U.S. Foreign Policy

Iraqi access to uranium ore -- an interesting footnote

2005-11-16T00:43:00.000-05:00

The continued attention to Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame and Iraq's alleged interest in Niger's yellowcake uranium ore led me to look for a source that would have something useful to say about the likelihood that Iraqis could have gotten uranium another way -- simply by mining it domestically.

For this purpose the U.S. Geological Service's Minerals Yearbook seemed like a good place to start. All of the issues from 1994 onwards are on the web (click the headline above to go to the right page). Reading them, especially when armed with software (Acrobat Reader) that permits rapid searches for terms like "uranium," revealed some interesting material and raised some new questions.

In the first yearbook available (1994), we find

A uranium mine was reported northeast of Mosul, but no other details were available. Uranium also was recovered from phosphate rock during processing at a fertilizer complex in the west at Al Qaim, but no quantitative data were available.

The table of Iraqi mineral output statistics for that year that is included in the Yearbook has a footnote about uranium (and fluorine) compounds being mined or extracted from phophate ore, but notes that output levels are impossible to estimate.

The 1995 Yearbook contains the same text and footnote in the output table. In 1996 the text disappears, but the footnote is continued. This pattern holds in the 1997, 1998 and 1999 Yearbooks. The 2000 Yearbook contains new text:

Uranium was reportedly recovered in the past from the Akashat phosphate operation (Federation of American Scientists, October 9, 2000, Akashat/Ukashat, accessed June 20, 2001 at URL http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/facility/akashat.htm).

In 2001 the word uranium is not mentioned in the Iraq section. It is not mentioned in 2002 either. The only mention of uranium in the 2003 report was in connection with the “attempt” (whether successful or not the report does not say) to ban the import of ferrous military scrap metal from Iraq in that year. Uranium is not mentioned in the 2004 report.

It is certainly relevant to assessing the plausibility of claims that the Iraqis sought uranium ore from Niger to know that they had at least some commerically recoverable deposits on their own soil. It would also be good to know why the Yearbooks' discussion of Iraq exhibits this odd pattern of disclosure and non-disclosure.

"We're USA today with spies"

2005-11-07T19:57:00.000-05:00

Last Friday the Raleigh News & Observer ran my column on Ron Johnston's study of the work life of U.S. intelligence analysts (click the title above to link to it). Titled Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community, and published by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, the study makes for fascinating if rather depressing reading. Today's title is a quotation from one analyst interviewed by Johnston. The gist of the story is that analysts are often no longer doing my analyzing. Instead, they are being turned into reporters, and the emphasis in their reporting is on the short-run and the tactical (or even the operational), to the detriment of long-run and the large-scale.

Admittedly, mentioning this on a day which sees Yahoo (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051107/wl_mideast_afp/usiraqintelligence) reporting that "U.S. Iraq intel 'intentionally misleading'" (about a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of an al Quaeda defector who supplied information on a Saddam-al Qaeda connection concluding that it was probably deliberate misinformation, but the Bush administration ignoring their conclusion),the fact that analysts no longer get to write longer, more reflective pieces, or that nobody reads them anyway might seem to be small potatoes. Granted, it is not by itself criminal, but it speaks to a pervasive malfunctioning of the national security "management information system" which may ultimately be a larger problem because it is not linked to criminality or the knavery of specific elected or appointed officials but to a larger more systemic problem.

Quoting from my own concluding paragraphs:

To its credit, the report presents some good ideas for addressing the problems on the supply side -- through strengthening what the report terms the "infrastructure" of research and analysis, making the evaluation of analysis much more systematic and institutionalizing a process of learning from mistakes.

Unfortunately, the intelligence agencies can do little about the demand side. They are in no position to teach their consumers that they should be asking for a different kind of intelligence product. That will only come about when voters elect leaders who have an interest in analysis that goes beyond short-term tactical considerations, and who are willing to listen to points of view that they might not like to hear.

The coming fracas over emigration?

2005-10-31T23:01:00.000-05:00

On the new books shelf of our university library I found last week David Heenan's Flight Capital: The Alarming Exodus of America's Best and Brightest (Mountain View, CA: Davis-Black Publishing). Davis-Black Publishing is listed as a division of CPP, Inc., also of Mountain View. The Silicon Valley location is perhaps suggestive of their primary client base. CPP's website reveals that they sell

some of the world's leading assessments--including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and Strong Interest Inventory® instruments-- and support materials. Trainers, consultants, HR professionals, executive coaches, and psychologists use CPP products and services to help their clients take the guesswork out of personal and professional growth.

Heenan begins his argument by noting the importance of skilled immigrants to US scientific, technological, and economic success:

Chinese and Indian immigrants run nearly a quarter of Silicon Valley's high-tech firms. Half of the Americans who shared Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry in the past seven years were born elsewhere. Nearly 40 [percent of MIT graduate students are from abroad. More than half of all Ph. D.s working here are foreign-born, as are 45 percent of physicists, computer scientists, and mathematicians. One third of all physics teachers and one fourth of all women docytors immigrated to this country.

He then argues that in the 1990s the improvement of conditions in these immigrants' native countries began to induce large numbers of them to return home. "In a world economy that placed an increasing premium on knowledge, many of America's best and brightest began hotfooting it home in search of another promised land."

