Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Real Environmentalists Support Nuclear Power
With the United Nations focusing yet again on the issue of climate change this week, "Cap and Trade" legislation is gathering the attention ofthe US Senate again. The House bill passed earlier in the summer with a handful of Republican votes after many blue-dog Democrats balked.
To make the legislation more palatable in the Senate, Joe Lieberman is resorting to an interesting tactic: including funding for coal and nuclear plants to win Republican votes. It's an interesting strategy that threatens to alienate many of the liberal Dems who originally supported the Cap & Trade bill.
It's hard to see what more funding for coal-fired plants would accomplish, even the so-called "clean coal" plants. But nuclear power promises electricity for years to come, while emitting no carbon dioxide or gases that cause smog. If I were a Senator, I'd be tempted to vote for the cap & trade bill solely if it had provisions which would wean America away from coal towards nuclear power.
Because "clean" power sources like solar and wind are decades away from meeting America's power needs, the more pragmatic environmentalists are starting to come around. But the bulk of the environmentalist community still rejects nuclear power out of fears of meltdown, nuclear theft, and spent fuel reprocessing and storage. None of these issues is impossible to deal with. After all, we're living in the era of "hope"; these issues have been largely solved by the scientific community, but political considerations prevent them from being implemented. Even President Obama is guilty of closing the door on Yucca Mountain, even though study after study has shown Yucca Mountain to be the best place to store spent nuclear fuel.
The proponents of anthropomorphic global warming present us with a false choice between the economic impacts of "cap and trade," the faraway future of clean, renewable energy, or runaway global warming. But if our nation gives nuclear power the support it deserves, we could combat the potential for anthropomorphic global warming without sacrificing our quality of life.
To make the legislation more palatable in the Senate, Joe Lieberman is resorting to an interesting tactic: including funding for coal and nuclear plants to win Republican votes. It's an interesting strategy that threatens to alienate many of the liberal Dems who originally supported the Cap & Trade bill.
It's hard to see what more funding for coal-fired plants would accomplish, even the so-called "clean coal" plants. But nuclear power promises electricity for years to come, while emitting no carbon dioxide or gases that cause smog. If I were a Senator, I'd be tempted to vote for the cap & trade bill solely if it had provisions which would wean America away from coal towards nuclear power.
Because "clean" power sources like solar and wind are decades away from meeting America's power needs, the more pragmatic environmentalists are starting to come around. But the bulk of the environmentalist community still rejects nuclear power out of fears of meltdown, nuclear theft, and spent fuel reprocessing and storage. None of these issues is impossible to deal with. After all, we're living in the era of "hope"; these issues have been largely solved by the scientific community, but political considerations prevent them from being implemented. Even President Obama is guilty of closing the door on Yucca Mountain, even though study after study has shown Yucca Mountain to be the best place to store spent nuclear fuel.
The proponents of anthropomorphic global warming present us with a false choice between the economic impacts of "cap and trade," the faraway future of clean, renewable energy, or runaway global warming. But if our nation gives nuclear power the support it deserves, we could combat the potential for anthropomorphic global warming without sacrificing our quality of life.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Conceding to Putin
When it comes to "change," the areas of defense and foreign relations are ripe pickings for a president that wants a blanket undoing of the Bush legacy. President Obama announced that the US would abandon plans to place missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead, the US will guard against Iranian missile attacks with sea-based defenses and mobile radars.
The danger the Obama Administration is running comes from this concession to the Russians. While the president might view the change as a step towards an improved defense against Iran, the Russians view it as weakness. At least George Bush understood that the perception of American weakness by hostile nations and terrorist groups can be just as dangerous as real weakness.
For Russia, American missile defenses have been perceived as hostility. The reality is far more innocuous, as the Russians have more than enough missiles to overwhelm any possible American defense. The European component of the missile shield was an extra insult to the Russians, because it represented further strengthening of America's ties with Russia's old clients.
Understanding Russian foreign policy is best accomplished under the mindset of paranoia. Russia had been attacked by Germany twice in the 20th century; the Russian response was installing puppet governments in the nations that buffered Russia from the defeated Germany. With the collapse of Communism in Europe, the new Soviet fear is American influence in the former satellite states and the breakaway Soviet republics. The Russian invasion of Georgia last summer (Remember that one? When the best response Obama could muster was some mealy-mouthed words about the UN?) was a bald-faced aggression designed to weaken Georgia's pro-American president.
The Russians are nervous about missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic because they create an American military presence within Russia's "buffer zone," and they're a further step towards the integration of two former Soviet satellites into the western European community. Again, it's a Russian delusion that either of those nations want anything to do with the Russians. The central Slavs of Poland and the Czech Republic have always sided with the Catholic Church over the Orthodox Church, the Roman alphabet over the Cyrillic alphabet, and with the western Europeans over the eastern Slavs. Poland and the Czech Republic have always been, for all intents and purposes, part of the western European cultural heritage. America must unequivocally tell the Russians to butt out.
So what does this have to do with Obama and missile defense? Because it creates the appearance that America will cave to Russian demands. There are perfectly legit reasons for wanting a system that's more mobile and flexible. I see a lot of virtue in the system that the administration currently favors, although I harbor my doubts as to whether it can detect, track and intercept Iranian missiles at the same range that the ground-based system could. But pulling the missile defenses out without replacing them with some other type of military presence looks like unilateral withdrawal in the eyes of the Russians. If nothing else, the president could have offered a pullback from Poland and the Czech Republic if the Russians agreed to be more cooperative on the Iranian nuclear program. But now that card is lost to us, tossed off the table forever.
The fallout from the central European pullback will linger for quite some time. What will an emboldened Russia do next in regards to Iran or central Europe? Which American ally in the former Soviet block will Putin invade next? Apparently the new foreign policy consists of fecklessness in the face of Russian authoritarianism. The mantra of "hope" need not apply to America's supporters in central and eastern Europe.
The danger the Obama Administration is running comes from this concession to the Russians. While the president might view the change as a step towards an improved defense against Iran, the Russians view it as weakness. At least George Bush understood that the perception of American weakness by hostile nations and terrorist groups can be just as dangerous as real weakness.
For Russia, American missile defenses have been perceived as hostility. The reality is far more innocuous, as the Russians have more than enough missiles to overwhelm any possible American defense. The European component of the missile shield was an extra insult to the Russians, because it represented further strengthening of America's ties with Russia's old clients.
Understanding Russian foreign policy is best accomplished under the mindset of paranoia. Russia had been attacked by Germany twice in the 20th century; the Russian response was installing puppet governments in the nations that buffered Russia from the defeated Germany. With the collapse of Communism in Europe, the new Soviet fear is American influence in the former satellite states and the breakaway Soviet republics. The Russian invasion of Georgia last summer (Remember that one? When the best response Obama could muster was some mealy-mouthed words about the UN?) was a bald-faced aggression designed to weaken Georgia's pro-American president.
The Russians are nervous about missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic because they create an American military presence within Russia's "buffer zone," and they're a further step towards the integration of two former Soviet satellites into the western European community. Again, it's a Russian delusion that either of those nations want anything to do with the Russians. The central Slavs of Poland and the Czech Republic have always sided with the Catholic Church over the Orthodox Church, the Roman alphabet over the Cyrillic alphabet, and with the western Europeans over the eastern Slavs. Poland and the Czech Republic have always been, for all intents and purposes, part of the western European cultural heritage. America must unequivocally tell the Russians to butt out.
So what does this have to do with Obama and missile defense? Because it creates the appearance that America will cave to Russian demands. There are perfectly legit reasons for wanting a system that's more mobile and flexible. I see a lot of virtue in the system that the administration currently favors, although I harbor my doubts as to whether it can detect, track and intercept Iranian missiles at the same range that the ground-based system could. But pulling the missile defenses out without replacing them with some other type of military presence looks like unilateral withdrawal in the eyes of the Russians. If nothing else, the president could have offered a pullback from Poland and the Czech Republic if the Russians agreed to be more cooperative on the Iranian nuclear program. But now that card is lost to us, tossed off the table forever.
The fallout from the central European pullback will linger for quite some time. What will an emboldened Russia do next in regards to Iran or central Europe? Which American ally in the former Soviet block will Putin invade next? Apparently the new foreign policy consists of fecklessness in the face of Russian authoritarianism. The mantra of "hope" need not apply to America's supporters in central and eastern Europe.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Broken Will
Imagine my surprise a week ago to learn that with the remembrance of the 9/11 attacks coming quickly, conservative commentator George Will thinks it's time to get out of Afghanistan.
Anybody who read Michael Scheuer's 2004 tome Imperial Hubris probably foresaw what's happening in Afghanistan: a xenophobic population turns against the US and throws its support back to the warlords. Scheuer argued that US should have left the Taliban in place and focused its efforts on wiping out al Qaeda. It sounds nice, but it's hard to see the Taliban allowing free reign for the Americans to take out their al Qaeda benefactors, or how we can keep a broken al Qaeda from regrouping when the issues of poverty and political oppression within the middle east still drive young men towards "jihad."
One of George Will's big points is that there's no will to sustain a large force to protect the Afghan populace for decades. Indeed, I rejected the argument "Iraq is a distraction from Afghanistan" because the Bush Administration was never serious about sending a large force to Afghanistan, regardless of whether we invaded Iraq. Among our NATO allies, countries like the UK and Canada are taking the bulk of the casualties, while Germany, Italy and France are keeping their troops safe in rear-echelon positions. So why is our commitment to the mission waning? It would seem like the policymakers truly have forgotten the horrors of 9/11 and aren't willing to take all necessary steps to prevent al Qaeda's resurgence.
The scariest part of thinking about Afghanistan is having no idea what the end state will look like. At least Iraq resembles a predictable end-state; Iraq has a strong central government with an army that's capable of containing the country's residual insurgency. Afghanistan is still one of the world's poorest countries, and culturally is verymuch living in the stone age. What does Afghanistan have to look like before we can leave? Does Afghanistan need a ceremonial leader who vests the real political power in regional warlords? What quality of life to Afghans need before we can declare Afghanistan safe? There will undoubtedly be a need for a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan long after the military one has ended. But with so many warlords, many of whom operating independently of the Taliban, how do we get them all together to root out al Qaeda and the Taliban?
The Afghan puzzle is one of history's greatest challenges, and I hope that the Obama defense and state departments are up to solving it. It's a fight that seems futile as much as it seems brutal. Yet the consequences of failure are hard to escape, and reverberate seriously across the globe.
Anybody who read Michael Scheuer's 2004 tome Imperial Hubris probably foresaw what's happening in Afghanistan: a xenophobic population turns against the US and throws its support back to the warlords. Scheuer argued that US should have left the Taliban in place and focused its efforts on wiping out al Qaeda. It sounds nice, but it's hard to see the Taliban allowing free reign for the Americans to take out their al Qaeda benefactors, or how we can keep a broken al Qaeda from regrouping when the issues of poverty and political oppression within the middle east still drive young men towards "jihad."
One of George Will's big points is that there's no will to sustain a large force to protect the Afghan populace for decades. Indeed, I rejected the argument "Iraq is a distraction from Afghanistan" because the Bush Administration was never serious about sending a large force to Afghanistan, regardless of whether we invaded Iraq. Among our NATO allies, countries like the UK and Canada are taking the bulk of the casualties, while Germany, Italy and France are keeping their troops safe in rear-echelon positions. So why is our commitment to the mission waning? It would seem like the policymakers truly have forgotten the horrors of 9/11 and aren't willing to take all necessary steps to prevent al Qaeda's resurgence.
The scariest part of thinking about Afghanistan is having no idea what the end state will look like. At least Iraq resembles a predictable end-state; Iraq has a strong central government with an army that's capable of containing the country's residual insurgency. Afghanistan is still one of the world's poorest countries, and culturally is verymuch living in the stone age. What does Afghanistan have to look like before we can leave? Does Afghanistan need a ceremonial leader who vests the real political power in regional warlords? What quality of life to Afghans need before we can declare Afghanistan safe? There will undoubtedly be a need for a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan long after the military one has ended. But with so many warlords, many of whom operating independently of the Taliban, how do we get them all together to root out al Qaeda and the Taliban?
The Afghan puzzle is one of history's greatest challenges, and I hope that the Obama defense and state departments are up to solving it. It's a fight that seems futile as much as it seems brutal. Yet the consequences of failure are hard to escape, and reverberate seriously across the globe.
