Obama Walks the High Wire, Eyes Closed By Ira Chernus

When It Comes to Israel, Palestine, and Iran, It Could All Come Crashing Down

Barack Obama came to Israel and Palestine, saw what he wanted to see, and conquered the mainstream media with his eloquent words. U.S. and Israeli journalists called it a dream trip, the stuff that heroic myths are made of: a charismatic world leader taking charge of the Mideast peace process. But if the president doesn’t wake up and look at the hard realities he chose to ignore, his dream of being the great peacemaker will surely crumble, as it has before.

Like most myths, this one has elements of truth. Obama did say someimportant things. In a speech to young Israelis, he insisted that their nation’s occupation of the West Bank is not merely bad for their country, it is downright immoral, “not fair... not just ... not right.”

I’ve been decrying the immorality of the occupation for four decades, yet I must admit I never dreamed I would hear an American president, standing in Jerusalem, do the same.

Despite those words, however, Obama is no idealist. He’s a strategist. His Jerusalem speech was clearly meant to widen the gap between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the substantial center-left portion of Israeli Jews, who are open to a deal with the Palestinians and showed unexpected strength in recent elections. The growing political tensions in Israel and a weakened prime minister give the American president a potential opening to maneuver, manipulate, and perhaps even control the outcome of events.

How to do so, though? Obama himself probably has no clear idea. Whatever Washington’s Middle Eastern script, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, it will require an extraordinary balancing act.

The president will have to satisfy (or mollify) both the center-left and the right in Israel, strike an equally perfect balance between divergent Israeli and Palestinian demands, march with Netanyahu up to the edge of war with Iran yet keep Israel from plunging over that particular cliff, calibrate the ratcheting up of punishing sanctions and other acts in relation to Iran so finely that the Iranians will, in the end, yield to U.S. demands without triggering a war, and prevent the Syrian civil war from spilling into Israel, which means controlling Lebanese politics, too. Don’t forget that he will have do it all while maintaining his liberal base at home and fending off the inevitable assault from the right.

Oh, yes. Then there are all the as-yet-unforeseeable variables that will also have to be managed. To call it a tall order is an understatement.

The Fantasy of Perfect Control

In American political culture, we expect no less from any president. After all, he is “the most powerful man in the world” -- so he should be able to walk such a high wire adroitly, without fretting too much about the consequences, should he fall.

Whatever else he may be doing, whenever an American president travels abroad, his overriding goal is to act out on the world stage a singular and deeply felt, if not always articulated, fantasy so many Americans love: that their leader and the nation he embodies have, like Superman, unlimited powers to control people and events around the globe.

In this scenario, the president of the United States is a man above every fray, who understands the true needs of both sides in any conflict, as befits his uniquely exceptional nation. That’s why he can go anywhere -- even Jerusalem or Ramallah -- and tell the locals what is true and right and how they should behave. More

 

 

 

An idea that changed the world

 

Joe Cirincione talks to CNN on North Korea

 

Noam Chomsky: If Nuclear War Doesn't Get Us, Climate Change Will

In the twenty-first century, humanity will likely burn out in a nuclear holocaust or fade away amid the gradually mounting effects of climate change. That was Noam Chomsky's prediction during a question-and-answer session in 2009 that still resonates today.

By moving forward with a missile defense policy that upsets the balance of nuclear deterrence with Russia, "we're consciously increasing the threat of nuclear war," Chomsky said. As for the effects of climate change, "nobody knows the exact details, but everybody knows that the longer you wait, the worse it's going to be."

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HSBC: World is hurtling towards Peak Planet

Global investment bank HSBC says the world is hurtling towards a “Peak Planet” scenario where the global carbon budget from 2000 to 2050 is consumed well before 2030.

To address this, a peak in greenhouse emissions will need to be achieved as a matter or urgency, and by 2020 at the latest. “This is a tough task – but not impossible in our view,” it writes. “There is a growing recognition of the severity of the situation … and we believe that ambition is about to pick up again.”

In an analysis on climate change politics and the business case for action, HSBC economists say the focus is now on five key economies to break that nexus between economic growth and emissions – in fact to double the rate of decoupling.

This so-called Carbon 5 comprises China, Russia, India, the EU and the US, and HSBC says these countries need to cut the carbon emitted per unit of GDP by between 3 and 5 per cent per annum by 2020, beyond existing efforts.

It points to five reasons why this might be achievable, despite the apparent stalemate in international talks.

First, it notes that awareness of the severity of climate impacts is rising, and public opinion is shifting, particularly in the US. It says improving economic confidence and falling clean tech costs will assist the process, and it expects an increase in policy activism in the next three years after the recent plateau.

“Ultimately, climate change is like a chronic disease, where the problem accumulates over time. If we are to avoid unmanageable disruptions to the global economy, governments have agreed that we need to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2°C,” HSBC says.