The heart of the book is a series of case studies of countries benefiting from this pattern: Ireland, Iceland, India, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Israel, and Mexico. What seems common to all the cases is a government that has a keen appreciation of its position in the international division of labor, a willingness to invest in preparing for the future, and a business-state relationship that is symbiotic rather than parasitic.

His conclusion chapter has the predictable case against outsourcing, but also suggests a less obvious series of innovations that are supposedly tailored to exploit the current situation: improve immigration policies to remove barriers to skilled workers; change the constitution to allow immigrants to become president after a suitable residence period (the Schwarzenegger amendment?); work to attract highly skilled immigrants and (by implication) de-emphasize the re-uniting of families in US immigration policy; learn to live with those who have dual loyalties; get serious about improving American K-12 and higher education; elevate the social status of science and technology ("Nurture the Nerds!"); broaden workforce participation and defer retirement, and revive and treasure the concept of national service.

Although these suggestions have an off-the-cuff quality, they are a useful place to begin a discussion rather than the conclusion of one. They certainly are a more attractive set of ideas than the simple injunction to accept the "inevitability" of globalization and the equally inevitable slide in American living standards.

George W. Bush and the "Red versus Expert" struggle

2005-10-04T21:37:00.000-05:00

After reading a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers for a U.S. Supreme Court seat that suggested that this is simply "cronyism," I was reminded of similar stories that had been published recently about other Bush appointees that suggested much the same thing was going on in agencies such as FEMA and the State Department. (The WSJ story is behind a subscription wall, but a friend was kind enough to have a copy emailed to me). It is available on-line at

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB112838640165859103-lMyQjAxMDE1MjA4NDMwODQ2Wj.html

and in hard copy form in the 4 October 2005 issue, p. A26. Written by Randy Barnett, it contends that "[c]ronyism is bad not only because it leads to less qualified judges, but also because we want a judiciary with independence from the executive branch. A longtime friend of the president who has served as his close personal and political adviser and confidante, no matter how fine a lawyer, can hardly be expected to be sufficiently independent -- especially during the remaining term of her former boss."

The "we" in the previous paragraph is merely rhetorical. Leaders who have a very expansive and ideologically driven view of the necessity for sharp transformative actions tend not to be very concerned about the loyalty of appointees to anyone other than themselves. This means they place an extremely high premium on the political trustworthiness of appointees, often at the expense of other desirable qualities (such as knowing something about how to perform the job they are asked to do). Mao Tse-tung, who had such an ideologically driven view, favored the appointment of those who were "red" -- that is, completely committed to the party line -- rather than "expert" -- possessed the technical qualifications to perform the job. Of course, finding cadres who were both red and expert was the ideal solution to this, but in Mao's China as in Washington, D.C. this is not easy to do.

I won't bother to comment on the FEMA situation because that has already been beaten to death in conventional media as well as in the blogs. More relevant is recent coverage of the first Middle East visit of the State department's new head of public diplomacy -- Bush confidant Karen Hughes. As reported by John Brown of the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy (click the above title to link to it), both foreign and domestic coverage of her trip has been scathing. In Friday's Washington Post Al Kamen presented a sample of opinion from highly visible sources:

"Preachy, culturally insensitive, superficial PR blitz." -- USA Today.

"Faux Pas Trifecta; saying too much, saying the wrong thing, saying anything at all." -- the Washington Times op-ed page.

"Non-answers, canned message, macabre." -- the Los Angeles Times.

"Fiasco, lame attempt at bonding." -- Slate.com

"Painfully clueless . . . pedestrian . . . vapid . . . gushy." -- Arab News ("The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily")

"The marquee clown [in] America's circus diplomacy . . . total ineptitude . . . total disconnect." Al-Jazeerah.

Although Kamen characterizes these acounts as "harsh," his own view is, if anything, even more negative:

En route home, Hughes singled out to reporters "a really interesting meeting" with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul , who urged her to try to look at the Iraq war from the perspective of "a common man in Turkey."

"And he said: 'You know, for you all, when you're talking about Iraq, war in Iraq, and Iran and Syria, you're talking about countries over there. We're talking about our next-door neighbors,' " Hughes recalled, according to a transcript on the State Department Web site.

"And it's an interesting perspective and an important perspective that I will now try to bring to our policy debate," she said. "Not that it hasn't been present, but I consider it my job to make sure that it's really highlighted and considered."

Carrying a map of the region also might come in handy.

Hughes also defended President Bush . "I had one person at one lunch raise the issue of the president mentioning God in his speeches," she told reporters. "And I asked whether he was aware that previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our Constitution cites 'one nation under God.' "

Carrying a copy of the Constitution -- maybe also the Pledge of Allegiance -- might come in handy.

Kamen's story is available at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601803.html

Throughout the Bush presidency, observers have been divided in their characterization of how ideologically driven Bush is. His pattern of appointments is consistent with the nonideological "crony" theory, but also with Bush-as-Maoist. Without knowing the private evaluations of candidates and the administration's grounds for selecting and rejecting them, it is impossible to know which theory is correct.

Why they're not rushing to build new refineries

2005-09-28T23:33:00.000-05:00

Exxon/Mobil now forecasts non-OPEC oil production will peak in five years
See the discussion at the above link.

Who Covered the 82nd Airborne story, and how?

