has created dangers that we rationalize. Never again will we fight two major adversaries simultaneously, although in recent memory this is precisely what our fathers did. Conventional war is a thing of the past, despite the growth and modernization of large conventional forces throughout the world. Appeasement and compromise will turn enemies into friends, if groveling and self-abasement do not first drive friends into the enemy camp. A truly strong country is one in which people are happy and have a lot of things, though at one time, as Edward Gibbon describes it in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," "So rapid were the motions of the Persian cavalry," that the prosperous and relaxed citizens of Antioch were surprised while at the theater, and slaughtered as their city burned around them. And the costs of more reliable defense and deterrence are impossible to bear in this economy, even if in far worse times America made itself into the greatest arsenal the world has ever known, while, not coincidentally, breaking the back of the Great Depression.
China is on the cusp of being able to use conventional satellites, swarms of miniature satellites, and networked surface, undersea, and aerial cuing for real-time terminal guidance with which to direct its 1,500 short-range ballistic missiles to the five or six aircraft carriers the United States (after ceding control of the Panama Canal and reducing its carrier fleet by one-third since 1987) could dispatch to meet an invasion of Taiwan. In combination with antiship weapons launched from surface vessels, submarines, and aircraft, the missile barrage is designed to keep carrier battle groups beyond effective range. Had we built more carriers, provided them with sufficient missile defense, not neglected antisubmarine warfare, and dared consider suppression of enemy satellites and protections for our own, this would not be so.
Had we not stopped production of the F-22 at a third of the original requirement, its 2,000-mile range and definitive superiority may have allowed us to dominate the air over Taiwan nonetheless. Nor can we "lillypad" fighters to Taiwan if its airfields are destroyed by Chinese missiles, against which we have no adequate defense.
With the Western Pacific cleared of American naval and air forces sufficient to defend or deter an invasion, Taiwan—without war but because of the threat of war—will capitulate and accept China's dominion, just as Hong Kong did when the evolving correlation of forces meant that Britain had no practical say in the matter. If this occurs, as likely it will, America's alliances in the Pacific will collapse. Japan, Korea, and countries in Southeast Asia and even Australasia (when China's power projection forces mature) will strike a bargain so as to avoid pro forma vassalage, and their chief contribution to the new arrangement will be to rid themselves of American bases.
Now far along in building a blue-water navy, once it dominates its extended home waters China will move to the center of the Pacific and then east, with its primary diplomatic focus acquisition of bases in South and Central America. As at one time we had the China Station, eventually China will have the Americas Station, for this is how nations behave in the international system, independently of their declarations and beliefs as often as not. What awaits us if we do not awake is potentially devastating, and those who think the subtle, indirect pressures of domination inconsequential might inquire of the Chinese their opinion of the experience.
In the military, economic, and social trajectories of the two principals, the shape of the future comes clear. In 2007, a Chinese admiral suggested to Adm. Timothy J. Keating, chief of U.S. Pacific Command, that China and the United States divide the Pacific into two spheres of influence. Though the American admiral firmly declined the invitation, as things go now his successors will not have the means to honor his resolution, and by then the offer may seem generous.
None of this was ever a historical inevitability. Rather, it is the fault of the American people and the governments they have freely chosen. Perhaps five or 10 years remain in which to accomplish a restoration, but only with a miracle of leadership, clarity, and will.
Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt), "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt) and, most recently, "Digital Barbarism" (HarperCollins).
Beijing is poised to project ever greater power in the Pacific. The U.S. doesn't appear up to the challenge.
WSJ, May 17, 2010
The United States and China are on a collision course in the Western Pacific. Far sooner than once anticipated, China will achieve effective military parity in Asia, general conventional parity, and nuclear parity. Then the short road to superiority will be impossible for it to ignore, as it is already on its way thanks to a brilliant policy borrowed from Japan and Israel.
That is, briefly, since Deng Xiaoping, China has understood that, without catastrophic social dislocation, it can leverage its spectacular economic growth into X increases in per-capita GDP but many-times-X increases in military spending. To wit, between 1988 and 2007, a tenfold increase in per-capita GDP ($256 to $2,539) but a 21-fold purchasing power parity increase in military expenditures to $122 billion from $5.78 billion. The major constraint has been that an ever increasing rate of technical advance can only be absorbed so fast even by a rapidly modernizing military.
Meanwhile, in good times and in bad, under Republicans and under Democrats, with defense spending insufficient across the board the United States has slowed, frozen, or reversed the development of the kind of war-fighting assets that China rallies forward (nuclear weapons, fighter planes, surface combatants, submarines, space surveillance) and those (antisubmarine warfare capacity, carrier battle groups, and fleet missile defense) that China does not yet need to counter us but that we need to counter it.
We have provided as many rationales for neglect as our neglect has created dangers that we rationalize. Never again will we fight two major adversaries simultaneously, although in recent memory this is precisely what our fathers did. Conventional war is a thing of the past, despite the growth and modernization of large conventional forces throughout the world. Appeasement and compromise will turn enemies into friends, if groveling and self-abasement do not first drive friends into the enemy camp. A truly strong country is one in which people are happy and have a lot of things, though at one time, as Edward Gibbon describes it in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," "So rapid were the motions of the Persian cavalry," that the prosperous and relaxed citizens of Antioch were surprised while at the theater, and slaughtered as their city burned around them. And the costs of more reliable defense and deterrence are impossible to bear in this economy, even if in far worse times America made itself into the greatest arsenal the world has ever known, while, not coincidentally, breaking the back of the Great Depression.
China is on the cusp of being able to use conventional satellites, swarms of miniature satellites, and networked surface, undersea, and aerial cuing for real-time terminal guidance with which to direct its 1,500 short-range ballistic missiles to the five or six aircraft carriers the United States (after ceding control of the Panama Canal and reducing its carrier fleet by one-third since 1987) could dispatch to meet an invasion of Taiwan. In combination with antiship weapons launched from surface vessels, submarines, and aircraft, the missile barrage is designed to keep carrier battle groups beyond effective range. Had we built more carriers, provided them with sufficient missile defense, not neglected antisubmarine warfare, and dared consider suppression of enemy satellites and protections for our own, this would not be so.
Had we not stopped production of the F-22 at a third of the original requirement, its 2,000-mile range and definitive superiority may have allowed us to dominate the air over Taiwan nonetheless. Nor can we "lillypad" fighters to Taiwan if its airfields are destroyed by Chinese missiles, against which we have no adequate defense.
With the Western Pacific cleared of American naval and air forces sufficient to defend or deter an invasion, Taiwan—without war but because of the threat of war—will capitulate and accept China's dominion, just as Hong Kong did when the evolving correlation of forces meant that Britain had no practical say in the matter. If this occurs, as likely it will, America's alliances in the Pacific will collapse. Japan, Korea, and countries in Southeast Asia and even Australasia (when China's power projection forces mature) will strike a bargain so as to avoid pro forma vassalage, and their chief contribution to the new arrangement will be to rid themselves of American bases.
Now far along in building a blue-water navy, once it dominates its extended home waters China will move to the center of the Pacific and then east, with its primary diplomatic focus acquisition of bases in South and Central America. As at one time we had the China Station, eventually China will have the Americas Station, for this is how nations behave in the international system, independently of their declarations and beliefs as often as not. What awaits us if we do not awake is potentially devastating, and those who think the subtle, indirect pressures of domination inconsequential might inquire of the Chinese their opinion of the experience.
In the military, economic, and social trajectories of the two principals, the shape of the future comes clear. In 2007, a Chinese admiral suggested to Adm. Timothy J. Keating, chief of U.S. Pacific Command, that China and the United States divide the Pacific into two spheres of influence. Though the American admiral firmly declined the invitation, as things go now his successors will not have the means to honor his resolution, and by then the offer may seem generous.
