Saturday, March 31, 2007

Iran Hostage Crisis - Day, ..., Far Too Many

Since school is taking much more time this term than usual my blogging will be well below the normal slow-ish pace for the next three months. Probably mostly weekends now.

Without further ado, it would appear the British sailors and marines are still hostages. This one crisis sums up so much of what’s wrong with the world today. Iran makes an armed attack against the military of a sovereign nation in the territorial waters of another nation and no one, not even the British, care about the violation of diplomatic standards (written about here). If we are not going to require countries live by the rules of civil intercourse, excepting times of war of course, then why should Iran restrict itself by following them? The British resort to diplomacy with a country that doesn’t respect diplomatic norms not because it’s the best choice but because the weak and unsupported British armed forces lack the ability to provide any other options. Once again we are seeing the ineffectiveness of our European allies in international affairs due to their unwillingness to invest the requisite resources to maintain credible military forces (and the British are atthe top of the heap even).

The Ayatollahs only understand force and without the threat of it hanging over their head they have no need to release the Britons until they get what they want from Blair. At the very least they want Britain humiliated. I know many modern post-history lefties think such emotional aspects of international relations no longer matter but they do which is why the Ayatollahs desire it. I do hope Blair holds firm despite a large portion of his countrymen being perfectly willing to trade humiliation for the servicemen. I also hope that Bush is in close consultation with Blair and is willing to help our ally with other options if need be. Diplomacy didn’t get the US hostages freed until President Reagan arrived with a clear willingness to use force to free them if necessary. If it requires the threat/application of American force then so be it, Britain has been a loyal ally and deserves such support.

I also haven’t notice more outrage over the treatment of the British servicemen, the woman in particular. Admittedly, I haven’t been able to follow the news too closely with school and all so I may have just missed it, but does no one else care that they are video taping them and forcing her to wear a headscarf? This behavior is especially egregious in this case since these were combatants who were actually following the laws of war and were illegally captured. Then again as the former Navy commander during the Falkland Wars commented, the hostage aspect of this mess, and probably the entire crisis, could have been avoided if British soldiers were allowed to use their weapons. The Iranians tried this game against American soldiers and only got a few dead Iranians for their trouble (they should have gotten more dead Iranians if you ask me but that’s another post).

Lastly though, Iain Murray over at the National Review notes “Blair has made me ashamed to be British this week. My only consolation is perhaps it will make the British people realize how utterly useless the U.N. is.” Only about 7% of Britons seem to agree with him on the first part. On the second, hehe, fat chance. Oh, and what are US Democrats doing at this moment? Well Speaker Pelosi is giving aid and support to the Syrians and powerful Representative Waxman is berating Sec. Rice over Joe Wilson’s trip to the Niger 5 years ago. Good to see Democrats have their priorities straight.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Russia, China, and the next Global Power Struggle

The last few weeks have shown more evidence that the current unipolar moment is ending. We are also seeing that the end of the evil Amerikkka’s hegemony won’t be the halcyon end of history imagined by many around the world. In international relations terms, we are simply seeing the end of a period of hegemonic stability that will be followed by a restructuring of the global power order (with all the associated conflicts, struggles, and wars). Though this seems to be surprising to the Washington foreign policy establishment, it of course shouldn’t be .

Much of the recent news centers on our old friend Russia. Vladimir Putin has most expertly returned Russia to the great power game. Signs of Russia’s return have been around for some time and is something I’ve written about frequently (about last year's military budget increase and general mischief, potentially driving the Iran crises, using hard ball tactics with Europe). Prior examples include supporting Iran’s nuclear defiance of the international community, slowly taking control of Europe through controlling its energy supplies, assassinating dissidents and nosey journalists, feeding China’s drive to the south (i.e. away from Siberia), and the general growth in Russia’s economy. The more recent examples include bellicose statements, a revision of Russia’s national security doctrine, and massive increases in military spending. Along with Russia, China is also making noises with her growing economy and even faster growing military budget.

The current bout of bellicosity began with Putin’s bizarre anti-America rant at the Munich conference of defense ministers. It was followed up with a Russian general threatening Poland and the Czech Republic over American anti-missile sites in those countries. Now the Russians have written this new aggressive attitude into their defense doctrine. The Russian Security Council has said the reason for this revision is that, “Armed forces are still being used as an important instrument in maintaining political and economic interests of states, and Russia cannot ignore these factors in developing its military doctrine." In effect, while criticizing the United States for using military force to protect her interests Russia is declaring the use of military force to protect Russia’s interests a necessity. This more active approach will apparently supplement Russia’s more passive-aggressive policies, such as arming Iran and Syria, to cause as many problems for the current great power(s). There is again nothing surprising or bad about this. It’s the way the world works, Russia is a revisionist power with a small sphere of influence so if she can gain a piece of our or others' sphere by causing chaos and problems around the world it’s a net gain.

Russia’s doctrines and statements would mean little if they were not backed up by a growing economy that supported a growing defense budget. Russia is not disappointing on either account. Since Putin ascended to power at the end of 1999, Russia’s economy has grown 23% a year in dollar terms, 7.5% in Purchasing Power Parity, and 11.5% in my own system of accounting for currency adjustment*. Even though it did come off a fairly low base this impressive growth has given Russia the first stable economy that can support a vigorous military in 20 years. As a result, Russia’s official military spending has grown even faster, over 28% a year in dollar terms to $32.4 billion (bottom of the story) and 13.5% in my system referenced above. When adding in the much larger non-official defense spending it means Russia has clearly surpassed Britain, France, and Japan’s $40-50 billion defense budgets and is firmly in third place globally. This is despite the fact that Russia’s economy is only 1/2 the size of Britain and France’s and 1/4 the size of Japan’s. The extra hundreds of billions will be put to good use forming a hi-tech modern Russian military over the coming decade that will be on hand to carry out Russia’s new doctrine of using military force when and necessary to further her interests around the globe.

