Recent global warming studies published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA reach similar conclusions.  The last 10 years are the warmest on record, and 2010 temperatures are positioned to surpass even these numbers.  Reports the NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade, due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years — 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 1998 and 2007 — as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began [in 1880].

And NOAA’s preliminary findings show:

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20^th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F). This is the fourth warmest January on record.

As Al Gore writes,

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

But as the data shows, “we can’t wish away climate change.”

I’ve been very skeptical of escalation in Afghanistan. Part of my skepticism was based on the belief that our actions would have little impact on Pakistan’s willingness to take action against the Afghan Taliban.  But recent arrests certainly cast doubt on that assessment:

Half of Afghanistan Taliban leadership arrested in Pakistan / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com

Pakistan has arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban’s leadership in recent days, Pakistani officials told the Monitor Wednesday, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgent movement.

In total, seven of the insurgent group’s 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, including the head of military operations, have been apprehended in the past week, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

We need to be cautious about assuming that everything is linked to American actions.  But, on the other hand, proponents of escalation often argued that one of the big benefits of escalation in Afghanistan would be to demonstrate to the Pakistani that we were committed and would not walk away. Proponents predicted that this would encourage the Pakistanis to crack down on safe havens in Pakistan.  This is, indeed, what seems to be happening. 

I don’t know why the Pakistani are cracking down now.  But I didn’t think they would at all, so ya know, I might not be the right person to make the assessment.  Anyway, at this point, I am inclined to given credence to the interpretation of escalation proponents that our escalation did indeed alter the calculus in Pakistan.

Now, I am not sure we have much of a stake in Afghanistan, at least not one that justifies a large commitment of ground troops.  But these developments certainly make more plausible the goal of defeating the insurgency, which is good news.

Today’s National Journal’s Energy and Environment blog posed the question, “Should Climate Change Be A ‘Risk’? American Security Project (ASP) board member and Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney (Ret.) offered the following response:

Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks…..and (supposedly) he answered, “because that’s where the money is.” So climate change has finally gotten the attention of the one institution in our Federal Government that has real money – the Department of Defense. In the latest version of the Quadrennial Defense Review, issued in February, there is a significant section addressing the potential impact that climate change will have on stability in the world. It describes how climate change would contribute to conflict and impact our safety. But the DoD, at least in this report, is more concerned about accessing the potential impact of climate change, versus the causes. And while their interest is laudable, can they really help counter what is increasingly seen as not just a threat to our safety but our way of life?

Perhaps we ought to be grateful that this issue is finally receiving the attention it richly deserves, and for just the first time is mentioned not only in this document but in the Department of Homeland Security’s first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (albeit briefly). Should both Departments be dedicating more assets and effort to this long-term threat? And if so, what should those assets be?

As I mentioned in my talk to opinion leaders on Capitol Hill on January 27th, the Department of Defense is the one Federal entity that has “boots on the ground” throughout the world that can best assess the impact of climate change on worldwide stability. Should we be tasking the Combatant Commanders to report on not only the impact of climate change but our dependence on fossil fuel and foreign sources for that fuel? And what more can both DoD and DHS be doing to not just access the impact but counter the causes?

What Willie Sutton really said was “go where the money is…..and go there often.” Appropriate in this circumstance?

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As Reuters reported late last month, it was about two years ago that a Department of Homeland Security official first brought “’the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of aircraft since 9/11’” to the attention of his supervisors.  Yet since this time, the U.S. government has taken little to no action to abate the intercontinental narco-trafficking.

The report produced by the anonymous official described regular flights across the Atlantic between cocaine-producing lands in Latin America and unstable countries – home to militants, terrorists and anti-government rebels – in western Africa.

The aircraft hopscotch across South American countries, picking up tons of cocaine and jet fuel, officials say. They then soar across the Atlantic to West Africa and the Sahel, where the drugs are funneled across the Sahara Desert and into Europe.

Various fake documents, repainted tail numbers and vacated landing strips mask the planes’ illicit arrivals and departures, which go largely unnoticed.  In the event the plane is detected, African governments are ill-equipped to handle the escalating problem.  Lacking the adequate resources – including in many instances arms for every officer, police forces are often unable to track and arrest the perpetrators.  And though the DEA has more offices abroad than any other American agency – 87 offices in 62 countries, only four are located in Africa.

What’s more, corruption abounds; bribes are traded often among traffickers and law enforcement.  In Mexico, officials have for years permitted these planes to land at commercial airports.  Increasingly this is a problem in African nations where the impoverished population is ripe for financial inducement; $9,000 to $11,000 for a single run is highly enticing for a people living on no more than $2,400 annually.  In one incident, soldiers in Guinea Bissou blocked and threatened police forces attempting to intercept a delivery of $50 million in cocaine at Bissou airport.