None of this was ever a historical inevitability. Rather, it is the fault of the American people and the governments they have freely chosen. Perhaps five or 10 years remain in which to accomplish a restoration, but only with a miracle of leadership, clarity, and will.
Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt), "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt) and, most recently, "Digital Barbarism" (HarperCollins).
Friday, May 14, 2010
U.S. Alliances in East Asia: Internal Challenges and External Threats
U.S. Alliances in East Asia: Internal Challenges and External Threats. By William Breer, Senior Adviser, Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Brookings Institution, May 2010
May 20 marks the 60th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S.-Japan alliance by Japan’s House of Representatives. While the alliance is a bilateral arrangement, it has had a significant impact on Asia as a whole and is regarded by other nations as a key part of the regional security structure. The following is a brief survey of the treaty's role in the maintenance of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. It also demonstrates that the tensions currently confronting the U.S.-Japan alliance are not unique, but in fact have been faced by various bilateral alliances in the region; some have been resolved successfully and some have not.
Most experts believe that the series of alliances the United States created after World War II was one of the most astute and far-sighted acts of diplomacy in history. The alliance with Japan laid the foundation for reconciliation between two enemy nations and the groundwork for the reconstruction of a nation whose industrial power, infrastructure, and morale lay in shambles but which rose to become the world’s second largest economy. The alliance played a key role in the Cold War by allowing the United States to cover the USSR's eastern flank and demonstrating to China and North Korea that we would defend our interests and those of our allies in East Asia.
The arrangements with Japan provided a base from which the U.S. was able to defend its Republic of Korea ally from aggression by the North. Although the Korean War ended in an armistice—not a victory for the ROK, U.S., and their allies—without the use of facilities in Japan the peninsula could have been lost. Another plus was that American protection relieved Japan of having to acquire an offensive military capability, possibly including nuclear weapons. This reassured Japan’s neighbors that it would not again become a threat to their independence.
The result has been five decades of peace in Northeast Asia without a serious arms competition and remarkably few serious threats to the peace. This, along with the stimulus of Korean War procurement, enabled Japan to devote its resources to economic development which resulted in a previously unimaginable economic expansion and improvement in living standards. The ROK, Taiwan, and later China, piggy-backing on Japan's success and partaking of Japan's foreign aid and investment policies, replicated Japan's experience and delivered even faster rates of economic growth and prosperity to their people. None of this would have been possible without the American alliance system and the stability it provided throughout the region. The American presence in East Asia has been reassuring to allies, and our naval and air deployments beyond the region have played a major role in protecting the key energy trade routes through the Malacca Strait and Indian Ocean.
American alliances around East Asia
While the results have been good and generations of alliance managers on both sides can take considerable satisfaction in their accomplishments, the presence of foreign military bases in sovereign countries is not necessarily a natural phenomenon. Many Americans feel that we are motivated by altruism in undertaking to defend other peoples and that our actions are benign. But this view is not necessarily shared by citizens of host countries, many of whom view the American presence as an extension of the occupation in the case of Japan, an intrusion on sovereignty, or as a nuisance. These feelings are reinforced by a complex legal regime governing our bases and serious incidents (rape, hit-and-run accidents, etc.) involving American personnel. At the same time, the base arrangements provide significant employment opportunities for local populations there are some who welcome their presence. The policies of the new Hatoyama government reflect these contradictory views.
Governments have responded to these issues in different ways. In Japan we have developed mechanisms for dealing with problems and have accumulated a great deal of experience in working together. As a result Japanese citizens have tolerated a foreign military presence remarkably well. This may be a historic first. The leaderships of both nations realize the important role that the alliance plays in maintaining stability in East Asia and have striven to protect it.
In the Philippines, where we had maintained major naval and air facilities for many decades, a combination of domestic political pressure, the destruction of one base by a volcanic eruption rendering it unusable, and a strategic reassessment in Washington resulted in the withdrawal of U.S. forces, but the continuation of the defense treaty. In recent years, small numbers of U.S. military advisors have assisted the Philippine armed forces in countering Muslim insurgents in the southern islands of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago.
This was followed a few years later by the New Zealand government's refusal to allow port calls by U.S. Navy vessels, as clearly envisioned in the ANZUS treaty, without a prior finding by the prime minister of New Zealand that the ships in question were not carrying nuclear weapons. This was contrary to our long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons aboard our ships and put at risk our arrangements with Japan. The result was a suspension of our defense relationship with New Zealand and strained relations with this ally for a number of years. When the U.S. Navy revised its "neither confirm nor deny" policy our defense relationship gradually improved. However, as Secretary of State George Shultz stated at the time of the break in 1986, "We remain friends, but we are no longer allies."
We do not have a security treaty with Taiwan and do not maintain forces on the island. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, however, we are obligated to provide certain defensive weapons and equipment and it is understood that we would come to Taiwan's defense in a clear-cut emergency. While this is not an explicit or legal commitment, U.S. policy toward Taiwan has assured the people of Taiwan and other countries in the region that the United States takes the security of Taiwan seriously and that only a peaceful, non-coercive resolution of the political issues across the Taiwan Strait would be satisfactory.
Under our mutual defense treaty with the Republic of Korea we deploy sizable ground and air forces to the peninsula to backup ROK defenses in the event of aggression by North Korea. We have made clear to the North that the American commitment to the defense of South Korea is rock solid, and the peace has been maintained. While the U.S. posture has effectively deterred North Korea from a frontal attack, it has not prevented North Korea from mounting provocations, ranging from the capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968, through the tree-cutting incident in 1976, to the recent apparent sinking of an ROK warship. The biggest challenge posed by North Korea is its determination to acquire deployable nuclear weapons which would threaten U.S. interests throughout East Asia, potentially pose an existential threat to Japan, and create a proliferation problem of vast proportions. Our treaty relationships with Japan and Korea, and our many decades of experience working together, have greatly facilitated our cooperation on this issue.
From time to time, base issues (one of our major bases is in the center of Seoul) and occasional incidents caused by American personnel have aroused latent nationalism among the people, which has in the past resulted in large scale demonstrations, strains in our relations with the host government, and pressure to relocate our facilities. That we are making necessary adjustments to our deployments without significantly reducing our support for the ROK or the effectiveness of our deterrent is a credit to the common sense and foresight of Korean and American officials, many of whom have devoted entire careers to the management of the defense of the ROK.
Australia and Southeast Asia have been direct beneficiaries of America's alliance structure. While Australia is a member of ANZUS it has never become a platform for large scale American deployments. It has a keen interest in the stability and economic well-being of Northeast Asia because of its enormous and profitable economic ties with the region. It is also a beneficiary of American attention to the sea lanes to its West and North on which it depends for the bulk of its international commerce. Australia has been a valued ally in a large number of military operations in which the U.S. has engaged over the last fifty years, despite periodic internal opposition to American policy.
What about the future?
Despite periodic outbursts of opposition to nuclear ship home-porting or other aspects of the U.S. deployment in Japan, support among the Japanese people for the security relationship has remained at a remarkably high level. As a result the U.S. has had a relatively free hand in the use of our facilities and in the deployment of forces there. Generations of Japanese leaders have cooperated with U.S. security needs. These include a contribution of $13 billion in support of the first Gulf War, the dispatch of ground forces in support of our operations against Saddam Hussein, and generous foreign assistance to many places in which we have a strategic interest, including Afghanistan. Japan has also for the past 25 years made major contributions - $4-5 billion per year - to the support of U.S. forces in Japan. Who would have imagined 60 years ago that there would be significant U.S. military facilities in Japan in 2010?
