Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 542

Chinese Military Building First Africa Base

China’s military is setting up shop in Africa, the Hill reports:

“They are going to build a base in Djibouti, so that will be their first military location in Africa,” U.S. Army Gen. David Rodriguez, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, recently told defense reporters.

There has been speculation for years that China might establish a base in Djibouti. Rodriguez said China has signed a 10-year contract with the African nation.The base, he said, would serve as a logistics hub for China to be able to “extend their reach.”

Given China’s deepening economic interests across the continent, it was only a matter of time before this happened. But the move comes after three Chinese executives were killed in last week’s attack on the Radisson hotel in Mali. With the security situation deteriorating everywhere from Nigeria to Burundi to Mali to Libya, China needs to be able to protect its infrastructure and personnel. Indeed, we’d be surprised if Chinese officials aren’t already scouting out locations for their next military installation on the continent.

Is the Bubble Bursting?

After decades of steady increases, college enrollment rates have been ticking downward since 2008, according to the Washington Post. The trend is evident across all income categories, but it is especially pronounced among students from low-income families:

According to an annual Census Bureau survey, overall college enrollment rates dropped three percentage points between 2008 and 2013, from 69 percent to 66 percent.

But college enrollment among the poorest high school graduates — defined as those from the bottom 20 percent of family incomes — dropped 10 percentage points during the same time period, the largest sustained drop in four decades, according to the analysis. In 2013, just 46 percent of low-income high school graduates enrolled in two-year and four-year institutions, according to the data.

Students from these families don’t have the luxury of biding their time in expensive degree programs, accumulating debt and thinking about what to do with their lives. They are more likely to decide whether to enroll in higher education based on whether the degree is “worth it” from a strictly economic perspective. As one education expert cited in the Post explained:

Anthony Carnevale, a research professor who directs the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, said that he wasn’t surprised by the findings. A low-income student’s decisions about college are more sensitive to broader economic trends and to sticker prices than a more affluent student’s might be, he said.

That’s in part because while affluent young people often think of themselves as students who might work on the side, low-income students tend to see themselves differently: “They see themselves as workers who are going to school,” Carnevale said, so going to school is about getting a better job.

Overall, the new data is not good news for America’s bloated higher education sector. Students from all backgrounds are increasingly deciding that college is not a good investment. Right now the drop-off is most dramatic among low-income students, but it may not stay that way. If tuition continues to rise faster than wages, and if degree programs continue to fail to equip students with the skills they need to pay for them, then we might see a significant drop in college attendance among students higher up on the income ladder as well.

American policymakers and education professionals need to be aggressively experimenting with new ways to give students—especially poor students—the skills they need to succeed in the modern economy without forcing them into costly degree programs. Fortunately, there are some signs that the political class is starting to think outside the box on this subject, but much more is needed.

Oil Spikes after Jet Strike

In the last few days and hours, events have offered a rude lesson in just how interconnected the world is—threats included. Far from being able to keep problems in the Middle East “contained,” the West has seen them spill over into Paris and Brussels. And now, an entirely foreseeable Russo-Turkish spat has all of NATO on edge, and has sent oil prices soaring. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Oil prices rose on Tuesday after the Turkish military shot down a Russian jet fighter along the Syrian border and the dollar weakened.

Prices remain near six-year lows as concerns persist about robust crude production and the potential for weaker demand next year. However, Tuesday’s price gains highlight that geopolitical risks can still jolt the oil market, as traders worry that production in the Middle East could be interrupted.“News of a military jet crashing in Syria is a reminder that there is still substantial risk in the Middle East,” said Bjarne Schieldrop,commodities analyst at SEB Markets.[..]Light, sweet crude for January delivery rose $1.27, or 3%, to $43.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, rose $1.37, or 3.1%, to $46.20 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

President Obama’s pivot away from the Middle East was only possible because of his belief that what happened in the Middle East could stay in the Middle East. But we are seeing both with terrorism and now with the possible connection between Middle East crisis and oil prices just how false that belief is, unfortunately. And going forward, we might expect hostile forces in the region to try to exacerbate the problem: In all likelihood, the one long-term goal that Russia and Iran have in common is to push up oil prices—a huge win for both countries. (See Maria Snegovaya’s analysis of recent Russian behavior for a smart, speculative take on this very point.)

