Mona Mona

Get ready for an urbane weekend with Bernard Lavilliers and Bonga.  

  

 

My energy saving starts from my feet

The title of this post is the marketing slogan for Hydro-Tech's line of air conditioned shoes. There's a little air bladder in the heal of the shoe that pumps air through them as you walk. You can read more about them at ShiftEast's post Air Conditioned Shoes Keep Japanese Salarymen Cool.

I can't imagine them actually working all that well, but you've got to love the enthusiastic salesman in the ad.

Click image to enlarge

Excavating ant hills

WWI newspaper photographs

Click any image to enlarge

At the end of the 19th Century the rotogravure printing method was developed. This allowed fairly high quality photos to be reproduced, even on news print. Papers that could afford the process printed special sections which contained rotogravure photographs.

These are examples of such pictures taken publiahed WWI are from the Flikr stream War of the Nations, 1919. There are more examples after the jump, and even more at the Flikr stream.

A cat fight is interrupted by a walking tree

This fight scene, to get you over the hump in hump day, starts out as a rather unconvincing brawl between two native girls. Things take a decided turn for the worse when the dreaded Tabonga -- a type of walking tree monster common to the South Seas -- turns up and joins the fray.
 

Stratfor and Lea Thompson

In this Stratfor article George Friedman returns to considering American foreign policy as Obama goes forward in his second term. Unlike last week's article, this one focuses on some of the problems and challenges facing the other main global competitors: the EU, China, Iran and Russia.

However, when Friedman says, "The logic of what it must do -- selective engagement where the national interest is involved, with the least use of military force possible -- is obvious", I think the major weakness of his analysis is in not realizing Obama's instinct towards transnationalism.

For the Hot Stratfor Babe, since it dealt with the U.S. in perilous times, I naturally thought of the movie Red Dawn, and for that reason Lea Thompson was selected to bear the crown as this article's Hot Stratfor Babe.

I saw the movie Red Dawn some time ago but don't remember much about it beyond the fact that it was pretty silly. I particularly remember the beginning where the Russian and Cuban parachuters by-pass the towns police, TV and radio stations to attack and secure the local high school first. It seems like a strategically sketchy move on the part of the commies, but then again the Wolverines prove to be the mightiest warriors of all so maybe Ivan knew what he was doing after all.


U.S. Foreign Policy: Room to Regroup
By George Friedman, November 13, 2012

President Barack Obama has won re-election. However, in addition to all of the constraints on him that I discussed last week, he won the election with almost half the people voting against him. His win in the Electoral College was substantial -- and that's the win that really matters -- but the popular vote determines how he governs, and he will govern with one more constraint added to the others. The question is whether this weakens him or provides an opportunity. That is not determined by his policies but by the strategic situation, which, in my view, gives the United States some much-needed breathing room.

The Structure of the International System

At the moment, the international system is built on three pillars: the United States, Europe and China. Europe, if it were united, would be very roughly the same size as the United States in terms of economy, population and potential military power. China is about a third the size of the other two economically, but it has been the growth engine of the world, making it more significant than size would indicate.

The fundamental problem facing the world is that two of these three pillars are facing existential crises, while the third, the United States, is robust only by comparison. Europe is in recession and, faced with a banking and sovereign debt crisis, is trying to reconcile the divergent national interests that were supposed to merge into a united Europe. China, dependent on exports to maintain its economy, is confronting the fact that many of its products are no longer competitive in the international market because of rising costs of labor and land. The result is increasing tension within the ruling Communist Party over the direction it should take.

The United States has a modestly growing economy and, rhetoric aside, does not face existential political problems. Where the European Union's survival is in serious question and the ability of China to resume its rate of growth is in doubt, the United States does not face a political crisis on the same order as the other two. The fiscal cliff is certainly there, but given American political culture, all crises signify the apocalypse. It is much easier to imagine a solution to the United States' immediate political problems than it is to imagine how Europe or China would solve their challenges.

We have written extensively on why we think the European and Chinese crises are insoluble, and I won't repeat that here. What I am saying is not that Europe or China will disappear into a black hole but that each will change its behavior substantially. Europe will not become a united entity but will return to the pursuit of the interests of individual nations, though still in a wealthy continent. China will continue to be a major economic power, but its term as the leading growth engine in the world will end, causing institutional crises. Again, these powers will not fall off the map, but they will radically change their behaviors and expectations.

