The United States building a 21rst Century alliance system

[Kirkhill]

Sorry Sherwood, but the Brits started investing in the US in 1607 and have been doing so ever since.  Even when they were fighting you.  They still constitute one of your largest investors, if not the largest.

When does an investor become an owner become a problem?

Cheers.

 

[a_majoor]

I expect one of the motivations behind the new partnerships like the Anglosphere, New Europe, Japan and India (among others) is to bind them in an ever increasing integration with the American economy. If this is the case, then outsourcing jobs and technology to India becomes a slightly larger version of moving jobs and factories from Michigan to the Sunbelt states.

After all, while you may decry the corporate quest for "comparative advantage", where else will those countries sell their products besides the United States and members of its free market zone? (On the other hand, overt actions like currency manipulation and subsidization should be discouraged by all members of this market zone).

 

[54/102 CEF]

Capital goes where its welcomed with laws that say you`ll get paid for work done, low labour costs and doesn`t where this doesn`t happen

I don`t think there is any mystery to the economics

 

[54/102 CEF]

One word that kills foreign competition

Innovation

As in Innovative and P38 = end of Yamamoto

Imagine

Innovation on the same scale as the Manhattan Project vs the fuel hog engine = declining influence of offshore mobility integrators = car companies.

I think the bigger market is internal - somehow get off the natural gas kick.

Go get 'em team!

 

[Kirkhill]

Cheers Maj. Baker.

 

[a_majoor]

Remember, you read it here first!:

http://anglosphere.com/weblog/archives/000291.html

Rather that stress the exclusive nature of the Indo-U.S. partnership--which frightens as well as flatters--he might want to point out that other friends of India are also linking themselves more closely to the U.S. in the post-Cold War world. John Howard's Australia is one. Tony Blair's Britain another. Following the recent election in Canada, Stephen Harper's new government is likely to move closer, though cautiously, to the U.S.

Most of these countries are also connected to each other, to India and to the U.S. by other links: the large and growing Indian diasporas throughout the English-speaking world; the practical esperanto of the English language; the common institutions, legal traditions and liberal ideas inherited from the British; the very modern economic links through the information industry in which India is a world leader; the gradual development of an English-speaking world culture, both high and popular; and a communications revolution which makes cultural similarity a more potent source of international cooperation than geographical proximity.

All these developments have made the English-speaking world--in which the U.S. and India will soon be the two most important powers--a group of countries that tend to see the world in the same way and thus to cooperate on more and more matters from trade to military threats. James C. Bennett calls such groupings "network civilizations" and this particular one "the Anglosphere." As he points out, we should expect to see the different nations in the Anglosphere working together increasingly.

And in fact the Anglosphere, plus Japan and Israel, is gradually emerging as an informal U.S. alliance system that often works better than the formal NATO one. In this new world alliance India is a junior partner to nobody except the U.S. And the more India is seen as a dominant power in an Anglosphere alliance rather than a subordinate one in a purely U.S.-India alliance, the more easily India will shed its nostalgia for its days of Third World leadership.

Indeed. Given current realities, India's relationship with the Anglosphere will be one of the defining factors of the 21st century.

 

[a_majoor]

Although the main body of the article is about the decline of the EU, the last part suggests a role for the United States (and by extention its new alliance system) to come to the rescue. The factors which are paralyzing Europe are also at work in Canada, and we certainly need to keep the pressure on the new government to act on its five priorities and embark on some economic liberalization as well.

http://www.nationalreview.com/jos/osullivan200604210606.asp

Nothing Sprouts from Brussels
A paralyzed Europe.

Wherever you look today in Western Europe today, the political diagnosis is the same: paralysis.

For Italy, the popular vote percentages in last week's elections say it all: Silvio Berlusconi's outgoing conservative coalition won 49.7 percent of the total vote and the incoming center-Left coalition led by former "Eurocrat" Romano Prodi gained a victorious 49.8 percent! Italy is divided right down the middle politically.

Under the rules of the Italian constitution — which give the winning party additional seats — Prodi will be handed a secure parliamentary majority. But that will not in fact remedy the stagnation of the popular vote.

Prodi's coalition is so divided between former Christian Democrats, former Communists, and still-faithful Communist true believers that it cannot unite around any reform program that is seriously contentious. It opposed Berlusconi's modest labor market reform — temporary contracts for younger workers to reduce youth unemployment — in the election campaign. So there is little or no prospect of Prodi adopting the wider labor market flexibility, pension reform, or tax cuts that Italy badly needs.

Result: paralysis.

