How Romney Can Weather the Primaries

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Lei| Leave a comment

While the past month has been a joyride for the media and the Obama campaign, it has been an utter nightmare for Mitt Romney and the GOP.  Soon after the Iowa opener the Republican primaries got ugly, fast. Mitt Romney won the ire of Newt Gingrich by demolishing his surge there with superPAC money, and, as a result, the two frontrunners are now irradiating each other with as much negative advertising as Citizens United can buy.

Ever since, Romney has had to face an onslaught of surprise attacks by a venomous Newt from his left flank while committing a series of political gaffes that only heighten their effects. A flub regarding his tax returns, tone-deaf misspeaks that cast doubt on his sensitivity to the middle class, and Newt’s bomb throwing have all taken their toll on Romney’s numbers.

Though he is poised to win Florida, the next round of primaries will take him through a southern firewall of states that have never trusted his conservatism. Romney faces a prolonged primary process that will only get uglier and may significantly weaken him for the general election.

However, all is not lost for Romney and the GOP establishment. With three course corrections, Romney can insulate himself from the incoming wave of negativity, seal the GOP nomination, and hold a position of strength for the general. Continue reading →

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Top Five Political Events of 2011

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

As 2011 draws to a close, it is time for our annual top five events of the year. We gave serious consideration to expanding the list beyond five since many highly influential events occurred this year. Kim Jong-Il’s death is notably absent. His death certainly will change the environment on the North Korean peninsula but the dust will most likely not settle until next year. The following list looks at key events this year that had a significant impact on world affairs and the trajectory of the United States.

This year marked many transformative events. 2011 was not kind to dictators. Kim Jong-Il and Muammar Gaddafi are dead. Hosni Mubarak and the presidents of Tunisia and Yemen are out of power. Bashar al-Assad is on his way out. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Putin has faced the largest protests in a decade. Even dictators cannot ignore there people anymore thanks to social media and the power of the internet. However, democracies are not immune either. Europe is in crisis as governments collapse over austerity measures and the EU appears impotent against the sovereign debt crises. In the United States the Progressive movement awakened from hibernation and took to occupying city squares in protest of corporate greed.

This was a year of crises and the next year does not look much better. Congress does not show any signs of improving its reputation. Democracy still has a way to go in the Middle East. The whole world will watch in earnest as new governments in the region take power. Also there will be key elections in the United States, Taiwan, Russia, Mexico, France and a leadership transition in China. It will not be an easy year. Before we buckle down for 2012, lets take a look at the top five events of 2011: Continue reading →

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A Bird’s Eye View of Wukan

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Lei| Leave a comment

The recent civil unrest in Wukan, China has certainly stirred the media pot of the foreign press during a 2011 full of social movements. After all, the entire 20,000 population of a fishing village not only revolted in protest against the usual corruption and abuse, but, in an unprecedented move, has managed to kick out the local government in the process. Now the eyes of the world are watching while the local government has laid siege to the town, waiting and possibly hoping that like so many other small incidents this year this one will metastasize into something more. However, what will actually happen in Wukan and whether the civil unrest will cascade fundamentally depend on both the target of the protests and the extent of domestic media coverage.

The former is with regards to whether the villagers in Wukan associate or dissociate the central government from the local government. So far the common belief within the village seems to affirm a public dissociation between the local and central government. As long as that belief holds, it’s unlikely the central government would be directly protested, and therefore less likely that the protests would readily spread against the central government. Furthermore, so long as the latter is assumed true Beijing has the option to legitimize the protests as a way to control local corruption, an issue which has been pledged by the central government for all of Hu Jintao’s decade long term without much real progress. Such an arrangement could substantially change the nature of local governance while further legitimizing the core regime. However, adopting such a tactic could also be seen as legitimizing the right to protest and organize outside the jurisdiction of the party. The natural solution to that problem would be to crack down, but given the dissenter’s position in favour of the central government against the local, this would come at the cost of public opinion. The central government therefore walks a fine line between condoning and condemnation. Continue reading →

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Rapid Reaction: The New Hampshire Republican Debate

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

Tonight the main Republican contenders for President in 2012 debated in New Hampshire. Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, and Herman Cain joined the stage for the CNN hosted debate. As there is still several months before the first primary, I will withhold from making in-depth commentary. Rather what follows are my first impressions of the candidates and their current state in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Continue reading →

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A Moribund Alliance Breeds Reluctant Allies

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

Earlier this week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates strongly rebuked the United States’ European allies for neglecting their military capabilities. While the critique said nothing new, it further highlighted the poor state of European military capabilities. Much of the current state of affairs can be blamed on European leaders, but NATO and the transatlantic alliance share some of the blame.

