Michael: I have no argument with this formulation of yours: “We have to play the long game with India, encouraging a developing relationship of interests, trust, and cooperation. We should build on the current defense sales we have, push for the ones in progress, and, most importantly, start thinking strategically about initiatives with India that push forward our joint cooperation on regional security and political issues.”
But at the same time, I think it’s important to distinguish between the relationship’s promise and its present state, and to measure its progress by actions rather than words. On this score, as I argued in the WSJ last week, though the United States and India have come a long way since the end of the Cold War, there’s still a ways to go before the reality of the relationship matches hopeful rhetoric about it. How this unfolds will depend in large part on how Indians themselves settle questions about the country’s role in the world and the nature of its relationship with the Anglosphere. I know which side I’m backing, but that’s not the same as knowing which side will win.
Mike and Sadanand have both written of the disappointing Indian decision to downselect the Rafaele and Eurofighter as the finalists for their $10 billion fighter program. Both see it as evidence that New Delhi is turning away from the long-germinating U.S.-India strategic partnership. I agree the decision is disappointing, but we need to make sure political fallout (if there is any) doesn’t cause real harm to ties between Washington and New Delhi.
Despite yesterday’s decision, India is buying substantive amounts of U.S. defense goods, including eight P-8 maritime patrol aircraft worth $2.1 billion (and which were chosen over Airbus rivals) and is close to finalizing a $4 billion deal for C-17 cargo planes. In addition, New Delhi is interested in up to 22 Apache attack helicopters (worth nearly $1.5 billion). India will also be the largest purchaser of naval equipment over the next decade, and the United States may well be in the running for selling surface vessels.
The key political question is whether the Singh government is moving away from closer ties with the United States. The truth is, the Obama administration did very little with India during its first year, and after the president’s visit in 2010, not much else has developed. Any substantive U.S.-Indian military cooperation was years away, in any case, so the fighter decision doesn’t change the base of the relationship. Indeed, I’d be more concerned about a close U.S. ally buying European fighters, in terms of the effect on interoperability, joint training, cross-servicing, and the like.
But that doesn’t mean we should be complacent. We have to play the long game with India, encouraging a developing relationship of interests, trust, and cooperation. We should build on the current defense sales we have, push for the ones in progress, and, most importantly, start thinking strategically about initiatives with India that push forward our joint cooperation on regional security and political issues. One such issue is the growing threat of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities. Trying to tame Islamabad’s increasingly dangerous behavior will also benefit our ties with New Delhi. On the economic front, last week, India joined China and the rest of the BRICs in floating the idea of an alternate international reserve currency to the dollar. That should be far more worrisome to U.S. policy makers, and is why we have to be even more engaged with India, working to make clear the common interests we share and how India will benefit from a closer relationship with the United States.
What does an unwinnable war look like? Turns out it looks a lot like a war that commanders have persuaded themselves, for one reason or another, they cannot win. Because they haven’t divided reconcilables from irreconcilables. Because they haven’t gotten into the head of the enemy to better understand his grievances. Because their battles are tactical, but strategy is by nature a political exercise. Because “there is no military solution.” Sound familiar? If so, take a few minutes and devote them to reading through AEI’s new foreign and defense policy program manager Lazar Berman’s outstanding analysis in Small Wars Journal of Israeli military lessons learned from the wars with Hezbollah and Hamas.
Here’s a short taste of why he believes the 2006 war was not decisively won despite Israel’s vastly superior force: “Though there was no new doctrine dominating IDF thought, an intellectual worm had eaten through the core of IDF thought—the low-intensity conflict (LIC) mindset, in which decisive victory is unattainable, enemies must be cognitively defeated, and commanders subscribe to the idea of post-modern warfare.”
Read the whole thing, and more importantly, get from it a clear understanding of the incorrect lessons embraced by our own military.
While the climate is largely unpredictable, the actions of climate-change catastrophists are utterly predictable. When I heard about the wave of tornadoes that devastated the South, I predicted (to my wife) that they would quickly be attributed to climate change by activists seeking (as they regularly do) to capitalize on human death and misery to advance their political agenda.
Well, that didn’t take long. Over at Think Panic, er, Think Progress, the blog of the Center for American Panic, er, Progress, Brad Johnson posts:
“Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”
While I believe that the climate is changing and that human greenhouse-gas emissions cause some part of that change, the shrill attribution of things like Japan’s earthquake and tsunami to climate change, and tying the recent tornadoes to climate change, rings a bit like dialogue from Ghostbusters:
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!