Almost the same is true of Angela Merkel's "Grand Coalition" of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in Germany. Ms. Merkel is winning golden opinions for her deft handling of foreign policy which, among other achievements, has restored good relations between Berlin and Washington.

That is because Merkel, as Chancellor, enjoys a relatively free hand on diplomacy. On domestic economic reforms, however, she will need to win the support of both her socialist ministers and a parliament that has a left-wing majority. Many observers forget that the center-right actually lost ground in last year's German elections when the combined parties of the Left — the social democrats, the Greens, and the Left — gained an extra forty seats.

Merkel became Chancellor only because of a recent political tradition that the party with the single largest number of seats should head the government. She therefore presides over a schizophrenic administration that is dubious about an economic reform program which probably could not win a parliamentary vote even if all her socialist colleagues were enthusiastically in favor of it. Unless early elections grant her a real center-right majority, Merkel must accept "reforms" that make no real difference.

Result: paralysis again.

In France's undeclared constitution, riots compete with elections as the means of determining government policy. Last week the center-right government headed by President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin withdrew a reform bill that would have allowed French employers to fire young workers without going through expensive legal procedures.

That bill had been originally passed because young men, mainly unemployed and mainly of North African extraction — the so-called "beurs" — had rioted and burned cars and buildings in cities throughout France. The beurs rioted, de Villepin argued, because they had been excluded from the world of work by laws that made it risky and expensive to hire workers who could not then be fired. Youth unemployment in France is 28 percent. The first step to integrating these underprivileged young people, therefore, was to deregulate employment — at least for those under twenty-six. They would have a better chance of getting a first job if it wasn't a job guaranteed for life.

Once the law was passed, however, French middle-class students rioted in favor of its repeal. After all, they were getting jobs for life. Employers who could not fire workers naturally hired those whom they knew or who looked safe, respectable, and French. Students who fitted this description could look forward to the privilege of secure lifetime employment. And they marched, rioted, threw stones, and attacked police in defense of this privilege and against the new law.

That law has now been ingloriously repealed. De Villepin, defeated and humiliated, has announced he will not now be a candidate in next year's presidential election. The current favorite is the Socialist Party's candidate, Ségolène Royal, who supported the middle-class student rioters. And though the center-right's new leader, Nicholas Sarkozy, favors a "Big Bang" reform program covering all workers rather than one confined to those under twenty-six, he is probably whistling past the abandoned factory. A nation which rejects even a modest reform is unlikely to embrace a "Big Bang."

Result: paralysis a third time.

How come? The three main nations of continental Western Europe have allowed their economies over the years to become encrusted with regulations, subsidies, and spending programs that misallocate resources (including investment), obstruct flexibility and innovation, and encourage social attitudes harmful to enterprise and wealth-creation.

As the two sets of French riots demonstrate, the effect of these "compassionate" policies is not to help the poorest but to create artificially high and secure living standards for those fortunate enough to be in work while driving a growing number of people into a permanent underclass of the seldom employed.

A British newspaper, The Business, an increasingly indispensable guide to Euro-realities, pointed out the consequences: "Long-term unemployment in the euro zone is now six times higher than in America, where only 13% of unemployed workers are unable to find work within 12 months, compared with 21% in Great Britain, 42% in France, 52% in Germany and 50% in Italy."

Ultimately, however, policies that discourage innovation and wealth-creation harm everyone, not just the underclass, by holding down economic growth. The entire Euro-zone is lagging behind the U.S. and the U.K. But Italy has had one of the lowest rates of growth in recent years — 0.9 percent in 2004, 0.1 percent in 2005, and a forecast of 1.3 percent this year — with ill-effects elsewhere.

Italy's budget deficit and national debt are high and rising. And its Euro-bond issues pay a higher rate of interest than those of Germany and France — which suggests that the bond markets have at least a theoretical fear that Italy will be forced to leave the Euro by a financial crisis.

Yet there is little or no public will — either among Europe's politicians or its voters — to swallow the necessary reforms. Most voters are in work and react like the French students. The unemployed naturally fear any change that might threaten their already low living standards. And political and intellectual elites are in the grip of anti-capitalist theories that treat job flexibility and tax cuts as "barbarism."

Faced by this clash between what the economy needs and what the voters will accept, European politicians act like Romano Prodi. Almost his first words after being elected last week were a promise to help revive the European constitution stalled by hostile votes in France and Holland. It seems an odd priority for an Italian leader. Why?