“What they haven’t agreed, however, is the likelihood of hitting this target. This will be a core part of the negotiations that are now underway for an international climate agreement by the end of 2015.”

HSBC says there are different views of carbon budgets for the global economy, depending on differing views of risk, and where investors can generate returns.

The most commonly cited assessment is Malte Meinshausen’s 2009 evaluation that to have an 80 per cent chance staying below 2°C, the global carbon budget is around 886 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent from 2000-2050. A riskier 50:50 scenario increases the budget substantially to 1440Gt (see chart above). But by the end of 2011, 420Gt had already been consumed.

HSBC says that with annual emissions from energy alone running at over 31Gt, the budget for the 80% scenario would de depleted by 2026, and by 2039 for the 50/50 chance.

This means that without large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage, between two-thirds and four-fifths of current reserves cannot be commercialised in a 2°C world, and global emissions need to peak before 2020. The International Energy Agency, it notes, says global CO2 emissions from energy need to peak by 2017. “The contradiction between global carbon budgets and fossil fuel reserves is gaining increasing attention,” it says.

Is this target impossible? Nearly, but not quite, says HSBC. It says major European economies – France, Germany and the UK – peaked their emissions of greenhouse gases in the 1970s, and have each cut their emissions by more than 30 per cent as a result of oil price shocks and a structural shift away from coal for economic and environmental reasons. (see chart below) More

 

Neonicotinoid pesticides 'damage brains of bees'

Commonly used pesticides are damaging honey bee brains, studies suggest.

Scientists have found that two types of chemicals called neonicotinoids and coumaphos are interfering with the insect's ability to learn and remember.

Experiments revealed that exposure was also lowering brain activity, especially when the two pesticides were used in combination.

The research is detailed in two papers in Nature Communications and the Journal of Experimental Biology.

But a company that makes the substances said laboratory-based studies did not always apply to bees in the wild.

And another report, published by the Defra's Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera), concluded that there was no link between bee health and exposure to neonicotinoids.

The government agency carried out a study looking at bumblebees living on the edges of fields treated with the chemicals.

Falling numbers

Honey bees around the world are facing an uncertain future.

They have been hit with a host of diseases, losses of habitat, and in the US the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder has caused numbers to plummet.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

It would imply that the bees are able to forage less effectively”

Dr Sally WilliamsonNewcastle University

Now researchers are asking whether pesticides are also playing a role in their decline.

To investigate, scientists looked at two common pesticides: neonicotinoids, which are used to control pests on oil seed rape and other crops, and a group of organophosphate chemicals called coumaphos, which are used to kill the Varroa mite, a parasite that attacks the honey bee.

Neonicotinoids are used more commonly in Europe, while coumaphos are more often employed in the United States.

Work carried out by the University of Dundee, in Scotland, revealed that if the pesticides were applied directly to the brains of the pollinators, they caused a loss of brain activity.

Dr Christopher Connolly said: "We found neonicotinoids cause an immediate hyper-activation - so an epileptic type activity - this was proceeded by neuronal inactivation, where the brain goes quiet and cannot communicate any more. The same effects occur when we used organophosphates.

"And if we used them together, the effect was additive, so they added to the toxicity: the effect was greater when both were present."

Another series of laboratory-based experiments, carried out at Newcastle University, examined the behaviour of the bees.

The researchers there found that bees exposed to both pesticides were unable to learn and then remember floral smells associated with a sweet nectar reward - a skill that is essential for bees in search of food.

Dr Sally Williamson said: "It would imply that the bees are able to forage less effectively, they are less able to find and learn and remember and then communicate to their hive mates what the good sources of pollen and nectar are."

'No threat'

She said that companies that are manufacturing the pesticides should take these findings into account when considering the safety of the chemicals.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Decisions on the use of neonicotinoids must be based on sound scientific evidence”

Ian BoydDefra

She explained: "At the moment, the initial tests for bee toxicity are giving the bees an acute dose and then watching them to see if they die.

"But because bees do these complex learning tasks, they are very social animals and they have a complex behavioural repertoire, they don't need to be killed outright in order not to be affected."

The European Commission recently called for a temporary moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids after a report by the European Food Safety Authority concluded that they posed a high acute risk to pollinators.

But 14 out of the 27 EU nations - including the UK and Germany - opposed the ban, and the proposal has now been delayed.

Ian Boyd, chief scientist at Defra, said: "Decisions on the use of neonicotinoids must be based on sound scientific evidence." More

 

Water Diplomacy Workshop

The Water Diplomacy Workshop is a five-day joint-learning experience that helps participants master important network-management tools and teach these tools to others. It combines the science of water with the negotiation instruction methodologies developed by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Interactive lectures, problem-solving clinics, and role-play simulations help participants learn the techniques and strategies presented in the Water Diplomacy Workbook. They leave equipped to teach others in their agencies, organizations, universities, or communities.

