Nuclear Ambitions

Much has been made of diplomatic initiatives of the Bush Administration to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in 3rd World countries. Though his assessment that these weapons pose a threat to the dominance of US power in the world is correct, his efforts to peacefully disarm would-be WMD states are failing. The sad truth is that there isn’t any compelling reason to believe that he shouldn’t fail in stopping would-be proliferators from acquiring their weapons.

It seems we are fundamentally misreading the concepts behind proliferation itself. I don’t believe the reasons for Pakistani, Indian, Israeli, Chinese and now Iranian and N. Korean proliferation are fundamentally different from our own reasons for developing weapons of mass destruction after the Second World War. These weapons up the ante of confrontation to generally unacceptable levels, thereby both leaving borders at their status quo (in this case, the Russians on their side of the Iron Curtain) while simultaneously increasing relative power in the world. North Korean and Iranian regimes want a nuclear shield protecting their nations the same way Truman wanted a nuclear shield protecting America from the Soviets. The primary difference is that we are the perceived aggressors, having already eliminated 1/3 of the “Axis of Evil.”

One cannot bride, coax, or scare nations close to acquiring nuclear weapons away from developing said programs. There was no dollar amount, favorable trading status, treaty, or threats of pre-emptive strikes that would have stopped Truman and Eisenhower from building up our nuclear stockpiles. Even nations under the American nuclear umbrella during the cold war, the UK and France, developed WMD. So far, only domestic pressures have stopped nations capable of developing nuclear weapons easily from doing so – as is the case with South Africa, Germany, and Japan.

Even the implicit threat of ownership of WMD has strong security reverberations. Israel has never confirmed nor denied the existence of a program and has never tested a weapons inside its borders. However, the belief that Israeli is a nuclear armed state deters potential invaders. Likewise, Saddam Hussein was so concerned with the appearance of WMD potency that he bluffed still owning deliverable weapons up until his fall from power this year. It seems likely that certain UN inspectors were correct in their assessment that previous stockpiles had gone bad with time and he was never able to revive his program for new munitions. If Iran or North Korea begin honest negotiations to stop their respective nuclear programs, it is likely the programs are so far from success that the immediate rewards – non-aggression pacts and financial incentives – will be greater than the far off goal of insured state sovereignty through nuclear deterrence.
Tags: Treyopia Spinnaker Current Events WMD nuclear proliferation diplomacy theory North Korea North Korea Iran

To Trade or Tarriff

Another Spinnaker submission:

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Imagine if the leaders of the worlds poorest nations came to the table and expressed their belief that the best things Western nations could do to help them out was not to give more foreign aid, but instead slash wasteful spending inside of their own budgets to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Imagine, then, that the leaders of the richest countries declined their plead. Though the situation is a much more complex, that is what happened last month in Cancun during the latest World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting. A group of 21 poor nations (a.k.a. G-21), representing more than half the world’s population, confronted the group (a.k.a. G-8) of the world’s richest nations with a single demand: stop government handouts to agricultural businesses.

Western nations spend roughly $1 billion dollars a day on these agricultural subsidies, according to WTO Director Mike Moore. Last year, Congress passed a $200b[1] bill for handouts to America’s farmers. Europeans spend roughly $2 per cow a day, more than what half the world’s human population makes [2]. Even through all this, the poorest 6% of American farmers will get less than 1% of these subsidies[3], meaning the money is not being spent to help struggling family farms. This is likely due to the $58m spent by agribusiness in donations during the 2000 elections[4].

All these handouts lead to distortion of market prices. Because these subsidies encourage farmers to produce more by offering minimum price payoffs, Western farmers flood the marketplace driving down worldwide prices that they themselves are protected from. For instance, Oxfam estimates that removing cotton subsidies and protections in Europe and America would create a 25% increase in cotton prices, which would translate into $300m for African farmers,[5] because American and European farmers wouldn’t be able to sell at below-production prices. Another area of concern is the sugar industry, which much of the Caribbean depends on for economic and political stability. American federal guarantees for high minimum prices for farmers and a 15% cap on sugar imports, matched by $1.4b worth of European subsidies and a 140% import tariff,[6] have dropped global sugar prices in half between 1995 and 1999.