Prodi wants to pass the buck to Brussels and get the EU to solve Italy's problems. Given the chance, the leaders of other West European countries would do the same. But Brussels and the EU are run by elites who spend 40 percent of their budget on the wasteful and damaging Common Agricultural Policy and generally favor the same kind of social democratic corporatism that is the problem in the first place.

The result of transferring more power and the responsibility for reforms to Brussels would be continental paralysis.

Short of an economic near-catastrophe, Europe's economic problems will not be solved by Europeans alone. They need U.S. leadership bringing an Atlantic solution — maybe a transatlantic free trade area — that would give the European economies the boost they need as a springboard for otherwise painful structural reforms.
Unfortunately, U.S. policy is still on the pro-Brussels auto-pilot that was set in the early 1950s. It is reinforcing Europe's errors. It may be that an economic near-catastrophe will be needed to wake up America as well as Europe.

— John O'Sullivan is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington and editor-at-large of National Review. He is currently writing a book on Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.
 
http://www.nationalreview.com/jos/osullivan200604210606.asp

       

 

[a_majoor]

Still hard at work on the project, but the Liberalverse is set on trying to derail this. The formation of a powerful and effective global Anglosphere is difficult for them to digest, since it is polar opposite of a world run by the UN:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzI5YWM0NDg1ZGRlYWE5ZDRkMGRiOTkzODFjNjkwNWU=

Realities & Necessities
It’s time to approve the India nuclear deal.

By William R. Hawkins

On March 2, while the President Bush was visiting New Delhi, he and Prime Minister Singh signed an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation. The agreement requires congressional action to implement, however, and little has been done to move this process forward. Later today, the House International Relations Committee is scheduled to mark up H.R. 4974, a bill to authorize the president to waive the application of certain requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 with respect to India, but floor action in the House and favorable actions of any kind in the Senate are a question mark.

On June 22, Vice President Dick Cheney tried to get the ball rolling with a speech to the U.S.-India Business Council in which he called the agreement “one of the most important strategic foreign-policy initiatives of our government.” He stressed that “Today there is a new strategic partnership between our countries — a partnership based on democratic values, common interests, strong commercial ties and a climate of trust and good faith between our governments.”

Yet, in an interview with the London Financial Times earlier in the week, Sen. John McCain said that Congress would probably not act on the measure this year because of the need to “scrutinize the deal rigorously.” Critics fear that lifting restrictions on nuclear cooperation with India, a country that has developed nuclear weapons without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, would set a bad precedent at a time when the United States is trying to rally international opinion against the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.

Former President Jimmy Carter complained in a March 29 Washington Post op-ed, “During the past five years the United States has abandoned many of the nuclear arms control agreements negotiated since the administration of Dwight Eisenhower...The proposed nuclear deal with India is just one more step in opening a Pandora’s box of nuclear proliferation.”

This issue came up when Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice testified about the India agreement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 5. In his opening statement, Democratic ranking member Sen. Joseph Biden said, “We must not assist India’s nuclear weapons program ... not because India is an adversary, which it is not, but because nuclear non-proliferation is a vital U.S. national interest, as well as a formal treaty obligation. We must not undermine world support for the nuclear non-proliferation regime by saying that nuclear weapons are fine for our friends.” Yet this is exactly what the U.S. has done for the past sixty years, and must continue to do in the real world of global power politics.

The United States directly helped Great Britain’s nuclear-weapons program during the Cold War. France developed an independent nuclear deterrent, and while this was often disquieting to American leaders, it was not considered a threat like the weapons deployed by Russia or China. Israel is believed to have nuclear arms, but Washington has rightly refused to consider this as the moral equivalent of an Iranian bomb. Treating friends and rivals differently is the essence of foreign policy.

The agreement does have nonproliferation elements. India will place all future civilian nuclear reactors, and 14 of its current 22 reactors, under IAEA control and inspection. It will also continue its moratorium on nuclear-weapons tests. But it will not stop building nuclear weapons or the means to deliver them because of the dangerous geopolitical situation with which New Delhi must contend, situated as it is between radical Islamic states to the west and a rising China to the east.

In the current situation, what the U.S. cannot afford to do is to treat India as a nation inferior in standing to China. In her testimony to the SFRC, Secretary Rice made clear that she understands this: “India would never accept a unilateral freeze or cap on its nuclear arsenal. We raised this with the Indians, but the Indians said that its plans and policies must take into account regional realities. No one can credibly assert that India would accept what would amount to an arms control agreement that did not include other key countries, like China and Pakistan.”

