Chalmers Johnson and the American Empire February 18, 2008
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The Rise of China and the Future of the West February 12, 2008
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The Rise of China and the Future of the West
Can the Liberal System Survive?
By G. John Ikenberry
From Foreign Affairs , January/February 2008
Summary: China’s rise will inevitably bring the United States’ unipolar moment to an end. But that does not necessarily mean a violent power struggle or the overthrow of the Western system. The U.S.-led international order can remain dominant even while integrating a more powerful China — but only if Washington sets about strengthening that liberal order now.
You’ll be able to read the article here
Echar un pulso con la muñeca rota December 6, 2007
Posted by xarxasia in US foregin Policy, iran.1 comment so far
Demoledor artículo en TIME en relación a las revelaciones de la inteligencia americana sobre el dosier iraní
The President looked awful. He stood puffy-eyed, stoop-shouldered, in front of the press corps discussing the stunning new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003. He looked as if he’d spent the night throwing chairs around the Situation Room. A reporter noted that he seemed dispirited, and the President joked, “This is like — all of a sudden, it’s like Psychology 101, you know?” He added, “No, I’m feeling pretty spirited, pretty good about life, and I made the decision to come before you so I can explain the NIE.” And then, defiantly, “And so, kind of Psychology 101 ain’t working. It’s just not working. I understand the issues, I clearly see the problems, and I’m going to use the NIE to continue to rally the international community for the sake of peace.” And then he walked out.
In truth, Bush seemed as befuddled as everyone else about how and why the nation’s intelligence community — the 16 federal agencies charged with spying — had issued an NIE that so profoundly undermined his provocative rhetoric toward Iran. As recently as Oct. 17, the President had said Iran’s bomb-building program could be a precursor to “World War III.” It was a statement that was both outrageous in its extravagance and very strange. Bush acknowledged that he had first heard in August that a new intelligence analysis of Iran’s nuclear-bomb program was imminent, but — and here comes the strange part — he hadn’t bothered to ask the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, what it might contain. “If that’s true,” Senator Joe Biden opined soon after, “then this is … one of the most incompetent Presidents in modern American history.”
The moment certainly seemed historic. This was, quite possibly, the most assertive, surprising and rebellious act in the history of the U.S. intelligence community. The Administration seemed to have lost control of its secrets. Gone were the days when spymasters would come to the White House for morning coffee and whisper the latest intelligence to the President, and the rest of the world would find out decades later, only after numerous Freedom of Information requests had prized the buried treasure from the CIA vault. Now the latest intelligence evaluations were being announced worldwide, nearly in real time. “It’s just mind-boggling,” a former CIA officer told me. “The impact of the Iraq WMD fiasco is coming home to roost. The intelligence community was badly burned by that. And the various players never want it asked of them again, ‘Why didn’t you stand up to the Administration and tell it the truth?”’
el artículo Sigue
China creciendo más en números absolutos que EEUU October 1, 2007
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Que China crece a un índice superior que EEUU no es cosa nueva, lleva haciendolo más de 30 años. Sin embargo, por primera vez, este porcentaje supera en números absolutos al de los EEUU como destaca el The Economist de esta semana:
As China has grown, it has come to matter much more to the rest of the world. For the first time it is now contributing more to global GDP growth (measured at market exchange rates) than the United States is.
Más allá de las consecuencias económicas del persistente crecimiento chino, que van desde el aumento de las materias primas (gas, petroleo, acero, etc.) y productos alimentarios (ver analisis de Sachs) a la aparición de enormes desequilibrios financieros; esto también debería ser relevante geopolíticamente.
Por primera vez, podemos decir que en términos absolutos (ya no solo relativos) el diferencial de poder entre EEUU y China ha empezado a disminuir. Es cierto que el PIB chino lleva muchos años creciendo a un ritmo superior al de EEUU o Europa, sin embargo, el relativamente pequeño PIB del país provocaba que pese a crecer China un 10% y EEUU solo un 4%, en términos absolutos el 4% de EEUU era mayor que el 10% de China por lo que la disparidad de poder continuaba aumentando.
Ahora esto ha cambiado, de continuar así cada año que pasa China irá recortando diferencias con EEUU. Esto debería preocupar a todos aquellos analistas de relaciones internacionales que consideran que el balance de poder es importante y muy especialmente a los neo-realistas.
Para una OCS norteamericana en Asia September 21, 2007
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Unos meses atras comentavamos en un post las maniobras de China e India en el Índico. Hoy debemos añadir la presencia, por primera vez, de tropas de la OTAN en las Seychelles (no esta mal como escala) y después en Somalia en el marco de un vuelta al continente africano (un Tour d’Afrique de la NATO) para saber un poco más ver Nato News.
Pero hay más, el candidato a presidente Rudy Giuliani ha declarado públicamente que Australia, Japón, Singapur, Israel y la India deberían formar parte de la OTAN. Japón, Australia, Nueva Zelanda y Corea del Sur en su momento también han demostrado cierto interés para incrementar la colaboración con esta institución.
