WPR Blog Archive

Sam Rogevveen and Rory Medcalf offer some thoughts over at the Interpreter on what the recently announced U.S. defense budget looks like from an Australian perpsective. Here’s Roggeveen: . . . [T]o the extent that Gates has decided to cap America’s ‘big war’ capabilities — by cuttingprograms like the F-22 and the Zumwalt-class destroyers and slowlyreducing the number of aircraft carriers — he is signaling that the U.S.is not intending to increase America’s margin of superiority againstChina. Indeed, given the leaps China is making, he is effectivelychoosing to reduce that margin. It’s really not that surprising or radical — the […]

There were long odds against the corruption case of African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma going to trial in the midst of his bid to win the presidency in upcoming South African elections. As I have written in previous posts, the ANC is starting to bear an eerie resemblance to political parties elsewhere on the continent, in both its sense of entitlement as well as its manipulation of democratic processes. But now that South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority has decided not to pursue the case, the former head of the authority’s elite Scorpions anti-corruption unit, Leonard McCarthy, is now in […]

World Politics Review contributor Arif Rafiq appeared on Worldfocus yesterday to discuss the visit of Richard Holbrooke and Adm. Mike Mullen to Pakistan. The video can be found here. Rafiq’s WPR feature article, “Pakistan’s Search for Security” (sub. req.) can be found here, and his recent WPR Briefing on the role of civil law in combatting the Talibanization of Pakistan can be found here. (If you’re not yet a WPR subscriber, you can take a four-month free trial with no obligation.)

Nouriel Roubini’s RGE Monitor today looks at China’s economic outlook and finds that with significantly slowed Chinese growth, the nature of the bilateral economic relationship that defined the world economy over the last several years — a high U.S. trade imbalance with China driven by U.S. consumption and Chinese saving — is inevitably changing: . . . Despite the fact that China’s aggressive policy response included monetary easing, scaling up of bank lending and a particularly aggressive scaling up of government investment to offset the contraction in private demand, there is an increased risk that China will grow only in […]

Tom Barnett pushes back against the Global Zero goal evoked by President Barack Obama with what is certainly today’s quote of the day, and might even be the quote of the year: The system is nowhere near prepared or integrated enough to abolishnuclear weapons, and even if it was, I’d keep them on the sheerassumption that not everybody and everything I might meet in spacesomeday is going to like me. Anne Applebaum pushes back, too, with a point that is often obscured by the bilateral U.S.-Russian lens through which we see nuclear arms control: Plus I’m not sure the French, […]

“This is a reform budget.” More specifically, though, this a formal indictment of the defense procurement process. Even where weapons systems have ostensibly been “cut,” it’s the procurement process and not really the weapon itself at issue. The FCS armored vehicle, for instance, was killed in its current conception in order to be relaunched in a form the army actually needs. The controversial, cost-overrun F-22 will run out its string, but will be replaced by the joint F-35, which offers more applications across the branches without the symbolic procurement albatross around its neck. (Do we really 2,443 of them, though, […]

A final thought on this weekend’s NATO summit. In his WPR Briefing on the subject, Soeren Kern had this to say: Obama put a brave face on the paltry results by saying they werea “strong down payment on the future of our mission in Afghanistan andthe future of NATO.” Butby providing only modest assistance incomparison to Obama’s 21,000-troop surge, NATO as an alliance hasessentially failed in Afghanistan. Indeed, the mission in Afghanistanis becoming increasingly Americanized: By the end of 2009, nearlytwo-thirds of the estimated 95,000 permanent foreign military personnelin Afghanistan will be American. Not only do I think that’s right, […]

A month ago, I argued that “[g]etting Iran to reimplement the Additional Protocol, and not the suspension of its uranium enrichment, should become thefocus of American policy moving forward.” If this Financial Times article is any indication, it looks as if the first efforts to shape public opinion in that direction have now officially begun. Tom Barnett responds with his inimitable sangfroid: The slim hope here that Obama clings to is that, if we acceptenrichment, Iran will stop short of weaponizing, taking a sort of Japanapproach to the question. I honestly don’t think that will be enough for Iran in […]