Since power is relative, this leaves the United States with no significant challenger for international primacy, not because the United States is particularly successful but because others are even less so. The United States has a decision to make right now. As the leading power, should it attempt to preserve the political order that has existed for the past 20 years or allow it to pass into history? Perhaps a better question to ask is whether the United States has the power to preserve a united Europe and a high-growth China, and if so, is the current configuration of the world worth preserving from the U.S. point of view?

The United States has done nothing to stabilize either Europe or China. Even given U.S. resources, it is not clear that there is anything it could do. Europe's financial requirements outstrip its political ability to act in a united manner. Europe does not need U.S. leadership and the United States does not need to shoulder the European burden. The only solution for the European crisis is that a third party underwrites debtors' economic needs and thereby preserves creditors' interests. Even given the possible impact on the United States, adopting Europe is neither possible nor desirable.

The same is true with China. China has twisted its economy into an irrational form out of a desire to avoid unemployment. The Chinese Communist Party is afraid of instability, which would certainly follow unemployment. The irrationality of the Chinese economy, a combination of inefficient businesses kept operating by loans that are unlikely to be paid and exports that are barely profitable, is not an economic phenomenon but a political one. The United States would not underwrite China's excesses even if it could. Nor will Beijing withdraw money from U.S. government bonds because it has nowhere else to put it -- Europe is becoming less reliable, and it cannot invest it in China. That is China's core problem -- its economy can't absorb more money, and that is a profoundly unhealthy situation.

When we consider the core architecture of the international system, it becomes readily apparent that the United States can do nothing to preserve it. The strategy of allowing nature to take its course is not so much an option chosen as it is a reality imposed. What will evolve from this will evolve on its own. Europe will return to the order that existed prior to World War II: sovereign nation states pursuing their own interests, collaborating and competing. China will remain an inward-looking country, trying to preserve its institutions in a new epoch. The United States will observe.

Iran's Regional Influence

A similar situation has emerged with Iran. From 2003 onward, when the United States destroyed the balance of power between Iraq and Iran, Iran has been an ascendant power. With the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Iran became the most influential foreign power there. But Iran has overreached and is itself in crisis.

The overreach took place in Syria. As the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad came under attack, the Iranians threw their resources and prestige behind the effort to save it. That effort has failed in the sense that while al Assad retains a great deal of power in Syria, it is as a warlord, not the government. He no longer governs but uses his forces to compete with other forces. Syria has started to look like Lebanon, with a weak and sometimes invisible government and armed, competing factions.

Iran simply didn't have the resources to stabilize the al Assad regime. For the United States, an Iranian success in Syria would have created a sphere of influence stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean. The Iranian failure, undoubtedly aided by U.S. and others' covert assistance to al Assad's enemies, ended this threat. Had the sphere of influence materialized, it would have brought pressure to the northern border of Saudi Arabia. The United States, whose primary interest was the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf as part of the global economic system, would have faced the decision of intervening to protect the Saudis, something the United States did not want to do, or accepting Iran as the dominant regional power.

The United States might have had to negotiate a radical reversal of policy as it did with China in the 1970s. Indeed, I suspect that attempts to reach out to Iran were made. But Iran committed the gravest of mistakes. It failed to recognize how shallow its power was and how vulnerable it was to countermeasures. The collapse of its position in Syria has opened the door to pressure in Iraq. Add to this that the financial sanctions on Iran finally had some impact, sending the economy into a tailspin, and we have seen a historic reversal since the summer; Iran has gone from a regional power with a nuclear program to a country with declining influence, domestic economic problems and a nuclear program. Given that it is more threatening to have one or two operational nuclear weapons openly deployed than to have a perpetual threat of a nuclear weapon, Iran is not in a powerful position.

Russia and Energy

Russia, of course, remains a robust power, but like the others it suffers from an underlying disease. In Georgia, Russia saw the election of a prime minister deeply opposed to the presidency of Mikhail Saakashvili, whom the Russians see as an enemy. Russian influence, particularly via its intelligence service, is not trivial. But Russia has a deep problem. Its national power rests on a single, massive base: energy exports. These have been of enormous value financially and in terms of influencing the politics of its neighbors. Indeed, Russia's interest in Georgia had as much to do with pipelines as with governments; Georgia is Azerbaijan's route for energy exports to Europe.

