Posts Tagged ‘geopolitics’
January 24, 2012
Geopolitically, Pakistan is hemmed in between Iran to its west and India to its east. In India, it has what it believes to be a mortal enemy with which it has been at various levels of war since independence; in Iran, it has a rival for leadership in the Islamic world. Pakistani leaders would like their nation to be the center of a pan-Islamic quasi-Caliphate to balance the growing power of India. To that end, it’s Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence has built what some call “an empire of terror” throughout the nations of Central Asia. ISI has a in every pie, with the dual goals of thwarting other Islamic nations for leadership (Iran and, increasingly, Turkey) plus building a deterrent for India. Window on the Heartland has recently posted an overview of Pakistan’s use of terror as a geostrategic lever:
Pakistan has always desired to expand its influence in Afghanistan and beyond. Central Asia is seen as an area of natural expansion for the country. Islamabad’s objectives in the region are determined by its geopolitical imperative: to turn itself into the leader of an Islamic bloc stretching from the Black Sea to China able to counter India’s influence and become an autonomous actor on the international scene. In this context, the destabilizing efforts carried out by the ISI through support to terrorist groups in Central Asia since the early 90s have been aimed at creating the right conditions so that the Pakistani leadership could gradually take over from of other major powers such as Russia, China and the United States.
Read the whole thing.
The ISI has built what is in essence a model for a low-tech, asymmetric analog to the integrated defense network centered on complex weapons systems that the US is building.
Posted in Central Asia, geopolitics, Grand Strategy, Pakistan | Tagged geopolitics, geostrategy, India, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey | Leave a Comment »
November 17, 2011
It is my belief that, while it continues to be a major economic force and will challenge US supremacy in the coming decades, China’s long term potential is at or near its peak. Like a supertanker that takes a long time to turn, this peak may not be evident for awhile, and policy makers will continue to make moves as if China is still, inevitably, rising. Still, the signs that China has peaked are around. Yesterday, there was a report that a major Chinese economist had made a secret speech claiming that many of China’s financial numbers are fabricated and that, in fact, the nation is close to bankruptcy. Today, it is Amitai Etzioni at National Interest, with an essay on the Overblown Fears About China’s Rise.
Of course, this does not mean that China is suddenly rendered impotent. Indeed, as they recognize their peak, they may become more dangerous, knowing that their moment is slipping away. For that reason, the US will still attend to its coalitioning moves, strengthening ties with allies surrounding China. Earlier this week, we noted the moves to share the advanced F-35 aircraft withIndia and Japan. Yesterday, it was announced that the US would establish a naval presence in Northern Australia. These moves are not just aimed at China, but also at the various nations of the Southern Asian periphery that have concerns about China. A US presence in the region serves to bring many of them into our orbit, as analysts in India have already noted:
The US move to create a naval base in northern Australia close to the South China Sea can actually mean more dollars in the Indian kitty, and put more strategic and business opportunities in New Delhi’s way, sources said. The first piece of evidence has come by way of Australia’s decision to sell uranium to India.
The US move will provide a sense of protection to East Asian countries including Japan, who have serious conflicts with China but buy vast amounts of Chinese goods. The new found protection will encourage East Asia to reduce its dependence on China for goods and enhance economic ties with India, sources said.
“Japan, Vietnam and Indonesia will feel more secure. India and Indonesia can get together to control the Malacca Straits, which is the route though which 90% of Chinese goods to East Asia passes,” Subramanian Swamy, Janata Party president and a widely regarded China expert, told TNN.
I have not agreed with everything they have done (especially the failure to maximize the strategic domestic energy resources), but this is a very strong move by the Obama Administration.