2005-09-24T22:17:00.000-05:00

This morning the Raleigh News & Observer carried a front page (below the fold) story, "Bragg unit subject of abuse tip," written by staff writer Jim Nesbit. It begins, "Army criminal investigators are probing an officer's allegations that 82nd Airborne Division soldiers abused and beat detainees at a base near Fallajah in 2003 and 2004, a Senate Armed Services Committee spokesman said Friday."

After reading this hard copy version, I checked the NY Times online and found the following:

"3 in 82nd Airborne Say Beating Iraqi Prisoners Was Routine," by Eric Schmitt

"WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 - Three former members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division say soldiers in their battalion in Iraq routinely beat and abused prisoners in 2003 and 2004 to help gather intelligence on the insurgency and to amuse themselves."

The difference between a single officer's "allegations" and what three soldiers "say" made me curious to see how other papers introduced this story. I then checked the online Washington Post and found:

"82nd Airborne Soldiers Allege Iraq Abuse,by Lolita C. Baldor
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 24, 2005; 8:39 AM
NEW YORK -- Soldiers in the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division vented their frustration by systematically torturing Iraqi detainees from 2003 into 2004, hitting them with baseball bats and dousing them with chemicals, a U.S. rights group alleges in a new report.
The Human Rights Watch report, issued Friday, was compiled from interviews with a captain and two sergeants who served in a battalion of the 82nd Airborne that was stationed at a military base called Mercury near Fallujah, the insurgent stronghold retaken by U.S. forces last year."

The L.A. Times had

"More Iraqis Tortured, Officer Says --
• The 82nd Airborne is accused of abuses in 2003 and early 2004. A criminal inquiry begins.

By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — An Army captain and two sergeants from the 82nd Airborne Division who were responsible for supervising prisoners in Iraq have come forward with allegations that members of the unit routinely beat, tortured and abused detainees in 2003 and early 2004.
The Pentagon announced Friday that it opened a criminal investigation of the accusations this week, after learning of the charges recently from the Senate Armed Services Committee and Human Rights Watch."

Serrano's story was the only one to mention in the lead that the soldiers were responsible for supervising prisoners.

I then decided to check other newspapers' websites to see how they covered the story. This is what I found:

Dallas Morning News -- no coverage

Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- no coverage

Cincinnati Enquirer -- no coverage

Philadelphia Inquirer -- no coverage

Chicago Tribune -- "82nd Airborne Soldiers Allege Iraq Abuse
September 24, 2005
By Lolita C. Baldor/Associated Press Writer
Soldiers in the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division vented their frustration by systematically torturing Iraqi detainees from 2003 into 2004, hitting them with baseball bats and dousing them with chemicals, a U.S. rights group alleges in a new report."

Chicago Sun-Times -- no coverage

Detroit News -- no coverage

Cleveland Plain Dealer -- "Army probes new report of prisoner abuse in Iraq,
Lolita C. Baldor Associated Press
Washington - The Army has opened an investigation into a Fort Bragg soldier's allegations that he witnessed and heard about widespread prisoner abuse - including torture and a beating with a baseball bat - while serving at a base in Iraq."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- "New charges of abuse in Iraq probed
Army told prisoner torture widespread, condoned by superiors; congressional investigation sought Saturday, September 24, 2005
By Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Army has opened an investigation into a Fort Bragg soldier's allegations that he witnessed and heard about widespread prisoner abuse -- including torture and a beating with a baseball bat -- while serving at a base in Iraq."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- Soldiers' report details prisoner abuse, torture in Iraq
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 09/24/2005 WASHINGTON The Army has opened an investigation into a Fort Bragg soldier's allegations that he witnessed and heard about widespread prisoner abuse - including torture and a beating with a baseball bat - while serving at a base in Iraq."

Minneapolis Star-Tribune -- no coverage

Denver Post -- no coverage

Seattle Post - Intelligencer -- no coverage

and finally, elsewhere in North Carolina

Durham Herald-Sun -- no coverage and

Fayetteville Observer -- no coverage

I'm sure I left out some papers that others would include. My survey method was simply to visit the paper's website, look for the story on the home page, then go to the "national/world" section. If not there, I would then look for a search box and search under "airborne" or "82nd airborne."

A bumper sticker currently in circulation says, "If you're not outraged,you're not paying attention." My survey suggests another reason: Maybe your local news outlet does not give any bad news to pay attention to.

Does trade follow the flag? Consumer product boycotts and national policies

2005-09-21T11:07:00.000-05:00

The extent to which international trade is affected by political considerations has long been a concern of economists and political scientists. A recent study by polling firm GMI suggests a new wrinkle on this old topic. GMI surveyed 15,500 consumers in 17 countries to learn how politics asffected their purchases.

Overall, 36% of all consumers worldwide –- and a higher percentage of men than women – said they were boycotting products. The most boycotted brands ... were Nike, Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Nestle. The Germans had the highest number of brands on their black lists including local ones such as Adidas, Opel and Mercedes, while Chinese consumers said they avoided mainly local brands and Sony.

"These findings will be very concerning to these adept marketing companies, as it demonstrates the risk to the value of their brands. Clearly they are not connecting with their local marketplaces as well as they could," said Allyson Stewart-Allen, Director of marketing consulting firm International Marketing Partners.

"This is why we are currently developing a Brand Barometer together with GMI to allow companies to monitor on a regular basis how they are perceived around the world. They can then act on the insights about their brand perceptions and implement more focused local marketing programs."