And the interconnected nature of our problems is not just economic. Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, the United States has issued a new worldwide terror advisory that, in its breadth and detail, encapsulates much of what has gone wrong in foreign policy in the last few years:

In issuing the advisory, the US State Department cited recent terrorist attacks in Egypt, Lebanon, France, and Mali. It came as Brussels remains in lockdown under what authorities say is an imminent threat.

“Current information suggests that ISIL (aka Da’esh), al-Qa’ida, Boko Haram, and other terrorist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions,” the US warning said. “Authorities believe the likelihood of terror attacks will continue as members of ISIL/Da’esh return from Syria and Iraq.” It warned, in particular, of attacks against public gatherings.

The pronouncement, on the eve of Paris, that ISIS was “contained” was just the latest in a long series of Administration statements, stretching back to the declaration of the Afghanistan surge, predicting the imminent collapse of America’s foes just before they became bigger problems than ever. Words like “on the run,” “decimated,” “JV,” and “contained” testify to persistent and recurring errors in assessing progress in what was once called the War on Terror. President Obama has never given a serious public account of just why his estimates of the strength of America’s enemies, and his predictions about their future activities, have been so frequently and flagrantly wrong. Nor has he said anything about what he’s learned from these mistakes and how he intends to get a better grip on the problem in the future.

Fear about the President’s inability to keep the country safe is a major factor in the ugly wave of nativism and xenophobia now coursing through the body politic. The terror attacks around the world, the actions of Russia, and the threats to U.S. travelers are all part of a dynamic that’s having a deeper impact on the public than the President perhaps has yet come to understand. When people are afraid, and no longer trust their leaders to understand or to take appropriate steps against an external threat, then demagogues gain power and influence.

The toll that President Obama’s failures as a war leader are taking on the nation is growing: not just the damage that the terrorist attacks do, nor the increasing, under-appreciated strain on the world economic system from unaddressed global threats, but also the corrosive effects of fear and lack of trust in our national leadership.From Russia to Iran to ISIS, President Obama has persistently misread the motives and failed to predict the moves of his opponents. The consciousness of his failure is slowly settling into the nation’s awareness, beginning perhaps with those who never placed much trust in him, but spreading to wider and wider circles. With more than 400 days left in office, and many shocks likely to occur between now and then, President Obama needs to think, hard, about how he can regain the confidence of more Americans that he understands the dangers we confront and is ready and able to deal with them.

How the US Could Sink Paris Climate Talks

We’re less than a week away from the start of the COP21 climate talks in Paris and U.S. Republicans are making sure that the world knows President Obama won’t have their support. As Politico reports, Republican Senators are threatening to attach to an upcoming spending bill riders that would deny American contributions to a global climate slush fund:

“We want to make sure that any of these countries that think they’re going to have a check to cash because of an agreement that the president may make in Paris — that they shouldn’t cash the check just yet,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said of Republicans’ strategy.

Congress must pass a new spending bill by Dec. 11, when a stopgap measure expires. The simultaneous deadlines on each side of the Atlantic Ocean give Republicans a tool to derail a legacy-defining pact for the president and score a rare climate policy victory. They also significantly raise the stakes in this year’s game of shutdown chicken.

Climate financing, as this Green Climate Fund is often called, will likely be the most important topic discussed in Paris. Poorer countries essentially want monetary assurances from the developed world in exchange for their cooperation on curtailing emissions, but the U.S. legislature doesn’t want to play ball. That sends a clear message to the developing world: The leader of the free world can’t be relied upon to pay up. And without climate financing, it’s hard to imagine negotiators in Paris producing any sort of result worth the time and political capital already invested in the summit.