US meteorologists warned Thursday it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes in the wake of deadly storms that have ripped through the US south.
“If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it’s agreed upon by the tornado community that it’s not a real increase,” said Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University.
“It’s having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we’re seeing them more often,” Dixon said.
India’s decision against purchasing an American-made fighter jet in its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition is a big disappointment for those of us who have been high on the potential of a U.S.-India strategic partnership. Had New Delhi decided upon either Boeing’s F/A-18 or Lockheed Martin’s F-16, the selection would have enhanced U.S.-Indian military ties, defense-industrial cooperation, and economic relations as well (the $10 billion deal would have been equal to over half of the value of all 2010 U.S. exports to India).
Instead, as Sadanand so succinctly put it, “India has rebuffed the U.S. offer of a closer strategic partnership.” India, of course, has a long tradition of maintaining a “non-aligned” foreign policy, but this decision strikes me as shortsighted. While Pakistan remains a constant worry, the national security establishment in New Delhi is increasingly worried about China, as well; indeed, over the longer term China almost certainly presents a much greater strategic challenge. And of the participants in the MMRCA competition, only the United States has truly overlapping concerns with India vis-à-vis China.
India’s selection of an American aircraft would have allowed the two countries to enhance their capacity for combined combat operations, which would both serve as a deterrent to future Chinese aggression on the subcontinent or in the Indian Ocean and prepare the militaries to fight alongside one another should deterrence fail. The Rafale and the Eurofighter may be fine planes, but the Europeans aren’t looking to operate jointly with the Indians. Should, God forbid, the Chinese and the Indians ever come to blows, the French will be content to watch from afar. If any country has the interest and the capacity to intervene, it’ll be the United States.
However disappointing this recent news is, it perhaps should not be surprising. Rather, it fits in with a recent pattern. India’s abstention on UNSC Resolution 1973, its disinclination to cooperate on Iran (and its inclination to skirt sanctions), its dallying with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and its attempts to coordinate with the other BRICS members—these are all suggestive of an Indian foreign policy that remains suspicious of America’s preponderant power. Unfortunately for the Indians, that suspicion seems to cloud long-term strategic thought. India has benefited significantly from U.S. efforts to enhance the relationship—see the civil nuclear agreement, for example—but with little to show for it, those efforts are now likely to stall. The Obama and future administrations simply will not be so sanguine about what increasingly looks like a not-so-strategic partnership.
— Your base is the people who are with you when you’re down, when the economy is in the tank, etc. Recent polls provide some clues about the size of President Obama’s core constituency. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, 27 percent approved strongly of the job he’s doing as president. A third had a strongly favorable impression of him. Twenty-eight percent say they will definitely vote for the president.
— The deep economic gloom—26 percent in a new Gallup poll describe current economic conditions as a recession, 29 percent as a depression—is reverberating in many ways. A majority of nonretired Americans in another Gallup poll say they will not have enough money to live comfortably in retirement, up from about a third who felt this way in 2002. Nonretired people now project that they will retire at age 66, up from age 60 in 1995.
— In his analysis of ABC/Post polling data to date on Obama, ace analyst Gary Langer makes the point that the correlation between Obama and Ronald Reagan’s job approval ratings is an impressive 0.86. Expect that to change. At this point in Reagan’s presidency, the economy was turning up. As the item above suggests, Americans don’t feel that way right now.
— Egyptians’ views of the United States have been overwhelmingly negative throughout Obama’s presidency, according to a new Pew survey there: 70 percent in spring 2009, 82 percent in 2010, and 79 percent now have unfavorable views. Only 15 percent want a closer relationship with the United States in the future, while 43 percent want a less close one. Forty-five percent of Egyptians approved of the way Obama was dealing with the calls for political change in the region, and 52 percent disapproved. Of those who disapproved, most said it was because he has shown too little support.
— In the new CBS News/New York Times poll, 39 percent approve of the president’s handling of Libya, down 11 points from March. His overall foreign policy rating is down 8 points in the same period. Throughout most of his presidency, Obama has received better marks on handling foreign policy than on handling the economy. In this new poll and in several others the ratings are similar.