There are some clouds on the horizon. The planned relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has posed major political issues for both Japan and the United States. Okinawa is host for the majority of U.S. forces in Japan and has endured the lion's share of the impact of foreign bases. Under considerable local pressure, Tokyo and Washington in 2006 reached an agreement to move the noisy Futenma facility from a densely populated area in central Okinawa to a sparsely populated region in the north. But the new Japanese administration, which took office in September 2009, ran on a platform calling for the removal of the facility from Okinawa. The U.S. side has adamantly insisted that the agreement be implemented as is and the two sides have reached an impasse which could result in the resignation of the prime minister. This is not a satisfactory situation, especially when it is not clear that the Marine Corps deployment in Okinawa is a vital piece of our deterrent posture on which it is worth Japan spending more than $10 billion to relocate.
The decision to attack Iraq in 2003 and the sloppy execution of the war called into question American judgment and leadership. Uncertain progress in Afghanistan has compounded this. Neither of these has significantly weakened Japanese support for the alliance, but these creeping doubts, coupled with an increasingly inward-looking Japanese public, have helped create an era in which American strategic assessments and solutions will be viewed with greater skepticism. Another serious incident involving U.S. military personnel would put further strain on the relationship. This is not to say that we cannot cooperate on a wide range of issues, but such cooperation will require higher level USG attention and a willingness on both sides to listen more attentively to the other's point of view. On the Japanese side, it will require the development of greater expertise among its political leaders and greater awareness among the general public of the changing environment. The increasing economic, military, and political importance of China demands that our two nations work together to assure a successful outcome in Asia.
The Brookings Institution, May 2010
May 20 marks the 60th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S.-Japan alliance by Japan’s House of Representatives. While the alliance is a bilateral arrangement, it has had a significant impact on Asia as a whole and is regarded by other nations as a key part of the regional security structure. The following is a brief survey of the treaty's role in the maintenance of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. It also demonstrates that the tensions currently confronting the U.S.-Japan alliance are not unique, but in fact have been faced by various bilateral alliances in the region; some have been resolved successfully and some have not.
Most experts believe that the series of alliances the United States created after World War II was one of the most astute and far-sighted acts of diplomacy in history. The alliance with Japan laid the foundation for reconciliation between two enemy nations and the groundwork for the reconstruction of a nation whose industrial power, infrastructure, and morale lay in shambles but which rose to become the world’s second largest economy. The alliance played a key role in the Cold War by allowing the United States to cover the USSR's eastern flank and demonstrating to China and North Korea that we would defend our interests and those of our allies in East Asia.
The arrangements with Japan provided a base from which the U.S. was able to defend its Republic of Korea ally from aggression by the North. Although the Korean War ended in an armistice—not a victory for the ROK, U.S., and their allies—without the use of facilities in Japan the peninsula could have been lost. Another plus was that American protection relieved Japan of having to acquire an offensive military capability, possibly including nuclear weapons. This reassured Japan’s neighbors that it would not again become a threat to their independence.
The result has been five decades of peace in Northeast Asia without a serious arms competition and remarkably few serious threats to the peace. This, along with the stimulus of Korean War procurement, enabled Japan to devote its resources to economic development which resulted in a previously unimaginable economic expansion and improvement in living standards. The ROK, Taiwan, and later China, piggy-backing on Japan's success and partaking of Japan's foreign aid and investment policies, replicated Japan's experience and delivered even faster rates of economic growth and prosperity to their people. None of this would have been possible without the American alliance system and the stability it provided throughout the region. The American presence in East Asia has been reassuring to allies, and our naval and air deployments beyond the region have played a major role in protecting the key energy trade routes through the Malacca Strait and Indian Ocean.
American alliances around East Asia
While the results have been good and generations of alliance managers on both sides can take considerable satisfaction in their accomplishments, the presence of foreign military bases in sovereign countries is not necessarily a natural phenomenon. Many Americans feel that we are motivated by altruism in undertaking to defend other peoples and that our actions are benign. But this view is not necessarily shared by citizens of host countries, many of whom view the American presence as an extension of the occupation in the case of Japan, an intrusion on sovereignty, or as a nuisance. These feelings are reinforced by a complex legal regime governing our bases and serious incidents (rape, hit-and-run accidents, etc.) involving American personnel. At the same time, the base arrangements provide significant employment opportunities for local populations there are some who welcome their presence. The policies of the new Hatoyama government reflect these contradictory views.
Governments have responded to these issues in different ways. In Japan we have developed mechanisms for dealing with problems and have accumulated a great deal of experience in working together. As a result Japanese citizens have tolerated a foreign military presence remarkably well. This may be a historic first. The leaderships of both nations realize the important role that the alliance plays in maintaining stability in East Asia and have striven to protect it.
In the Philippines, where we had maintained major naval and air facilities for many decades, a combination of domestic political pressure, the destruction of one base by a volcanic eruption rendering it unusable, and a strategic reassessment in Washington resulted in the withdrawal of U.S. forces, but the continuation of the defense treaty. In recent years, small numbers of U.S. military advisors have assisted the Philippine armed forces in countering Muslim insurgents in the southern islands of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago.
This was followed a few years later by the New Zealand government's refusal to allow port calls by U.S. Navy vessels, as clearly envisioned in the ANZUS treaty, without a prior finding by the prime minister of New Zealand that the ships in question were not carrying nuclear weapons. This was contrary to our long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons aboard our ships and put at risk our arrangements with Japan. The result was a suspension of our defense relationship with New Zealand and strained relations with this ally for a number of years. When the U.S. Navy revised its "neither confirm nor deny" policy our defense relationship gradually improved. However, as Secretary of State George Shultz stated at the time of the break in 1986, "We remain friends, but we are no longer allies."
We do not have a security treaty with Taiwan and do not maintain forces on the island. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, however, we are obligated to provide certain defensive weapons and equipment and it is understood that we would come to Taiwan's defense in a clear-cut emergency. While this is not an explicit or legal commitment, U.S. policy toward Taiwan has assured the people of Taiwan and other countries in the region that the United States takes the security of Taiwan seriously and that only a peaceful, non-coercive resolution of the political issues across the Taiwan Strait would be satisfactory.
Under our mutual defense treaty with the Republic of Korea we deploy sizable ground and air forces to the peninsula to backup ROK defenses in the event of aggression by North Korea. We have made clear to the North that the American commitment to the defense of South Korea is rock solid, and the peace has been maintained. While the U.S. posture has effectively deterred North Korea from a frontal attack, it has not prevented North Korea from mounting provocations, ranging from the capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968, through the tree-cutting incident in 1976, to the recent apparent sinking of an ROK warship. The biggest challenge posed by North Korea is its determination to acquire deployable nuclear weapons which would threaten U.S. interests throughout East Asia, potentially pose an existential threat to Japan, and create a proliferation problem of vast proportions. Our treaty relationships with Japan and Korea, and our many decades of experience working together, have greatly facilitated our cooperation on this issue.
From time to time, base issues (one of our major bases is in the center of Seoul) and occasional incidents caused by American personnel have aroused latent nationalism among the people, which has in the past resulted in large scale demonstrations, strains in our relations with the host government, and pressure to relocate our facilities. That we are making necessary adjustments to our deployments without significantly reducing our support for the ROK or the effectiveness of our deterrent is a credit to the common sense and foresight of Korean and American officials, many of whom have devoted entire careers to the management of the defense of the ROK.
Australia and Southeast Asia have been direct beneficiaries of America's alliance structure. While Australia is a member of ANZUS it has never become a platform for large scale American deployments. It has a keen interest in the stability and economic well-being of Northeast Asia because of its enormous and profitable economic ties with the region. It is also a beneficiary of American attention to the sea lanes to its West and North on which it depends for the bulk of its international commerce. Australia has been a valued ally in a large number of military operations in which the U.S. has engaged over the last fifty years, despite periodic internal opposition to American policy.
What about the future?