Wisdom is the ability to judge how things differ on their merits. On that basis, India is clearly not an Iran or North Korea. India already has a fledgling nuclear arsenal and an expanding atomic energy program. India first conducted an underground nuclear test in 1974. It was prompted to pursue such a program by China’s entry into the nuclear club ten years earlier. India then renounced the development of weapons and as late as 1988 was still calling for U.N. talks to eliminate all nuclear arms. But the rapid rise of China, and the increased militancy of Beijing’s ally Pakistan, heightened regional tensions. India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, bringing new U.S. sanctions against both countries, though the Clinton administration considered Pakistan, with its support for Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Kashmir, to be more dangerous. The sanctions on New Delhi were lifted in 2001 as President George W. Bush gave a high priority to improving U.S.-India relations.

Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said on March 22, “This deal is positive for United States national security interest because it will help us first cement our strategic partnership with India, which is very important for our global interests.” Though unstated for diplomatic reasons, the most important global security interest served by improved U.S.-India relations is to balance Chinese power in Asia.

Beijing wants to keep New Delhi in an inferior position. Just as China has opposed allowing either India or Japan to become permanent members of the U.N. Security Council in order to maintain its unique position as the only Asian state with that status, it also wants to maintain its status as the only “legal” nuclear power in the region.

China is using the non-proliferation standard in its campaign against the U.S.-India nuclear deal. Beijing wants India to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear state — meaning it would have to disarm. China is recognized as a nuclear state under the NPT. China’s ally Pakistan, which Beijing has helped to develop both weapons and delivery systems, would stay armed. The U.S. knows that India will only sign the NPT as a nuclear weapons state, so it is easier to avoid the declaration by not pressuring New Delhi to sign at all.

China wants to keep India out of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which Beijing was only allowed to join in 2004; and to keep India from importing uranium, even as Beijing has just completed a new deal for uranium from Australia.

Left-wing critics of American foreign policy have also turned against India as a potential U.S. ally. Writing in The Hindu on April 9, Shelley Walia reported that the prominent foe of “American hegemony” Noam Chomsky “clearly feels that India, like China, has the options to be independent or become a U.S. client.” And in the face of increased cooperation between China, Iran, Pakistan; Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, it is not surprising the U.S. would try to keep India in its camp by offering what Walia calls “nuclear cooperation and other inducements as a lure.”

India will not, however, join “Britain in its role as a spear-carrier for the pax Americana” as Chomsky has alleged. New Delhi will continue to value its independence as an emerging great power. But China’s rise and its naked ambitions will draw New Delhi and Washington closer together.

There are already signs of this convergence. When the Bush administration pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, China’s opposition to America’s missile defense program accelerated, but India's reaction was to endorse part of the U.S. missile defense initiative. India has a similar concern about the spread of ballistic missiles in its part of the world, a region whose unstable regimes may not be contained by a posture of deterrence only. The new U.S.-India nuclear agreement, supported by the appropriate congressional amendments to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, would open the door for cooperation between the two nations on other projects, including missile defense and fighter aircraft. 

New Delhi does not pose the kind of proliferation threat that Beijing poses with its provocative record of aid to rogue states, including Tehran. Indeed, China’s strong diplomatic and material support for Iran during the current crisis brings the strategic debate full circle. The notion of an international community with a moral consensus embodied in institutions of collective security is a myth. The real world is still one of contending states forming alliances and alignments to further their own interests.

President Bush has defined Iran as “a nation held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people...The Iranian regime sponsors terrorists and is actively working to expand its influence in the region. The Iranian regime has advocated the destruction of our ally, Israel. And the Iranian regime is defying the world with its ambitions for nuclear weapons.” This litany of bad behavior by the Tehran regime does not apply to the democratic government in New Delhi, whose strategic interests are generally (if not perfectly) in accord with those of Washington.

The new U.S.-India nuclear pact is an important step in creating a more stable alignment in Asia that can support American security interests in the region. Critics in Congress and the arms control community must not be allowed to disrupt this successful and vital diplomatic initiative.

— William Hawkins is senior fellow for national Security Studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council in Washington.

 

[a_majoor]

India has been working long and hard to gain it's new position in the Anglosphere West:

http://www.populardoctrine.com/2006/07/19/take-notice-of-india/

Take notice of India

It was a year ago today that US President George W. Bush signed a nuclear pact with Indian Prime Minister Singh, a deal which has Raja Mohan in this summer’s Foreign Affairs issue arguing that India will soon hold the balance of power. And he couldn’t be more correct. Our fascination of late has been with the growing economic strength of China, often termed a rising power. This may very well be the case, but whereas China has taken it upon itself to challenge the US, India has been positioning itself as a key ally. India is a growing power itself; witnessing unprecedented economic growth, a healthy service industry, and strategic foreign policy purposely designed to increase its international standing.