Workshop Info

Traditional engineering and economic tools are insufficient to resolve conflicting water claims. Joint fact-finding and collaborative problem-solving tools must be added to each manager’s and decision-maker’s toolbox. Instead of thinking in terms of stable and bounded systems that fluctuate in predictable ways, water professionals must think of constantly changing and open-ended water networks.Water problems are complex because they cross physical, disciplinary, and jurisdictional boundaries. Water is a vital and limited resource—but fortunately, knowledge about water is not limited. Water professionals trained to synthesize scientific, societal, and political knowledge into practical solutions to water disputes can effectively transform water from a fixed to a flexible resource. More

 

Energy Efficiency Simply Makes Sense

What simple tool offers the entire world an extended energy supply, increased energy security, lower carbon emissions, cleaner air and extra time to mitigate climate change? Energy efficiency. What's more, higher efficiency can avoid infrastructure investment, cut energy bills, improve health, increase competitiveness and enhance consumer welfare -- all while more than paying for itself.

Maria van der Hoeven

The challenge is getting governments, industry and citizens to take the first steps towards making these savings in energy and money.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has long spearheaded a global move toward improved energy efficiency policy and technology in buildings, appliances, transport and industry, as well as end-use applications such as lighting. That's because the core of our mandate is energy security -- the uninterrupted availability of energy at an affordable price. Greater efficiency is a principal way to strengthen that security: it reduces reliance on energy supply, especially imports, for economic growth; mitigates threats to energy security from climate change; and lessens the global economy's exposure to disruptions in fossil fuel supply.

In short, energy efficiency makes sense.

In 2006, the IEA presented to the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations its 25 energy efficiency recommendations, which identify best practice and policy approaches to realize the full potential of energy efficiency for our member countries. Every two years, the Agency reports on the gains made by member countries, and today we are working with a growing number of international organizations, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank and the German sustainable development cooperation services provider GIZ.

The opportunities of this "invisible fuel" are many and rich. More than half of the potential savings in industry and a whopping 80 percent of opportunities in the buildings sector worldwide remain untouched. The 25 recommendations, if adopted fully by all 28 IEA members, would save $1 trillion in annual energy costs as well as deliver incalculable security benefits in terms of energy supply and environmental protection.

Achieving even a small fraction of those gains does not require new technological breakthroughs or ruinous capital outlays: the know-how exists, and the investments generate positive returns in fuel savings and increased economic growth. What is required is foresight, patience, changed habits and the removal of the barriers to implementation of measures that are economically viable. For instance, as the World Energy Outlook 2012 demonstrates, investing less than $12 trillion in more energy-efficient technologies would not only quickly pay for itself through reduced energy costs, it would also increase cumulative economic output to 2035 by $18 trillion worldwide.

While current efforts come nowhere close to realizing the full benefits that efficiency offers, some countries are taking big steps forward. Members of the European Union have pledged to cut energy demand by 20 percent by 2020, while Japan plans to trim its electricity consumption 10 percent by 2030. China is committed to reducing the amount of energy needed for each unit of gross domestic product by 16 percent in the next two years. The United States has leaped to the forefront in transportation efficiency standards with new fuel economy rules that could more than double vehicle fuel consumption.

Such transitions entail challenges for policy, and experience shows that government and the private sector must work together to achieve the sustainability goals that societies demand, learning what works and what does not, and following the right path to optimal deployment of technology. Looking forward, energy efficiency will play a vital role in the transition to the secure and sustainable energy future that we all seek. The most secure energy is the barrel or megawatt we never have to use. More

Maria van der Hoeven is the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, an autonomous organization which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 28 member countries and beyond. This commentary appeared first this month inIEA Energy, the Agency's journal.

 

Darpa’s Next Drone Could Be a Datalink Between Planes and Ships

The Pentagon’s far-out research scientists aren’t just trying to build a drone that can operate off the deck of a small warship. They’re starting to describe their new-mark flying robot as a device that bridges the communication systems between ships and aircraft.

And if they can pull it off, Darpa will be giving the U.S. military a capability it badly needs for one of its major initiatives.

Last month, Darpa announced a program to design something called the TERN, for Tactically Exploitative Reconnaissance Node, a surveillance and strike drone that can fly up to 900 miles from the deck of a destroyer or Littoral Combat Ship. Darpa wants it to be “substantially beyond current state-of-the-art aviation capabilities from smaller ships,” according to the full, formal solicitation for the drone that the agency released Tuesday.

And how. The solicitation seems to emphasize the “Node” aspect of TERN. Among the intriguing requirements that Darpa “encouraged” its potential research teams to explore is the ability for the drone to “exploit cooperation between aircraft and ship to achieve enhanced performance. Such cooperation could potentially take the form of data exchange, external energy addition, or manipulation of the recovery environment.”

