Tag Archives: Germany

Hidden agenda

When President Bush sits down with his counterparts from the other Group of Eight (G-8) nations this weekend in St. Petersburg, Russia, there will be many important items on the agenda. Among them will be discussions of the North Korea threat, the Iranian threat and the threat to the global economy from rising energy prices. There may even be a discussion of the ominous behavior of the host, Russia ‘s President Vladimir Putin, as he inexorably eliminates the last vestiges of democracy and reestablishes central control over all facets of his country’s economic and political life.

This year, as at past G-8 meetings, there will be another, enormously momentous item in play – a threat that will receive, all other things being equal, little if any public notice. Call it a hidden agenda.

Beware of ‘Globotaxes’

Unless President Bush asserts his adamant opposition, it is likely that the G-8 leaders will once again do what they did last year. They will endorse in some fashion the imposition of global taxes.

Most Americans would of course reject such a notion – as has Mr. Bush in the past. For starters, as a general rule, we don’t like taxes very much. Then there is the natty little problem that we may have no say over the size or character of global taxes. These amount to "taxation without representation," something our founders considered so intolerable they put on the line their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to be free of it.

Worst of all, global taxes are well understood by their proponents as a way of addressing what they see as grievous ills. Chief among these is the sovereignty exercised and the concentration of wealth enjoyed by nations like the United States.

For example, in an article distributed last year by the Project Syndicate (a media vehicle supported by George Soros’ Open Society Institute), World Bank economist Branko Milanovic declared: "Global redistribution through taxes that would be levied by an international body may seem far-fetched today, but the logic of development that we are witnessing – particularly the move away from nation-states as the locus of sovereignty – suggests that it may eventually come to pass."

The French Connection

In fact, what the global taxers euphemistically call "innovative sources of financing" and "solidarity levies to fund development" are already being imposed. On July 1, France began implementing an international tax on airline travel and nine nations have announced that they will follow suit. Other initiatives under active consideration include global taxes on: gasoline, multinational corporations, carbon dioxide emissions, "securities transactions" and "portfolio investments," use of air corridors and maritime shipping and currency transactions. The marketing of the French initiative is instructive. It is being billed as a "tax for Third World medicine" and the funds it will generate will ostensibly be used to help finance a new UN agency (dubbed UNITAID) being created as an international drug purchasing facility. Since just about everyone – and most especially President Bush – is keen to combat the spread of diseases like AIDS, packaging a global tax as a way greatly to increase the funds available for this purpose is as seductive as it is cynical.

For this reason, it seems likely that several G-8 members will seek to fashion some sort of endorsement of this latest initiative. After all, in addition to France , Britain and Germany are members of the UN’s newest advocacy cabal, "the Leading Group on Solidarity Levies." Presumably, the proponents will try to use the same gambit they employed at last year’s meeting in Gleneagles , Scotland : burying the G-8’s imprimatur in an annex of the final communiqu? where it will go unnoticed by most observers, but be exploited ever after by the global taxers as a definitive statement of support.

Cliff Kincaid, the indefatigable president of the UN watchdog, America’s Survival, has pointed out that the prospects for sovereignty-sapping and financially burdensome international taxes are being further enhanced by the recruitment to this cause of deep-pocketed individuals besides George Soros and Ted Turner (the latter’s foundation actually has for years had employees working in the UN Secretariat). These include Bill Gates (and, by proxy, Warren Buffett) and Bill Clinton. The Gates and Clinton foundations were represented at the Paris conference the French government called last February to promote "innovative development financing."

Congress to the Rescue?

The only hopeful news is that the Congress has begun to awaken to the danger represented by these initiatives – and the precedents they are creating. The House of Representatives has adopted legislation "that prohibits the Treasury from paying UN dues if the organization attempts to implement or impose any kind of tax on U.S. citizens." Unfortunately, this would not necessarily prevent global taxes from being inflicted through the action of member states, as is being done now by the French and their friends.

Tomorrow, however, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska will be introducing legislation designed to penalize the UN by withholding American funding if it advocates, promotes or tries to impose global taxes on U.S. citizens. They are to be commended for taking this initiative and the full Senate should adopt it at the earliest possible moment.

The Bottom Line

In the meantime, President Bush needs to be alive to the hidden agenda item at the G-8 meeting. He should instruct his subordinates to ensure that all its products reflect his stated objection to global taxes for whatever purpose – taxes that would help make a corrupt and malfeasant UN far less accountable, and far more prone to the sorts of activities that erode our sovereignty and impede our efforts to protect freedom and the people who cherish, and aspire, to it.

 

Contain and Transcend: A Strategy for Regime Change in North Korea

By Eric Sayers

Since its creation in 1948, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has simultaneously pursued a confrontational policy towards the international community and a repressive policy towards its own citizens. Internationally, the DPRK maintains a high-tension position. In the past this lead to adventurous foreign policy decisions, most notably the 1950 surprise attack against South Korea. More recently, the DPRK’s uncompromising pursuit of nuclear weapons has become a serious concern with regard to international security. Domestically, the regime has maintained its totalitarian posture, using any means necessary to consolidate its power over the populace. This has led to the institutionalization of both terror and brutality as state tactics. As a result, the plight of the North Korean people constitutes one of the worst human rights situations of modern day history.

Although both the North Korean regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the treatment of its own people present troubling security problems, they are not single issues that can be approached individually. Instead, these issues are the byproducts of a much larger problem: the nature of the totalitarian regime. Therefore, in order to address the security problems emanating from the DPRK, we must first address their roots. This paper will outline a strategy to accomplish this goal. It will begin by providing a set of brief suggestions for deterring the regime in the short term, and then continue with a detailed approach for changing (transcending) the regime in the long-term.

 

Short-Term Containment

When dealing with a volatile security issue, such as that presented by the DPRK, any successful long-term strategy must be supported by a tactically sound short-term plan. If our ultimate goal is to bring down the regime, then a short-term plan must effectively deter and contain the DPRK over the next several years. Such a plan should have two primary objectives: prevent the DPRK from taking aggressive military action; and deploy a fully functional ballistic missile defense shield so as to guarantee both our safety and that ofEastern Asia.