And its working.

What differentiates India from China? Mohan describes it better than I can:

India is arriving on the world stage as the first large, economically powerful, culturally vibrant, multiethnic, multireligious democracy outside of the geographic West. As it rises, India has the potential to become a leading member of the “political West” and to play a key role in the great political struggles of the next decades. Whether it will, and how soon, depends above all on the readiness of the Western powers to engage India on its own terms.

There are many factors that have brought India to this position, but one of the most important factors is India’s slow, but crucial rejection of its socialist history. It has been a slow process, but over the last 15 years, India has lowered trade barriers, taxes, chewed away at state monopolies, and promoted competition. As Gurcharan Das argues in the same issue of FA, this is a stark contrast from the days when India’s model was inward looking and import-substituting rather than outward-looking and export-promoting, and it denied India a share in the prosperity that a massive expansion in global trade brought in the post-World War II era. (Average per capita growth for the developing world as a whole was almost 3 percent from 1950 to 1980, more than double India’s rate).

India’s big-government system left it in the dust for the second half of the twentieth century. Thankfully, the current PM, when serving as the finance minister was the one who lowered tariffs, trade barriers, scrapped industrial licensing, lowered taxes, opened India to foreign investment, and scaled back currency controls. The result: economic growth, declining inflation, and exports and currency reserved swung up. (source: Gurcharan Das in Foreign Affairs, Vol 85, no 4).

Another tick for capitalism.

(For more information, I strongly suggest buying the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, which has a feature on “The Rise of India”).

 

[Kirkhill]

Sherwood you're part of that solution.  Strategic  DVD consumption.

Henry Ford made cars that his workers could afford to buy so that they would buy the car they made giving themselves employment and making him rich in the process.

 

[a_majoor]

More on the idea of the Anglosphere as the alliance of the 21rst century:

http://mesowest.blogspot.com/2006/11/nato-replacement-anglosphere.html

NATO Replacement? The Anglosphere

There's increasing talk that NATO is at a crossroads. In its first real test -- Afghanistan -- it has largely failed. Most members either won't send troops or, like Germany, won't deploy them to where they're needed. An example of the thinking in Washington, London and Ottawa can be found in this article in the Washington Times.

The answer may be an alliance with global reach that includes other allies, Australia and New Zealand for instance, that consistently can be relied upon to be there when we need them. If NATO is not to atrophy, it has to evolve.

That's a polite way of saying when the going get tough, the ones left are the Anglosphere; Britain, US, Canada, Australia, and NZ. Here's the same comment on EU Referendum.

Like Winston Churchill, I have long thought we make a great mistake when we look at British and American history as two separate stories. If you think of the British Empire as a family; the United States is the son who has taken over the business. We and the Aussies are the younger siblings who like to help but who can't do the heavy lifting.

That leaves India and South Africa in an interesting position; relatives certainly. I think it would be greatly to our advantage to invite them both to more family parties.

In fact, given the threat we all face, welcoming India into the Anglosphere's activities should be our number one priority. If India were in Afghanistan, we could get troop levels up to 100,000 in a twinkling; think of that!

South Africa is already in Afghanistan in a unique way. Our excellent anti-mine vehicle, the Nyala, is made in South Africa.

 

[Kirkhill]

It seems the French may be inclined to assist in the development of the Anglosphere project......if they keep this up.  Not necessarily the best of news for Canada.

Ségolène urges Britain to choose between Europe and America
By David Rennie, Europe Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:57am GMT 22/11/2006



Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, wants Britain to choose between being a "vassal" of the United States, and embracing a French-led drive for European integration, her adviser on Europe has revealed.

 
Ségolène Royal had kept her EU policy under wraps


Throughout Miss Royal's spectacularly successful campaign to sew up the Socialist nomination, she kept the details of her EU policy under wraps for fear of reopening deep splits within her party.

However, in the hours after her victory on Thursday, Gilles Savary, a French MEP and her spokesman and foreign affairs adviser, spoke exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, revealing her EU policies in detail.

He set out a vision of an ambitious new EU treaty, replacing the EU constitution which has been in limbo since French and Dutch voters voted against it last summer.

Britain would be asked to sign up to the new treaty, but if it rejected calls for increased protectionism, an EU foreign minister, convergence on tax rates and moves to create a European army, then France and her allies would agree a treaty among themselves, he said.