That doesn’t sound like too much, but the implications are significant, and they go way beyond drone warfare.

Most significantly, the Navy and the Air Force are working on a master concept for future partnered operations called AirSea Battle. AirSea Battle is inchoate and confusing. Its Pentagon architects have yet to articulate how specifically long-range bombers and stealth jets are supposed to work alongside carrier strike groups, submarines or close-to-shore fighters like the Littoral Combat Ship.

But even if they figure all that out, the leaders of the Navy and Air Force have conceded that they’ll still face another “foundational” challenge, as the former Air Force chief of staff put it in May. Navy ships and Air Force planes don’t have a common communications architecture. “Our links need to be similar,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert told a panel discussion on AirSea Battle back then, “or at least minimally compatible.” If you can’t talk to each other, you can’t fight together.

It’s unclear how the Navy and the Air Force will come to speak the same language. The TERN program points to a potential solution: Design the data links on a long-endurance drone at sea to be bilingual. It surely won’t be easy to build a software layer that can communicate with both Air Force planes and Navy ships. But it’s probably easier, and cheaper, than retrofitting the communications systems on planes, subs and ships for maximum compatibility or demanding that defense companies build future flying and sailing platforms with that goal in mind. More

 

Chinese Chashma Poker Chip? by Mark Hibbs

It’s late Saturday afternoon here in Ipanema, 28 degrees C and fair, and my options are to go back to the beach or blog this. So if I get a little speculative as the paragraphs wear on, just chalk it up to compensating for the opportunity cost of being in Rio de Janeiro in late summer, and having to forego the pleasure of far niente for the task of blogging on the subject of powerful P-5 countries finessing their compliance with multilateral nuclear trade here in Ipanema, 28 degrees C and fair, and my options are to go back to the beach or blog this.

Chashma 3

So if I get a little speculative as the paragraphs wear on, just chalk it up to compensating for the opportunity cost of being in Rio de Janeiro in late summer, and having to forego the pleasure of far niente for the task of blogging on the subject of powerful P-5 countries finessing their compliance with multilateral nuclear trade controls.

The point of departure is this item by Bill Gertz which appeared on Friday.

My initial reaction to it in print was exactly the same as my reaction to it on the phone a week ago when I heard about it in the same breath as developments at this month’s meeting of the NSG’s Consultative Group in Vienna–I wasn’t certain that there was anything new here.

After all, back in early 2010 CNNC’s most important engineering subsidiary had announced here in fine print that it was going ahead with more power reactor sales to Pakistan and, specifically, for its Chashma site. These would become Chashma-3 and -4 projects a year later. A few countries, including the U.S., during NSG discussions in both 2010 and 2011 queried China about these exports. During the 2010 meetings China had little to say except to urge NSG PGs not to worry because all its trade conformed to NSG guidelines. Into 2011 China let on that it would, as many suspected, argue that these projects were grandfathered by a previous agreement with Pakistan.

While in Pakistan in 2011, I learned that construction work on C-3 and C-4 had in fact started, with the preparation of the foundations underway. No one in Pakistan said anything to me about planned construction of a fifth reactor at Chashma however they did report that Pakistan dearly wanted China to keep building still more reactors in Pakistan.

Beginning 18 months before Gertz wrote last week that he obtained from the State Department news that China and Pakistan had made a new reactor deal, Pakistan media were already engaged in wishful thinking about Pakistan importing what China hadunwrapped in 2011 as a new 1,000 PWR design based on exclusively Chinese IPR. The IPR issue provoked me to do some thinking the last couple of days about what might be behind this apparently new transaction, assuming that Gertz’ information is correct.

Has China made a contractual commitment to build Chashma-5? If China were to go through with this transaction, the plant would be the fifth unit China builds at Chashma, and the third after China joined the NSG in 2004 on the basis of information China provided NSG PGs that the existing coopertion agreement between China and Pakistan did not expressly commit China to supply more reactors to Pakistan after C-1/2.

Note that this 1000-MW reactor would be built at a site that has two reactors already set up, as well as C-3/4 under construction, plus lot of other nuclear infrastructure. Imagespublished in 2010 led to speculation that new construction activity at Chashma pointed to erection of new administrative buildings as well as a possible plutonium separation plant.

The point is that this site is hardly a pre-2007 Al-Kibar–there’s lots of new aerial images turning up all the time. So, why, pray tell, would China go to the bother of trying to keep an agreement top secret, as Gertz says, to dig more gaping holes in the ground for a 1,000-MW nuclear power plant?

Maybe the deal with Pakistan isn’t final, in which case discretion merely implies that there is more for the two sides to negotiate (and so there really isn’t anything new here). If there is an MOU or something more, China might want it kept secret for a limited period of time if it considered Chashma-5 as a bargaining chip it could use to obtain certain important benefits.

