Chinese Geography
Filed under: All Those Other Places, United States | Tags: China, Geography, International Relations
Leave a Comment Frank Jacobs at New York Times has a great blog post about the long-dispute border area where China, North Korea, and Russia meet.
As I was reading the account of how the current border where the three countries meet came to be, I was reminded several historical features of China’s geopolitical that compare unfavorably with the United States comparatively boring position on the glob. With the constant chatter of China’s ascendancy as a great power, it may reassure the U.S. that China’s geographic position match with China’s stated medium-term military and security interests. China has repeatedly avowed that they are concerned only with power in their East Asian neighborhood, and are not interested in global power projection. Besides matching China’s current military capability, their geography shows why China probably does not covertly seek to project power outside of their Asian neighborhood.
First, the dispute between Russia and China over the border point where they meet with North Korea was only resolved in 1992. Likewise, on the opposite side of China, India and Pakistan has a long-standing border dispute. All of the border disputes along China’s periphery force China to focus their resources, both diplomatic and military, on securing their claims along their periphery.
Moreover, over the course of history, China has had a series of invasions from its neighbors across its borders. To name just one: the Mongol invasion that ended in 1278 is probably the most infamous, although the invaders were quickly sinicized, leading to the Yuan Dynasty that lasted a century.
Finally, China in the 21st century is sandwiched between two other great powers: India and Russia, to the south and north. Two other nuclear powers lie to the east and west: Japan and Pakistan. The shift of capital from the West to the East is fueled by many fast-growing industrial states. The power shift follows the capital, because of the large number of already powerful states. China, in the center of East Asia, benefits enormously from its economic ties to states across the region. That this same geographic position that bolsters its commercial interests comes with the price of increased security concerns is predictable yet also potentially troublesome. China borders four nuclear states with a fifth across the Sea of Japan.
This history contrasts sharply with the superior security geographic position the United States occupies. The United States borders two countries in contrast to the fourteen that border China. Likewise, neither has ever been a political rival or had aspirations to great power status. Neither country can change its geographic position, so these characteristics are structural, and something to keep in the back of your head when discussing U.S.-Sino power relations.
Another World Food Crisis?
Filed under: All Those Other Places, Economics and Business, Food, Media | Tags: China, Grains, World Food Crisis
Leave a Comment The United Nations’ food agency issued an alert on Tuesday warning that a severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, and resulting in shortages of drinking water for people and livestock.
China has been essentially self-sufficient in grain for decades, for national security reasons. Any move by China to import large quantities of food in response to the drought could drive international prices even higher than the record levels recently reached.
My biggest concern is that such droughts could trigger another world food crisis. Of course, you can’t evaluate how likely that scenario is, because there’s no mention of the food crisis of ’07 and ’08. People in the U.S. are more or less completely oblivious that for most of the developing the world, economic catastrophe started before the ’08 financial crisis. The ’07-’08 food crisis is one of the biggest unreported stories of our times. That’s not going to change anytime soon with our current media.
The Ant Trade’s Consequences
Filed under: Latin America, United States | Tags: Arms, Economics, Mexico, Military, United States
Leave a Comment The ant trade is the name for the trickle of guns that flow south to Mexico as drugs come north. It’s called that, because traditionally, only a handful of guns cross the border in any single arms run. Done enough times, however, and the flow of arms can be quite large. Hence the image of ants crossing the border all with several weapons. It seems that trickle has increased greatly in the past few years:
No other state has produced more guns seized by police in the brutal Mexican drug wars than Texas. In the Lone Star State, no other city has more guns linked to Mexican crime scenes than Houston. And in the Texas oil town, no single independent dealer stands out more for selling guns traced from south of the border than Bill Carter.
Carter, 76, has operated four Carter’s Country stores in the Houston metropolitan area over the past half-century. In the past two years, more than 115 guns from his stores have been seized by the police and military in Mexico.
As an unprecedented number of American guns flows to the murderous drug cartels across the border, the identities of U.S. dealers that sell guns seized at Mexican crime scenes remain confidential under a law passed by Congress in 2003.
A year-long investigation by The Washington Post has cracked that secrecy and uncovered the names of the top 12 U.S. dealers of guns traced to Mexico in the past two years.
Eight of the top 12 dealers are in Texas, three are in Arizona, and one is in California. In Texas, two of the four Houston area Carter’s Country stores are on the list, along with four gun retailers in the Rio Grande Valley at the southern tip of the state. There are 3,800 gun retailers in Texas, 300 in Houston alone.