Tony Blair's successor as prime minister, whether Gordon Brown or David Cameron, now faces an inevitable crisis over Europe after France chooses its next leader in April.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-Right favourite for the presidency, recently set out his own plans for reviving Europe after the failed constitution, involving a "mini-treaty", extracting elements from the defunct text. Miss Royal, who has no foreign policy experience and has only ever held junior ministerial posts, will seek the immediate support of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, for her plans, and believes Spain and Italy can also be signed up.

Although Miss Royal "does not want a two-speed Europe," Mr Savary said, he admitted her plans could lead to a "quartet" of nations leading the way, with others scrambling to catch up. He complained that Britain currently led an "ultra-Atlanticist" bloc within the EU.

"Great Britain is absolutely indispensable to the European Union. It is great nation, a global power. But the question the English have to answer is – do the English consider the English Channel to be wider than the Atlantic? We on the continent have the right to deplore the fact that Great Britain appears to consider the Channel is wider," he said.

Miss Royal was confident that "Europe can be relaunched with Germany, Italy and Spain. It is perfectly possible to have treaties within the treaty, among four nations," he said. "If other nations want to sign up, that's good. But we cannot have a Europe where one part goes to war in Iraq, another part does not, and we all end up paying the bill."

He demanded efforts to integrate foreign policy and cast that struggle in searingly anti-American tones. Mr Savary said: "The question that needs to be asked is – do we want to be vassals of the United States, do we want to be a 51st state?"

Miss Royal's vision was for a new treaty that would address citizens' demands for more protectionism in the face of competition from globalisation. "She believes, like all the French, that Europe should be more protective and should defend itself better," Mr Savary said.

Miss Royal saw the difficulty of achieving unanimous agreement among 25 EU nations, soon to rise to 27 next year, which was why she would first seek support from a hard core of countries. Mr Savary said the goals should include convergence of tax and social security systems and talks on a "European army" that would not replace national armies.

He said: "The discussion needs to be about what we can do together. What do we want to do? If Great Britain says no, it does not wish to do more together, then we will be obliged to open a dialogue with a group of countries."

[email protected]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/20/wsego20.xml

Somewhat limited visions


Be they socialist or "right" wing, there is one thing all French politicians have in common – they are French. And being French, they all think the same way, which puts not a Gauloise fag paper between Mme Ségolène Royal and the man she hopes to replace, Jacques l'escroc Chirac.

Thus, according to The Telegraph, she wants Britain to choose between being a "vassal" of the United States, and embracing a French-led drive for European integration

This came hours after her victory on Thursday, from Gilles Savary, a French MEP and her spokesman and foreign affairs adviser. He complains that Britain currently leads an "ultra-Atlanticist" bloc within the EU and while he thinks Great Britain is "absolutely indispensable" to the Union (not), he want the "English" to consider whether the English Channel is wider than the Atlantic.

"We on the continent have the right to deplore the fact that Great Britain appears to consider the Channel is wider," he said. "The question that needs to be asked is – do we want to be vassals of the United States, do we want to be a 51st state?"

It is precisely that "vision" which drove Chirac to push for the 1998 St Malo agreement to set up the European Rapid Reaction Force, but it was not Blair's.

In his own woolly way, he believed that Britain could embrace European military integration and keep on good terms with the US. As we remarked last year and more recently, he saw Britain as a "bridge" between Europe and the United States.

On offer, therefore, it seems there are three "visions" of Britain in the world – an American vassal, a French vassal, or a bridge between the two. To many though – including this blog – none of the three are acceptable. Time, methinks, for more discussion on the Anglosphere.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting view; and a good reason for co opting India into the Anglosphere.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061126/wl_asia_afp/australiachinaindiaeconomygrowth&printer=1

West must prepare for Chinese, Indian dominance: Wolfensohn

Sat Nov 25, 10:16 PM ET

Western nations must prepare for a future dominated by China and India, whose rapid economic rise will soon fundamentally alter the balance of power, former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn has warned.

Wealthy countries were failing to understand the impact of the invevitable growth of the two Asian powerhouses, Wolfensohn said in the 2006 Wallace Wurth Memorial Lecture at the University of New South Wales at the weekend.

"It's a world that is going to be in the hands of these countries which we now call developing," said Australian-born Wolfensohn, who held the top job at the global development bank for a decade until last year.

Rich nations needed to try to capitalise on the inevitable emergence of what would become the engine of the world's economic activity before it was too late, he said.