When Deterrence Fails

The attacks in Paris are yet another reminder that we face enemies who cannot be deterred. The certainty of their own death did not deter the Islamist terrorists who killed in the streets of Paris. But the failure of deterrence is not simply a problem at the tip of the enemy’s spear—namely, the megalomaniacal and perverted individual who desires to blow up himself (or herself). It is also not exclusive to the various groups and cells of Islamist persuasion. Other, more traditional rivals, such as Russia and Iran, also appear to be less amenable to being deterred and are poking around their neighborhood despite their own fragility and weaknesses. They are seeking wars, not avoiding them.

In other words, there seems to be a general crumbling of our—that is, the West’s—ability to deter and thereby maintain order. We are surrounded by wars, and war is penetrating deep into our territories.There are of course many reasons for the deterioration of deterrence and the resulting instability. One reason is the weakening of our reputation and credibility. Europe long ago ceased to present a convincing capacity to stop or punish enemies beyond momentary spikes of anger and disbelief. It has also been incapable and unwilling to fulfill the basic purpose of any polity: the protection of its own borders.The United States is not far behind. The belief seems to be that maintaining deterrence does not require hard work. President Obama reserves his anger for his opponents inside-the-Beltway but considers the Paris attack a mere “setback” in the somehow inevitable self-destruction of ISIS. He also seeks to partner with a belligerent Putin, as if the cooperation had until now been missing simply because the two men did not have a private conversation on the sidelines of a summit.But all of these causes of weakened deterrence are only facets of a deeper problem: our outsized faith in deterrence and the corresponding surprise when our enemies fight. At the heart of this misplaced belief is an assumption of the rationality of all strategic actors, a rationality that can occasionally fail but can nevertheless be cultivated through negotiations, understanding, and the inexorable march of history.Our Western ancestors did not buy this view. They considered deterrence a fragile, often impossible state of affairs.Take for instance Diodotus, an Athenian skeptic of deterrence. Diodotus was an otherwise unknown man who debated Cleon, the “most violent man” in Athens, in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian War (5th century BC). The setting was a debate concerning the fate of the Mytilenians, a rebellious population from Lesbos that had been finally subdued by the Athenians. The question under consideration was whether to put them to death or not. Arguing in favor was Cleon; against was Diodotus.Beyond the points pertinent to the specific question, Diodotus warned not to put too much faith in deterrence. He gave five reasons.First, cities that rebel or in general go to war always think that they can win. “Was there ever city rebelling,” argued Diodotus, “that did not believe that it possessed either in itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the enterprise?” (Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 3.45.2) There are many reasons why cities consider their victory likely, but the expectation of victory has often little to do with a real assessment of the political conditions or balance of forces. Once the enemy has convinced himself that he has a chance to win, deterrence is over because it has failed to persuade of the impossibility of victory. War may or may not result; not every city that believes it has a chance to win engages in war. But the conditions for violence are in place. Constant vigilance is indispensable, and a strong will to defeat the undeterred enemy necessary.Second, Diodotus states the obvious but often discounted truth: “all, states and individuals, are prone to err.” (3.45.3) We tend to underestimate the risks or overestimate the benefits or chances of success.Third, it is human to desire to take risks. “As long as poverty gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty fills them with the ambition which belongs to insolence and pride … so long will the impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger.” (3.45.4) (Or, better, in Thomas Hobbes’s translation: “For poverty will always add boldness to necessity; and wealth, covetousness to pride and contempt.”) Hope and greed—“far stronger than the dangers that are seen”—constantly undermine deterrence.Fourth, “Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion, and by the unexpected aid that she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with inferior means.” (3.45.6) Even under the best circumstances, there is always an element of luck or chance. Risk, and thus deterrence, is not a mathematical equation that men can compute.Fifth, contrary to many modern assumptions, it is more difficult to deter polities or groups of people than individuals, for two reasons. One, communities play for bigger prizes: “the stakes played for are the highest, freedom or empire.” Two, “when all are acting together, each man irrationally magnifies his own capacity.” (3.45.6) As tyrannical regimes know well, solitary individuals are easier to control and dominate than families, groups of friends, or tribes. Similarly, it is easier to deter lone men than members of larger groupings.It is naive therefore to trust in deterrence, Diodotus tells us. “In short, it is impossible to prevent, and only great simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has once set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent force whatsoever.”But the fact that deterrence fails does not mean that we have to accept perennial insecurity and instability. It only means that, having failed to persuade the enemy of the impossibility of his victory, we have to defeat him.When deterrence fails, defeat the enemy.