Since the NSG back in 2010 was confronted by the uncomfortable possibility that China would dish the group about further exports to Pakistan–just two years after Beijing relented to the exception to NSG guidelines proposed by the U.S. for India –some people have considered that a possible way out for the NSG and China would be for both to come to an understanding that China would terminate its nuclear power plant commerce in Pakistan with the completion of C-3/4.

That would permit the NSG to bless the exports of C-3/4 and then in effect close the book and prevent what, if left unresolved, would be seen (especially by NPT parties during the 2015 Revcon) as a challenge to the NSG’s credibility.

Now, China might put Chashma-5 on the table, in effect telling the NSG, “Okay, if the PGs want to get Pakistan and China to fix this nuclear trade regime thing, we could constructively participate in that effort on the basis that we build the 1,000-MW reactor in Pakistan.”

What would China get in return for a deal? Maybe two things:

• a wink and a nod from the U.S. concerning the issue of China’s nuclear trade regime compliance, at a time when the U.S. and China are about to renegotiate a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement to replace a pact which expires in 2015–and which will be reviewed by the U.S. Congress before it can enter into force.

The point of departure is this item by Bill Gertz which appeared on Friday.

My initial reaction to it in print was exactly the same as my reaction to it on the phone a week ago when I heard about it in the same breath as developments at this month’s meeting of the NSG’s Consultative Group in Vienna–I wasn’t certain that there was anything new here.

After all, back in early 2010 CNNC’s most important engineering subsidiary had announcedhere in fine print that it was going ahead with more power reactor sales to Pakistan and, specifically, for its Chashma site. These would become Chashma-3 and -4 projects a year later. A few countries, including the U.S., during NSG discussions in both 2010 and 2011 queried China about these exports. During the 2010 meetings China had little to say except to urge NSG PGs not to worry because all its trade conformed to NSG guidelines. Into 2011 China let on that it would, as many suspected, argue that these projects were grandfathered by a previous agreement with Pakistan.

While in Pakistan in 2011, I learned that construction work on C-3 and C-4 had in fact started, with the preparation of the foundations underway. No one in Pakistan said anything to me about planned construction of a fifth reactor at Chashma however they did report that Pakistan dearly wanted China to keep building still more reactors in Pakistan.

Beginning 18 months before Gertz wrote last week that he obtained from the State Department news that China and Pakistan had made a new reactor deal, Pakistan media were already engaged in wishful thinking about Pakistan importing what China hadunwrapped in 2011 as a new 1,000 PWR design based on exclusively Chinese IPR. The IPR issue provoked me to do some thinking the last couple of days about what might be behind this apparently new transaction, assuming that Gertz’ information is correct.

Has China made a contractual commitment to build Chashma-5? If China were to go through with this transaction, the plant would be the fifth unit China builds at Chashma, and the third after China joined the NSG in 2004 on the basis of information China provided NSG PGs that the existing coopertion agreement between China and Pakistan did not expressly commit China to supply more reactors to Pakistan after C-1/2.

Note that this 1000-MW reactor would be built at a site that has two reactors already set up, as well as C-3/4 under construction, plus lot of other nuclear infrastructure. Imagespublished in 2010 led to speculation that new construction activity at Chashma pointed to erection of new administrative buildings as well as a possible plutonium separation plant.

The point is that this site is hardly a pre-2007 Al-Kibar–there’s lots of new aerial images turning up all the time. So, why, pray tell, would China go to the bother of trying to keep an agreement top secret, as Gertz says, to dig more gaping holes in the ground for a 1,000-MW nuclear power plant?

Maybe the deal with Pakistan isn’t final, in which case discretion merely implies that there is more for the two sides to negotiate (and so there really isn’t anything new here). If there is an MOU or something more, China might want it kept secret for a limited period of time if it considered Chashma-5 as a bargaining chip it could use to obtain certain important benefits.

Since the NSG back in 2010 was confronted by the uncomfortable possibility that China would dish the group about further exports to Pakistan–just two years after Beijing relented to the exception to NSG guidelines proposed by the U.S. for India –some people have considered that a possible way out for the NSG and China would be for both to come to an understanding that China would terminate its nuclear power plant commerce in Pakistan with the completion of C-3/4.

That would permit the NSG to bless the exports of C-3/4 and then in effect close the book and prevent what, if left unresolved, would be seen (especially by NPT parties during the 2015 Revcon) as a challenge to the NSG’s credibility.

Now, China might put Chashma-5 on the table, in effect telling the NSG, “Okay, if the PGs want to get Pakistan and China to fix this nuclear trade regime thing, we could constructively participate in that effort on the basis that we build the 1,000-MW reactor in Pakistan.”