Since the end of the Cold War, military budgets have been in decline. The recession and the European financial crisis put further strain on national budgets. Many European countries have not hesitated to chop their military budgets. NATO members are supposed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense purposes but only Britain, France, and Turkey exceed the threshold. Even Britain, long one of the bigger defense spenders, is enacting large cuts to its defense sector. Continue reading →

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Nuclear Twilight in Europe

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

Germany today announced that it would phase out nuclear energy production by 2022 in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Angela Merkel was the first European leader to show opposition to nuclear energy following the Japanese incident. This will be a dramatic shift for the German energy sector since 25% of its energy production comes from nuclear sources. Germany hopes to replace its nuclear production with renewable sources such as wind and solar.

So what impact will this have on the energy sector?

Germany has set an ambitious target that may not be feasible. In 2007, 15% of Germany’s electricity generation came from renewable energy sources. If Germany replaces all of its nuclear capacity with renewable sources it will need to produce 40% of its electricity from renewables by 2022. Germany is one of the most ambitious European nations on renewable energy, and it set its 2020 target at 35%. Merkel has not made it clear how Germany will be able to boost its renewable energy production by twenty percent in ten years given the current technology and levels of investment. Germany was not able to meet its 2010 target for renewable energy. Merkel mentioned hydroelectric sources as a potential replacement. Currently hydroelectric energy only accounts for 5% of Germany’s electricity production. However, according to Spiegal Online there is very little room for further expansion of hydroelectric facilities. Most of Germany’s rivers are already dammed, and there would be enormous opposition to any further large dams. There is potential for small scale hydroelectric and tidal power but these sources are categorized as renewables. If Germany wants to meet Merkel’s plan, it will have to more than double its already sizable renewable energy production. Continue reading →

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The Choice for Serbia: Mladic and the EU

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

A brutal chapter in Balkan history final begins to close yesterday with the capture of Ratko Mladic. During the Bosnian War 1992-1995 he led the Bosnian Serb army. As the highest ranking officer he was charged with carrying out the massacre at Srebrenica. Along with Radovan Karadzic, the President of the Republika Srpska, he evaded capture for over a decade.

It was long suspected that Mladic had protection from loyal people within the Serbian military and security forces. He was finally captured in northern Serbia on May 26, 2011. He will shortly be transfered to the Hague as the last indictee at large under the tribunal responsible for prosecuting war crimes during the Yugoslav wars.

Karadzic and Mladic have been a sore point in the relations between Serbia and the European Union. The EU Member States made the capture of both fugitives a precondition for starting talks for Serbia to join the EU. They believed that Serbia was protecting both individuals from international prosecution. This was certainly correct in the case of Mladic at least until recently. Furthermore, European peacekeepers (the Dutch in particular) were humiliated at Srebrenica. The brutality of the Serbian forces during the war have not been forgotten by the capitals of Western Europe. Thus, Serbia has been treated as a pariah state in Europe for the past two decades. Continue reading →

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Romney’s Health Care Swing and a Miss

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

Mitt Romney just cannot shake the ghost of the Massachusetts health care law that he passed while Governor. No other issue so dominates and plagues his campaign. While on other issues Romney has distanced himself from past positions, on health care Romney has remained committed to the law he passed in Massachusetts. Unfortunately for him, the Massachusetts law is very similar to President Obama’s law. The individual mandate, the most unpopular provision of Obama’s version, was included in the Romney version.

Today the Romney campaign took the step to try to own up to the issue. It failed. Romney’s latest stance is that the decision on health care should be a state issue. The federal government overreached when it passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In reference to his law, Romney said, “our plan was a state solution to a state problem.” Continue reading →

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Tribunal Theater: Osama and the Courts

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

The dust has  started to settle from the killing of Osama bin Laden nearly ten years after 9/11. It did not take long for some serious challenges against the actions of the United States. The legality of the operation is perhaps one of the more interesting debates. In particular many are looking at the counterfactual – what if bin Laden was taken alive and put on trial.

Such line of thinking immediately questions the actions of the Navy SEAL team that conducted the operation. It assumes that the SEAL team did not really try to take bin Laden alive. The exact sequence of events that night may never be fully understood. There will always be a series of “what ifs.” There is little reason to believe the SEAL team did anything wrong. Killing bin Laden was a judgement call. As a observers with limited information, it is impossible for us to pass judgement. Itis not uncommon for a dangerous suspect who resists arrest to be killed whether it is a military or police operation. But lets entertain the hypothetical situation where bin Laden was captured alive. Would a trial be better than the result we got? The short answer is no. Continue reading →

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Shale Gas Extraction Comes to Europe: Another Blow to Gazprom?

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Dan S| Leave a comment

In recent years the United States entered a natural gas revolution as it began to develop unconventional sources through a process called hydraulic fracturing (commonly known as fracking). This revolution is now coming to Europe. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) brought the first major change to European energy consumption patterns; shale production could be the next major shift.

Most of Europe is very energy resource poor. Many of the oil fields are drying up.  Denmark is currently the only oil exporter. The same story is true with natural gas. Only Denmark and the Netherlands are net exporters. Of the EU27, Denmark is the only country with energy independence. The UK is nearly independent but its oil and gas fields are diminishing. Poland and the Czech Republic benefit from coal reserves but are heavily dependent on oil and natural gas imports. Continue reading →

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