China and Thailand Cozy Up

Chinese and Thai forces participated in an air show today ahead of their planned first joint exercises together. Reuters:

On Thursday and Friday, Chinese and Thai air forces will conduct their first joint exercises that China has said are aimed at increasing “mutual trust and friendship.”

Since a May 2014 coup, Thailand’s military generals have sought to counterbalance the country’s ties with Washington and launched a charm offensive toward their neighbor to the north.

“Thailand has been pushing for this for quite some time,” Air Marshal Bhanupong Seyayongka, director of operations for the Royal Thai Air Force, told Reuters.

Thailand, a longtime U.S. military ally, officially insists that the exercises are not meant as a pivot away from the United States into China’s arms. “We are not trying to use China to counter the U.S. Our foreign policy is to have no enemies and to be friends with everyone,” a military spokesman said. Nevertheless, in addition to the unprecedented exercises, the country recently inked a $1 billion contract for submarines from China. Whatever officials may say, Bangkok wasn’t collaborating with Beijing like this two years ago.

Back in February of last year, a top U.S. diplomat publicly chastised Thailand for its human rights record while on an official trip to Bangkok. We warned that such ham-fisted moral grandstanding was likely to be very counterproductive, both to the cause of democracy and to U.S. national interests, and that it would help push Thailand away from the U.S. The alienation of Bangkok should instruct American diplomats as they think about how strongly and in what ways to push for democratization in Myanmar. Even if the State Department’s goal is to defend human rights, it’s hard to see how letting Beijing become a more desirable ally than Washington helps achieve that aim.

NATO Must Have Turkey’s Back

The rapid deterioration of global order took an ugly turn this morning and we all moved a little closer to the abyss: Two Turkish F-16s have shot down what appears to be a Russian Su-24 bomber near the Syrian border. Two Russian pilots parachuted out of the plane as it went down in flames. One pilot was captured by Turkmen fighters in Latakia province, with early reports indicating the second pilot did not survive the ordeal. Turkey is claiming the bomber was warned ten times about being in Turkish airspace before it was shot down. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has called for a special consultation with Turkey’s NATO allies.