Among the most frequently given reasons for boycotting were unfair labour practices and unhealthy products. Bad publicity and country origination played a less important role. However, 18% of those asked also said they wouldn’t buy products produced by countries that don’t respect the Kyoto agreement aimed at slowing down global warming, while 28% weren't aware of the agreement at all.

A fourth of all consumers worldwide claimed they were 'environmentally responsible' or 'socially responsible' rather than average shoppers

GMI has also conducted international polls that attempt to evaluate the appeal of nations as "brands." The questions tap attitudes of respondents on six dimensions of attitude towards a sample of twenty-five nations: people, investment & immigration, exports, tourism, governance, and culture & heritage. Overall, the U.S. places 11th. It scored well on exports, investment & immigration, slightly less well on tourism and people, below average on governance, and well below average on culture & heritage. The study author observes that

One could argue that a degree of unpopularity is the unavoidable price of being the world's only military superpower. However, the culture score is associated with the maturity, prudence, wisdom, cultivation, humanity and intelligence of the nation. Such a low score for Brand America hardly provides a positive context in which to evaluate America's political and military acts.

The complete text of the report can be found here:
http://www.gmi-mr.com/gmipoll/docs/NBI_Q2_2005.pdf

Only two such studies have been released, and there is some instability in the rankings. It will be interesting to see how durable these findings are after several more such surveys are completed.

Katrina, the Kursk, and the Perception of Power

2005-09-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

The following is a guest posting by my friend and colleague, Prof. Mark Crescenzi.

I talk a lot about power in my international relations courses. Power is a central ingredient of who gets what in world politics, even when we work through peaceful channels like the United Nations. One of the dimensions of power that I cover in my National Security class is the importance of the perception of power. You see, it is very difficult to know exactly how powerful a country is (or a terrorist group, or a business rival), because power is dynamic. Not only is power always changing for each country in the world, countries often have incentives to misrepresent how powerful they are (or are not). Because of this ability to lie about one's power, the perception of power can sometimes be more relevant than the actual power for a country.

That brings me to two events in history that bear a sad resemblance. The first is the sinking of the Kursk. The Kursk was a Russian nuclear submarine, considered at the time to be one of the best of its fleet. In the summer of 2000, it sank in the icy waters of the Barents Sea, killing the entire crew. It wasn't just the fact that something went horribly wrong with the submarine that was so damaging. In the hours and days immediately after the catastrophe began it became painfully clear that Russia did not have the capability to rescue its men. The world offered to help, but Russia's own struggle with its inadequacies sealed the death of the crew (although there was little chance of their survival). In the end, Russia relied on help from Norway to get to the Kursk and retrieve the bodies. When I teach my students about how a nation can go from being perceived as a world power to a struggling second tier power almost overnight, I use the story of the Kursk to make my point.

Five years later, we now have a similar example in Hurricane Katrina. The cases aren't identical: clearly the United States is not about to slide into second tier status. But one would be hard pressed to contend with the statement that in the eyes of the world, our incredible failure to respond to this catastrophe has resulted in an incalculable drop in America's perceived power. Allies and enemies alike are shaking their heads, wondering how the U.S. got itself so far adrift from its Cold War days. In some ways this piece of history is more disturbing than the Kursk events. Russia failed its crew because its military, economy, and political system were in dramatic disarray. America has thus far failed its citizens because of hubris, ignorance, and incompetence.
When a government fails in its policies, whether they are foreign policies such as the war in Iraq, or domestic policies such as the homeland security response to Katrina, one of the consequences is a loss in perceived power. Given what we know about the importance of perception in world politics, this loss of perceived power might as well be a loss of actual power. It will take a long, long time before America can repair this wound to its image. Until then, we will have less of a voice in the global political arena.

Katrina as a Foreign Policy Issue

2005-09-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

This morning's Wall Street Journal carries an article by Sharon Begley making the point that "man-made mistakes increase devastation of 'natural' disasters." (I haven't bothered with a link because this is a pay site and I don't have a subscription.)

In his 2000 book 'Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America,' Prof. [Theodore] Steinberg documented how much of the toll from 'natural' disasters ... has been exacerbated by human actions. The temporary lull in hurricane activity in Florida from 1969 to 1989, spurred a reckless building boom, for example, putting billions of dollars worth of condos and hotels within reach of storm surges, notes Roger Pielke Jr., of the University of Colorado, Boulder. [In Louisiana] more than one million acres of Louisiana's coatal wetlands, or 1,900 square miles, have been lost since 1930, due to development and the construction of levees and canals. . . . Studies estimate that for every square mile of wetlands lost, storm surges rise by one foot.

No single freak storm can be attributed to global climate trends. But for hurricanes to form, the surface temperature in the tropical Atlantic must exceed about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That is more likely in a warmer world. [Studies] suggest the frequency of hurricanes doesn't reflect global warming. Straightforward physics, however, says their intensity might. As the seas and air warm, there is more evaporation, which fuels storms, and more energy available to pump them up. A new analysis by atmospheric physicist Kerry Emanuel of MIT suggests the net power of tropical cyclones ... 'has increased markedly since 1970.'