But it is not clear how long Russia's energy power will last. It is built on the absence of significant energy in the rest of Europe. However, new technologies have made it likely that Europe will find energy resources that don't depend on Russia or third-party pipelines. If that happens, Russia's political and financial positions will weaken dramatically. Russia has a weakening hand, and it can't control the thing that weakens it: new technologies.

The U.S. energy situation also will improve dramatically under most scenarios, and it can be expected to be able to supply most of its energy needs from Western Hemispheric sources within a few years. A decline in dependence on energy resources drawn from the Eastern Hemisphere reduces the need of the United States to intervene there and particularly reduces the need to concern itself with the Persian Gulf. That will be a sea change in how the global system works.

I will examine each of these issues in detail in the coming weeks, but the United States, not necessarily through any action of its own, is in fact facing a world with two characteristics: All competing powers have problems more severe than the United States, and shifts in energy technology -- and energy has been the essence of geopolitics since the industrial revolution -- favor the United States dramatically. A world with declining threats and decreasing dependence gives the United States breathing room. This isn't to say that the threat of Islamist terrorism has disappeared -- and I doubt that that threat will dissipate -- but it will remain a permanent danger, able to harm many but not able to pose an existential threat to the United States.

It is the breathing space that is most important. The United States needs to regroup. It needs to put the "war on terror" into perspective and rethink domestic security. It needs to rethink its strategy for dealing with the world from its unique position and align its economy and military capabilities with a new definition of its interests, and it needs to heal its own economy.

The logic of what it must do -- selective engagement where the national interest is involved, with the least use of military force possible -- is obvious. How this emerges and is defined depends on the environment. Dispassionate thought was not possible between 9/11 and today, nor would it be possible if we saw the pillars of the international system increasing their unity and power. But that is not what is happening. What is happening is a general decline in power, greater than the decline of the United States. And that provides room. This will frame Obama's foreign policy choices.

U.S. Foreign Policy: Room to Regroup is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Dig those crazy skins

Not bad, not bad at all. Get your own miniature drums 

and other instruments at Miniature Guitar. 

  

 

The first underwater photograph

Click to enlarge

Above is the first underwater photograph, taken by Louis Boutan in 1893. He has to do a considerable amount of experimenting before he managed to build a water tight camera. Then, because of the slow speed of the film available, he had to pose for as long as 30 minutes lit by underwater arc lights to get an exposure. Because he also had to set the equipment up, he could spend as much as 3 hours underwater, at depths up to 160+ feet and sometimes suffered nitrogen narcosis as a result of his efforts.

Via Iconic Photos.

Blues On The West Side

Monday morning, start of the workweek blues by Aguaturbia.

  

   

In Remembrance

Below, for this Veteran's Day, the popular WWII war correspondent  Ernie Pyle's description of a battlefield death from the Italian theater of war.

January 10, 1944 - At the Front Lines, near San Pietro, Italy

In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Captain Henry T. Waskow, of Belton, Texas.

Captain Waskow was a company commander in the Thirty-sixth Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and a gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.

'After my father, he came next,' a sergeant told me.

'He always looked after us,' a soldier said. 'He'd go to bat for us every time.'

'I've never known him to do anything unfair,' another said.

I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Captain Waskow down. The moon was nearly full, and you could see far up the trail, and even partway across the valley below.

Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on one side, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other, bobbing up and down as the mules walked.

The Italian mule skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies when they got to the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself and ask others to help.

I don't know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of dead men, and you don't ask silly questions.

They slid him down from the mule, and stood him on his feet for a moment. In the half-light he might have been merely a sick man standing there leaning on the others. Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the stone wall alongside the road. We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back into the cowshed and sat on water cans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules.

Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about it. We talked soldier talk for an hour or more; the dead man lay all alone, outside in the shadow of the wall.

Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting.

'This one is Captain Waskow,' one of them said quietly

Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally, there were five lying end to end in a long row. You don't cover up dead men in the combat zones. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody comes after them.