Despite periodic outbursts of opposition to nuclear ship home-porting or other aspects of the U.S. deployment in Japan, support among the Japanese people for the security relationship has remained at a remarkably high level. As a result the U.S. has had a relatively free hand in the use of our facilities and in the deployment of forces there. Generations of Japanese leaders have cooperated with U.S. security needs. These include a contribution of $13 billion in support of the first Gulf War, the dispatch of ground forces in support of our operations against Saddam Hussein, and generous foreign assistance to many places in which we have a strategic interest, including Afghanistan. Japan has also for the past 25 years made major contributions - $4-5 billion per year - to the support of U.S. forces in Japan. Who would have imagined 60 years ago that there would be significant U.S. military facilities in Japan in 2010?
There are some clouds on the horizon. The planned relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has posed major political issues for both Japan and the United States. Okinawa is host for the majority of U.S. forces in Japan and has endured the lion's share of the impact of foreign bases. Under considerable local pressure, Tokyo and Washington in 2006 reached an agreement to move the noisy Futenma facility from a densely populated area in central Okinawa to a sparsely populated region in the north. But the new Japanese administration, which took office in September 2009, ran on a platform calling for the removal of the facility from Okinawa. The U.S. side has adamantly insisted that the agreement be implemented as is and the two sides have reached an impasse which could result in the resignation of the prime minister. This is not a satisfactory situation, especially when it is not clear that the Marine Corps deployment in Okinawa is a vital piece of our deterrent posture on which it is worth Japan spending more than $10 billion to relocate.
The decision to attack Iraq in 2003 and the sloppy execution of the war called into question American judgment and leadership. Uncertain progress in Afghanistan has compounded this. Neither of these has significantly weakened Japanese support for the alliance, but these creeping doubts, coupled with an increasingly inward-looking Japanese public, have helped create an era in which American strategic assessments and solutions will be viewed with greater skepticism. Another serious incident involving U.S. military personnel would put further strain on the relationship. This is not to say that we cannot cooperate on a wide range of issues, but such cooperation will require higher level USG attention and a willingness on both sides to listen more attentively to the other's point of view. On the Japanese side, it will require the development of greater expertise among its political leaders and greater awareness among the general public of the changing environment. The increasing economic, military, and political importance of China demands that our two nations work together to assure a successful outcome in Asia.
Friday, April 30, 2010
The North Korea Endgame - However difficult, unification must be the ultimate objective
The North Korea Endgame. By Nicholas Eberstadt
However difficult, unification must be the ultimate objective.WSJ, Apr 30, 2010
However difficult, unification must be the ultimate objective.WSJ, Apr 30, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Miss Me Yet? The Freedom Agenda After George W. Bush
Miss Me Yet? The Freedom Agenda After George W. Bush. By Bari Weiss
Dissidents in the world's most oppressive countries aren't feeling the love from President Obama.WSJ, Apr 24, 2010
Dallas
No one seems to know precisely who is behind the "Miss Me Yet?" billboard—the cheeky one featuring a grinning George W. Bush that looks out over I-35 near Wyoming, Minn. But Syrian dissident Ahed Al-Hendi sympathizes with the thought.
In 2006, Mr. Hendi was browsing pro-democracy Web sites in a Damascus Internet café when plainclothes cops carrying automatic guns swooped in, cuffed him, and threw him into the trunk of a car. He spent over a month in prison, some of it alone in a 5-by-3 windowless basement cell where he listened to his friend being tortured in the one next door. Those screams, he says, were cold comfort—at least he knew his friend hadn't been killed.
Mr. Hendi was one of the lucky ones: He's now living in Maryland as a political refugee where he works for an organization called Cyberdissidents.org. And this past Monday, he joined other international dissidents at a conference sponsored by the Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University to discuss the way digital tools can be used to resist repressive regimes.
He also got to meet the 43rd president. In a private breakfast hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Bush, Mr. Hendi's message to the former president was simple: "We miss you." There have been "a lot of changes" under the current administration, he added, and not for the better.
Adrian Hong, who was imprisoned in China in 2006 for his work helping North Koreans escape the country (a modern underground railroad), echoed that idea. "When I was released [after 10 days] I was told it was because of very strong messaging from the White House and the culture you set," he told Mr. Bush.
The former president, now sporting a deep tan, didn't mention President Obama once on or off the record. The most he would say was, "I'm really concerned about an isolationist mentality . . . I don't think it lives up to the values of our country." The dissidents weren't so diplomatic.
Mr. Hendi elaborated on the policy changes he thinks Mr. Obama has made toward his home country. "In Syria, when a single dissident was arrested during the administration of George W. Bush, at the very least the White House spokesman would condemn it. Under the Obama administration: nothing."
Nor is Mr. Hendi a fan of this administration's efforts to engage the regime, most recently by deciding to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since 2005. "This gives confidence to the regime," he says. "They are not capable of a dialogue; they don't believe in it. They believe in force."
Mr. Hong put things this way: "When you look at the championing of dissidents . . . and even the rhetoric, it's dropped off sharply." Under Mr. Bush, he says, there were many high-profile meetings with North Korean dissidents. "They went out of their way to show this was a priority."
Then there is Marcel Granier, the president of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest and most popular television station. He employs several thousand people—or at least he did until Hugo Chávez cancelled the network's license in 2007. Now, he's struggling to maintain an independent channel on cable: Mr. Chávez ordered the cable networks not to carry his station in January. Government supporters have attacked his home with tear gas twice, yet he remains in the country, tirelessly advocating for media freedom.
Like many of the democrats at the conference, Mr. Granier was excited by Mr. Obama's historic election, and inspired by the way he energized American voters. But a year and a half later, he's disturbed by the administration's silence as his country slips rapidly towards dictatorship. "In Afghanistan," he quips, "at least they know that America will be involved for the next 18 months."
This sense of abandonment has been fueled by real policy shifts. Just this week word came that the administration cut funds to promote democracy in Egypt by half. Programs in countries like Jordan and Iran have also faced cuts. Then there are the symbolic gestures: letting the Dalai Lama out the back door, paltry statements of support for Iranian demonstrators, smiling and shaking hands with Mr. Chávez, and so on.
Daniel Baer, a representative from the State Department who participated in the conference, dismissed the notion that the White House has distanced itself from human-rights promotion as a baseless "meme" when I raised the issue. But in fact all of this is of a piece of Mr. Obama's overarching strategy to make it abundantly clear that he is not his predecessor.
Mr. Bush is almost certainly aware that the freedom agenda, the centerpiece of his presidency, has become indelibly linked to the war in Iraq and to regime change by force. Too bad. The peaceful promotion of human rights and democracy—in part by supporting the individuals risking their lives for liberty—are consonant with America's most basic values. Standing up for them should not be a partisan issue.
Yet for now Mr. Bush is simply not the right poster boy: He can't successfully rebrand and depoliticize the freedom agenda. So perhaps he hopes that by sitting back he can let Americans who remain wary of publicly embracing this cause become comfortable with it again. For the sake of the courageous democrats in countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Colombia, China and Russia, let's hope so.
Ms. Weiss is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
Dissidents in the world's most oppressive countries aren't feeling the love from President Obama.WSJ, Apr 24, 2010
Dallas
No one seems to know precisely who is behind the "Miss Me Yet?" billboard—the cheeky one featuring a grinning George W. Bush that looks out over I-35 near Wyoming, Minn. But Syrian dissident Ahed Al-Hendi sympathizes with the thought.
In 2006, Mr. Hendi was browsing pro-democracy Web sites in a Damascus Internet café when plainclothes cops carrying automatic guns swooped in, cuffed him, and threw him into the trunk of a car. He spent over a month in prison, some of it alone in a 5-by-3 windowless basement cell where he listened to his friend being tortured in the one next door. Those screams, he says, were cold comfort—at least he knew his friend hadn't been killed.
Mr. Hendi was one of the lucky ones: He's now living in Maryland as a political refugee where he works for an organization called Cyberdissidents.org. And this past Monday, he joined other international dissidents at a conference sponsored by the Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University to discuss the way digital tools can be used to resist repressive regimes.
