China

Here's an article about China's global role. The article is another take on the major issues we discussed. What does China's recent aggressive behavior signal? Despite signals from Chinese leaders for many years that at some point, political liberalization would occur, it's unclear when that time will be. It also discusses that, paradoxically, with China's trade liberalization, political liberalization has seemed less a reality. That is, the US saw trade as a way to open up China and to be part of a "peaceful evolution" on the political side. But, with rising economic prowess as as result of the strength of its trade, political liberalization has seemed more distant. Enter Obama. The article argues that he has adopted a different tone that accepts China as it is and is less focused on the slow march of history in a narrative defined by American ideas. The idea, the author says, of the US as the world power bringing China onto the world stage has ended. But this, in fact, might have a silver lining: that the US can now develop an economic policy towards China that is not tied to a larger political project.

Osama Bin Laden

As we wait in anticipation for the arrival of Michael Scheuer to the UNC campus, topics in the Persian Gulf are heating up. The 9/11 planners are set to be put on trial in the US...hundreds of metres away from Ground Zero. With this in mind, Osama Bin Laden has issued a fierce warning to the West: If you execute one of mine, I will execute one of yours. Read this article to find out more. Should the US be worried about the forthcoming trials?

Global Crime: Narcotics

Since our informative lecture by Bruce Bagley, the drug war has escalated. This BBC Article tells us that drug gangs have spread throughout the US - the largest market. It appears that vast quantities of money and effort are in vain, and alternative ways are needed to stop this growing global crime.

Gorbachev Revisited

An interesting op-ed piece recently in the New York Times by Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of Soviet Russia, gives an interesting perspective to not only the transition of the USSR into Russia, but how Russian politics are working today, and in some ways regressing back to old ways. Gorbachev talks about the Perestroika, which this month celebrates its 25 anniversary. The Perestroika was a series of political and economic reforms enforced by Gorbachev's goverment in order to save Soviet Russia. However, Gorbachev concedes the government was already too far gone for the Perestorika to single handely save it. In a suprising turn, Gorbachev underlines some of the major pit falls and mistakes made during his time as leader of Soviet Russia. However, ultimately (and quite predictably) maintains the Perestroika while late, had valuable contributions that are undermined by today's government in Russia. Gorbachev ultimately suggests (somewhat ironically) there is great instability within Russia, and that people are living within a state of political fear-- a position in which it makes it difficult for Russia to move forward democratically.

China currency manipulation

Paul Krugman has some harsh words for China about their undervalued currency, blaming the Chinese for dragging out the worldwide recession.

He says, "And it’s a policy that seriously damages the rest of the world. Most of the world’s large economies are stuck in a liquidity trap — deeply depressed, but unable to generate a recovery by cutting interest rates because the relevant rates are already near zero. China, by engineering an unwarranted trade surplus, is in effect imposing an anti-stimulus on these economies, which they can’t offset."

So what can the US do? He wants Washington to get serious about it. But China has rebuffed a lot of the currency accusations and scolded the US about trying to lecture Beijing on economic policy. Interestingly, Krugman points out that China doesn't really have an incentive to dump a lot of its dollars because that would force China to take losses on its investment and also it would help US exports.

Containment of Iran?

This article looks at the scenario for containing a nuclear Iran. That is, if we go ahead and assume that Iran will get the bomb, what will our containment policy look like. Will "what worked with the soviets work with the mullahs?" is the question. The US worked to stop China from developing nuclear weapons in the 1960s but then slowly began to formulate a policy of containment after it became clear it would. So if China and Russia changed over decades, can Iran? The article lays out the argument for a containment policy. I have my doubts. We don't seem to have a clear policy towards Iran and are unsure, as the article points out, where our point of "tolerance" is - or, where that line in the sand is.

Russia-U.S. Nuclear Limitation Talks Progressing

Article.

The United States and Russia have been meeting to try and create a successor treaty to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired in December. Following Obama's general goal of nuclear reduction and an eventual nuclear-weapon-free world, the two parties are trying to agree on further reduction quotas, and both have said that talks are progressing wonderfully.

This NYTimes article is another illustration of how drug cartel violence is influencing everyday life. The Red Cross is no longer accepting patients wounded by drug related conflict or from prisons. Those Red Cross ambulances transporting those wounded in drug cartel-related violence have been pulled over, killing Red Cross workers in the process.

"BRIC Poised"

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachnan might as well be speaking for all four BRIC nations in this "anthem" commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Indian republic. Watch here.

Natural Disaster Survival: A Function of Society

Christopher Hitchens does it again, by succinctly pointing out the fact that the stability of a society goes far more towards determining the relative stability upon encounter with natural disaster than anything else.

Thesis here:

"     Professor Amartya Sen made a reputation some decades ago for pointing out that in the 20th century no serious famine had occurred in an open or democratic society, however poor. In the classic case that he studied—that of Bengal under British colonial occupation in the 1940s—tens of thousands of people had starved to death in areas that had overflowing granaries. It was not a shortage of food, but of information and of proper administration (cough, Monty cough, Gregor), that had led to the disaster. The Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, as was pointed out by Robert Conquest in his book The Harvest of Sorrow, was the result of a dictatorial policy rather than any failure of the crops.
     Taking this as an approximate analogy or metaphor, people are beginning to notice that the likelihood of perishing in an earthquake, or of being utterly dispossessed by it, is as much a function of the society in which one lives as it is of proximity to a fault."


Most Quotable Quote here:

"     But the Iranian regime, as we know, has other priorities entirely, and it has worked very hard to insulate not its people from earthquakes, but itself from its people. I remember sitting in one of Tehran's epic traffic snarls a few years ago and thinking, "What if a big one was to hit now?" This horrible thought was succeeded by two even more disturbing ones: What if the giant shudder came at night, when citizens were packed tightly into unregulated and code-free apartment buildings? And what would happen to the secret nuclear facilities, both under the ground and above it? I know what the mullahs would say—that the will of Allah was immutable. But what would the survivors think when they looked around the (possibly irradiated) ruins and saw how disposable their leaders had considered them to be?"

Full article found here