En un artículo del año pasado en Foreign Affairs, Global NATO, Ivo Daalder y James Goldgeier decian lo siguiente:
Other democratic countries share NATO’s values and many common interests — including Australia, Brazil, Japan, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and South Korea — and all of them can greatly contribute to NATO’s efforts by providing additional military forces or logistical support to respond to global threats and needs. (…)The Nalapat version of Asian NATO is reportedly a security community only composed of the so-called democratic nations. But the security mechanism being constructed by the US for Asia is supposed to open its door to all geopolitically important countries in the US-labelled “unstable arc,” and democracy is not the only criterion for membership. Take Pakistan and Kuwait. Washington has recently declared the two countries as its non-NATO allies.
Y el gobierno chino lo ha visto a su manera como muestra este parrafo del People’s Daily:
Currently, there are two Asian versions of NATO, with one being implemented by the United States and the other advocated by Madhav Nalapat, an adviser to India’s National Security Council and director of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal Academy.
Deberíamos repasar quizás el magnífico articulo de Hemmer y Katzenstein “Why there is no NATO in Asia”:
A collective regional identity cast in a multilateral institutional form, however, has
been slower to emerge in Asia than in Europe. Looking to explain this difference,
many analysts have pointed to some of the obstacles to multilateralism that were
also seen as key during the early Cold War, including cultural diversity, disparate
economies, asymmetries in power, and historical animosities.123 To these factors we
would also add the continuing lack of Asian-Paci c collective identity and the lack
of institutional experiences that could have helped provide a sense of community.
¿Siguen siendo validos estos argumentos? Hay problemas, como que Turquia forma parte de la OTAN sin compartir muchos de los valores europeos, etc… pero lo que me interesa esta en relación con un artículo de Xulio Ríos titulado ¿Política de Bloques en Asia? en Observatorio de Política China en el que apunta lo siguiente:
En los contactos mantenidos en Australia, China ha reclamado un “nuevo concepto de seguridad” para la región de Asia-Pacífico, en base a los principios ya conocidos de confianza mutua, igualdad, diálogo y cooperación. El énfasis chino se producía a los pocos días de iniciarse en el golfo de Bengala unos ejercicios navales de gran envergadura en los que participaban fuerzas de EEUU, India, Japón, Australia y Singapur, en lo que parece una réplica de las maniobras llevadas a cabo recientemente por la Organización de Cooperación de Shanghai (OCS). La participación de portaaviones, destructores, fragatas y submarinos ha convertido estas en las maniobras de mayor calado realizadas en la región y algunas fuentes le atribuyen ya el germen de una nueva entente a contraponer a la OCS.
Para mi la clave es que la OTAN es una organización en crisis de eficiencia y de legitimidad atrapada en Afganistán. El rival de la OTAN era el Pacto de Varsovia (la OTAN soviética), ambos para proyectar los intereses de seguridad de las grandes potencia en Europa. El Pacto de Varsovia no tenía miembros asiático, tampoco los tiene la OTAN.
Si vamos hacia una política de bloques creo que este no va a ser global, como fue la Guerra Fría, sino regional. China no podrá convertirse en una superpotencia, entre otras cosas por la presencia de Japón, India, etc… así, desde mi punto de vista, el choque entre bloques será intenso a nivel regional (Europa ya veremos como raecciona a esto) pero debil a nivel global. Por esto no tiene sentido una alianza global con la superpotencia en declive, sino una alianza asiática entre los que tienen intereses de seguridad allí (que no es el caso de la mayoría de paises de la OTAN).
Y en este marco encontramos una organización relativamente nueva, fruto ya del sistema internacional de post-guerra fría que es la OCS. Liderada por China (mas Rusia) con países asiáticos y para la seguridad asiática. Ya se que la OCS no és una alianza militar, y por esto no debemos contemplarla como la OTAN de China, es mas, la OCS se adapta mejor a la situación actual de la región. India (con un low profile), Pakistan, Iran son observadores, pero se ha negado la participación a EEUU y a otros. Asi, me parece que, más que aumentar el espacio operativo de la OTAN hacia Asia (los Europeos no creo que queramos esto) y mejor que crear una OTAN asiática, sería más interesante crear una OCS americana o india para Asia.
GPS, Galileo, Beidou 2 y Glonass July 17, 2007
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Estos son los nombres de 4 proyectos que tendrán exactamente la misma función pero que estarán bajo diferente control: EEUU, UE, China y Rusia.
Todos ellos tienen claras aplicaciones civiles, muy útiles, y que bien conocemos en el caso del GPS, que es el único que ya funciona, y es un claro ejemplo de negocio económico de beneficios de escala y un monopolio natural. Esto es, porque realizar 4 redes de satélites mundiales que hagan lo mismo? La única respuesta possible es las implicaciones de seguridad. Si EEUU estubiera de acuerdo en ceder el mando y control del GPS a estas naciones, seguro que no tendrían porque desarollarlo, pero EEUU perdería el monopolio que tiene ahora.
Hasta el momento China se había sumado al proyecto europeo, pero ahora parece que va a desarrollar el suyo propio, igual que Rusia.
Esto me parece una excelente muestra de la creciente multipolaridad mundial.
