Category Archives: Politics

Britain, European Union, Government, Middle East, Politics, Syria, United Nations, United States

Syria, chemical weapons and direct intervention…

SYRIA

Television and media images from Syria have been truly horrendous. Pictures have been depicted showing dozens of bodies laid out in rows, many of them children. Others, including very young infants, are seen suffering convulsions and spasms – symptoms that are typical of a major gas attack.

Ghastly as the images are, however, is all as clear cut as it seems? Photographs and video productions have been circulated by Syrian opposition activists; their release, as a UN team arrived to investigate the reported use of chemical weapons, maybe perceived as being opportunistic with powerful propaganda value.

The conundrum here is whether any leader, even one as beleaguered and brutal in defence of his presidency as Bashar al-Assad, be so heedless and perverse of the consequences as to launch such an attack just as the UN inspectors were arriving. Assad has denied he did it, but many say he would have if he had done it.

The alternative is even less plausible – that the Syrian rebels staged, exaggerated or even manipulated an attack on areas they hold with the intention of persuading both the UN inspectors and international opinion towards a Western intervention.

Whichever it is, we should constantly bear in mind the barbaric and brutal lengths to which a desperate regime will go to keep power.

Whilst the response from most international leaders has been one of outrage, comments have been tempered, rightly, with a measure of caution. ‘If proven’ is the crucial phrase that has emanated from Britain, France, and from others who are calling for more direct action. Legally, it is also a pointer as to what the priority should now be: to establish, so far as is possible, the truth of what happened. To fulfil that end, the UN inspectors must be granted immediate and unfettered access to the area of the alleged atrocity.

Establishing the truth is vital because the stakes are so high. The use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict was defined by President Obama as a ‘red line’ when he said almost a year ago that if the Assad regime deployed chemical weapons, ‘the whole calculus would change’. This was widely interpreted as a condition for the U.S. to intervene, either directly or by arming the rebels.

Yet, nor can it be excluded that the rebels have attempted to orchestrate something in which they might force America’s hand. So far, an EU investigation has only reported small scale use of sarin nerve gas on both sides. But if such an extensive attack, as seems to have taken place this week, is found to be the work of Syrian government forces, that could not but ‘change the calculus’.

Crucially, though, would it (or should it) prompt Western intervention? Intervention can take various forms, from air strikes targeting Syrian weapons, cruise missile launches from the naval fleet operating in the region, or a full ground incursion with boots on the ground. But as we know from Iraq and Afghanistan, even limited intervention tends to produce perverse and unwieldy results. In Syria it could be even more riskier, given the regional complexity and its ever more volatile neighbourhood.

At the present moment, doing nothing seems less perilous than direct intervention. Being sucked into a bloody civil war that is increasingly sectarian with regional alliances taking hold – Iran and Hezbollah siding with the Assad regime, and Saudi Arabia arming the rebels – direct intervention would certainly appear the worse of two evils. But even now the case has still not been made for direct intervention in Syria.

Standard
Britain, Economic, Energy, Environment, Government, Politics, Society, Technology

Fracking and drilling for shale gas…

SHALE TRAIL

Will the UK Government’s latest ‘dash for gas’ with fracking be a golden repeat of the North Sea oil boom or become a serious risk to public health and safety?

Opinion is divided between green opponents of attempts to cash in on the controversial resource and those proponents who argue vast deposits of gas below much of the country will dig Britain out of its energy crisis.

The debate has been stoked following claims in June by the British Geological Society that there could be more than 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas under the North of England alone.

At current predictions, around 10 per cent of this should be recoverable – enough to fuel the nation for about 40 years, according to supporters.

And last month Chancellor George Osborne unveiled some of the most generous tax breaks in the world to kick-start this energy revolution in Britain.

The Treasury says that taxation on shale gas will be cut from 62 per cent to just 30 per cent, which the Chancellor reckons could boost investment in the industry to £14 billion a year.

It won’t just be companies that will gain. Local communities in those areas where extraction takes place will scoop 1 per cent of production revenues, as well as £100,000 per fracking well.

The United States has already benefited from its own shale gas boom, relying far less on oil imports now and providing energy consumers with a much cheaper alternative. According to the ratings agency Moody’s, the shale gas boom in America has generated more than 1 million US jobs.

For investors, too, the potential is huge.

If fracking’s potential is as good as we’re being told it could be, there will soon be a surge in profitability, rising share prices and attractive returns on offer for shareholders of those firms leading the charge. While there remains a long road to travel yet in terms of legislation and testing, the excitement building in the City of London is tangible.

Companies with licences for British shale areas have understandably welcomed the tax break announcements by the Chancellor. Those set to benefit include Aim-listed IGas and Dart Energy, equipment-maker John Wood Group and British Gas-owner Centrica – which acquired 25 per cent of Cuadrilla Resources in June.

Of course, the environmental concerns have to be weighed against the commercial benefits. But even the most ardent green lobbyist must recognise that Britain is facing a crisis of epic proportions when it comes to security of energy supply.

The UK is already a net importer of gas. Any interruption in supplies risks hiking up domestic and business energy bills or even seeing some customers cut off. Our coal-fired plants are closing or already shuttered.