"Most people in the rich countries don't really look at what's happening in these large developing countries," said Wolfensohn, who is now chairman of Citigroup International Advisory Board and his own investment and advisory firm.

Within 25 years, the combined gross domestic products of China and India would exceed those of the Group of Seven wealthy nations, he said.

"This is not a trivial advance, this is a monumental advance."

Wolfensohn said that somewhere between 2030 and 2040, China would become the largest economy in the world, leaving the United States behind.

By 2050, China's current two trillion US dollar GDP was set to balloon to 48.6 trillion, while that of India, whose economy weighs in at under a trillion dollars, would hit 27 trillion, he said, citing projections by investment bank Goldman Sachs.

In comparison, the US's 13 trillion dollar income would expand to only 37 trillion -- 10 trillion behind China.

"You will have in the growth of these countries a 22 times growth between now and the year 2050 and the current rich countries will grow maybe 2.5 times." (Interpolation: rejecting the current socialist paradigm in the West will change that prediction for the better)

In light of these forecasts, it was clear that Western nations and Australia were not investing enough in educating the next generation to be able to take advantage of the coming realignment, he said.

"The fact that not enough of our young people are preparing themselves with knowledge, experience, residence and language to deal certainly with China, although India has the benefit of an English language, it does seem to me that it presents a formidable challenge."

Wolfensohn pointed to both China's and India's recent substantial investments in Africa as an example of how the two emerging giants were exercising their increasing clout on the global stage.

"Within the last two weeks the world has been put on notice that Africa is no longer the basket case that everybody had historically thought it was but is now front and centre in terms of development by India and China."

The phenomenal rally by the two countries was a return to form rather than a novelty, he said, as they together had accounted for 50 percent of global GDP from the 1500s until the industrial revolution reduced that to between five and seven percent.

My personal prediction is that India, having adopted many of the cultural strengths of the West (free markets, rule of law), will surpass China and potentially become the leading light in the Anglosphere.

 

[a_majoor]

The idea of the Anglosphere continues to grow in the Blogosphere at least. We wait for the day when it becomes a policy foundation for the various nations involved.

http://themonarchist.blogspot.com/2006/12/powerful-argument-for-anglosphere.html
http://www.theonerepublic.com/archives/Columns/Mandel/20061123MandelAllies.html

Daniel Mandel in today's The CaliforniaRepublic asks "Which elements best ensure durable alliances among sovereign nations?" His answer: "Common interests, coupled with shared historic political institutions and a willingness to integrate military power - with a common language a major bonus." He then goes on to make a clear, point-by-point case:

Australia, Britain and the United States have much in common. Each has stood apart politically in its region. Each is based on traditions of political liberty anchored in representative, secular government and free trade. Each has fought steadfastly alongside the other two during the past century. And all three share strong naval traditions and modern naval forces. Common language and advanced levels of technology would make naval integration, if not easy, at least achievable. . .
An Anglosphere alliance would also have a striking geographic advantage in its global naval coverage of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean Sea.

Canada would shore up the northern flank and Arctic Ocean if we were to become major partners in the Anglosphere (and as a wealthy, modern nation based on Western political philosophy why should we not be involved?), and India could start by securing the northern part of the Indian Ocean basin, eventually encompassing an arc reaching from East Africa, SW Asia, SE Asia and the Indonesian archepelago. In time, India will also become the economic powerhouse of the Anglosphere, and tied into what is already the most powerful economic and military network on Earth.

And an echo of Victor Davis Hanson's arguments about the primacy of Western culture:

http://themonarchist.blogspot.com/2006/12/tony-abbotts-two-cents-worth.html

Tony Abbott's two cents' worth

Tony Abbott, the Australian federal Health Minister, last week gave a speech to a conference on The Journalist and Islam, organised by Macquarie University's Centre for Middle East and North African Studies at NSW Parliament House last week where he explained his opinion as to what made the Anglosphere (his words) great:

The Anglosphere has not maintained its economic, technological and military preponderance by pretending that there's nothing to learn from other cultures. English-speaking countries have not become beacons of hope and freedom by building walls against the world. We are always open to new ideas and better ways of doing things. We never assume that others have nothing to teach. To the extent that our political and ethical values are not potentially universal, we think that they're not values at all, just prejudices. This is the real explanation for the strength and resilience of our culture.

Where I part company with him is where he wonders "who faces the greater cultural shock: Australians who notice a few women wearing headscarves, or migrants from Muslim countries adjusting to almost complete sexual freedom, gender equality, cultural diversity and commercial laissez faire." No one forced them onto Australia's shores at gunpoint... Hell, here in China when I have to put up with the selfishness, poor manners, spitting, disregard for traffic lights and common rules, I'm constantly reminded that I'm a guest of the country.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I see that Mr Mandel left Canada out.  :'(  I'll get over it.