Posted in Coalitioning, geopolitics, Grand Strategy, Peak China | Tagged Australia, China, F35, geopolitics, India, Peak China | Leave a Comment »
October 27, 2011
Last year, the USGS assessed the potential energy bounty of billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas in the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, primarily around Israel. Since its inception, Israel has had the misfortune of being one of the very few Middle Eastern nations without massive energy reserves. This discovery would change the character of Israel both economically and strategically. Not only would there be enough oil and gas to power the nation, but the potential to export resources to energy hungry Europe would not only bring in foreign revenues, but also fundamentally change a number of dependency relationships.
However, Israeli-Turkish relations have been on the decline (since before this discovery, but more rapidly since then). Now, Turkey has taken things a step further, announcing that Turkey would block any Israeli access to European markets via the pipeline network that transits Turkey:
Turkey will not permit the transit of natural gas produced in Israel, linking the rejection to the present state of relations between the two nations. Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Turkey has turned down requests private firms to allow the transit of natural gas produced in Israel through Turkey to Europe.
Turkish-Israeli relations have been tense since the attack on a Gaza-bound flotilla on May 30, 2010 that killed nine Turkish nationals. In very blunt terms, Yildiz stated: “Had not nine of our nationals been murdered, there could be major developments in the energy distribution in the Mediterranean Sea. [Then] we would not have rejected the demand by private firms,” he said on Friday.
The Minister’s comments also reflect adverserial positions on the contested drilling by Cyprus in the Levant Basin of Mediterranean Sea.
The flotilla deaths are a cover, IMO, for a hard nosed geopolitical calculation. Turkey seeks to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean militarily and economically. It needs to weaken Israel in both realms, and as an aside, probably has its own designs on the energy resources.
Posted in geopolitics, Israel, natural gas, oil, Turkey | Tagged geopolitics, Israel, natural gas, Turkey | Leave a Comment »
October 21, 2011
Plamen Plantev argues that various exogenous factors – from the global financial crisis to the “Arab Spring” to the breakdown of Turkish/Israeli relations have led to a stagnation of geopolitical activity in the Black Sea region. The region is still of great geopolitical import, Plantev, notes, but is currently of little strategic interest from outside players whose attention is focused elsewhere.
I am not so sure. The Atlantic Council recently made news with its proposal for sending US troops to Georgia, while the US is building its missile defense system with a base in Romania and a radar array in Turkey. Indeed, as the Coalitioning phase of the current cycle continues, I believe that alliances with the nations of Ukraine, Turkey and the various Trans Caucusus states are considered prizes of importance by the great powers jockeying for position.
Posted in Coalitioning, geopolitics | Tagged Black Sea, coalitioning, geopolitics | Leave a Comment »
October 19, 2011
At its core, geopolitics is the analysis of spatial competition between nation states. Geoeconomics is a subset of geopolitics or, alternately, a softer version of geopolitics – the same spatial competition stripped of the hard (or, at least, harder) power aspects.
Within both realms, however, are not just competition but cooperation. Paolo Sorbello at e-International Relations provides an account of Russo/Kazakh cooperation on development of the Kurmangazy oil field in the Caspian Sea:
This quick account of Russo-Kazakh relations over the Kurmangazy oilfield is a good case in point in order to understand more complex dynamics that have characterized the relations between Moscow and Astana in the last ten years. Vacillations, misunderstandings, compromises, and accords followed each other during leading governmental meetings. Energy has played a peculiar role as the starter of the diplomatic dialogue and remained a cardinal foundation among the parties and in their relations with the exterior, as well as the other Caspian states, the EU, China, and the USA.
It might turn out that Kurmangazy will not yield as much oil as foreseen. In spite of this scenario, it is very probable that Russia and Kazakhstan will remain close, will continue to talk on energy matters, and will collaborate on current and new exploration projects. Thus, soft power aspect of the energy becomes highly relevant in both countries’ foreign policy decision-making. Thinking traditionally, in such countries, the hegemony of the executive on the other powers would lead one to predict the opposite. Therefore, it becomes necessary to start including the energy variable in geopolitical analyses in a more systematic and consistent way.
