by Charlie Edwards | Mar 24, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity
According to today’s FT:
The World Food Programme has launched an “extraordinary emergency appeal” to governments to donate at least $500m in the next four weeks to avoid rationing food aid in response to the spiralling cost of food. The WFP, the United Nations agency responsible for relieving hunger, said in a letter to donor countries that if fresh money did not arrive by May 1, it might cut “the rations for those who rely on the world to stand by them during times of abject need”.
Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director asked donors: “We urge your government to be as generous as possible in helping us to close this gap – which stood at $500m on February 25 and has been growing daily.”
The WFP’s funding gap is now about $600m-$700m, officials said, after a 20 per cent jump in food costs in the past three weeks, the rise in the oil price to about $100 a barrel, and a surge in shipping costs. The US is the largest WFP contributor, having donated about $1.1bn last year, mostly in food shipments. The European Union, with $250m, and Canada, with $160m, are the second- and third-largest donors.
by Charlie Edwards | Mar 23, 2008 | UK
Last week Gordon Brown announced the publication of the UK’s first national security strategy in a statement to the House of Commons. Most analysts and commentators in the media welcomed the strategy like an ungracious three year old receiving a complicated birthday present; instead of playing with the new toy opts for the relative simplicity of the box it came in. And so it was with Brown’s statement.
The debate on the Strategy was muted because Brown and his advisers had packed the PM’s statement full of ideas and initiatives (some of which had already been announced before – allowing opposition parties to suggest, quite legitimately, that this was more than spin than substance). However this was clearly what No.10 and the media wanted, No.10 because they could point to what the government was planning to do and the media because they could report how the Government was protecting the public.
What was so disappointing was that we missed a valuable opportunity to debate the contents of the Strategy and instead had to make do with stories about Private Pike, Dad’s Army and civil defence networks mixed with musings from pundits about what a national risk assessment might actually include. But before delving into the strategy and highlighting some of the more obtuse media commentary its worth highlighting a recent post by John Robb on the future of national security:
Imagination: A deficit in imagination will soon be the critical determinant on whether the national security bureaucracy remains relevant in a rapidly changing global security environment.
National security architecture and black swan events: When another unanticipated situation occurs again (and it will, likely in a increasingly rapid succession as small group warfare climbs an exponential ramp of productivity improvements), the public will not be as generous as they were the first time to a legacy organization that can’t/won’t do the job we pay it for. In fact, the public’s displeasure will likely be expressed in a series of major defunding events for the national security bureaucracy.
Funding will already be very scarce: The combination of demographically driven entitlement spending (the first baby boomers retire this year), ballooning deficits (funded by harder to get and more expensive debt), and an inability to raise new federal revenue (money under pressure moves global) means that money will be very tight. As a result, the Federal government’s discretionary budget will suffer significant and prolonged shrinkage.
A need to show results: Given insufficient funding over a prolonged period, much more attention will be paid to the returns of investment from government programs (a result of too many programs chasing an ever tighter budget in an increasingly transparent society). Those programs that don’t perform well, will fall under the axe. Further, citizens, who increasingly view themselves as customers of government security services rather than passive recipients, will be increasingly critical of failures from programs that cost plenty but deliver little.
Competition from below: New, grass roots efforts at the state and local levels will compete favorably against national programs. As in: if the federal bureaucracy can’t protect us, we will do the job ourselves locally (New York City has already paved that pathway with its own counter-terrorism center). Expect a fight between local and federal, a fight where the local wins.
Robb concludes: The smart money is on a failure to change, irrelevance, and organizational dissolution – here’s why…
(more…)
by Richard Gowan | Mar 21, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
I’d dropped my plan to do weekly scorecards on events in Kosovo, not least because bigger and better-informed Balkan-watchers like ICG are on the case. But the recent violence in Mitrovica brings me back to an argument I made in the first days after sort-of-independence was declared: that the best plan for the Kosovo Serbs is to use limited violence that keeps to the international community off balance. (Before I’m accused of anything: I’m not advocating this plan, or even on the side of the Serbs, I’m just saying that it makes sense analytically).
