On Wednesday, Barbara Boxer and John Kerry introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, the long-awaited Senate version of the climate change bill that squeaked through the House in June. With the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen just nine weeks away, U.S. legislative action will be a key to successful global negotiations. Particularly, investment in international adaptation – the multilateral assistance to developing countries in order to withstand the impacts of climate change – is widely expected to be one of the central elements of the looming debate in Copenhagen. Whereas climate change mitigation policies aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation seeks to lessen the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of the most at-risk countries through disaster management and infrastructure capacity-building. Kerry has called international adaptation “part of the glue” holding together hopes of reaching a new global treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Still, investment in adaptation – at both the domestic and international levels – has been continuously overlooked.

The international security crises associated with climate change are dramatic and self-perpetuating. Drought, rising sea levels, and resource scarcity will lead to disease, mass migration, and political instability, ultimately causing fragile states to collapse into failed states. These cascading effects are intensified with the Earth’s population projected to reach nine billion by 2050. And in a cruel twist of irony, the most devastating effects will be felt in parts of the world that are least responsible for global climate change, specifically Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

In North Africa, subsistence farming will suffer a 20-40% reduction in crop yield due to prolonged drought and desertification. Drought will hit the Middle East hard as well, a region that is already home to 6% of the world’s population but just 2% of the Earth’s water supply. And with 60% of the Middle East’s bodies of water lying trans-boundary, the stage is set for conflict. As John Kerry said, “a demographic boom and a shrinking water supply will only tighten the squeeze on a region that doesn’t need another reason to disagree violently.” (more…)

I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in the SENSE simulation (Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise) at the U.S. Institute of Peace over the last three days. SENSE is a simulation exercise meant to train leaders in reconstruction in a post-conflict country, in this case the made-up country of Akrona. Originally created to help implement the Dayton Peace Accords, it has been updated since then and used to train Iraqi leaders, among other places. The values of experiential learning are immeasurable, and in the Congressional Fellowship Program here at PSA, we have the Fellows participate in a two-hour NSC Deputies Committee simulation exercise.

The SENSE simulation is unique in the breadth of stakeholders included in the scenario. I played a parliamentarian (one of six), but there was also a president with a cabinet of ministers covering all the major governance areas, a central bank, international donors, international and local NGO’s, private domestic firms and a multi-national corporation.

SENSE is also unique in that it uses computers to process the decisions of these many actors to constantly update the status of Akrona. Depending on your role, you are able to update certain elements of the simulation based on the decisions you make, and you can track the decisions made by other players. For instance, while I was sitting at a parliament computer yesterday, I was quite pleased to see the Minister of Finance cut spending in the civil budget and start paying down the national debt. (more…)

In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, there is little doubt that there will be pressure on the incoming Obama Administration to move quickly in response to the Pakistan-India (and Afghanistan) security crisis. Early reports suggest that Pakistani based militants are behind the Mumbai violence and that American leadership will be necessary in order to secure regional stability.

While a focus on the region in general and Pakistan in particular is welcome, it is critically important that the new Administration develops a nuanced, long term approach to the very real challenges that exist. Crucially, the Administration must sequence its response and remember that despite the violence in Mumbai, and the link to Kashmir, it is stability in Pakistan that is a crucial first step to bringing peace to South Asia. This will take time and a clear understanding of how militancy has grown in Pakistan over recent years.

Most analysts believe that the Bush Administration’s support for the government of Gen. Musharraf contributed to a systematic rise in militancy over the last few years. Musharraf sought to marginalize and ban popular liberal opposition parties while allowing fringe religious parties to fill the vacuum; he assumed that he could control these parties and their figures. In reality, the religious parties became the primary outlet for anti-Musharraf sentiment and some of them fueled a rise in militancy. Policy analysts who recognized that Pakistani spikes in militancy occurred when the country was ruled by the military accurately predicted that history would repeat itself under Musharraf. The situation is most grave in the hard-to-govern tribal areas that border Afghanistan where a historic mistrust of central government, a rise in militancy and the relocated Taliban and Al Qaeda have created a security crisis.

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One might think that the current crisis roiling the American economy might be an opportunity for Senators Obama and McCain to spell out their differences on one important issue; U.S. military spending.

Consider the fact that on September 24th, during the fight over the Wall Street bail out, the House of Representatives passed, bill passed by a vote of 392-39, a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without any public protest or meaningful press comment. This show there is unlikely to be any significant pressure to cut military or related national security spending.

Instead, Senators Obama and McCain seem to be reading off the same page. That is the kind of bipartisanship we do no need. The time is long past for someone to stand up and say the obvious; that both military and associated “national security” spending is out of control and continually getting more outrageous.

The latter category includes nuclear weapons spending at the Energy department, plus the State department, as well as Veterans Affairs, and the intelligence agencies. All together that totals exceeds a trillion dollars annually.

Let’s stipulate that there are multiple factors which impact U.S. military spending. And yes, while the financial crisis will increase pressure to reduce military spending, other countervailing political factors will ensure that there likely will be no significant reduction.

Why is this? The primary reason is that the United States is at war, even if is an undeclared one and one which the country is largely disengaged and removed from. And no politician dares cutting military spending for fear of being accused being ’soft on defense” or not “supporting the troops.”