He also got to meet the 43rd president. In a private breakfast hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Bush, Mr. Hendi's message to the former president was simple: "We miss you." There have been "a lot of changes" under the current administration, he added, and not for the better.
Adrian Hong, who was imprisoned in China in 2006 for his work helping North Koreans escape the country (a modern underground railroad), echoed that idea. "When I was released [after 10 days] I was told it was because of very strong messaging from the White House and the culture you set," he told Mr. Bush.
The former president, now sporting a deep tan, didn't mention President Obama once on or off the record. The most he would say was, "I'm really concerned about an isolationist mentality . . . I don't think it lives up to the values of our country." The dissidents weren't so diplomatic.
Mr. Hendi elaborated on the policy changes he thinks Mr. Obama has made toward his home country. "In Syria, when a single dissident was arrested during the administration of George W. Bush, at the very least the White House spokesman would condemn it. Under the Obama administration: nothing."
Nor is Mr. Hendi a fan of this administration's efforts to engage the regime, most recently by deciding to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since 2005. "This gives confidence to the regime," he says. "They are not capable of a dialogue; they don't believe in it. They believe in force."
Mr. Hong put things this way: "When you look at the championing of dissidents . . . and even the rhetoric, it's dropped off sharply." Under Mr. Bush, he says, there were many high-profile meetings with North Korean dissidents. "They went out of their way to show this was a priority."
Then there is Marcel Granier, the president of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest and most popular television station. He employs several thousand people—or at least he did until Hugo Chávez cancelled the network's license in 2007. Now, he's struggling to maintain an independent channel on cable: Mr. Chávez ordered the cable networks not to carry his station in January. Government supporters have attacked his home with tear gas twice, yet he remains in the country, tirelessly advocating for media freedom.
Like many of the democrats at the conference, Mr. Granier was excited by Mr. Obama's historic election, and inspired by the way he energized American voters. But a year and a half later, he's disturbed by the administration's silence as his country slips rapidly towards dictatorship. "In Afghanistan," he quips, "at least they know that America will be involved for the next 18 months."
This sense of abandonment has been fueled by real policy shifts. Just this week word came that the administration cut funds to promote democracy in Egypt by half. Programs in countries like Jordan and Iran have also faced cuts. Then there are the symbolic gestures: letting the Dalai Lama out the back door, paltry statements of support for Iranian demonstrators, smiling and shaking hands with Mr. Chávez, and so on.
Daniel Baer, a representative from the State Department who participated in the conference, dismissed the notion that the White House has distanced itself from human-rights promotion as a baseless "meme" when I raised the issue. But in fact all of this is of a piece of Mr. Obama's overarching strategy to make it abundantly clear that he is not his predecessor.
Mr. Bush is almost certainly aware that the freedom agenda, the centerpiece of his presidency, has become indelibly linked to the war in Iraq and to regime change by force. Too bad. The peaceful promotion of human rights and democracy—in part by supporting the individuals risking their lives for liberty—are consonant with America's most basic values. Standing up for them should not be a partisan issue.
Yet for now Mr. Bush is simply not the right poster boy: He can't successfully rebrand and depoliticize the freedom agenda. So perhaps he hopes that by sitting back he can let Americans who remain wary of publicly embracing this cause become comfortable with it again. For the sake of the courageous democrats in countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Colombia, China and Russia, let's hope so.
Ms. Weiss is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.
Friday, April 23, 2010
China and the US, Two Energy Giants: A Contrast In Approach
Two Energy Giants: A contrast in approach
IER, Apr 22, 2010
China’s economy is growing with dizzying speed, and the government is fueling the growth with plentiful energy. In fact, China’s electrification program and its ability to secure future oil supplies are second to none. By contrast, the U.S. economy is growing more slowly and its energy strategy is limiting that growth. The United States has slowed its electrification, adding only select forms of generating capacity, and has taken steps to reduce its flexibility in securing safe oil supplies.
China Setting Records: China Oil Demand, Coal Production and Vehicle Sales Up in 2010
During January, February, and March of this year, China was again setting records with huge year-over-year increases in oil demand. In February, China’s oil demand rose 19.4 percent over a year earlier, the second fastest rise on record. According to Reuters, China is the world’s second largest oil user (second to the United States) and consumed 8.65 million barrels of oil per day in February, an increase of 9.4 percent or 604,000 barrels per day over January’s consumption.[i] Oil imports were up 13.8 percent in March over February, reaching 4.95 million barrels per day, according to preliminary data from China’s General Administration of Customs.[ii] In part, these large oil increases are fueling China’s passenger car fleet. New passenger car sales rose 55 percent in February from a year earlier, following a 116 percent increase in January, most likely aided by the extension of government incentives to boost purchases of smaller vehicles and spur rural demand for cars. [iii]
China has spent nearly $200 billion on oil deals during the past few years, joining with more than 19 countries —including Russia, Turkmenistan, Kuwait, Yemen, Libya, Angola, Venezuela and Brazil— and paying for exploration, production, infrastructure construction, as well as “loans for energy” deals.[iv] Recently, China’s Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Company agreed to buy, for $4.65 billion, the 9 percent interest that ConocoPhillips holds in Syncrude,[v] a Canadian business involved in the production of oil sands (an asphalt-like heavy oil).[vi] Approval from the Canadian and Chinese governments is expected in the third quarter of this year.
Along with China’s Canadian oil pursuits, long thought to be a safe and secure supply for U.S. oil demand, the state-owned China Development Bank has promised to lend $20 billion to Venezuela to build new power plants, highways, and other projects, which will be repaid with Venezuelan crude oil. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has long complained about the United States’ standing as the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, and so he is more than pleased to offer his country’s oil to China instead.[vii] Both the Canadian crude and the Venezuelan crude are heavy oils, and the United States owns most of the refineries that can process heavy crude oils. So, to prepare itself for future heavy oil supplies, China has approved plans for construction of such a refinery. As the United States loses neighboring oil supplies to China, one wonders how the U.S. will meet future oil demand, especially as the Obama Administration has been slow to open new offshore areas to oil development (claiming further study is needed) but speedy at advocating climate legislation and a low-carbon fuel standard, both policies aimed at reducing the demand for fossil fuels without providing comparable energy substitutes.
Oil resources are not the only target on China’s energy wish-list. It also plans to increase its consumption of natural gas; last year, its liquefied natural gas imports rose by two-thirds, to 5.53 million tons or 7.7 billion cubic meters.[viii] China also continues to consume large quantities of its primary fuel, coal, in its industrial and electric generation sectors. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s coal output grew more than 28 percent, to well over 751 million tons in the first quarter of 2010. A report by China’s National Coal Association estimates China’s total coal production capacity exceeds 3.6 billion tons.[ix] This is in sharp contrast to coal mining in the United States, where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a new policy aimed at curbing mountain top removal mining[x] and is scrutinizing surface coal mine permits. EPA is revoking or blocking Clean Water Act permits for mountain top mining citing irreversible damage to the environment. Some of the permits were awarded years ago.[xi]
Seventy percent of China’s energy comes from coal,[xii] the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. China already consumes more than twice the coal as the United States, and by 2030, China is expected to consume 3.7 times as much coal.[xiii] As a result, China emits more carbon dioxide than any other country in the world including the United States, and by 2030, it is expected to release 82 percent more carbon dioxide emissions than the United States.[xiv]
China’s Race to Electrification; U.S. Stagnation
Between 2004 and 2008, China added 346 gigawatts of generating capacity, of which 272 gigawatts were conventional thermal power (mostly coal) and 66 gigawatts were hydroelectric power. This compares to a total installed US hydroelectric capacity of 77 gigawatts. China is estimated to have added an additional 85 gigawatts in 2009, reaching a total of 874 gigawatts,[xv] about 15 percent less than the total capacity in the United States. Of the 85 gigawatts added in 2009, 51 gigawatts were conventional thermal, again mostly coal, 25 gigawatts were hydroelectric, and 9 gigawatts were wind power.[xvi] Many of China’s wind turbines were funded by the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism, under which wealthy countries fund projects in developing countries and receive carbon credits so long as those projects would not have been accomplished otherwise.[xvii]
In contrast, the United States added only 47 gigawatts of generating capacity from 2004 to 2008 (14 percent of the capacity China added), of which 26 gigawatts were natural gas-fired units and 18 gigawatts were wind turbines. New coal-fired capacity additions are practically non-existent in the United States primarily owing to objections regarding emissions of carbon dioxide. Coal-fired projects in the United States have either been cancelled or delayed because of permitting problems, reviews and re-reviews by EPA and resulting financing problems. While the United States has more coal than any other country in the world, with over 200 years of reserves at current usage rates, coal’s share of new U.S. generating markets has been replaced by natural gas and renewable units that are more politically in vogue.
China’s Economic Growth and Export Market
China’s economy, the second-largest in the world in terms of purchasing power, is currently about half the size of the U.S. gross domestic product. According to China’s central bank, the country’s economy grew at an annual rate of 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009,[xviii] a rate almost twice the U.S. rate of 5.6 percent for the same time period.[xix] And in the first quarter of 2010, China’s economy grew by 11.9 percent. Forecasters predict that China’s economy will exceed that of the United States in 10 to 15 years.[xx]
China became the world’s largest exporter last year, edging out Germany and the United States. Despite a decline in total world trade, China’s exports fell less than those of other big powers. A report by the World Trade Organization calculates that the total value of merchandise exports fell by 23 percent in 2009. Among the top ten exporters, Japan’s shipments were the worst affected, falling by 26 percent. Because China’s exports fell by only 16 percent, it is now the single largest exporter. The World Trade Organization expects trade to rebound by nearly 10 percent this year.[xxi]
Lessons to Be Learned
Many environmentalists and politicians seem to believe that China is winning the green energy race, but nothing could be further from reality.[xxii] China is in a race for energy—all forms of energy—to fuel its growing economy. The size and scope of its investments in conventional forms of energy dwarf their commitment to “green energy.” It is providing loans around the world to invest in future oil projects, and it cares not that the oil is less than the lightest and sweetest. Canadian oil sands and Venezuelan heavy crude are perfectly fine. China is building a coal-fired generating plant each and every week on average, and increasing its coal mining capacity to fuel them. This belies any stated concerns about increasing their carbon dioxide emissions, already the highest of any country in the world. China is building wind turbines too, but if wealthy countries are willing to pay—why not? It matters not at all that the transmission capacity is not yet there to operate almost a third of these wind turbines. And China’s large-scale hydroelectric projects are engineering feats par excellence, built regardless of environmental concerns.
China is ensuring energy supplies will be available to fuel its growing economy. The United States should take note.
References
China’s economy is growing with dizzying speed, and the government is fueling the growth with plentiful energy. In fact, China’s electrification program and its ability to secure future oil supplies are second to none. By contrast, the U.S. economy is growing more slowly and its energy strategy is limiting that growth. The United States has slowed its electrification, adding only select forms of generating capacity, and has taken steps to reduce its flexibility in securing safe oil supplies.
China Setting Records: China Oil Demand, Coal Production and Vehicle Sales Up in 2010
During January, February, and March of this year, China was again setting records with huge year-over-year increases in oil demand. In February, China’s oil demand rose 19.4 percent over a year earlier, the second fastest rise on record. According to Reuters, China is the world’s second largest oil user (second to the United States) and consumed 8.65 million barrels of oil per day in February, an increase of 9.4 percent or 604,000 barrels per day over January’s consumption.[i] Oil imports were up 13.8 percent in March over February, reaching 4.95 million barrels per day, according to preliminary data from China’s General Administration of Customs.[ii] In part, these large oil increases are fueling China’s passenger car fleet. New passenger car sales rose 55 percent in February from a year earlier, following a 116 percent increase in January, most likely aided by the extension of government incentives to boost purchases of smaller vehicles and spur rural demand for cars. [iii]
China has spent nearly $200 billion on oil deals during the past few years, joining with more than 19 countries —including Russia, Turkmenistan, Kuwait, Yemen, Libya, Angola, Venezuela and Brazil— and paying for exploration, production, infrastructure construction, as well as “loans for energy” deals.[iv] Recently, China’s Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Company agreed to buy, for $4.65 billion, the 9 percent interest that ConocoPhillips holds in Syncrude,[v] a Canadian business involved in the production of oil sands (an asphalt-like heavy oil).[vi] Approval from the Canadian and Chinese governments is expected in the third quarter of this year.
Along with China’s Canadian oil pursuits, long thought to be a safe and secure supply for U.S. oil demand, the state-owned China Development Bank has promised to lend $20 billion to Venezuela to build new power plants, highways, and other projects, which will be repaid with Venezuelan crude oil. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has long complained about the United States’ standing as the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, and so he is more than pleased to offer his country’s oil to China instead.[vii] Both the Canadian crude and the Venezuelan crude are heavy oils, and the United States owns most of the refineries that can process heavy crude oils. So, to prepare itself for future heavy oil supplies, China has approved plans for construction of such a refinery. As the United States loses neighboring oil supplies to China, one wonders how the U.S. will meet future oil demand, especially as the Obama Administration has been slow to open new offshore areas to oil development (claiming further study is needed) but speedy at advocating climate legislation and a low-carbon fuel standard, both policies aimed at reducing the demand for fossil fuels without providing comparable energy substitutes.
Oil resources are not the only target on China’s energy wish-list. It also plans to increase its consumption of natural gas; last year, its liquefied natural gas imports rose by two-thirds, to 5.53 million tons or 7.7 billion cubic meters.[viii] China also continues to consume large quantities of its primary fuel, coal, in its industrial and electric generation sectors. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s coal output grew more than 28 percent, to well over 751 million tons in the first quarter of 2010. A report by China’s National Coal Association estimates China’s total coal production capacity exceeds 3.6 billion tons.[ix] This is in sharp contrast to coal mining in the United States, where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a new policy aimed at curbing mountain top removal mining[x] and is scrutinizing surface coal mine permits. EPA is revoking or blocking Clean Water Act permits for mountain top mining citing irreversible damage to the environment. Some of the permits were awarded years ago.[xi]
Seventy percent of China’s energy comes from coal,[xii] the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. China already consumes more than twice the coal as the United States, and by 2030, China is expected to consume 3.7 times as much coal.[xiii] As a result, China emits more carbon dioxide than any other country in the world including the United States, and by 2030, it is expected to release 82 percent more carbon dioxide emissions than the United States.[xiv]
China’s Race to Electrification; U.S. Stagnation
Between 2004 and 2008, China added 346 gigawatts of generating capacity, of which 272 gigawatts were conventional thermal power (mostly coal) and 66 gigawatts were hydroelectric power. This compares to a total installed US hydroelectric capacity of 77 gigawatts. China is estimated to have added an additional 85 gigawatts in 2009, reaching a total of 874 gigawatts,[xv] about 15 percent less than the total capacity in the United States. Of the 85 gigawatts added in 2009, 51 gigawatts were conventional thermal, again mostly coal, 25 gigawatts were hydroelectric, and 9 gigawatts were wind power.[xvi] Many of China’s wind turbines were funded by the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism, under which wealthy countries fund projects in developing countries and receive carbon credits so long as those projects would not have been accomplished otherwise.[xvii]
In contrast, the United States added only 47 gigawatts of generating capacity from 2004 to 2008 (14 percent of the capacity China added), of which 26 gigawatts were natural gas-fired units and 18 gigawatts were wind turbines. New coal-fired capacity additions are practically non-existent in the United States primarily owing to objections regarding emissions of carbon dioxide. Coal-fired projects in the United States have either been cancelled or delayed because of permitting problems, reviews and re-reviews by EPA and resulting financing problems. While the United States has more coal than any other country in the world, with over 200 years of reserves at current usage rates, coal’s share of new U.S. generating markets has been replaced by natural gas and renewable units that are more politically in vogue.
