A laugher from Heritage

I was doing a little research on the hypertoobz (I'm still in the finals crunch) and just found this paper from Heritage, dated January 15th, 2004: The Iraqi Mafia: An Evolving Insurgency, by Dana Dillon and Melissa Parham. Check out this line (emphasis added):

Despite presidential candidate and retired general Wesley Clark's comment that the war in Iraq is a "$150 billion mess," and Al Gore's declaration that it was a "catastrophic mistake," Saddam's capture is more proof that the democratic transition in Iraq is progressing well. America is developing new methods and tactics to defeat an unpopular and increasingly criminal Iraqi insurgency. The U.S. will drive that insurgency out of existence by hitting it where it hurts the most: the pocketbook.

If I had unlimited time I would go through all the DC think tanks' publications and see which had the best track records on Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think Heritage would fare well.

Justifying Al Gore's Nobel Prize

Soob asked me to justify the Nobel Peace Prize committee awarding the Nobel Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC scientists, and so that is what I will do.

First of all you can watch a 10-minute interview with Geir Lundestad (noted historian and director of the Nobel Institute) about the connection between climate change and peace. He makes the connection by pointing to the desertification of the Sahel and the conflicts that has caused.

The logic of Al Gore's Nobel is pretty straightforward. Climate change is related to war, Al Gore has raised awareness of climate change and helped efforts to combat it, therefore Al Gore has helped prevent future wars. In this post, I will once again establish the link between climate change, and war and peace. Then I will show the impact Al Gore had on raising the awareness of climate change, thus justifying Al Gore in particular for the award.

There are dozens of links between climate change and issues of war and peace, but for the sake of brevity I will look at resource wars, refugees, and state failure.

Climate change will indirectly cause resource wars by shifting resources between countries (one country's arable land becomes desert, while Siberia becomes farmable). I've looked at the link between climate change and resource wars before in a post highlighting an article by David Zhang on climate changes' impact on war frequency in China:

...when societies adapt to a certain amount of resources, anything that leads to constraints on those resources will lead to conflict. Thus, current global climate change will most likely lead to conflict, even though it is warming rather than cooling. Human civilization has adjusted to climate of a hundred years ago. Any sudden shift that leads to a constriction on resources, whether its oil, arable land, housing, or water, will lead to conflict over that resource.

There are several different types of resource wars. Some wars are fought as simple grabs for resources, such as Charles Taylor's efforts to dominate diamond mining in Liberia, Foday Sankoh's similar efforts in Sierra Leone, and Saddam Hussein's effort to grab Kuwaiti oil. At other times, the theft of resources is what allows a previously-existing insurgency to continue - that is what is currently happening in Iraq with oil smuggling.

Both types are relevant to climate change-triggered conflict, but most relevant is another type of conflict that develops over resources which were previously not valuable, but which some sudden change renders more value. One recent instance of this in the news is the military positioning between Canada, the United States, Norway, Denmark, and Russia over 'ownership' of the Arctic Sea. Now that the icecap is melting, the Arctic sea is suddenly valuable for shipping routes and the oil hidden underneath. In my opinion, war is unlikely in this case, but it serves as a high-profile example of the dynamics at work. ComingAnarchy has been following this with posts here, here and here. Resource wars could also break out over other resources, such as livable land, arable land, water, etc.

Next, climate change and refugees. This is a very simple causal link - climate change will directly create more refugees through more extreme weather such as droughts and hurricanes (Katrina's strength may or may not have been impacted by climate change, but the IPCC states that it's "likely that future tropical cyclones will become more intense" due to climate change). Norman Myers forsees up to 150 million "environmental refugees" in the coming years due to global warming and population growth (Norman Myers. Environmental refugees in a globally warmed world. Bioscience, 43:11). Helping refugees is a cause worth of a Nobel in the past (the 1954 prize went to the UNHCR).

Related to refugees is the link between climate change and state failure. Climate change will also cause more war because the burden of refugees on already weak states will lead to state failure, civil war, insurgency and conflict. One of the factors that defines state failure is a large presence of refugees, so the relationship is QED.

Now, time to show that Al Gore significantly raised awareness of climate change. I think this is pretty self-evident, but if there are any doubters out there, I did some simple research through Lexis Nexis. I used newspaper coverage as a proxy variable to look at public awareness. I looked at the number of articles referenced either "climate change" or "global warming" in the period of May 24 2005 to May 24 2006, and compared it with the number of articles that reference "climate change" or "global warming" between May 24 2006 to May 24 2007. The significance of May 24 2006 is that it is the release date of An Inconvenient Truth, so it compares a year before to a year after. Here's the data:

Media source	Year previous	Year after	% increase
New York Times	708	1311	85.17%
Washington Post	568	1133	99.47%
Financial Times	890	1627	82.81%
USAToday	122	288	136.07%
AP wire reports	676	1866	176.04%

This establishes correlation, not causation. However, in skimming a lot of the articles from both time periods, the articles were about Gore anyway, so in my mind that shows causation. (If that doesn't satisfy you, do your own research!)