Posted in Caspian Basin, energy geopolitics, geoeconomics, geopolitics, Kazakhstan, new discovery, Russia | Tagged Caspian, geoeconomics, geopolitics, Kazakhstan, russia | Leave a Comment »
October 6, 2011
“Five years ago the story was European companies establishing bases in China. Now the story is that China is strategically acquiring European companies – giving it ownership of vital infrastructure, access to cutting-edge technologies and allowing it to play some European countries off against others.”
François Godement and Jonas Parello-Plesner.
European strategists and policy makers are very concerned by the rapidly increasing Chinese economic influence on the continent. A recent analysis from the European Council on Foreign Relations highlighted those concerns:
(The) expansion of China’s presence in Europe comes just as the EU was beginning to develop a tougher, more coordinated strategy towards China. But the effects of the economic crisis are already undermining Europe’s embryonic unity and making it much harder to implement this new approach. In particular, if China becomes a major financial, investment and public provider for Europe, it will leave the Europeans little leverage to improve their own access to these very same sectors in China, which are mostly closed or controlled. In short, as Europeans compete with each other for Chinese business, they diminish their leverage and thus reduce their chances of collectively striking a better deal with China.
As the Eurozone crisis worsens, the opportunities for further Chinese inroads only increase.
Posted in China, Europe, geoeconomics, geopolitics | Tagged China, Europe, geoeconomics, geopolitics | Leave a Comment »
September 29, 2011
India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC) announced yesterday that it has signed a deal with Vietnam to develop off shore sites in the South China Sea. The announcement was met with an immediate response from the Chinese Foreign Ministry:
As for oil and gas exploration activities, our consistent position is that we are opposed to any country engaged in oil and gas exploration and development activities in waters under China’s jurisdiction. We hope foreign countries do not get involved in the South China Sea dispute.
China makes vast claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, based on what they term as “ancient” rights. As the map below demonstrates, the Chinese claims overlap those of every other nation bordering the oil-rich sea (Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei, and Malaysia). Vietnam makes the next largest claim in the region, claiming an area extending out 200 miles from their coastline based on the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Seas.
This is not the first run-in between China and India over the South China Sea – last summer, a Chinese naval vessel confronted an Indian navy ship in Vietnamese waters, and just two weeks ago, China issued a formal warning to all nations that it considered the SCS its “indisputable” property. China also had brief naval run-ins with both Vietnam and Philippines this summer.
China also sees an American hand behind India’s push into the SCS. “As a South Asian country, India actively takes part in East Asian issues through the support of the US, which has been advocating for Asian countries to counter China. The US takes every opportunity to counter China, and its joint military maneuvers with Japan and other regional countries have been more frequent in recent years,” Chinese think-tanker Wu Xinbo told the Global Times.
Personally, I don’t believe the US is “pushing” India at all. India’s natural growth and needs – and wariness of China – provide all the necessary impetus. Although, as I have written before, the United States should seek to encourage and foster India’s growth as a world power, as we have much in common as the world’s two largest democracies and as flowers from the same tree of British liberal tradition. While it is in no one’s interest to see a war break out in the vital sea lanes of the SCS, and the US should thus seek to soothe both sides rather than inflame them, it is certainly in the long term interest of the US to ally with a growing Indian maritime presence.
Posted in geopolitics, China, oil, South China Sea, India, Grand Strategy | Tagged geopolitics, oil, China, India, South China Sea, naval power | Leave a Comment »
September 27, 2011
Rajeev Srinivasan presents in this article a very harsh and stinging analysis of the US adventure in Afghanistan from an Indian point of view. The author claims that the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, has mastered “the fine art of running with the hares while hunting with the hounds” and has twisted the US to its own strategic goals (while bamboozling successive US administrations into paying for its own defeat). Srinivasan writes:
In effect, the only ones who have benefited from the collapse of American clout are the Arabs, the Pakistanis and the Chinese. The Arabs, especially the oil-exporting dictatorships (with the sole exception of Libya) have managed to maintain their status quo ante, and they have parlayed the billions from an oil-addicted world into radicalised millions everywhere through insistent propaganda.