“One of the reasons that Houston is the number one source, you can go to a different gun store for a month and never hit the same gun store,” said J. Dewey Webb, special agent in charge of the Houston field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “You can buy [a 9mm handgun] down along the border, but if you come to Houston, you can probably buy it cheaper because there’s more dealers, there’s more competition.”
Drug cartels have aggressively turned to the United States because Mexico severely restricts gun ownership. Following gunrunning paths that have been in place for 50 years, firearms cross the border and end up in the hands of criminals as well as ordinary citizens seeking protection.
“This is not a new phenomenon,” Webb said.
What is different now, authorities say, is the number of high-powered rifles heading south – AR-15s, AK-47s, armor-piercing .50-caliber weapons – and the savagery of the violence.
Federal authorities say more than 60,000 U.S. guns of all types have been recovered in Mexico in the past four years, helping fuel the violence that has contributed to 30,000 deaths. Mexican President Felipe Calderon came to Washington in May and urged Congress and President Obama to stop the flow of guns south.
U.S. law enforcement has ramped up its focus on gun trafficking along the southwestern border. Arrests of individual gunrunners have surged. But investigators rarely bring regulatory actions or criminal cases against U.S. gun dealers, in part because of laws backed by the gun lobby that make it difficult to prove cases.
First, a big problem here is there’s a politically powerful vested interest that profits from arming the drug cartels. The U.S., generally, is very good about controlling the flow of our military arms, but it seems the security state is turning a blind eye to this problem. Second, as crime has continued to decrease in the U.S. despite the recession, the increase in violence in Mexico may be the actual consequence of the lapsing of the assault weapons ban. I’ll also just note that border states have particularly lenient gun ownership laws, which no doubt helps fuel the ant trade. I wonder when this problem will create enough political pressure to change current gun policy.
Update:
Conservatives at Red State, of course, have a genuinely insane idea related to this: invade Mexico.
Bolivia-U.S. Relations
Filed under: Bolivia, Economics and Business, United States | Tags: Bolivia, Diplomacy
Leave a Comment I find it somewhat unnerving how drastic the escalation of reprisals were between the U.S. and Bolivia in late 2008. The Obama administration brought hope for a change in U.S. policy. And the Obama administration quickly restored relations with Venezuela, but Bolivian relations languished. I think the main take-away is that Bolivia is a complete geopolitical backwater, and essentially a non-existent trade partner for the U.S., so the importance of any bilateral business with Bolivia is low on the totem pole. Venezuela has oil, which increases its strategic importance to the U.S. This gives Venezuela a greater ability to make things difficult for the U.S., but also gives the U.S. greater incentive to make the relationship work at some level. Bolivia, in contrast, really does not offer the U.S. much either way. Although trade with the U.S. is crucial for Bolivia, the reverse is not true; Bolivia is just too small of a country. Hopefully, this is a sign that the U.S. has the time to give some thought to talking directly to Bolivia again.
Filed under: United States | Tags: Judicial Activism, Roberts Court, Supreme Court
Leave a Comment Shorter George Will: judicial activism which produces conservative policy results I like is merely judicial engagement. Judicial activism that produces liberal results I don’t like is judicial activism.
“There is,” Willett explains, “a profound difference between an activist judge and an engaged judge.” The former creates rights not specified or implied by the Constitution. The latter defends rights the Framers actually placed there and prevents the elected branches from usurping the judiciary’s duty to declare what the Constitution means. Let us hope the Supreme Court justices are engaged when considering the insurance mandate.
Video of the Day
Filed under: Media, United States | Tags: Democrats, Liberalism
Leave a Comment When I get depressed about the prospects of liberalism in the U.S., I always feel better after watching this video:
Now if only we could get Democratic politicians to start talking like that.
You’re Missing Something Here
A little late to the game, but I’m from NJ. Both of these fawning profiles miss a crucial point: Christie messed up some paperwork, costing NJ schools $400 million, for no reason whatsoever.
Map of the Day
Old New York City map. More here.
Judicial Radicals
Filed under: United States | Tags: Conservatives, Judicial Activism
Leave a Comment The notion that conservatives on the bench are not constitutional activists is absurd. Equally absurd is the idea that conservatives have a non-activist view of the constitution. They are, and they don’t, respectively. They want to impose their political beliefs on society (like most people do), and don’t care if the courts have to do it.
Supply and Demand of Government Resources
Filed under: Economics and Business, United States | Tags: Economics, Republicans
Leave a Comment By systematically underpricing the costs of government resources through tax cuts and deficit spending, Republicans have driven up demand and consumption for those government resources. If taxes were raised to reflect the actual cost of those government services, presumably the demand for those services would decrease. Granted, different services have different levels of price elasticity, so demand changes would not be uniform across the state sector. None the less, I think applying a simple microeconomic model to government services like any other good or service is a useful exercise. In fact, this entire idea underpins Bruce Bartlett’s good attack on Republican “starve-the-beast” ideology.