Environmentalists often note that political systems tend not to deal with incipient problems until there are "bodies in the streets." That's exactly what we have in New Orleans right now. It remains to be seen whether the bodies are enough. Judging by the lack of attention in the news coverage of this disaster to the links between the warming of the oceans and the intensity of severe storms, it is not obvious that the bodies will do the trick. As far as the Republican Party is concerned, the key issue facing the Congress when it returns from the August recess is the repeal of the estate tax (!) See http://americablog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/deathtax-785995.jpg for this. As Dave Barry was wont to say, I am not making this up.

We need an effective treaty on global warming, and we need it now. Whatever the merits of the Kyoto Treaty, support for or opposition to it is not an excuse for inaction now.

I've Seen this Movie Before

2005-08-26T22:53:00.000-05:00

Tonight Yahoo is running a story by Tom Lasseter of the Knight-Ridder chain suggesting that "Iraqi forces may need years of preparation":

American Sgt. LaDaunte Strickland, sweat pouring down his face, stared at the four Iraqi soldiers sitting in the shade of a truck.

They were supposed to be helping Strickland and a group of U.S. Marines man a vehicle-control point, a basic operation in which troops hope to catch insurgents at traffic stops they set up quickly on the roadsides.

"Come on. Come on! Get up," said Strickland, 30, of Cleveland, stabbing a cigar in the air to make his point. "Damn, will you PLEASE get up!"

The Iraqis didn't stir. Without an interpreter - a common occurrence - the Iraqis didn't understand Strickland, no matter how loud he got.

Three weeks of patrols and interviews in restive Anbar province suggested that Iraqi security forces will need years of preparation before they're ready to take charge of the complex and violent tribal areas of western Iraq.

President Bush has said repeatedly that U.S. troops will withdraw only when Iraqi troops are ready to take over.

Those of us of a certain age find this story very familiar. The lack of skills, the lack of motivation, the ethnic conflicts and the language barriers were familiar themes in accounts of US trainers working with South Vietnamese troops. (The Yahoo story doesn't mention general officers selected for their political connections, a staple of the South Vietnamese army, but it would be unlikely that the Iraqi officer corps is any less affected by such considerations). Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie begins with a long account of a battle of An Bac in 1962 in which out-numbered and out-gunned but skilled and motivated NLF forces slice and dice a U.S. led and supported effort by South Vietnamese troops to drive NLF forces out of a village and take control of it. That battle was portrayed by the US as a South Vietnamese victory, because at the end of the day the South Vietnamese were in control of the village. But they were able to accomplish this only because the NLF withdrew in good order after inflicting many casualties and shooting down several helicopters. No army could afford many such "victories."

The U.S. began training the South Vietnamese forces very soon after the creation of the South Vietnamese government in 1954. With each advance in South Vietnamese weaponry (most notably their acquisition of helicopters), the U.S. also trained the NLF and later the North Vietnamese forces in the correct way to cope with the change. Of course, the training of the latter was accomplished mainly by negative reinforcers, but because U.S. forces had few positive or negative reinforcers to apply to South Vietnamese troops, it is not surprising that the NLF seemed to learn its lessons more quickly and thoroughly than the South Vietnamese did. Twenty years of training the South Vietnamese army is said to have produced some very fine individual units and individual soldiers, but the army as a whole was not up to the task of coping with the North Vietnamese in the "final exam" administered by the latter in the spring of 1975.

In Iraq the US is again training not one army, but at least two. Although "our" Iraqis might be making progress, the more interesting question is whether "their" Iraqis are learning more quickly. Frequent anecdotes about the adaptability of the insurgency suggest that an optimistic verdict may be imprudent.

Burr & uranium: Finally a local story

2005-08-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

Upon returning from vacation, I found that the Raleigh News & Observer did carry a story on Burr's vote. Written by Rob Christensen, it was a more detailed account of the measure and Burr's stated reasons for voting for it. Unfortunately, the story made no attempt to resolve whether in fact the legislation would have any beneficial effect on U.S. imports of medical isotopes, whether there has been a shortage or a shortage is looming, or any of the other substantive claims raised by the participants in this debate. Disappointing but hardly surprising.

More on Burr and highly enriched uranium

2005-08-12T23:44:00.000-05:00

Thanks to a very helpful email from Alan Kuperman and a little web searching, I've found more on this remarkable story about Sen. Burr and his interest in promoting exports of highly enriched uranium.

A story by Michael Grunwald in the Washington Post on July 29 ("Uranium Provision to Alter U.S. Policy -- Easing of Export Curbs Concerns Nonproliferation Advocates") reveals more about the forces pushing for this legislation. (Because it is more than 14 days old, you can only see the entire story by purchasing it from the "archives" section of the Post's website.) The amendment to the energy bill containing this provision was termed the Burr Amendment. Lobbyists from the Alpine Group promoted Nordion's interests on behalf of "a nuclear medicine trade group." That group, the Council on Radionuclides and Radiopharmaceuticals, does not list highly enriched uranium exports as one of their public policy concerns in the public policy section of their website, but their spokesperson is quoted in the Post article as supporting the Burr Amendment.

Opponents say the amendment would eliminate the financial incentives for foreign firms to switch. Since 1992, when then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) persuaded Congress to adopt the export restrictions, Argentina and several other countries have begun retrofitting reactors to use uranium that cannot be used in atomic weapons.

By contrast, Nordion already has enough highly enriched uranium to make one or two Hiroshima-size bombs, and its factories do not have to meet the same security standards as Energy Department facilities. It initially agreed to convert to low-grade uranium, but its executives changed their minds and helped finance a fierce lobbying campaign to loosen the restrictions."

