Chas Freeman: His wit and wisdom. By Scott Johnson
PowerLine Blog, Mar 15, 2009
Last weekend Martin Kramer compiled the statements of Saudi/Manchurian candidate Chas Freeman on al Qaeda and 9/11. Freeman is of course the former American ambassador to Saudi Arabia whom Obama administration DNI Dennis Blair appointed to chair the National Intelligence Council. In the spirit of Kramer's compilation, I thought it might be useful to collect in one place a few of the highlights of Freeman's keen analytical insight expressed over the years, grouped by subject with links to the sources.
Freeman on Tiananmen Square (May 2006):
I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the mob scene at "Tian'anmen" stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.
For myself, I side on this -- if not on numerous other issues -- with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans' "Bonus Army" or a "student uprising" on behalf of "the goddess of democracy" should expect to be displaced with despatch from the ground they occupy. I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China, allowing students to occupy zones that are the equivalent of the Washington National Mall and Times Square, combined. while shutting down much of the Chinese government's normal operations. I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang's dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing with domestic protesters in China.
Freeman on Saudi education (December 2000):
It is widely charged in the United States that Saudi Arabian education teaches hateful and evil things. I do not think that is the case.
Freeman on Saudi Arabian King Abdullah (October 2008):
I believe King Abdullah is very rapidly becoming Abdullah the Great.
Freeman on 9/11 (October 2005):
I simply want to register what I think is an obvious point:; namely that what 9/11 showed is that if we bomb people, they bomb back.
Freeman revisits 9/11 (October 2006):
Americans need to be clear about the consequences of continuing our current counterproductive approaches to security in the Middle East. We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel's approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government's neoconservative mentors to be in prospect.
Freeman on the Arab-Israeli conflict (October 2006):
Demonstrably, Israel excels at war; sadly, it has shown no talent for peace.
Freeman on Israeli intransigence (May 2007):
Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them.
Freeman on Israel's harm to America (May 2007):
American identification with Israeli policy has also become total. Those in the region and beyond it who detest Israeli behavior, which is to say almost everyone, now naturally extend their loathing to Americans. This has had the effect of universalizing anti-Americanism, legitimizing radical Islamism, and gaining Iran a foothold among Sunni as well as Shiite Arabs. For its part, Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them. Palestinian retaliation against this policy is as likely to be directed against Israel's American backers as against Israel itself. Under the circumstances, such retaliation - whatever form it takes - will have the support or at least the sympathy of most people in the region and many outside it. This makes the long-term escalation of terrorism against the United States a certainty, not a matter of conjecture.
Freeman on the role of American Jews (October 2006):
[H]istory and the Israeli response to date both strongly suggest that without some tough love from Americans, including especially Israel's American coreligionists, Israel will not risk the uncertainties of peace.
Freeman on the withdrawal of his appointment (March 2009):
The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors....
I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.
Freeman on his one regret regarding his withdrawal statement (March 2009):
The only thing I regret is that in my statement I embraced the term "Israel lobby." This isn't really a lobby by, for or about Israel. It's really, well, I've decided I'm going to call it from now on the [Avigdor] Lieberman lobby. It's the very right-wing Likud in Israel and its fanatic supporters here. And Avigdor Lieberman is really the guy that they really agree with. And I think they're doing Israel in.
In part via Andrew Bolt and The Blog (the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb).
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China
Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China. By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post, Sunday, March 9, 2008; A01
GAOLONG, China -- The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn't believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.
This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.
In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.
"The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. . . . It is like dynamite -- it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it," said Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University.
The situation in Li's village points to the environmental trade-offs the world is making as it races to head off a dwindling supply of fossil fuels.
Forests are being cleared to grow biofuels like palm oil, but scientists argue that the disappearance of such huge swaths of forests is contributing to climate change. Hydropower dams are being constructed to replace coal-fired power plants, but they are submerging whole ecosystems under water.
Likewise in China, the push to get into the solar energy market is having unexpected consequences.
With the prices of oil and coal soaring, policymakers around the world are looking at massive solar farms to heat water and generate electricity. For the past four years, however, the world has been suffering from a shortage of polysilicon -- the key component of sunlight-capturing wafers -- driving up prices of solar energy technology and creating a barrier to its adoption.
With the price of polysilicon soaring from $20 per kilogram to $300 per kilogram in the past five years, Chinese companies are eager to fill the gap.
In China, polysilicon plants are the new dot-coms. Flush with venture capital and with generous grants and low-interest loans from a central government touting its efforts to seek clean energy alternatives, more than 20 Chinese companies are starting polysilicon manufacturing plants. The combined capacity of these new factories is estimated at 80,000 to 100,000 tons -- more than double the 40,000 tons produced in the entire world today.
But Chinese companies' methods for dealing with waste haven't been perfected.
Because of the environmental hazard, polysilicon companies in the developed world recycle the compound, putting it back into the production process. But the high investment costs and time, not to mention the enormous energy consumption required for heating the substance to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit for the recycling, have discouraged many factories in China from doing the same. Like Luoyang Zhonggui, other solar plants in China have not installed technology to prevent pollutants from getting into the environment or have not brought those systems fully online, industry sources say.
"The recycling technology is of course being thought about, but currently it's still not mature," said Shi Jun, a former photovoltaic technology researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Shi, chief executive of Pro-EnerTech, a start-up polysilicon research firm in Shanghai, said that there's such a severe shortage of polysilicon that the government is willing to overlook this issue for now.
"If this happened in the United States, you'd probably be arrested," he said.
An independent, nationally accredited laboratory analyzed a sample of dirt from the dump site near the Luoyang Zhonggui plant at the request of The Washington Post. The tests show high concentrations of chlorine and hydrochloric acid, which can result from the breakdown of silicon tetrachloride and do not exist naturally in soil. "Crops cannot grow on this, and it is not suitable for people to live nearby," said Li Xiaoping, deputy director of the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences.
Wang Hailong, secretary of the board of directors for Luoyang Zhonggui, said it is "impossible" to think that the company would dump large amounts of waste into a residential area. "Some of the villagers did not tell the truth," he said.
However, Wang said the company does release a "minimal amount of waste" in compliance with all environmental regulations. "We release it in a certain place in a certain way. Before it is released, it has gone through strict treatment procedures."
Yi Xusheng, the head of monitoring for the Henan Province Environmental Protection Agency, said the factory had passed a review before it opened, but that "it's possible that there are some pollutants in the production process" that inspectors were not aware of. Yi said the agency would investigate.
In 2005, when residents of Li's village, Shiniu, heard that a new solar energy company would be building a factory nearby, they celebrated.
The impoverished farming community of roughly 2,300, near the eastern end of the Silk Road, had been left behind during China's recent boom. In a country where the average wage in some areas has climbed to $200 a month, many of the village's residents make just $200 a year. They had high hopes their new neighbor would jump-start the local economy and help transform the area into an industrial hub.
The Luoyang Zhonggui factory grew out of an effort by a national research institute to improve on a 50-year-old polysilicon refining technology pioneered by Germany's Siemens. Concerned about intellectual property issues, Siemens has held off on selling its technology to the Chinese. So the Chinese have tried to create their own.
Last year, the Luoyang Zhonggui factory was estimated to have produced less than 300 tons of polysilicon, but it aims to increase that tenfold this year -- making it China's largest operating plant. It is a key supplier to Suntech Power Holdings, a solar panel company whose founder Shi Zhengrong recently topped the list of the richest people in China.
Made from the Earth's most abundant substance -- sand -- polysilicon is tricky to manufacture. It requires huge amounts of energy, and even a small misstep in the production can introduce impurities and ruin an entire batch. The other main challenge is dealing with the waste. For each ton of polysilicon produced, the process generates at least four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste.
When exposed to humid air, silicon tetrachloride transforms into acids and poisonous hydrogen chloride gas, which can make people who breathe the air dizzy and can make their chests contract.
While it typically takes companies two years to get a polysilicon factory up and running properly, many Chinese companies are trying to do it in half that time or less, said Richard Winegarner, president of Sage Concepts, a California-based consulting firm.
As a result, Ren of Hebei Industrial University said, some Chinese plants are stockpiling the hazardous substances in the hopes that they can figure out a way to dispose of it later: "I know these factories began to store silicon tetrachloride in drums two years ago."
Pro-EnerTech's Shi says other companies -- including Luoyang Zhonggui -- are just dumping wherever they can.
"Theoretically, companies should collect it all, process it to get rid of the poisonous stuff, then release it or recycle. Zhonggui currently doesn't have the technology. Now they are just releasing it directly into the air," said Shi, who recently visited the factory.
Shi estimates that Chinese companies are saving millions of dollars by not installing pollution recovery.
He said that if environmental protection technology is used, the cost to produce one ton is approximately $84,500. But Chinese companies are making it at $21,000 to $56,000a ton.
In sharp contrast to the gleaming white buildings in Zhonggui's new gated complex in Gaolong, the situation in the villages surrounding it is bleak.
About nine months ago, residents of Li's village, which begins about 50 yards from the plant, noticed that their crops were wilting under a dusting of white powder. Sometimes, there was a hazy cloud up to three feet high near the dumping site; one person tending crops there fainted, several villagers said. Small rocks began to accumulate in kettles used for boiling faucet water.
Each night, villagers said, the factory's chimneys released a loud whoosh of acrid air that stung their eyes and made it hard to breath. "It's poison air. Sometimes it gets so bad you can't sit outside. You have to close all the doors and windows," said Qiao Shi Peng, 28, a truck driver who said he worries about his 1-year-old son's health.
The villagers said most obvious evidence of the pollution is the dumping, up to 10 times a day, of the liquid waste into what was formerly a grassy field. Eventually, the whole area turned white, like snow.
The worst part, said Li, 53, who lives with his son and granddaughter in the village, is that "they go outside the gates of their own compound to dump waste."
"We didn't know how bad it was until the August harvest, until things started dying," he said.
Early this year, one of the villagers put some of the contaminated soil in a plastic bag and went to the local environmental bureau. They never got back to him.
Zhang Zhenguo, 45, a farmer and small businessman, said he has a theory as to why: "They didn't test it because the government supports the plant."
Researchers Wu Meng and Crissie Ding contributed to this report.
Washington Post, Sunday, March 9, 2008; A01
GAOLONG, China -- The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn't believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.
This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.
In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.
"The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. . . . It is like dynamite -- it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it," said Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University.
The situation in Li's village points to the environmental trade-offs the world is making as it races to head off a dwindling supply of fossil fuels.
Forests are being cleared to grow biofuels like palm oil, but scientists argue that the disappearance of such huge swaths of forests is contributing to climate change. Hydropower dams are being constructed to replace coal-fired power plants, but they are submerging whole ecosystems under water.
Likewise in China, the push to get into the solar energy market is having unexpected consequences.
With the prices of oil and coal soaring, policymakers around the world are looking at massive solar farms to heat water and generate electricity. For the past four years, however, the world has been suffering from a shortage of polysilicon -- the key component of sunlight-capturing wafers -- driving up prices of solar energy technology and creating a barrier to its adoption.
With the price of polysilicon soaring from $20 per kilogram to $300 per kilogram in the past five years, Chinese companies are eager to fill the gap.
In China, polysilicon plants are the new dot-coms. Flush with venture capital and with generous grants and low-interest loans from a central government touting its efforts to seek clean energy alternatives, more than 20 Chinese companies are starting polysilicon manufacturing plants. The combined capacity of these new factories is estimated at 80,000 to 100,000 tons -- more than double the 40,000 tons produced in the entire world today.
But Chinese companies' methods for dealing with waste haven't been perfected.
Because of the environmental hazard, polysilicon companies in the developed world recycle the compound, putting it back into the production process. But the high investment costs and time, not to mention the enormous energy consumption required for heating the substance to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit for the recycling, have discouraged many factories in China from doing the same. Like Luoyang Zhonggui, other solar plants in China have not installed technology to prevent pollutants from getting into the environment or have not brought those systems fully online, industry sources say.
"The recycling technology is of course being thought about, but currently it's still not mature," said Shi Jun, a former photovoltaic technology researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Shi, chief executive of Pro-EnerTech, a start-up polysilicon research firm in Shanghai, said that there's such a severe shortage of polysilicon that the government is willing to overlook this issue for now.
"If this happened in the United States, you'd probably be arrested," he said.
An independent, nationally accredited laboratory analyzed a sample of dirt from the dump site near the Luoyang Zhonggui plant at the request of The Washington Post. The tests show high concentrations of chlorine and hydrochloric acid, which can result from the breakdown of silicon tetrachloride and do not exist naturally in soil. "Crops cannot grow on this, and it is not suitable for people to live nearby," said Li Xiaoping, deputy director of the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences.
Wang Hailong, secretary of the board of directors for Luoyang Zhonggui, said it is "impossible" to think that the company would dump large amounts of waste into a residential area. "Some of the villagers did not tell the truth," he said.
However, Wang said the company does release a "minimal amount of waste" in compliance with all environmental regulations. "We release it in a certain place in a certain way. Before it is released, it has gone through strict treatment procedures."
Yi Xusheng, the head of monitoring for the Henan Province Environmental Protection Agency, said the factory had passed a review before it opened, but that "it's possible that there are some pollutants in the production process" that inspectors were not aware of. Yi said the agency would investigate.
In 2005, when residents of Li's village, Shiniu, heard that a new solar energy company would be building a factory nearby, they celebrated.
The impoverished farming community of roughly 2,300, near the eastern end of the Silk Road, had been left behind during China's recent boom. In a country where the average wage in some areas has climbed to $200 a month, many of the village's residents make just $200 a year. They had high hopes their new neighbor would jump-start the local economy and help transform the area into an industrial hub.
The Luoyang Zhonggui factory grew out of an effort by a national research institute to improve on a 50-year-old polysilicon refining technology pioneered by Germany's Siemens. Concerned about intellectual property issues, Siemens has held off on selling its technology to the Chinese. So the Chinese have tried to create their own.
Last year, the Luoyang Zhonggui factory was estimated to have produced less than 300 tons of polysilicon, but it aims to increase that tenfold this year -- making it China's largest operating plant. It is a key supplier to Suntech Power Holdings, a solar panel company whose founder Shi Zhengrong recently topped the list of the richest people in China.
Made from the Earth's most abundant substance -- sand -- polysilicon is tricky to manufacture. It requires huge amounts of energy, and even a small misstep in the production can introduce impurities and ruin an entire batch. The other main challenge is dealing with the waste. For each ton of polysilicon produced, the process generates at least four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste.
When exposed to humid air, silicon tetrachloride transforms into acids and poisonous hydrogen chloride gas, which can make people who breathe the air dizzy and can make their chests contract.
While it typically takes companies two years to get a polysilicon factory up and running properly, many Chinese companies are trying to do it in half that time or less, said Richard Winegarner, president of Sage Concepts, a California-based consulting firm.
As a result, Ren of Hebei Industrial University said, some Chinese plants are stockpiling the hazardous substances in the hopes that they can figure out a way to dispose of it later: "I know these factories began to store silicon tetrachloride in drums two years ago."
Pro-EnerTech's Shi says other companies -- including Luoyang Zhonggui -- are just dumping wherever they can.
"Theoretically, companies should collect it all, process it to get rid of the poisonous stuff, then release it or recycle. Zhonggui currently doesn't have the technology. Now they are just releasing it directly into the air," said Shi, who recently visited the factory.
Shi estimates that Chinese companies are saving millions of dollars by not installing pollution recovery.
He said that if environmental protection technology is used, the cost to produce one ton is approximately $84,500. But Chinese companies are making it at $21,000 to $56,000a ton.
In sharp contrast to the gleaming white buildings in Zhonggui's new gated complex in Gaolong, the situation in the villages surrounding it is bleak.
About nine months ago, residents of Li's village, which begins about 50 yards from the plant, noticed that their crops were wilting under a dusting of white powder. Sometimes, there was a hazy cloud up to three feet high near the dumping site; one person tending crops there fainted, several villagers said. Small rocks began to accumulate in kettles used for boiling faucet water.
Each night, villagers said, the factory's chimneys released a loud whoosh of acrid air that stung their eyes and made it hard to breath. "It's poison air. Sometimes it gets so bad you can't sit outside. You have to close all the doors and windows," said Qiao Shi Peng, 28, a truck driver who said he worries about his 1-year-old son's health.
The villagers said most obvious evidence of the pollution is the dumping, up to 10 times a day, of the liquid waste into what was formerly a grassy field. Eventually, the whole area turned white, like snow.
The worst part, said Li, 53, who lives with his son and granddaughter in the village, is that "they go outside the gates of their own compound to dump waste."
"We didn't know how bad it was until the August harvest, until things started dying," he said.
Early this year, one of the villagers put some of the contaminated soil in a plastic bag and went to the local environmental bureau. They never got back to him.
Zhang Zhenguo, 45, a farmer and small businessman, said he has a theory as to why: "They didn't test it because the government supports the plant."
Researchers Wu Meng and Crissie Ding contributed to this report.
Medvedev Urges Russia's Richest To Return "Moral Debts"
Medvedev Urges Russia's Richest To Return "Moral Debts"
Mar 15, 2009 11:13
MOSCOW (AFP)--President Dmitry Medvedev Sunday urged Russia's largest businesses to return "moral debts" during an economic crisis which he called " cleanup time."
"Nowhere in the world perhaps has the development of entrepreneurship in recent times happened as quickly as in our country.
"People simply have been getting very rich in a very short time," Medvedev said in an interview to be broadcast on national television later Sunday..
"Now it is time pay off debts, moral debts because the crisis is a test of maturity," he said.
Medvedev said the current crisis, Russia's worst economic collapse in a decade, was the time for the richest businessmen to embrace social responsibility and put interests of their employees before their own.
"If a person has really become a genuine businessman he can appreciate his employees," he said in comments released by the presidential administration.
"He will perhaps try to put off part of his proposals, part of his ideas or personal consumption, save his staff, pay them salaries, save what he's been doing in recent years."
Many of Russia's richest people earned fortunes through controversial loans- for-shares privatization in the 1990s and an economic bonanza fueled by high oil and gas prices gave birth to yet more tycoons.