The unburdened mules moved off to their olive grove. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually I could sense them moving, one by one, close to Captain Waskow's body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear.

One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, 'God damn it!'

That's all he said, and then he walked away

Another one came, and he said, 'God damn it to hell anyway!' He looked down for a few last moments and then turned and left.

Another man came. I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the dim light, for everybody was bearded and grimy. The man looked down into the dead captain's face and then spoke directly to him, as though he were alive,'I'm sorry, old man.'

Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said, 'I sure am sorry, sir.'

Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the captain's hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face. And he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.

Finally he put the hand down. He reached over and gently straightened the points of the captain's shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of the uniform around the wound, and then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone.

The rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the five dead men lying in a line end to end in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep."

--Ernie Pyle (source)

Making ink

Egads, what an eyesore

Click any image to enlarge

While I was, for no good reason, searching the web for the world's ugliest building I came upon the monstrosity above -- the SBS building in Melbourne's Federation Square. From comments online the whole square is a mess, but the SBS building pretty much takes the cake.

The frightening thought is this apparently went through some sort of a committee to pick the design. What were they thinking?

Stratfor and Geena Davis

In this Stratfor article Ben West discusses the recent downturn in Somalian pirate attacks.

He attributes this downturn to two main causes: the practice of putting armed guards on many merchant ships that transit the area and the increasing efficiency of the various naval forces patrolling the area.

None the less these measures as well as insurance premiums still make transiting off the coast of Somalia very expensive. The only long term solution is controlling the coastal areas the pirates are based out of, but the weak central government of Somalia holds no promise of achieving that for some time.

For the Hot Stratfor Babe I looked to movies featuring female pirates and, after ,y usual exhaustive search, I settled on Geena Davis for her role in Cutthroat Island.

Ms Davis has been a very successful actress during her long career. However, that success does not include her role as the piratette Morgan Adams in the film Cutthroat Island. In fact, it was such a flop that it probably killed her career on the big screen and hurried her transition to television. I speak from experience, if you ever have a chance to watch this movie, do something else instead.


The Expensive, Diminishing Threat of Somali Piracy
By Ben West, November 8, 2012

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has dropped off dramatically in 2012. Successful ship hijackings have decreased from 31 in 2011 (and 49 in 2010) to only four so far in 2012. Attacks against ships have also decreased, falling from 199 reported attacks in the first nine months of 2011 to 70 attacks over the same span in 2012 -- a 65 percent drop. However, diminished activity does not necessarily mean a decrease in the cost of sailing around the Horn of Africa. Somali pirates occupy a unique position, which is right along highly strategic global shipping lanes yet outside the reach of any national power. For international actors, it is politically and militarily easier to try to contain the Somali piracy threat than to eliminate it. But containment comes at a high cost.

Controlling Territory

Many factors have contributed to the decrease in pirate hijackings in 2012. One factor is that shipping companies have begun equipping their ships with more countermeasures, namely armed guards. For several years, commercial ships sailing in the Indian Ocean have used other countermeasures, such as fences, water cannons and adjusted tactics like disabling the ship. But the widespread deployment of armed guards beginning in 2011 (guards had been used sparingly as far back as 2008) has a very close correlation to the recent decrease in hijackings. In late 2009, only about 10-20 percent of commercial ships sailing through waters where Somali pirates operate carried guards; today, some estimates put the percentage as high as 70 percent. To date, pirates have never successfully hijacked a ship that had armed guards. But it should be noted that, even though the use of armed guards appears to be the most effective countermeasure against piracy, there are other factors at work.

For instance, government officials also attribute the drop-off in attacks and hijackings to better coordination between foreign naval patrols, which have made the waters off the Somali coast a less permissive environment for pirate operations. With several years of practice, sailors from international missions such as the U.S.-backed Combined Task Force 151 and the EU-backed Atalanta mission as well as from the unilateral missions of China, Russia, Iran and others have had time to study pirate activity and become more efficient at stopping attacks.

Several dozen foreign naval ships are deployed to secure the waters for commercial shipping at any given time. Their focus is escorting ships through the Gulf of Aden, but the area of pirate activity is much larger than that, reaching across the Arabian Sea to India and Madagascar. Effectively patrolling such a large area requires intelligence and the development of a counterpiracy doctrine that includes going after the larger pirate vessels, called mother ships, that extend pirates' range and allow them to operate in rougher seas during the monsoon.