The Pakistanis have achieved their coveted ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan which is, in effect, their colony. True, there has been some cost to them in civilian casualties and the Frankenstein monster of internal terrorism, but that is collateral damage the Army is willing to accept in the pursuit of their strategic goals.
The unkindest cut is perhaps that China has won against the Americans. Again. This is the third military conflict where China has had the better of the Americans. In Korea, they fought to a standstill. In Vietnam, a then-Chinese ally defeated the Americans. In Afghanistan, Chinese ally Pakistan is doing this. This must be China’s dream come true: they are beating the Americans militarily and economically.
Srinivasan, again, is writing from the Indian point of view and ponders the question of what India should do going forward. If I might interject my American point of view, I believe that India and the US have deeply shared interests not only in Central, South and Southwest Asia, but globally as well. I believe that India, because of its democratic heritage, relatively open society, and latent power (both hard and soft) is destined to succeed the US as global hegemon, if not at the end of the current cycle, then certainly by the end of this century when the sixth cycle closes. Just as the British handed off hegemony to the US during the last century, the United States should build deep ties with India, begin a strategy of “graceful decline,” and prepare to hand off global leadership to India. The US can play a supporting role to Indian hegemony not unlike the one that Great Britain played for the US. It is the current world system of open markets and democratic nations that best provides security and prosperity, and this is the best means of maintaining that system.
Posted in Afghanistan, geopolitics, Grand Strategy, India, Long Cycle Theory | Tagged Afghanistan, geopolitics, grand strategy, India, Long Cycle Theory | 2 Comments »
September 26, 2011
CNA’s China Studies division has issued a new report examining various aspects of China’s drive to build a more robust naval presence in the Western Pacific. From the abstract:
China is an emerging maritime actor with expanding interests in security at sea. As a consequence, the capabilities of Chinese maritime security forces are improving, missions for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) are expanding, new actors and bureaucratic interests are emerging, and some observers feel that China is now more willing to challenge the interests of others in the maritime domain. CNA has undertaken this study to provide strategic-level context in order to foster discussion and debate about China’s maritime rise and its implications.
The United States has not faced a near-peer competitor, neither globally nor in local strategic regions, since the fall of the Soviet Union (and, arguably, not since the defeat of Imperial Japan over six decades ago). The rise of China represents a new challenge for both nations – for China, the challenge of building and mastering a naval warfare presence; for the US, the challenge of competing in a vital strategic region without clear and unquestioned naval dominance. This includes the need for a geo-strategic pivot of the US order of battle in the Western Pacific region.
Posted in China, geopolitics, Grand Strategy, navy | Tagged China, geopolitics, naval power | 1 Comment »
September 14, 2011
James Rogers, Ph.D. candidate at Cambridge, presents a diagram of the strategic and security considerations that inform the developing pan-European grand strategic concept:
I would note two things. First, although Rogers has a sphere representing Atlanticism (the Atlantic Alliance in the lower right quadrant), he does not acknowledge the countervailing (if still nascent) force of Russian Eurasianism under Putin. Along those lines, to me, the obviously missing piece here is great power conflict. All possible peer or near-peer competitors with Europe are grouped as either Strategic Partners (BRIC) or true allies (US). Russia has already signaled a willingness to play upon Europe’s energy dependency (which Rogers does note in the upper left quadrant) and to use it’s “energy weapon;” while China is locking up exclusive energy rights across the globe. Energy is the lifeblood of both industry and modern agriculture, and the need to maintain access to it is more than a “post modern weakness,” it is a likely source of significant future conflict.
Posted in energy geopolitics, Eurasianism, Europe, geopolitics, Grand Strategy | Tagged energy geopolitics, Europe, geopolitics, grand strategy | Leave a Comment »
September 2, 2011
Yesterday, we wrote about Chinese and Russian advances in their ballistic missile defense systems. Today comes word that Turkey will host a NATO missile defense radar, ostensibly aimed at defending against potential attacks from Iran, but also capable of detecting launches from Russia. Turkey is a crucial nation to watch as the coalitioning phase of the current long cycle unwinds. Although the Turks have been long time allies of the United States and Western Europe through their NATO membership, they have also been flirting with Russia and China and continue to seek to make their own way.
UPDATE: Predictably, the Russians are complaining.
Posted in Coalitioning, geopolitics, missile defense, Turkey | Tagged coalitioning, geopolitics, missile defense, Turkey | 3 Comments »
September 1, 2011
China is developing both advanced technologies and asymmetric doctrines to challenge US dominance in the upper atmosphere and orbital geopolitical spheres. The Diplomat reports on recent Chinese advances in developing a ballistic missile defense shield, which was noted as a cause for attention in the recent US Department of Defense report on China. Russia is also building its own missile defense shield, and is offering it European nations as an alternative to a US system, while at the same time pressuring those nations to reject that system and even to ban US Navy ships that carry such systems from their waters.
Concurrent with the Pentagon China report, Taiwan also issued its own annual report on the capabilities of the Chinese military last month. Naval War College scholar and China expert Andrew Erickson has an early, rough translation of this report, and this section that he highlights is alarming:
Under the guidance to “balance nuclear and conventional,” the PLA has continued the development of independently targetable intercontinental range ballistic missiles, strengthened strategic nuclear intimidation, nuclear counter strike and conventional precision strike capabilities, and deployed anti-ship middle range ballistic missiles (DF-21D guided missile), which is a weapon developed to strike aircraft carriers; a small quantity of the missiles were produced and deployed in 2010, increasing the difficulty of military maneuvers in the region for the U.S. Army.
Erickson also has an important post on relative US and Chinese space power. While the US retains a very large lead in space based assets, China is both catching up rapidly and also developing relatively inexpensive asymmetric capabilities that can destroy or disrupt the very expensive US systems. Erickson is generally speaking essential reading on China (his site is permanently linked under the Foreign Policy and Strategy links section on the right side of this page), and this post in particular is informative. Go read the whole thing.
Posted in China, geopolitics, missile defense, Russia | Tagged China, geopolitics, missile defense, russia, space | 1 Comment »
August 31, 2011
Yoshihiko Noda was elected president of Japan’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), thus becoming the third DPJ leader to become Japan’s Prime Minister since taking power in 2009. While the DPJ came to power questioning the long time alliance with the United States and seeking to warm relations with China, both of those positions have subsequently softened and both previous DPJ PMs moved closer to the US. Read this excellent summary of recent Japanese politics and foreign policies from this month’s Foreign Affairs for background.
Noda seems to be the most pro-American of the three DPJ leaders. Although reconstruction from the Great Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami, as well as dealing with the crippled Fukushima reactors, will dominated Noda’s agenda, he will not be able to long escape attending to Japan’s role in the growing competition between China and Japan for Asia/Pacific hegemony. China is already beginning to apply pressure. As Elizabeth Economy at the Council on Foreign Relations’ Asia Unbound blog writes:
While Premier Wen Jiabao and the Chinese Foreign Ministry have offered up short congratulatory statements to the new prime minister, most Chinese commentary has ranged from bleak to belligerent. Chinese analysts point out that the prime minister has not renounced his comments to the effect that Class-A Japanese wartime leaders should no longer be considered criminals nor has he committed not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine. He also has made reference to China’s rising nationalism and naval activities as posing a risk to regional stability. To top it all off, the new prime minister has been a strong supporter of the U.S.-Japan defense alliance.
Economy also notes several “suggestions” that the Chinese have for Prime Minister Noda that read like a list of demands from a master to a vassal. Japan is an indispensible linchpin of the US alliance system. EGP hopes that the US offers Noda a genuine attitude of partnership to counterpoint China’s immediate attitude of high handedness.
