by Charlie Edwards | Apr 23, 2008 | Influence and networks
Next week the Hudson Institute is holding a seminar on the future of the US defence industry. Before you stifle a yawn take a look at one of the scenarios they will be considering:
‘…hypothetical Chinese aggression towards Taiwan provokes a Sino-U.S. military confrontation. Initially, the technologically superior and network-centric American military is quickly devastated by the Chinese’ ability to activate imbedded programming in small electronic connectors. This process effectively neutralizes the defense, attack, and navigation capabilities within every system on U.S. warships, submarines, and aircraft. Because Beijing controls two-thirds of the world’s supply of these seemingly harmless connective devices, the Chinese are able to deliberately and strategically infiltrate the U.S. military and industrial base and target four of the military’s primary weapons systems programs…
Got your imagination? The invitation goes onto say that the purpose of this scenario is to expose flaws and weaknesses within the current U.S. national security apparatus but I think we can safely say that this is not solely a US problem… our global connectivity presents all of us with issues of system vulnerability (highlighted by the damage to five undersea cables recently).
by Alex Evans | Apr 23, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security
On the front of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, via John Robb – a sign of things to come, perhaps:
BOULDER, Colo. — When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and not all of his neighbors are thrilled. “I’d rather see green grass” than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash’s Boulder neighborhood, across the street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. “But those days are slipping away.”
Since 2006, Mr. Nash, 31, has uprooted his backyard and the front or back yards of eight of his Boulder neighbors, turning them into minifarms growing tomatoes, bok choy, garlic and beets. Between May and September, he gives weekly bagfuls of fresh-picked vegetables and herbs to people here who have bought “shares” of his farming operation. Neighbors who lend their yards to the effort are paid in free produce and yard work. A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his yard farms and the seedlings he stores in a greenhouse behind his house.
Farmers don’t necessarily live in the country anymore. They might just be your next-door neighbor, hoping to turn a dollar satisfying the blooming demand for organic, locally grown foods … “Agriculture is becoming more and more suburban,” says Roxanne Christensen, publisher of Spin-Farming LLC, a Philadelphia company started in 2005 that sells guides and holds seminars teaching a small-scale farming technique that involves selecting high-profit vegetables like kale, carrots and tomatoes to grow, and then quickly replacing crops to reap the most from plots smaller than an acre. “Land is very expensive in the country, so people are saying, ‘why not just start growing in the backyard?’ ”
But for the neighbors, the new face of farming can have a decidedly ugly side. The sight of vegetable gardens — and the occasional whiffs of manure from front-yard minifarms — is not their idea of proper suburban living.
You can see their point. Heavens, they’ll be giving up the SUV next. It’ll be anarchy. Still, it’s a nice counterpoint to last time we heard from John on the subject of the future of the ‘burbs: back then, you’ll recall, he was wondering about armoured suburbs. That said, mind you:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ssSZK74fw]
by Alex Evans | Apr 23, 2008 | East Asia and Pacific
Amidst the general swooning over Kevin Rudd (to which even we at Global Dashboard are not immune), the latest convert is David Miliband, who last week penned a blog post that ran thus:
…his travels are now being put to good use as he showed in his speech in London last week, arguing for “creative middle power diplomacy”. Rudd argued that we should shape the global response to global challenges together – us because of the links to Europe, them because of their links to Asia, both of us because of our links to the USA. Now fully part of the climate, terrorism, financial regulation debates, Australia embodies the point that in a small world anyone can carve out a leadership role.
Oh dear. Australia not happy about that last bit there. Over to our friend Sam Roggeveen at The Interpreter – the blog of Australia’s premier foreign policy research centre, the Lowy Institute – who’s not best pleased about this
…rather condescending bit about how anyone can be a global leader, even tiny, insignificant Australia. What are we, The Little Engine That Could? Perhaps the next time Rudd speaks in the UK, he needs to put more emphasis on the ‘middle’ in ‘creative middle power diplomacy’.
Fair point. Let’s not forget that once you adjust for purchasing power parity, Australia has a larger GDP per capita than Britain…
by Alex Evans | Apr 22, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Global system
I’ve just published a new Chatham House paper on why food prices are rising and what it means for development: download it here.
One of the paper’s main arguments is that we need to make sure that the urgent doesn’t crowd out the essential in discussions of global food strategies: immediate action on humanitarian assistance needs to be matched by a sustained effort to invest in shared awareness between policymakers of what needs to be done to achieve “the feeding of the ten billion”. From the press release:
While the current focus on humanitarian aid is welcome, we need to be thinking now about the long term, too – especially how to grow food supply and make sure that the process benefits rural poor people. What we’re seeing now is just the start of a multi-decade challenge: feeding a global population set to approach ten billion by 2050, in the face of climate change, tighter energy supply, and growing competition for land and water resources.
How we frame and perceive the issue matters enormously. If the prevailing narrative is a Malthusian story of insufficiency, then the risk is of self-fulfilling prophecy – if for example fears that there isn’t enough to go around lead to countries panic-buying food for stockpiles, pushing prices up even more. Instead, we need to see this as a transition to a new stable state. Feeding a world population of ten billion people in 2050 won’t be easy, but it can be done with forethought, collective action and if we don’t panic.
Update: coverage on Associated Press, The Independent and Channel 4 News. One of the many pleasing aspects of publishing things through Chatham House is the general assumption that any of their authors will be as august as the Institute itself. Thus the Independent has kindly conferred upon me a doctorate that I’m fairly sure I do not have; more recently, El Pais has promoted me to Professor.
by Daniel Korski | Apr 22, 2008 | Africa, East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia
Later in the week half of the European Commission will go to Beijing. Playing Kissinger to EU President Barroso’s Nixon, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has prepared the way for his boss with a thoughtful speech to the China-Britain Business Council.
Instead of boycotting the Olympics, Mandelson argues that China should be treated with respect – but asked to make quick concessions on its trade tariffs, as part of the Doha round of trade talks. For this proposal he gets full marks from the The Times.
But Mandelson’s approach is unlikely to satiate Western publics’ concerns about Beijing’s crack-down in Tibet, its human rights record or its behaviour in Africa (the subject of a conference in Berlin this week). Furthermore, while the Doha round will benefit many African countries – including by removing tariffs on import of many African goods to China – trade, as we know, is not enough to alleviate poverty.
So what should Europe do? The EU commission’s visit should not only be an opportunity to establish on-going contact between the two trading partners (although this if, of course, important); it represents a chance for the EU to lay out a strategic agenda for what it expects China to do, including in Africa.
Key “asks” of China should include getting Beijing to support the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), joining the G8 African Partner’s Forum and committing to undertaking all aid projects in Africa with an OECD donor of IFI. Now that we are at it, what about a joint EU/China/AU study of the impact of China’s investments? Sure, it would have to phrased differently.
Mandelson’s right to call for a sober assessment of the benefits of EU-China relations. But any “deal” between the two needs to go beyond commerce and trade. In American political folklore, Nixon opened the door to China. Barroso should work to ensure that what comes through that door in the next fifty years benefits not only China but the EU as well as the developing world.