One of the more prevalent military hardware stories that’s been flying just under the radar for the past few years is the shortage of helicopters for multilateral deployments. The EUFOR Chad force ultimately had to accept a Russian offer of eight copters, along with their operating teams, in order to cover the huge theater of operations under their jurisdiction. This Defense Industry Daily article describes how Coalition forces in Afghanistan have been forced to lease copters for non-military use from private contractors, in order to free up military copters for operations. This is a false shortage, to the extent that […]

It turns out the deal to purchase Russian copters for Iraq that I flagged last week is screwy after all, but not for the reasons I imagined. Sharon Weinberger explains why over at Danger Room.

Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua proposed amnesty last Thursday for Niger Delta rebels willing to lay down their arms. The move has all the trapping of an attempt to deflect international criticism of what’s to come: There are reports that the Nigerian army’s special Niger Delta Joint Task Force is gearing up for what looks like a new attempt — codenamed Operation Restore Hope — to clamp down on the militant activity which has disrupted Nigeria’s oil output by about a million barrels per day. (Even taking into account recent declines in the price of oil, that’s real money.) However, […]

I’m not going to make a habit of doing this, but today’s two selections reflect my previous post about the disconnect between the political theater of this weekend’s NATO summit, and the political substance that underlies it. And in trying to make a final choice between the two of them, I realized that neither one fully does justice to the situation, whereas together they describe it perfectly. The first selection reflects the political theater and its theme of conciliation, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the song was loaded into President Barack Obama’s iPod before he left for […]

Yigal Schleifer gives a rundown of Turkey’s opposition to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s candidacy for NATO secretary general. Essentially, because Rasmussen refused to condemn the publication of the Mohamed caricatures way back when, Turkey is considering vetoing his appointment (NATO operates under consensus rules). T(here’s also the question of a Danish news outlet that allegedly serves as a PKK mouthpiece, but that doesn’t support the point I’m about to make, so I’ll downplay that part.) Turkey’s argument is based on the image problems Rasmussen’s “involvement” in the incident will create in the Muslim world. I would argue that […]

When the government of South Africa denied the Dalai Lama an entry visa last week, it was not the first time it had snubbed him. In 1999, then-President Mbeki canceled a meeting with the Tibetan leader after the Chinese vehemently protested. Whatever backbone Mbeki may have at one time had when working against apartheid seems to have turned to jello on that occasion. The South African government claimed that last week’s episode was not a snub, but merely an attempt to keep any ensuing diplomatic incident from deflecting attention from next year’s World Cup. But it’s hard to see the […]

What stood out most in President Barack Obama’s various press conferences I watched today was the divergence between the political theater in the run-up to the NATO summit, and the political substance that underlies it. On the political theater side, Obama acknowledged the French and German contributions to the war effort, while French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared their full support for Obama’s Afghanistan strategy. On the political substance side, Obama made it clear that France and Germany need to contribute more troops, and Sarkozy and Merkel said, Non, and Nein, respectively. It’s not that there’s no […]

World Politics Review managing editor, Judah Grunstein, will appear as a guest commentator on France 24, from 9-12 EST, during live coverage of President Barack Obama’s arrival at the 60th anniversary NATO summit in Kehl, Germany and Strasbourg, France.

Fun stuff via Kevin Drum: the Pew Research Center’s News IQ quiz. It’s 12 multiple choice questions that I imagine no one here will have any difficulty acing — i.e., a perfect score only gets you into the 94th percentile. I tried answering without looking at the choices first, and although I got everything correct in the multiple choice format, I would have put the Dow about 1,000 points higher than it is, the unemployment rate 2 percent lower than it is and military deaths in Iraq a couple hundred fewer than there have been. I guess in addition to […]