What would China get in return for a deal? Maybe two things:

• a wink and a nod from the U.S. concerning the issue of China’s nuclear trade regime compliance, at a time when the U.S. and China are about to renegotiate a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement to replace a pact which expires in 2015–and which will be reviewed by the U.S. Congress before it can enter into force.

More

 

Drone Warfare is Neither Cheap, Nor Surgical, Nor Decisive by W.J. Astore

The Ever-Destructive Dreams of Air Power Enthusiasts

Today’s unmanned aerial vehicles, most famously Predator and Reaper drones, have been celebrated as the culmination of the longtime dreams of airpower enthusiasts, offering the possibility of victory through quick, clean, and selective destruction. Those drones, so the (very old) story goes, assure the U.S. military of command of the high ground, and so provide the royal road to a speedy and decisive triumph over helpless enemies below.

Fantasies about the certain success of air power in transforming, even ending, war as we know it arose with the plane itself. But when it comes to killing people from the skies, again and again air power has proven neither cheap nor surgical nor decisive nor in itself triumphant. Seductive and tenacious as the dreams of air supremacy continue to be, much as they automatically attach themselves to the latest machine to take to the skies, air power has not fundamentally softened the brutal face of war, nor has it made war less dirty or chaotic.

Indeed, by emboldening politicians to seek seemingly low-cost, Olympian solutions to complex human problems -- like Zeus hurling thunderbolts from the sky to skewer puny mortals -- it has fostered fantasies of illimitable power emboldened by contempt for human life. However, just like Zeus’s obdurate and rebellious subjects, the mortals on the receiving end of death from on high have shown surprising strength in frustrating the designs of the air power gods, whether past or present. Yet the Olympian fantasy persists, a fact that requires explanation.

The Rise of Air Power

It did not take long after the Wright Brothers first put a machine in the air for a few exhilarating moments above the sandy beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December of 1903, for the militaries of industrialized countries to express interest in buying and testing airplanes. Previously balloons had been used for reconnaissance, as in the Napoleonic wars and the U.S. Civil War, and so initially fledgling air branches focused on surveillance and intelligence-gathering. As early as 1911, however, Italian aircraft began dropping small bombs from open-air cockpits on the enemy -- we might today call them “insurgents” -- in Libya.

World War I encouraged the development of specialized aircraft, most famously the dancing bi- and tri-winged fighter planes of the dashing “knights of the air,” as well as the more ponderous, but for the future far more important, bombers. By the close of World War I in 1918, each side had developed multi-engine bombers like the German Gotha, which superseded the more vulnerable zeppelins. Their mission was to fly over the trenches where the opposing armies were stalemated and take the war to the enemy’s homeland, striking fear in his heart and compelling him to surrender. Fortunately for civilians a century ago, those bombers were too few in number, and their payloads too limited, to inflict widespread destruction, although German air attacks on England in 1917 did spread confusion and, in a few cases, panic.

Pondering the hecatombs of dead from trench warfare, air power enthusiasts of the 1920s and 1930s not surprisingly argued strongly, and sometimes insubordinately, for the decisive importance of bombing campaigns launched by independent air forces. A leading enthusiast was Italy’s Giulio Douhet. In his 1921 work Il dominio dell’aria (Command of the Air), he argued that in future wars strategic bombing attacks by heavily armed “battle-planes” (bombers) would produce rapid and decisive victories. Driven by a fascist-inspired logic of victory through preemptive attack, Douhet called for all-out air strikes to destroy the enemy’s air force and its bases, followed by hammer blows against industry and civilians using high-explosive, incendiary, and poison-gas bombs. Such blows, he predicted, would produce psychological uproar and social chaos (“shock and awe,” in modern parlance), fatally weakening the enemy’s will to resist.

As treacherous and immoral as his ideas may sound, Douhet’s intent was to shorten wars and lessen casualties -- at least for his side. Better to subdue the enemy by pressing hard on select pressure points (even if the “pressing” was via high explosives and poison gas, and the “points” included concentrations of innocent civilians), rather than forcing your own army to bog down in bloody, protracted land wars.

That air power was inherently offensive and uniquely efficacious in winning cheap victories was a conclusion that found a receptive audience in Great Britain and the United States. In England, Hugh Trenchard, founding father of the Royal Air Force (RAF), embraced strategic bombing as the most direct way to degrade the enemy’s will; he boldly asserted that “the moral effect of bombing stands undoubtedly to the material effect in a proportion of twenty to one.”