The facts of the case aren’t clear as I write. The Kremlin is calling it a “very serious incident” but said it was still studying the specifics. Russia’s initial spin appeared to be that the plane was brought down by fire from the ground, but that story is not likely to hold for long given that Turkey is insisting it did the shooting. The plane was “exclusively over Syrian territory throughout its entire flight”, Russia’s foreign ministry maintained. “This is recorded by objective controls.” Turkey, however, has released a radar trace of the incident purporting to show that the plane had crossed into Turkish airspace over the province of Hatay.Russia has been flying missions over Latakia province since it began combat operation in Syria at the very end of September, and has by some accounts upped their intensity since Russia fingered ISIS as the party responsible for the downing of its civilian airliner over the Sinai. ISIS is not known to be operating in Latakia, however, and just yesterday, Prime Minister Davutoglu had said that Turkey would “not hesitate” to act on Syrian soil to protect the Turkmen people. (The Syrian Turkmen minority is one of many groups scattered between China and Bulgaria who speak a Turkic language and share cultural and historical roots with the Turks of Turkey.)Regardless of the facts of this case, the root cause of the problem is continued aggressive Russian activity in and around Turkish airspace. That aggression was bound to cause problems at some point. Whether Russia or Turkey is more to blame with respect to this particular situation, overall there is no doubt that Russia is the country that bears the political responsibility for the incident.It’s now critical that Russia not be allowed to intimidate or pressure Turkey over the episode. That means NATO support. Turkey, unlike Georgia and Ukraine, is a full-fledged NATO member, and failing to stand behind it threatens to unravel the alliance. Putin’s number one goal, we must remember, is to break NATO—or at minimum to show that it is a paper tiger. The slow-moving collapse of the political relationship between the other members and Turkey gives him an opening. The lack of trust over ISIS, and the broader disagreements over how to fight the Syrian war, have undermined Turkey’s relationship with its Western allies. But the fundamental element in the divide between the West and Turkey remains the Islamist and increasingly anti-democratic nature of the Turkish government. All this must, for now, be swept aside. If the Kremlin is prepared to engage in a reasonable and cooperative process to determine responsibility for the incident and follow diplomatic precedent and procedures, then we should meet it half-way. But if Moscow attempts to force Turkey into some kind of capitulation, Ankara needs solid backup.In the short term, the goal needs to be the development of procedures and understandings that prevent future incidents like this. But in the longer term, the United States needs to think hard about a comprehensive strategy for both Syria and Iraq—which necessarily entails coming up with a strategy for dealing with Russia and Iran. At a minimum, major U.S. and NATO military assets now need to come into play. The balance of forces in the region must be one in which Russia feels more constrained than it currently does.President Obama sees Syria as a quagmire ready to engulf the United States, and has believed that the less he deals with the Syrian mess the better. Those are reasonable fears, but the longer the war rages unchecked the more dangerous it becomes—and the worse the President’s choices get. Russia, for its part, has long been using Obama’s unwillingness to engage in confrontations as a tool to force American retreat. The Kremlin’s read is that President Obama is so conflict-averse that Russia can engage in behavior that would otherwise be seen as much too risky. Regardless of whether the plane was in Turkish or Russian airspace at the moment of the downing, this incident is typical of a global pattern of Russian planes testing the limits of what is possible and acceptable. Now that this pattern has produced such a clear conflict point, the U.S.—and the West, generally—must not back down.President Obama is rediscovering, painfully and expensively, a truth that George Kennan wrote about almost seventy years ago. A regime like Putin’s needs a hostile relationship with the United States to justify the repression and austerity that it imposes on its fellow citizens. Such powers cannot be soothed with reasonable concessions and “resets.” They must be contained, and it is only on that basis that something like a businesslike relationship can be established.

Bill Clinton Talks Ideological Intolerance

Speaking at the University of Kansas, America’s forty-second president offered some words of wisdom on the state of American political discourse. The Topeka Capital Journal:

You just look at how many of our collective bigotries we have overcome in America in the last 100 years. We are less racist than we used to be, we are less sexist than we used to be. We are less religiously bigoted than we used to be. We are less homophobic than we used to be. We have one remaining bigotry: We don’t want to be around anybody that disagrees with us.

The candidate for First Man also said, “the polarization of American politics is present not just in Washington, but in American life.” Clinton didn’t call out any institutions in particular, but one wonders if he had the recent campus meltdowns in mind. American universities in some ways epitomize the trends Clinton has described: They pursue aggressive affirmative action, they are saturated with centers for race and gender and LGBT students, their brochures are shot through with paeans to diversity and tolerance—and yet they are now cementing their reputations as the most ideologically intolerant institutions in the country.

For good and ill, there is no reason to think that the trends Clinton described are abating. As we noted last week, millennials are more tolerant of different identities than older generations, but they are also most eager to censor offensive opinions.This Turkey Day, be thankful that America is winning the war on racism and sexism. And ignore the torrent of articles telling you how to DESTROY your relatives for their incorrect opinions.

Crimea Declares a State of Emergency

Crimea declared a state of emergency after pylons carrying electricity into the peninsula were blown up over the weekend. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Russia’s Energy Ministry said almost two million people had been left without power. The local energy ministry said that between 20% and 30% of the peninsula was supplied with electricity, almost half of that by generators.