Burr first proposed his amendment in 2003, while still a member of the House. At that time, the News & Observer did publish another op-ed by the diligent Prof. Kuperman: http://newsobserver.com/editorials/story/3039197p-2780765c.html . In that article Kuperman noted that Burr had received $66,500 in campaign contributions from the nuclear industry in the 2002 election cycle, the 7th highest total of any member of the House of Representatives.

Kuperman notes that Burr's argument that exports of highly enriched uranium are needed for an adequate supply of medical isotopes might make sense if bomb-grade uranium were an essential ingredient in the manufacture of medical isotopes. But it is not. These isotopes can be made with lower-grade uranium not suitable for bombs. (Australia makes isotopes this way). Parts of the nuclear industry are resisting the switch simply because it will cost them money to convert.

Kuperman in 2003 quoted then current U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, John Bolton: "Our goal is to reduce to an absolute minimum international commerce in and unsecured storage of weapons-usable uranium throughout the world." Of course, now that Bush has signed the bill containing this amendment, we know Burr was correct in assuming that the White House did not take its own position seriously enough to veto legislation containing Burr's amendment.

Finally, the National Review, in its 20 June 2005 issue ("Canadian Con: A manufacturer uses false scare tactics to push its agenda," http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kuperman200506200751.asp ) carried another article by Kuperman in which he presents more detail on Nordion's situation and strategy:

"The biggest culprit is the Canadian isotope producer Nordion, which supplies the bulk of the American market, demands the most bomb-grade uranium, persistently defies U.S. conversion requirements, and is the main force behind the legislation to weaken them. As long ago as 1990, the Canadians promised the United States that they would 'phase out highly enriched uranium [HEU] use by 2000.' Instead, they constructed new facilities designed explicitly to use [HEU] for the next 30 years. ... Nordion even refused U.S. offers of technical assistance to facilitate conversion, on grounds that since the company was not going to convert anyway, there was no reason to figure out how to do it."

"But U.S. law requires foreign companies to actively work toward converting to low-enriched uranium as a condition of receiving [HEU] exports in the interim. Accordingly, Nordion’s recalcitrance put in doubt the long-term operation of its soon-to-open facility. All by itself, Nordion could assure a steady supply of uranium to produce isotopes at the new plant simply by cooperating with the United States to convert it expeditiously."

Even if the Canadians reject such action, there is no imminent shortage of medical isotopes, as claimed by the industry’s lobbyists. Nordion currently produces isotopes at an older facility that was effectively grandfathered by the U.S. law because it is expected to close when the new facility opens. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has never rejected or threatened to reject an export of uranium to this older facility. Moreover, Nordion already has stockpiled at least two years’ worth of bomb-grade uranium at the new facility to produce isotopes once it opens."

Kuperman advocates a more aggressive U.S. policy to develop alternative sources of isotopes: induce producers in Belgium and the Netherlands to supply the U.S. market, or establish a domestic production, as one company in New Mexico is trying to do, using low-enriched uranium. "Both options could be promoted by strengthening, rather than weakening, current law — for example, adopting a ban on the importation or use of isotopes produced with bomb-grade uranium, to take effect when sufficient supplies are produced with the safer uranium."

For a time, media pundits and the Bush White House were fond of claiming that 9/11 "changes everything." We have Senator Burr to thank for showing us that, to the contrary, 9/11 has changed very little. The nexus of interest group cash and a mercenary desire to be re-elected is a far more potent force than a desire to cope with a diffuse and long-term threat. The lack of news coverage by North Carolina news media aids and abets Burr's strategy.

Sen. Burr, non-proliferation, and politics as usual

2005-08-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

This morning the Raleigh News & Observer carried an interesting op-ed by Alan Kuperman on the way that the new energy legislation "guts restrictions on the export of highly enriched uranium." (Click on the title above to link to it). Kuperman's account is depressing even by comparison with recent Congressional history (and that is saying something). Apparently Senate Energy Committee chair Pete Domenici acted at the behest of foreign customers of US uranium exporters, who found that investing in obtaining an amendment to US law was more profitable than investing in the technology necessary to comply with it. So now members of Congress are not merely content with raising campaign contributions by making it possible for domestic producers to avoid adjusting -- they have internationalized their racket to provide the same service to foreign producers.

The Kuperman column follows by two days a New York Times story on the same topic --

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/politics/09nuke.html --

that focuses on one particular Canadian producer as the source of this pressure. "The Canadian company, MDS Nordion, uses a reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, to fission highly enriched uranium, or H.E.U., to produce molybdenum 99, which is used to make an injectable drug for diagnostic imaging." The Times story, by Matthew Wald, says nothing about Domenici, but rather focuses on North Carolina's Richard Burr as the key Senator in instigating this legislation. Burr "first championed the change when he was a United States representative for his state. Mr. Burr's spokesman, Doug Heye, said, 'We did it at the urging of doctors in North Carolina.' "

The Times story notes that Bur's spokesperson claims that the Senator acted at the behest of North Carolina doctors. But it also notes that these medical isotopes could be produced from less heavily enriched uranium. One wonders if the doctors simply asked that the medical isotope production not be impaired, or whether they specified that the isotopes that they wanted should be produced with highly enriched uranium.

