Tag Archives: war

Gorbachev

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Here is Mikhail Gorbachev‘s list of key global problems:

Today’s key global problems – terrorism and extremism, poverty and inequality, climate change, migration, and epidemics – are worsening daily. And, as different as they are, they share one key feature: none has a military solution. Yet political mechanisms to solve these problems are lacking or dysfunctional, even as the continuing global crisis should persuade us to seek – without delay – a new model that can ensure political, economic, and environmental sustainability.
What is his suggestion for a new model?
Years ago, former German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher, former US National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, and other policymakers proposed creating a Security Council, or Directorate, for Europe. I agreed with their approach. Along the same lines, during Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency, he called for the creation of a mechanism for European preventive diplomacy and mandatory consultations in the event of a threat to any state’s security. Had such a mechanism been established, the worst events in Ukraine could have been averted.

China is now the world’s biggest economy

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From Jeffrey Sachs:

According to the IMF, China’s GDP will be $17.6 trillion in 2014, outstripping US output of $17.4 trillion. Of course, because China’s population is more than four times larger, its per capita GDP, at $12,900, is still less than a quarter of the $54,700 recorded in the US, which highlights America’s much higher living standards.
In other U.S. – China news, the NSA is worried that China has the ability to crash the U.S. electrical grid with a cyber attack:
China and “one or two others” can shut down the U.S. electric grids and other critical infrastructure and is performing electronic reconnaissance on a regular basis, said NSA director Admiral Michael Rogers, testifying Thursday (Nov. 20) at a House Select Intelligence Committee hearing on U.S. efforts to combat cybersecurity.

the U.S. and the middle east

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I can’t fact check everything in this Tom Dispatch article, but even if only half of it were true, the U.S. military footprint and spending in the Middle East is eye opening.

Soon enough, that Rapid Deployment Force grew into the U.S. Central Command, which has now overseen three wars in Iraq (1991-2003, 2003-2011, 2014-); the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2001-); intervention in Lebanon (1982-1984); a series of smaller-scale attacks on Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011); Afghanistan (1998) and Sudan (1998); and the “tanker war” with Iran (1987-1988), which led to the accidental downing of an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290 passengers. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the CIA helped fund and orchestrate a major covert war against the Soviet Union by backing Osama Bin Laden and other extremist mujahidin. The command has also played a role in the drone war in Yemen (2002-) and both overt and covert warfare in Somalia (1992-1994, 2001-).

welcome to 1981

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According to BBC, the Swedish military is back out searching for “foreign underwater activity”, meaning Soviet…er, Russian submarines. So I went to Wikipedia and refreshed myself on the “whiskey on the rocks” incident from 1981:

Soviet submarine S-363 was a Soviet NavyWhiskey-classsubmarine of the Baltic Fleet, which became famous under the designation U 137 when it ran aground on October 27, 1981 on the south coast of Sweden, approximately 10 km from Karlskrona, one of the larger Swedish naval bases. U137 was the unofficial Swedish name for the vessel, as the Soviets considered names of most of their submarines to be classified at the time and did not disclose them. The ensuing international incident is often referred to as the Whiskey on the rocks incident…

his produced the most dangerous period of the crisis and is the time where the Swedish Prime MinisterThorbjörn Fälldin gave his order to “Hold the border” to the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces. The coastal battery, now fully manned as well as the mobile coastal artillery guns and mine stations, went to “Action Stations“. The Swedish Air Force scrambled strike aircraft armed with modern anti-ship missiles and reconnaissance aircraft knowing that the weather did not allow rescue helicopters to fly in the event of an engagement. After a tense 30 minutes, Swedish Fast Attack Craft met the ships and identified them as West German grain carriers.

The boat was stuck on the rock for nearly 10 days. On November 5 it was hauled off the rocks by Swedish tugs and escorted to international waters where it was handed over to the Soviet fleet.

How many times were the two sides locked and loaded during the Cold War, and are we just lucky that cooler heads almost always prevailed?

Ronald Reagan, peacemaker

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I didn’t know this about Ronald Reagan (from the New York Times review):

Reagan had already spooked Republican foreign policy hands with lofty talk of “the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.” In Reykjavik, with Gorbachev, “he was pretty much on his own,” Adelman writes, “which suited Ronald Reagan just fine.” But much of what the president said on his own — that he wanted to share missile-defense technology, eliminate offensive nuclear weapons in 10 years and plan a “tremendous party” in 1996, to which he and Gorbachev would tote “the last nuclear missile” from their countries’ arsenals — “scared everyone,” one assistant said. Reagan’s own national security adviser was so dismayed that he restricted distribution of the meeting notes. “After Reykjavik,” a staff member told the journalist James Mann, “Reagan was watched by someone all during the rest of his term in office.”

I see – so it wasn’t nuclear weapons that “scared everyone”, but having a leader with a vision to get rid of them. We have reached a new height of cynicism today, when abolition of nuclear weapons is barely even being talked about. And if we can’t deal with nuclear weapons, which are in only a few hands, how will we deal with potentially even worse weapons, in potentially many more hands, in the future?

1909 – Europe’s Optical Illusion

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Europe’s Optical Illusion

I was just looking at this classic from 1909, in which Norman Angell argued that any major wars would be highly unlikely in the modern era of free trade and interlinked financial centers. (I’ve linked to a paperback version, but note that this is in the public domain and a free electronic version is available at archive.org.)

It’s interesting to think about all this as we approach the 100-year anniversary of the first shots being fired in World War I on July 28, 1914. There are two stories I’ve heard told about World War I – first, that Germany was itching for a fight and found its excuse in what could have been a contained confrontation between Austria-Hungary and Serbia – it was looking to grab some territory and thought it could do that quickly without provoking a major conflict; alternatively, that the whole thing was an accident, where Austria-Hungary made a bad decision that ended up sucking in Germany, Russia, France, England, and even the United States.

Today, I don’t think the rational leaders of any country would expect to enrich their country economically by provoking a major war. However, they might seek an advantage by blustering and bluffing just short of actual war. Then if a miscalculation causes one side or the other to cross that line, or some party exercises extremely poor judgment, or an accident simply happens and neither side has the good sense to back down, war can happen. The most obvious danger today is a naval confrontation between China on one side and any number of nations on the other – Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan or South Korea. Any of these would almost surely draw in the United States, and the situation could escalate from there. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail if something like this were to happen.