And who is at the heart of this operation? Al Qaeda, its affiliate in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and FARC, presenting what is best described as “’an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists,”’ and whose arsenal has only gotten stronger.  The Boeing 727s they have been known to operate serves as evidence of this.  Their financial growth attracts a high level of recruits, and their surge in mobility and manpower is an obvious threat to U.S. – and international – security.

’The obvious huge concern is that you have a transportation system that is capable of transporting tons of cocaine from west to east,’ said the aviation specialist who wrote the Homeland Security report. ’But it’s reckless to assume that nothing is coming back, and when there’s terrorist organizations on either side of this pipeline, it should be a high priority to find out what is coming back on those airplanes.’

Absent from President Obama’s State of the Union address on the 27^th of January was any mention of his previous commitment to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The CTBT is a multilateral agreement between 44 nuclear-capable states that would prohibit all nuclear testing once all 44 sign and ratify it. The United States is a signatory, but a Clinton-era effort to ratify the CTBT resulted in regrettable defeat by a Senate that was sharply divided along partisan lines. The defeat caused a firestorm of criticism at home and abroad.

Perhaps for fear of another defeat (US Senate treaty ratification requires a 67-vote majority), Mr. Obama seems to have shelved the CTBT for now and instead capitalized on renegotiating Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) – a nuclear drawdown agreement with Russia that recently lapsed. Although START I is immensely important, it is only a bilateral agreement that leaves out other major nuclear powers such as China and India. Meanwhile, both are actively increasing the size of their arsenals. China’s nuclear forces increased by 25 percent between 2006 and 2008, according to a 2008 Department of Defense report. The Indian nuclear program also continues to grow, as its sea- and land-based portions are developed. India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but enjoys open support from the United States; in 2008, the US Congress gave final approval for US nuclear cooperation with India.

Ratifying or even attempting to ratify the CTBT may benefit Mr. Obama politically. According to the 2007 Simmons Foundation Report, nearly 55% of respondents in the US support the “elimination of nuclear testing worldwide,” while an additional 30% support “reducing the number of nuclear tests in the world.” Moreover, there is a strong bipartisan consensus on nuclear disarmament that includes prominent republicans like Senator John McCain. Possible Republican obstructionism on CTBT is unlikely to be tolerated or garner support from the American people.

US ratification will put pressure on other states (like China, India, Pakistan, Israel and others) to follow suit. It will provide the diplomatic leverage necessary to take stronger action on rogue proliferators such as Iran and North Korea. The United States possesses enough nuclear know-how (at 1054 detonations it has conducted more tests than any other country) not to need testing ever again. More importantly, a resumption of nuclear tests would completely discredit all of the Obama administration “Nuclear-Free World” rhetoric and would be interpreted abroad as nuclear saber rattling (as were North Korean 2006 and 2009 tests, for example).

Unilateral ratification will not weaken the US position, but will rather strengthen it. There is a great precedent for the success of such “leadership by example” on nuclear testing. When the former Russian President Boris Yeltsin renewed the Gorbachev-era unilateral moratorium on testing in 1991, both the United Kingdom and then the United States soon did the same. In 1996 France and China ceased testing as well.

Scientific American correctly asserts: “…the CTBT would make the world a safer, more secure place for the U.S. than a world without the treaty.” The United States missed a great opportunity in 1999, resulting in a world where North Korea was able to detonate two nuclear bombs without any repercussions. Mr. Obama should make sure that this mistake is corrected soon.

House Testimony: The Paradoxes of Al Qaeda: Think Tank : The New Yorker

More broadly, with or without success in the pursuit of Al Qaeda’s leadership, the group’s self-isolation should provide a fundamental framework for U.S. counterterrorism policy, particularly in the communications sphere. That policy should be constructed to patiently reinforce Al Qaeda’s political isolation. (The hunt for Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri, by Predator drone and otherwise, may have a countervailing effect in the short run, but the effort to finally destroy Al Qaeda’s central leadership is nonetheless essential.) The most effective U.S. approach will be to call attention to Al Qaeda’s depredations and weaknesses, through proxies as much as possible, while taking no action itself that might reconnect Al Qaeda to its former political, financial and recruiting support. Fortunately, in strategic communications, Al Qaeda’s own actions speak most effectively for themselves—the ghoulish spectacle of a young Nigerian “taught” to commit suicide by detonating explosives hidden in his underwear was hardly the image of noble war that Al Qaeda would require to recover its lost standing. American communications matter less, but as with Al Qaeda, actions always provide the clearest and most effective signals, particularly in a media era characterized by nearly infinite numbers of channels. Closing Guantanamo, repudiating torture, reaffirming American constitutional values, engaging constructively with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, affirming the sanctity of civilian life in military conflict, are all examples of specific acts by the Obama Administration—attempted or completed—that by themselves can contribute to a successful strategic communications policy aimed at Al Qaeda’s continued political isolation.

