A candidate supporter diary for MyDD
Of all the issues facing Americans in this crucial national election none is more compelling than providing a remedy to our international relations and re-framing the debate on 'national security.' Arguably our present discussion of foreign policy fails to take into account the challenge it presents to our long-term prosperity. One seldom sees the story presented in the US media but the challenges facing the US in trade, specifically in the competition for energy resources and markets in a rapidly changing global economy, are going to have an enormous impact on our prosperity in coming decades. And if your priority issues are along the lines of health care reform or other important domestic social initiatives it is perhaps worth considering that these are going to be advanced most reliably or, alternatively, constrained by our performance on this one overriding issue.
It's not just the trillion dollars we have spent on basically nothing in Iraq over the last few years, that is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the loss to US business of energy related profits and the lost opportunities this foreign policy has created in the reshaping of the global energy economy, for example, as a consequence. The nascent North-South corridor is a potential threat, an economic shift that would see the bulk of the Gulf's energy moving overland through Russian pipelines to Europe and, possibly, China, with gas and oil moving into these growing markets potentially generating nil profit to US corporations and forcing the US into an increasingly competitive negotiation for these dwindling resources. Health care and other social reforms, not to mention the enormous investment we will need to make in re-engineering our infrastructure for alternative and green energy are vital issues. But if there is an erosion of our national prosperity which pays for these programs we will be unable to achieve them. Just look at the price of fuel today and consider the impact that has on every aspect of our economy, it is money that could be well-spent elsewhere.
One may debate whether our military and naval investment in Iraq, and the Near East generally, has improved our national security, arguably it hasn't but that's not the point. Clearly from the perspective of the Gulf states the security situation in their region has been de-stabilised and they are considering looking elsewhere for the kind of guarantees which have seen US protection of supertanker trade routes as the status quo for a generation. Real 'security' is not having two aircraft-carrier groups in the Persian Gulf but rather not requiring any there in the first place.
Consider, for example, the Russian response to increased tensions over Iran last year, at a time when our attention was directed to an imminent pre-emptive strike on a populous and sovereign nation in the context of our narrative of the 'global war on terror' and security concerns regarding Israel. Putin, possessing a soul or not, didn't miss the opportunity, travelling to Tehran and crafting the beginnings of a diplomatic and economic agreement in a face-to-face meeting with Khomenei under the aegis of a trans-Caspian accord. Not to mention stalemating US military activities in the region with the signing of the Declaration:
The declaration signed at the end of the summit covers a wide range of subjects in its 25 articles. The document virtually binds the littoral states into a non-aggression commitment, warns the outsiders to refrain from using the Caspian region soil for military operations or interfering in any other way, supports the right of Iran to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes...Tehran Summit Unites Caspian States on Major Issues News Central Asia 17 Oct 07
The outcome? It seems we've been significantly outmanoeuvred by our old Cold War rival and apparently risk missing the point of the real shifts in regional economics and geopolitics in the global economy.
The ramifications of Russia's proposed development of the 'North-South corridor' linking Europe to China overland through continental Russia and the former Soviet Republics are potentially enormous:
It is difficult to wrap one's mind around the enormous potential of the North-South corridor.
If the discovery of the sea routes was the death of the Silk Road, the establishment of North-South corridor could reverse the course of history.
If the transportation time between South Asia and Europe is cut down by eight days and the freight charges are slashed by USD$500 per container, would there be any businessman in South and Central Asia or China who would refuse to use the North-South corridor?
And, it cuts both ways: Would there be any businessman in Europe who would decline to send his cargo through North-South corridor merely on ideological grounds?
The Journal of Turkish Weekly - 18 Oct 07
An initial step at 'breaking in' to this market would be the establishment of the proposed gas pipeline direct from Central Asia, possibly including Iran and other Gulf states, to Europe, and the troubled Nabucco Gas pipeline comes one step closer to feasibility with Russia's diplomatic overtures last October, while we debated the pros and cons of unilateral military action:
TEHRAN, January 22 (RIA Novosti) - Iran could contribute natural gas to the planned Nabucco pipeline to pump Caspian gas to Europe via Turkey, bypassing Russia, the Islamic Republic's foreign minister said on Tuesday.Speaking in Bulgaria, Manouchehr Mottaki said, as quoted by Iranian media: "The European Union has stated a need to diversify sources and routes of natural gas supplies. Nabucco is one of the possible projects of cooperation between Iran and the EU in the energy sphere."
Iran says it could provide gas for Caspian Nabucco pipeline RIA/Novosti 22 Jan 2008
This is but one example of the kind of economic challenge which is vital to our future prosperity. There are many others and certainly there are also US corporations and government agencies who are giving these issues their undivided attention but the public debate on 'national security,' by it's very nature, tends to mask these challenges and portray them instead as operational military problems. Our debt to China is another issue which perhaps in it's own way poses at least as grave a threat to our 'security' as the far more aggressively marketed threat of global terrorism.
The view of our national debate on security and international policy looks very different from outside of the United States, and this perception is widespread among nations who are allies or non-aligned, as this recent British opinion notes:
Though foreign policy is rarely salient in peacetime elections, Americans have been almost persuaded by their president, George Bush, that they are not at peace. To visit America at present is to be reminded of the continuing trauma of post-9/11, of a nation that craves a cohering substitute psychosis for the lifting of the Soviet menace. It is seen in ubiquitous threat alerts, hysterical airport security, the continued acceptance of Guantánamo Bay and even jibes about public figures not wearing the American flag in their buttonhole. A country in so many ways a kaleidoscope of the world is in many ways so different. Above all it is full of soldiers.
Americans still do not travel abroad, and rely on television news for their knowledge of foreign places, which they continue to regard with bizarre suspicion. Hence a world view is lumped in with defence and security in a collective paranoia. And a candidate's stance on foreign policy is a proxy for his or her character.
[...]
Enthusiasts for Obama, more plentiful beyond America's shores than within them, regard him as the most plausible candidate to pilot America to a new and more internationalist haven than this. He has spoken of an endgame to America's hostile relations with the Muslim world and dismisses democratic nation-building in Iraq as "a bunch of happy talk". He says simply: "We cannot bend the world to our will."
Simon Jenkins - Despite Iraq, America's love affair with war runs deep The Guardian 23 Apr 08
When one hears Hillary talk of 'obliterating' Iran, for example, no matter how 'reasonable' the underlying policy may seem in our post-9/11 debate, one can imagine thoughtful heads shaking in concern around the world, among business partners, allies and the non-aligned. We have a lot to offer the world but we seem to have lost our way in this regard and the trust and affection which we once enjoyed in abundance is in increasingly short supply. It is time to re-frame our 'national security' debate to take into account what really amounts to 'security,' physically, economically and sustainably, for our nation.
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