The Chinese have been somewhat more circumspect as regards their public rhetoric and they haven’t yet formally switched over to a more aggressive posture. They are much more of a actions speak louder than words type nation so this isn’t surprising. Like the Russians they are also taking hostile actions, reorganizing their military into a more professional expeditionary force, and increasing their defense budget by leaps and bounds. Even more so than Russia, China’s economy and ability to support her military has advanced very quickly.

China has been taking ever more non-friendly actions over the years. In the last year alone they tested an anti-satellite missile that created a dangerous debris field for everyone’s satellites, had a submarine shadow a US carrier in international waters, and violated the territory of Japan with planes, ships, and subs in increasing numbers. Not the friendliest of actions but then being friendly to us or anyone isn’t China’s job. China’s army is reorganizing from a large conscript infantry based territorial defense force into a smaller professional mechanized offensive force. At the moment only a handful of units have been converted (3 corps with 12 brigades so far, though I can’t find the link for that). The navy is growing a bit slower at the moment as learning to build and man ships takes a bit of time, but China is doing just that and is preparing for a powerful blue-water fleet in the future. The air force is likewise switching from a poorly trained, obsolete, short range, light air defense force into a better trained, modern, long range, multi-role force. To make this transition to a force capable of projecting Chinese power and influence possible requires vast sums of money. And vast sums of money is what Beijing is providing the Chinese military forces. The latest year will see another double digit increase (17.8%) in official defense spending to $45 billion. As with Russia, the real figure is 2-3 times as high and is by far and away the second largest defense budget in the world. Due to China’s act first explain later policy we’ll realize the impact of this only after they make a move.

Individually, the power of China and Russia is still somewhat limited even though it is growing fast. However, they have reached a point where combined they have the power to resist US power in the world. Over just the last 7 years the economy of Russia and China has risen from 17% of the US’ to almost 30%. Their combined official military spending has reached $77 billion, 15% of the US, this year from $21 billion, 6.5%, in 2001 with the real figures again being 2-3 times higher. They are the new (well, new-old) powers on the international scene and will seek an international order that recognizes their place. We will, along with countries more threatened by Russia and China, attempt to maintain the current system. With their continued rapid economic growth, massive military spending increases, and reorganization of their militaries the Chinese and Russians will have the ability to force a world more amenable to their interests. The result is that the future will be as filled with conflict as the past (the last century exempted most likely). Especially should Democrats continue to gain at the national level and US power, influence, and military spending retrench in the coming years they may prove quite successful.

*I can't quite figure out how to put math symbols like sigma on here but the system is fairly simple, I just multiply the current year's exchange rate by 8, the prior year by 7, etc. and divide the result by 36 to get the adjusted exchange rate. It works fairly well by ironing out the massive gyrations in exchange rates and producing a more realistic dollar GDP value for most countries that still accounts for variations in currency values.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Democrat is as Democrat does- Part 2

Seems I spoke too soon in my last post about the Democrats backing off from cutting military funds and/or using the money to try to dictate foreign policy to the President. According to Politico.com, Speaker Pelosi did back off but she is now facing a major revolt among the hard left core of the Democrat Party. I haven’t paid very much attention to the inner workings or power divisions of the Democrats so I have no idea if this is a minor nuisance, a major problem, or something that can and will change policy. At the very least it will just add to the worries of the military as mentioned before.

However, whatever its end result this does bring up another issue, the importance of voting by party and not by candidate these days. The problem is that no one candidate will have a major effect on party policy. The major impact they will have is to increase the power of the very liberal or conservative elements of the Democrat and Republican parties respectively. Due to gerrymandering both parties have around 110-140 safe seats that are ideologically at the extreme of the party. They will usually make up the majority of their party, but more importantly they will occupy almost all of their party’s leadership positions. This will more often than not lead to the current situation where the voters elected a pro-military Congress but by also putting the Democrats in the majority they essentially put the anti-military far left of the Democrat Party in charge.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Democrat is as Democrat does

As I fully expected prior to last year’s election, the Democrats have made moves towards cutting military spending a few days ago. I would hardly rate my pre-election post as a prediction as knowing what the Democrats will do is not terribly difficult. Nevertheless, they managed to convince millions of pro-military Americans otherwise and so here we are. The Democrats plan was to reduce $20 billion from President Bush’s $140 billion supplemental bill. To lessen the political hit they would take they promised to increase funding over the next few years; a promise that could and would be easily forgotten. I could go on about why the $20 billion is needed for new equipment and supplies this year not next year but since the Democrats quickly backtracked there isn’t much point. It seems only the realization that a Republican President and Senate filibuster would prevent the reduction while not preventing the political damage caused them to hide their true colors. This does show however what the military will have to deal with while the Democrats have any political power. The Democrats can consider defeat desirable, deem sacrifice for one’s country to be a waste, and think people in our military are the dregs of society whether they are in power or not, but they can only make it happen if they are in power. Though we have, we shouldn’t be adding to our soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen’s hardships and worries like this. We’re stuck for now but I can only hope that barring a near miraculous change of heart by the modern Left the American people will see fit to correct, or at least not compound, this situation in 2008.