The entire testimony is well worth reading. But these policy recommendations are, I believe, spot on. 

The main challenge for the United States is to allow AQ to destroy itself, even in the face of provocation.  Our impetus — driven the the policy confluence of neo-conservatives and neo-liberals — to try to actively “fix” everything is perhaps our greatest on-going danger.  There are times when less is more, and we are now in a situation where restraint is going to serve American interests better than a crusade to reshape politics around the globe.

Of course, if there is a successful spectacular terrorist attack on U.S. soil, we are almost certain to overreact and as a consequence undermine our own strategic interests.  Unfortunately, it is probably beyond the capacity of any American politician to prepare the American public sufficiently to allow for a nuanced response to an attack, so we are in a perilous position where AQ can only prosper if we help them, but where we are also likely to be incapable to not doing so if attacked.

I keep harping on our lack of strategic thinking in the United States.  I know many people consider this an academic exercise, as in (paraphrasing): “Ivory toward academic Bernard Finel keeps suggesting we consider ’strategy’ explicitly, but the reality is that we have a complex threat environment and receive plenty of guidance from senior leaders about priorities.”

The current situation in Yemen highlights the problems with relying on “in-box” driven priority assessment to drive policy debates.

U.S. military teams, intelligence deeply involved in aiding Yemen on strikes – washingtonpost.com

U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people, among them six of 15 top leaders of a regional al-Qaeda affiliate, according to senior administration officials.
….
The broad outlines of the U.S. involvement in Yemen have come to light in the past month, but the extent and nature of the operations have not been previously reported. The far-reaching U.S. role could prove politically challenging for Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who must balance his desire for American support against the possibility of a backlash by tribal, political and religious groups whose members resent what they see as U.S. interference in Yemen.

I would love to know how the discussions about Yemen strategy have developed inside the administration because this deepening involvement is a prime example of the challenge I have tried to highlight.  There are al Qaeda (AQ) operatives working in Yemen.  Killing them may, in the short-run, disrupt AQ operations.  That is a worthwhile goal.  But what are the long-term consequences of a deepening U.S. involvement?

This is not a trivial question.  Once you begin to use force — with or without the consent of a local government — you become deeply embedded into the security environment in that country.  From there it becomes logical to further deepen the involvement over time.  Recall the argument over Afghanistan policy.  Many proponents of escalation argued (paraphrasing): “Well, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to get so deeply involved, but we are there now and how to deal with things as they are, not as we would wish them to be.”

In Yemen, our use of force now is creating the antecedent conditions that will later on justify more and deeper intervention, in part because by allying ourselves with the Saleh government we both make all of his enemies our enemies and we also because we are extending a tacit offer of protection because at some point, someone will argue, “we have to back Saleh, otherwise other Muslim leaders won’t be willing to side with us.”

But if we step back and think about end states — i.e. begin a process of strategic assessment — isn’t it obvious that the goal for the United States ought to be disentangle itself from politics in a place like Yemen and seek to insulate ourselves from disorder that may arise there?  There is no coherent U.S. interest in support of mediating the various internecine disputes on the Arabian peninsula, is there? 

As a consequence, this deepening involvement, even though it satisfies a visceral urge to whack some bad guys does not necessarily contribute to any long-term desire national security goal.  Which isn’t to say that in striking AQ operatives we are not gaining some measure of security in the short-term.  But without a sound strategic framework in place, how can we weigh the long-term costs against the short-term benefits?

The pending US climate change legislation is widely considered to be in peril due to legislative infighting, particularly over the bill’s endorsement of cap and trade policy. On the eve of President Obama’s first State of the Union, The New York Times came out in support of the bill and called upon the President to make the case for it to the American public. Having promised in Copenhagen to meet a 17% reduction goal by 2020, Obama’s own credibility is at stake. Ultimately, however, there are far more reasons to pass this bill than there are to let it die a quiet death in Congress. In many ways, the debate happening on Capitol Hill demonstrates a preoccupation with satisfying special interests at the expense of giving voice to newly emerging public opinions about climate change. However, many question public commitment to this cause, especially with regard to the cost to taxpayers. According to Carroll Doherty of the Pew Center for People & the Press, “There’s more support than opposition for [legislation], but people haven’t heard a lot about this. This issue is off the radar for a lot of people.”

That is why it is so important for President Obama to highlight this issue in his speech tomorrow night. He needs to frame climate change legislation in the context of economic growth and national security interests. Senators such as John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham are working at refining the bill, but do so at the potential cost of key elements crucial to reducing emissions. There will be little incentive for innovation in safe energy and green technologies unless Congress puts a price on carbon emissions. Scientists estimate that there needs to be a radical reduction in emissions by 2050 in order to offset serious environmental threats. Now is the time for a robust legislative movement to pass the climate change bill in the interest of investing in the future.