Taken together, the increased use of armed guards aboard commercial ships and the growing effectiveness of foreign naval patrols have contributed to undermining the pirates' control over the seas. Three years ago pirates were largely uncontested, but now they face a more coordinated defense. They hijacked commercial ships because they were relatively soft targets -- which could be taken by four people with AK-47s, a fishing boat and a ladder -- making the millions of dollars in profit from a ransom payment very attractive. The armed guards and naval patrols have not eliminated piracy, but they have increased the costs of attacking and seizing a commercial ship. Because pirates are motivated more by profit than by any ideology, a decrease in profitability will deter them from engaging in the practice.

Still, whatever the status of the sea, the coastal towns of Somalia, such as Hobyo and Haradheere, are still out of the control of any national or international force. The Puntland Maritime Police Force, which began operations in early 2012 with the help of Arab funding, made some progress in denying pirates sanctuary on land, but political contention prevents it from controlling the territory outright, making pirate activity still a very attractive economic model in central Somalia.

When piracy flared in the Strait of Malacca in the early 2000s, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia were able to pursue the pirates on land and deny them sanctuary because they had the security forces and territorial integrity to do so. This is also true currently on the western coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, where pirates occasionally hijack ships even though they have no ports in which to anchor the vessels. Since the West African governments have control -- however tenuous -- over their own sovereign territory, they still have the means to track down hijacked ships and keep pirates from creating sanctuaries. Somalia, on the other hand, has struggled for decades to control its territory. Over the past few years, it hasn't even been able to fully control Mogadishu, its capital, against the Islamist threat from al Shabaab. The new Somali federal government still lacks the capability to control pirate towns such as Hobyo and Haradheere, and its officials do not appear to want a strong Puntland doing it for them.

By wresting maritime control from Somali pirates, commercial shipping companies and foreign navies have reduced the number of attacks but have not eliminated the threat. Several Western forces, including those of France, the United Kingdom and the United States, have gone on land a few times to pursue pirates, but generally, foreign militaries have avoided Somalia. Whereas the countries bordering the Strait of Malacca or Gulf of Guinea are able to go on the offensive to root out piracy, the rest of the world, unable to rely on Somalia, is going on the defensive.

In essence, the commercial shippers and naval forces have adopted a siege strategy -- they hope to starve the pirates of resources, forcing them to give up. Somali pirates held about 20 ships at any given time in 2010; they currently hold 11. As the pirates hijack fewer ships, and as armed guards make piracy more dangerous, the entire enterprise is looking less lucrative and appealing.

The Bottom Line

Even though the Somali pirates have not been as successful in 2012 as they were in recent years, their existence is still making it more expensive to sail around the Horn of Africa. The problem with the siege strategy is that as soon as shipping companies or foreign naval forces let up on the pirates, they will go back to hijacking ships.

The cost of prevention right now is high. It is impossible to know exactly how many ships are vulnerable to Somali pirate attacks each year, but we know that about 33,000 commercial ships pass through the Gulf of Aden yearly. Estimates of how many of those ships carry armed guards range from 40 to 70 percent. That means that about 13,000-23,000 ships are paying for armed guards to accompany them through the vulnerable areas, a roughly 10-day trip, at a cost of approximately $60,000 each time. Based on those figures, the total annual cost for shipping companies merely to deploy armed guards on their ships through the Gulf of Aden is between about $800 million and $1.4 billion. The total cost of piracy to the world in 2011, according to the One Earth Future Foundation's estimates, was between $6.6 billion and $6.9 billion. This estimate included $160 million for ransom payments; other preventative measures, such as rerouting ships or using more fuel to maintain higher speeds, made up the rest of the costs.

In other words, the cost of preventing piracy off the coast of Somalia is substantially higher than the costs piracy inflicts. Nevertheless, shipping companies are willing to pay a premium to prevent disruptions in their operations. They would prefer to pay a small amount for protection on each trip -- even though it adds up -- if it means averting a hijacking and multimillion-dollar ransom.