Events in Mitrovica have followed this logic. A group of Kosovo Serbs seized the courthouse; the UN police had to retreat, with eighty injured and one killed; NATO moved in to push the Serbs out. Mitrovica has calmed down now, but the full impact of this mini-crisis is yet to be seen: it’s recrimination time. The Serbs claim that NATO didn’t need to move in because they had already negotiated a deal with the UN. The Russians are saying that NATO used excessive force. And now Gerry Galluci, the top UN official in Mitrovica (who, oddly, is on holiday) has tried to resign over how the situation was handled. Somehow or other, his report leaked to Kosovo Serb leaders who duly handed it to the press. Extracts:
The report says that the raid was a “badly planned operation to restore law and order in the north, which has led to the disappearance of law and order”.
“Our credibility and relations necessary for our peacekeeping role in the north have been seriously, perhaps irreversibly jeopardized. Now we can all see that Serbs have a clear goal, that they are well organized and well armed. All in all, it must be clear that the use of force (by the international community) to achieve political goals related to (Kosovo’s) status will not work.”
Galluci also suggested that UNMIK must “admit its mistakes and repent for what has been done” in order to continue communicating with the Serbs in the north.
“Not only have we no moral or legal basis to use force, but it yields no results,” Galluci concludes.
Now Galuci has a long-standing reputation as a “cowboy”, and I think I’m on safe ground if I say that the bulk of senior UN, EU and NATO people in Kosovo aren’t exactly fans. But given the nervousness of many Western governments about what they’ve created in Kosovo, there’ll be quite a few officials looking at this report and finding a lot to agree with. Next time the Serbs seize something or other, there’ll be a lot of voices arguing for longer negotiations and less force. NATO and the UN won’t necessarily agree on what to do – and if the internationals start to lose coherence, things will start to go bad in Kosovo. Fast.
by Jules Evans | Mar 20, 2008 | Europe and Central Asia, Global system
I was astounded to read today of the FSB’s arrest of Ilya Zaslavsky, who’s a manager at TNK-BP in Moscow, and also the organizer of the Russian branch of the Oxford Alumni, on charges of industrial espionage.
The Russian-Oxford alumni association held monthly drinks in Moscow, which I went along to a few times. Can’t say it was a hotbed of Decembrist activity…more like a lot of Russian MBAs back-slapping each other and reminiscing about that time they drove through Oxford back in the 90s. Ilya seemed like a decent-enough guy though.
The FSB (the heir to the KGB) apparently invaded the offices of TNK-BP and found all sorts of ‘incriminating evidence’ against him, such as the business cards of ‘foreign military agencies and the CIA’ according to an FSB spokesperson. This is sufficient, apparently, to prove that both Ilya and his brother Alexander, who the BBC says works for the British Council, are illegally getting industrial secrets for foreign companies (presumably BP).
But if they really were spies, would they leave the business cards of CIA agents lying around on their desk at work? And isn’t gathering information on market participants like Gazprom not ‘industrial espionage’ but simply doing their job?
This could be a way of turning the screws on BP, as Gazprom prepares to buy many of its Russian assets. But it’s also a sign of the continued unchecked power of the secret services to harass private citizens on the flimsiest of charges. And it’s further evidence of the FSB’s growing harassment of foreign individuals in Moscow, or Russians working for foreign companies.
Another friend of mine, an American journalist, had to leave Moscow abruptly last year, when he was advised by the US government that he was in the process of being set up by the FSB. He had been handed over some military secrets by a taxi-driver who claimed to be ex-FSB (I know, weird circumstances). But he was then told, while abroad, that if he went back to Russia, he could be in hot water. So he never went back.
Well, I hope Ilya and his brother – who both have dual Russian and US citizenship – are let out soon. Using the freedom of your own citizens as bargaining chips in mergers and acquisitions seems like a pretty shoddy way of behaving.
by Charlie Edwards | Mar 20, 2008 | UK
Having read this morning’s press and their pretty feeble attempts to explain what the national security strategy is, I plan to wait until the dust settles (tomorrow pm) before I post on the subject. However I couldn’t help notice (aside from the amusing photos of Dad’s Army, a useful if not a tad sarcastic commentary from Bronwen Maddox, and an awfully smug piece of analysis from Crispin Black) the description of the UK NSS from one person who has, I gather, been working on the strategy with No.10. I can’t stop smiling… what’s that phrase that comes to mind… never bite the hand that feeds you.