Más información en este interesante artículo de Japan Focus.
Obama vs Romney on US foreign policy in Asia June 13, 2007
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The Foreign Affairs just published the foreign policy strategies of two candidates for the US presidency: Obama (democrat) and Romney (Republican). Their strategies are quite different, but both think that military spending should be increased and both have the War on Terror (and Iraq) as the main point, but Obama’s strategy also focus in many other issues and is much more precise.
So, what about Asia? Romney only mention Asia and China once (while he mention Aznar twice!, see green part of this post), in a very vague sentence without any real meaning. Obama is for a constructive engagement with the emerging China, that is going to be an important partner for dealing with common goals, and for a multilateral engagement in to the region. Here you can read some excerpts of both articles (red Obaman, blue Romney):
Obama’s reference to Asia is much more concrete:
And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing power — to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our ability to compete.
Multilateralism as the only way…
America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example.
But need more ground forces
We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.
We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines.
Cooperation with Russia
This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest — above all, in making sure that nuclear weapons and material are secure
Cooperation with Europe and Asia and Africa and…
Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union’s call for more support to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa…. China will soon replace America as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in Europe and Asia.
Romney’s article only refers to China or Asia in this small and vague sentence:
The economic rise of China and other countries across Asia poses a different type of challenge. It is easy to understand why Americans — and many others around the world — feel so much unease and uncertainty. Yet although we face fundamentally different issues today, the United States has a history of rising to meet even greater challenges.
More resources to military spending:
First, we need to increase our investment in national defense. This means adding at least 100,000 troops and making a long-overdue investment in equipment, armament, weapons systems, and strategic defense. …but we are going to need at least an additional $30-$40 billion annually over the next several years to modernize our military, fill gaps in troop levels, ease the strain on our National Guard and Reserves, and support our wounded soldiers. Looking at military spending over time as a percentage of GDP provides an interesting perspective…The next president should commit to spending a minimum of four percent of GDP on national defense.
The myth of energy independence:
Second, the United States must become energy independent. This does not mean no longer importing or using oil. It means making sure that our nation’s future will always be in our hands. Our decisions and destiny cannot be bound to the whims of oil-producing states.
Multilateralism or unilateralism.
The inaction, if not the breakdown, of many Cold War institutions has made many Americans skeptical of multilateralism. Nothing shows the failures of the current system more clearly than the UN Human Rights Council, an entity that has condemned the democratic government of Israel nine times while remaining virtually silent on the serial human rights abuses of the governments of Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan. In the face of such hypocrisy, it is understandable that some Americans would be tempted to favor unilateralism.
Aznar as the answer for fighting radical Islam!!!
I agree with former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar that we should build on the NATO alliance to defeat radical Islam. We need to work with our allies to pursue Aznar’s call for greater coordination in military, homeland security, and nonproliferation efforts….In no area is our leadership more important and more urgently needed than the Islamic world. Today, the Middle East is facing a demographic crisis: over half the population there is under 22 years old, and the GDP of all Arab nations put together remains lower than that of Spain.
Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index May 16, 2007
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Foreign Affairs and Public Agenda just relaleased the new Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index (every six months, since 2005) that shows that the Anxiety Indicator has grown 3,5% for the last six months. You can download the full report here or you might prefere the multimedia animation in here.
The main findings are:
- Provides mounting evidence of widespread public doubt about the country’s international position. Using a scale of 1 to 200, the Index’s “Anxiety Indicator” gauges Americans’ anxiousness or contentment with the nation’s foreign policy (where 1 is most content and 200 most anxious). The Spring 2007 Anxiety Indicator stands at 137, well above the neutral mid-point of 100 and a seven-point increase since September 2006.
- Shows that the public’s disenchantment is leading to increased skepticism about the use of military force and a corresponding inclination to favor diplomatic options instead. As far as the vast majority of Americans are concerned, for example, military force should be “off the table” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program and its possible meddling in Iraq. Nor is the public confident about using military force as a tool for dealing with other countries’ developing weapons of mass destruction — even though controlling the spread of such weapons is the public’s top policy priority.
- Reveals that concern about global warming has increased significantly. Three-quarters of those surveyed say they worry about global warming, up 7 points from six months ago. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) believe that international cooperation can reduce global warming and 34 percent say the U.S. government can do “a lot” about the problem.
The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building May 4, 2007
Posted by xarxasia in US foregin Policy, cooperation, democracy, development, economy, institutions, international relations.1 comment so far
RAND Corporation
JAMES DOBBINS, SETH G. JONES, KEITH CRANE, BETH COLE DEGRASSE
This guidebook is designed to assist the aspiring nation-builder. It is also intended to assist legislators, journalists, and academics in evaluating Current or prospective operations of this sort. It brings together the best practices from the 16 case studies presented in the RAND Corporation’s history of nation-building, which comprises the 2003 America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, and the 2005 The UN’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq; an additional eight case studies, currently under preparation, are included in this guidebook.
Preparing for Nation-Building
The Military
The Police
Rule of Law
Humanitarian Relief
Governance
Economic Stabilization
Democratization
Development
Conclusion: The Cost of Nation-Building