Posted in China, Coalitioning, geopolitics, Japan | Tagged China, coalitioning, geopolitics, Japan | Leave a Comment »
August 23, 2011
James Holmes, writing at The Diplomat blogs, describes China’s nearly completed 5000 kilometer network of nuclear missile silos buried deep within the nation’s rugged mountain region. Holmes notes that such a network may mark a significant change in strategic thinking for China, which has always held to a “minimalist” stance in nuclear deterrence. This hardened network is potentially far more robust, although China still lacks the two other legs of the traditional strategic deterrent triad – ballistic missile submarines (which they are struggling to make operational) and an intercontinental bomber force. Still, this might be yet another sign that China intends to achieve full strategic parity with the US in the near future.
Posted in China, geopolitics | Tagged China, geopolitics, nuclear deterrent | 1 Comment »
August 18, 2011
Peter Kirsanow has three questions for President Obama (and, really, for all of the GOP candidates, as well.
During your bus tour of the Midwest, you blamed the poor economy on, among other things, Arab Spring uprisings and oil prices.
We import approximately 65 percent of our oil. It’s estimated that the U.S. has up to 2 trillion barrels of oil-equivalent in shale rock deposits — nearly five times the stated oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Yet your administration has stymied or canceled the development of oil shale leases.
China imports approximately 50 percent of its oil. It’s estimated that Canada has up to 2.2 trillion barrels of oil-equivalent in oil sand deposits. China has invested billions in Canada to access that oil.
Why is China more aggressive in developing North American oil resources than your administration?
What, if any, national-security implications has your administration identified related to China’s investment in Canadian oil sands?
How many windmills need to be built to equal the energy produced by 2 trillion barrels of oil?
Posted in energy geopolitics, energy policy, oil, oil sands, shale oil | Tagged energy, geopolitics, obama, oil | Leave a Comment »
August 18, 2011
Anticipating a potential asteroid collision in 2036, Chinese researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing have come up with a plan to build a solar sail that would launch years in advance, intercept the asteroid up to a year before the imminent collision, and push it enough off course so that it would miss the Earth.
Yes, this is all more than a little fantastic, but things like this help China to build it’s soft power bona fides. Actually, given the enormous expense of such an endeavor, this would be a combination of hard and soft power, using Walter Russel Mead’s definitions of “sticky” power (economic muscle) as an aspect of hard power and “sweet” power (attractive ideals) as an aspect of soft power.
Posted in geopolitics | Tagged asteroid strike, China, geopolitics, power | Leave a Comment »
August 16, 2011
The Chinese Defense Ministry has confirmed the existence of so-called “blue units,” autonomous formations that conduct cyberwarfare on opponents. Many of these units operate from long distance bomber aircraft, sniffing out and attacking enemy computing and communications.
From the South China Morning Post:
Strategically, the blue units apply in cyberspace Mao Zedong’s doctrine of guerilla warfare – the concept of avoiding direct confrontation with big and powerful enemies such as the United States. Mao abandoned big cities when taking on the invading Japanese and anti-communist Nationalists. He established strongholds in less-developed rural areas and constantly hit the enemy’s regular armies with small bands of guerillas. He also mobilised large peasant militias to fight powerful but less numerous enemies. It was a strategy that eventually proved successful.
Decades later, that approach to warfare is guiding the PLA’s operations in cyberspace, according to a 2006 paper by Dr Wan Dongsheng , a cyberwar specialist with the PLA’s Electronic Engineering Institute. Wan says that any confrontation between China and the US in cyberspace today would have many similarities with those earlier wars. Again it would be a case of seemingly less-developed technology squaring off against a more advanced one, involving many people against a few. China might lose considerable ground in the early phase of war, but the guerilla strategy would consume the enemy and grind it down at enormous cost.