Thus:

(climate change is directly related to war)

+

(Al Gore caused a huge increased in the public awareness of climate change)

=

(Al Gore contributed to a huge step
to the prevention of future climate change wars)

And that is an accomplishment worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Interesting reads

Two from Wes Clark: first, his article in the Washington Post's Outlook section on The Next War:

...the next war is always looming, and so is the urgent question of whether the U.S. military can adapt in time to win it.
Today, the most likely next conflict will be with Iran...
...But if it's clear how a war with Iran would start, it's far less clear how it would end.
...The next war could also come from somewhere unexpected; if you'd told most Americans in August 2001 that the United States would be invading Afghanistan within weeks, they'd have called you crazy.
...the lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan couldn't be more clear: Don't ever, ever go to war unless you can describe and create a more desirable end state. And doing so takes a whole lot more than just the use of force.
...The best war is the one that doesn't have to be fought, and the best military is the one capable and versatile enough to deter the next war in the first place.

Also, yesterday Clark officially endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. Clark's been close to the Clinton family since the Kosovo war, and I interpret his endorsement as a signal that he'd definitely be involved in a Clinton cabinet, or possibly as a running mate.

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An article from Der Spiegel on climate refugees - Tuvalu may be the first country in the world to entirely disappear as a result of climate change.

"Is it supposed to become a virtual country?" asked Rainer Lagoni, Professor of Maritime Law at the University of Hamburg. There is no legal definition for a country entirely without land.

Climate intelligence would certainly be a priority for countries in the South Pacific...

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Boston Globe - The Nonbelievers

In a world where zealots crash planes into buildings in the name of God and politicians use the Bible to craft public policy, Epstein sees himself as in the vanguard of an emerging movement fueled by the rise of skepticism, advances in science and technology, and a spreading aversion toward radical religious ideologies and traditions. He and other humanists, who also call themselves atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, secularists, or brights, point to a survey... which found that 20 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 say they have no religious affiliation or consider themselves atheists or agnostics – nearly double those who said that in a similar survey 20 years ago.

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Vanity Fair - Going After Gore

A very interesting after-action report on the press coverage of the Gore campaign. It describes a cycle in which Gore received disproportionately unfavorable coverage, which caused him to restrict access to the press, which caused more unfavorable coverage, etc. Gore also dumbed down his message because he felt reporters were too stupid to understand what he was talking about (arguably true):

Gore: You're reduced to saying, 'Today, here's the message: reduce pollution,' and not necessarily by XYZ out of fear that it will be, well, 'Today he talked about belching cows!'"

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The Economist - Does independence beckon?

Article on the prospects for official independence for Kurdistan. The way I see it, the status quo is great for Kurdistan, and any attempt to formalize what they have now would jeopardize everything.

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Enterprise Management Resilience Blog - Explaining Development-in-a-Box

Steve DeAngelides explains in detail his company's conception of practical aid to developing regions.

Damage Control

A few random stories that I'm too lazy to look at really in depth:

Intelligence policies shift - Pentagon spy chief rolling back some of Rumsfeld's strategies

As previously noted, the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI), Jim Clapper, is trying to undo some of the damage done by Rumsfeld and his number two, Stephen Cambone. Now this is expanding beyond merely undoing policies (like TALON) and moving towards a greater cooperation with the rest of the Intelligence Community.

Retired Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. is aligning the Pentagon's intelligence initiatives with those of the director of national intelligence, John M. McConnell, and will begin to count McConnell as his boss - a significant shift from the autonomy the office enjoyed under Rumsfeld.

Hopefully the end result will be a greater unity of effort. Michael Tanji:

USDI was more oversight/coord than command element. This "fixes" that.

However it seems to me that, since this is a "memorandum of understanding" rather than any substantive change (which I think would require an Executive Order), it could be ended at any time by the USDI, whether Clapper or someone in the future.

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Cheney Attempting to Constrain Bush's Choices on Iran Conflict: Staff Engaged in Insubordination Against President Bush

Bureaucratic infighting in the White House - Cheney versus everyone else.

The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel...
This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument. The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

When people call Cheney and Bush "warmongers," it sounds very cliche and trite, but really John Oliver is correct: the Vice President does "mong a good war. Who knows where he'll mong next?!"



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Finally, Al Gore has a good essay on the wastage of our moral authority. This is related to Wes Clark's recent speech that I mentioned earlier.