Since the Korean War (1953), the US has maintained a military presence on the Korean peninsula. Currently a force of about 29,000 is maintained – these troops provide reinforcement to the 600,000 man South Korean military.[i] This continuous defensive line has ensured that the North Korean army cannot take aggressive action. In the past several years the number of US forces has decreased (37,000-29,000), this draw down will continue over the next three years. This course of action is a correct one because – as will be discussed in full below – it is increasingly important to help make the DPRK issue a “Korean” issue and not the sole responsibility of theUS. By forcing the South Koreans to embrace their own security dilemma, the nature of the threat will become more evident and, in turn, afford us a better diplomatic position through which to apply pressure in the near future.

 

 

_____________

Eric Sayers is a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario, and a former research intern at the Center for Security Policy.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Burns fiddles while Tehran arms

In the face of intensifying Iranian intransigence and provocations, President Bush has decided to adopt the recommendations of appeasement-prone subordinates – notably, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns – to reward such behavior. The decision announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today that the United States would be prepared to participate directly – as opposed to through European and United Nations proxies – in negotiations with the terrorist-sponsoring mullahocracy in Tehran, if only it will promise to suspend its nuclear weapons activities, will only reward and lead to more of such behavior.

In his column for Wednesday’s Washington Times, Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. argues for a very different approach. Instead of attempting to appease the Iranian Islamofascists, Mr. Gaffney argues for privatizing the effort to deny them the resources to make their nuclear weapons program, support for terrorism, and domestic repression possible.

Nick Burns is leading President Bush into a diplomatic morass from which it will prove exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to extricate this country before the Iranian regime realizes its ambition to acquire, and perhaps to use, nuclear weapons. The folly of the Burns’ appeasement approach will be further compounded if, as seems likely, the effect is further to legitimate the mullahocracy and alienate our natural allies in its removal from power: the Iranian people.

 

Divest Iran
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
The Washington Times, 31 May 2006

One of the most important public policy fights in years is taking place within the U.S. government. The debate is over how to deal with the growing danger posed by Islamofascist Iran.

In one corner are those who believe, against all historical experience, that appeasement of despots will work this time. Hence, their support of efforts by the so-called "EU-3" — Britain, France and Germany — to present concessions attractive enough to the Iranian mullahocracy to induce it to give up at least some of its program for developing nuclear weapons. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamed ElBaradei champion this approach. So does the State Department bureaucracy, led by the Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns.

Unfortunately, the record of recent efforts to appease Iran has been no more encouraging than were earlier efforts to divert other totalitarians from their chosen paths. To the contrary, Iranian officials have gleefully observed they are indebted to the Europeans and their supporters for "buying time" for the regime in Tehran, allowing it to bring its so-called "nuclear power" program to fruition. Some are becoming ever-more brazen in confirming that energy generation is not the object of the exercise; rather, they aim to obtain the Bomb.

Now, Nick Burns and Company are evidently supporting the international appeasers’ demand that the United States "engage" directly with the Iranians. The argument is that, only by so doing, can the Bush administration demonstrate it has left no stone unturned in trying to avoid a showdown, including possibly military action against Iran.

Those in the opposing corner, believed to include Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush are under no illusion about the consequences of such a step. It will not buy the United States any credit from its critics. Instead, it will embroil this country in talks whose sole purpose is to hamstring those threatened by the Iranian Islamofascists’ support for international terror and pursuit of nuclear weapons — if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be believed, for apocalyptic purposes.

Speaking of Mr. Ahmadinejad, one of the most bizarre aspects of the debate about what to do about Iran is the use by the appeasement camp of his recent letter to President Bush. It has been widely portrayed in the press as a diplomatic "breakthrough," an opening for direct contacts that must not be allowed to slip away. In fact, a close reading of the document makes clear what the Iranian regime has in mind for the United States is war, not diplomacy. Notably, the closing passage is a direct quote from a message sent by the Prophet Muhammad as he prepared to launch a devastating attack on its recipient.

The alternative to appeasement of Iran should utilize the sorts of techniques Ronald Reagan employed to counter the last horrific totalitarian ideology that threatened our destruction, the Soviet Union. These include using every available means to delegitimize the regime. It also means helping those oppressed by our enemies, to assist them in undermining and, if possible, in bringing down their government — a popular aspiration lately confirmed anew by a spate of tumultuous demonstrations across Iran.

Reagan placed special emphasis on one other initiative: drying up the funding streams that enabled the Soviet Union to build up its military threat and to pay for anti-Western revolutions all over the globe. The same must be done to Iran.

The most obvious means of doing so — economic sanctions — are not supported by Iran’s strategic allies, Russia and China, and its business partners in many energy-hungry European nations and Japan. As a result, there seems little hope of multilateral sanctions comparable to the longstanding American ones on oil purchases and other trade with Iran.

According to a Page One article in The Washington Post on Monday, a Treasury Department-led task force is trying a variation on the theme: It is seeking the cooperation of allies in eschewing business with "every Iranian official, individual and entity the Bush administration considers connected not only to nuclear enrichment efforts but to terrorism, government corruption, suppression of religious or democratic freedom and violence" in neighboring states. Unsurprisingly, the response has been underwhelming to date. The Post reports that, "So far, four financial institutions have signed on to the U.S. effort."

Fortunately, America has an opportunity to bring more than moral suasion to bear on those who partner with our enemies and, thereby, help underwrite their threatening behavior: Make them choose whether they wish to do business with: us or with the Iranians.

Last month, the Louisiana sheriffs public pension fund became the first in the nation to adopt such an approach in the form of a terror-free investment policy. Its portfolio managers, including T. Rowe Price, have agreed that the sheriffs’ retirement money will not be invested in foreign energy, telecommunications, banks and other companies that engage in commercial activities and investment in state-sponsors of terror like Iran.

The U.S. government should encourage this model — call it Divest Iran — to be adopted by the scores of millions of other American investors whose decisions to hold or dispose of stocks will probably have a lot more influence with Iranian-connected enterprises than will pleas from our "engagement"-minded officials. Such a privatization of the effort to end the danger posed by the Iranian mullahs may not only make for a more coherent U.S. policy. It may even make it possible to avoid the otherwise possibly necessary use of force against Iran.

Divest Iran

Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 28                     2006-05-30


(Washington , D.C.): One of the most important public policy fights in years is taking place within the U.S. government. The debate is over how to deal with the growing danger posed by Islamofascist Iran.