Allocating responsibility to Burr or Domenici does not require that we ordain just one of them as "owning" this lamentable piece of legislation. However, it is interesting that the Raleigh paper chose to run a version of the story that made no mention of Burr's role. What's even more interesting is that a LexisNexis search finds that as of today no North Carolina publication has picked up the Times story. If North Carolina voters want to find out what Sen. Burr has been doing on this issue, they have to turn to out-of-state sources. This is a "free press"?

Recess Appointment for Bolton

2005-08-01T23:25:00.000-05:00

There are plenty of stories on this, but I haven't noticed anyone writing about the possibility that the very qualities that render Bolton a dubious choice in the eyes of many are what make him so attractive to the Bush administration. One only requires good diplomatic skills if one expects to engage in diplomacy involving cooperation on international agreements. It seems plausible that having a UN ambassador who adopts a hectoring, bullying style is a dominant strategy for the Bush administration -- either he secures concessions, or else he stimulates a variety of reactions that suggest to the less attentive or more xenophobic members of the American public that the UN is "anti-American," and a cesspool either to be drained by drastic "reforms" or else abolished.

Those people who have been putting up those "Keep the US out of the UN, and the UN out of the US" billboards in rural areas for decades are not interested in seeing the UN succeed at anything, unless it is entirely on their terms. More discord at the UN plays into their hands.

As the US proportion of global GDP declines over the coming decades, its influence over the UN and such multilateral agencies as the IMF, the World Bank, and others where formal (or informal) influence is a function of a nation's share of the organizational budget will decline. The more intelligent members of the Bush admnistration have probably grasped this. If one views the worth of these organizations in terms of the benefits that they provide to the U.S. government (and not to the world as a whole), then these multilateral organizations are a wasting asset for US foreign policy. From such a standpoint, it might be better to dismantle multilateral institutions than risk them continuing to function with diminished U.S. control over their actions.

Non-proliferation

2005-07-28T15:26:00.000-05:00

On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, I attended an off-the-record presentation by an extremely high ranking military official. His remarks were mostly a repackaging of already public information and White House statements (remember "shock and awe"? How times and rhetorical fashions change), but a couple of his off-the-cuff remarks were memorable -- perhaps more memorable than he intended.

One of them was that we civilians would be surprised to learn just how many nations had been trying to build nuclear weapons in the recent decades. If this was meant to be a reassuring message informing us that the Defense Department was protecting us from threats that we didn't even know about, it did not succeed. The message I got from the remark was considerably less comforting: Here is a guy who doesn't know the open literature on non-proliferation.

That literature has been saying for decades that nuclear weapons were bound to diffuse, and it has consistently forecast a diffusion rate noticeably higher than what has been observed. I can remember in my first course in international politics (taught by Professor Terry Hopmann -- an excellent researcher as well as teacher), we discussed a chart in Karl Deutsch's international relations textbook that summarized then current forecasts of nuclear weapons diffusion rates. I no longer remember the numbers, but I do remember the overall message: by the end of the twentieth century (then almost 30 years away), there were going to be dozens of countries with nuclear weapons.

At the time that seemed like a sensible forecast. Nuclear weapons are a 1940s technology (or early 1950s, if you count thermo-nuclear weapons separately). How many "cutting edge" technologies of that time have not diffused quite widely? An academic Rip van Winkle who went to sleep in 1972 would be startled to learn upon awakening in 2005 that until the 1990s nuclear diffusion seemed to be at least superficially under control, and that diffusion still had been confined to less than a dozen nations.

It is possible that this is because the earlier forecasts were utterly wrong-headed, that building these weapons is a lot more difficult than academics realized, and that those who have them usually have a strong incentive not to share their secrets. However, another hypothesis is at least as plausible: that the U.S. and other nuclear "have" countries have been much more successful at suppressing the diffusion process than anyone would have expected.

I'll be talking more about these issues in a panel in Chapel Hill in little more than a week:

Remembering Nagasaki 60 Years Later

Panel with Stephen Young, senior analyst, Union of Concerned Scientists;
Steven Wing, UNC Department of Epidemiology;
Mark Driscoll, UNC Department of Asian Studies;
Timothy McKeown, UNC Department of Political Science.

7:30 PM, August 9, Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 MLK Blvd. Information: 967-2172.

If you click on the title of this post it takes you to the National Security Archive's Electronic Briefing Book on National Intelligence Estimates on proliferation. If you are interested in this topic, it definitely is a worthwhile read.

Visit from a Chinese Scholar

2005-07-22T21:20:00.000-05:00

Today I met with Dr. Chuanxing Wang of Tongji University, who is touring the U.S. under the auspices of the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program. His university is launching a new M.A. program in U.S. politics, and he will be teaching classes on U.S. politics and economics, as well as international relations theory. The email sent to me in advance of his arrival informed me that, "Dr. Wang would like to learn more about U.S.-China relations and the current dynamic that drives the relationship, with particular emphasis on views of US academics and researches of security-military issues, ... as well as some of the reasoning behind US foreign policy toward China."

Then followed a series of questions, which reflected a mix of concerns:

1. Do domestic politics in the United States always play a crucial role in US policy-making towards China? Or do they matter only when the issue is not of strategic importance?

2. Is the interaction between the domestic politics and international politics still a trend in the international studies in light of US actions in the Middle East, particularly Iraq?