Even bolder was his American counterpart, William “Billy” Mitchell, famously court-martialed and romanticized as a “martyr” to air power. (In his honor, cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy still eat in Mitchell Hall.) At the Air Corps Tactical School in the 1930s, U.S. airmen refined Mitchell’s tenets, developing a “vital centers” theory of bombing -- the idea that one could compel an enemy to surrender by identifying and destroying his vulnerable economic nodes. It therefore came as no accident that the U.S. entered World War II with the world’s best heavy bomber, the B-17 Flying Fortress, and a fervid belief that “precision bombing” would be the most direct path to victory. More

 

Tibetan Plateau glaciers shrinking

About 90 per cent of glaciers in the Third Pole region are shrinking, accelerated by black carbon being transferred from South Asia to the Tibetan Plateau, a top scientist has warned.

Change between 1968 and 2007

The Third Pole region, which is centred on the Tibetan Plateau and concerns the interests of the surrounding countries and regions, covers more than 5 million square kilometers and has an average altitude of more than 4,000 meters.

The area has the largest number of glaciers outside the polar regions and exerts a direct influence on the social and economic development of some of the most densely populated regions on earth, including China and India.

The glaciers are at the headwaters of many prominent Asian rivers.

Influenced by global warming, its alpine glaciers have seen drastic changes in recent years, such as thinning and shrinkage, which pose potential geological hazards to people both on and around the plateau.

Like Antarctica and the Arctic, the Third Pole is drawing increased attention from the international academic community, but the results of former international studies in this area are inconsistent, said Yao Tandong, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research.

The scientist, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, said some people believe the glaciers will retreat and finally disappear by 2030, while others argue they will remain unchanged.

There are even people who argue that the glaciers have even moved forward, he said.

Researchers at Yao's institute say they can now draw a more comprehensive picture of the region, by showing data on the glaciers' status over the past 30 years. An investigation using topographic maps and satellite images revealed the retreat of 82 glaciers, area reduction by 7,090 glaciers and the mass-balance change of 15 glaciers.

"Systematic differences in glacier status are apparent from region to region, with the most pronounced shrinkage in the Himalayas, the southeastern part of the region.

Some of the glaciers there are very likely to disappear by 2030," Yao said. More

 

Climate Change Now Seen as Security Threat Worldwide

WASHINGTON, Mar 22 2013 (IPS) - Defence establishments around the world increasingly see climate change as posing potentially serious threats to national and international security, according to a review of high-level statements by the world’s governments released here Thursday.

The review, “The Global Security Defense Index on Climate Change: Preliminary Results,” found that nearly three out of four governments for which relevant information is available view the possible effects of climate change as a serious national security issue.

In many nations, the armed forces are the most respected arm of government, and their action on climate change can raise awareness throughout the country.

It found that the wealthy developed countries of North America, Europe and East Asia, including China, have made the most progress in integrating climate change into their national security strategies.

With the notable exception of India, leaders of South Asian countries have also made strong statements about the security threats posed by climate change, while smaller countries in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and Central America have expressed alarm at the possible catastrophic impacts of climate change on them, according to the review.

It was officially released at the this week’s Climate Security Conference in the Asia-Pacific Region in Seoul, South Korea by the American Security Project (ASP), a non-partisan group headed by former senior U.S. government and military officials.

The Index, which will go online later this spring and be constantly updated, will catalogue official documents and statements by national governments – and particularly their military establishments — about the relationship between climate change and security issues.

“In many nations, the armed forces are the most respected arm of government, and their action on climate change can raise awareness throughout the country,” according to ASP’s Andrew Holland, who co-authored the report with Xander Vagg.

The review’s release comes amidst growing frustration among both climate scientists and activists over the slow pace and weakness of multilateral and unilateral efforts to curb the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

Governments’ failure to take stronger action has been attributed in part to the fact that climate change has been seen primarily as an environmental issue. As such, it has been accorded a lower priority than other challenges faced by countries, particularly economic growth.

In recent years, however, governments in a growing number of countries have recognised climate change as a national security issue – a recognition welcomed by activists who believe it should bolster their efforts to push the issue up the national and international agenda.

Here in the U.S., such an effort has been underway for some time. Just last month, a bipartisan group of 38 former senior and cabinet-level U.S. foreign policy officials, military officers, and lawmakers published an “open letter” to President Barack Obama and Congress calling for urgent action, especially in funding programmes designed to help poor countries both curb emissions and adapt to climate change.

Unless such action is forthcoming, “climate change impacts abroad could spur mass migrations, influence civil conflict and ultimately lead to a more unpredictable world,” the letter, sponsored by the Partnership for a Secure America, warned.

“…(P)rotecting U.S. interests under these conditions would progressively exhaust American military, diplomatic and development resources as we struggle to meet growing demands for emergency international engagement.”

A recent joint report by the Center for American Progress, the Stimson Center, and the Center for Climate and Security found that crop failures resulting from both severe droughts and flooding in various parts of the world contributed to food shortages that helped spark popular unrest in key Arab countries, paving the way for the upheavals known as the Arab Spring.

In his annual global threat assessment report issued last week, the director for national intelligence (DNI) warned that “(e)xtreme weather events (floods, droughts, heat waves) will increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism.”