— A new report from Pew Hispanic shows that political clout of Hispanics doesn’t yet match their demographic clout. Many Hispanics are too young to vote and many aren’t citizens. Pew’s analysis of Census data that asks people how they voted in 2010 shows that 48. 6 percent of white eligible voters turned out, compared to 31.2 percent of eligible Hispanics. President Obama’s support among Hispanics is down: it was 54 percent in a recent Gallup poll, down from 73 percent early in his presidency. The decline probably explains why Obama has reached out twice in the last two weeks to Hispanic leaders.
— A new poll of Californians conducted by Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Linda Divall shows that Hispanics there are much less likely than whites to say they are “absolutely certain” they will vote in 2012. Both the low turnout numbers and Obama’s declining support should worry Democrats, but the GOP has a lot to worry about, too. Hispanic allegiance to the Democratic Party looks strong almost across the board. Seventy-three percent of Hispanics in the blue state of California called themselves Democrats, compared to just 15 percent of Republicans. Sixty-two percent of Hispanics in California approve of the job Obama’s doing (47 percent of whites in California do).
Think it’s all about the royal wedding today? The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee seized upon the festivities across the pond to launch www.roilwedding.com, to draw out the Big Oil refrain longer than Kate Middleton’s train. Users are invited to wish Speaker John Boehner and the menage-o-many oil companies in a “guestbook” form email that states, “I hope the very best for you and the GOP. Your connection is everlasting and truly special. May your lives be filled with taxpayer giveaways and an eternity of intimacy.”
With gas prices hitting $3.90 today, Dems are undoubtedly singing an alleluia chorus at the revived opportunity to swing the “Big Oil” bat once again. Pressured by the Paul Ryan budget plan to come up with their own plans for spending cuts and additional revenue, they’re looking to repeal billions in tax breaks for multinational oil and gas companies. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana) introduced a plan yesterday to invest in clean energy, encourage domestic production, and encourage fuel-efficient vehicles, paid for “by eliminating tax incentives for the [five] largest oil and gas companies,” according to a statement from his office. It’s similar to President Obama’s 2012 budget request, in which he called to repeal more than $46 billion in oil and gas subsidies over a decade, except Obama’s proposal applies to all producers. (See what people have been saying about environmental and energy priorities.)
Next week, freshly returned from recess, House Republicans plan to hold votes on requiring the Interior Department to approve or deny drilling permits within 60 days, and on requiring Interior to lease areas in the Gulf of Mexico and off Virginia to exploration firms. Ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) slammed the Senate’s plan to vote after recess on higher taxes for energy producers in a Thursday statement: “Despite the fact that we, as a country, need more energy, not less, Democrats appear committed to a campaign to increase oil prices and drive investment, jobs and oil production overseas,” she said.
Suffice there will be no love lost between the two sides of the aisle when these energy bills come to the floor starting next week.
Polls ranking possible Republican nominees for president have been getting a lot of coverage lately, partly because Donald Trump has been at or near the top. The latest Gallup poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents has Mike Huckabee (16%) and Trump (16%) barely edging out Mitt Romney (13%). A recent ABC/Washington Post poll shows that among Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents Romney (16%) edges out Trump (8%) and Huckabee (8%).
A heavy dose of caution should be used when examining early polls like these. Very few people are paying close attention at this point in the election cycle and the results heavily favor those with higher name recognition. Polling results from past elections confirm this cautionary lesson.
During the 2000 election cycle, several candidates had set up their exploratory committees by December 1998. By that time, Al Gore already had a commanding lead of 49 percent among self-identified Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents in the NBC/Wall Street Journal question. On the Republican side, things were quite different. In the January 1999 NBC/WSJ poll, self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents picked George W. Bush (36%) over Elizabeth Dole (26%), Jack Kemp (8%), Dan Quayle (8%), and John McCain (5%).
During the 2004 election cycle, many of the Democratic nominees declared in early January and February 2003. In a mid-January CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, the top Democratic contenders among self-identified Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents were Joe Lieberman (19%), John Kerry (17%), Dick Gephardt (13%), John Edwards (12%), and Bob Graham (6%).
During the 2008 election cycle, most candidates declared in December 2006 and January 2007. The top Republican vote getters according to a January 2007 Zogby poll of Republican primary voters were Rudy Giuliani (21%), John McCain (17%), Mitt Romney (6%), Newt Gingrich (8%), and Condoleezza Rice (7%). A January 2007 Gallup poll showed the top choices of self-identified Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents were Hillary Clinton (29%), Barack Obama (18%), Al Gore (11%), John Edwards (13%), and Joe Biden (5%).
In instances where a potential nominee had a commanding lead, like Gore had in 2000, the polls accurately predicted the nominee. Often a candidate at or near the top of these early primary questions eventually received the nomination. But the polls have very mixed results both about major players and the eventual nominee. Based on the polls we have now, I wouldn’t put any money down in Vegas just yet.
Ending months of anticipation, India has announced two finalists in one of the world’s single largest military contracts: the Indian Air Force’s $10 billion acquisition of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft. They are the Rafale made by France’s Dassault and the Eurofighter Typhoon made by a British, Italian, German, and Spanish consortium. The losers: Lockheed Martin’s F-16, Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet, and competitors from Russia and Sweden.
While not entirely unanticipated—the French and European fighters reportedly bested their rivals in technical trials—the announcement nonetheless comes as a jolt for those who expected at least one U.S. plane to make the shortlist. Unlike their European rivals, the U.S. planes have been extensively battle-tested. In addition, the 2008 U.S.-India civil nuclear deal, in which Washington carved out an India-sized exception in the global non-proliferation regime, and President Obama’s successful visit to India in November, were expected to pave the way for the purchase.
While India may couch its decision in purely technical terms, or point to more generous technology sharing and end-use terms offered by the French and the Europeans, the political subtext of the decision is impossible to escape. Simply put, India has rebuffed the U.S. offer of a closer strategic partnership. Or, as Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment put it, India “settled for a plane, not a relationship.”
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that many Indians are questioning the government’s decision. Nitin Pai, a prominent international relations expert who blogs under the name Acorn, says the decision “demonstrates either a poor appreciation of the geostrategic aspect or worse, indicative of a lingering anti-American mindset.” The newspaper Mint calls it an example of “technique without strategy.” For Boeing and Lockheed, however, these and other voices of support are hardly consolation for losing a contract that would have boosted the bottom line, created thousands of jobs, and added more military heft to the U.S.-India relationship.
Most of us moved on years (if not decades) ago, but it is somewhat disconcerting to hear that the world’s last typewriter factory is closing. Located in Mumbai, India, Godjrej and Boyce was founded in 1897 and is now one of India’s largest manufacturers of consumer durables and industrial products. Yet, whereas storied Western names like Olivetti and Remington long ago closed their doors, Godrej and Boyce continued to produce typewriters until 2009. Now, with just 500 new machines left, a central element of the rise of the modern corporation, university, and newspaper is about to join the archives of history.
But wait, before we all resolve to watch “His Girl Friday” or “All the President’s Men” one more time to hear the clacking of a press room, typewriters may not be completely dead, after all.
The marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton has produced excitement about the monarchy not seen in years. It has also produced a slew of new polls of Brits on the institution of the monarchy, which seems to have revived since the war of the Waleses.
• In a new Ipsos/MORI-Reuters poll, 75 percent of Britons favor the monarchy compared to 18 percent who would like to see their country become a republic. These responses have changed little since MORI started asking the question in 1993. In the new poll, Labour voters and London residents are more likely than other groups to prefer a republic.
• Also in the Ipsos/MORI poll, 84 percent say Britain will still have a monarchy in 10 years’ time. Fifty-six percent say that will be the case in 50 years’ time. For both questions, public belief that the monarchy will remain in place has increased in recent years.
• More than seven in ten in a ComRes poll believe the monarchy is good for Britain’s image worldwide.
• The polls provide conflicting evidence about whether Prince Charles or Prince William should become Britain’s next King. Forty-six percent in the new Ipsos/MORI poll say Charles should give up the throne; 47 percent say he should not.
• A third say in a ComRes poll say that the monarchy is a burden on taxpayers. Fifty percent disagree and the rest are unsure.
• As the big days come closer, more people are saying they will watch the ceremony. Around a third in several polls say they couldn’t care less.
• Women are almost twice as likely as men to say that they will watch the royal wedding live. In another poll, seven in ten British women said they wouldn’t want to be Miss Middleton. The top reason: she won’t be able to live a normal life.
• Two in ten women believe Miss Middleton should agree to “love, honor, and obey” in her vows; 36 percent of men do. The bride will not use the word “obey” in her vows.
• Sixty-four percent in the ComRes poll say the wedding will be good for the British economy.
Yes, yes, yes. As the Veep says, “We can’t do it all.” But we’re not actually doing it all. We’re doing quite little on Libya, unless drones and calling Silvio Berlusconi to enlist the decisive Italian element is “it all.” We haven’t recalled our ambassador in Syria. We haven’t put sanctions against top regime officials. We haven’t introduced a UN resolution (the Euros did). And of course, we Americans and our president have not actually stood in front of the teleprompter and condemned Bashar Assad’s wholesale murders ourselves, doing it rather through spokesmen and press statements.
None of these criticisms should be construed as a call for U.S. military intervention in Syria. For heaven’s sake, the Syrian people clearly hate Assad more than the Obama administration does. But can we not give them our moral support? Can we not help build pressure on Assad, help fracture the regime, publicize the plight of peaceful Syrians? Something? Consider what we could hope for if Assad were gone:
• An end to Iranian resupply flights to Hezbollah, most of which go through Damascus
• An end to safe harbor and operational freedom for Hamas HQ, Palestinian Islamic Jihad HQ et al
• An end to safe passage for al Qaeda into Iraq
• An end to the oppression of the Lebanese people and the murder of Lebanese democrats, and justice regarding the assassination of Rafiq Hariri
• An end to Syria’s (Iran’s?) nuclear program
• An end to the best friendship Tehran has in the Arab world
We can’t do it all. But surely we can do more than the almost nothing President Obama has done thus far. Getting rid of Qadhafi is an important goal because he is a murderer, a danger to us, and because when the president of the United States says you gotta go, we have an interest in seeing that it is so. But getting rid of Assad could actually help change the Middle East for good. Please let’s help the Syrian people do what’s right.
This morning’s dismal U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth numbers should give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pause about the prospects for the U.S. economic outlook. Despite the fact that the U.S. economy is still recovering from its worst postwar economic recession, and that it has been on steroids of fiscal stimulus and quantitative easing, all that the U.S. economy could do in the first quarter of 2011 was to muster 1.75 percent GDP growth. Such anemic economic growth offers little prospect that U.S. unemployment will decline from its current level of almost 9 percent anytime soon.
Yesterday, ever optimistic, Bernanke suggested that while the economy had hit a soft patch it would recover in the remainder of the year to around 3 percent growth. His reassuring words would have had more credence had he not given similar assurances that the economy was gaining traction in early 2010, only to have found himself forced to introduce a second round of quantitative easing towards the middle of that year to boost a flagging economy.
Bernanke’s current optimism about the prospects for a pickup in U.S. economic growth are all the more surprising given the very strong headwinds that the U.S. economy now faces. Not only are sky-high gasoline prices sapping consumer purchasing power, but housing prices are again declining under the weight of the foreclosure crisis at the same time that the states are engaged in another round of spending cuts. It would seem to be only a matter of time before Bernanke introduces us to a third round of quantitative easing.
OK, so perhaps Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), self-proclaimed socialist and he of Filibernie fame, is going to approach House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s path to prosperity with a bit of a jaundiced view. But Sanders, who was also on Jon Stewart’s show last night, called Ryan’s budget plan “the most right-wing extremist piece of legislation that I have ever seen in my life.” Really? Couldn’t you name a host of fringe legislation stretching from statehouses to Congress that qualifies as more right-wing extremist? In fact, is Ryan’s budget even right-wing, aside from Sanders’s vantage point? Even the “Gang of Six,” one of those being Majority Whip Dick Durbin, may find its deficit-cutting plans in a 2012 budget, and the bipartisan group eschews tax hikes and promotes entitlement reform. Ryan offers $4.4 trillion in cuts; decidedly non-right-winger President Obama offers $4 trillion. Sanders does have an allergy to the spending cuts it takes to get there, though.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) plans to call a vote on Ryan’s budget, which passed the House before the Easter break with four Republicans and all Democrats voting no, sometime after the Senate returns from recess next week. As Talking Points Memo points out, that could be a game of chicken that ultimately turns in the GOP’s favor. And if Reid’s not careful in how he plays this game, his campaign donations from Donald Trump may plummet.
World trade negotiators are to gather this week in Geneva to make a last-ditch effort to conclude the decade-old talks, the Doha Round. If that news inspires a sense of déja vu, you may be a veteran trade-watcher. There have been enough “last ditches” to inspire visions of a deeply furrowed field.
Prospects this time around do not seem much brighter. Global trade diplomacy has not flourished under the Obama administration’s “lead from behind” approach (with a hat tip to the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza for the felicitous phrase). Even if expectations are low, however, the stakes may still be high. That’s a message of a new (free!) e-book compiled by Richard Baldwin and Simon Evenett on the Vox website. It has contributions from me, my colleague Claude Barfield, as well as luminaries such as Anne Krueger and Ernesto Zedillo.
This is unlikely to be enough to get the round out of its last ditch (the pen isn’t that mighty), but it will at least provide guidance on whom to blame and the implications of the failure.
Using the lens of disruptive innovation (a concept he, Harvard Business School’s Clay Christensen, and Curtis W. Johnson discuss in their best-selling education reform book, Disrupting Class), Horn argues that for-profits simply do the job their best customers pay them to do—not much more or less; in the case of higher education, the job has been getting students through the front door, not seeing to it that these students stay long enough to graduate. Horn goes on to explain that for-profits are actually much more similar to nonprofits than people may think. He notes that the main difference between the two types of organizations is the presence of shareholders, which influences their processes and behaviors as well as what opportunities they will and will not pursue.
In light of the recent controversy on the Hill over gainful employment, and the continued strain on state and local education budgets, now is the time to leave behind impulsive caricatures of for-profits and move towards thinking about how the policy landscape can be structured to capitalize on the valuable characteristics—the ability to scale up quickly, readily tap talent and capital, maximize cost-effectiveness, and cater to their customers—these firms bring to the table. At the same time, legislators and government officials need to recognize and protect against the potentially negative incentives for-profits have to cut corners and sacrifice quality in the name of increased margins.
Instead of pushing regulations that bar providers based solely on their corporate structures (i.e., I3), policy makers should focus on crafting laws that reward “good” providers for producing the positive educational outcomes our society values and punish those “bad” providers that aren’t getting the job done. Horn’s paper is the first in a series that is sure to shape the conversation around private enterprise in American education—be on the lookout for more soon.
In today’s Wall Street Journal Asia, I write about the implications of Islamabad’s decision to field tactical nuclear weapons. I argue that while such weaponry may enhance Pakistan’s security in the short term by undermining India’s plans for military retaliation (called “Cold Start”) in response to terrorist attacks emanating from Pakistan, over the longer term they serve to enhance instability and make violence more likely. In order to counter this new threat, I suggest that New Delhi may devote more resources to missile defense and field its own tactical nukes. I write:
Confident in its missile defenses, India will then be able to retaliate. But because tactical nuclear weapons, which are difficult to counter, will continue to negate the effectiveness of its ground forces—and thus the “Cold Start” option—India will likely need to rely on a wider air campaign aimed at bombing Pakistan into submission. Rather than a shallow incursion into its territory, Pakistan will be faced with air strikes against military targets (perhaps including infrastructure) throughout the country.
Such a campaign will be less effective than “Cold Start”—air campaigns tend to accomplish little on their own—and more escalatory. Assuming the Indian air force achieves air dominance, Pakistan’s military response options will be limited. If the campaign does not quickly achieve the desired result, India, too, will be tempted to at least threaten the use of strategic weapons, confident that its own cities will be effectively defended from nuclear retaliation. In short, nuclear escalation, which India had hoped to avoid with “Cold Start,” suddenly becomes more plausible.
Ironically, then, Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons will upset deterrence rather than enhance it. Peace in South Asia becomes ever more elusive.
The standoff between the Gulf Arab states and Iran and its partners is in full swing. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Bahraini government submitted a 13-page report to the United Nations last week, accusing Hezbollah of colluding to overthrow the al Khalifa ruling family. The Gulf nation claims that the Lebanon-based, Iranian-supported terrorist organization has been training Bahraini protesters at camps in Lebanon and Iran, as well as coordinating with leaders of al Haq and al Wefaq, two Shi’ite opposition movements, to bolster anti-regime activity. These charges are part of a nearly two-month-long battle waged between Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, and the Saudi-supported al Khalifa regime amidst legitimate, grassroots protests in Bahrain.
Hezbollah has harshly condemned Bahrain’s government crackdown and openly supported protesters, maintaining that it only provides the opposition with “political and moral support.” Notably, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened the al Khalifa regime in his two latest public speeches; he warned on April 9 that the expulsion of additional Lebanese citizens from Bahrain “would lead to complications” and predicted on March 13 a bleak future for Manama’s leaders. He stated, “No matter how stubborn you are, you are doomed to be defeated, so respond to your peoples before it is too late.”
Bahrain’s foreign ministry reacted angrily to the latter speech on March 20, denouncing it as “blatant interference” and “a violation of Bahrain’s sovereignty.” The kingdom has since punished the Lebanese state by advising Bahraini citizens against traveling to Lebanon, suspending flights to and from Beirut, and deporting Lebanese nationals—mainly Shi’ites with alleged links to Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran, partly through its close ties with Hezbollah and other actors, has attempted to use the Arab Spring to project its ambitions across the region; its narrative that the largely peaceful and pro-democratic uprisings are an extension of the 1979 revolution has been predictably rejected thus far. Hezbollah, for its part, has emerged from political turmoil in Lebanon politically empowered, no longer preoccupied with de-legitimizing the UN-backed tribunal investigating the murder of Rafik Hariri or ousting the Western-supported March 14 bloc. It now employs its rhetoric—if not other means, as the Bahrainis allege—to realign Lebanon with Iran.
Katherine Faley is a research analyst for AEI’s Critical Threats Project.
Lazar has a nice post about the unholy marriage of Fatah and Hamas. He theorizes that this is the sign that the peace process is over and that the United Nations route to Palestinian statehood is going to be the real roadmap. Another, earlier sign that Abbas isn’t quite the partner Barack Obama believed was in this not-enough-noticed interview with Newsweek. Enjoy the money graf yourself:
“It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze,” Abbas explained. “I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it.”
Tom Donnelly eloquently explains why the appointment of General David Petraeus as director of the CIA is bad news for the Department of Defense. Here is why his appointment may be bad news for the CIA as well.
Petraeus is a hero to many for his bold leadership of the military surges in Iraq and Afghanistan—and I count myself among his most ardent admirers in this regard. He might well have been an outstanding chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But his outspoken public criticism of the men and women of the CIA, whose interrogation of high-value terrorist leaders helped stop a second wave of attacks on the United States, make him an unfortunate choice for the CIA job.
In an interview with Fox News in May 2009, Petraeus aligned himself squarely with critics of the CIA, who have accused top counterterrorism officials in the agency of violating the law and violating our values. He declared:
When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized. So as we move forward, it is important to, again, live our values, to live the agreements we have made in the international justice arena, and to practice those.
You can see the video here:
In fact, as I make clear in my book Courting Disaster, the United States did not violate the Geneva Conventions. When Petraeus declares that CIA officials did so, he is effectively calling them war criminals. That is not encouraging to the men and women he may be about to lead.
Of course, his statements are in line with those made by Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama, each of whom has leveled similar accusations. Current CIA director Leon Panetta was also a critic of CIA interrogations before taking the helm of the agency. But once he arrived at Langley, while not backing off his prior opposition to the program, Panetta became a strong defender of the agency’s interrogators—vigorously opposing the release of the Justice Department memos detailing the CIA’s interrogation techniques, and fighting Holder’s decision to re-open criminal investigations into their conduct, overriding the considered opinions of career prosecutors who declined to prosecute them. In light of Petraeus’s unfortunate comments, CIA officials have a right to wonder: will they have a similarly vigorous advocate in their new director?
Thanks to Obama the CIA is out of the interrogation business, so there is no immediate impact on U.S. interrogation policy (or lack thereof). But that is also the problem. Appointing a CIA director with such restrictive views on interrogation does not bode well for the chances of much-needed improvements in our detention and interrogation policy.
General Petraeus should be asked tough questions during his confirmation hearings. These include:
• If he really believes that CIA officials violated the Geneva Conventions and thus the laws of war, does he support criminal prosecution of those who approved enhanced interrogations and those who carried them out?
• Is the Army Field Manual (whose drafting he supervised) really sufficient to question high-value detainees?
• Since the manual is publicly available on the Internet, can’t terrorists train to resist those techniques?
• Does the Field Manual exhaust every possible lawful interrogation technique? And if not, why should the United States deprive itself of other lawful interrogation techniques?
• What does he think of former CIA Director Mike Hayden’s argument that the president’s executive order should be amended to allow additional lawful techniques, or that a classified annex be added to the manual to restore some uncertainty as to what captured terrorists may face?
• Why is it that, outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been not one single detention of a high-value al Qaeda terrorist by the United States since Obama took office? And what, if anything, will he do to change that?
• Does he believe that high-value terrorists should be taken into custody alive whenever possible, rather than being killed with unmanned drones?