Unlike the situation at the end of the 1980s and early 19980s there is nothing comparable to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which drove significant reduction in U.S. military spending.

Today the situation is reversed. The United States is fighting the “long war” (formerly known at the global war on terror) and politically both the incumbent administration and the opposition party are reluctant to cut military spending at such a time.

Sadly, there is nothing in the campaign platforms of either Sen. John McCain or Barrack Obama to suggest that they would significantly reduce military spending.

In fact McCain says the United States must enlarge the size of its armed forces. That alone will guarantee that operation and support costs, traditionally one of the highest categories of U.S. military spending will stay high.

Likewise Sen. Obama supports plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops.

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When Heads of State gathered for the opening of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York last month, they were welcomed to a headquarters with a leaky roof. Plastic sheeting was installed previously to protect desks and computers in the library from dripping water, where a marble wall has threatened to collapse. Asbestos insulation has yet to be replaced, and some components of the core infrastructure are so antiquated that spare parts are no longer made.

In many ways, the decay of the UN headquarters is an apt metaphor for the world organization’s increasingly antiquated capacity to meet what is unquestionably the most important—and some might say “transcendent”—issue we face as a global community of nations: the growing likelihood of the spread and perhaps inevitable use of a nuclear weapon.

Preventing that catastrophe should be of critical importance to the UN and all Member States. To wit, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently called nuclear terrorism, “one of the most serious threats of our time,” noting that, “even one such attack could inflict mass casualties and create immense suffering and unwanted change in the world forever.”

But working from their 1950s edifice, the UN works to prevent this evolving 21st century threat with a decidedly 20th Century toolkit.

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Given the prospect of a trillion-dollar-plus government bailout package for Wall Street, tonight’s Presidential debate is likely to stray from the official theme of national security and foreign policy.  But, as Senators McCain and Obama have each suggested, America’s economic future is closely linked to our national security, our international standing, and our competitiveness in the global marketplace.  For that reason, any conversation about putting the US economy back on track will raise some serious questions about the next President’s national security and foreign policy agenda.

The Partnership for a Secure America’s distinguished bipartisan Advisory Board issued a statement asking Senators Obama and McCain five critical questions about foreign policy challenges that will require cooperation between Democrats and Republicans in January of 2009.  The statement begins: “As Democrats and Republicans, we believe that the next President of the United States must initiate a new era of US global leadership based on bipartisanship at home and cooperative engagement abroad.”

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Michael Landweber has rebutted my rebuttal using three basic arguments. They are:

1. If granted access, American business interests could coax the Castro regime into making incremental changes that benefit the Cuban people.
2. That leaving the embargo in place means doing nothing.
3. That Cuba is not the Soviet Union and we don’t even know if a Cuban Gorbachev exists.

Let’s take them in order. I’m a firm believer in the principle that the best indicator of future performance is past performance. Based on this line of thinking, I expect that American businesses operating in Cuba will no more coax the regime into moving toward its demise (that’s what we’re really asking of them isn’t it?) than Spanish businesses, Canadian businesses, British businesses, etc. For example, Spanish hoteliers happily assisted the Castro brothers by enforcing tourist apartheid at Cuba’s hotels and resorts for almost two decades. Cubans were not permitted to stay at such hotels, even if they had the money to do so.

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Although Mr. Eckel makes an attempt to clarify his position, his rebuttal leaves more questions unanswered. He first argues that he is not advocating for, nor defending, klepto-socialism or centralized planning. Conversely, he asserts that he is advocating for “the development of global institutions that take into account not just traditional measures of economic health like per-capita GDP, public debt, balance of trade etc, but also the manner in which that health can be sustained.” But, to demonstrate the importance of taking into account nontraditional measures of economic health, he cites China as an example of economic growth leading to environmental damage. China is a peculiar choice to represent this thesis.

China, although it has uplifted millions of people out of poverty as a result of free market and capitalist reforms, has created environmental damage not because of the positive changes it has made, but because of the communist authoritarianism it has not yet abandoned. While China is beginning to create a system of De Jure private property rights, its government nevertheless plans much of the infrastructure displacing millions of people from their homes without adequate compensation. Almost all of the environmental devastation, like the former USSR, results from this centralized planning.

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This past July 4th, former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev penned an op-ed for the International Herald Tribune in which he expressed concern over “the size of America’s defense budget and the militarization of its foreign policy.” Without going into the details (just read the piece; it’s short), Gorbachev questions what role the United States will play in the world of the twenty-first century, stating that “the next president… will have to decide and state clearly whether America wants to be an empire or a democracy, whether it seeks global dominance or international cooperation. They will have to choose, because this is an either-or proposition: The two things don’t mix, like oil and water.” Putting aside Mr. Gorbachev’s specific motivations – he is, after all, Russian, and, as he chose to remind us in a more recent piece likely has the interests of his own country at heart – he raises some important questions that U.S. leaders have yet to answer with any coherence or unanimity: What role should the United States play in the world of the twenty-first century? How does the U.S. military fit into that role? Can America remain prosperous, free, safe and hegemonic all at once? (more…)