Today Russia's richest are struggling to pay off billions of dollars in debts built up in better times, while the government has said businesses shouldn' assume there would be a blanket bailout of all.
"In this sense, this is probably cleanup time: he who survives the crisis conditions will be an effective entrepreneur, an effective manager in a good sense of the word," Medvedev said.
(END)
Mar 15, 2009 11:13
MOSCOW (AFP)--President Dmitry Medvedev Sunday urged Russia's largest businesses to return "moral debts" during an economic crisis which he called " cleanup time."
"Nowhere in the world perhaps has the development of entrepreneurship in recent times happened as quickly as in our country.
"People simply have been getting very rich in a very short time," Medvedev said in an interview to be broadcast on national television later Sunday..
"Now it is time pay off debts, moral debts because the crisis is a test of maturity," he said.
Medvedev said the current crisis, Russia's worst economic collapse in a decade, was the time for the richest businessmen to embrace social responsibility and put interests of their employees before their own.
"If a person has really become a genuine businessman he can appreciate his employees," he said in comments released by the presidential administration.
"He will perhaps try to put off part of his proposals, part of his ideas or personal consumption, save his staff, pay them salaries, save what he's been doing in recent years."
Many of Russia's richest people earned fortunes through controversial loans- for-shares privatization in the 1990s and an economic bonanza fueled by high oil and gas prices gave birth to yet more tycoons.
Today Russia's richest are struggling to pay off billions of dollars in debts built up in better times, while the government has said businesses shouldn' assume there would be a blanket bailout of all.
"In this sense, this is probably cleanup time: he who survives the crisis conditions will be an effective entrepreneur, an effective manager in a good sense of the word," Medvedev said.
(END)
Counterfeit Drug Policy in India
Counterfeit Drug Policy in India. By Roger Bate
India's major pharmaceutical companies have been badly served by India's political system.
The New Ledger, March 12, 2009
For the past decade India's major pharmaceutical companies, alongside the public health community and police services, have attempted to drive forward a modern drug regulatory system which, among other things, would have effectually combated the scourge of counterfeit and substandard drugs. But due to a combination of lobbying from middle-sized companies making suspect quality drugs, as well as some states, which wanted to maintain control of drug quality decisions, the status quo is to remain. This is a tragedy for the many thousands who die annually from substandard medicines in India (and from India exports to Africa and Asia), most estimates say that at least 10% of Indian drugs are substandard.
Radical revisions to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 have been proposed on and off for the past thirty-odd years. Yet the major amendments proposed in October 2007 would have increased the minimum jail time for convicted drug counterfeiters from five years to ten years and increased the minimum fine for such offenses from 10,000 rupees (about $320) to a million rupees (about $32,000).
In November 2008, The Indian health minister, Anbumani Ramadoss from Tamil Nadu, pledged that through this amendment the Indian government would "go all out to do away with spurious drugs." But while he certainly tried to push the amendments through parliament, and succeeded through the upper house, he has failed to even get the lower house to hear the bill. With an election expected in two months the amendments will have to wait for another administration. Some local pharmaceutical company experts consider it may be years before the amendments are tabled again.
The amendments would have created a central drug authority, which in principle would have administered the entire drug regulatory system, overseeing drug quality and authorizing product marketing. At the moment the Drug Controller General of India authorizes new domestic and imported drugs but the manufacture of drugs is controlled by individual state drug authorities. The DCGI is underfunded and the states vary in the demands they place on companies and the monitoring and enforcement of those companies infringing rules. Maharastra, home to many large and respected pharmaceutical companies has nearer western style quality control, with at least some push towards what would be considered oversight of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). Whereas Uttar Pradesh, home to many counterfeiters, has weaker oversight and non-existent GMP control. Yet a drug manufactured and approved in one state can be sold anywhere in the country, or exported. Substandard producers can locate in states with weak controls and ply their wares everywhere, allowing hundreds of substandard state-approved medicines to proliferate.
According to well placed locals, behind the scenes lobbying by politicians from states with weak GMP controls, prevented the amendments from becoming law. If they had failed they would lose revenue paid by pharmaceutical companies and perhaps more importantly they would lose control. According to experts from world class domestic and international pharmaceutical companies, while the revenue loss would be minimal the loss of control would have meant a reduction in opportunities for graft.
Meanwhile the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is establishing an office in India to oversee drug quality exports to America. Now that the Indian Government has effectively abdicated responsibility for quality control, it has made FDA's job much harder. By not squashing political opposition to the necessary legal changes, India's best companies may lose out on increasingly important export markets.
India's major pharmaceutical companies have been badly served by India's political system. While the Government plays to the militant anti-patent crowd, defending the rights of politically connected companies that enjoy ripping off western patents, it does nothing to improve the image of Indian companies oversees. When the FDA banned the exports to US in fall 2008 of India's largest drug company, Ranbaxy, it was a major blow to Indian prestige, yet few found the ban unexpected, given the lack of oversight by the Indian Government. Companies like Ranbaxy are always looking for ways to cut costs, and even if top management want to maintain high quality it is very easy for lower level managers to cut corners if there is no local oversight.
If some of Ranbaxy's drug stability data was falsified, as alleged by FDA and US Department of Justice, is anyone really surprised?
India has seen how a series of product scandals took a harsh toll on China's global credibility, its arch-rival in industrial development, yet it has squandered the chance to clean up its own act. This will, sooner or later, come back to bite them.
Since 1975, successive Indian government commissions have urgently recommended product safety reforms and been ignored. Perhaps only when hundreds die oversees from Indian exports, and its drugs are discredited and then banned across the world, will the necessary changes be made.
Roger Bate is a resident fellow at AEI.
India's major pharmaceutical companies have been badly served by India's political system.
The New Ledger, March 12, 2009
For the past decade India's major pharmaceutical companies, alongside the public health community and police services, have attempted to drive forward a modern drug regulatory system which, among other things, would have effectually combated the scourge of counterfeit and substandard drugs. But due to a combination of lobbying from middle-sized companies making suspect quality drugs, as well as some states, which wanted to maintain control of drug quality decisions, the status quo is to remain. This is a tragedy for the many thousands who die annually from substandard medicines in India (and from India exports to Africa and Asia), most estimates say that at least 10% of Indian drugs are substandard.
Radical revisions to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 have been proposed on and off for the past thirty-odd years. Yet the major amendments proposed in October 2007 would have increased the minimum jail time for convicted drug counterfeiters from five years to ten years and increased the minimum fine for such offenses from 10,000 rupees (about $320) to a million rupees (about $32,000).
In November 2008, The Indian health minister, Anbumani Ramadoss from Tamil Nadu, pledged that through this amendment the Indian government would "go all out to do away with spurious drugs." But while he certainly tried to push the amendments through parliament, and succeeded through the upper house, he has failed to even get the lower house to hear the bill. With an election expected in two months the amendments will have to wait for another administration. Some local pharmaceutical company experts consider it may be years before the amendments are tabled again.
The amendments would have created a central drug authority, which in principle would have administered the entire drug regulatory system, overseeing drug quality and authorizing product marketing. At the moment the Drug Controller General of India authorizes new domestic and imported drugs but the manufacture of drugs is controlled by individual state drug authorities. The DCGI is underfunded and the states vary in the demands they place on companies and the monitoring and enforcement of those companies infringing rules. Maharastra, home to many large and respected pharmaceutical companies has nearer western style quality control, with at least some push towards what would be considered oversight of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). Whereas Uttar Pradesh, home to many counterfeiters, has weaker oversight and non-existent GMP control. Yet a drug manufactured and approved in one state can be sold anywhere in the country, or exported. Substandard producers can locate in states with weak controls and ply their wares everywhere, allowing hundreds of substandard state-approved medicines to proliferate.
According to well placed locals, behind the scenes lobbying by politicians from states with weak GMP controls, prevented the amendments from becoming law. If they had failed they would lose revenue paid by pharmaceutical companies and perhaps more importantly they would lose control. According to experts from world class domestic and international pharmaceutical companies, while the revenue loss would be minimal the loss of control would have meant a reduction in opportunities for graft.
Meanwhile the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is establishing an office in India to oversee drug quality exports to America. Now that the Indian Government has effectively abdicated responsibility for quality control, it has made FDA's job much harder. By not squashing political opposition to the necessary legal changes, India's best companies may lose out on increasingly important export markets.
India's major pharmaceutical companies have been badly served by India's political system. While the Government plays to the militant anti-patent crowd, defending the rights of politically connected companies that enjoy ripping off western patents, it does nothing to improve the image of Indian companies oversees. When the FDA banned the exports to US in fall 2008 of India's largest drug company, Ranbaxy, it was a major blow to Indian prestige, yet few found the ban unexpected, given the lack of oversight by the Indian Government. Companies like Ranbaxy are always looking for ways to cut costs, and even if top management want to maintain high quality it is very easy for lower level managers to cut corners if there is no local oversight.
If some of Ranbaxy's drug stability data was falsified, as alleged by FDA and US Department of Justice, is anyone really surprised?
India has seen how a series of product scandals took a harsh toll on China's global credibility, its arch-rival in industrial development, yet it has squandered the chance to clean up its own act. This will, sooner or later, come back to bite them.
Since 1975, successive Indian government commissions have urgently recommended product safety reforms and been ignored. Perhaps only when hundreds die oversees from Indian exports, and its drugs are discredited and then banned across the world, will the necessary changes be made.
Roger Bate is a resident fellow at AEI.
John Bolton: Team Obama's Anti-Israel Turn
Team Obama's Anti-Israel Turn. By John R. Bolton
The Mideast "peace process" is the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone--its mere existence being its basic justification.
AEI, March 13, 2009
The Obama administration is increasingly fixed on resolving the "Arab-Israeli dispute," seeing it as the key to peace and stability in the Middle East. This is bad news for Israel--and for America.
In its purest form, this theory holds that, once Israel and its neighbors come to terms, all other regional conflicts can be duly resolved: Iran's nuclear-weapons program, fanatical anti-Western terrorism, Islam's Sunni-Shiite schism, Arab-Persian ethnic tensions.
Some advocates believe substantively that the overwhelming bulk of other Middle Eastern grievances, wholly or partly, stem from Israel's founding and continued existence. Others see it in process terms--how to "sequence" dispute resolutions, so that Arab-Israeli progress facilitates progress elsewhere.
Pursuing this talisman has long characterized many European leaders and their soulmates on the American left. The Mideast "peace process" is thus the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone--its mere existence being its basic justification.
And now the Obama administration has made it US policy. This is evidenced by two key developments: the appointment of former Sen. George Mitchell as special envoy for the region, and Secretary of State Hillary's Clinton's recent insistence on a "two-state solution" sooner rather than later.
Naming Mitchell as a high-level, single-issue envoy--rather than keeping the portfolio under Secretary Clinton's personal control--separates Israel from the broader conduct of US diplomacy. Mitchell's role underlines both the issue's priority in the president's eyes and the implicit idea it can be solved in the foreseeable future.
Obama and Mitchell have every incentive to strike a Middle East deal--both to vindicate themselves and, in their minds, to create a basis for further "progress." But there are few visible incentives for any particular substantive outcome--which is very troubling for Israel, since Mitchell's mission essentially replicates in high-profile form exactly the approach the State Department has followed for decades.
When appointed, Mitchell said confidently: "Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings." This is true, however, only if the conflict's substantive resolution is less important than the process point of "ending" it one way or another. Surrender, for example, is a guaranteed way to end conflict.
Here, Clinton's strident insistence on a "two-state solution" during her recent Mideast trip becomes important. She essentially argued predestination: the "inevitability" of moving toward two states is "inescapable," and "there is no time to waste." The political consequence is clear: Since the outcome is inevitable and time is short, there is no excuse for not making "progress." Delay is evidence of obstructionism and failure--something President Obama can't tolerate, for the sake of his policies and his political reputation.
In this very European view, failure on the Arab-Israeli front presages failure elsewhere. Accordingly, the Obama adminstration has created a negotiating dynamic that puts increasing pressure on Israel, Palestinians, Syria and others.
Almost invariably, Israel is the loser--because Israel is the party most dependent on the United States, most subject to US pressure and most susceptible to the inevitable chorus of received wisdom from Western diplomats, media and the intelligentsia demanding concessions. When pressure must be applied to make compromises, it's always easier to pressure the more reasonable side.
How will diplomatic pressure work to change Hamas or Hezbollah, where even military force has so far failed? If anything, one can predict coming pressure on Israel to acknowledge the legitimacy of these two terrorist groups, and to negotiate with them as equals (albeit perhaps under some artful camouflage). The pattern is so common that its reappearance in the Mitchell-led negotiations is what is really "inevitable" and "inescapable."
Why would America subject a close ally to this dynamic, playing with the security of an unvarying supporter in world affairs? For America, Israel's intelligence-sharing, military cooperation and significant bilateral economic ties, among many others, are important national-security assets that should not lightly be put at risk.
The only understandable answer is that the Obama administration believes that Israel is as much or more of a problem as it is an ally, at least until Israel's disagreements with its neighbors are resolved. Instead of seeing Israel as a national-security asset, the administration likely sees a relationship complicating its broader policy of diplomatic "outreach."
No one will say so publicly, but this is the root cause of Obama's "Arab-Israeli issues first" approach to the region.
This approach is exactly backward. All the other regional problems would still exist even if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got his fondest wish and Israel disappeared from the map: Iran's nuclear-weapons program, its role as the world's central banker for terrorism, the Sunni-Shiite conflict within Islam, Sunni terrorist groups like al Qaeda and other regional ethnic, national and political animosities would continue as threats and risks for decades to come.
Instead, the US focus should be on Iran and the manifold threats it poses to Israel, to Arab states friendly to Washington and to the United States itself--but that is not to be.
President Obama argues that he will deal comprehensively with the entire region. Rhetoric is certainly his specialty, but in the Middle East rhetoric only lasts so long. Performance is the real measure--and the administration's performance to date points in only one direction: pressuring Israel while wooing Iran.
Others in the world--friend and foe alike--will draw their own conclusions.
John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at AEI.
The Mideast "peace process" is the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone--its mere existence being its basic justification.
AEI, March 13, 2009
The Obama administration is increasingly fixed on resolving the "Arab-Israeli dispute," seeing it as the key to peace and stability in the Middle East. This is bad news for Israel--and for America.
In its purest form, this theory holds that, once Israel and its neighbors come to terms, all other regional conflicts can be duly resolved: Iran's nuclear-weapons program, fanatical anti-Western terrorism, Islam's Sunni-Shiite schism, Arab-Persian ethnic tensions.
Some advocates believe substantively that the overwhelming bulk of other Middle Eastern grievances, wholly or partly, stem from Israel's founding and continued existence. Others see it in process terms--how to "sequence" dispute resolutions, so that Arab-Israeli progress facilitates progress elsewhere.
Pursuing this talisman has long characterized many European leaders and their soulmates on the American left. The Mideast "peace process" is thus the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone--its mere existence being its basic justification.
And now the Obama administration has made it US policy. This is evidenced by two key developments: the appointment of former Sen. George Mitchell as special envoy for the region, and Secretary of State Hillary's Clinton's recent insistence on a "two-state solution" sooner rather than later.
Naming Mitchell as a high-level, single-issue envoy--rather than keeping the portfolio under Secretary Clinton's personal control--separates Israel from the broader conduct of US diplomacy. Mitchell's role underlines both the issue's priority in the president's eyes and the implicit idea it can be solved in the foreseeable future.
Obama and Mitchell have every incentive to strike a Middle East deal--both to vindicate themselves and, in their minds, to create a basis for further "progress." But there are few visible incentives for any particular substantive outcome--which is very troubling for Israel, since Mitchell's mission essentially replicates in high-profile form exactly the approach the State Department has followed for decades.
When appointed, Mitchell said confidently: "Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings." This is true, however, only if the conflict's substantive resolution is less important than the process point of "ending" it one way or another. Surrender, for example, is a guaranteed way to end conflict.
Here, Clinton's strident insistence on a "two-state solution" during her recent Mideast trip becomes important. She essentially argued predestination: the "inevitability" of moving toward two states is "inescapable," and "there is no time to waste." The political consequence is clear: Since the outcome is inevitable and time is short, there is no excuse for not making "progress." Delay is evidence of obstructionism and failure--something President Obama can't tolerate, for the sake of his policies and his political reputation.
In this very European view, failure on the Arab-Israeli front presages failure elsewhere. Accordingly, the Obama adminstration has created a negotiating dynamic that puts increasing pressure on Israel, Palestinians, Syria and others.
Almost invariably, Israel is the loser--because Israel is the party most dependent on the United States, most subject to US pressure and most susceptible to the inevitable chorus of received wisdom from Western diplomats, media and the intelligentsia demanding concessions. When pressure must be applied to make compromises, it's always easier to pressure the more reasonable side.
How will diplomatic pressure work to change Hamas or Hezbollah, where even military force has so far failed? If anything, one can predict coming pressure on Israel to acknowledge the legitimacy of these two terrorist groups, and to negotiate with them as equals (albeit perhaps under some artful camouflage). The pattern is so common that its reappearance in the Mitchell-led negotiations is what is really "inevitable" and "inescapable."
Why would America subject a close ally to this dynamic, playing with the security of an unvarying supporter in world affairs? For America, Israel's intelligence-sharing, military cooperation and significant bilateral economic ties, among many others, are important national-security assets that should not lightly be put at risk.
The only understandable answer is that the Obama administration believes that Israel is as much or more of a problem as it is an ally, at least until Israel's disagreements with its neighbors are resolved. Instead of seeing Israel as a national-security asset, the administration likely sees a relationship complicating its broader policy of diplomatic "outreach."
No one will say so publicly, but this is the root cause of Obama's "Arab-Israeli issues first" approach to the region.
This approach is exactly backward. All the other regional problems would still exist even if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got his fondest wish and Israel disappeared from the map: Iran's nuclear-weapons program, its role as the world's central banker for terrorism, the Sunni-Shiite conflict within Islam, Sunni terrorist groups like al Qaeda and other regional ethnic, national and political animosities would continue as threats and risks for decades to come.
Instead, the US focus should be on Iran and the manifold threats it poses to Israel, to Arab states friendly to Washington and to the United States itself--but that is not to be.
President Obama argues that he will deal comprehensively with the entire region. Rhetoric is certainly his specialty, but in the Middle East rhetoric only lasts so long. Performance is the real measure--and the administration's performance to date points in only one direction: pressuring Israel while wooing Iran.
Others in the world--friend and foe alike--will draw their own conclusions.
John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at AEI.
WaPo: Burma's bullies are always ready with fresh examples of ruthlessness. U.S. engagement must be conditional
Burma's Bullies. WaPo Editorial
They're always ready with fresh examples of ruthlessness. U.S. engagement must be conditional.
WaPo, Sunday, March 15, 2009; A18
THE CRUELEST dictatorships, like the most ruthless criminal gangs, always have understood that the most effective way to deter opposition is to go after the innocent loved ones of potential enemies. Thus it was not enough for Gen. Than Shwe and his junta in the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) to sentence the Buddhist monk U Gambira to prison for 68 years last fall. It was learned last week that his brother, his brother-in-law and four cousins have been sentenced to five years in Burma's gloomy prisons. We hope that this small piece of data is fed into the review of U.S. policy on Burma that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised.
U Gambira, 28 at the time, was a leader of the nonviolent protests that broke out in Burma in September 2007. Thousands of Burmese followed him and other monks in peaceful protest against one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, despite understanding the possible consequences. U Gambira himself, in an op-ed published in The Post on Nov. 4, 2007 -- the day, as it happened, of his arrest after weeks on the run -- said that he understood the risks he was taking. "It matters little if my life or the lives of colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey," he wrote. "Others will fill our sandals, and more will join and follow." We can only guess whether he understood that even his uninvolved relatives would be victimized.
The United States has been frustrated in its efforts to promote democratization in Burma, a nation of about 50 million, so Ms. Clinton's policy review is well timed. No doubt her team will talk to academics and humanitarian aid workers who favor more engagement with the regime and the country. (Those who tout Burma's recent cooperation with relief agencies might, however, want to take note of another prison sentence handed down last week: 17 years to Min Thein Tun, who was arrested last July for distributing relief supplies to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta.) They should talk with officials in neighboring countries, who have been pursuing a policy of engagement for years; in addition to its impact on the wealth of the regime and its trading partners in countries such as Thailand and Singapore, U.S. officials might ask, what effect has this policy had?
It may be that the U.S. review can lead to smarter and more targeted sanctions, with better coordination among allies and neighbors. Certainly, we hope that Ms. Clinton will make clear to Burma's government that the United States could never ease sanctions without first conducting full and free consultations with Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's rightful ruler. Aung San Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won an election in 1990, but the junta ignored the results and has kept her isolated and under house arrest for most of the time since. Her release, and that of thousands of other political prisoners -- and their families -- remains essential.
They're always ready with fresh examples of ruthlessness. U.S. engagement must be conditional.
WaPo, Sunday, March 15, 2009; A18
THE CRUELEST dictatorships, like the most ruthless criminal gangs, always have understood that the most effective way to deter opposition is to go after the innocent loved ones of potential enemies. Thus it was not enough for Gen. Than Shwe and his junta in the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) to sentence the Buddhist monk U Gambira to prison for 68 years last fall. It was learned last week that his brother, his brother-in-law and four cousins have been sentenced to five years in Burma's gloomy prisons. We hope that this small piece of data is fed into the review of U.S. policy on Burma that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised.
U Gambira, 28 at the time, was a leader of the nonviolent protests that broke out in Burma in September 2007. Thousands of Burmese followed him and other monks in peaceful protest against one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, despite understanding the possible consequences. U Gambira himself, in an op-ed published in The Post on Nov. 4, 2007 -- the day, as it happened, of his arrest after weeks on the run -- said that he understood the risks he was taking. "It matters little if my life or the lives of colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey," he wrote. "Others will fill our sandals, and more will join and follow." We can only guess whether he understood that even his uninvolved relatives would be victimized.
The United States has been frustrated in its efforts to promote democratization in Burma, a nation of about 50 million, so Ms. Clinton's policy review is well timed. No doubt her team will talk to academics and humanitarian aid workers who favor more engagement with the regime and the country. (Those who tout Burma's recent cooperation with relief agencies might, however, want to take note of another prison sentence handed down last week: 17 years to Min Thein Tun, who was arrested last July for distributing relief supplies to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta.) They should talk with officials in neighboring countries, who have been pursuing a policy of engagement for years; in addition to its impact on the wealth of the regime and its trading partners in countries such as Thailand and Singapore, U.S. officials might ask, what effect has this policy had?
It may be that the U.S. review can lead to smarter and more targeted sanctions, with better coordination among allies and neighbors. Certainly, we hope that Ms. Clinton will make clear to Burma's government that the United States could never ease sanctions without first conducting full and free consultations with Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's rightful ruler. Aung San Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won an election in 1990, but the junta ignored the results and has kept her isolated and under house arrest for most of the time since. Her release, and that of thousands of other political prisoners -- and their families -- remains essential.
WaPo: Mr. Obama's next step on stem cell research
A Moral Stand. WaPo Editorial
Mr. Obama's next step on stem cell research
Sunday, March 15, 2009; A18
PRESIDENT OBAMA'S pronouncement on stem cell research last week, as we noted at the time, was only a partial decision. He decreed that federal funding of such research could go forward on a much broader scale than President George W. Bush had permitted. But he didn't say whether it could proceed on stem cells derived from embryos created specifically for the purpose of research. This is in large part an ethical question. Mr. Obama is right to turn to scientists for advice on the matter, but he should not hide behind them in making the ultimate decision.
Embryonic stem cell research is thought to hold great promise for the treatment of Parkinson's and other debilitating diseases and conditions. But many Americans are troubled by the destruction of human embryos that such research requires. As a result, Mr. Bush limited federal funding to research on stem cell lines in existence at the time of his 2001 decision; there would be no incentive for further creation or destruction of embryos for experimentation.
A breakthrough came in 2007: Scientists learned to develop stem cells from adult skin cells. Some argued that this would end the need to use embryos. Others, though, said that the field was too young to close off any avenue, and that the embryonic lines available under Mr. Bush's order had proved too limiting.
Mr. Obama accepted the latter argument, and we supported him. In so doing, though, he shunned a possible compromise: to allow research on stem cell lines grown from embryos that were created in fertility laboratories but never implanted. Thousands are frozen and awaiting destruction; with permission of the egg and sperm donors, they might satisfy researchers' needs. Mr. Obama did not embrace this opportunity to reach out to opponents -- not all of whom, of course, would have been satisfied by such a compromise.
The president has asked the National Institutes of Health to develop guidelines for research. Scientists can develop rules to make sure donors are dealt with ethically. If the scientists so believe, they can present reasons why existing frozen embryos aren't enough -- why research would benefit from having embryos created. But it's not the job of the scientist to decide whether those reasons outweigh concerns about such a practice. That's the president's job. He should listen to the scientists' arguments, make his decision and -- as Mr. Bush did in 2001 -- explain it to the American people.
Mr. Obama's next step on stem cell research
Sunday, March 15, 2009; A18
PRESIDENT OBAMA'S pronouncement on stem cell research last week, as we noted at the time, was only a partial decision. He decreed that federal funding of such research could go forward on a much broader scale than President George W. Bush had permitted. But he didn't say whether it could proceed on stem cells derived from embryos created specifically for the purpose of research. This is in large part an ethical question. Mr. Obama is right to turn to scientists for advice on the matter, but he should not hide behind them in making the ultimate decision.
Embryonic stem cell research is thought to hold great promise for the treatment of Parkinson's and other debilitating diseases and conditions. But many Americans are troubled by the destruction of human embryos that such research requires. As a result, Mr. Bush limited federal funding to research on stem cell lines in existence at the time of his 2001 decision; there would be no incentive for further creation or destruction of embryos for experimentation.
A breakthrough came in 2007: Scientists learned to develop stem cells from adult skin cells. Some argued that this would end the need to use embryos. Others, though, said that the field was too young to close off any avenue, and that the embryonic lines available under Mr. Bush's order had proved too limiting.
Mr. Obama accepted the latter argument, and we supported him. In so doing, though, he shunned a possible compromise: to allow research on stem cell lines grown from embryos that were created in fertility laboratories but never implanted. Thousands are frozen and awaiting destruction; with permission of the egg and sperm donors, they might satisfy researchers' needs. Mr. Obama did not embrace this opportunity to reach out to opponents -- not all of whom, of course, would have been satisfied by such a compromise.
The president has asked the National Institutes of Health to develop guidelines for research. Scientists can develop rules to make sure donors are dealt with ethically. If the scientists so believe, they can present reasons why existing frozen embryos aren't enough -- why research would benefit from having embryos created. But it's not the job of the scientist to decide whether those reasons outweigh concerns about such a practice. That's the president's job. He should listen to the scientists' arguments, make his decision and -- as Mr. Bush did in 2001 -- explain it to the American people.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Prepared Statement by Treas Sec Geithner at the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting
Prepared Statement by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner at the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting
March 14, 2009
tg56
Horsham, UK -- I am very pleased to be in the UK for the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting. I want to compliment Chancellor Darling for his leadership and the excellent work of his staff in preparing for this meeting.
We met to prepare a comprehensive set of recommendations for the meeting of the heads of state early next month. This is a global crisis and it requires a coordinated global response. We have a strong consensus on the need for both recovery and reform so that we never face a crisis like this again.
An effective response to restore global growth requires several things. It requires a sustained commitment to macroeconomic stimulus and pro-growth policies on a scale commensurate with the severity of the problem. It requires aggressive actions to fix our financial systems and get credit flowing again. It requires substantial support from the international financial institutions targeted to those emerging markets and developing economies most affected by the crisis. This means a significant increase in resources – deployed more quickly – to provide financing in support of counter-cyclical fiscal policies, bank repair and recapitalization to increase lending, trade finance, and support to the poorest countries that are most impacted by the crisis.
Alongside these actions must come a clear commitment, when recovery is firmly established, to return to fiscal sustainability and to unwind the extraordinary policy actions needed to restore economic growth and solve the financial crisis.
You are seeing the world move together at a speed and on a scale without precedent in modern times. All the major economies are putting in place substantial fiscal packages. The stronger the response, the quicker recovery will come. That is why the United States has passed the largest, most comprehensive recovery package in decades.
We are each moving preemptively to get ahead of the intensifying pressures that you see across national financial systems and we released today a common framework for restoring the flow of credit.
In the United States, we have launched a new program to help revive the credit markets. We have initiated a forward-looking assessment of the potential capital needs of our major financial institutions, and outlined the terms of the capital assistance program that will provide a backstop for those institutions that need additional capital. We will soon outline our program to use market mechanisms to help clean up the legacy assets on bank balance sheets and bring in private capital alongside government financing to help restart markets for these assets.
As President Obama has said, we will bring the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks are able to meet their commitments so that they continue to play critical roles in market functioning and in providing credit to households and businesses.
The G-20 has agreed to the need for mobilizing more resources for the international financial institutions to address the risks posed by the pull back of capital flows and the fall in external demand. The G-20 supports our proposal for a substantial increase to emergency IMF resources through a major enlargement of the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) and expansion of its membership. We have asked the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks to leverage existing resources by flexible use of their balance sheets to help meet financing needs.
Now turning to reform. The G-20 has agreed on a common framework of concrete changes to the international financial architecture. Risk does not respect national borders. We must establish a much stronger form of oversight and clear rules of the game, more evenly enforced across the international financial system. This will require comprehensive changes both at the national and international levels. The United States will soon be releasing a comprehensive framework of regulatory reform. Our strategy underscores our commitment to encourage a race to the top rather than a race to the bottom; a global move to higher standards.
We have committed to broad principles to guide the reform of the financial system:
First, all institutions that are important to the stability of the financial system should come within a much stronger framework of oversight, with clearer rules of the game that are enforced more evenly and consistently across countries.
Second, all markets, including the derivatives markets, need to be subject to standards for stability and a framework for disclosure.
Third, looking forward we need to provide much stronger cushions of stability to ensure that the framework of capital requirements and accounting standards dampens rather than amplifies future financial crises.
Fourth, we must promote financial market integrity. We welcome Switzerland's announcement to increase information sharing as part of the global effort to end tax evasion.
Alongside this framework, we have expanded membership of the Financial Stability Forum, and we should elevate its role in the international system so that the global economy has – alongside the original Bretton Woods institutions of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO – a strong institution able to lead these critical efforts to a more robust framework of oversight and standards for the global financial system.
We are committed to accelerating the timetable of reform of the broader governance structure of the international financial institutions to increase the role of developing countries in these institutions.
Let me just conclude by saying that we have a very broad basis of consensus globally on the need to act aggressively to restore growth to the global economy and a commitment to move together to address the evolving crisis.
U.S. workers are among the most productive in the world, but U.S. companies need open and growing markets. As President Obama stressed this week, a healthy United States requires a healthy global economy. Our recovery will be stronger if the world is stronger.
I am very pleased by the progress achieved today on both recovery and reform.
March 14, 2009
tg56
Horsham, UK -- I am very pleased to be in the UK for the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting. I want to compliment Chancellor Darling for his leadership and the excellent work of his staff in preparing for this meeting.
We met to prepare a comprehensive set of recommendations for the meeting of the heads of state early next month. This is a global crisis and it requires a coordinated global response. We have a strong consensus on the need for both recovery and reform so that we never face a crisis like this again.
An effective response to restore global growth requires several things. It requires a sustained commitment to macroeconomic stimulus and pro-growth policies on a scale commensurate with the severity of the problem. It requires aggressive actions to fix our financial systems and get credit flowing again. It requires substantial support from the international financial institutions targeted to those emerging markets and developing economies most affected by the crisis. This means a significant increase in resources – deployed more quickly – to provide financing in support of counter-cyclical fiscal policies, bank repair and recapitalization to increase lending, trade finance, and support to the poorest countries that are most impacted by the crisis.
Alongside these actions must come a clear commitment, when recovery is firmly established, to return to fiscal sustainability and to unwind the extraordinary policy actions needed to restore economic growth and solve the financial crisis.
You are seeing the world move together at a speed and on a scale without precedent in modern times. All the major economies are putting in place substantial fiscal packages. The stronger the response, the quicker recovery will come. That is why the United States has passed the largest, most comprehensive recovery package in decades.
We are each moving preemptively to get ahead of the intensifying pressures that you see across national financial systems and we released today a common framework for restoring the flow of credit.
In the United States, we have launched a new program to help revive the credit markets. We have initiated a forward-looking assessment of the potential capital needs of our major financial institutions, and outlined the terms of the capital assistance program that will provide a backstop for those institutions that need additional capital. We will soon outline our program to use market mechanisms to help clean up the legacy assets on bank balance sheets and bring in private capital alongside government financing to help restart markets for these assets.
As President Obama has said, we will bring the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks are able to meet their commitments so that they continue to play critical roles in market functioning and in providing credit to households and businesses.
The G-20 has agreed to the need for mobilizing more resources for the international financial institutions to address the risks posed by the pull back of capital flows and the fall in external demand. The G-20 supports our proposal for a substantial increase to emergency IMF resources through a major enlargement of the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) and expansion of its membership. We have asked the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks to leverage existing resources by flexible use of their balance sheets to help meet financing needs.
Now turning to reform. The G-20 has agreed on a common framework of concrete changes to the international financial architecture. Risk does not respect national borders. We must establish a much stronger form of oversight and clear rules of the game, more evenly enforced across the international financial system. This will require comprehensive changes both at the national and international levels. The United States will soon be releasing a comprehensive framework of regulatory reform. Our strategy underscores our commitment to encourage a race to the top rather than a race to the bottom; a global move to higher standards.
We have committed to broad principles to guide the reform of the financial system:
First, all institutions that are important to the stability of the financial system should come within a much stronger framework of oversight, with clearer rules of the game that are enforced more evenly and consistently across countries.
Second, all markets, including the derivatives markets, need to be subject to standards for stability and a framework for disclosure.
Third, looking forward we need to provide much stronger cushions of stability to ensure that the framework of capital requirements and accounting standards dampens rather than amplifies future financial crises.
Fourth, we must promote financial market integrity. We welcome Switzerland's announcement to increase information sharing as part of the global effort to end tax evasion.
Alongside this framework, we have expanded membership of the Financial Stability Forum, and we should elevate its role in the international system so that the global economy has – alongside the original Bretton Woods institutions of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO – a strong institution able to lead these critical efforts to a more robust framework of oversight and standards for the global financial system.
We are committed to accelerating the timetable of reform of the broader governance structure of the international financial institutions to increase the role of developing countries in these institutions.
Let me just conclude by saying that we have a very broad basis of consensus globally on the need to act aggressively to restore growth to the global economy and a commitment to move together to address the evolving crisis.
U.S. workers are among the most productive in the world, but U.S. companies need open and growing markets. As President Obama stressed this week, a healthy United States requires a healthy global economy. Our recovery will be stronger if the world is stronger.
I am very pleased by the progress achieved today on both recovery and reform.
In the WaPo: "Obama's New Tack: Blaming Bush"
Obama's New Tack: Blaming Bush. By Scott Wilson
President Points to 'Inherited' Economy
Washington Post, Saturday, March 14, 2009; A01
In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
It hasn't taken long for the recriminations to return -- or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome "inheritance" of its predecessor.
Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems "inherited" from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The "deepening economic crisis" that the president described six days after taking office became "a big mess" in remarks this month to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio.
"By any measure," he said during a March 4 event calling for government-contracting reform, "my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster."
Obama's more frequent and acid reminders that former president George W. Bush left behind a trillion-dollar budget deficit, a 14-month recession and a broken financial system have come at the same time Republicans have ramped up criticism that the current president's policies are compounding the nation's economic problems.
Obama had initially been content to leave partisan defense strategy to his proxies, but as the fiscal picture has continued to darken, he has appeared more willing to risk his image as a politician who is above petty partisanship to personally remind the public of Bush's legacy.
His approval ratings remain strong -- above 60 percent, according to the most recent Gallup poll -- but have dropped from their highs almost entirely because of falling support among Republicans since he took office.
Upon entering the White House in 2001, Bush pinned the lackluster economy on his predecessor, using the "Clinton recession" to successfully argue in favor of tax cuts that won some Democratic support. But for Obama, who built his candidacy on a promise to rise above Washington's divisive partisan traditions -- winning over many independent voters and moderate Republicans in the process -- blaming his predecessor holds special risks.
He will need support beyond his Democratic base as he begins lobbying for his $3.6 trillion budget, which proposes sweeping changes in health care, the energy sector and the public education system. The president did not receive a single House Republican vote for his stimulus plan, prompting some in his administration to view his bipartisan outreach efforts as having little hope of success.
And Republicans have seemed only more emboldened in their rhetoric. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), for example, recently called the borrowing needed to fund the president's economic recovery plans "generational theft."
"What the administration is involved in now is the politics of attribution," said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. "Each week that goes by with falling job numbers and Republican criticism of the administration's flaws means falling approval ratings. What's the antidote? That the guilty party is George Bush."
"The trick," Jacobs said, "is how do you shift blame to George Bush and retain any credibility on the idea that you are looking past partisan warfare? This looks like a doubling down on a very partisan approach."
Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, denied that the president has changed his tone toward the previous administration. He said Obama is "not trying to place blame, but he is trying to say clearly: Here's what we've got and here's our way out of it. He's offered a positive alternative to their criticism."
"The truth is that 98 percent of his speeches are about the future, and 2 percent are about inheritance," Emanuel said. "Whereas I think for Republicans it's 2 percent about the future, and 98 percent hope that the people have amnesia."
Until recently, the job of reminding the country of the Bush-era legacy had been left mostly to senior administration officials, and it sometimes ranged beyond economic matters. Referring to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Vice President Biden said soon after the inauguration that "we're trying to figure out exactly what we've inherited here."
In early February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that "after I accepted the position, I began looking at the broad array of problems that we were going to inherit," citing the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan in particular.
But most of the Bush-era blame has focused on the economy and the dismal state of the government's finances. Bush's spokesman, Rob Saliterman, declined to comment for this article.
Obama has strengthened his rhetoric gradually. Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said the administration's "sharpened language is a response to the Republican argument against Obama based on huge deficits and big spending."
Six days after taking office, Obama kicked off an event on jobs, energy reform and climate change with "a few words about the deepening economic crisis that we've inherited." He lamented announced job cuts at such economic mainstays as Microsoft, Intel, Home Depot and Caterpillar, among others.
Just over a week later, Obama, arguing for his stimulus plan, said that "we've inherited a terrible mess," and a few days after that, in the economically depressed city of Elkhart, Ind., he told the audience, "We've inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the Great Depression."
During a prime-time news conference later that day, he used "inherited" twice in the same sentence to describe the deficit and "the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression."
This month, Obama has described inheriting "a fiscal disaster" and "a real mess," as administration officials emphasized that the effects of the stimulus package have yet to be seen in paychecks and job-creating public-works projects.
"There's a fascinating behind-the-scenes trend taking place for someone who remains a very popular president," said Ari Fleischer, a former Bush press secretary, describing the decline in Obama's approval ratings and an increase in disapproval numbers. "His response to that trend is to turn up the blame on George Bush and everything that came before him. And he was the one who talked about getting past partisanship."
The economy continues to shed jobs -- 651,000 in February alone -- and the Dow Jones index is roughly 12 percent lower than when the market opened on the day of Obama's inauguration. Perhaps most damaging has been the uncertainty surrounding Obama's strategy to rescue the banking sector, a plan that has been criticized for lacking detail.
Host Chris Wallace asked on "Fox News Sunday" this month, "Can this now fairly be called the Obama bear market?"
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) said, "I want to take the president at his word that he wants to work on these problems plaguing American families," adding that "people are looking for leadership."
"It is the Obama economy and the Obama stock market," Cantor said. "This is about today, and he's assumed his post."
Researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
President Points to 'Inherited' Economy
Washington Post, Saturday, March 14, 2009; A01
In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
It hasn't taken long for the recriminations to return -- or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome "inheritance" of its predecessor.
Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems "inherited" from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The "deepening economic crisis" that the president described six days after taking office became "a big mess" in remarks this month to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio.
"By any measure," he said during a March 4 event calling for government-contracting reform, "my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster."
Obama's more frequent and acid reminders that former president George W. Bush left behind a trillion-dollar budget deficit, a 14-month recession and a broken financial system have come at the same time Republicans have ramped up criticism that the current president's policies are compounding the nation's economic problems.
Obama had initially been content to leave partisan defense strategy to his proxies, but as the fiscal picture has continued to darken, he has appeared more willing to risk his image as a politician who is above petty partisanship to personally remind the public of Bush's legacy.
His approval ratings remain strong -- above 60 percent, according to the most recent Gallup poll -- but have dropped from their highs almost entirely because of falling support among Republicans since he took office.
Upon entering the White House in 2001, Bush pinned the lackluster economy on his predecessor, using the "Clinton recession" to successfully argue in favor of tax cuts that won some Democratic support. But for Obama, who built his candidacy on a promise to rise above Washington's divisive partisan traditions -- winning over many independent voters and moderate Republicans in the process -- blaming his predecessor holds special risks.
He will need support beyond his Democratic base as he begins lobbying for his $3.6 trillion budget, which proposes sweeping changes in health care, the energy sector and the public education system. The president did not receive a single House Republican vote for his stimulus plan, prompting some in his administration to view his bipartisan outreach efforts as having little hope of success.
And Republicans have seemed only more emboldened in their rhetoric. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), for example, recently called the borrowing needed to fund the president's economic recovery plans "generational theft."
"What the administration is involved in now is the politics of attribution," said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. "Each week that goes by with falling job numbers and Republican criticism of the administration's flaws means falling approval ratings. What's the antidote? That the guilty party is George Bush."
"The trick," Jacobs said, "is how do you shift blame to George Bush and retain any credibility on the idea that you are looking past partisan warfare? This looks like a doubling down on a very partisan approach."
Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, denied that the president has changed his tone toward the previous administration. He said Obama is "not trying to place blame, but he is trying to say clearly: Here's what we've got and here's our way out of it. He's offered a positive alternative to their criticism."
"The truth is that 98 percent of his speeches are about the future, and 2 percent are about inheritance," Emanuel said. "Whereas I think for Republicans it's 2 percent about the future, and 98 percent hope that the people have amnesia."
Until recently, the job of reminding the country of the Bush-era legacy had been left mostly to senior administration officials, and it sometimes ranged beyond economic matters. Referring to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Vice President Biden said soon after the inauguration that "we're trying to figure out exactly what we've inherited here."
In early February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that "after I accepted the position, I began looking at the broad array of problems that we were going to inherit," citing the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan in particular.
But most of the Bush-era blame has focused on the economy and the dismal state of the government's finances. Bush's spokesman, Rob Saliterman, declined to comment for this article.
Obama has strengthened his rhetoric gradually. Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said the administration's "sharpened language is a response to the Republican argument against Obama based on huge deficits and big spending."
Six days after taking office, Obama kicked off an event on jobs, energy reform and climate change with "a few words about the deepening economic crisis that we've inherited." He lamented announced job cuts at such economic mainstays as Microsoft, Intel, Home Depot and Caterpillar, among others.
Just over a week later, Obama, arguing for his stimulus plan, said that "we've inherited a terrible mess," and a few days after that, in the economically depressed city of Elkhart, Ind., he told the audience, "We've inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the Great Depression."
During a prime-time news conference later that day, he used "inherited" twice in the same sentence to describe the deficit and "the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression."
This month, Obama has described inheriting "a fiscal disaster" and "a real mess," as administration officials emphasized that the effects of the stimulus package have yet to be seen in paychecks and job-creating public-works projects.
"There's a fascinating behind-the-scenes trend taking place for someone who remains a very popular president," said Ari Fleischer, a former Bush press secretary, describing the decline in Obama's approval ratings and an increase in disapproval numbers. "His response to that trend is to turn up the blame on George Bush and everything that came before him. And he was the one who talked about getting past partisanship."
The economy continues to shed jobs -- 651,000 in February alone -- and the Dow Jones index is roughly 12 percent lower than when the market opened on the day of Obama's inauguration. Perhaps most damaging has been the uncertainty surrounding Obama's strategy to rescue the banking sector, a plan that has been criticized for lacking detail.
Host Chris Wallace asked on "Fox News Sunday" this month, "Can this now fairly be called the Obama bear market?"
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) said, "I want to take the president at his word that he wants to work on these problems plaguing American families," adding that "people are looking for leadership."
"It is the Obama economy and the Obama stock market," Cantor said. "This is about today, and he's assumed his post."
Researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
ACSH: Likely FDA Appointees Will Face Scaremongers
Likely FDA Appointees Will Face Scaremongers
The American Council on Science and Health, March 13, 2009
Scientists and physicians at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) call for the reform of a broken regulatory system -- one that now tries to appease advocates of junk science who pressure the Food and Drug Administration.
These advocates routinely demand that the FDA take unnecessary -- and possibly heath-threatening -- action against alleged environmental risks that have little or no scientific basis. The agency's time is thus wasted chasing phantom risks instead of dealing with real ones, thus indirectly imperiling Americans' health.
Non-risks that (non-science-based) environmental advocates will likely bring to the attention of new senior FDA staff include: bisphenol A in baby bottles, lead in lipstick, formaldehyde in baby shampoo, and pesticide residues in imported foods. These are just a few examples.
Putting these alleged risks in scientific perspective will be one of the most important challenges facing likely FDA Commissioner nominee Dr. Margaret Hamburg and intended Deputy Administrator Dr. Joshua Sharfstein:
•"It's high time, for example, for FDA to take aggressive action to assure people of the safety of bisphenol A in baby bottles, infant formula, and other products that infants and young children come in contact with on a daily basis," stated Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, President and Founder of the American Council on Science and Health. "These products are safe -- and FDA officers should give assurance to consumers -- in spite of the constant attacks by environmental activist groups."
"The mere fact that we can detect trace levels of BPA in plastic bottles or lead in lipstick does not mean a health hazard exists. Indeed, with today's sophisticated chemistry, you can find anything in anything at miniscule levels," stated Dr. Gilbert Ross, Medical Director of ACSH.
•Dr. Whelan noted that although groups including "Health Care Without Harm" have had a petition before the FDA for over two years, asking the agency to require labeling of medical devices containing diethyl hexyl phthalate (DEHP), an ACSH blue ribbon panel chaired by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop concluded that phthalates as used in medical devices and other products pose no health risk. "Banning these flexible plastic medical devices would set back medicine fifty years," Dr. Whelan noted.
ACSH scientific advocates are hopeful that Hamburg and Sharfstein will address the myth that dangerous chemicals have been allowed on the market. There is no evidence whatsoever that trace amounts of chemicals are linked to the very real health problems the FDA must consider, such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and reproductive and neurodevelopmental health problems.
The American Council on Science and Health, March 13, 2009
Scientists and physicians at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) call for the reform of a broken regulatory system -- one that now tries to appease advocates of junk science who pressure the Food and Drug Administration.
These advocates routinely demand that the FDA take unnecessary -- and possibly heath-threatening -- action against alleged environmental risks that have little or no scientific basis. The agency's time is thus wasted chasing phantom risks instead of dealing with real ones, thus indirectly imperiling Americans' health.
Non-risks that (non-science-based) environmental advocates will likely bring to the attention of new senior FDA staff include: bisphenol A in baby bottles, lead in lipstick, formaldehyde in baby shampoo, and pesticide residues in imported foods. These are just a few examples.
Putting these alleged risks in scientific perspective will be one of the most important challenges facing likely FDA Commissioner nominee Dr. Margaret Hamburg and intended Deputy Administrator Dr. Joshua Sharfstein:
•"It's high time, for example, for FDA to take aggressive action to assure people of the safety of bisphenol A in baby bottles, infant formula, and other products that infants and young children come in contact with on a daily basis," stated Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, President and Founder of the American Council on Science and Health. "These products are safe -- and FDA officers should give assurance to consumers -- in spite of the constant attacks by environmental activist groups."
"The mere fact that we can detect trace levels of BPA in plastic bottles or lead in lipstick does not mean a health hazard exists. Indeed, with today's sophisticated chemistry, you can find anything in anything at miniscule levels," stated Dr. Gilbert Ross, Medical Director of ACSH.
•Dr. Whelan noted that although groups including "Health Care Without Harm" have had a petition before the FDA for over two years, asking the agency to require labeling of medical devices containing diethyl hexyl phthalate (DEHP), an ACSH blue ribbon panel chaired by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop concluded that phthalates as used in medical devices and other products pose no health risk. "Banning these flexible plastic medical devices would set back medicine fifty years," Dr. Whelan noted.
ACSH scientific advocates are hopeful that Hamburg and Sharfstein will address the myth that dangerous chemicals have been allowed on the market. There is no evidence whatsoever that trace amounts of chemicals are linked to the very real health problems the FDA must consider, such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and reproductive and neurodevelopmental health problems.
Cap and Trade: All Pain, No Gain for Consumers, Economy, Environment
Cap and Trade: All Pain, No Gain for Consumers, Economy, Environment
The Institute for Energy Research, Mar 13, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the heels of two hearings in the House today on how an economy-wide cap and trade program might affect working-class American families, Institute for Energy Research (IER) released an analysis that demonstrates that lawmakers’ concerns about the financial burden cap and trade would impose on their constituents are well founded.
“Cap and trade has two goals: increase energy costs and reduce carbon dioxide emissions,” said IER President Thomas J. Pyle. “IER’s analysis clearly shows that cap and trade goes one for two—it is as historically ineffective at reducing carbon dioxide emissions as it is historically adept at raising gas prices and electricity bills. With our economy in free fall and millions of Americans out of work, the idea that lawmakers would enact an unnecessary policy to harm families’ budgets is as irresponsible as it is illogical.”
The analysis shows that cap and trade:
· Is designed to increase the price of 85 percent of the energy we use;
· Didn’t reduce emissions in Europe, home of the world’s only full-scale carbon dioxide cap and trade policy;
· Targets low-income earners;
· Unfairly targets rural economies; and,
· Penalizes domestic and friendly trade partners’ energy resources in favor of Middle East oil.
More from IER on carbon regulation:
· IER Study: Carbon Taxes Reduce Economic Growth & Achieve No Environmental Improvement
· Blog Posting: The Dangers of a “Carbon Fed”
· Press Release: Obama Attempts to Sneak Biggest Tax Increase in History into Budget
· IER Study: Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction?
The Institute for Energy Research, Mar 13, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the heels of two hearings in the House today on how an economy-wide cap and trade program might affect working-class American families, Institute for Energy Research (IER) released an analysis that demonstrates that lawmakers’ concerns about the financial burden cap and trade would impose on their constituents are well founded.
“Cap and trade has two goals: increase energy costs and reduce carbon dioxide emissions,” said IER President Thomas J. Pyle. “IER’s analysis clearly shows that cap and trade goes one for two—it is as historically ineffective at reducing carbon dioxide emissions as it is historically adept at raising gas prices and electricity bills. With our economy in free fall and millions of Americans out of work, the idea that lawmakers would enact an unnecessary policy to harm families’ budgets is as irresponsible as it is illogical.”
The analysis shows that cap and trade:
· Is designed to increase the price of 85 percent of the energy we use;
· Didn’t reduce emissions in Europe, home of the world’s only full-scale carbon dioxide cap and trade policy;
· Targets low-income earners;
· Unfairly targets rural economies; and,
· Penalizes domestic and friendly trade partners’ energy resources in favor of Middle East oil.
More from IER on carbon regulation:
· IER Study: Carbon Taxes Reduce Economic Growth & Achieve No Environmental Improvement
· Blog Posting: The Dangers of a “Carbon Fed”
· Press Release: Obama Attempts to Sneak Biggest Tax Increase in History into Budget
· IER Study: Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction?
Weekly Address: President Barack Obama Announces Key FDA Appointments and Tougher Food Safety Measures
Weekly Address: President Barack Obama Announces Key FDA Appointments and Tougher Food Safety Measures
Remarks of President Barack ObamaWeekly AddressSaturday, March 14, 2009Washington, DC
I’ve often said that I don’t believe government has the answer to every problem or that it can do all things for all people. We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can’t do on our own. There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don’t cause us harm. That is the mission of our Food and Drug Administration and it is a mission shared by our Department of Agriculture, and a variety of other agencies and offices at just about every level of government.
The men and women who inspect our foods and test the safety of our medicines are chemists and physicians, veterinarians and pharmacists. It is because of the work they do each and every day that the United States is one of the safest places in the world to buy groceries at a supermarket or pills at a drugstore. Unlike citizens of so many other countries, Americans can trust that there is a strong system in place to ensure that the medications we give our children will help them get better, not make them sick; and that a family dinner won’t end in a trip to the doctor’s office.
But in recent years, we’ve seen a number of problems with the food making its way to our kitchen tables. In 2006, it was contaminated spinach. In 2008, it was salmonella in peppers and possibly tomatoes. And just this year, bad peanut products led to hundreds of illnesses and cost nine people their lives – a painful reminder of how tragic the consequences can be when food producers act irresponsibly and government is unable to do its job. Worse, these incidents reflect a troubling trend that’s seen the average number of outbreaks from contaminated produce and other foods grow to nearly 350 a year – up from 100 a year in the early 1990s.
Part of the reason is that many of the laws and regulations governing food safety in America have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt. It’s also because our system of inspection and enforcement is spread out so widely among so many people that it’s difficult for different parts of our government to share information, work together, and solve problems. And it’s also because the FDA has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, leaving the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of our 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses each year. That means roughly 95% of them go uninspected.
That is a hazard to public health. It is unacceptable. And it will change under the leadership of Dr. Margaret Hamburg, whom I am appointing today as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. From her research on infectious disease at the National Institutes of Health to her work on public health at the Department of Health and Human Services to her leadership on biodefense at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Dr. Hamburg brings to this vital position not only a reputation of integrity but a record of achievement in making Americans safer and more secure. Dr. Hamburg was one of the youngest people ever elected to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. And her two children have a unique distinction of their own. Their birth certificates feature her name twice – once as their mother, and once as New York City Health Commissioner. In that role, Dr. Hamburg brought a new life to a demoralized agency, leading an internationally-recognized initiative that cut the tuberculosis rate by nearly half, and overseeing food safety in our nation’s largest city.
Joining her as Principal Deputy Commissioner will be Dr. Joshua Sharfstein. As Baltimore’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Sharfstein has been recognized as a national leader for his efforts to protect children from unsafe over-the-counter cough and cold medications. And he’s designed an award-winning program to ensure that Americans with disabilities had access to prescription drugs.
Their critical work – and the critical work of the FDA they lead – will be part of a larger effort taken up by a new Food Safety Working Group I am creating. This Working Group will bring together cabinet secretaries and senior officials to advise me on how we can upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century; foster coordination throughout government; and ensure that we are not just designing laws that will keep the American people safe, but enforcing them. And I expect this group to report back to me with recommendations as soon as possible.
As part of our commitment to public health, our Agriculture Department is closing a loophole in the system to ensure that diseased cows don’t find their way into the food supply. And we are also strengthening our food safety system and modernizing our labs with a billion dollar investment, a portion of which will go toward significantly increasing the number of food inspectors, helping ensure that the FDA has the staff and support they need to protect the food we eat.
In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your President, but as a parent. When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week. No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch. Just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm. Protecting the safety of our food and drugs is one of the most fundamental responsibilities government has, and, with the outstanding team I am announcing today, it is a responsibility that I intend to uphold in the months and years to come.
Thank you.
Remarks of President Barack ObamaWeekly AddressSaturday, March 14, 2009Washington, DC
I’ve often said that I don’t believe government has the answer to every problem or that it can do all things for all people. We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can’t do on our own. There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don’t cause us harm. That is the mission of our Food and Drug Administration and it is a mission shared by our Department of Agriculture, and a variety of other agencies and offices at just about every level of government.
The men and women who inspect our foods and test the safety of our medicines are chemists and physicians, veterinarians and pharmacists. It is because of the work they do each and every day that the United States is one of the safest places in the world to buy groceries at a supermarket or pills at a drugstore. Unlike citizens of so many other countries, Americans can trust that there is a strong system in place to ensure that the medications we give our children will help them get better, not make them sick; and that a family dinner won’t end in a trip to the doctor’s office.
But in recent years, we’ve seen a number of problems with the food making its way to our kitchen tables. In 2006, it was contaminated spinach. In 2008, it was salmonella in peppers and possibly tomatoes. And just this year, bad peanut products led to hundreds of illnesses and cost nine people their lives – a painful reminder of how tragic the consequences can be when food producers act irresponsibly and government is unable to do its job. Worse, these incidents reflect a troubling trend that’s seen the average number of outbreaks from contaminated produce and other foods grow to nearly 350 a year – up from 100 a year in the early 1990s.
Part of the reason is that many of the laws and regulations governing food safety in America have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt. It’s also because our system of inspection and enforcement is spread out so widely among so many people that it’s difficult for different parts of our government to share information, work together, and solve problems. And it’s also because the FDA has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, leaving the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of our 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses each year. That means roughly 95% of them go uninspected.
That is a hazard to public health. It is unacceptable. And it will change under the leadership of Dr. Margaret Hamburg, whom I am appointing today as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. From her research on infectious disease at the National Institutes of Health to her work on public health at the Department of Health and Human Services to her leadership on biodefense at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Dr. Hamburg brings to this vital position not only a reputation of integrity but a record of achievement in making Americans safer and more secure. Dr. Hamburg was one of the youngest people ever elected to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. And her two children have a unique distinction of their own. Their birth certificates feature her name twice – once as their mother, and once as New York City Health Commissioner. In that role, Dr. Hamburg brought a new life to a demoralized agency, leading an internationally-recognized initiative that cut the tuberculosis rate by nearly half, and overseeing food safety in our nation’s largest city.
Joining her as Principal Deputy Commissioner will be Dr. Joshua Sharfstein. As Baltimore’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Sharfstein has been recognized as a national leader for his efforts to protect children from unsafe over-the-counter cough and cold medications. And he’s designed an award-winning program to ensure that Americans with disabilities had access to prescription drugs.
Their critical work – and the critical work of the FDA they lead – will be part of a larger effort taken up by a new Food Safety Working Group I am creating. This Working Group will bring together cabinet secretaries and senior officials to advise me on how we can upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century; foster coordination throughout government; and ensure that we are not just designing laws that will keep the American people safe, but enforcing them. And I expect this group to report back to me with recommendations as soon as possible.
As part of our commitment to public health, our Agriculture Department is closing a loophole in the system to ensure that diseased cows don’t find their way into the food supply. And we are also strengthening our food safety system and modernizing our labs with a billion dollar investment, a portion of which will go toward significantly increasing the number of food inspectors, helping ensure that the FDA has the staff and support they need to protect the food we eat.
In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your President, but as a parent. When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week. No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch. Just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm. Protecting the safety of our food and drugs is one of the most fundamental responsibilities government has, and, with the outstanding team I am announcing today, it is a responsibility that I intend to uphold in the months and years to come.
Thank you.
Friday, March 13, 2009
US Launches Cancer Early Detection Program in Georgia
USAID Launches Cancer Early Detection Program in Georgia
USAID, March 12, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a unique partnership to reduce illnesses and deaths caused by cervical and breast cancers in the country of Georgia. The program, called "Survive" includes numerous USAID partners, including the U.S. Embassy in Georgia, the JSI Research and Training Institute, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the Georgian Pharmaceutical Company, International Women's Association, the Georgian insurance company IRAO, HSBC Bank, and BP Georgia.
"Survive's focus on women's right to health, right to quality care and freedom from stigma fits perfectly with the timing of International Women's Day," said Ken Yamashita, Acting Administrator for the Europe and Eurasia Bureau. "This partnership values women as productive contributors to society and the economy and targets some of their primary health problems."
The incidence of cervical and breast cancers, a major cause of illness and death among adult Georgian women, has risen dramatically over the last decade. Cervical cancer has one of the greatest potentials for early detection and cure, however in Georgia there is a two-fold increase in untreated cases detected in late stages of the disease. Similar statistics exist for breast cancer. Although there are almost twice as many detected cases in North America as in Georgia, only one fifth of these cases are fatal compared to nearly half in Georgia. The disproportionate mortality risk for Georgian women is attributable, in large part, to delayed detection of the disease.
As a result of this unique partnership of NGOs, businesses, foundations and government entities, primary health care providers will take on a key role in educating clients and the public about cervical and breast cancers. Additionally, Georgian women will be empowered to seek out screening and to adopt pro-active health seeking behaviors about risk factors, symptoms and the benefits of early detection.
USAID, March 12, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a unique partnership to reduce illnesses and deaths caused by cervical and breast cancers in the country of Georgia. The program, called "Survive" includes numerous USAID partners, including the U.S. Embassy in Georgia, the JSI Research and Training Institute, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the Georgian Pharmaceutical Company, International Women's Association, the Georgian insurance company IRAO, HSBC Bank, and BP Georgia.
"Survive's focus on women's right to health, right to quality care and freedom from stigma fits perfectly with the timing of International Women's Day," said Ken Yamashita, Acting Administrator for the Europe and Eurasia Bureau. "This partnership values women as productive contributors to society and the economy and targets some of their primary health problems."
The incidence of cervical and breast cancers, a major cause of illness and death among adult Georgian women, has risen dramatically over the last decade. Cervical cancer has one of the greatest potentials for early detection and cure, however in Georgia there is a two-fold increase in untreated cases detected in late stages of the disease. Similar statistics exist for breast cancer. Although there are almost twice as many detected cases in North America as in Georgia, only one fifth of these cases are fatal compared to nearly half in Georgia. The disproportionate mortality risk for Georgian women is attributable, in large part, to delayed detection of the disease.
As a result of this unique partnership of NGOs, businesses, foundations and government entities, primary health care providers will take on a key role in educating clients and the public about cervical and breast cancers. Additionally, Georgian women will be empowered to seek out screening and to adopt pro-active health seeking behaviors about risk factors, symptoms and the benefits of early detection.
Obama Administration opposes Guantanamo detainees torture lawsuit
U.S. opposes torture lawsuit, by Lyle Denniston
SCOTUS Blog, Thursday, March 12th, 2009 3:52 pm
The Obama Administration, taking its first position in a federal court on claims of torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees, urged the D.C. Circuit Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit by four Britons formerly held there. In addition, the new filing argued that a recent appeals court ruling makes clear that “aliens held at Guantanamo do not have due process rights.”
Moreover, the document called for a sweeping ban on lawsuits against U.S. military officials, claiming constitutional violations by such officials. Allowing such lawsuits “for actions taken with respect to aliens during wartime,” it said, “would enmesh the courts in military, national security, and foreign affairs matters that are the exclusive province of the political branches.”
The brief was another indication that, at least so far, the new Administration is not moving to make a wide-ranging break with detention policies of the former Bush Administration. While President Obama has ordered the closing of Guantanamo by next January, lawyers for the government have taken positions in a variety of detainee court cases that do not propose fundamental change.
Lawyers for the four former prisoners, in their own new filing, argued that they have constitutional rights that they can assert against former Pentagon officials and officers who, they claim, authorized and carried out torture while the Britons were in captivity. The lawyers contended that the Constitution’s guarantee of due process applies to those who were held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
Both new briefs were filed in Rasul, et al., v. Myers, et al., (D.C. Circuit Court docket 06-5209). The Britons’ brief is here. The government brief is here.
The Supreme Court last December had ordered the Circuit Court to reconsider the Rasul case, in the wake of the Justices’ ruling last June in Boumediene v. Bush. The Circuit Court called for new briefs. Each side is to file a reply brief on March 23.
The Rasul lawsuit is aimed at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ten military officers — six generals and four lower-ranking officers. The prisoners claimed systematic torture and abuse, including disparaging their religion beliefs and practices.
The Circuit Court, in a ruling Jan. 11 of last year, decided that Guantanamo detainees have no constitutional rights because they are “aliens without property or presence in the U.S.”
As an alternative decision, the Circuit Court said that, even if the prisoners did have a constitutional right against torture, such a right was not clear at the time they were prisoners — from January 2002 to March 2004 — and thus the military officials and officers had “qualified immunity” to the lawsuit. It also ruled that the prisoners were not protected by U.S. law against interference with their religious worship and beliefs.
The Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision nine months ago established that Guantanamo detainees do have a constitutional right — to challenge their detention in federal court. The Justices left the scope of that right, and claims of any other rights for detainees, to the lower courts to sort out. Then, in December, it returned the Rasul case for a new look by the Circuit Court, applying the Boumediene decision.
Justice Department lawyers argued Thursday that the Supreme Court decision has no effect on the Circuit Court’s rejection of the Britons’ torture lawsuit.
Because Boumediene was decided four years after the Britons had been released and sent home, the brief contended, it “cannot support a finding that the law was so clearly established that a reasonable official would have known that his or her conduct” violated the Constitution or federal law protecting religious freedom.
As its first recommendation, the brief urged the Circuit Court to resolve the case by leaving its qualified immunity decision intact, insulating Rumsfeld and the officers from legal consequences so far as the four Britons are concerned. That would make it unnecessary to consider the Britons’ claim of due process rights under the Constitution, the brief said.
But, it went on, if the Circuit Court does address that due process claim, its ruling Feb. 18 in a case involving Chinese Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (Kiyemba v. Obama, Circuit docket 08-5424) is “controlling authority” on the point that prisoners there “do not have due process rights.”
As a further alternative proposal, the Justice Department brief suggested that there is “a substantial possibility” that detainees’ lawyers will take the claim of due process rights on to the Supreme Court for resolution, so the Circuit Court should simply terminate the Britons’ case by refusing to recognize any claim of constitutional violation against the military officials and officers.
The Department also argued that the Supreme Court’s June decision has no effect on the Circuit Court’s rejection of the Britons’ religious bias claims, or their claims that their abuse violated international law.
In arguing that “special factors” should lead the Circuit Court not to allow constitutional claims against the Pentagon officials and officers, the Department brief made its broad argument against judicial interference with “wartime” military actions.
Lawyers for the four former prisoners gave a sharply different interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Boumediene case. They contended that it established that detainees not only have a right to challenge their detention in a habeas petition, but that it also established due process rights for Guantanamo prisoners. “It is difficult to conceive of a right of habeas without a corresponding right to due process,” the brief contended.
Moreover, the brief contended, it has been constitutional law for decades — at least since 1936 and the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Mississippi — “that the right not to be tortured” is a fundamental right, protected by the due process clause. Thus, military officers should have known long before the Britons were at Guantanamo that torture was legally forbidden by U.S. law, so they have no claim to legal immunity, the brief asserted.
Challenging the Circuit Court’s Kiyemba ruling last month, finding no constitutional right to due process for those at Guantanamo, the Britons’ brief said that that conclusion “simply cannot be harmonized with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boumediene.”
It added: “The principles announced by the Supreme Court in Boumediene wholly vitiate this Court’s reasoning and compel reversal” of the Circuit ruling against the Britons’ torture case.
Moreover, the brief conended that there is “nothing about Guantanamo” that would make enforcement of due process rights not to be tortured more of a problem than enforcing the right to habeas relief. It noted that torture is forbidden by military law and U.S. criminal law, so “there would be no additional practical burden on the government if the Constitution also applies to prohibit” torture of detainees.
SCOTUS Blog, Thursday, March 12th, 2009 3:52 pm
The Obama Administration, taking its first position in a federal court on claims of torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees, urged the D.C. Circuit Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit by four Britons formerly held there. In addition, the new filing argued that a recent appeals court ruling makes clear that “aliens held at Guantanamo do not have due process rights.”
Moreover, the document called for a sweeping ban on lawsuits against U.S. military officials, claiming constitutional violations by such officials. Allowing such lawsuits “for actions taken with respect to aliens during wartime,” it said, “would enmesh the courts in military, national security, and foreign affairs matters that are the exclusive province of the political branches.”
The brief was another indication that, at least so far, the new Administration is not moving to make a wide-ranging break with detention policies of the former Bush Administration. While President Obama has ordered the closing of Guantanamo by next January, lawyers for the government have taken positions in a variety of detainee court cases that do not propose fundamental change.
Lawyers for the four former prisoners, in their own new filing, argued that they have constitutional rights that they can assert against former Pentagon officials and officers who, they claim, authorized and carried out torture while the Britons were in captivity. The lawyers contended that the Constitution’s guarantee of due process applies to those who were held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
Both new briefs were filed in Rasul, et al., v. Myers, et al., (D.C. Circuit Court docket 06-5209). The Britons’ brief is here. The government brief is here.
The Supreme Court last December had ordered the Circuit Court to reconsider the Rasul case, in the wake of the Justices’ ruling last June in Boumediene v. Bush. The Circuit Court called for new briefs. Each side is to file a reply brief on March 23.
The Rasul lawsuit is aimed at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ten military officers — six generals and four lower-ranking officers. The prisoners claimed systematic torture and abuse, including disparaging their religion beliefs and practices.
The Circuit Court, in a ruling Jan. 11 of last year, decided that Guantanamo detainees have no constitutional rights because they are “aliens without property or presence in the U.S.”
As an alternative decision, the Circuit Court said that, even if the prisoners did have a constitutional right against torture, such a right was not clear at the time they were prisoners — from January 2002 to March 2004 — and thus the military officials and officers had “qualified immunity” to the lawsuit. It also ruled that the prisoners were not protected by U.S. law against interference with their religious worship and beliefs.
The Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision nine months ago established that Guantanamo detainees do have a constitutional right — to challenge their detention in federal court. The Justices left the scope of that right, and claims of any other rights for detainees, to the lower courts to sort out. Then, in December, it returned the Rasul case for a new look by the Circuit Court, applying the Boumediene decision.
Justice Department lawyers argued Thursday that the Supreme Court decision has no effect on the Circuit Court’s rejection of the Britons’ torture lawsuit.
Because Boumediene was decided four years after the Britons had been released and sent home, the brief contended, it “cannot support a finding that the law was so clearly established that a reasonable official would have known that his or her conduct” violated the Constitution or federal law protecting religious freedom.
As its first recommendation, the brief urged the Circuit Court to resolve the case by leaving its qualified immunity decision intact, insulating Rumsfeld and the officers from legal consequences so far as the four Britons are concerned. That would make it unnecessary to consider the Britons’ claim of due process rights under the Constitution, the brief said.
But, it went on, if the Circuit Court does address that due process claim, its ruling Feb. 18 in a case involving Chinese Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (Kiyemba v. Obama, Circuit docket 08-5424) is “controlling authority” on the point that prisoners there “do not have due process rights.”
As a further alternative proposal, the Justice Department brief suggested that there is “a substantial possibility” that detainees’ lawyers will take the claim of due process rights on to the Supreme Court for resolution, so the Circuit Court should simply terminate the Britons’ case by refusing to recognize any claim of constitutional violation against the military officials and officers.
The Department also argued that the Supreme Court’s June decision has no effect on the Circuit Court’s rejection of the Britons’ religious bias claims, or their claims that their abuse violated international law.
In arguing that “special factors” should lead the Circuit Court not to allow constitutional claims against the Pentagon officials and officers, the Department brief made its broad argument against judicial interference with “wartime” military actions.
Lawyers for the four former prisoners gave a sharply different interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Boumediene case. They contended that it established that detainees not only have a right to challenge their detention in a habeas petition, but that it also established due process rights for Guantanamo prisoners. “It is difficult to conceive of a right of habeas without a corresponding right to due process,” the brief contended.
Moreover, the brief contended, it has been constitutional law for decades — at least since 1936 and the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Mississippi — “that the right not to be tortured” is a fundamental right, protected by the due process clause. Thus, military officers should have known long before the Britons were at Guantanamo that torture was legally forbidden by U.S. law, so they have no claim to legal immunity, the brief asserted.
Challenging the Circuit Court’s Kiyemba ruling last month, finding no constitutional right to due process for those at Guantanamo, the Britons’ brief said that that conclusion “simply cannot be harmonized with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boumediene.”
It added: “The principles announced by the Supreme Court in Boumediene wholly vitiate this Court’s reasoning and compel reversal” of the Circuit ruling against the Britons’ torture case.
Moreover, the brief conended that there is “nothing about Guantanamo” that would make enforcement of due process rights not to be tortured more of a problem than enforcing the right to habeas relief. It noted that torture is forbidden by military law and U.S. criminal law, so “there would be no additional practical burden on the government if the Constitution also applies to prohibit” torture of detainees.
Government-Run Cyber Security? No, Thanks
Government-Run Cyber Security? No, Thanks. By Jim Harper
Cato, March 13, 2009
Most people assume, and it's probably true, that our nations networks and databases aren't secure enough. The risks range from corporate espionage to data breach and identity fraud to "cyber warfare." The White House is taking on this problem—it's conducting a 60-day cyber security review. The review should explicitly deny federal responsibility for securing private infrastructure.
The president regards his budget as a "blueprint for America's future." His opponent in the recent election wanted to be commander-in-chief of the United States. So it wouldn't be surprising if the review set the stage for a federal takeover of communications networks in the name of cyber security. But owning cyber security may be an unappealing prospect even for federal authorities with an expansive view of their roles. The surveillance needed for government-run cyber security would create prohibitive threats to civil liberties and privacy. And government folks seem aware that they don't know how to do cyber security any better than anyone else.
How do you improve security without exploding government power? How do you do it without giving the government de facto surveillance over the Internet? And, most importantly, how do you actually figure out how to do it?
The economic statement of the problem is this: Network operators, data owners, and users sometimes create externalities—risks to others that don't affect their own bottom lines. Getting them to internalize those risks can be done one of two ways: Regulation—you mandate it—or liability—you make them pay for harms they cause others. Regulation and liability each have strengths and weaknesses, but a liability regime is ultimately superior.
One of the main problems with regulation—especially in a dynamic field like technology—is that it requires a small number of people to figure out how things are going to work for an unknown and indefinite future. Those kinds of smarts simply don't exist. So regulators often punt: When the Financial Services Modernization Act tasked the Federal Trade Commission with figuring out how to secure financial information, it didn't. Instead, the "Safeguards Rule" simply requires financial institutions to have a security plan. If something goes wrong, the FTC will go back in and either find the plan lacking or find that it was violated, much like the body-bagging the SEC does.
Another weakness of regulation is that it tends to be too broad. In an area where risks exist, regulators will ban entire swaths of behavior rather than selecting among the good and bad. In 1998, for example, Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and the FTC set up an impossible-to-navigate regime for parental approval of the websites their children could use. Today, no child has been harmed by a site that complies with COPPA because there really aren't any. The market for serving children entertaining and educational content is a shadow of what it could be.
Regulators and regulatory agencies are also subject to "capture." In his recent caution against network neutrality regulation, Tim Lee shows how industries have historically co-opted the agencies intended to control them and turned those agencies toward insulating incumbents from competition.
And regulation often displaces individual justice. The Fair Credit Reporting Act preempted state law causes of action against credit bureaus that, thus, cannot be held liable for defamation when their reports wrongfully cause someone to be denied credit. "Privacy" regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act gave enforcement powers to an obscure office in the Department of Health and Human Services. While a compliance kabuki dance goes on overhead, people who have suffered privacy violations are diverted to seeking redress by the grace of a federal agency.
Tort liability is based on the idea that someone who does harm, or allows harm to occur, should be responsible to the injured party. When a person drives a car, builds a building, runs a hotel, or installs a light switch, he or she owes it to anyone who might be injured to keep them safe. A rule of this type could apply to owners and operators of networks and databases.
A liability regime is better at discovering and solving problems than regulation. Owners faced with paying for harms they cause will use the latest knowledge and their intimacy with their businesses to protect the public. Like regulation, a liability regime won't catch a new threat the first time it appears, but as soon as a threat is known, all actors must improve their practices to meet it. Unlike regulations, which can take decades to update, liability updates automatically.
Liability also leaves more room for innovation. Anything that causes harm is forbidden, but anything that does not cause harm is allowed. Entrepreneurs who are free to experiment will discover consumer-beneficial products and services that improve health, welfare, life, and longevity.
Liability rules arent always crystal clear, of course, but when cases of harm are alleged in tort law, the parties meet in a courtroom before a judge, and the judge neutrally adjudicates what harm was done and who is responsible. When an agency enforces its own regulation, it's not neutral: Agencies work to "send messages," to protect their powers and budgets, and to foster future careers for their staffs.
Especially in the high-tech world, it's hard to prove causation. The forensic skill to determine who was responsible for an information age harm is still too rare. But regulation is equally subject to evasion. And liability acts not through lawsuits won, but by creating a protective incentive structure.
One risk unique to liability is that advocates will push to do more with it than compensate actual harms. Some would treat the creation of risk as a "harm," arguing, for example, that companies should pay someone or do something about potential identity fraud just because a data breach created the risk of it. They often should, but blanket regulations like that actually promote too much information security, lowering consumer welfare as people are protected against things that don't actually harm them.
As complex and changing as cyber security is, the federal government has no capability to institute a protective program for the entire country. While it secures its own networks, the federal government should encourage the adoption of state common law duties that require network operators, data owners, and computer users to secure their own infrastructure and assets. (They in turn will divide up responsibility efficiently by contract.) This is the best route to discovering and patching security flaws in all the implements of our information economy and society.
The White House's 60-day cyber security review should explicitly deny federal responsibility for securing private communications infrastructure. This is the best way forward—and an essential route if we are to keep the government from monitoring and controlling Americans' private communications.
Jim Harper is the director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. To subscribe, or see a list of all previous TechKnowledge articles, visit TechKnowledge Newsletter - Technology and Telecom Studies.
Cato, March 13, 2009
Most people assume, and it's probably true, that our nations networks and databases aren't secure enough. The risks range from corporate espionage to data breach and identity fraud to "cyber warfare." The White House is taking on this problem—it's conducting a 60-day cyber security review. The review should explicitly deny federal responsibility for securing private infrastructure.
The president regards his budget as a "blueprint for America's future." His opponent in the recent election wanted to be commander-in-chief of the United States. So it wouldn't be surprising if the review set the stage for a federal takeover of communications networks in the name of cyber security. But owning cyber security may be an unappealing prospect even for federal authorities with an expansive view of their roles. The surveillance needed for government-run cyber security would create prohibitive threats to civil liberties and privacy. And government folks seem aware that they don't know how to do cyber security any better than anyone else.
How do you improve security without exploding government power? How do you do it without giving the government de facto surveillance over the Internet? And, most importantly, how do you actually figure out how to do it?
The economic statement of the problem is this: Network operators, data owners, and users sometimes create externalities—risks to others that don't affect their own bottom lines. Getting them to internalize those risks can be done one of two ways: Regulation—you mandate it—or liability—you make them pay for harms they cause others. Regulation and liability each have strengths and weaknesses, but a liability regime is ultimately superior.
One of the main problems with regulation—especially in a dynamic field like technology—is that it requires a small number of people to figure out how things are going to work for an unknown and indefinite future. Those kinds of smarts simply don't exist. So regulators often punt: When the Financial Services Modernization Act tasked the Federal Trade Commission with figuring out how to secure financial information, it didn't. Instead, the "Safeguards Rule" simply requires financial institutions to have a security plan. If something goes wrong, the FTC will go back in and either find the plan lacking or find that it was violated, much like the body-bagging the SEC does.
Another weakness of regulation is that it tends to be too broad. In an area where risks exist, regulators will ban entire swaths of behavior rather than selecting among the good and bad. In 1998, for example, Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and the FTC set up an impossible-to-navigate regime for parental approval of the websites their children could use. Today, no child has been harmed by a site that complies with COPPA because there really aren't any. The market for serving children entertaining and educational content is a shadow of what it could be.
Regulators and regulatory agencies are also subject to "capture." In his recent caution against network neutrality regulation, Tim Lee shows how industries have historically co-opted the agencies intended to control them and turned those agencies toward insulating incumbents from competition.
And regulation often displaces individual justice. The Fair Credit Reporting Act preempted state law causes of action against credit bureaus that, thus, cannot be held liable for defamation when their reports wrongfully cause someone to be denied credit. "Privacy" regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act gave enforcement powers to an obscure office in the Department of Health and Human Services. While a compliance kabuki dance goes on overhead, people who have suffered privacy violations are diverted to seeking redress by the grace of a federal agency.
Tort liability is based on the idea that someone who does harm, or allows harm to occur, should be responsible to the injured party. When a person drives a car, builds a building, runs a hotel, or installs a light switch, he or she owes it to anyone who might be injured to keep them safe. A rule of this type could apply to owners and operators of networks and databases.
A liability regime is better at discovering and solving problems than regulation. Owners faced with paying for harms they cause will use the latest knowledge and their intimacy with their businesses to protect the public. Like regulation, a liability regime won't catch a new threat the first time it appears, but as soon as a threat is known, all actors must improve their practices to meet it. Unlike regulations, which can take decades to update, liability updates automatically.
Liability also leaves more room for innovation. Anything that causes harm is forbidden, but anything that does not cause harm is allowed. Entrepreneurs who are free to experiment will discover consumer-beneficial products and services that improve health, welfare, life, and longevity.
Liability rules arent always crystal clear, of course, but when cases of harm are alleged in tort law, the parties meet in a courtroom before a judge, and the judge neutrally adjudicates what harm was done and who is responsible. When an agency enforces its own regulation, it's not neutral: Agencies work to "send messages," to protect their powers and budgets, and to foster future careers for their staffs.
Especially in the high-tech world, it's hard to prove causation. The forensic skill to determine who was responsible for an information age harm is still too rare. But regulation is equally subject to evasion. And liability acts not through lawsuits won, but by creating a protective incentive structure.
One risk unique to liability is that advocates will push to do more with it than compensate actual harms. Some would treat the creation of risk as a "harm," arguing, for example, that companies should pay someone or do something about potential identity fraud just because a data breach created the risk of it. They often should, but blanket regulations like that actually promote too much information security, lowering consumer welfare as people are protected against things that don't actually harm them.
As complex and changing as cyber security is, the federal government has no capability to institute a protective program for the entire country. While it secures its own networks, the federal government should encourage the adoption of state common law duties that require network operators, data owners, and computer users to secure their own infrastructure and assets. (They in turn will divide up responsibility efficiently by contract.) This is the best route to discovering and patching security flaws in all the implements of our information economy and society.
The White House's 60-day cyber security review should explicitly deny federal responsibility for securing private communications infrastructure. This is the best way forward—and an essential route if we are to keep the government from monitoring and controlling Americans' private communications.
Jim Harper is the director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. To subscribe, or see a list of all previous TechKnowledge articles, visit TechKnowledge Newsletter - Technology and Telecom Studies.
A Modest Proposal for a Competing Public Health Plan
A Modest Proposal for a Competing Public Health Plan. By Len Nichols & John M. Bertko
New America Foundation, March 11, 2009
For the full text of the paper, please click here.
For a brief summary of the paper, please click here.
Executive Summary
Many comprehensive reform proposals reflect the fundamental need to control health care costs and create a marketplace wherein insurers compete on value and customer satisfaction, rather than risk selection and marketing. Several leading proposals promote competition between private health plans and a “public” health insurance option. Unfortunately, the debate over this issue has become polarized unnecessarily.
It is possible to structure a new insurance marketplace so that public and private health plans compete on a level playing field. This will require separating the oversight of the public plan from that of the managers of the marketplace or exchange(s). It will also require that all rules of the marketplace – benefit package requirements, insurance regulations, and risk adjustment processes – apply to all plans equally, whether public or private. Finally, this model requires that we address cost growth containment systemically and avoid relying heavily on the public plan’s potential market power. In turn, this will require a commitment on the part of policymakers to acquire a health information infrastructure, develop best practice information, and encourage re-aligned incentives that promote high-quality, efficient care for all.
New America Foundation, March 11, 2009
For the full text of the paper, please click here.
For a brief summary of the paper, please click here.
Executive Summary
Many comprehensive reform proposals reflect the fundamental need to control health care costs and create a marketplace wherein insurers compete on value and customer satisfaction, rather than risk selection and marketing. Several leading proposals promote competition between private health plans and a “public” health insurance option. Unfortunately, the debate over this issue has become polarized unnecessarily.
It is possible to structure a new insurance marketplace so that public and private health plans compete on a level playing field. This will require separating the oversight of the public plan from that of the managers of the marketplace or exchange(s). It will also require that all rules of the marketplace – benefit package requirements, insurance regulations, and risk adjustment processes – apply to all plans equally, whether public or private. Finally, this model requires that we address cost growth containment systemically and avoid relying heavily on the public plan’s potential market power. In turn, this will require a commitment on the part of policymakers to acquire a health information infrastructure, develop best practice information, and encourage re-aligned incentives that promote high-quality, efficient care for all.
How the Obama Administration Should Deal with Russia's Revisionist Foreign Policy
How the Obama Administration Should Deal with Russia's Revisionist Foreign Policy. By Ariel Cohen, Ph.D.
Heritage Backgrounder #2246
March 12, 2009
See full article w/references here.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will address the challenge posed by an increasingly autocratic and bellicose Russia by pursuing a new, comprehensive strategy that advances American national interests without compromising our enduring principles.
—"Meeting the Challenges of a Resurgent Russia" http://www.barackobama.com
President Barack Obama has expressed concerns over Russia's increasingly truculent behavior and the threat it poses to the current international system. These concerns are valid and the threat of a resurgent Russia is palpable.[1] Moscow's efforts at carving out a "sphere of privileged interests" throughout Eurasia and rewriting the rules of European security have negative implications for U.S.– Russia relations, international security, the autonomy of the newly independent former Soviet states, and Europe's independence.
Despite these circumstances, the Obama Administration seems to be rushing ahead with a "carrots-and-cakes" approach to the Kremlin, judging by Vice President Joe Biden's recent speech at the annual Munich international security conference. In this speech, the Vice President outlined the Obama Administration's foreign policy vision for the first time on the world stage and suggested that America push "the reset button" on relations with Russia.[2] Notably absent from this speech was any mention of recent events in Eurasia.
While in Moscow, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns mirrored this approach. Burns stated that the U.S. was willing to review "the pace of development" of its missile defense shield in Europe in exchange for Russian cooperation on dissuading Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, and downplayed the importance of a U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan from which the U.S. military has just received an eviction notice.3 Other diplomatic efforts to thaw U.S.–Russian relations are underway as well.[3]
According to The New York Times, President Obama sent a secret, hand-delivered letter to President Dmitry Medvedev one month ago. The letter reportedly suggests that if Russia cooperated with the United States in preventing Iran from developing long-range nuclear-missile capabilities, the need for a new missile defense system in Europe would be eliminated—a quid pro quo that President Obama has denied. The letter proposes a "united front" to achieve this goal.[4] Responding to the letter, Medvedev appeared to reject the offer and stated that the Kremlin was "working very closely with our U.S. colleagues on the issue of Iran's nuclear program," but not in the context of the new missile defense system in Europe. He stated that "no one links these issues to any exchange, especially on the Iran issue." Nevertheless, Medvedev welcomed the overture as a positive signal from the Obama Administration.[5]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, in Geneva on March 6, following a gathering of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.[6] President Obama is also likely to meet President Medvedev in London at the G-20 summit in April.[7] These meetings occur in a context where both the Obama Administration and Russia want a new legally binding treaty for limiting strategic nuclear arms. Ostensibly, this new treaty would be designed to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).[8] START is scheduled to expire late this year, which both Washington and Moscow see as problematic.
Recent Russian media leaks seemed to reciprocate American overtures and suggested that the Kremlin may not deploy its Iskander short-range missiles in Kaliningrad. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's statements in Davos onJanuary 28 that great powers need to cooperate to find an exit from the current global economic crisis may be signals that Moscow is exploring ways to improve relations with Washington, albeit driven by the plummeting economy at home.[9]
While an improvement in U.S.–Russian relations is certainly desirable, haste is ill advised for the Obama Administration, which has not yet announced its key officials in charge of Russia policy, nor conducted a comprehensive assessment of U.S.–Russian relations. Foremost, the Obama Administration must not allow Moscow to rewrite the geopolitical map of Europe or to pocket the gains that it has recently made in Georgia, including expanding military bases on its territory and evicting the U.S. from an air base in Kyrgyzstan.
Privileged Sphere of Influence
Since the watershed war with Georgia last August, Russia has been on the offensive across Eurasia and has been seeking to re-impose itself over much of the post-Soviet space. So concerned is the Kremlin with the expansion of its "privileged" sphere of influence that even the severe economic crisis—which has sent the ruble plunging 50 percent against the dollar and dropped Moscow stock market capitalization 80 percent—has not slowed Russia's push into the "near abroad."
Currently, Russia has a number of military bases in Europe and Eurasia. (See Map 1.) The Russian military recently announced the establishment of three military bases in the secessionist Abkhazia (a naval base in Ochamchira, the Bombora air base near Gudauta, and an alpine Special Forces base in the Kodori Gorge) and is building two more in South Ossetia (in Java and in the capital, Tskinvali). (See detail of Map 1.)[10] Not only do these deployments violate the spirit and the letter of the cease-fire[11] negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy after the 2008 Russo–Georgian war,but they extend Russia's power projection capabilities into the Southern Caucasus, threatening the already precarious position of Georgia and the East–West corridor of oil and gas pipelines and railroads from the Caspian Sea to Turkey and Europe.[12]
[map 1: Russia's Expanding Military Presence in Eurasia]
More recently, Washington received an eviction notice for the U.S. military by Kurmanbek Bakiyev, president of Kyrgyzstan. With Russian President Medvedev at his side, Bakiyev announced in Moscow last month that he wants the U.S. to leave Manas Air Base, a key military cargo hub at the airport of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek used by NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan since 2001.[13] With this move, the Kremlin signaled the West that to gain access to Central Asia, Western countries must first request permission from Moscow and pay the Kremlin for transit. This stance further reflects the thinking behind Russian calls for an "exclusive sphere of interests"—geographically undefined— formulated by Medvedev during his August 31, 2008, televised address.[14]
Closing Manas Air Base for the U.S. military will complicate efforts to send up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan—a key objective of the Obama Administration. Russia's pressure on the Kyrgyz government to evict the U.S. from this base raises questions about long-term strategic intentions of the Moscow leadership and its willingness to foster a NATO defeat in Afghanistan.
Russia has taken additional steps to secure its clout from Poland to the Pacific. It initiated a joint air-and-missile defense system with Belarus, which may cost billions, and initiated a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Rapid Reaction Force (RRF), intended to match the forces of NATO's Rapid Response Force. The CSTO's RRF not only could be used to fight external enemies, but is likely to be available to put down "velvet revolutions" and quell popular unrest.[15] Russia also announced the creation of a $10 billion stabilization fund for the seven countries that are the members of the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC), most of which ($7.5 billion) Moscow will front.[16] The reason for the spending spree is simple: Money and weapons consolidate control over allies.
Russia's effort to secure a zone of "privileged interests" is consistent with policies formulated almost two decades ago by Yevgeny M. Primakov, leader of the Eurasianist school of foreign policy, Boris Yeltsin's intelligence chief, later a foreign minister, and then prime minister. In 1994, under Primakov's direction, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service published a report calling for Russian domination of the "near abroad"—referring to the newly independent states that emerged from the rubble of the collapsed Soviet empire.
Since the Iraq war, the Kremlin championed the notion of "multipolarity," in which U.S. influence would be checked by Russia, China, India, and a swath of authoritarian states. Today, Putin and Medvedev are calling for a new geopolitical and economic architecture—not only in Europe but throughout the entire world—based on massive spheres of influence.
Global Revisionism
Despite the economic crisis that provided a reality check for Moscow, Russia is doing its best to continue a broad, global, revisionist foreign policy agenda that seeks to undermine what it views as an U.S.-led international security architecture. Russia's rulers want to achieve a world order in which Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela will form a counterweight to the United States. Moscow is doing so despite the dwindling currency reserves and a severe downturn in its economic performance due to plummeting energy and commodity prices.[17]
In December 2008, the Russian navy conducted maneuvers in the Caribbean with Venezuela, while the Russian air force's supersonic Tupolev TU-160 "Blackjack" bombers and the old but reliable TU-95 "Bear" turboprop bombers flew patrols to Venezuela, as well as close to U.S. air space in the Pacific and the Arctic.[18] Russia is also developing the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia in order to manage an expanded Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean, and may possibly revive an anchorage in Libya and Yemen. (See Map 2.)[19] These are only some examples of how Moscow is implementing its global agenda. While some of these moves may be mostly symbolic, combined with a $300 billion military modernization program they signal a much more aggressive and ambitious Russian global posture. Russia is also overtly engaging the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations.
[map 2: Russian Bases in the Middle East]
If Moscow's vision were to be realized, given the large cast of state and non-state "bad actors" currently on the international stage, Russia's notion of "multipolarity" would engender an even more unstable and dangerous world. Additionally, the very process of trying to force such a transition risks destabilizing the existing international system and its institutions while offering no viable alternatives.
Russia's Strategic Energy Agenda
On the energy front alone, the Obama Administration will face a multiplicity of challenges emanating from Moscow. The Bush Administration signed a "123 agreement" on civilian nuclear cooperation and non-proliferation with Russia in May 2008, before the war in Georgia. The 123 agreement, so called because it falls under section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, is necessary to make nuclear cooperation between the countries possible.The agreement would facilitate Russia's foray into the international nuclear waste management and reprocessing business by potentially providing Russian access to U.S. commercial technologies.[20]
The agreement, however, ran into severe congressional opposition: Representative John Dingell (D–MI), then-chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, announced that, "Even without Russia's incursion into Georgia, Russian support for Iranian nuclear and missile programs alone is enough to call into question the wisdom of committing to a 30-year agreement to transfer sensitive nuclear technologies and materials to Russia."[21] As the Obama Administration is signaling a new thaw in the relationship, senior Russian officials hope that the Administration will revive the agreement, which could bring billions of dollars to the lean Russian coffers.[22]
Europe's Dependence on Russian Gas. The Europeans, especially the Germans, are concerned with carbon emission reductions, while downplaying nuclear energy and coal as alternative sources of energy to natural gas. Russia is the primary source of Europe's gas habit. Thus, an environmental concern becomes a major geopolitical liability. Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Finland depend on Russian gas for up to 100 percent of their imports, and are not pursuing alternatives, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG). Germany depends on Russian gas for 40 percent of its consumption, a share that is set to increase to 60 percent by 2020.
Russia strives to dominate Europe, particularly Eastern and Central Europe, including Germany, through its quasi-monopolistic gas supply and its significant share of the oil market and of other strategic resources. (See Map 3.) Russia controls a network of strategically important pipelines and is attempting to extend it by building the Nord Stream pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to Germany, building the South Stream pipeline across the length of the Black Sea, and even controlling gas pipelines from North Africa to Europe.
[map 3: Primary Russian Oil and Gas Pipelines to Europe]
Moscow has shown a pattern of using revenues from its energy exports to fuel its strategic and foreign policy agendas. It grants selective access to Russian energy resources to European companies as a quid pro quo for political cooperation and government lobbying on the Kremlin's behalf. It has selectively hired prominent European politicians, such as former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, to promote Russian interests and energy deals and has offered positions and lucrative business deals to other European political heavyweights, such as former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.
Russian energy giant Gazprom has been on a shopping spree, acquiring European energy assets. Europe is projected to be dependent on Russia for over 60 percent of its gas consumption by 2030, with some countries already 100 percent dependent on Gazprom.[23] Russia has shown a willingness to use this dependency and its energy influence as a tool of foreign policy, shutting down or threatening to shut down the flow of gas to countries perceived to be acting against Moscow's interest, as in the cases of Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.
The Kremlin is in the process of creating an OPEC-style gas cartel with Iran, Qatar, and other leading gas producers, to be headquartered in Moscow. This cartel would allow Moscow and Tehran to dictate pricing policy, weigh in on new projects, and oppose any new pipelines they want. This may bring about even greater domination of Europe's gas supply than they currently enjoy, and eventually, domination of the global LNG markets as well.[24] Any EU dependence on such a cartel will diminish its ability to support gas-exporting countries whose pipelines bypass Russia, will challenge EU energy liberalization and gas deregulation policies, and may have dire foreign policy consequences.
The U.S. certainly should explore all available diplomatic avenues to curb Russian anti-American policies, yet the new Administration must be prepared for the contingency that the United States may have no choice but to counter Russian revisionism through disincentives, rather than limiting itself to trying to persuade the Kremlin to embrace the international system.
Russia Policy for the Obama Administration
To meet today's challenges and preserve the security of Europe and Eurasia, the Obama Administration should conduct a comprehensive assessment of U.S.–Russian relations and then prepare a detailed foreign policy agenda that protects American interests; checks the growing Russian influence in Europe, the Middle East, and Eurasia; deters aggression against the U.S., its allies, and its strategic partners; and encourages Russia to adhere to the rule of law at home and abroad and to act as a responsible player in the international system.
Specifically, the Obama Administration should:
Maintain and expand transatlantic unity. The Obama Administration should use its political capital and show leadership within NATO. Russia is seeking to divide the United States and its European allies, not only through energy sources, but also by exploiting existing differences over missile defense, the Iraq war, and other issues. In its attempt to undermine the global posture of the U.S. and its allies, the Kremlin offers incentives for European powers to distance themselves from the United States. Germany's growing dependence on Russian natural gas and its opposition to further NATO enlargement and missile defense deployment in Central Europe is a good example. Essentially, in order for Russia to successfully carry out its foreign policy agenda it needs to delay and thwart any strong, unified energy-policy response from the United States and its allies. Moscow is seeking to gain power and influence without being countered by any significant challenge.
Refrain from resubmitting the 123 nuclear agreement with Russia for congressional approval until Russia meets the following three conditions:
Oppose the Kremlin's support of anti-American state and non-state actors (Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah). Russia's revisionist foreign policy agenda has extended to cultivating de facto alliances and relationships with a host of regimes and terrorist organizations hostile to the United States, its allies, and its interests. Even as the United States seeks Russia's assistance in ending Iran's nuclear program, Moscow is selling Tehran sophisticated air-defense systems and other modern weapons and technologies, including dual-use ballistic missile know-how, ostensibly for civilian space purposes. Russia cannot improve relations with the United States while maintaining ties with aggressive powers and terrorists. The Obama Administration should advise Russia to distance itself from the likes of Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other troublemakers with global reach.
Undertake necessary strategic planning before initiating new strategic nuclear arms control negotiations with Russia. The White House and the Kremlin appear eager to negotiate a new arms control treaty governing strategic nuclear forces on both sides. But at this early juncture in the Obama Administration, the White House has not conducted the necessary reviews of the broader national security strategy, let alone more technical analyses regarding the future military requirements of the U.S. strategic nuclear force. At the outset, the Obama Administration needs to establish a new policy that pledges to the American people and U.S. friends and allies that it will serve to "protect and defend" them against strategic attack. The Administration, therefore, should defer negotiations on a new strategic nuclear arms treaty with Russia until after it has drafted the national security strategy and the national military strategy, issued a new targeting directive, and permitted the military to identify and allocate targets in accordance with the protect-and-defend strategy.[28]Further, the Obama Administration need not be overly concerned about the expiration of START. U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, specifically those that are operationally deployed, will be controlled under the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT, commonly called the Moscow Treaty for the city where it was signed). The Moscow Treaty requires both sides to reduce the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200. The treaty will not expire until the end of 2012. Thus, there is no reason for the U.S. and Russia to negotiate a new treaty limiting strategic nuclear arms against the artificial deadline of START's expiration. Indeed, it would be unwise to do so because an effective arms control treaty requires careful planning and preparation.
Maintain missile defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama Administration should not cancel America's ballistic defense program in response to Russian threats—or in response to recent promises by President Medvedev not to deploy short-range ballistic missiles to the Belarussian–Polish border or to the Kaliningrad exclave. To cancel this program as a concession to the Russians would send a clear signal of American weakness, encouraging further aggression against Russia's neighbors. Russia must not come to believe it can succeed in altering U.S. policy through threats, or it will continue to use these and other destabilizing gestures more consistently as tools of foreign policy—to the detriment of American and world security. Backing down on missile defense would also strengthen the pro-Russian political factions in the German Foreign Ministry, dominated by Social Democrats, in the German business community, and elsewhere in Europe. However skeptical some in the Obama Administration may be of the functionality and cost-effectiveness of the missile-interceptor system, the fact is that it is the only defense the U.S. and its allies currently have against a potential Iranian ballistic missile launch, as well as a powerful symbolic bargaining chip in discussions with Russia. The U.S. should also engage Russia in discussions on ballistic missile cooperation—without granting Moscow a veto over missile deployment in Europe.
Support Georgia's and Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. During the presidential campaign, Candidate Obama made multiple laudable statements expressing firm support for Georgia's territorial integrity, denying the validity of Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and expressing a willingness to extend NATO Membership Action Plans (MAPs) to Georgia and Ukraine (which were recently replaced by the Bush Administration with Strategic Cooperation Charters). President Obama should now provide the firm foundation for a policy devoted to deterring Russia from taking similar action in the future, for example against Ukraine or Azerbaijan. The Obama Administration should implement the Strategic Cooperation Charters signed with Ukraine and Georgia on December 19, 2008, and January 9, 2009, respectively. While there is little chance that Russia will renounce its recognition of Abkhazia or South Ossetia, the Obama Administration should explore every option for making Russia pay a diplomatic and economic price for its recent acts of aggression against Georgia's territorial integrity, its sovereignty, and against international law. To do otherwise will only invite Russia to try more of the same in the future. The White House should rethink the format of the G-8. It should expand the current G-8 to G-20, in which Russia, China, Brazil, India, and other major powers participate, while holding future meetings of the leading industrial democracies in the G-7 format. This will send a clear signal to Moscow that if it chooses to remove itself from the boundaries of acceptable behavior in the club of the largest democracies, it will no longer enjoy the benefits of being part of that club.
Boost American presence in the Arctic. Russia has designs on a great part of the Arctic—an area the size of Germany, France, and Italy combined. (See Map 4.) Recently, the deputy chairman of the Duma, the polar explorer Artur Chilingarov, announced that Russia will control the Northern Sea Route, which is in international waters.[29] The Arctic has tremendous hydrocarbon and strategic mineral reserves. Controlled by Moscow, the Artic would offer Moscow another means of consolidating Russia's global energy dominance. The United States should ensure that its interests are respected in the region by modernizing and expanding its icebreaker fleet, updating its surveys of strategic resources, and expanding efforts with NATO and other Nordic states (Canada, Norway, and Denmark, etc.) to develop and coordinate Arctic policy. As much as the Arctic may seem a distant priority given the economic and defense challenges facing the Obama Administration, the United States cannot afford to ignore this strategically vital region.
[map 4: US and Russian Interests in the Artic]
Conclusion
Russia is and will remain one of the most significant foreign policy challenges facing the Obama Administration. Despite the recent toned-down rhetoric stemming from the economic downturn, the Kremlin needs an "outside enemy" to keep its grip on power at home. Yet, this truculence clashes with Russia's need to fight the financial crisis in cooperation with major economic powers; attract foreign investment; switch the engine of its economic growth from natural resources to knowledge and technology; and ensure steady commodities exports. From the Kremlin's perspective, and due to the democracy deficit in Russia, the legitimacy and popularity of the current regime necessitates confrontation with the West, especially with the United States. The image of an external threat is exploited to gain popular support and unite the multi-ethnic and multi-faith population of the Russian Federation around Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev.
Despite the need to attract investment, the Kremlin is likely to pursue an anti-status quo foreign policy as long as it views the United States as weakened or distracted due to the combined effects of the economic crisis, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, the presence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the need to deal with the fast-developing prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and preoccupation with the Arab–Israeli conflict.
The Obama Administration must raise the profile of Russian, Eurasian, and Caspian affairs on the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Further failures to stem Russia's revisionist efforts will lead to a deteriorating security situation in Eurasia and a decline of American influence in Europe and the Middle East. If Russia, however, reconsiders its anti-American stance, the United States should be prepared to pursue matters of common interest, such as the recent agreement on military supplies to Afghanistan and the strategic weapons limitations agreement.
History has shown that the most dangerous times are the ones when new powers (or in this case, resurgent ones) attempt to overturn the status quo. The United States and its allies must remain vigilant and willing to defend freedom and prevent Russia from engendering shifts in the global power structure detrimental to U.S. national security interests.
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. Owen Graham, Research Assistant at the Allison Center, contributed to this paper.
Heritage Backgrounder #2246
March 12, 2009
See full article w/references here.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will address the challenge posed by an increasingly autocratic and bellicose Russia by pursuing a new, comprehensive strategy that advances American national interests without compromising our enduring principles.
—"Meeting the Challenges of a Resurgent Russia" http://www.barackobama.com
President Barack Obama has expressed concerns over Russia's increasingly truculent behavior and the threat it poses to the current international system. These concerns are valid and the threat of a resurgent Russia is palpable.[1] Moscow's efforts at carving out a "sphere of privileged interests" throughout Eurasia and rewriting the rules of European security have negative implications for U.S.– Russia relations, international security, the autonomy of the newly independent former Soviet states, and Europe's independence.
Despite these circumstances, the Obama Administration seems to be rushing ahead with a "carrots-and-cakes" approach to the Kremlin, judging by Vice President Joe Biden's recent speech at the annual Munich international security conference. In this speech, the Vice President outlined the Obama Administration's foreign policy vision for the first time on the world stage and suggested that America push "the reset button" on relations with Russia.[2] Notably absent from this speech was any mention of recent events in Eurasia.
While in Moscow, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns mirrored this approach. Burns stated that the U.S. was willing to review "the pace of development" of its missile defense shield in Europe in exchange for Russian cooperation on dissuading Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, and downplayed the importance of a U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan from which the U.S. military has just received an eviction notice.3 Other diplomatic efforts to thaw U.S.–Russian relations are underway as well.[3]
According to The New York Times, President Obama sent a secret, hand-delivered letter to President Dmitry Medvedev one month ago. The letter reportedly suggests that if Russia cooperated with the United States in preventing Iran from developing long-range nuclear-missile capabilities, the need for a new missile defense system in Europe would be eliminated—a quid pro quo that President Obama has denied. The letter proposes a "united front" to achieve this goal.[4] Responding to the letter, Medvedev appeared to reject the offer and stated that the Kremlin was "working very closely with our U.S. colleagues on the issue of Iran's nuclear program," but not in the context of the new missile defense system in Europe. He stated that "no one links these issues to any exchange, especially on the Iran issue." Nevertheless, Medvedev welcomed the overture as a positive signal from the Obama Administration.[5]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, in Geneva on March 6, following a gathering of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.[6] President Obama is also likely to meet President Medvedev in London at the G-20 summit in April.[7] These meetings occur in a context where both the Obama Administration and Russia want a new legally binding treaty for limiting strategic nuclear arms. Ostensibly, this new treaty would be designed to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).[8] START is scheduled to expire late this year, which both Washington and Moscow see as problematic.
Recent Russian media leaks seemed to reciprocate American overtures and suggested that the Kremlin may not deploy its Iskander short-range missiles in Kaliningrad. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's statements in Davos onJanuary 28 that great powers need to cooperate to find an exit from the current global economic crisis may be signals that Moscow is exploring ways to improve relations with Washington, albeit driven by the plummeting economy at home.[9]
While an improvement in U.S.–Russian relations is certainly desirable, haste is ill advised for the Obama Administration, which has not yet announced its key officials in charge of Russia policy, nor conducted a comprehensive assessment of U.S.–Russian relations. Foremost, the Obama Administration must not allow Moscow to rewrite the geopolitical map of Europe or to pocket the gains that it has recently made in Georgia, including expanding military bases on its territory and evicting the U.S. from an air base in Kyrgyzstan.
Privileged Sphere of Influence
Since the watershed war with Georgia last August, Russia has been on the offensive across Eurasia and has been seeking to re-impose itself over much of the post-Soviet space. So concerned is the Kremlin with the expansion of its "privileged" sphere of influence that even the severe economic crisis—which has sent the ruble plunging 50 percent against the dollar and dropped Moscow stock market capitalization 80 percent—has not slowed Russia's push into the "near abroad."
Currently, Russia has a number of military bases in Europe and Eurasia. (See Map 1.) The Russian military recently announced the establishment of three military bases in the secessionist Abkhazia (a naval base in Ochamchira, the Bombora air base near Gudauta, and an alpine Special Forces base in the Kodori Gorge) and is building two more in South Ossetia (in Java and in the capital, Tskinvali). (See detail of Map 1.)[10] Not only do these deployments violate the spirit and the letter of the cease-fire[11] negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy after the 2008 Russo–Georgian war,but they extend Russia's power projection capabilities into the Southern Caucasus, threatening the already precarious position of Georgia and the East–West corridor of oil and gas pipelines and railroads from the Caspian Sea to Turkey and Europe.[12]
[map 1: Russia's Expanding Military Presence in Eurasia]
More recently, Washington received an eviction notice for the U.S. military by Kurmanbek Bakiyev, president of Kyrgyzstan. With Russian President Medvedev at his side, Bakiyev announced in Moscow last month that he wants the U.S. to leave Manas Air Base, a key military cargo hub at the airport of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek used by NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan since 2001.[13] With this move, the Kremlin signaled the West that to gain access to Central Asia, Western countries must first request permission from Moscow and pay the Kremlin for transit. This stance further reflects the thinking behind Russian calls for an "exclusive sphere of interests"—geographically undefined— formulated by Medvedev during his August 31, 2008, televised address.[14]
Closing Manas Air Base for the U.S. military will complicate efforts to send up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan—a key objective of the Obama Administration. Russia's pressure on the Kyrgyz government to evict the U.S. from this base raises questions about long-term strategic intentions of the Moscow leadership and its willingness to foster a NATO defeat in Afghanistan.
Russia has taken additional steps to secure its clout from Poland to the Pacific. It initiated a joint air-and-missile defense system with Belarus, which may cost billions, and initiated a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Rapid Reaction Force (RRF), intended to match the forces of NATO's Rapid Response Force. The CSTO's RRF not only could be used to fight external enemies, but is likely to be available to put down "velvet revolutions" and quell popular unrest.[15] Russia also announced the creation of a $10 billion stabilization fund for the seven countries that are the members of the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC), most of which ($7.5 billion) Moscow will front.[16] The reason for the spending spree is simple: Money and weapons consolidate control over allies.
Russia's effort to secure a zone of "privileged interests" is consistent with policies formulated almost two decades ago by Yevgeny M. Primakov, leader of the Eurasianist school of foreign policy, Boris Yeltsin's intelligence chief, later a foreign minister, and then prime minister. In 1994, under Primakov's direction, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service published a report calling for Russian domination of the "near abroad"—referring to the newly independent states that emerged from the rubble of the collapsed Soviet empire.
Since the Iraq war, the Kremlin championed the notion of "multipolarity," in which U.S. influence would be checked by Russia, China, India, and a swath of authoritarian states. Today, Putin and Medvedev are calling for a new geopolitical and economic architecture—not only in Europe but throughout the entire world—based on massive spheres of influence.
Global Revisionism
Despite the economic crisis that provided a reality check for Moscow, Russia is doing its best to continue a broad, global, revisionist foreign policy agenda that seeks to undermine what it views as an U.S.-led international security architecture. Russia's rulers want to achieve a world order in which Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela will form a counterweight to the United States. Moscow is doing so despite the dwindling currency reserves and a severe downturn in its economic performance due to plummeting energy and commodity prices.[17]
In December 2008, the Russian navy conducted maneuvers in the Caribbean with Venezuela, while the Russian air force's supersonic Tupolev TU-160 "Blackjack" bombers and the old but reliable TU-95 "Bear" turboprop bombers flew patrols to Venezuela, as well as close to U.S. air space in the Pacific and the Arctic.[18] Russia is also developing the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia in order to manage an expanded Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean, and may possibly revive an anchorage in Libya and Yemen. (See Map 2.)[19] These are only some examples of how Moscow is implementing its global agenda. While some of these moves may be mostly symbolic, combined with a $300 billion military modernization program they signal a much more aggressive and ambitious Russian global posture. Russia is also overtly engaging the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations.
[map 2: Russian Bases in the Middle East]
If Moscow's vision were to be realized, given the large cast of state and non-state "bad actors" currently on the international stage, Russia's notion of "multipolarity" would engender an even more unstable and dangerous world. Additionally, the very process of trying to force such a transition risks destabilizing the existing international system and its institutions while offering no viable alternatives.
Russia's Strategic Energy Agenda
On the energy front alone, the Obama Administration will face a multiplicity of challenges emanating from Moscow. The Bush Administration signed a "123 agreement" on civilian nuclear cooperation and non-proliferation with Russia in May 2008, before the war in Georgia. The 123 agreement, so called because it falls under section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, is necessary to make nuclear cooperation between the countries possible.The agreement would facilitate Russia's foray into the international nuclear waste management and reprocessing business by potentially providing Russian access to U.S. commercial technologies.[20]
The agreement, however, ran into severe congressional opposition: Representative John Dingell (D–MI), then-chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, announced that, "Even without Russia's incursion into Georgia, Russian support for Iranian nuclear and missile programs alone is enough to call into question the wisdom of committing to a 30-year agreement to transfer sensitive nuclear technologies and materials to Russia."[21] As the Obama Administration is signaling a new thaw in the relationship, senior Russian officials hope that the Administration will revive the agreement, which could bring billions of dollars to the lean Russian coffers.[22]
Europe's Dependence on Russian Gas. The Europeans, especially the Germans, are concerned with carbon emission reductions, while downplaying nuclear energy and coal as alternative sources of energy to natural gas. Russia is the primary source of Europe's gas habit. Thus, an environmental concern becomes a major geopolitical liability. Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Finland depend on Russian gas for up to 100 percent of their imports, and are not pursuing alternatives, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG). Germany depends on Russian gas for 40 percent of its consumption, a share that is set to increase to 60 percent by 2020.
Russia strives to dominate Europe, particularly Eastern and Central Europe, including Germany, through its quasi-monopolistic gas supply and its significant share of the oil market and of other strategic resources. (See Map 3.) Russia controls a network of strategically important pipelines and is attempting to extend it by building the Nord Stream pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to Germany, building the South Stream pipeline across the length of the Black Sea, and even controlling gas pipelines from North Africa to Europe.
[map 3: Primary Russian Oil and Gas Pipelines to Europe]
Moscow has shown a pattern of using revenues from its energy exports to fuel its strategic and foreign policy agendas. It grants selective access to Russian energy resources to European companies as a quid pro quo for political cooperation and government lobbying on the Kremlin's behalf. It has selectively hired prominent European politicians, such as former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, to promote Russian interests and energy deals and has offered positions and lucrative business deals to other European political heavyweights, such as former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.
Russian energy giant Gazprom has been on a shopping spree, acquiring European energy assets. Europe is projected to be dependent on Russia for over 60 percent of its gas consumption by 2030, with some countries already 100 percent dependent on Gazprom.[23] Russia has shown a willingness to use this dependency and its energy influence as a tool of foreign policy, shutting down or threatening to shut down the flow of gas to countries perceived to be acting against Moscow's interest, as in the cases of Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.
The Kremlin is in the process of creating an OPEC-style gas cartel with Iran, Qatar, and other leading gas producers, to be headquartered in Moscow. This cartel would allow Moscow and Tehran to dictate pricing policy, weigh in on new projects, and oppose any new pipelines they want. This may bring about even greater domination of Europe's gas supply than they currently enjoy, and eventually, domination of the global LNG markets as well.[24] Any EU dependence on such a cartel will diminish its ability to support gas-exporting countries whose pipelines bypass Russia, will challenge EU energy liberalization and gas deregulation policies, and may have dire foreign policy consequences.
The U.S. certainly should explore all available diplomatic avenues to curb Russian anti-American policies, yet the new Administration must be prepared for the contingency that the United States may have no choice but to counter Russian revisionism through disincentives, rather than limiting itself to trying to persuade the Kremlin to embrace the international system.
Russia Policy for the Obama Administration
To meet today's challenges and preserve the security of Europe and Eurasia, the Obama Administration should conduct a comprehensive assessment of U.S.–Russian relations and then prepare a detailed foreign policy agenda that protects American interests; checks the growing Russian influence in Europe, the Middle East, and Eurasia; deters aggression against the U.S., its allies, and its strategic partners; and encourages Russia to adhere to the rule of law at home and abroad and to act as a responsible player in the international system.
Specifically, the Obama Administration should:
Maintain and expand transatlantic unity. The Obama Administration should use its political capital and show leadership within NATO. Russia is seeking to divide the United States and its European allies, not only through energy sources, but also by exploiting existing differences over missile defense, the Iraq war, and other issues. In its attempt to undermine the global posture of the U.S. and its allies, the Kremlin offers incentives for European powers to distance themselves from the United States. Germany's growing dependence on Russian natural gas and its opposition to further NATO enlargement and missile defense deployment in Central Europe is a good example. Essentially, in order for Russia to successfully carry out its foreign policy agenda it needs to delay and thwart any strong, unified energy-policy response from the United States and its allies. Moscow is seeking to gain power and influence without being countered by any significant challenge.
Refrain from resubmitting the 123 nuclear agreement with Russia for congressional approval until Russia meets the following three conditions:
- The Obama Administration should compel Russia to discontinue support of Iran's military nuclear energy program and provide full disclosure. Indeed, it is Russian nuclear fuel that undermines Iran's claim that it needs uranium enrichment. Russia must discontinue any efforts that advance Iran's heavy-water-reactor program, enrichment activities, spent-fuel reprocessing programs, missile technology transfer, or engineer and scientist training for nuclear and missile technology. Russia must disclose its past activities in support of the Iranian program, as well as what it knows about any third party assistance. Russia should work with the United States and other nations to compel Iran to discontinue any fuel enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing, which would give Iran access to bomb-grade material. The U.S. should use the prospect of the 123 agreement as an incentive to halt Russia's interactions with Iran on nuclear issues.[25]
- The Obama Administration should also request that Russia provide adequate liability protection for U.S. companies doing business in Russia. Even with a 123 agreement in place, U.S. companies would likely forgo commercial activities in Russia due to a lack of liability protection. Indeed, many countries use the lack of liability protection for U.S. companies as a means to protect their domestic nuclear industry from U.S. competition.[26]
- The Obama Administration should demand that Russia provide two-way market access to American companies. This agreement should not be simply an avenue to bring Russian goods and services to the U.S. market; it is equally important that U.S. companies are allowed to compete for business in Russia. While Russian nuclear technology is second to none, foreign competition will assure that the highest quality standards are maintained throughout the country.[27]
Oppose the Kremlin's support of anti-American state and non-state actors (Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah). Russia's revisionist foreign policy agenda has extended to cultivating de facto alliances and relationships with a host of regimes and terrorist organizations hostile to the United States, its allies, and its interests. Even as the United States seeks Russia's assistance in ending Iran's nuclear program, Moscow is selling Tehran sophisticated air-defense systems and other modern weapons and technologies, including dual-use ballistic missile know-how, ostensibly for civilian space purposes. Russia cannot improve relations with the United States while maintaining ties with aggressive powers and terrorists. The Obama Administration should advise Russia to distance itself from the likes of Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other troublemakers with global reach.
Undertake necessary strategic planning before initiating new strategic nuclear arms control negotiations with Russia. The White House and the Kremlin appear eager to negotiate a new arms control treaty governing strategic nuclear forces on both sides. But at this early juncture in the Obama Administration, the White House has not conducted the necessary reviews of the broader national security strategy, let alone more technical analyses regarding the future military requirements of the U.S. strategic nuclear force. At the outset, the Obama Administration needs to establish a new policy that pledges to the American people and U.S. friends and allies that it will serve to "protect and defend" them against strategic attack. The Administration, therefore, should defer negotiations on a new strategic nuclear arms treaty with Russia until after it has drafted the national security strategy and the national military strategy, issued a new targeting directive, and permitted the military to identify and allocate targets in accordance with the protect-and-defend strategy.[28]Further, the Obama Administration need not be overly concerned about the expiration of START. U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, specifically those that are operationally deployed, will be controlled under the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT, commonly called the Moscow Treaty for the city where it was signed). The Moscow Treaty requires both sides to reduce the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200. The treaty will not expire until the end of 2012. Thus, there is no reason for the U.S. and Russia to negotiate a new treaty limiting strategic nuclear arms against the artificial deadline of START's expiration. Indeed, it would be unwise to do so because an effective arms control treaty requires careful planning and preparation.
Maintain missile defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama Administration should not cancel America's ballistic defense program in response to Russian threats—or in response to recent promises by President Medvedev not to deploy short-range ballistic missiles to the Belarussian–Polish border or to the Kaliningrad exclave. To cancel this program as a concession to the Russians would send a clear signal of American weakness, encouraging further aggression against Russia's neighbors. Russia must not come to believe it can succeed in altering U.S. policy through threats, or it will continue to use these and other destabilizing gestures more consistently as tools of foreign policy—to the detriment of American and world security. Backing down on missile defense would also strengthen the pro-Russian political factions in the German Foreign Ministry, dominated by Social Democrats, in the German business community, and elsewhere in Europe. However skeptical some in the Obama Administration may be of the functionality and cost-effectiveness of the missile-interceptor system, the fact is that it is the only defense the U.S. and its allies currently have against a potential Iranian ballistic missile launch, as well as a powerful symbolic bargaining chip in discussions with Russia. The U.S. should also engage Russia in discussions on ballistic missile cooperation—without granting Moscow a veto over missile deployment in Europe.
Support Georgia's and Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. During the presidential campaign, Candidate Obama made multiple laudable statements expressing firm support for Georgia's territorial integrity, denying the validity of Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and expressing a willingness to extend NATO Membership Action Plans (MAPs) to Georgia and Ukraine (which were recently replaced by the Bush Administration with Strategic Cooperation Charters). President Obama should now provide the firm foundation for a policy devoted to deterring Russia from taking similar action in the future, for example against Ukraine or Azerbaijan. The Obama Administration should implement the Strategic Cooperation Charters signed with Ukraine and Georgia on December 19, 2008, and January 9, 2009, respectively. While there is little chance that Russia will renounce its recognition of Abkhazia or South Ossetia, the Obama Administration should explore every option for making Russia pay a diplomatic and economic price for its recent acts of aggression against Georgia's territorial integrity, its sovereignty, and against international law. To do otherwise will only invite Russia to try more of the same in the future. The White House should rethink the format of the G-8. It should expand the current G-8 to G-20, in which Russia, China, Brazil, India, and other major powers participate, while holding future meetings of the leading industrial democracies in the G-7 format. This will send a clear signal to Moscow that if it chooses to remove itself from the boundaries of acceptable behavior in the club of the largest democracies, it will no longer enjoy the benefits of being part of that club.
Boost American presence in the Arctic. Russia has designs on a great part of the Arctic—an area the size of Germany, France, and Italy combined. (See Map 4.) Recently, the deputy chairman of the Duma, the polar explorer Artur Chilingarov, announced that Russia will control the Northern Sea Route, which is in international waters.[29] The Arctic has tremendous hydrocarbon and strategic mineral reserves. Controlled by Moscow, the Artic would offer Moscow another means of consolidating Russia's global energy dominance. The United States should ensure that its interests are respected in the region by modernizing and expanding its icebreaker fleet, updating its surveys of strategic resources, and expanding efforts with NATO and other Nordic states (Canada, Norway, and Denmark, etc.) to develop and coordinate Arctic policy. As much as the Arctic may seem a distant priority given the economic and defense challenges facing the Obama Administration, the United States cannot afford to ignore this strategically vital region.
[map 4: US and Russian Interests in the Artic]
Conclusion
Russia is and will remain one of the most significant foreign policy challenges facing the Obama Administration. Despite the recent toned-down rhetoric stemming from the economic downturn, the Kremlin needs an "outside enemy" to keep its grip on power at home. Yet, this truculence clashes with Russia's need to fight the financial crisis in cooperation with major economic powers; attract foreign investment; switch the engine of its economic growth from natural resources to knowledge and technology; and ensure steady commodities exports. From the Kremlin's perspective, and due to the democracy deficit in Russia, the legitimacy and popularity of the current regime necessitates confrontation with the West, especially with the United States. The image of an external threat is exploited to gain popular support and unite the multi-ethnic and multi-faith population of the Russian Federation around Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev.
Despite the need to attract investment, the Kremlin is likely to pursue an anti-status quo foreign policy as long as it views the United States as weakened or distracted due to the combined effects of the economic crisis, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, the presence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the need to deal with the fast-developing prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and preoccupation with the Arab–Israeli conflict.
The Obama Administration must raise the profile of Russian, Eurasian, and Caspian affairs on the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Further failures to stem Russia's revisionist efforts will lead to a deteriorating security situation in Eurasia and a decline of American influence in Europe and the Middle East. If Russia, however, reconsiders its anti-American stance, the United States should be prepared to pursue matters of common interest, such as the recent agreement on military supplies to Afghanistan and the strategic weapons limitations agreement.
History has shown that the most dangerous times are the ones when new powers (or in this case, resurgent ones) attempt to overturn the status quo. The United States and its allies must remain vigilant and willing to defend freedom and prevent Russia from engendering shifts in the global power structure detrimental to U.S. national security interests.
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. Owen Graham, Research Assistant at the Allison Center, contributed to this paper.
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