Filed under: All Those Other Places, United States | Tags: National Security, Nuclear Disarmament, Russia
Leave a Comment I’ve been meaning to write more on the new START treaty and what its significance is in of itself, and, more broadly, what Republican opposition means for U.S. international relations. This article on Libyan nuclear disarmament shows that U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation is really the only game in town, if you want to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists:
In November 2009, six years after the government of Libya first agreed to disarm its nuclear weapons program, Libyan nuclear workers wheeled the last of their country’s highly enriched uranium out in front of the Tajoura nuclear facility, just east of Tripoli. U.S. and Russian officials overseeing Libya’s disarmament began preparations to ship this final batch of weapons-grade nuclear material to Russia, where it would be treated and destroyed.
The plan was to load the uranium onto a massive Russian cargo plane, one of the few in the world specially equipped to fly nuclear materials. On November 20, the day before the plane was to leave for a nuclear facility in Russia, Libyan officials unexpectedly halted the shipment. Without explanation, they declared that the uranium would not be permitted to leave Libya. They left the seven five-ton casks out in the open and under light guard, vulnerable to theft by the al-Qaeda factions that still operate in the region or by any rogue government that learned of their presence.
For one month and one day, U.S. and Russian diplomats negotiated with Libya for the uranium to be released and flown out of the country. At the same time, engineers from both countries worked to secure the nuclear material from theft or leakage, two serious dangers that became more likely the longer the casks sat exposed. On December 21, Libya finally allowed a Russian plane to remove the casks, ending Libya’s nuclear weapons program and with it the low-grade game of nuclear blackmail they had been playing.
The month-long crisis, never revealed by the Obama administration or reported in the press, is recorded in U.S. State Department documents obtained by The Atlantic. Those documents tell the story of frantic diplomatic maneuvering as U.S. and Russian officials pushed Libyan leaders to honor their disarmament pledge. A person with access to the cables provided them to The Atlantic in order to publicize the dangers of loose nuclear materials under the control of unpredictable regimes in unstable countries.
The fact that Republicans seem to be willing to risk loose nukes due to lack of U.S. oversight and cooperation with Russia is astounding. It also shows how casual their disregard to U.S. national security interests is when their political interests differ from national ones.
Cable News in the Developing World
Filed under: All Those Other Places, Latin America, Media | Tags: Cable News, Chile, Haiti, Media
Leave a Comment I found the coverage of the Chilean mining disaster disconcerting, but could not really put a finger on why. I found it vaguely wrong to swoop in and do a media blitzkrieg on the successful resolution of the collapse, when so many greater systemic tragedies occur all the time in Latin America, and elsewhere, in the developing world. I had no good way of explaining this notion any better. Maura R. O’Connor, however, articulates this line of thinking much better and uses the ongoing disaster in Haiti as an example:
CNN’s twenty-four-hour coverage of the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake, which took an estimated 300,000 lives, doubled the network’s viewership. This coverage undoubtedly played a role in the America public’s response to the tragedy—one out of two Americans donated money to aid organizations. But little reporting has been done since then that asks how exactly that money is being spent, holds aid organizations accountable to their promises, or investigates the American government’s development and economic policies in the country. These policies, argues sociologist Alex Dupuy, have kept Haiti frozen in a destructive cycle of aid-dependence and exploitation for decades, stripping Haiti of its self-determination. “For the level of tragedy, no one’s really being very honest,” said Michael Fairbanks, a development expert, of the American and international community’s rhetoric about Haiti since the earthquake. “[Haitians] are constantly put into the position of adolescence and being infantilized so they can prey on the charity from the rest of the hemisphere.”
The longer American news outlets ignore these critical and complex issues, the easier it will become to view their occasional jaunts to Haiti with cynicism: it’s an convenient place to get B-roll of tragedy and disaster. Their coverage increases viewership, but without a moral component of responsibility towards Haitians themselves over the long-term, such coverage is basically exploitative. And over time, superficial reporting on Haiti’s problems—which plays a role in soliciting charitable donations from Americans-will arguably make the media culpable in the very system of aid-dependence and misguided development policies that help keep Haiti poor.
Paris v. New York
Filed under: All Those Other Places, The Culture | Tags: New York, Paris
Leave a Comment A french blog devoted to visual comparisons:
