Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve

Six Party Talks

DPRK – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) desires “Reward for Action” in its negotiations with the U.S. on nuclear non-proliferation. It seeks the lifting of sanctions and blockade of its territory as well as substantial energy subsidies and no doubt other benefits directly from the U.S. if it is to halt its nuclear program (DPRK). It has persistently pursued bilateral negotiations with the U.S. and it seems fairly obvious its objective in this regard is twofold, first that the U.S. provide significant aid to the DPRK, second to demonstrate to the world that the DPRK is worth something. Kim Jong-il seems to carry an inferiority complex and feels that bilateral talks with the U.S. would be an admission on its part that the DPRK is of some degree of worth.

ROK – The Republic Of Korea (ROK) has carried a softer line approach to the DPRK in its desires for a nuclear free Korean Peninsula. The reason for the ROk’s softer line approach is likely that it shares a common border and common ethnic background with the north. It has made significant concessions including to offer 2 gigawatts of power to the DPRK in direct exchange for the north dismantling its nuclear program (Hayes).

PRC – The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is interested in its own security more than it is concerned with whether or not the DPRK obtains nuclear weapons. The DPRK creates a buffer zone between the democratic ROC (and hence the United States) and itself. That buffer zone is therefore critical to the PRC’s sense of domestic isolation from the democratic powers of the world. As a result, the PRC will sustain the DPRK as long as the DPRK doesn’t cross the PRC, and the PRC will permit a DPRK nuclear program as long as the DPRK continues to do the PRC’s bidding. The PRC would also be dramatically and detrimentally affected by another war on the Korean peninsula. It therefore would prefer to insure peace between the Koreas and if that means permitting a nuclear armed DPRK, then so be it (Horowitz).

Russian Federation – The Russian Federation is nearly as concerned with a second war on the Korean Peninsula as is the PRC. Such a war would be detrimental to all of East Asia. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by the DPRK is a significant security concern to Russia as well and Russia has stated its intention to prevent said acquisition due to these security implications. Despite the security implications to the Russian Federation, it has strongly emphasized its rejection of any forcible measures to either prevent the DPRK’s acquisition of nuclear weapons or for regime change. It stresses the necessity for a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear problem. Ultimately, Russia would like the DPRK to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from which it absconded in 2002 (Toloraya).

Japan – Japan’s primary objective in the context of the six-party talks is to insure a stable East Asia/Asia Pacific region. Although this is the case, Japan has some critical reasons to maintain the status quo in the region. Japan clearly sees the DPRK as a significant security threat and it is the existence of this threat that Japan can fully justify its own defensive military buildup. Japan also appreciates the focus the DPRK takes from the PRC. Without the constant vigilance of the PRC being drawn toward the DPRK, China and Japan could easily develop into adversarial neighbors. The drawn out process of negotiation with all the attention being focused on the DPRK is a benefit to Japan that allows it to pursue its own ends without much interference from China (Okano).

United States – The United States has several objectives in its participation in the six-party talks. Its first and primary objective is the nuclear disarmament of the DPRK and a nuclear free Korean Peninsula. This clear objective is really the central reason the United States is even involved in the six-party talks. The second is that any concessions must be one hundred percent verifiable, otherwise the DPRK will continue on the same course it has always been on in bluffing during negotiations, then proceeding to do whatever it wants regardless of the outcome of the most recent round of negotiations. The United States would also like to insist on continued negotiations with the six-party platform once the issue of DPRK nuclear development has been resolved (Spring). It is doubtful however that any American analyst would be willing to put their money on the DPRK doing anything it says it will do.

One of the main problems in negotiations among the six parties seems to be a misunderstanding and an imbalance surrounding geographic issues between those parties with near term interests at stake and those with more long term interests in the process. For example, it seems that the PRC and the ROK have different near term objectives than does the United States. The two aforementioned states are geographically bound to the DPRK and as a result must be more concerned with the DPRK issue in its entirety, that is, economically, politically, demographically, militarily, etc. Their concerns over the DPRK must necessarily consider the whole of the problem rather than simply the possible emergent threats posed by exclusively military issues, whereas the United States, in consequence of its distant geographic location, has only distant direct threats to its domestic security to be concerned about. The United States has allies in the region in the ROK and Japan, and more distantly Australia and New Zealand, but there is little in the way of direct threats in the near future to America’s homeland that it has need to be concerned about. Instability in the DPRK, however, be it the result of economic pressure, military discord, or innumerable other issues, directly affect those states which geographically border the DPRK (Yun, 12).

The problem has been discussed extensively in the past, but the United States also has a problem with playing the bully. As the world’s sole superpower, it appears easy for the United States to shove smaller states around in order to insure favorable circumstances for itself and its allies. In some ways, the United States may have lost an edge diplomatically because it has relied so heavily on “hard power” to solve its problems. In his article The Logic of Positive Engagement, Miroslav Nincic discusses the pros and cons of overuse of “the stick” at the expense of “the carrot” (Nincic). Like a bull in a china shop, the United States has a tendency to barge into a sensitive situation with very bellicose assumptions that its will should be done simply as a result of its comprehensive might. While, “the carrot” approach may be significantly lacking on its own merits, the United States could take some lessons from the old fable of the sun, the wind, and the man in the coat. The wind boasted to the sun of the ease with which he could remove the man’s coat. The wind blew, and blew, and blew, and all he succeeded in doing was encouraging the man to wrap ever tighter his coat around himself. When the wind had exhausted himself and admitted defeat, the sun came out and of course by the warmth of his glow, the man voluntarily removed his coat. Although “the carrot” approach may not be the answer in the case of the DPRK, especially given the results of past experience, it may be in the interests of the United States and its allies if the United States was to take a step back and allow the ROK and Japan to do the bulk of the negotiating, with the backing of the United States.


“DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Six-Party Talks.” Pyongyang, June 28, 2004. http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~caplabtb/dprk/SPT0406.htm.

Hayes, Peter, et al. “South Korea’s Power Play at the Six-Party Talks.” Nautilus.org, July 21, 2005. http://www.nautilus.org/napsnet/sr/2005/0560ROK_Energy_Aid.pdf (accessed March 31, 2010).

Horowitz, Shale and Min Ye. “China’s Grand Strategy and the Six-Party Talks.” University of Wisconsin, September 2006. http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/5/3/3/8/pages153388/p153388-1.php (accessed April 5, 2010).

Nincic, Miroslav. “The Logic of Positive Engagement: Dealing with Renegade Regimes.” International Studies Perspectives, 2006.

Okano-Heijmans, Maaike. “Japan as Spoiler in the Six-Party Talks: Single-Issue Politics and Economic Diplomacy towards North Korea.” Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, October 21, 2008. http://www.japanfocus.org/-Maaike-Okano_Heijmans/2929 (accessed April 5, 2010).

Spring, Baker and Balbina Hwang. “U.S. Strategy For the Six-Party Talks.” The Heritage Foundation, July 22, 2005. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2005/07/US-Strategy-For-the-Six-Party-Talks (accessed April 5, 2010).

Toloraya, Georgy. “The Six Party Talks: A Russian Perspective.” Asian Perspective, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2008. http://www.asianperspective.org/articles/v32n4-d.pdf (accessed April 5, 2010).

Yun, Philip W. and Gi-Wook Shin. “North Korea: 2005 and Beyond.” The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2006. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/21024/1_Introduction_NK2005_FI.pdf (accessed March 31, 2010).

Rational Actor Model

The rational actor model is largely based on assumptions about uncertainties. In the realm of international relations and how states relate to one another, there are few certainties. The very nature of uncertainties makes it somewhat irrational to make assumptions about them. Therefore, the rational actor model, while making assumptions about said uncertainties, is irrational by nature. There are too many uncertainties in international relations to safely and accurately assume a specific outcome based on a given set of circumstances (Green, 11).

While the rational actor model makes rational assumptions about the way rational people make decisions, i.e. (1) identifying an objective or desired outcome, (2) establishing a set of potential courses of action to achieve that outcome, (3) determining possible benefits and consequences for each potential course of action, and (4) choosing that option which is most likely to provide the best potential outcome based on costs and benefits (essence of decision doc, 2), it is quite irrational to assume one’s assumptions based on a certain set of fluid circumstances will remain the best of all possible options once the set of circumstances has been acted upon. In other words, once the rational actor has chosen his/her course of action, the circumstances change based on the results of that action and his/her opponent’s perception of that action. Once the action has been taken, the circumstances used to conclude that the action was the best of all possible actions change, making the action nothing more than a gamble in the first place. No set of circumstances is consistently static, especially once they have been acted upon. Circumstances are entirely dynamic and to assume otherwise would lead one to make irrational assumptions, and therefore irrational decisions.

Rational actor model assumes the rationality of the actors and that all actors are equally rational. It also assumes that equally rational actors will come to the same conclusions if given identical circumstances. This is clearly not the case. An obvious current example of the fallacy of this assumption is found in the national debate over health care reform. Clearly there are a lot of very rational people on both sides of the debate, and yet polar opposite opinions as to which outcome would be best for America given the same set of circumstances. When President Kennedy was provided a set of circumstances by which to make a decision in the Cuban Missile Crisis, he could easily do so but to do so with a reasonable assumption that the Soviets would respond in a certain way was irrational because President Kennedy’s and Premier Khrushchev’s experiences and understandings about life were very different. Culturally, politically, socially, the two were very different men, and as a result could likely make very different seemingly rational decisions if given the identical set of circumstances.

Rational actor model is based largely on assumptions about many components of the circumstances and the players. In order to make decisions, one must of necessity take risks in determining the best decision to reach the best possible outcome. Winston Churchill said, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried” (Green, 2). I believe this is the case with rational actor model. Although there are plethora of other behavioral models out there, and although it certainly has its flaws, it seems to be as effective at its purpose as any other.

Allison, Graham T. and Philip Zelikow. “Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.” 1999, Chapters 1 and 2.

Green, Steven L. “Rational Choice Theory: An Overview.” Baylor University Faculty Development Seminar on Rational Choice Theory, May 2002. http://business.baylor.edu/steve_green/green1.doc (accessed March 3, 2010).

PEACE ON EARTH: Maybe Not Such A Good Thing

Introduction

Opposition, resistance, and specifically in recent times (the past few thousand years) warfare, have produced tremendous capability and innovation in the human race, and a necessary drive to develop further and faster. This state of perpetual opposition is vital element in the ability of mankind to progress and without which it would have utterly failed to survive. War is a crucial component of that state of perpetual opposition which effectively and efficiently motivates the human race to advance. In modern times, warfare is a necessary part of human progression. In the absence of war, the world would suffer significant unintended consequences.

The Need to Survive

Mankind is habitually hostile. His hostility stems from his most basic instinct to survive. In many senses his survivalist instinct rivals the most voracious of the animal kingdom. To survive is his utmost quest and he will often, when more rational means have been exhausted, go to the most dire of extremes, including filial cannibalism, in order to assure its accomplishment.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains that the basest needs of mankind, those needs which are most needful for survival such as air, water, and food, are the most critical needs to mankind(1). Clearly, without those needs being met, a living being would quickly die. In order to assure his own survival, it is his basest instinct to insure his access to those needs. No matter the circumstance, disregarding any potential obstacle or any other of the needs within Maslow’s hierarchy whether it be shelter, societal acceptance, or any other, regardless of dangers, discomforts, or physical or psychological pain, a man in severe want of one of those basic needs, facing his own demise if that need is not met, will go to extreme lengths to obtain it, or die in his attempt.

In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin proposed that the system of natural selection in the natural world forces organisms into a cycle of relentless strife for life (2). Those which survive the strife were deemed by him to be fit for life and the propagation of that species. Those which did not survive of course were relegated to the fossil beds. Those species which survived perpetually gained in strength, cunning, subterfuge, and deceit, until they eventually reigned over other species in their ecosystems or developed survival mechanisms by which they could evade the stronger species. Ultimately nature, by its own infinite and universal understanding, selected only the strongest for survival. Only the strongest of those species would eventually reign supreme over all other life.

It is the inherent nature of mankind to strive and struggle, by strength or by cunning, to overcome his surroundings. When the environment was too cold to survive, he built a fire and took the furs of other animals to keep warm. When he was hungry, he made tools for hunting to feed himself. When the hunters and gatherers were doomed by far more physically superior predators, they banded together and destroyed that predator. When the tribe was threatened by another tribe, they built fortifications. When a civilization was threatened by another civilization, they developed more destructive and sophisticated weaponry and contrived strategies to defeat that enemy. Throughout his comparatively short history, mankind has survived because of its struggle to survive rather than merely continuing to exist. Surprisingly, mankind has progressed in his short existence farther and faster than any of his Darwinian kin in the animal kingdom. Not only has he progressed farther and faster, but he has subdued all those and become master over all other forms of life on Earth. It is the struggle that has made him strong.

Struggle Against Opposition

In his book “War of the Worlds,” H. G. Wells wrote, “By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were [they] ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain” (3). The one reason by which “man has bought his birthright of the earth” is that through struggle against insatiable opposition throughout his minuscule existence in time and eternity he has confronted and defeated by his inherent nature those forces which would have overthrown him. His comparatively puny stature would have forfeit his existence to a physically superior predator, but his cunning enabled him to survive. His relatively exposed exterior would have made him defenseless against all manner of environmental dangers, including physical obstacles, weather, infection, and more, but his superior ingenuity and unconquerable genesis made him subjugator and dominator of even nature itself. Mankind has earned his place in the world.

Opposition is of paramount importance in man’s march through time. Not only does his progress depend on opposition, but his ultimate survival. Mankind, in his modern “Homo Sapiens” state of being, has struggled for his survival since his beginning – some experts suggest – 150,000 years ago (4). In that 150,000 years of existence, very liberally speaking, only in the most recent 10,000 years has he made any significant gains in terms of his intellectual progress (5). Perhaps by reason of his progress, it has been within that most recent 10,000 years that cities and civilizations of any significant might have developed. In fact, as recently as 5,500 years ago, it is estimated that only a handful of cities even existed in which there lived more than 10,000 inhabitants (6).

Innovation Through Opposition

In the millions of years of the Earth’s existence, and the 150,000 years of the life of mankind, it seems too coincidental that only when cities and kingdoms of upright man began to develop, did mankind really begin to progress beyond meager subsistence; mass trade ensued and expendable, disposable wealth emerged to empower men over their neighbors; innovations began to develop at a much faster pace than ever before, further enabling man through every conceivable technology; conflict and warfare advanced to complexities never before seen in all of the Earth’s species enabling territorial expansion and material enrichment of kingdoms and subjugation and enslavement of neighboring civilizations. The instinctive nature of mankind to desire power over his fellows, perhaps subconsciously as a means of security, has driven modern man to engage in battle and in warfare, and warfare inherently drives innovation.

Innovation, derived necessarily from a need to either kill or be killed on a civilizational scale, produced in conflict with a real and tangible enemy, rather unlike disease, famine, flood or other naturally induced misfortune, is what has driven technological advancement in the most recent five hundred years and propelled without doubt the most intensive period of innovation in man’s short tenure on Earth. In his book International Security, Patrick Morgan states, “In the study of international politics some analysts contend that it was the insecurity and frequent warfare of international politics from 1500 into the twentieth century that drove Western states to develop so much faster and more powerfully than other states and societies, so that the West came to dominate nearly the entire world and continues to do so” (7). It was the constant state of war and warfare in Europe that induced its human inhabitants to develop newer and better means of defending themselves and of defeating their enemies. These innovations often translated into the civilian world in various ways such as transportation, communication, production and mechanical operations, chemistry, physics, navigation, and more.

Warfare Driven Innovation

One example of warfare driving innovation is the telegraph in the American Civil War. Prior to the war, the telegraph had existed but was of very limited use. During the war, as armies were in ever increasing need of reliable communication methods, the government subsidized the expansion of telegraph lines. Throughout the course of the war, the federal government constructed more than 15,000 miles of telegraph lines. Although the telegraph had existed for many years by that time, it only became an integral part of day to day operations for governmental and military organizations during the Civil War. During the war, various command and control elements, including the war department, had begun to utilize the technology for in depth real-time communication. President Lincoln, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, regularly and in person communicated with his generals in the field via the telegraph lines from the war department (8). The unprecedented federally derived expansion of this new electronic communication technology propelled the development and innovation of electronic communication into the future.

Another more recent yet key example of innovation being driven by war is the development of the first atomic weapon. The idea that one could create a nuclear chain reaction powerful enough to cause a catastrophic explosion using radioactive material had been around for some time prior to the establishment of “The Manhattan Project.” It had largely been a civilian endeavor with research and experimentation conducted in universities until the onset of the Second World War. Through academic circles it was known by several scientists in America that the Nazis in Germany were vigorously pursuing such a weapon. A letter was written and endorsed by Leo Szilard, signed by Albert Einstein and sent to President Roosevelt. The contents of the letter explained the tremendous consequences of nuclear weaponry and that the Nazis were aggressively seeking such technology. President Roosevelt soon thereafter established the means by which America would seek and obtain in very short order atomic weapons, of which The Manhattan Project was one (9).

Without this government sponsorship it is highly unlikely that America would have been the first to obtain nuclear weapons. The scientific knowledge which has been developed as a direct result of The Manhattan Project and other related government sponsored nuclear development programs has directly contributed to the nuclear technologies enjoyed today in many fields such as medical research, electrical engineering, naval propulsion, astronomy, physics, and many more. In this example, it was clearly the presence of overwhelming need as a result of war that drove the development of atomic weaponry. It was again the survivalist instinct that compelled this arm of the human race to seek out and develop such innovative and advanced technology.

Many more examples of need driven by war to systematically and rapidly develop new technologies exist. Some of the more obvious examples include, explosives, the man portable musket and subsequently the rifle, various forms of communication technology including the present means of satellite communication and GPS navigation, transportation innovations such as the locomotive, the four wheel drive vehicle, the main battle tank, and more, naval innovations such as the iron clad ship and the submarine, rocketry, optics including an array of developments from telescopes to night vision devices, aeronautic advancements, and many more. Whether by governmental stimulation or by sheer happenstance, innovations of this kind have a way of rapidly advancing the technologies available to man for improving his standard of living and for perpetuating that advancement; for with technological advancement inherently comes further technological advancement.

The Human Being’s Need for Resistance

As H. G. Wells implied, it is the struggle against opposition that makes mankind stronger, smarter, and more capable of victory over that inevitable opposition. It was his many thousand year history of succumbing and eventually overcoming disease, plague, and his natural surroundings that eventually made mankind capable of ultimate survival. Many apparent examples exist of the need for opposition to make one stronger, smarter, and more capable, but none is more illustrative than that of an athlete. A stellar athlete must submit him/herself to opposition and resistance in order to improve. One must arduously train to prepare one’s body for athletic competition. Striving against resistance is critical; a runner must push him/herself to run ever harder and faster; a weight lifter must strive to exert his maximum strength against ever increasing weight; a boxer must push him/herself to the extremes of conditioning and physical pain in order to be completely prepared for each successive bout; without the constant and arduous struggle against resistance, athletes specifically would fail to excel and would eventually digress into mediocrity.

It has been very well documented that the force of gravity on Earth is a necessary and beneficial opposition to the human body in its physical development and overall health. The human body has been documented to react adversarially to the force of gravity by strengthening the muscular and skeletal systems. Astronauts on prolonged missions beyond Earth’s gravitational pull experience muscular and skeletal atrophy. It has been proven that even an astronaut’s bone density will be diminished by as much as one percent per month by extended stays in space (10). The persistent resistance provided by the Earth’s gravitational pull keeps the human body in a perpetual struggle for good health and fitness. The more one exerts against that resistance, the stronger one becomes.

The absolute need for opposition is as applicable to mankind as a race as it is to the single individual. Without persistent and unending resistance and opposition, the human race would atrophy to the point of total stagnation. Like a stream flowing down a hill, it is mankind’s nature to take the path of least resistance. Two hundred years ago, if a father didn’t physically work hard (generally speaking of course) pulling rocks from his field, plowing, sowing, reaping, milking, hauling, harvesting, etc., he and his family would starve. Often avoiding starvation meant every able member of a family had to work hard. Today it is quite different, working hard means sitting long hours in front of a computer, then going home “exhausted” to plop down on the sofa to watch TV; that in conjunction with the readily available supply of high calorie foods means (generally speaking of course) people are much less physically active and are able to eat many more calories in a day than two hundred years ago. As stated, Americans have begun to physically atrophy, to stagnate, because exercise and physical activity for most is voluntary. The skyrocketing rates of obesity demonstrate the point that the human race is prone to take the path of least resistance. There is no immediate and pressing need to commit to physical activity and it is much easier to sit in front of the TV than to walk on a treadmill in front of the TV (11).

The Human Race’s Need for Resistance

In much the same way that Americans have begun to physically atrophy causing an obesity epidemic, if the human race was to experience a prolonged period of peace, all the stimuli for innovation which are consequences of conflict would disappear. Mankind would trend toward the path of least resistance, the easiest means accomplishing his existence, life would become easy and he would therefore prefer the readily available life of ease rather than the completely voluntary life of struggle in order to exercise his ingenuity. If the world was to experience total peace, a total state of utopia, a great many overwhelming needs for new ideas and new technologies would simply disappear, leaving the human race with a choice between a readily available state of atrophy, or a completely voluntary and more difficult state of progress by innovation. If there is no need driving innovation or compelling him to advance, why would mankind, who is so demonstrably prone to taking the path of least resistance, even to desire atrophy over physical exertion, do anything else? He wouldn’t.

Other Means of Opposition

Several other prominent forms of opposition exist including disease and general medical maladies, drought and resultant famine, natural disasters of all kinds, and economic woes to name a few. In the absence of war, these would likely not disappear. Such other resistance to the progress of the human race and potential drivers of innovation and technology, while problematic in their own right, will likely never produce the compulsion in the human race to innovate and advance quite like war has. The reason is basic and simple: When two states go to war against one another, the consequences of that war penetrate the deepest reaches of every corner of both societies; every individual in those states is effected and driven to somehow contribute to the survival of their state, whether the survival is from extinction, or subjugation, or something more basic like access to fresh water or natural resources, ultimately everyone in that society is affected. When the world is at war, as was the case twice in the last century, the same is true; everyone is affected in some adverse way as a result of the war.

In those cases outside of war which may necessarily drive innovation, they are limited to small segments of the respective populations. The presence of medical maladies may propel innovations in the medical world, which like military technological innovations, will trickle into the civilian sector, but medical maladies will likely never drive innovation the way war has because those maladies are by and large limited to small sections of the population. The population as a whole will never feel the need to come together to combat cancer, or diabetes, or schizophrenia. Those ailments are restricted to small numbers of people as compared to the whole. In the case of droughts and famines, the same is true. Droughts and famines may afflict a small geographic area, to which the remaining whole may respond with relief aid, but such an unfortunate incident will never drive innovation; first, because it is localized to a small geographic area; and second, the need for technology and massive innovation in such a scenario is just not present. Other potential cases for the need for voluminous innovation are much the same as these, all significantly lacking the ability to compel the whole of a society to innovate.

Conclusion

Patrick Morgan, in his book International Security, stated, “people frequently feel that up to a point insecurity is good for them. Risk of failure and unemployment keeps companies, businesses, and workers on their toes, to be more alert and more productive. Having to take chances through competition keeps schools, firms and political parties vigorous and efficient” (12). The risk of insecurity and occasional war are productive and necessary aspects of human progression. The need for stimulation to persuade the human race from inactivity and inaction is great, and to a large extent, war is the best motivator in that regard. Morgan further stated, “A part of being human is a willingness to sometimes be unsafe for a while if that is a necessary part of striving hard to achieve something deeply desired” (13). The freedom to act for one’s self in America has produced many (although proportionately quite few) individuals who are willing to risk insecurity to advance their chances of a better future. The risk factor, the potential insecurity, is what has made great individuals out of mediocre ones. Opposition, resistance, and specifically warfare are those components for the human race. Without them, it is quite likely mankind would never have evolved out of the primordial soup from whence many claim he sprang.


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[10] National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “Weak in the Knees: The Quest for a Cure,” http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchGeneralArchives/weakKnees.htm (accessed March 20, 2010).

[11] Fergusson, Mark, “Obesity Epidemic: Overeating is to Blame,” Down to Earth, May 16, 2009, http://www.downtoearth.org/blogs/2009-05/health/obesity-epidemic-overeating-to-blame (accessed March 20, 2010).

[12] Morgan, Patrick M, “International Security: Problems and Solutions,” Washington DC: CQ Press, 2006, p. 14.

[13] Morgan, Patrick M, “International Security: Problems and Solutions,” Washington DC: CQ Press, 2006, p. 14.

Mexico's Gun Supply and the 90 Percent Myth

February 10, 2011 0951 GMT

By Scott Stewart

For several years now, STRATFOR has been closely watching developments in Mexico that relate to what we consider the three wars being waged there. Those three wars are the war between the various drug cartels, the war between the government and the cartels and the war being waged against citizens and businesses by criminals.

In addition to watching tactical developments of the cartel wars on the ground and studying the dynamics of the conflict among the various warring factions, we have also been paying close attention to the ways that both the Mexican and U.S. governments have reacted to these developments. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects to watch has been the way in which the Mexican government has tried to deflect responsibility for the cartel wars away from itself and onto the United States. According to the Mexican government, the cartel wars are not a result of corruption in Mexico or of economic and societal dynamics that leave many Mexicans marginalized and desperate to find a way to make a living. Instead, the cartel wars are due to the insatiable American appetite for narcotics and the endless stream of guns that flows from the United States into Mexico and that results in Mexican violence.

Interestingly, the part of this argument pertaining to guns has been adopted by many politicians and government officials in the United States in recent years. It has now become quite common to hear U.S. officials confidently assert that 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels come from the United States. However, a close examination of the dynamics of the cartel wars in Mexico — and of how the oft-echoed 90 percent number was reached — clearly demonstrates that the number is more political rhetoric than empirical fact.

By the Numbers

As we discussed in a previous analysis, the 90 percent number was derived from a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico.

According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.

This means that the 87 percent figure relates to the number of weapons submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by Mexican authorities or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing. In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States.

The remaining 22,800 firearms seized by Mexican authorities in 2008 were not traced for a variety of reasons. In addition to factors such as bureaucratic barriers and negligence, many of the weapons seized by Mexican authorities either do not bear serial numbers or have had their serial numbers altered or obliterated. It is also important to understand that the Mexican authorities simply don’t bother to submit some classes of weapons to the ATF for tracing. Such weapons include firearms they identify as coming from their own military or police forces, or guns that they can trace back themselves as being sold through the Mexican Defense Department’s Arms and Ammunition Marketing Division (UCAM). Likewise, they do not ask ATF to trace military ordnance from third countries like the South Korean fragmentation grenades commonly used in cartel attacks.

Of course, some or even many of the 22,800 firearms the Mexicans did not submit to ATF for tracing may have originated in the United States. But according to the figures presented by the GAO, there is no evidence to support the assertion that 90 percent of the guns used by the Mexican cartels come from the United States — especially when not even 50 percent of those that were submitted for tracing were ultimately found to be of U.S. origin.

This point leads us to consider the types of weapons being used by the Mexican cartels and where they come from.

Types and Sources of Guns

To gain an understanding of the dynamics of the gun flow inside Mexico, it helps if one divides the guns seized by Mexican authorities from criminals into three broad categories — which, incidentally, just happen to represent three different sources.

Type 1: Guns Legally Available in Mexico

The first category of weapons encountered in Mexico is weapons available legally for sale in Mexico through UCAM. These include handguns smaller than a .357 magnum such as .380 and .38 Special.

A large portion of this first type of guns used by criminals is purchased in Mexico, or stolen from their legitimate owners. While UCAM does have very strict regulations for civilians to purchase guns, criminals will use straw purchasers to obtain firearms from UCAM or obtain them from corrupt officials. Cartel hit men in Mexico commonly use .380 pistols equipped with sound suppressors in their assassinations. In many cases, these pistols are purchased in Mexico, the suppressors are locally manufactured and the guns are adapted to receive the suppressors by Mexican gunsmiths.

It must be noted, though, that because of the cost and hassle of purchasing guns in Mexico, many of the guns in this category are purchased in the United States and smuggled into the country.

There are a lot of cheap guns available on the U.S. market, and they can be sold at a premium in Mexico. Indeed, guns in this category, such as .380 pistols and .22-caliber rifles and pistols, are among the guns most commonly traced back to the United States. Still, the numbers do not indicate that 90 percent of guns in this category come from the United States.

Additionally, most of the explosives the cartels have been using in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Mexico over the past year have used commercially available Tovex, so we consider these explosives to fall in this first category. Mexican IEDs are another area where the rhetoric has been interesting to analyze, but we will explore this topic another time.

Type 2: Guns Legally Available in the U.S. but Not in Mexico

Many popular handgun calibers, such as 9 mm, .45 and .40, are reserved for the military and police and are not available for sale to civilians in Mexico. These guns, which are legally sold and very popular in the United States, comprise our second category, which also includes .50- caliber rifles, semiautomatic versions of assault rifles like the AK-47 and M16 and the FN Five- Seven pistol.

When we consider this second type of guns, a large number of them encountered in Mexico are likely purchased in the United States. Indeed, the GAO report notes that many of the guns most commonly traced back to the United States fall into this category. There are also many .45- caliber and 9 mm semiautomatic pistols and .357 revolvers obtained from deserters from the Mexican military and police, purchased from corrupt Mexican authorities or even brought in from South America (guns made by manufacturers such as Taurus and Bersa). This category also includes semiautomatic variants of assault rifles and main battle rifles, which are often converted by Mexican gunsmiths to be capable of fully automatic fire.

One can buy these types of weapons on the international arms market, but one pays a premium for such guns and it is cheaper and easier to simply buy them in the United States or South America and smuggle them into Mexico. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry that has developed to smuggle such weapons, and not all the customers are cartel hit men. There are many Mexican citizens who own guns in calibers such as .45, 9 mm, .40 and .44 magnum for self-defense — even though such guns are illegal in Mexico.

Type 3: Guns Not Available for Civilian Purchase in Mexico or the U.S.

The third category of weapons encountered in Mexico is military grade ordnance not generally available for sale in the United States or Mexico. This category includes hand grenades, 40 mm grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic assault rifles and main battle rifles and light machine guns.

This third type of weapon is fairly difficult and very expensive to obtain in the United States (especially in the large numbers in which the cartels are employing them). They are also dangerous to obtain in the United States due to heavy law-enforcement scrutiny. Therefore, most of the military ordnance used by the Mexican cartels comes from other sources, such as the international arms market (increasingly from China via the same networks that furnish precursor chemicals for narcotics manufacturing), or from corrupt elements in the Mexican military or even deserters who take their weapons with them. Besides, items such as South Korean fragmentation grenades and RPG-7s, often used by the cartels, simply are not in the U.S. arsenal. This means that very few of the weapons in this category come from the United States.

In recent years the cartels (especially their enforcer groups such as Los Zetas, Gente Nueva and La Linea) have been increasingly using military weaponry instead of sporting arms. A close examination of the arms seized from the enforcer groups and their training camps clearly demonstrates this trend toward military ordnance, including many weapons not readily available in the United States. Some of these seizures have included M60 machine guns and hundreds of 40 mm grenades obtained from the military arsenals of countries like Guatemala.

But Guatemala is not the only source of such weapons. Latin America is awash in weapons that were shipped there over the past several decades to supply the various insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in the region. When these military-grade weapons are combined with the rampant corruption in the region, they quickly find their way into the black arms market. The Mexican cartels have supply-chain contacts that help move narcotics to Mexico from South America and they are able to use this same network to obtain guns from the black market in South and Central America and then smuggle them into Mexico. While there are many weapons in this category that were manufactured in the United States, the overwhelming majority of the U.S.-manufactured weapons of this third type encountered in Mexico — like LAW rockets and M60 machine guns — come into Mexico from third countries and not directly from the United States.

There are also some cases of overlap between classes of weapons. For example, the FN Five- Seven pistol is available for commercial purchase in the United States, but the 5.7x28 armor-piercing ammunition for the pistol favored by the cartels is not — it is a restricted item.

However, some of the special operations forces units in the Mexican military are issued the Five- Seven as well as the FN P90 personal defense weapon, which also shoots the 5.7x28 round, and the cartels are obtaining some of these weapons and the armor-piercing ammunition from them and not from the United States. Conversely, we see bulk 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition bought in the United States and smuggled into Mexico, where it is used in fully-automatic AK- 47s and M16s purchased elsewhere. As noted above, China has become an increasingly common source for military weapons like grenades and fully automatic assault rifles in recent years.

To really understand Mexico’s gun problem, however, it is necessary to recognize that the same economic law of supply and demand that fuels drug smuggling into the United States also fuels gun smuggling into Mexico. Black-market guns in Mexico can fetch up to 300 percent of their normal purchase price — a profit margin rivaling the narcotics the cartels sell. Even if it were somehow possible to hermetically seal the U.S.-Mexico border and shut off all the guns coming from the United States, the cartels would still be able to obtain weapons elsewhere — just as narcotics would continue to flow into the United States from other places. The United States does provide cheap and easy access to certain types of weapons and ammunition, but as demonstrated by groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, weapons can be easily obtained from other sources via the black arms market — albeit at a higher price.

There has clearly been a long and well-documented history of arms smuggling across the U.S.- Mexico border, but it is important to recognize that, while the United States is a significant source of certain classes of weapons and ammunition, it is by no means the source of 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican cartels, as is commonly asserted.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth
SR: This post is directly from the following link from STRATFOR:


http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110209-mexicos-gun-supply-and-90-percent-myth


STRATFOR provides very high quality information long before much of it hits the main-stream-media. In fact I've seen many "News" outlets get their information directly from STRATFOR.

Mexico's" Gun Supply and the 90 Percent Myth is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Meltup

The American Dream By The Provocateur Network

Realism and Grand Strategy

The realist's view of grand strategy is a consequence of their perception of the dog-eat-dog nature of power. Their view of the world coincides with the obvious hostility that exists in the world. In realist politics, those with the gold (or power, or both) make the rules. When it comes to national security policy and American grand strategy, it is assumed that since America has the gold and the power, America makes the rules. Historically, and even in many parts of the world today, this policy would invite corruption, violence, and utter misery for the human population which fell victim to those with the gold and the power. However, America has tended (with exceptions of course) to be a benevolent superpower, not particularly keen on flexing its muscle and shoving people around to get its way. This is made somewhat apparent by the isolationist philosophy which so permeates American thinking. It is quite likely that there has never been a state which had more power, which was so hesitant to use it to either subjugate its enemies or to enable conquest or expansionist objectives, as the United States of America has been over the decades since World War II.

This being the case, realists tend to see the world in very hostile terms, kill or be killed. Realists see the different grand strategy options in terms of raw power. They may likely ask, “Which of these strategies is more/less likely to invite the various states to take advantage of America’s weaknesses?” The potential for the evil nature of humankind to dominate is fundamental to realism and strategy is seen in this light. The realist view is that if America weakens her defenses, there will be some evil despot ready and willing to take advantage. At the same time, if America disengages internationally, it is assumed that the power vacuum left in America’s wake will be filled with some power monger or another.

Cooperative security, in realist world terms, is a recipe for disaster. The premise that America will place its full and complete trust in and rely entirely on international organizations and the international community as a whole for its own stability and security is naïve at best, and outrageously foolish at worst. Cooperative security has as its ultimate goal, the collectivization of the globe and the design of making every state interdependent on every other state for their collective security. Realists would argue that the moment America surrenders its right to pursue its own interests, is the moment America’s security is forfeit. The idealist notion that if everyone cooperates and gets along, everyone will benefit is a non reality to a realist because as soon as the cooperative begins to believe in and can finally realize its communal utopia, the one individual or state with Stalinist, alpha-dominant tendencies and the power to exercise those, will rise to the top and make a Stalinist state out of all those who foolishly let down their guard. Russia in the 1930s is a perfect example. The Soviet state was set up on the naïve notion that if everyone cooperates, works together, everyone will benefit, the working class will become the strength of society, the state will cease to exist (we have Karl Marx to thank for that) and utopia will follow. We know how that went.

The other grand strategy options are much more realistic in nature. Neo-isolationism, selective engagement, and primacy all assume the presence of an ongoing and persistent threat. No matter the perceived benign nature of the circumstances, a threat will always arise which will require force to eliminate. These strategies assume that America will maintain the elements of power necessary to insure its dominance in the world, to some degree or another. The nature of this concept can be seen in the relative calm which followed the ending of the Cold War. Peace and harmony seemed to permeate international relations, at least as far as the great powers were concerned, and as far as a comfortable public was concerned. Then, in the absence of conflict, the threat of Islamic extremism emerged to fill the void of conflict, and to again demonstrate that utopia, as dreamed of by idealist thinkers, although perhaps not impossible, is at least a distant, and at this point, naïve notion.

Realism in national security and in terms of grand strategy theory demands the maintenance of power, in order to protect America in the presence of threats of any kind. Realism views power as a necessity, without which, America will be victimized by power mongers and become a liability to its people. Power and strength are not an option to realists. The only option exists in how that power and strength are put to use.

Four American Grand Strategies

In the policy debate over potential U.S. grand strategies, there are four basic competing visions. The four competing visions include neo-isolationism, selective engagement, cooperative security, and primacy. Each of the four falls along a spectrum with varying degrees of unilateralism and multilateralism, and differs gradually in their objectives, premises, and instruments for applying U.S. power and insuring American national security.

The first candidate for U.S. grand strategy, as put forth by Posen and Ross, is neo-isolationism (Posen 1997, 7). Neo-isolationism would withdraw American forces from all parts of the world as presently situated, and deploy American forces only to those areas where problems directly influence American national security. It’s basic premise is that America is “strategically immune” (Posen 1997, 10), that is, as a result of America’s geography, America is all but completely impervious to foreign aggression. The only potential aggressors would have to either cross an ocean to launch a campaign, or enter the U.S. by way of Canada, or Mexico. In the unlikely event that Canada or Mexico was of the mind to launch an assault on the U.S., first, the aggressor would have to substantially, even exponentially increase the size and strength of its present military, and if that, then American defenses would likely dismantle an invasion without skipping even a beat. Neo-nationalism utilizes five key elements to insure American national security. A nuclear deterrent capability would be required to prevent a first strike from an aggressor state. Second, air and missile defenses would be maintained to insure air superiority within American airspace. Third, U.S. intelligence capability would be critical to alerting American authorities of any potential threat to U.S. assets and interests. Forth, a strong navy would be necessary to insure against the unlikely probability of an amphibious invasion from abroad. Finally, special operations forces would be necessary to deal directly with threats against U.S. assets abroad (Posen 1997, 7-14).

The second candidate for U.S. grand strategy is selective engagement (Posen 1997, 15). The selective engagement strategy proposes to maintain international security by preventing great power war. The basic premise is that great power wars cause the most destruction, and since America has limited resources and isn’t that interested in policing the world, the prevention of great power war is a great boundary to U.S. involvement. This boundary may be breached however under circumstances deemed sufficient by American policy makers and politicians. Selective engagement follows generally the instrumentality of neo-isolationism. Nuclear deterrent and homeland defense of a certainty necessary, but beyond that, selective engagement requires the conventional forces necessary to dissuade aggression by great powers, and ideally, to carry on military engagement and achieve victory in at least one foreign theater (Posen 1997, 15-21).

The third candidate for U.S. grand strategy is cooperative security (Posen 1997, 21). Cooperative security assumes democratic altruism on the part of the great powers. Its objective, although its adherents admit cooperative security is a “work in progress” (Posen 1997, 25), is an international framework of security treaties which demands international cooperation and assistance in any and all international security dilemmas. The primary responsibility for enforcement of international security falls upon the great powers, with minor support from the multitude of lesser powers. Competition among great powers is assumed minimal. The media, at least according to Posen and Ross, seems to be a key component of cooperative security. The media’s role is to enlighten the otherwise apathetic public regarding the horrifying realities of the world and stimulate it into action. Without the support of the public, cooperative security would be impotent. Other key components cooperative security implementation are a strong homeland defense but also a very capable power of deployment and force projection so as to enable great power military intervention whenever and wherever necessary to successfully police the globe (Posen 1997, 21-30).

The fourth and final candidate for U.S. grand strategy is primacy. Primacy is based on the premise that U.S. supremacy in each aspect of international relations is the best means of insuring peace and security in the world. America’s potential challengers will have neither the means nor the will to make a legitimate contest for power both because America’s might is so vastly superior to everyone else’s and because America is content to provide sufficiently for its allies’ interests that they really have no need to vie for power. Military power is a critical instrument of primacy success. Primacy recommends a modernized military which is equal to or larger than its next (at least) two competitors combined, and the more the better.


Posen, Barry R. and Andrew L. Ross. “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 3-51. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Choosing America's Grand Strategy

When considering the priority of national security decisions through the scope of various national security strategies, the U.S. considers four basic elements. Those elements in order of importance seem to be; first, feasibility; second, need; third, cost; forth, value. A final element, which seems to be overarching of all these elements, and yet, not particularly belonging to the group is that of sovereignty. These elements don’t necessarily pertain to the level of threat under consideration as much as they pertain to selection of strategy, and in turn, implementation of policy. Each element plays its own critical role in how American national security strategy is identified.

Of the several national security strategies discussed by U.S. policy makers, no single policy tends to have a certain probability of success in all policy dilemmas. Determining the feasibility of each strategy is critical when debating and shaping U.S. national security grand strategy. As stated by Robert J. Art, some strategies are simply not feasible, while others tend to be feasible only under certain circumstances, still others tend to make sense under a great many circumstances (Art 2003, 84). The strategy of dominion for example is prohibitive in many ways. Dominion is extremely costly in monetary terms as well as in resources, too costly to be rational; it is extremely provocative to allies, enemies, and neutral states alike; and it is extremely irrational in a modern world where nuclear weapons are such a major consideration in international politics (states with nuclear weapons are not easily manipulated) (Art 2003, 89). Selective engagement, on the other hand, is extremely feasible in many instances because it encourages multilateralism which dissipates the costs and international consequences of action. Determining feasibility is important in determining which strategies will work with which potential set of circumstance.

Policy makers must consider needs in American national security strategy in terms of specific problems with which the nation is faced, as well as the general objectives and interests of those policy makers. Some strategies, when localized, can have a better effect on specific problems than other strategies. In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein posed a specific problem for the United States. A viable and feasible strategy in this circumstance was to implement a containment strategy to prevent Hussein from further threatening his neighbors and undermining regional stability. In this case, the need was specifically addressed by a strategy not particularly suited to other areas of international conflict such as regional confrontation or inner-state humanitarian scenarios. Another clear example is the containment of the Soviet Union in the cold war when the U.S. government opted to establish road blocks to Soviet domination and communist expansion. I each case a need was identified and an adequate strategy matched to that need.

Of course no assessment of national security strategy can be made without a thorough analysis of the costs. As mentioned, the strategy of dominion is very costly, while the strategy of isolationism is relatively inexpensive. This aspect must be considered on the basis of cost/benefit analysis. Isolationism could prove more costly over the long term than other strategies but clearly has a cost advantage in the short term, as inaction is usually less costly than containment or engagement of any kind. Long term however, it may be more cost effective to engage rather than to sit out. In the case of Afghanistan in 2001/2002, a clear threat existed which may have been more costly to ignore than to engage. Although the costs have been extensive, over the long term it is likely to be more cost effective to confront the threat in Afghanistan now than to remain isolated. However, to engage in the present conflict between Congo and Rwanda and the multiple facets of insurgency, ethnic strife, and interstate confrontation going on in that region would likely be much more costly for America in both short and long term than just remaining aloof and letting the thing run its course.

Value works in conjunction with cost. If an engagement has limited value but tremendous cost, such as the conflict in Congo/Rwanda, engagement by America would be irrational. However, engagement in Afghanistan to prevent the proliferation of Islamic extremism may be quite costly but have tremendous value to American national security, the American people, and America's allies. The value of a strategy is of great importance to policy makers when considering potential strategy options.

Although it doesn't pertain directly to strategies such as dominion and isolationism, primarily because those are unilateral in nature, the issue of sovereignty is quite important when considering plausible strategy options. Especially in the cases of collective and cooperative security, a nation's sovereignty may be at stake if it is limited in either its self defense options or its ability to act in its own best interests as the result of its incorporation into an international security agreement. In the case of great powers more specifically, such involvement would be detrimental to a state's own self preservation.

Art, Robert J. A Grand Strategy for America. Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press. 2003.

Longevity of Power

History suggests that no matter the scenario, every nation will fall eventually. Who knows the reasons but nothing lasts forever. I believe the best scenario is to establish a grand strategy which leads us into the future with the assumption that eventually the United States will no longer be the powerhouse it is now. The best thing would be to establish lasting relationships with other great powers, starting with the EU, to insure just causes prevail long after America’s power begins to decline.

The EU is already rising. The economic power of the EU is impressive, and its political clout is quickly developing. Although the EU isn’t quite there yet militarily and the organization is relatively youthful, the EU is in a good position to “challenge” American primacy in the not-too-distant future. The EU and the US have a great deal of common ground between them and the EU shouldn’t be perceived as a threat, but more as a strong and healthy partner in accomplishing the future stability and security of the international community.

With an American/European partnership, the power to do good would expand exponentially. The EU must get on its feet before anything impressive can happen and the two entities must get on the same page in short order. It will help things along if America would begin a draw-down of US forces in Europe so the Europeans can begin to stand up in that regard. As they do so, the combined might of the two would be insurmountable, even by the rising China.

Stability in a Unipolar World

Arguably the most important national security interest of the United States is to preserve the continuity of the homeland. Preservation of this element alone is probably sufficient to sustain the existence of the United States as an entity indefinitely. The importance of a unipolar American influence on this aspect of U.S. national security is minimal. Assuming the United States doesn't lose so much of its political, military, and economic might that it overnight disintegrates into oblivion, this element alone will likely be sufficient to preserve the United States as a nation for decades to come. The greatest threat to this aspect of its national security would come from within before any outside overt threats were able to materialize against it enough to rock it from its foundation. The polarity of the world will likely have little effect on America's perseverance as a nation.

Other various interests of American national security are not as clear-cut but a few aspects of American power and the polarity of the world will relate directly to them. The first is America's ability to prosper economically. As the world currently exists, America is prosperous in some part because it has been able to access foreign markets for its goods and services. The unipolarity of the world has a direct impact on how readily American goods and services transit across international borders. It is clearly in America's business interests to enable the exportation of its goods and services. As a monolith in the world, American influence can be used to expand present markets and to introduce American goods to new markets. NAFTA is a good example of the result of this influence. Other states typically desire access to American markets as much as American businesses desire access to foreign markets. This interconnectivity is tied to American unipolar influence.

A second aspect of American national security which may be directly affected by America’s unipolar stature is access to energy. America's economy is highly energy dependent. Without cheap and accessible energy supplies, America's economy would at best slow dramatically. Interruption of just a small percentage of America's foreign energy supply could have a terrible impact on America's quality of life and the functionality as a whole of the entire economy. In one popular present day scenario, if Iran was to impede shipping by laying maritime mines across the strait of Hormuz, a detrimental shift in the cost of living could occur which could potentially cripple the American economy. America's unparalleled military might could have an impact on the prevention or mitigation of such a scenario.

On the other hand, as the world's largest economy, the world's most powerful military, the world's most influential single state actor, enmity and animosity could easily be drawn simply as a cost of doing business. America is the most visible global influence and is easily targeted as the culprit and scapegoat of many problems in the world, even though it may not have anything to do with those problems. It is often easier to cast blame on someone else than to accept blame one's self and America is a very large target in this regard. America will also draw animosity just as a result of being big. The grandiosity of America's place in the world, simply as a consequence of its stature, will draw animosity where there might otherwise have been none.

The stability of the unipolar world will have an impact on all those aspects of national security mentioned above, but certainly isn’t limited to those. The stature of America in the world will ultimately have an impact on every aspect of American national security, no matter its significance. The only possible way to avert the impact, whether positive or negative, of America’s unipolar stature, would be to cease from being what it is. This clearly is not in the interests of America nor its people.



Wohlforth, William C. “The Stability of a Unipolar World.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 273-309. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Mastanduno, Michael. “Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 310-350. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Cooperative, Collective, and Concert Security

Collective security entails a theory of everyone against the aggressor. It comes into play when there is an aggressive action on the part of a state against another state and includes action by all other states to mitigate the aggression of the aggressor. The theory of collective security covers a range of potential options along the continuum ranging from a true collective security arrangement to a concert of collectivity. It is founded on the principle of preponderance of force which suggests that no state would act aggressively if the certain result would be its own demise. The preponderance of force promises ultimate superiority of the force responding to the aggressor. Only in the case of a suicidal state would the preponderance of force be insufficient to dissuade an aggressor state from acting malevolently.

A true collective security arrangement is the true “everyone against the aggressor” philosophy and includes an official agreement on the part of “all” the states. The agreement includes language which would legally bind all the states to react decisively to a show of aggression by any other state. This philosophy runs counter to the balance of power philosophy which is founded on state to state defense competition to dissuade aggression. Each state is responsible to produce sufficient defense deterrent to convince its neighbors that aggression would be self-destructive. A collective security arrangement insures that the aggressor will fail in his aggression, assuming that the collective in total is stronger than the aggressor.

A concert is a case in which a league of great power states contrive a treaty (not necessarily a legally binding one) to insure the stability and security of the whole. The great power states agree amongst themselves to come to the aid of a victimized state, but only after deliberation, or as the result of some predetermined arrangement. A concert is not necessarily binding on the great power states and each stated could choose to act or remain neutral. The combined power of the great power states would ideally be sufficient to counter the potential for an aggressor state to act aggressively. If the great power states, however, had insufficient grounds to react to aggression, said aggression would likely not be deterred. Therefore, only in cases in which the great power states had skin in the game would they be inclined to act on behalf of a weaker state.

Cooperation, in contrast to collective security, chooses a less formal means of reacting to aggressive states. It opts for a process of selectively engaging rogue states based on broad multilateral, recognition of the threat, multilateral planning, and multilateral execution. Each case is individually considered based on cost-benefit analysis. This is the process used in engaging Saddam Hussein following his 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The international community came together, considered the costs and benefits, and chose to act decisively to expel Saddam Hussein’s minions from the weaker state. As with collective security, reaction ideally includes a preponderance of force which enables a quick and decisive victory. Cooperation seeks the legitimacy of a broad coalition of international approval but is not based necessarily on a preconceived written agreement. It relies essentially on the cooperation of states to achieve universally beneficial results. Universality is the key in this sense. If universal benefit is not readily perceived, cooperation among nations is difficult. Cooperation assumes the willing participation of numerous states, without which, the proposed endeavor is likely to lose its credibility.

The aforementioned theories of national and international security fall into the realm of multilateralism. Each implies the necessity of states to seek international backing to one degree or another. Each recognizes the importance and strength of a coalition by which to accomplish stability and strength in the international community, and each seems to recognize the potential danger in unilateralism.



Nolan, Janne E. “Cooperative Security in the United States.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 179-217. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Kupchan, Charles A., and Clifford A. Kupchan. “Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 218-265. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Kupchan, Charles A., and Clifford A. Kupchan. “Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe: A Retrospective.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 266-272. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Preponderance vs. [Offshore] Balancing

The national security strategy of Preponderance has been at play for the duration of the Cold War and has carried over as a remnant of the containment doctrine since the conclusion of the Cold War. Preponderance is the belief that American interests are best served by a unipolar world. Components of Preponderance include three major elements; first, American preeminence must be maintained; second, challenges to American preeminence must be prevented; third, international interdependence must be encouraged.

The strategy of offshore balancing is quite the opposite of preponderance. Offshore balancing accepts that rivals to American preeminence will arise and that those may eventually take the place of America as the world's hegemon. This is largely accepted and even to be anticipated. Interdependence in the Balancing sphere is not something to be sought after per se, but is more a byproduct of acceptable international exchange. Offshore balancing is a rather isolationist idea by which a large percentage of American overseas military assets would be redeployed to the continental United States.

The preponderance argument suggests that the world (America and her allies) has been made safe over the last six decades as a result of American preeminence. The argument points to Europe and states that numerous great power wars were waged prior to 1950, but once America was permanently engaged there, there has been relative peace on that continent. Therefore, a continued strategy which seeks American hegemony in the world would continue to assure peace in the world. The insistence is that the one is the result of the other. Offshore balancing states that there is nothing to prove this correlation, and that by America continuing to engage in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East the same way it has for the last six decades, it perpetuates a national security doctrine which is outdated and in need of revision.

The balancing argument states that America wastes resources by continuing to assert its unipolar pipe-dream, and that ultimately it will have to face the fact that great powers come and go and its glory is fleeting. This argument insists that although America won't always be the one great power in the world, it will be a great power in the world for a long time to come, and this is where the balancing aspect comes into play. Balancing reasonably asserts that although the world will not always be unipolar, and that other powers will eventually have great sway in world politics, America will always be a power of great authority, and will always be able to influence world politics in a direction which will be beneficial for American national security.

Preponderance insists that the most effective way to insure continued peace and stability, and the prosperity that results, is to insure economic and security interdependence among every possible nation. This notion is based on the belief that nations will not go to war against other nations with which they have heavy economic ties. There is also an element of interdependence based on America's overarching strategy of defending its close allies. Those allies are dependent on America for defense and, in most cases, are perfectly willing to continue to allow America to shoulder that burden. As long as nations are interdependent, they will be much less likely to go to war with each other. The argument also suggests that as long as America stays engaged in this passive role, though quite costly, it will prevent the much more costly result of having to intervene from the outside in the event of a great power war.

The cost of this strategy is the greatest element of contention to offshore balancing. The costs of insuring good behavior amongst America's allies overseas could be better spend domestically. The balancing argument insists that those nations should be able to get along without the American monolith standing between them. If they are still unable, as they always had been until 1950, the balancing strategy would allow them to fight their wars at their own expense with the ever present condition that when those wars become detrimental to American national security, America will intervene to tip the balance in its own favor.



Layne, Christopher. “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America’s Future Grand Strategy.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 99-140. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Restraint & Selective Engagement

In terms of National Security Strategy, restraint and selective engagement are by no means polar opposites. On a scale between total isolationism and total engagement, each has found a means of moderation. On the one hand, restraint considers itself a rational means of taking advantage of the benefits of isolationism, yet without the irrationality of it. On the other hand, engagement is just that, selective. It suggests the educated selection of the battles to be fought, rather than fighting them all.

Each strategy has basic glaring similarities; they both consider the foremost objective of American national security to be protection of the American homeland and general protection of American constitutional democracy, freedoms, assets, economy, and so forth. They diverge, however, in terms of how best to accomplish that objective.

The restraint argument focuses largely on the allocation of finite resources. There is a certain end to American resources and those resources are better spent at home than abroad. The argument suggests that American resources sent abroad are resources which, first, are being used to subsidize the defense of America's allies, allies which in most instances can afford to subsidize their own defense; second are enabling America's allies to divert their own defense spending to other avenues; and third, are causing an unfair competition scenario for American companies overseas. Every dollar America spends to protect Europe or East Asia, is a dollar those places don't have to spend to protect themselves, enabling them to allocate their own resources to other endeavors, such as subsidizing automobile and electronics manufacturers which directly compete with American firms for the same consumer spending.

The selective engagement strategy seems to circumvent this argument by countering that if Europe and East Asia were left to vie for their own defense, regional arms races may ensue. Perhaps Germany would compete with France for regional military dominance, the UK with Germany, etc. If left to their own devices, those areas could digress into their old habits of old world politicking, jostling for power, dirty dealing, war making etc. With the United States playing the major power broker in these regions, the lesser powers are left to focus their energies, and their resources, on other, less lethal endeavors.

The restraint strategy asserts that the U.S. spends many times what its nearest competitor does on defense expenditures and that a good share of those dollars would be better spent on domestic issues such as infrastructure, education, and social programs (America's nearest competitor in terms of gross defense spending is China. In 2008 the U.S. spent $607 Billion while China spent $84.9 Billion (CIA World Factbook)). The assertion is that America's defense edge is significant and that once a certain threshold is reached, America's return on its defense investment is minimal. After all, for what purpose should a superpower have need to spend seven times what its nearest competitor spends to insure its security? Especially when that competitor can't even dream of matching the technological edge of the American defense apparatus, and America has a unique and distinct advantage in terms of its geography, being surrounded on two sides by water and the other two by relatively benign, yet friendly neighbors.

Selective engagement counters this argument by stating that security comes at a cost, and economic productivity, both American and otherwise, requires security. The maintenance of U.S. military presence overseas insures the status quo. Peace prevails because everyone is happy to let the Americans maintain the defenses. If America withdraws, a power vacuum follows and arms races and power struggles ensue.

The national security strategies of restraint and selective engagement are moderate forms of their extreme selves; total isolationism and total engagement. Each has rational arguments in its favor, and each has flaws.


Gholz, Eugene, Daryl G. Press, and Harvey M. Sapolsky. “Come Home, America: The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 55-98. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

Art, Robert J. “Geopolitics Updated: The Strategy of Selective Engagement.” In America’s Strategic Choices: Revised Edition, edited by Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, 141-178. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. CIA World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ (accessed December 18, 2009).

Comparing the Threat of Communism to that of Terrorism

The difference between the two threats of communism and terrorism is largely a matter of perception. Communism appeared to the untrained eye to be a monstrous, evil, tyrannical machine capable of annihilating its opposition. Terrorism on the other hand is to the objective viewer a mere anathema, as already noted, a nuisance.

While it is impossible to know exactly what outcomes other strategies might have produced against the Soviet Union, the elevation of the level of interest the communist threat posed to the United States to that of Survival seems to have been a perfectly reasonable counteraction. Communism has largely been relegated to the trash heap of history although Socialism has replaced it and seems to be proving even deadlier than communism ever was. The communist threat was an overt, outside, bellicose enemy which was in-your-face and easily identifiable, and nearly as easily contested. The socialist threat seems to be more an invisible parasite which undermines free states from the inside out with promises of utopia.

Terrorism, as merely a “nuisance”, has the power to operate within, even benefit from free societies. It is not an overt bellicose enemy which is easily identified. Terrorism lurks in the shadows and behind closed doors, protected by the very ideals it seeks to destroy. The threat is well known but vaporous, and easily forgotten after lengthy periods of inactivity. The terrorist would be pleased to utterly destroy the United States and subjugate everyone therein, as would the communist before him. The communist regime in the Soviet Union would debate, negotiate, communicate, and deal with the United States. The Soviet Union had form and function. Terrorism however is an indefinable, elusive enigma, with no form or coherent function. Every terrorist entity operates differently, with different command and control structures, different ideologies, and different means to the ultimate end. They are as varied as the people within them.

Depending on the person’s world view, each individual would answer this question differently. However, communism was never in open war against the United States, something the common terrorist boasts about. If not so, he could hardly be called a terrorist. Terrorism is in open war with free societies around the world. The threat posed by terrorism is a definite one. To the United States, terrorism may be merely a vital level interest, but to Pakistan or Indonesia, terrorism is clearly an interest of survival. The threat of terrorism is real and the war terrorists wage against the United States is undeniable. Eventually, if not effectively countered, terrorism will overrun and destroy the United States. The threat is indeed dynamic, for this reason it is imperative that the United States combat terrorism on every viable front, in order to prevent its progression from a vital interest to a survival interest.

American Interest in Combating Terrorism

Islamic extremism constitutes a real and persistent threat to the national security of the United States, both at home and abroad. The level of the threat is debatable, however, and its interpretation will vary from one entity to another. For example, a liberal activist in San Francisco probably interprets the threat of Islamic extremism differently than does a Marine stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The general threat posed by Islamic extremism has certain indisputable factors, however, by which it is relatively simple to categorize. Islamic extremism is a threat of vital interest to the United States.

As explained by Nuechterlein, the threshold of vital interest is breached when there exists a credible threat to the security of the United States and “the leadership refuses to compromise” on negotiations to determine the outcome (Nuechterlein 2001. 18). It is clear, at least insofar as the George W. Bush administration was concerned, that the leadership refused to compromise on the outcome of the conflict between the competing ideologies of Islamic extremism and Democracy. The Bush administration determined that military force was a rational and necessary means of defeating the ideologies of Islamic extremism.

The specific threats posed by Islamic extremism are debatable as well. The objectives of modern Islamic extremism are as varied as the groups which espouse it. An indisputable thread which weaves throughout these entities is the use of violence against civilians to accomplish the group’s objectives. This factor of violence in conjunction with the secretive and pervasive nature of Islamic extremist groups, presents a threat which, if not countered, could infiltrate and undermine the foundation of the United States of America in a way which no threat has heretofore been able to accomplish.

Assuming the general objective of Islamic extremism is to eliminate the threat to Islamic culture in the Middle East and elsewhere posed by western ideologies, one might reasonably assume that the ultimate victory for this extremism would be a defeated and deflated United States, it being the banner-bearer of western ideologies. The greater the defeat, the better for Islamic extremism. A defeated and deflated United States would be one where its government and people are unwilling and unable to project its values, power, and influence throughout the rest of the world. This extremism has demonstrated a desire and an ability to inflict serious, even catastrophic loss on the homeland of the United States. For this reason, the leadership of the United States can reasonably assume that Islamic extremism, willing to use violence, even extreme violence, to accomplish its objectives, poses real and credible threat to the national security of the United States.

The four tiers of national interest, as defined by Nuechterlein, include survival, vital, major, and peripheral. A survival interest is one by which the survival of the state is immediately and clearly at stake, of which Islamic extremism is obviously not one. A vital interest is one by which the survival of the state may be at stake and it is determined by the powers that be, that immediate action is necessary to defend the state to insure its survival. A major interest is one by which the interests of the state are or may be threatened either at home or abroad but not to the extent that the survival of the state is in jeopardy. A peripheral interest is one by which assets of the state or private citizens of the state may be in jeopardy but which will not impact the general operation of the state (Nuechterlein 2001. 18-19). Islamic extremism is clearly less than a survival interest, but greater than a major interest. Islamic extremism is a vital interest to the United States because of the demonstrated will and ability it has to inflict damage on the United States’ homeland.


Nuechterlein, Donald E. AMERICA RECOMMITTED: A Superpower Assesses its Role in a Turbulent World. Lexington Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. 2001.