The G-21 nations focused the Cancun meeting on these issues and ultimately walked out when Western nations wouldn’t budge, but instead pressed their own issues like intellectual property rights. Economists left and right of the spectrum complain of the corporate welfare that is keeping unemployed much of the Third World. It would seem G-8 leaders would want to see the benefits of a more stable world with fewer nations drowning in debts and teetering on solvency, but alas, campaign contributions have always gotten in the way of logic in politics.

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[1] BusinessWeek (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_22/b3785037.htm)

[2] Oxfam

[3] (Wall Street Journal) http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110001675

[4] http://www.farmingsolutions.org/

[5] http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pr030501_wto_cotton.htm

[6] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2285293.stm


Tags: Treyopia Spinnaker Current Events Doha Round WTO World Trade Organization Globalization subsidies

Dead Ends

Another writing sample for a newspaper:

The departure of Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas appears to have been the final blow to President Bush’s “Roadmap to Peace”. Despite his best wishes and intentions to the contrary, a lack of decisive action and unrealistic expectations on his part made failure inevitable. Though the situation is not hopeless, a great deal of momentum has been lost and tremendous energy is needed to rescue this noble mission.
T
hough it is neither fair nor accurate to pin the source of violence on America or anyone other than the parties involved, it is easy to underestimate how many cards the United States is holding. Since the Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel, Israel has received enormous amounts of US military aid. This year we spent $2.79 billion. Next year we plan to spend $2.9 billion. The President has watched the situation fall back into chaos, issuing vague statements calling for proportionality in retaliation and calling overkill “not helpful.” Bush has also condemned a wall that the Ariel Sharon has ordered built that has thus far followed roughly the pre-1967 Yom Kippur War boundaries, but many fear it will eventually veer deep into the West Bank. Recognizing that it might only strengthen the Jihadist militants like Hamas, Bush has also condemned the recent decision to expel the secularist Yassir Arafat from the occupied territories. Despite all his requests, Sharon feels secure that the paycheck will come in no matter which course his government takes.

Secondly, unrealistic and dangerous expectations were embedded into the roadmap. First among them was the expectation that the Palestinian Authority could completely scourge terrorism. It was hardly realistic to expect the weakened Palestinian Authority to control the more powerful religious militants. Even had Arafat or Abbas tried, it would more than likely spark a civil war where the Jihadi’s had the upper hand in popularity and funds. By allowing outside groups beyond the control of the negotiating parties involved the ability to derail the entire process through what they do best – create mayhem – Bush handed the power of success or failure over to Hamas and Palestinian Jihad. The only way Bush could have avoided this outcome would have been to directly bring said groups to the negotiating table as well. Politically and strategically, negotiating with some of the most brutal terrorist the planet has ever seen was out of the question.

Ultimately, the option of peace belongs with the Israeli government. Israel can continue on the path of total war against militants in its occupied territories, it can choose to negotiate with the militants, or it can abandon the territories once the wall is completed. There are no easy, painless options in the Middle East peace process.

Paper Promises

A letter written to Stratfor:


"But as with North Korea, Iranian leaders know that nuclear weapons are more valuable as a bargaining chip than as a reality. Asymmetry leads to eradication of nuclear threats. Put less pretentiously, Tehran must assume that the United States -- or Israel -- will destroy any nuclear capability before it becomes a threat. Moreover, if it has nuclear capability, what would it do with it? Even as a deterrent, retaliation would lead to national annihilation. The value of nuclear weapons in this context is less real than apparent -- and therefore more valuable in negotiations than deployment."

- An Unlikely Alliance


Fundamentally, I must disagree with your assessment. Though the assessment that the US and Israel would do everything they could to stop a fully developed program, like that of Osirak in 1981, it becomes much less possible to launch such a strike once nuclear capability is reached. This is where the disagreement comes into play. The nuclear threat of even a handful of low-yield bombs provides deterrent enough to insure against “regime change” better than any conventional military force could.

No doubt, we’re looking at super-asymmetry. The loss of Tokyo, Seoul, Tel Aviv, an aircraft carrier battle group, or a Marine Expeditionary Unit is enough to deter all but the must warranted aggression. Though Pyongyang or Tehran would be flattened during such an exchange, it is a threat that must be made real. There is as much reality behind these threats and assurances of mass destruction as there was during the MAD years of the Cold War. However ridiculous the logic may seem, it is the working logic nonetheless. As such, there is little reason to believe that Tehran or Pyongyang would really bargain away their best and only means of survival for paper promises.

Tags: Treyopia Spinnaker Current Events Iraq North Korea North Korea nuclear WMD negotiations Stratfor