• If he agrees that terrorists should be taken into custody alive whenever possible, exactly where should they be taken? Does he agree with current CIA Director Leon Panetta’s statement to Congress that if the United States captured any high-value al Qaeda terrorists, they would likely be taken to Guantanamo Bay for questioning?
• What will he do about Umar Patek—the first high-value al Qaeda terrorist captured alive since Obama took office? Patek is in Pakistani custody, and the United States has reportedly not been allowed access to him. Press reports indicate that Patek was in Yemen before his capture, and attended a meeting of fellow jihadists in Mecca before heading to meet with al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan—meaning he could have potentially life-saving information about plots against the homeland.
• Is it acceptable for the United States to be without access to such a high-value terrorist? Does he agree that it is essential such a high-value terrorist be taken into U.S. custody for interrogation? As CIA director, would he do everything in his power to ensure that Patek in transferred into U.S. custody, just as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other senior al Qaeda leaders were once handed over to the United States by Pakistan?
General Petraeus is an outstanding military leader who turned the tide of the conflict in Iraq and has set the battle in Afghanistan on a positive trajectory. He deserves respect and admiration for these achievements. But this does not mean that he is the right man to lead the CIA. Petraeus should have to answer these and other pressing questions before he is confirmed by the Senate for this critical post.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stepped in front of the media this afternoon in a historic, first-of-its-kind press conference to put rumors about his birth certificate to rest… see what happens on a busy news day? Bernanke’s not going to be shuffled over to the CIA, either, but he did discuss the Fed economic projections, which shape up like so:
— Unemployment rate at 7.6 percent to 7.9 percent in 2012, with the long-term projection beyond 2013 at 5.2 percent to 5.6 percent. Both figures are slightly down from January projections. (Bernanke on long-term unemployment figures showing 45 percent of unemployed out of work six months or more: “That’s part of the reason we’ve been as aggressive as we have.”)
— Economic growth in terms of real gross domestic product at 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent in 2012, with the long-term projection beyond 2013 at 2.5 percent to 2.8 percent. The shorter-term numbers are adjusted slightly lower than in January.
— Inflation projected at 1.3 percent to 1.8 percent in 2012 and 1.7 percent to 2 percent for the long term.
When the floor opened up for questions, Bernanke pushed the projection of moderate economic recovery through this year. “It’s encouraging to see the improvement we’ve seen in recent months,” he said, adding that we’ve been “digging ourselves out of a very deep hole … the fact that we’re moving in the right direction doesn’t mean the labor market is in good shape.”
And neither are pump prices, he acknowledged, which “have risen quite significantly.”
“It’s obviously a bad development to see gas prices rise so much,” Bernanke said, adding that the addition to inflation coupled with reduced household purchasing power is a “double whammy.” But, he said, “The Fed can’t create more oil.”
In other hot-button questions, Bernanke was asked about Standard & Poor’s downgrading of the U.S. credit outlook.
“S&P’s action didn’t really tell us anything,” he said, noting that you could open any newspaper to see how evil the deficit is. “I’m hopeful that this event will provide at least one more incentive for Congress and the administration to address this problem… we currently have a fiscal deficit that is not sustainable.”
“To the extent that the S&P action goads a response I think that’s constructive,” Bernanke said.
He did add that he didn’t see any spending cuts or other budget action on the horizon that would alter the Fed’s projections. “I’ve not seen any fiscal changes that have changed our near-term outlook,” he said, noting in a sneak peek of the detailed report due in three weeks that the Fed members did see “quite a bit of uncertainty in the world.”
We’ve seen this before before, and it did not end well.
Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas announced the signing of a reconciliation deal today, including an agreement to create an interim government and to set a date for a general election. Palestinian officials are sounding an extremely optimistic note. “All points of differences have been overcome,” beamed Hamas spokesman Taher Al-Nono.
Recent history suggests a far less rosy outcome. With the exception of Haaretz, major news outlets covering the agreement, including Reuters, the New York Times, and Al-Jazeera, are leaving out the essential fact that the last Palestinian national unity government deteriorated into a short and especially bloody civil war across Gaza and the West Bank. At the Saudi-sponsored Mecca negotiations in February 2007, Hamas and Fatah agreed to a cabinet headed by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Hamas did not have to give up its support for violence against Israel, instead agreeing to the vague commitment of respecting international resolutions and agreements signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization regarding Israel.
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