Somalia's Future

The key component of the siege strategy is that it weakens the pirates' control over their land-based sanctuaries. Their power is connected to their revenue, so the decrease in revenue will decrease their power. The shipping companies and foreign navies hope that some other, less disruptive enterprises will eventually take root along Somalia's pirate-heavy coast.

In the midst of forming its first permanent government since 1991, Somalia is currently incapable of addressing its lack of control over the central Somali coast. Instead, it is focusing on securing the population bases of Mogadishu, Kismayo and other small towns in south-central Somalia from al Shabaab. This will occupy the government for at least the next year. Even after that, Mogadishu has little incentive to try to tighten its control over central coastal pirate towns. The government has much more to lose if it fails in southern Somalia because it redirected scarce government resources to take on piracy. The pirate-held areas are economically depressed and are politically less important. That's why they started engaging in piracy in the first place.

The only force that has significantly challenged the pirates on land is the Puntland Maritime Police Force. Located in northeast Somalia, Puntland is much more stable than the south and is virtually independent. The Puntland Maritime Police Force had success in capturing pirates, destroying their staging bases along the beach, cutting off their supply routes and even, supposedly, attempting to seize hijacked vessels from the pirates. However, the police force suffered from funding cuts and political opposition and appears to no longer be active against the pirates. Although Mogadishu is unable to control much of its territory, the new government doesn't want regional governments accumulating too much strength. In the end, a strong Puntland may be more of a risk to Mogadishu than pirates.

Without a sustained, land-based intervention, Somali piracy will continue -- even if it is at a lower rate -- at least until some other criminal enterprise takes its place. But even at its lower rate, as long as Somali pirates are operating, they will be an expensive burden for the world's shipping industry.

The Expensive, Diminishing Threat of Somali Piracy is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Canto Indio

Get ready for a Caribbean weekend with Las Rubias del Norte.  

   

  

Tom Kipgen's radios

Click any image to enlarge

Tom Kipgen of Toms' Designer Radios is an Oklahoma based designer who custom builds tube and crystal radio sets. His designs are quite striking in their blending of minimalized art deco, vintage style dials and fanciful color schemes. He sells them for anywhere from $150 to $350.

Composite metal foam

This stuff is pretty amazing. Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei has developed a method to suspend hollow metal spheres in a matrix of metals to create a composite material that is nearly as strong as normal metal, but is lighter and much more compressible.

The example of its benefits mentioned in the video is that a car bumper backed by composite metal foam would, due to the amount of energy the compressing foam would absorb, make a 28mph car crash seem like a 5mph crash to a passenger.

read more about it at the Inhabit article Researcher Creates Strongest Metal Foam Ever.
   

Stratfor and Thandie Newton

In this Stratfor article Friedman discusses the election results. I think his take that, if there is a mandate, it is for the status quo is, regardless of what one thinks of the wisdom of the outcome, accurate. Domestically we still have a divided government where neither side has much room to maneuver.

Of course Friedman's main interest is foreign policy and in that area he pushes his latest notion that the U.S. is, from geopolitical necessity, greatly scaling back its power projection to allow regional situations to work themselves out.

while there is a lot to be said for not stepping into long simmering regional disputes, Friedman makes an entirely unconvincing argument with regards to the Obama administration when he says, " The historical answer was not a constant tempo of intervention but a continual threat of intervention, rarely fulfilled, coupled with skillful management of the balance of power in a region."

I don't see any sign that Obama understands the application of force in diplomacy. That aside, I think Friedman is also viewing Obama's moves through too much of a unilateralist 'national interests' lens. Obama is a transnationalist -- keeping that in mind goes a long way in explaining his sub-contracting American air power to Europe's Libyan blundering as well as the aimless dithering in Syria.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe, since gridlock was a topic, I turned to the movie Gridlock'd for inspiration and so its female lead Thandie Newton gets the nod for the honor.


The Elections, Gridlock and Foreign Policy
By George Friedman, November 7, 2012

The United States held elections last night, and nothing changed. Barack Obama remains president. The Democrats remain in control of the Senate with a non-filibuster-proof majority. The Republicans remain in control of the House of Representatives.