China’s Economic Growth and Export Market
China’s economy, the second-largest in the world in terms of purchasing power, is currently about half the size of the U.S. gross domestic product. According to China’s central bank, the country’s economy grew at an annual rate of 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009,[xviii] a rate almost twice the U.S. rate of 5.6 percent for the same time period.[xix] And in the first quarter of 2010, China’s economy grew by 11.9 percent. Forecasters predict that China’s economy will exceed that of the United States in 10 to 15 years.[xx]
China became the world’s largest exporter last year, edging out Germany and the United States. Despite a decline in total world trade, China’s exports fell less than those of other big powers. A report by the World Trade Organization calculates that the total value of merchandise exports fell by 23 percent in 2009. Among the top ten exporters, Japan’s shipments were the worst affected, falling by 26 percent. Because China’s exports fell by only 16 percent, it is now the single largest exporter. The World Trade Organization expects trade to rebound by nearly 10 percent this year.[xxi]
Lessons to Be Learned
Many environmentalists and politicians seem to believe that China is winning the green energy race, but nothing could be further from reality.[xxii] China is in a race for energy—all forms of energy—to fuel its growing economy. The size and scope of its investments in conventional forms of energy dwarf their commitment to “green energy.” It is providing loans around the world to invest in future oil projects, and it cares not that the oil is less than the lightest and sweetest. Canadian oil sands and Venezuelan heavy crude are perfectly fine. China is building a coal-fired generating plant each and every week on average, and increasing its coal mining capacity to fuel them. This belies any stated concerns about increasing their carbon dioxide emissions, already the highest of any country in the world. China is building wind turbines too, but if wealthy countries are willing to pay—why not? It matters not at all that the transmission capacity is not yet there to operate almost a third of these wind turbines. And China’s large-scale hydroelectric projects are engineering feats par excellence, built regardless of environmental concerns.
China is ensuring energy supplies will be available to fuel its growing economy. The United States should take note.
References
[i] Reuters, China oil demand rise second fastest, inventories drag, March 22, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINTOE62L01Z20100322?sp=true [ii] Reuters, Oil falls as demand, inventories weigh, April 12, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6142V820100412
[iii] Reuters, China oil demand rise second fastest, inventories drag, March 22, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINTOE62L01Z20100322?sp=true
[iv] Politico, To compete with China, U.S. must tap natural gas, April 13, 2010, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35689.html#ixzz0kyYru8gb
[v] Reuters, China bags oil sands stake, not finished yet, April 13, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63C17X20100413 and www.conocophillips.com
[vi] Syncrude, http://www.syncrude.ca/users/folder.asp?FolderID=5753
[vii] The Wall Street Journal, China’s $20 Billion Bolsters Chavez, April 18, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703594404575191671972897694.html
[viii] Reuters, China bags oil sands stake, not finished yet, April 13, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63C17X20100413
[ix] China Daily, China’s coal output up 28.1% in Q1, April 15, 2010, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-04/15/content_9736151.htm
[x] Environmental protection Agency, New Releases, EPA issues comprehensive guidance to protect Appalachian communities from harmful environmental impacts of mountaintop mining, April 1, 2010, http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/4145c96189a17239852576f8005867bd!OpenDocument
[xi] Associated Press, Arch Coal sues EPA over veto of W.Va. mine permit, April 2, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100402/ap_on_bi_ge/wv_epa_coal_lawsuit
[xii] Energy Information Administration, China, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/China/Background.html
[xiii] Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html
[xiv] Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html
[xv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China
[xvi] China’s power generation goes greener with total capacity up 10%, January 7, 2010, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/07/content_12771880.htm
[xvii] http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/03/24/kyotos-clean-development-mechanism-is-it-producing-results-for-whom/
[xviii] Politico, To compete with China, U.S. must tap natural gas, April 13, 2010, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35689.html#ixzz0kyYru8gb
[xix] http://bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
[xx] Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html
[xxi] China overtakes Germany to become the biggest exporter of all, March 31, 2010, http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15836406&fsrc=nwl
[xxii] http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/03/15/the-u-s-in-the-world-race-for-clean-electric-generating-capacity/
[iii] Reuters, China oil demand rise second fastest, inventories drag, March 22, 2010, http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINTOE62L01Z20100322?sp=true
[iv] Politico, To compete with China, U.S. must tap natural gas, April 13, 2010, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35689.html#ixzz0kyYru8gb
[v] Reuters, China bags oil sands stake, not finished yet, April 13, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63C17X20100413 and www.conocophillips.com
[vi] Syncrude, http://www.syncrude.ca/users/folder.asp?FolderID=5753
[vii] The Wall Street Journal, China’s $20 Billion Bolsters Chavez, April 18, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703594404575191671972897694.html
[viii] Reuters, China bags oil sands stake, not finished yet, April 13, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63C17X20100413
[ix] China Daily, China’s coal output up 28.1% in Q1, April 15, 2010, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-04/15/content_9736151.htm
[x] Environmental protection Agency, New Releases, EPA issues comprehensive guidance to protect Appalachian communities from harmful environmental impacts of mountaintop mining, April 1, 2010, http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/4145c96189a17239852576f8005867bd!OpenDocument
[xi] Associated Press, Arch Coal sues EPA over veto of W.Va. mine permit, April 2, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100402/ap_on_bi_ge/wv_epa_coal_lawsuit
[xii] Energy Information Administration, China, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/China/Background.html
[xiii] Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html
[xiv] Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html
[xv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China
[xvi] China’s power generation goes greener with total capacity up 10%, January 7, 2010, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/07/content_12771880.htm
[xvii] http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/03/24/kyotos-clean-development-mechanism-is-it-producing-results-for-whom/
[xviii] Politico, To compete with China, U.S. must tap natural gas, April 13, 2010, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35689.html#ixzz0kyYru8gb
[xix] http://bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
[xx] Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html
[xxi] China overtakes Germany to become the biggest exporter of all, March 31, 2010, http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15836406&fsrc=nwl
[xxii] http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/03/15/the-u-s-in-the-world-race-for-clean-electric-generating-capacity/
Thursday, April 8, 2010
New START - Evaluating the U.S.-Russia Nuclear Deal
Evaluating the U.S.-Russia Nuclear Deal. By KEITH B. PAYNE
The White House and Kremlin can't seem to agree what's in it, but it appears to restrict U.S. missile defense efforts and has no limits on Russia's tactical nukes.
WSJ, Apr 08, 2010
Today President Obama will sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia. Official Washington is already celebrating the so-called New START Treaty in the belief that it reduces forces below the 2002 Moscow Treaty levels and "resets" U.S.-Russian relations in the direction of greater cooperation. But the new treaty—whose actual text and accompanying legal documents were not released before the signing ceremony in Prague—may not accomplish these goals.
The administration's "fact sheet," for example, claims that the treaty will reduce the number of strategic weapons to 1,550, 30% lower than the 2002 treaty. But New START has special counting rules.
For example, there are reportedly 76 Russian strategic bombers, and each one apparently can carry from six to 16 nuclear weapons (bombs and cruise missiles). Nevertheless, and unlike under the Moscow Treaty, these many hundreds of nuclear weapons would count as only 76 toward the 1,550 ceiling. Consequently, the New START Treaty includes the potential for a large increase in the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, not a reduction.
The administration claims, as Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher stated emphatically on March 29, that "There is no limit or constraint on what the United States can do with its missile defense systems . . . definitely, positively, and no way, no how . . ." Yet our Russian negotiating partners describe New START's constraints on missile defenses quite differently.