A House Divided


In one corner are those who believe, against all historical experience, that appeasement of despots will work this time. Hence, their support of efforts by the so-called “EU-3” – Britain, France and Germany – to present a sufficiently attractive package of concessions to the Iranian mullahocracy to induce it to give up at least some of its program for developing nuclear weapons. The UN’s Kofi Annan and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamed ElBaradei champion this approach. So does the State Department bureaucracy, currently led by the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns.


Unfortunately, the record of recent efforts to appease Iran has been no more encouraging than were earlier efforts to divert other totalitarians from their chosen paths. To the contrary, Iranian officials have gleefully observed that they are indebted to the Europeans and their supporters for “buying time” for the regime in Tehran, allowing it to bring its so-called “nuclear power” program to fruition. Some are becoming ever-more- brazen in confirming that energy-generation is not the object of the exercise; rather, it is to obtain the Bomb.


Now, Nick Burns and Company are evidently supporting the international appeasers’ demand that the United States “engage” directly with the Iranians. The argument is that, only by so doing, can the Bush Administration demonstrate that it has left no stone unturned in trying to avoid a showdown, including possibly military action against Iran.


Those in the opposing corner, believed to include Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush, himself, are under no illusion about the consequences of such a step. It will not buy the United States any credit from its critics. Instead, it will embroil this country in talks whose sole purpose is to hamstring those who are threatened by the Iranian Islamofascists’ support for international terror and pursuit of nuclear weapons – if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be believed, for apocalyptic purposes.


Speaking of Ahmadinejad, one of the most bizarre aspects of the debate about what to do about Iran is the use being made by the appeasement camp of his recent letter to President Bush. It has been widely portrayed in the press as a diplomatic “breakthrough,” an opening for direct contacts that must not be allowed to slip away. In fact, a close reading of the document makes clear that what the Iranian regime has in mind for the United States is war, not diplomacy. Notably, the closing passage is a direct quote from a message sent by the Prophet Mohammed as he prepared to launch a devastating attack on its recipient.


Use the Reagan Playbook


The alternative to appeasement of Iran should utilize the sorts of techniques Ronald Reagan employed to counter the last horrific totalitarian ideology that threatened our destruction, the Soviet Union. These include using every available means to de-legitimate the regime. It also means helping those oppressed by our enemies, in order to assist them in undermining and, if possible, in bringing down their government – a popular aspiration lately confirmed anew by a spate of tumultuous demonstrations across Iran.


President Reagan placed special emphasis on one other initiative: drying up the funding streams that enabled the USSR to build up its military threat and to pay for anti-Western revolutions all over the globe. The same must be done to Iran.


The most obvious means of doing so – economic sanctions – are not supported by Iran ‘s strategic allies, Russia and China , and its business partners in many energy-hungry European nations and Japan. As a result, there seems little hope of imposing on a multilateral basis sanctions comparable to the long-standing American ones on oil purchases and other trade with Iran.


According to a front-page article in the Washington Post on Monday, a Treasury Department-led task force is trying a variation on the theme: It is seeking the cooperation of allies in eschewing business with “every Iranian official, individual and entity the Bush Administration considers connected not only to nuclear enrichment efforts but to terrorism, government corruption, suppression of religious or democratic freedom and violence” in neighboring states. Not surprisingly, the response has been underwhelming to date. The Post reports that, “So far, four financial institutions have signed on to the U.S. effort.”


Fortunately, America has an opportunity to bring more than moral suasion to bear on those who partner with our enemies and, thereby, help underwrite their threatening behavior: Make them choose whether they wish to do business with us, or with the Iranians.


Last month, the Louisiana Sheriffs public pension fund became the first in the nation to adopt such an approach in the form of a terror-free investment policy. Its portfolio managers, including T. Rowe Price, have agreed that the sheriffs’ retirement money will not be invested in foreign energy, telecommunications, banks and other companies that engage in commercial activities and investment in state-sponsors of terror like Iran.


The Bottom Line


The U.S. government should encourage this model – call it Divest Iran – to be adopted by the scores of millions of other American investors whose decisions to hold or dispose of stocks will probably have a lot more influence with Iranian-connected enterprises than will pleas from our “engagement”-minded officials. Such a privatization of the effort to end the danger posed by the Iranian mullahs may not only make for a more coherent U.S. policy. It may even make it possible to avoid the use of force against Iran that could otherwise become unavoidable.

Venezuela arms embargo should be part of Bush Doct

Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 26                     2006-05-17


(Washington , D.C.): The new U.S. arms embargo against the extremist regime in Venezuela should have implications beyond South America . Though intended to protect democracies in the region, the embargo should be used to convince our allies that there is a price to be paid for actions that willfully undermine American security interests.


The Miami Herald reports that President Bush’s embargo is “largely symbolic” because Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez “has been buying the bulk of his weapons, including attack and transport helicopters, patrol boats and military transport planes, from Russia and Spain.”


Bush Doctrine Created Stark Choice for Our Allies


The post-9/11 Bush Doctrine created a stark choice for nations to either side with us or against us in the global war on terror. This hard line has given way to a new reality where some of our allies simply take for granted that we will ignore their efforts against us. For example, France and Germany undermined U.S. efforts to compel action by the United Nations against Saddam Hussein, yet they continue to benefit from our military presence in Europe . They also profit from U.S. purchases of their military products. As the war proceeds, the United States should consider how it can make its policies more consistent.


The most practical approach is to stop purchasing military equipment from countries that disregard our security interests, at least whenever viable alternatives are available. No country should be more concerned about this possibility than Spain , a once-loyal partner in the war on terror that now prefers to thumb its nose at the U.S. while lobbying Congress and the U.S. military to buy its products.


Spain decided to cool its warm relations with the United States after the al Qaeda bombings of the Madrid transit system propelled Socialist Workers Party President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to power in March, 2004.


In fact, Spain has defied U.S. interests in spectacular fashion – and in a way that demands a response . Last November, Spain sold 12 of its CASA C-235 and C-295 military transport aircraft to Venezuela , despite strong U.S. objections. Because the aircraft includes American-made technology, the Bush Administration tried to halt the sale under the 1992 International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Instead, Spain replaced U.S. components in the aircraft and has made a very public spectacle of the sale ever since – even taking part in the Venezuelan dictator’s propaganda campaign against the United States.


Even before making good on his campaign promise to pull his country from the international coalition in Iraq , Spain ‘s socialist president traveled to Caracas to negotiate the sale personally with the Venezuelan dictator. He later dispatched Defense Minister Jose Bono to Caracas on November 28, 2005 to seal the deal with Chavez, despite U.S. objections that the trip would legitimize the Chavez regime’s anti-U.S. rhetoric.


Spain dismissed U.S. concerns. Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told his nation’s largest newspaper on November 27 that the deal would not cause problems for Spain in the U.S. This was in spite of a report four days earlier in the same paper that “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wants Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono to personally sign the deals in Caracas to stress what he described as a ‘defeat’ of the United States.” The foreign minister’s comments were despite warnings from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld just three days earlier that Spain was “making a mistake” over the sale to Venezuela.


To make matters worse, the Spanish defense minister used his appearance in Venezuela to denounce the U.S. as an “empire,” while Chavez used the occasion to characterize Spain’s decision as “confronting the hegemonic and imperialist ambitions of the elite that now governs the United States,” and which is “massacring the people of Iraq.”


Part of Campaign to Undermine the U.S. and Its Allies


To reinforce his point that the deal with Spain was intended to insult the U.S., Chavez forced an American congressional delegation led by 81 year-old House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-IL) and his ranking colleague, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) to sit on the Caracas airport tarmac for two hours while the deal with Spain was sealed, and then forced the delegation to leave the country. It reeked of a setup job.


The U.S. also specifically warned Spain that its deal was part of the Venezuelan dictator’s strategy to undermine U.S. interests and destabilize the region, including by coordinating actions with Cuba and supporting leftist FARC rebels that hope to overthrow the Columbian government. Chavez himself has proclaimed that his “new strategic map” is intended to “break apart” the South American democratic countries. In fact, when Spain told the U.S. that its CASA aircraft would be used in Venezuela for humanitarian purposes only, Chavez told the European media the aircraft will be used “mainly” for humanitarian purposes, and that they would be used both “inside and outside the country.”


Spain was also aware that Chavez was scheduled to take possession from Russia of 30,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles just days after signing the CASA aircraft deal. Spain ignored Colombian and U.S. concerns that the guns are of the same type used by FARC, and that the total order of 100,000 rifles is far more than is needed to arm every Venezuelan soldier. In response to U.S. concerns, the Spanish defense minister told the media he was “not willing to recognize that there are chosen people who are above others.”


Spreading Anti-U.S. Propaganda while Competing for U.S. Tax Dollars


As if spreading anti-U.S. propaganda abroad wasn’t bad enough, Spain has been working in Washington to get the Coast Guard and Pentagon to buy the same planes it was selling Chavez.


Last year, CASA got Congress to earmark funds for two C-235 aircraft to be used by the Coast Guard’s Deepwater program. CASA is now pressing for even more Deepwater funds, and has established a new campaign to supply up to 35 C-295s to the U.S. Army and Air Force Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program.


Congress authorized start-up funding for the JCA program in 2005, and must eventually fund additional transport aircraft for the Coast Guard Deepwater program. The programs combined will be worth $3-4 billion in the next two years, and as much as $30-40 billion over the next decade. It would be appropriate for the U.S. to make sure that Spain ‘s decision to earn $1 billion from Venezuela for its CASA aircraft should come at the cost of earning far more from sales in the U.S.


The Bottom Line


The U.S. is accustomed to the self-serving actions of some of our friends abroad. But there is growing resentment among American taxpayers when they are asked to pay for products from companies of countries that actively undermine U.S. interests. The Bush Administration has made it clear that we have compelling interests in stopping the arms build-up in Venezuela. Congress should step in to make sure that our allies understand the message. When it comes to buying planes from supposed allies like Spain, Congress should just say no.


 

Dragon at the fount of Africa

Fresh off important visits to the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Morocco, Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to arrive in Nigeria later this week to meet with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and several key legislators to discuss bilateral relations and issues of common interest. During his visit, President Hu will also deliver a much anticipated speech to the Nigerian parliament on China’s policy in Africa. The trip is designed to reinforce what has quickly become one of Africa’s most dynamic strategic partnerships.

Two-way trade has greatly expanded reaching US$2.83 billion in 2005, up nearly 30 percent from 2004. Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing noted earlier this month, "Remarkable progress has been made in China-Nigeria economic and trade cooperation." Cooperation in areas such as agriculture, communications, power generation and transportation have accelerated, with Nigeria’s non-oil exports to China totaling an estimated US$500 million in 2005. Although these achievements are indeed impressive, the future of Sino-Nigerian relations rests in the continued development of bilateral energy cooperation.

Like the U.S. and other Western countries, China is determined to diversify its energy supplies away from the volatile Middle East region where it currently gets 60 percent of its oil, to areas in Africa, South America and even North America. Currently, China gets a quarter of its oil from Africa and is looking to increase that number substantially over the next several years.

According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Nigeria has nearly 36 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, making it the largest oil producer in Africa and the tenth largest producer of crude in the world. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which manages the country’s state-owned oil industry, expects oil production to reach 40 billion barrels by 2010 through a combination of domestic and foreign investments. Oil production averaged 2.6 million barrels per day (bb/d) in 2005 and Nigeria’s President Obasanjo has said publicly that he would like to increase that number to 3 million bb/d in 2006 and 4 million bb/d by 2010. With domestic oil consumption growing at 7.5 percent per year and economic expansion reaching an amazing 10.2 percent in the first quarter of 2006, resource-rich Nigeria is a natural partner for an energy-conscience Beijing.

In 2005, Nigeria signed an important US$800 million agreement with state-owned PetroChina to supply 30,000 barrels of oil a day to mainland China. In 2006, China National Overseas Oil Corp (CNNOC) invested US$2.3 billion for a 45 percent stake in the country’s Akpo field allowing the company to increase its daily oil production by 15 percent. CNOOC chief Fu Chengyu said the transaction was an important for the company to continue its global expansion. "The deal is perfectly aligned with CNOOC’s long-term strategy of achieving growth through the exploration and development of offshore fields and achieving geographic diversification of the company’s portfolio," Fu said. The investment was the largest for a state-controlled energy enterprise since China National Petroleum Corp’s (CNPC) US$4.2 billion deal for Asia’s PetroKazakhstan.

In addition to oil reserves, Nigeria holds approximately 185 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves, making the country the largest natural gas holder in Africa and the seventh largest in the world. State-controlled NNPC estimates it will need approximately US$15 billion to meet its plans to increase production and exports by 2010.

In a move that will help Nigeria attract much needed foreign investment, the Obasanjo government announced this month that it would pay off its remaining multi-billion debt to the Paris Club, a group of lenders including the U.K., Russia and Germany, becoming the first African nation to settle with its lenders. The announcement is part of a larger plan by President Obasanjo for increased transparency. The combination of economic reforms and high oil prices have propelled the Nigerian economy forward, giving a important boost to Africa’s most populous country ravaged by years of domestic strife and the effects of military dictatorship.

But difficulties remain on the horizon that could temporarily disrupt Sino-Nigerian bilateral relations. Although the country’s economy has improved dramatically under President Obasanjo, it lacks diversity, with 95 percent to all government revenues generated from oil. Any unexpected disruption in energy exports could translate into serious problems for Abuja and foreign investors.

Moreover, vandalism has become worse over the past few months with attacks on Royal Dutch Shell’s pipeline in the Opobo Channel in December and subsequent attacks on the Brass Creek fields. Shell has estimated that 455,000 bb/d of its oil production has been shut down as a result of the attacks. Kidnappings of expatriate oil workers in the Niger Delta region by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) earlier this year have also increased concerns surrounding the security of the county’s energy infrastructure.

Problems aside, the bilateral relationship still holds tremendous promise for both countries. All told, China is considering approximately US$7 billion in various investments in the West African nation. "They [Chinese] understand our environment and that’s why they want to invest. We will continue to appeal to them to come and invest," noted Joe Anichebe, spokesman for BPE, Nigeria’s agency in-charge of privatization.

Sino-Nigerian relations have become closer as a result of China’s need for energy and Nigeria’s need for investment. As a result, the budding relationship will likely stimulate more intense rivalries between countries for access to energy resources on the continent. For the time being, however, President Hu is determined to look beyond potential conflicts; instead concentrating his diplomatic efforts on Nigeria with the hope that any short-term discomfort will be offset by long-term economic and energy commitments.

This article originally appeared in TCS Daily.

What we are fighting for

The third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has been marked by anti-war demonstrations, polls suggesting evaporating public support for the effort to consolidate that country’s liberation and paroxysms of doubt by America ‘s finger-in-the-wind politicians. It seems like a good time to reflect anew on the true nature of the conflict — and why have no choice but to wage it with tenacity and to a successful conclusion.

A Film for Our Times

Fortunately, we are greatly aided in that task by the timely arrival of an extraordinary film: "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West." Viewing this documentary should hereafter be considered a prerequisite for participating in the debate about the national security challenges we face, and what must be done to address them.

That is so because "Obsession" is an unblinking, and deeply disturbing, portrait of our most immediate and dangerous enemy, in Iraq and elsewhere — the ideology best described as Islamofascism.

The film’s conclusion is as inescapable as it is well documented: Adherents to this totalitarian political movement are determined to destroy the Free World, whose nations, values and institutions are seen as impediments to the global triumph of the Islamists’ preferred, Taliban-style religious rule. For our enemies, Iraq represents but one front in a world war. And we, too, must recognize it as such.

The full dimensions of that War for the Free World are laid bare in "Obsession" from an extraordinary array of sources. For example, penetrating analyses are provided by internationally renowned Western experts like Sir Martin Gilbert, Alan Dershowitz, Daniel Pipes, Caroline Glick, Steven Emerson, Robert Wistrich and Itamar Marcus.

The insights of a number of courageous anti-Islamist Muslims (or, in some cases, former Muslims) are, if anything, even more compelling. These include the powerful observations of: the daughter of a terrorist, Nonie Darwish; a former Palestinian terrorist, Walid Shoebat; an Israeli-Arab journalist, Khaled Abu-Toameth; an American imam, Khaleel Mohammed; and two prominent expatriate writers, Salim Mansur and Tashbih Sayyed. They describe with authority the determination and ruthlessness of our common foes.

Lest there be any doubt, however, about the magnitude of the challenge freedom-loving peoples face, the footage in "Obsession" drawn from Islamist sources themselves (notably, their various state-owned and terrorist-sponsored television outlets) is dispositive. It features imams calling for death to America; officials of Mideast governments making plain that the destruction of the United States is God’s will; even tiny children regurgitating their desire for death while killing Israelis, Americans and other infidels.

The Original ‘Axis’ of Evil

The impact of the images of Muslim kids brandishing weapons, marching in goosestep and giving stiff-armed salutes in mass demonstrations underscores a point made in the film by the late Alfons Heck, a former Hitler Youth Group leader in Nazi Germany: Islamofascism is really just the latest in a series of totalitarian ideologies bent on the destruction of the Free World.

"Obsession" makes clear that, like the Fuhrer, the Islamists will not be content with denying the people of Iraq accountable, representative government. Neither would their appetites be sated by the destruction of the State of Israel. In fact, even seemingly less momentous forms of appeasement — such as negotiating with the Islamofascist Iranian — will simply serve to confirm our avowed enemies’ contempt for us, and their confidence in the ultimate victory of their cause.

The connections between the Nazis and the Islamofascists are rooted in more than shared ambitions of world domination and violent methods. As Matthias Kuntzel, a professor at the University of Hamburg and noted German expert on the two ideologies, has observed, "Although Islamism is an independent, anti-Semitic, anti-modern mass movement, its main early promoters — the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and [Haj Amin el-Husseini,] the Mufti [of Jerusalem] and the Qassamites in Palestine — were supported financially and ideologically by agencies of the German National Socialist [Nazi] government."

Totalitarianism on the March

As it happens, Professor Kuntzel participated last week in a conference in Paris co-sponsored by the Center for Security Policy with L’Institute pour la Defense de la Democratie to discuss "Democracies in the face of Islamist Confrontation." The conferees — involving a number of anti-Islamist Muslims as well as non-Muslims from Europe, North America and North Africa — made plain one other ominous parallel: The rising threat of Islamofascism and anti-Semitism within Western European societies today has taken on the feel of the early 1930s, replete with political instability, mounting public unease and a misplaced confidence that accommodation of violent ideologues will translate into at least temporary tranquility.

The return of the totalitarian phenomenon would come as no surprise to Eric Hoffer, whose extraordinary 1951 book "The True Believer : Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" reads as though it was written yesterday. Hoffer recognized that:

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.

The Bottom Line

We are, in short, once again under assault from such a mass movement, one that appeals to large numbers of people, calls on them to die for the cause and will stop at nothing to obtain its totalitarian goals. Unfortunately, in two respects, the threat posed by Islamofascism is even greater than its totalitarian predecessors: Many of its adherents are inside Western societies and are adept at exploiting their political movement’s patina of religiosity to exploit, to the Free World’s detriment, our civil liberties rooted in religious tolerance.

Consequently, as a practical matter, we have no choice but to fight the Islamofascists, both abroad and at home. Surrender, whether in Iraq or elsewhere, is not an option. 

Mortal threat

Suddenly, the Iranian nuclear program is all the buzz. It appears to be nearing the point at which weapons-grade material, if not actual atomic or nuclear weapons, will be in the hands of one of the world’s most dangerous regimes. Given the magnitude of the danger thus posed, it is astounding that the world’s response to date seems confined to rhetorical hand-wringing and diplomatic maneuvering.

To be sure, President Bush and his newly installed German counterpart spent much of their recent summit on the subject. Their entente on the matter evidently will clear the way for referring it to the UN Security Council.

Unfortunately, it seems likely to be subjected there to an open-ended gab-fest. After all, economic sanctions against Iran – the worst punishment most diplomats can imagine – will probably be blocked by the threat of vetoes from Iran ‘s friends in Moscow and Beijing . In any event, U.S. officials are at pains to say that military action is not an option, at least for now.

What, Me Worry?

One can only conclude that this rather flaccid response to the prospect of a nuclear-armed, Islamofascist Iran reflects a sense that the threat thus posed will be somebody else’s problem. Certainly, it is a problem for Israel , which Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared should be "wiped off the map." But since many in the so-called "international community" have little more love than he does for the Jewish State (whether they admit it or not – look at their anti-Israel voting record in the UN), the threat to Israel is unlikely to catalyze action against Iran ‘s mullahocracy.

But what if Iran ‘s nuclear weapons were actually intended to bring about one of Ahmadinejad’s other stated objectives: "a world without America "? Would we indulge in still more talk-a-thons like those of the last two-plus years led by the European Union 3 (Britain, France and Germany) – for which the Iranians have publicly expressed appreciation as "buying time" for their nuclear program?

In fact, there is reason to believe that the Iranian regime is working towards a capability that could destroy America as we know it. A blue-ribbon commission’s report to the Congress last year found that a single nuclear weapon detonated in space high above the United States could unleash an immensely powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP). An EMP wave a million times stronger than the most powerful radio transmitter would damage or destroy the electrical grid and unshielded electronic devices upon which our society utterly depends. The effect (visualized in a short video available at www.WarFooting.com) could be "catastrophic" – possibly reducing America from a 21st Century superpower to a pre-industrial society in the blink of an eye.

Iranian missile tests – including firing a Scud missile off a ship and flying the new Shahab 3 missile in a profile apparently designed to deliver a weapon into space – suggest that the mullahs are seeking an EMP capability. The sort of death and destruction such an attack might precipitate seem consistent with the apocalyptic vision of Shiite extremists, who believe such conditions to be the prerequisite for a messianic age ushered in by the arrival of the "12th imam."

If this is, indeed, what the Iranian regime has in mind, would we wait to act? Would we continue to contract out to the Europeans or the UN the job of protecting our security interests? Would we allow the Israelis – who are under no illusion that their country faces an existential threat from a nuclear-armed Iran – to act alone against a danger we may share?

What Needs to Be Done

The truth of the matter is that we now have no choice but to take several steps:

-First, we must seek to deter an attack on this country with credible, reliable and useable nuclear forces. This will require a resumption of nuclear testing and the introduction of new weapons designed to hold at risk what the Iranian regime holds dear.

-Second, we must field at once missile defenses capable of stopping an Iranian EMP attack. This will require immediately expanding the number of Navy ships with the Aegis fleet air defense system that are equipped to intercept ship-launched ballistic missiles.

-Third, we must take active steps to reduce our nation’s vulnerability to EMP attack. Rep. Roy Blunt has expressed his support for such steps. The other candidates to lead House Republicans are among those national leaders who should give this need priority attention.

-As these measures will take time, it is incumbent upon us to make a concerted effort to help the Iranian people overthrow their government. The regime that threatens us oppresses them. We can – and must – energetically find ways to work against our common foe.

-Finally, we may have no choice but to use military force to disrupt, if not destroy, the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Preparations for doing so should be in train now as this option may need to be exercised far more quickly than some would have us believe.

The Bottom Line

Should such force be necessary, it must be used not only to target the regime’s covert nuclear sites, but also the means by which the Iranian government exercises repressive control over its people (e.g., the security services, religious police, intelligence and communication systems). In so doing, we should make clear our solidarity with the people of Iran and that our fight is with their despotic and malevolent mullahs.

Our war with Iran

Decision Brief     No. 05-D 55                                       2005-10-31

(Washington, D.C.): On October 26th, the new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made international headlines by declaring that "Israel must be wiped off the map." Leaders from around the world tut-tutted that such things really should not be said, ignoring the fact that this goal has been a cornerstone of Iranian policy – and, for that matter, that of a number of other states – for years.

The blood-chilling threat to Israel overshadowed another statement by the one-time Iranian "student" whose cohort seized American hostages in 1979. Ahmadinejad declared in the same speech: "Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?…You had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved."

Read His Lips

In other words, Tehran’s Islamofascists like Ahmadinejad are as focused today as they were at the time twenty-six years ago when, in the midst of the Iranian revolution, they sacked our embassy and seized our diplomats. The main enemy – the "Great Satan" — for Iran’s regime remains the United States. Unless prevented from doing so, it will persist, both on its own and in league with others, to bring about our destruction, as well as that of other freedom-loving people.

Regrettably, this agenda is being largely underwritten by profits the mullahs are obtaining from their oil sales. Thanks to the recent near-tripling of the price per barrel, Iran is now receiving on the order of $125 million more every day in what amounts to found-money. As with the Saudis (whose corresponding windfall is roughly $500 million per day), at least some of these funds are supporting Iranian-sponsored terrorists and financing Tehran’s accelerating weapons of mass destruction programs.

The latter have benefited greatly from our European friends. The so-called EU-3 – Britain, France and Germany – have tried to appease the mullahs into giving up the nuclear weapons program that the Iranian regime is making less and less effort to conceal. Emboldened by the absence of real penalties (or, for that matter, any adverse consequences), Iranian spokesmen have taken to talking openly – and gleefully – about how European diplomacy has "bought time" to bring their nuclear program to fruition. Worse yet, they now have advertised their willingness to share Iran’s nuclear technology with other Islamic nations.

Time is Not on Our Side

The time thus squandered has also allowed Iran to diversify its customer base, bringing China and even democratic India in as major investors in Iran’s state-controlled oil sector and purchasers of its products. Thanks to this arrangement, Tehran has obtained political protection, non-Western revenue streams and sources of advanced weaponry.

Potentially among the latter is a very dangerous new Indian supersonic, sea-skimming and maneuvering cruise missile developed with Russia and known as the BrahMos. India is aggressively marketing this weapon – which poses a grave threat to American naval vessels and potentially to other targets – including in our own hemisphere. Presumably, New Delhi would be no less willing to sell such missiles to the source of much of its imported energy, Iran.

The menace arising from the Iranian regime can no longer be ignored, any more than its president’s rhetoric can be discounted as bluster or considered untroubling since news accounts suggest it is directed at Israel alone. The Shiite Islamofascists in Tehran, like their Sunni counterparts supported by Saudi Arabia, mean what they say about imposing an international Caliphate under a Taliban-style Shari’a law. And they are deadly serious about the fact that countries like ours that stand in the way will have to be wiped from the map, too.

Whether we recognize it or not, this totalitarian ideology is at war with us. And, if we wish to survive, we have no choice but to wage total war against it.

Fortunately, in the case of Iran, we clearly have natural allies in the Iranian people. They are as anxious to dispatch the despotic mullahs who repress them, and threaten us, as we are.

What Is to Be Done?

For this reason among others, we should resist as long as possible resort to military means against the Iranian regime, lest we drive even a public who hates the radical, politicized mullahs into their arms. The United States should, instead, lead the Free World in wielding three other instruments against our enemies in Tehran. We should:

-Wage political warfare. The United States has largely failed to utilize the sorts of techniques that Ronald Reagan employed to delegitimize Soviet communism and to empower its foes within the USSR. Among other things, Americans need to bring to bear the political tradecraft we usually use against one another in our electoral campaigns to defeat our Islamofascist foes.

-Divest terror. American investors hold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stocks in companies that partner with Iran, the other Islamofascist regimes and their friends. The South Africa divestment campaign and "socially responsible" investing have demonstrated that, by redirecting investments into corporations that do not engage in unacceptable practices, real pressure for change can be brought to bear. (For more on how, see www.DivestTerror.org.)

-Start weaning the Free World from oil. Without oil revenues, the Islamofascists would be far less formidable foes. We have no choice now but to achieve energy security by using existing transportation technologies to run on alternative fuels like ethanol, methanol and electricity, made from Free World sources. (The blueprint for doing so is at www.SetAmericaFree.org.)

As Ahmadinejad knows, we have a stark choice: a world without America, or one without Islamofascism. The latter goal is attainable and surely must be achieved.

 

Removing ‘special’ from the U.S.-U.K. relationship

Decision Brief     No. 05-D 48                                         2005-09-22


(Washington, D.C.): For nearly a century, the United States has had no more militarily potent and reliable ally than the United Kingdom. From the First World War to the current conflict in Iraq, the U.S. and U.K. have operated intimately and with unprecedented success in numerous theaters under diverse conditions.


Over these past nine decades, much more than the security of both nations has been assured by this closest of ties, known as the “special relationship.” It is no exaggeration to say that the world has been a far freer and safer place because of it.


In all likelihood, moreover, the future safety of these two democratic allies, and a great many besides, will be determined by the viability of their partnership at the strategic and military levels. Just as British participation in American-led campaigns has been indispensable in the past, so it will surely be in the future.


Trouble Ahead


Citizens on both sides of the “pond,” therefore must view with the greatest of concern what is, arguably, the most significant development in the history of the special relationship: a largely stealthy, or at least unpublicized, yet systematic move by the United Kingdom to integrate its armed forces with those of the European Union.


The cumulative effect of this endeavor, if brought to fruition, cannot be overstated. In the future, it will become extraordinarily difficult – if not, as a practical matter impossible – for the UK to fight without permission from the EU. Even then, it will be problematic whether British forces will be able ever again to fight effectively alongside the US.


Given the enormity of these stakes, it is astounding that this development has proceeded with virtually no public notice, let alone serious debate, on either side of the Atlantic. It would appear this may be due to an understandable expectation on the part of the EU and members of the British Government that they would be thwarted from taking such steps were word of this seismic geo-strategic shift to get out.


Fortunately for admirers and supporters of the U.S.-U.K. special relationship, the true magnitude and import of this shift has now been brought to light in a recently-published study by Dr. Richard North, former research director at the European Parliament for the group of European Democracies and Diversities, entitled The Wrong Side of the Hill: The ‘Secret’ Realignment of UK Defence Policy.


Enforced Europeanization


In 1999, Britain and other European nations reached an agreement to establish a European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). The stated purpose was to build a military component independent of NATO that would be capable of deploying 60,000 personnel within 60 days and sustaining for at least a year.


Many analysts continue blithely to dismiss the significance of the ERRF, an attitude generally encouraged by the British government of Tony Blair. They claim it constitutes not a standing army that is, in fact, separate and apart from NATO. Rather, the participating states emphasize their commitment to NATO and offer assurances that contributions of units to the ERRF would be “voluntarily,” so as not to diminish the capabilities of the Atlantic Alliance.


Even if that were true (and it likely is not), for such a force to be effective, whatever units are assigned to it by the various European nations would require a great deal of interoperability. In the name of such integration, the EU has used the requirements of the ERRF to promulgate and impose common standards in the procurement of military hardware by member states, including Britain.


By so doing, the European Union has revealed its true intentions. As Mark Leonard of the pro-EU think-tank Center for European Reform has explained: “By creating common standards that are implemented through national institutions, Europe can take over countries without necessarily becoming a target for hostility.” (Emphasis added.)


In other words, the European Union has found a way to exercise control over national armies from the inside. The most consequential and worrying of Brussels’ targets is the most independent of those militaries: Her Majesty’s armed forces.


Whose ‘Next Generation’?


Despite the absence of any formal acknowledgment that such a move is afoot, and notwithstanding official assurances to the contrary, proof that Europe is effectively creating – via the ERRF – a competitor to NATO can be found in its recent military procurement decisions. The most important of these relate to systems designed for what is called “next generation warfare.”


At the core of such capabilities is a concept generically known as “net-centric warfare.” It is predicated on the melding of the power of military hardware with advanced information and communications technology to gain enhanced battlefield situational awareness and combat lethality.


Thanks largely to French and German ambitions to create an alternative to the U.S.-dominated NATO alliance and compete with America’s military-industrial capabilities, two competitive and largely incompatible systems aimed at implementing net-centric warfare have emerged from the United States and Europe.


The key to net-centric warfare is a satellite-based system generically known as GPS for “global positioning system.” The location, navigation and timing signals sent by multiple GPS satellites makes possible sophisticated, real-time command and control of warfighting units.


Currently, effective GPS technology is provided only by the United States through its Navstar program to – among others – NATO. Europe, however, is well advanced in its plans to launch a rival system called Galileo, which the EU intends to use for military as well as civilian purposes. Galileo is currently projected to be fully operational by 2008.


Importantly, equipment designed to work solely with Navstar will not be compatible for use with Galileo, and vice versa. Some in Europe have actually wanted Galileo’s signals to be set in such a way as to jam those of the American rival. At the very least, as Europe builds its future military force to be Galileo-enabled, it will severely complicate interoperations with militaries that are Navstar-enabled.


Goodbye, Union Jack


Prior to 1998, the United Kingdom was working in partnership with the United States on a host of major military development projects, including many that involved the use of net-centric warfare. This took an abrupt turn, however, after an Anglo-French summit meeting in December 1998 at St. Malo, France. On that occasion, Prime Minister Blair – hoping to bolster his claim to leadership in Europe – offered to integrate Britain’s armed forces with those of the EU.


For Britain to become an effective member of the ERRF, it will be necessary to make its equipment – which currently uses Navstar – Galileo-enabled. Since the costs of allowing such gear to be capable of utilizing both U.S. and European GPS systems are considered prohibitive, the procurement decisions that have flowed from the St. Malo summit have decisively begun to move the British military into the European camp.


Dr. North’s paper enumerates a myriad of examples of one-time Anglo-American military development and/or procurement programs that have been scaled back or, more often, abandoned altogether. To cite but one: Prior to St. Malo, the U.K. had partnered with the United States to develop a vital common system for “intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance.” It was to be delivered by a new generation of battlefield reconnaissance vehicles through the bi-national U.S. Future Scout and Cavalry System (FSCS)/U.K. Tactical Reconnaissance Armoured Combat Equipment Requirement (TRACER) program.


In 2000, Congress directed a reconfiguration of the program and shifted funding from the FSCS to a more ambitious concept known as Future Combat System (FCS). The British Government, in the post-St. Malo environment, decided no longer to participate in the restructured project.


The flip-side, of course, of Britain’s decisions not to team with the United States is the rapidly expanding number of development and procurement deals London is striking with the Europeans. Examples include:



  • replacing its fleet of U.S.-built C-130 and C-17 airlifters with the A400M ‘Eurolifter’


  • rejecting U.S. bids to supply its support vehicles in favor of those from a German firm


  • abandoning a U.S.-U.K. joint project to develop a 155mm howitzer in favor of a French gun that will fire German-designed shells


  • determining that its main strike aircraft will be the Eurofighter


  • sharing, in the future, three giant aircraft carriers with France, with a French firm playing a central role in their design and construction


  • ensuring that development of its UAV wing will be led by France


  • receiving its battlefield radar systems from Germany and Sweden

These decisions are not taking place in a vacuum or willy-nilly. They reflect, in fact, commitments made in what has come to be called “the secret treaty,” a document signed by Britain and five other European countries in 2000. It calls explicitly for “harmonized force development and equipment acquisition planning” and commits the signatories to its realization.


While the treaty was concluded outside of the EU, its intention could not have been clearer. In fact, in 2004, EU members agreed to the creation of the European Defense Agency that was then charged with implementing this agreement.


The political, as opposed to the practical, impetus for these procurement decisions is made even more evident by the fact that Britain is building a force inferior to that which could mesh with America’s – and doing so at a far greater cost than would be required for the more capable force. It is estimated that the UK has squandered some 10 billion pounds on projects aimed at Europeanization.


Bad for Everybody


The likelihood of a complete breakdown in common standards between the U.S. military and those of EU member states is very real. Should Britain continue to realign its defense apparatus with that of the European Union through a procurement policy that excludes and is incompatible with America’s, the implications for the United States, Great Britain and perhaps even the EU would be nothing less than devastating:



  • The United States will lose a formidable ally and partner in the British military. This would be the case even if Brussels were to permit Britain to fight alongside the United States – something that the recent unpleasantness over U.K. support for the liberation of Iraq demonstrates cannot be assumed. Britain would be unable to offer anything more than token support, as Anglo-American interoperability will inexorably be eliminated.


  • Britain ‘s security interests will not be well served, either. After all, the Franco-German aspiration to create a European army – which cannot, as a practical matter, amount to much without Britain’s highly professional military personnel and resources, is not really aimed at producing a formidable fighting force. Rather, it is but an instrument for furthering European integration and bringing the British, whose independence has long been a thorn in the side of continentals, under discipline.


  • It is predictable, moreover, that – having created this Rapid Reaction Force – the Europeans will feel obliged to use it, albeit in what Brussels (read, the French and Germans) view as politically correct ways. These will, at best, fritter away precious British and other European defense resources. At worse, the EU may well become embroiled in conflicts from which it is ill-equipped to emerge victorious. Having done so, it may even require American help – which will be hard to provide given the incompatibility with U.S. systems deliberately designed into EU forces.

The Bottom Line


The temptation is to believe that, since the full effect of these long-term procurement decisions will only be felt many years from now, supporters of the special U.S.-U.K. relationship need not be unduly concerned. There will, after all, theoretically be ample time to reverse policy and its programmatic effects.


Unfortunately, the inertia such procurements take on – involving everything from the investment of vast sums to the staking of political and military careers to the ripple effects throughout the armed forces’ inventory and logistical systems of innumerable decisions, many of which have very long lead-times – there is no time to waste if we are to preserve an Anglo-American relationship that is not only special, but indispensable.