The national political dynamic has resulted in an extended immobilization of the government. With the House -- a body where party discipline is the norm -- under Republican control, passing legislation will be difficult and require compromise. Since the Senate is in Democratic hands, the probability of it overriding any unilateral administrative actions is small. Nevertheless, Obama does not have enough congressional support for dramatic new initiatives, and getting appointments through the Senate that Republicans oppose will be difficult.

There is a quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves." I am not sure that the current political climate is what was meant by the people disciplining themselves, but it is clear that the people have imposed profound limits on this government. Its ability to continue what is already being done has not been curbed, but its ability to do much that is new has been blocked.

The Plan for American Power

The gridlock sets the stage for a shift in foreign policy that has been under way since the U.S.-led intervention in Libya in 2011. I have argued that presidents do not make strategies but that those strategies are imposed on them by reality. Nevertheless, it is always helpful that the subjective wishes of a president and necessity coincide, even if the intent is not the same.

In previous articles and books, I have made the case that the United States emerged as the only global power in 1991, when the Soviet Union fell. It emerged unprepared for its role and uncertain about how to execute it. The exercise of power requires skill and experience, and the United States had no plan for how to operate in a world where it was not faced with a rival. It had global interests but no global strategy.

This period began in 1991 and is now in the process of ending. The first phase consisted of a happy but illusory period in which it was believed that there were no serious threats to the United States. This was replaced on 9/11 with a phase of urgent reaction, followed by the belief that the only interest the United States had was prosecuting a war against radical Islamists.

Both phases were part of a process of fantasy. American power, simply by its existence, was a threat and challenge to others, and the world remained filled with danger. On the other hand, focusing on one thing obsessively to the exclusion of all other matters was equally dangerous. American foreign policy was disproportionate, and understandably so. No one was prepared for the power of the United States.

During the last half of the past decade, the inability to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with economic problems, convinced reasonable people that the United States had entered an age of permanent decline. The sort of power the United States has does not dissipate that fast. The disintegration of European unity and the financial crisis facing China have left the United States, not surprisingly, still the unchallenged global power. The issue is what to do with that power.

The defeated challenger in the U.S. election, Mitt Romney, had a memorable and important turn of phrase when he said that you can't kill your way out of the problems of the Middle East. The point that neither Romney nor Obama articulated is what you do instead in the Middle East -- and elsewhere.

Constant use of military force is not an option. See the example of the British Empire: Military force was used judiciously, but the preferred course was avoiding war in favor of political arrangements or supporting enemies of enemies politically, economically and with military aid. That was followed by advisers and trainers -- officers for native troops. As a last resort, when the balance could not hold and the issue was of sufficient interest, the British would insert overwhelming force to defeat an enemy. Until, as all empires do, they became exhausted.

The American strategy of the past years of inserting insufficient force to defeat an enemy that could be managed by other means, and whose ability to harm the United States was limited, would not have been the policy of the British Empire. Nor is it a sustainable policy for the United States. When war comes, it must be conducted with overwhelming force that can defeat the enemy conclusively. And war therefore must be rare because overwhelming force is hard to come by and enemies are not always easy to beat. The constant warfare that has characterized the beginning of this century is strategically unsustainable.

Libya and Syria

In my view, the last gasp of this strategy was Libya. The intervention there was poorly thought out: The consequences of the fall of Moammar Gadhafi were not planned for, and it was never clear why the future of Libya mattered to the United States. The situation in Libya was out of control long before the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi. It was a case of insufficient force being applied to an uncertain enemy in a war that did not rise to the level of urgency.

The U.S. treatment of Syria is very different. The United States' unwillingness to involve itself directly with main military force, in spite of urgings from various directions, is an instance in which even a potentially important strategic goal -- undermining Iranian influence in Syria -- could be achieved by depending on regional powers to manage the problem or to live with it as they choose. Having provided what limited aid was required to destabilize the Syrian government, the United States was content to let the local balance of power take its course.

It is not clear whether Obama saw the doctrine I am discussing -- he certainly didn't see it in Libya, and his Syrian policy might simply have been a reaction to his miscalculations in Libya. But the subjective intentions of a leader are not as important as the realities he is responding to, however thoughtfully or thoughtlessly. It was clear that the United States could not continue to intervene with insufficient forces to achieve unclear goals in countries it could not subdue.