On March 30, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press conference after the G-8 foreign ministers meeting in Canada that there are obligations regarding missile defense in the treaty text and the accompanying interpretive texts that constitute "a legally binding package." He also stated at a press conference in Moscow on March 26 that "The treaty is signed against the backdrop of particular levels of strategic defensive systems. A change of these levels will give each side the right to consider its further participation in the reduction of strategic offensive armaments." Kremlin National Security Council Secretary Sergei Prikhodko told journalists in Moscow on April 2 that "The United States pledged not to remodel launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based ballistic missiles for firing interceptor missiles and vice versa."
The New START restrictions on missile defense as described by Russian officials could harm U.S. security in the future. For example, if the U.S. must increase its strategic missile defenses rapidly in response to now-unforeseen threat developments, one of the few options available could be to use Minuteman silo launchers for interceptors, either at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base or empty operational silos elsewhere. Yet, if the Russian description of New START is correct, doing so would be prohibited and the launchers themselves probably will be eliminated to meet the treaty's limitation on launchers. U.S. officials' assurances and Russian descriptions cannot both be true.
Another claim for New START is that possible concerns about the limitations on U.S. forces must be balanced against the useful limits on Russian forces. Yes, this argument goes, the U.S. will have to reduce the number of its strategic delivery vehicles—silos, submarine tubes and bombers—but in the bargain it will get the benefit of like Russian reductions.
This sounds reasonable. According to virtually all Russian sources, however, New START's agreed ceiling on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles will not require Russia to give up anything not already bound for its scrap heap.
The aging of its old Cold War arsenal and the pace of its strategic nuclear force modernization program means that Russia will remain under the New START ceiling of 700 deployed launchers with or without a new treaty. Whatever the benefit to the U.S. agreement to reduce its operational strategic force launchers, it is not to gain reciprocal Russian reductions. No such reciprocity is involved.
Some hope that New START's amicable "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations will inspire Russian help with other issues, such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, where they have been less than forthcoming. This is a vain hope, as is demonstrated by the past 40 years of strategic-arms control: Innovative strategic force agreements and reductions follow improvements in general political relations. They do not lead to them.
Finally, for many the great locus of concern about Russian nuclear weapons lies in its large arsenal of tactical (i.e., short-range) nuclear weapons. According to U.S. officials, Russia has a 10-to-one numeric advantage. In 2002, then Sens. Joe Biden and John Kerry, and the current White House Science Adviser, John Holdren, expressed great concern that the Bush administration's Moscow Treaty did not limit Russian tactical forces. One might expect, therefore, that New START would do so; but the Russians apparently were adamant about excluding tactical nuclear weapons from New START.
This omission is significant. The Russians are now more explicit and threatening about tactical nuclear war-fighting including in regional conflicts. Yet we still have no limitations on Russia's tactical nuclear arsenal. The problem may now be more severe than in 2002, but concern seems curiously to have eased.
This brief review is based on the many open descriptions of the treaty by U.S. and Russian officials. Given the apparent inconsistencies on such basic matters as whether the treaty requires weapon reductions or allows increases, or whether missile defenses are limited or untouched, the Senate will have to exercise exceptional care in reviewing the actual language of the treaty documents before drawing conclusions about their content.
Mr. Payne is head of the department of defense and strategic studies at Missouri State University, and a member of congressional Strategic Posture Commission.
The White House and Kremlin can't seem to agree what's in it, but it appears to restrict U.S. missile defense efforts and has no limits on Russia's tactical nukes.
WSJ, Apr 08, 2010
Today President Obama will sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia. Official Washington is already celebrating the so-called New START Treaty in the belief that it reduces forces below the 2002 Moscow Treaty levels and "resets" U.S.-Russian relations in the direction of greater cooperation. But the new treaty—whose actual text and accompanying legal documents were not released before the signing ceremony in Prague—may not accomplish these goals.
The administration's "fact sheet," for example, claims that the treaty will reduce the number of strategic weapons to 1,550, 30% lower than the 2002 treaty. But New START has special counting rules.
For example, there are reportedly 76 Russian strategic bombers, and each one apparently can carry from six to 16 nuclear weapons (bombs and cruise missiles). Nevertheless, and unlike under the Moscow Treaty, these many hundreds of nuclear weapons would count as only 76 toward the 1,550 ceiling. Consequently, the New START Treaty includes the potential for a large increase in the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, not a reduction.
The administration claims, as Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher stated emphatically on March 29, that "There is no limit or constraint on what the United States can do with its missile defense systems . . . definitely, positively, and no way, no how . . ." Yet our Russian negotiating partners describe New START's constraints on missile defenses quite differently.
On March 30, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press conference after the G-8 foreign ministers meeting in Canada that there are obligations regarding missile defense in the treaty text and the accompanying interpretive texts that constitute "a legally binding package." He also stated at a press conference in Moscow on March 26 that "The treaty is signed against the backdrop of particular levels of strategic defensive systems. A change of these levels will give each side the right to consider its further participation in the reduction of strategic offensive armaments." Kremlin National Security Council Secretary Sergei Prikhodko told journalists in Moscow on April 2 that "The United States pledged not to remodel launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based ballistic missiles for firing interceptor missiles and vice versa."
The New START restrictions on missile defense as described by Russian officials could harm U.S. security in the future. For example, if the U.S. must increase its strategic missile defenses rapidly in response to now-unforeseen threat developments, one of the few options available could be to use Minuteman silo launchers for interceptors, either at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base or empty operational silos elsewhere. Yet, if the Russian description of New START is correct, doing so would be prohibited and the launchers themselves probably will be eliminated to meet the treaty's limitation on launchers. U.S. officials' assurances and Russian descriptions cannot both be true.
Another claim for New START is that possible concerns about the limitations on U.S. forces must be balanced against the useful limits on Russian forces. Yes, this argument goes, the U.S. will have to reduce the number of its strategic delivery vehicles—silos, submarine tubes and bombers—but in the bargain it will get the benefit of like Russian reductions.
This sounds reasonable. According to virtually all Russian sources, however, New START's agreed ceiling on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles will not require Russia to give up anything not already bound for its scrap heap.
The aging of its old Cold War arsenal and the pace of its strategic nuclear force modernization program means that Russia will remain under the New START ceiling of 700 deployed launchers with or without a new treaty. Whatever the benefit to the U.S. agreement to reduce its operational strategic force launchers, it is not to gain reciprocal Russian reductions. No such reciprocity is involved.
Some hope that New START's amicable "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations will inspire Russian help with other issues, such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, where they have been less than forthcoming. This is a vain hope, as is demonstrated by the past 40 years of strategic-arms control: Innovative strategic force agreements and reductions follow improvements in general political relations. They do not lead to them.
Finally, for many the great locus of concern about Russian nuclear weapons lies in its large arsenal of tactical (i.e., short-range) nuclear weapons. According to U.S. officials, Russia has a 10-to-one numeric advantage. In 2002, then Sens. Joe Biden and John Kerry, and the current White House Science Adviser, John Holdren, expressed great concern that the Bush administration's Moscow Treaty did not limit Russian tactical forces. One might expect, therefore, that New START would do so; but the Russians apparently were adamant about excluding tactical nuclear weapons from New START.
This omission is significant. The Russians are now more explicit and threatening about tactical nuclear war-fighting including in regional conflicts. Yet we still have no limitations on Russia's tactical nuclear arsenal. The problem may now be more severe than in 2002, but concern seems curiously to have eased.
This brief review is based on the many open descriptions of the treaty by U.S. and Russian officials. Given the apparent inconsistencies on such basic matters as whether the treaty requires weapon reductions or allows increases, or whether missile defenses are limited or untouched, the Senate will have to exercise exceptional care in reviewing the actual language of the treaty documents before drawing conclusions about their content.
Mr. Payne is head of the department of defense and strategic studies at Missouri State University, and a member of congressional Strategic Posture Commission.
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