3. What is the potential of China's "soft power" as compared with that of the United States?

4. Will China's "soft power" be dominant in Asia in the next century?

5. To what extent should "soft power" be emphasized in the international politics studies?

6. What is the future of relations between China and Taiwan?

7. What are the possibilities for exchange relations between US universities and Tongji University?

8. Is the United States adopting a containment policy towards China now?

9. Does Japan's close alliance with the United States make its relations with China more challenging?

10. How is China's foreign policy towards Japan viewed today?

Of course, discussions like this seldom follow the script, and today was no exception. He started by asking about the morning's big story on the revaluation of the Chinese currency. From there we drifted into a discussion of the politics of protection and possible U.S. public resentment against low-cost Chinese exports. However, the subject that received the most attention was the question of U.S. relations with Taiwan, and U.S. attitudes towards China's Taiwan policy. We also spent a surprising amount of time on the implications for China of U.S. efforts to strengthen and revitalize the U.S.-Japan alliance. He seemed to interpret such a U.S. move as part of a general strategy of establishing a stronger containment policy towards China.

U.S. universities are accustomed to establishing research centers to study foreign countries, so the news that a Chinese university is moving to do likewise for the U.S. triggered in me an interesting set of reactions. As someone who has been in his position, I have a fairly good idea of what is involved in doing this. On the other hand, to be the object of study rather than the one who studies is more novel. It is flattering to be studied, but the difference between being the student and the object of study is the difference between being the eye that peers through the microscope and the slice of tissue on the slide under the lens.

CAFTA: The Voters Know Best

2005-07-19T21:41:00.000-05:00

A House vote on CAFTA is near, and President Bush has just visited North Carolina to drum up support. The parties in Congress are sharply divided, with Democrats mostly opposed and Republicans mostly in favor. But the proposed legislation bears little resemblance to the trade policy that the average voter prefers. And voters’ preferences, if enacted, would produce better outcomes than the proposed legislation.

In late June the Center for Policy Attitudes and the University of Maryland conducted a nationwide poll on CAFTA, interviewing 812 randomly selected adults. They found that just 50% of respondents favor Congress approving CAFTA. In stark contrast to party divisions in Congress, opinions among rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats are almost identical — 50% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats favor it.

When asked about the general direction of trade policy, respondents were highly dissatisfied: only 16% approved of the way the US is expanding international trade. Only 23% wanted to restrict the growth of trade. Many more (56%) agreed with the statement, “I support the growth of international trade in principle, but I am not satisfied with the way the US government is dealing with the effects of trade on American jobs, the poor in other countries and the environment.” If CAFTA contained stronger provisions dealing with job losses, workers’ rights, and environmental protection, support for the measure would jump notably. When asked, “Suppose the US government, as part of CAFTA, were to commit to substantially increase federal spending on programs to help American workers who lose their jobs, and to make sure that Central American countries enforce health and safety standards for their workers?” then support increased to 61% among Republicans and 73% among Democrats.
The case for addressing labor and the environment becomes even stronger when we consider analytical studies. In 1941 Paul Samuelson and Wolfgang Stolper showed that reducing trade barriers in wealthy nations drives down the wages of that nation’s unskilled labor. This result is taken for granted among students of the economics and politics of international trade. While survey respondents probably have never heard of Stolper and Samuelson, their understanding of the consequences of trade is essentially consistent with this finding. Reliance solely on the market means that the benefits in North Carolina of liberalized trade rules will trickle up, not down. If unskilled labor is to share in the gains from trade, some non-market intervention is necessary. Retraining and relocation programs, major investments in education, and macroeconomic policies promoting full employment ease the pain of adjusting to more open markets, and compensate workers and communities that lose from this change in public policy. Nobody would argue that the government should not compensate someone whose home is taken for the construction of a freeway. So too should compensation be given to those whose job is taken by the construction of a trade agreement.

The case for addressing environmental concerns has been provided by the World Trade Organization. Their analyses of trade and the environment find a large array of impacts; some are negative, others positive. However, one thread that runs through all of these impacts is that non-market mechanisms are again essential. Technical assistance to other countries’ environmental agencies, internationally negotiated environmental standards, information sharing about environmental impacts, and the discouraging of “environmental blackmail” by footloose employers all require active measures by governments.

From the standpoint of public opinion and available analyses, the case for addressing labor and environmental concerns appears to be compelling. Why then does the proposed CAFTA generally neglect them? The immediate cause is the unwillingness of those who benefit from this agreement to share their winnings with those who suffer losses. It is easy to vote for a government program that enriches oneself, while others bear the cost. More fundamentally, those who wish to see stronger labor and environmental provisions in CAFTA have had no avenue whereby their concerns could become embodied in the negotiations and the subsequent legislation. The menu of alternatives presented to the Congress is a function of what the White House and Republican congressional committee chairs are willing to consider. If they are not willing to consider adding stronger labor and environmental provisions, the President will not negotiate with other countries to add them, and the Congress will be faced with a take-it-or-leave-it choice on an agreement that lacks them. The policy that most people want will not even be given an up-or-down vote.

For more information on the PIPA/U. of Maryland poll, go here: http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/CAFTA/html/cafta071105.html#1

For more on the WTO's view of trade-and-environment questions, go here:
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/envir_e/envir_backgrnd_e/contents_e.htm

20 July 2005