Nor could the United States withdraw from the world. It produces almost one-quarter of the world's GDP; how could it? The historical answer was not a constant tempo of intervention but a continual threat of intervention, rarely fulfilled, coupled with skillful management of the balance of power in a region. Even better, when available as a course, is to avoid even the threat of intervention or any pretense of management and let most problems be solved by the people affected by it.

This is not so much a policy as a reality. The United States cannot be the global policeman or the global social worker. The United States is responsible for pursuing its own interests at the lowest possible cost. If withdrawal is impossible, avoiding conflicts that do not involve fundamental American interests is a necessity since garrison states -- nations constantly in a state of war -- have trouble holding on to power. Knowing when to go to war is an art, the heart of which is knowing when not to go to war.

One of the hardest things for a young empire to master is the principle that, for the most part, there is nothing to be done. That is the phase in which the United States finds itself at the moment. It is coming to terms not so much with the limits of power as the nature of power. Great power derives from the understanding of the difference between those things that matter and those that don't, and a ruthless indifference to those that don't. It is a hard thing to learn, but history is teaching it to the United States.

The Domestic Impasse

The gridlock which this election has given the U.S. government is a suitable frame for this lesson. While Obama might want to launch major initiatives in domestic policy, he can't. At the same time, he seems not to have the appetite for foreign adventures. It is not clear whether this is simply a response to miscalculation or a genuine strategic understanding, but in either case, adopting a more cautious foreign policy will come naturally to him. This will create a framework that begins to institutionalize two lessons: First, it is rarely necessary to go to war, and second, when you do go to war, go with everything you have. Obama will follow the first lesson, and there is time for the second to be learned by others. He will practice the studied indifference that most foreign problems pose to the United States.

There will be a great deal of unhappiness with the second Obama administration overseas. As much as the world condemns the United States when it does something, at least part of the world is usually demanding some action. Obama will disappoint, but it is not Obama. Just as the elections will paralyze him domestically, reality will limit his foreign policy. Immobilism is something the founders would have been comfortable with, both in domestic politics and in foreign policy. The voters have given the republic a government that will give them both.

The Elections, Gridlock and Foreign Policy is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Damsel in distress

Here's another thrilling fight scene to get you over the hump in hump day. In this one a young lady is accosted by some hooligans. A hero steps in to save her and what ensues is the most confusingly staged fight scene I've ever seen. I'm not entirely sure the subtitles are an entirely accurate translation, but they work well enough.
  

The waiting room

This day of waiting for election returns brings to mind waiting rooms. So, while away a few minutes in our election day waiting room with the above video where we see one of the world's worst receptionists in action.
 

Harry Reid wins an election

Pulling in 53% of the vote, Harry Reid easily out distanced his three competitors -- John Edwards, Dick Cheney and the Gila Monster -- to win the title of America's National Lizard in the latest Flares Poll of International Opinion. Congrats Harry, it's an honor you certainly deserve.

As for that other election winding up tomorrow, the Diplomad says it well in his post The Politics of Revenge:

Obama's exhortation to his followers to vote out of "revenge" is another unappealing glimpse into the soul of the President. Combine that with his heartfelt "you didn't build that,""the bitter clingers" to guns and religion, his obsession with redistribution of wealth and income, his wife's "never been proud of my country,"and the couple's twenty-some years in the pews of Rev. Wright's church, and you have a pretty complete picture of the First Couple despite their efforts to hide and reshape their past. Obama and his wife are haters. They are the perfect incarnation of the university faculty lounge/Hollywood celebrity culture of contempt, resentment, vanity, and entitlement.

Some people think four more years of Obama would crash and burn the system, and a return to federalism and small government would result (The Cloward-Pivens of the right). I don't think that scenario is remotely plausible. Four more years of Obama would swing the Federal Courts further to the left and enshrine his bypassing Congress to rule by executive orders.

Left-leaning courts would support Democrat executive orders and stymie any future Republican Presidents' attempts to roll them back via their own executive decrees. If you think I'm overstating things, take a look at Herry's finger above and ask yourself, do you really believe the Progs won't fight tooth and nail to keep Romney from reigning in Obamacare and the EPA's regulations?

There is no magic route directly from A to Z. The long counter-march through the institutions will take time, and it will only be realistically done a step at a time. At this point we need to stop the leftward drift not abet it.