Russian media outlets reported that pylons in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson had been blown up by pro-Ukrainian activists. The Russian ministry didn’t mention the cause of the outage. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry confirmed that the pylons had been blown up and pledged to help facilitate repair work.

It isn’t clear who blew up the pylons, but Kyiv officials certainly don’t seem to be rushing to restore power. In addition, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko has imposed an economic blockade on the peninsula, following a statement accusing Russia of persecuting its ethnic Tatars and pro-Ukrainian inhabitants. A blockade could be painful, as Crimea can only receive goods directly from Russia across a narrow strait to its east. A bridge spanning the strait is slated to be completed by 2019, but until then the bottleneck makes Crimea’s economic stability rather tenuous.

In the short term, however, the threat of a goods embargo pales in comparison to the possibility that power could remain out for several weeks. Over at Bloomberg View, Leonid Bershidsky gives some background:

Russia and Ukraine have been exchanging economic blows every few weeks. Air travel between the two countries has been cut off since last month; Ukraine demanded a hefty fine from Russian carriers for flying to Crimea, but they refused to pay and were banned from Ukrainian airports.  In response, Moscow banned Ukrainian airlines from flying to Russia. For next year, Russia is imposing a food-import embargo on Ukraine, like the one already in effect against most Western countries.

The Crimea energy situation, however, is more dangerous than any of that tit-for-tat. Russians who backed the annexation, Purtin’s core electorate, expect the president to deal with such threats. All he can do, short of sending troops into mainland Ukraine, is to lean on the Kiev government. But even if it is capable of fully controlling its territory, it is playing a complicated game with the protesters, whose leaders are part of the political establishment.

As Bershidky observes, provoking Putin is risky business, even if Poroshenko desperately needs the West to pay him attention. It’s a smart piece, and worth reading in full.

Alberta’s Oil Sands Brace for Carbon Tax

Our northern neighbor is putting a price on carbon. More specifically, Alberta—Canada’s most hydrocarbon-rich province—plans to roll out a carbon tax in 2017 with the intention of raking in $2.25 billion annually. The province estimates that the tax will cost households more than 300 CAD in the first year, and almost 500 CAD in 2018. But it’s the oil sands industry that will be eying this plan with the most trepidation, as high-cost production, already hit by cheap oil prices, now seems set to be saddled with a new tax. As Bloomberg reports, oil companies are hoping they can innovate their way out of this new problem:

[P]roducers from Suncor Energy Inc. to Royal Dutch Shell Plc are counting on technology to help make bitumen a low-carbon fuel. The pressure is mounting as Premier Rachel Notley’s new policies are poised to be matched by federal as well as global efforts to curb CO2 pollution at United Nations talks in Paris next week. […]

The changes won’t be cheap or easy. Oil-sands producers in northern Alberta have become some of the largest carbon emitters in the industry because they burn huge amounts of natural gas to make steam used to melt bitumen and pump it to the surface.Most of the technology that would significantly put a dent in their carbon emissions — such as using electromagnetic waves and solvents instead of steam — is still years away from being deployed on a large scale. The challenge is to reverse annual carbon output that’s quadrupled since 1990 to about 70 megatons.

Despite flagging prices, oil sands production is expected to increase 25 percent by 2017, adding more crude to an already oversupplied market. That’s because of the relatively high-cost nature of these projects—so much money has already been invested that for many firms, pulling out just isn’t an option. It’s in this climate of borderline desperation that the province is now crafting this carbon tax policy.

It’s far too early to divine what this means for Alberta’s energy future, though it should be noted that the province’s ability to cope with these trying market conditions has huge implications for Canada’s aspirations for joining the North American hydrocarbon renaissance. U.S. shale producers have typified the kind of innovative spirit these oil sands companies are hoping to imitate, but that won’t be easy for them to do: With shale wells being typically short-lived and (no pun intended) smaller-bore, while oil sands projects are massive in scope and capital expense, the two kinds of production could not be more different.