China’s guerilla attacks would avoid defence strongholds such as military command centres. Instead, it would target civilian sectors such as the power grid, financial system, international trade, transport and even hospitals to cause the greatest damage, given that more than 95 per cent of the US military’s network is connected to the internet.
Wan says a prolonged guerilla war in cyberspace would require the mobilisation of the people, and the military and government should plan for a total cyberwar, giving the country’s hundreds of millions of internet users professional guidance, training and organisation.
As always, read the whole thing.
Posted in China, cyberwarfare, geopolitics | Tagged China, cyberwarfare, geopolitics | Leave a Comment »
August 12, 2011
From “Schumpeter’s” column in The Economist:
Businesspeople still enjoy huge advantages from being in America. Business is part of its DNA in much the same way that la dolce vita is part of Italy’s. America has a disproportionate number of the world’s most innovative businesses, from greybeards such as 3M to toddlers such as Salesforce.com. And Americans are to management what Brazilians are to soccer. After studying 10,000 firms in 20 countries, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and three other academics concluded that American firms are the world’s best managed, with German, Japanese and Swedish firms a short way behind and Chinese and Indian ones trailing badly.
Yet America’s politicians are intent on squandering this painfully accumulated capital. As it revoked America’s triple-A credit rating on August 5th, Standard & Poor’s explained that the gulf between the political parties was becoming unbridgeable, and that policymaking was becoming unpredictable. Other sober institutions concur. The World Economic Forum has downgraded America from second place in 2009 to fourth place in 2010 in its annual global competitiveness rankings. By the forum’s reckoning, America comes a lowly 40th for the quality of its institutions, 54th for trust in its politicians, 68th for government waste and a dismal 87th for its macroeconomic environment. The World Bank sees a relentless decline in various indicators of American governance. Daniel Kaufmann of the Brookings Institution notes that last year 33% of American business leaders told pollsters that a big constraint was the “instability of the policy framework”. The figure for France was 14%; for Chile, 5%.
As per usual, read the whole thing. My only issue is that this is too Big Business-centric. To be sure, Big Business occupies an important role in the United States, but both parties have forgotten the crucial role that small business plays in American society. Small business is the largest jobs generator and an indispensable source of innovation. This is why I have such sympathy for the Tea Party, as I see that movement primarily as a genuine Main Street populism powered by sole proprietors, small business owners and entrepreneurs both actual and wannabe. Their interests have to have a seat at the table co-equal with – if not ahead of – both Big Business and Labor.
Posted in geopolitics, politics | Tagged business, geopolitics, strategy | Leave a Comment »
August 11, 2011
Op Ed from the Asia Times that adds detail from our post yesterday. We focused on the dangers to India’s eastern coast from the ongoing creep of Chinese naval power; Michael Kugelman’s op ed for the Times echoes that point, but expands on the strategic importance of India’s western approaches:
It is energy security, however, that most starkly illuminates the navy’s significance. With indigenous energy supplies unable to satisfy prodigious demand (the country is projected to become the world’s third-largest energy consumer by 2030), India has developed a severe addiction to overseas hydrocarbons. Today, two-thirds of India’s oil consumption originates abroad.
Most of these energy resources, along with the transit routes used to bring them home, are sea-based and situated in volatile regions. From offshore assets in the turbulent Persian Gulf to piracy-riven sea lanes off the coast of Somalia, India faces constant threats of energy supply shocks. Additionally, even as India strengthens its own offshore energy infrastructure (several thousand kilometers of pipeline have been laid to facilitate oil and gas flow from offshore platforms to onshore terminals), they remain vulnerable to attack by militants.
India has a large and impressive navy. The convergence of interests in the Indian Ocean should compel the US to form a more active naval alliance with the world’s largest democracy. India should be a linchpin in an alliance of the other great powers of Mackinder’s Outer Crescent – the US, Great Britain, Japan, Australia and India.
Posted in China, geopolitics, India, navy | Tagged geopolitics, India, Navy, strategy | 1 Comment »