At the same time, head of the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), Adm. Samuel Locklear, warned that the impact of climate change on his region was “probably the most likely thing that is going to happen …that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.”

He told the Boston Globe that his command was already engaging the militaries of other regional countries, including China and India, about co-operation in addressing the challenge.

But the security implications of climate change are by no means confined to the U.S. and other wealthy countries with large military establishments, according to the ASP review.

It found that the governments and militaries of a least 110 of 155 countries for which relevant information was available have identified climate as a threat to their security. And many of those have integrated into their defence and national security planning documents.

“It was fascinating to learn how many different nations with such a variety of political systems, economic practices, and geographic locales share a common view on the dangers posed by climate change,” Vagg told IPS in an email.

“More to the point, these states all share the view that climate change — and its direct/indirect effects — should no longer be treated as a purely environmental threat, but rather a full-blown national security issue.”

Of the 32 countries identified by the study as resisting the view that climate change poses a security threat, India and Brazil were by far the most important.

Both countries opposed a move last month sponsored by Pakistan and Britain to put climate change on the U.N. Security Council’s agenda, according to Vagg.

Russia and China also opposed “securitising” the issue by placing it under the Security Council’s jurisdiction, although senior political and military leaders in both countries have defined climate change as a security threat, along with other non-traditional threats, such as global pandemics, terrorism, and transnational crime networks. More

 

Ancient aqueducts [karez] give Iraq a trickle of hope

A millennia-old labyrinth of underground canals may help solve the Middle East's water crisis, say experts.

The ancient karez in Kunaflusa

In the windswept plateaus of northern Iraq, unseen aqueducts which have channelled water to arid settlements for centuries are running dry. Experts say the wide-scale demise of these ancient water systems is an ominous sign of how scarce water in the region will soon become, and the humanitarian disasters that could follow.

For villagers here, tragic consequences have already arrived.

Farez Abdulrahman Ali strides across a muddy field and sweeps a burly arm towards the mountains that loom over Shekh Mamudian village in the wilds of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. This is the rugged terrain of thepeshmerga, the Kurdish military whose name means "those who face death".

Ali explains that a subterranean canal - known in Iraq as a karez - once brought water to the village, where it gushed from a rock-lined tunnel into a pool just below the entrance to the local mosque. From there, it was channelled to nearby fields of okra, eggplant, onion and tobacco.

"Farmers would use the water," said Ali. "On hot days, children would play in the water. In the evenings, people would gather at the karez to talk about village things."

"The karez dates back to the time when karez were dug," he added, matter-of-factly. "Nobody in the village knows when it was dug. Even my grandfather doesn't know. It is probably 800 or 900 or 1,000 years old."

"There is now not enough water for farming. If the karez runs dry,

we will be forced to leave the village." - Fadel Salah, Kunaflusa villager

Dry county

In autumn 2011, for the first time in the village's collective memory, the karez in Shekh Mamudian went dry. As the village chief, or mukhtar, Ali sees the loss of the karez as catastrophic for the livestock and crops the village depends on for its hard won self-sufficiency. Unless it is restored, he fears for the end of a community that withstood assaults by Saddam Hussein’s army in the 1980s, and survived as a bloody no-man's land in the Kurdish civil war of the mid-1990s.

"The karez was the source of life," Ali said. "The village now feels like a family that has lost its father."

Echoes of Ali’s lament are being heard throughout the arid mountains and plains of Kurdistan, where the widespread demise of karez is becoming a humanitarian nightmare.

Last year, an inventory of karez systems in Kurdistan - believed to be the first such compiled in modern times - found that decades of war and years of grinding drought, combined with neglect and over-pumping from nearby mechanised wells, had brought these vital water lifelines to the edge of extinction.

According to a UNESCO report, just 116 of the 683 karez networks located in northern Iraq were still supplying water as of August 2009. As many as 40 per cent of the region's karez have dried up in the past four years alone.

Since 2005, more than 100,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes because their karez stopped flowing, and a further 36,000 are at immediate risk of evacuating their villages, according to the UN agency.

Parched land

In Kunaflusa, a rocky 90-minute drive north of Erbil, the village karez was last year producing only a trickle. Village mukhtar Fadel Abdullah Salah said families were allotted one-hour time slots to fill up enough water jugs to last a week.

"There is not enough water now for farming," said Salah. "If the karez runs dry, we will be forced to leave the village."

Water brought in tanker trucks by the Kurdistan Regional Government has helped the people of Kunaflusa. But experts say quick fixes such as hauling in water or drilling new, gas-fuelled wells are expensive band-aids that will ultimately prove unsustainable.

Salah said the village had some 200 houses in 1984, but today only 13 remain occupied. The UN report found that, on average, 70 per cent of residents moved away from their villages after the local karez went dry. More