Meanwhile, nuclear energy is in disarray with no new plants likely for at least another decade. There is still no sign of agreement on the crucial strike price – the guaranteed minimum EDF would get for power generated at a new plant.

Green technologies like wind are as yet incapable of fulfilling all our everyday energy needs.

The introduction of a tax regime that levels the playing field for shale gas with small offshore oil and gas fields must surely be a welcome step in the right direction.

But the industry will need to be tightly regulated to minimise the chances of something going wrong. Lobbyists have legitimate concerns over the chemicals used in the fracking process contaminating local water supplies, and the anecdotal evidence elsewhere that drilling for shale gas can increase the risk of earthquakes.

Drilling and fracturing must be strictly controlled. Three government agencies, plus the local authority, will have to sign-off on every project. Environmental impact assessments will be necessary along with permits to be agreed before fracking begins.

Standard
Economic, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, United States

Bilateral relations between America and Russia…

RUSSIA ISN’T WHAT IT ONCE WAS

At the pinnacle of the Cold War, leaders from both Russia and America would meet on fairly equal terms to bargain over the fate of the world. If either titan refused to meet the other, that generally signalled a cast chill over humanity.

Yet, the idea that Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin remain genuine peers today is a delusion and remnant left over from the era of superpower confrontation. For all the bombastic rhetoric emanating from the Kremlin, the inescapable reality is that America possesses a widening advantage over Russia on every possible measure of national power: from economic strength to its military might.

The decision by Mr Obama to cancel a proposed summit with Mr Putin in Moscow next month, ostensibly because of the furore surrounding Russia’s decision to grant the US fugitive and whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum status, was both inevitable and eminently sensible. Washington’s justified response to the posturing of a weaker rival was credible because Mr Snowden offered himself as a convenient antagonist to needle the United States.

The White House, of course, has not escaped criticism from some quarters at home. Some are asking why, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union managed to hold summits even during the depths of the Cold War – when the divide separating the rival superpowers was even greater – why President Obama, who has regularly stood by his faith and doctrine in resetting relations with Russia, could not have gone through with the September Summit?

Any historical comparison, though, is false; the Cold War ended almost 22-years ago, and America has always been perceived as the silent victor. But as Mr Obama has rightly pointed out, the Kremlin acts as if it continues, almost reflexively, to take the opposite point of view to Washington on every conceivable problem of the moment. Putin’s nationalistic approach to a domestic audience may play well at home with some, but one may wonder whether the Russian President has even noticed how much the world has changed since the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991 when the red flag with the hammer and sickle was hauled down for the last time from the Kremlin towers.

No one should doubt that the global balance of power is turning against the West, but Russia cannot be classified as being among the world’s rising powers. For one, the country’s population is in remorseless decline. Poor health, alcoholism and emigration are steadily reducing the number of Russian citizens. The UN has forecast that by 2050 the country will have lost some 36 million people, reducing its overall population to 107 million – Uganda, a country whose territory is less than 2 per cent the size of Russia, has a population not much above 103 million.

Compare and contrast America, with a populace of more than 300 million people – or even Britain, which now has the fastest growing population in Europe. The UK adds about 400,000 people every year, which is close to the annual rate at which Russians are dying off. While some Britons remain uneasy over the scale of immigration on these islands, it is true that fewer people make a weaker economy.

And another reason for Russia’s long-term decline is due to its actual economic health. Today, the American economy remains eight times bigger than Russia’s. Remarkably, too, is that Russia’s gross domestic product is still 30 per cent smaller than Britain’s. Its economic strength has been artificially inflated by high oil prices and the vast energy reserves it has at its disposal. Despite that, Russia’s customers are increasingly turning to shale gas from fracking, and future oil prices will become an uncertain indicator for economic health.

Whilst it is true that Russia can act as an obstructionist on a range of international issues (Syria being one such example) one should seek to understand whether Mr Putin is deliberately irritating the U.S. rather than being a competitive rival to the West.

Today, military might and the size of a country’s nuclear arsenal count far less than its economic prowess, its entrepreneurialism, competitiveness and how central it is to the global trading system. With neither the EU nor China having the desire to send fleets and armies to the opposite ends of the earth, the United States remains the autonomnous military superpower having achieved that position largely by default. Despite Mr Putin’s bluster, Russia no longer has the capacity it once had in challenging America as a superpower.

Economically, Russia is a mid-sized power, with a GDP that is barely a 10th of that of the US. Russia is often quoted for its corruption, its scant respect for the rule of law and its continued dependence on raw materials, particularly oil and gas.

Had September’s summit gone ahead, Mr Obama would have been on a hiding to nothing as Vladimir Putin’s obstructionist style would have seen to that. Such summits are not spontaneous, one-off occasions, but are carefully choreographed and prepared; usually communiqués are worked out well in advance. Presently, however, apart from the evident dislike between the two men, the differences appear unbridgeable – on Syria’s continuing bloody civil war, missile defence and Mr Putin’s internal repression, to name but a few of the issues. Moscow’s granting of asylum status to Edward Snowden would have been the last straw. Had Mr Obama attended the summit in Moscow and returned empty-handed, as was all but certain, he would have been pilloried at home by Republicans as being weak and over-trusting.

With bilateral relations as low as they are, it isn’t inconceivable to say they will remain that way so long as Mr Putin is on the world stage.

Standard