 

[a_majoor]

More on the Anglosphere project. This also ties into another thread on Army.ca: " About Turn! Time to Revise Canada’s Foreign Policy" http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/54277/post-498692.html#msg498692:

http://strongconservative.blogspot.com/2006/12/us-indian-nuclear-agreement.html

US-Indian Nuclear Agreement

Congress approved a deal between the United States and India on December 9th for greater cooperation between the two nations on nuclear technology. This is a win-win situation for both countries. India is the largest democracy in the world, the largest English speaking country in the world, the second largest in terms of population, and will prove to be a key ally in the war on terror in future years as well as an economic giant.

The Washington Times opines, "The deal on the whole is meritorious in its own right, but it is also a building block of what is becoming an increasingly important relationship for the United States. In economic terms, the Indian juggernaut has shown great resilience, with annual growth around 8-9 percent. Politically, Indian officials understand the value of democratic governance, and India has already shown itself as a force for promoting democracy in its small, politically unstable neighbor Nepal."(link)

Due to hostility between Pakistan and India, warming to one country often means shunning the other. India shares many interests with the United States including a stable Afghanistan, fighting Islamic extremism, and keeping a watchful eye on China's potentially aggressive nature.

A strong alliance between New Delhi, Tokyo and Washington may be essential to maintaining a balance of power in the Pacific that is to America's liking. It's clearly in U.S. interests to see India continue to develop as both a strategic and an economic power, and the signing of the nuclear cooperation accord is a good effort to facilitate that growth.(Washington Times)

Canada, too, should pursue a closer relationship with India rather than forcing economic relations with China whose human rights abuses, authoritarian government structure, and environmental record are nothing short of abysmal. Indian immigration to Canada has been high for some time which can also help to foster positive relations.

Harper should take notes from Bush on increasing ties and building a stronger relationship with India.

 

[tomahawk6]

The US has to be prepared to go it alone if necessary. If our allies want to participate wonderful,but we cannot be hamstrung by the need for a coalition before we act. The US as a result must increase the size of its ground forces to be able to act unilaterally. The administration seems to finally realize that the Army and Marines lack the necessary ground forces and will seek to expand both the Army and Marines.

 

[a_majoor]

The fruits of the alliance building project are visible at last (even if discussed in a rather backhanded way). This also ties in with the 9url=http://Forums.Army.ca/forums/threads/64040.0.html]Grand Strategy for the United State[/url] thread

http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/011522.html

GEORGE W. BUSH, MASTER OF DIPLOMACY
Holy Haroon Siddiqui! The Toronto Star's leading anti-imperialist, anti-Afghan war, anti-American and pro-Islamist columnist chalks one up for Bush the Younger:

The increasing irrelevance of the G8 was illustrated yesterday when the summit's most significant event was not even on the agenda – in fact, couldn't have been, given that it involved a non-member, India.
President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shook hands on a landmark nuclear deal [actually the deal has been developing for quite a while - MC].

India is to get access to American – and, peripherally, other Western, including Canadian – nuclear fuel and technology, even though it hasn't signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and has no plans to.

This caps an emerging alliance between India and the U.S., backed by Israel. It is "a genuine strategic partnership," Singh said, with Bush by his side.

[...]

Leftists, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – yes, they still exist in India and are in power in Bengal state – have condemned India's slide into the American-Israeli orbit. They point to India voting with the U.S. at the International Atomic Energy Agency against Iran, a traditional ally.

The leftists, with 59 seats in India's pizza parliament of 545, have been part of the coalition headed by Singh's Congress party, and have held up passage of the deal.

A complicating factor has been the Muslim minority, at 150 million an electoral force Congress has traditionally counted on. Most oppose the deal, mainly because of "American geopolitical excesses in Iraq and Afghanistan, and threats to Iran," as one Muslim party put it.

But Singh, a Sikh sensitive to other minorities, has been deft in breaking the political gridlock. He has just won over a regional party with 39 seats and strong Muslim support. He needs only five more votes to muster the majority to survive a no-confidence vote.

[...]

This remarkable geopolitical realignment, with the world's most powerful democracy coming together with the world's largest, is quite an achievement for Singh – and, more so, for Bush.

Haroon the Magnificent did naturally have to drag in Israel gratuitously, plus find kind words for Iran. But if he feels it necessary to write such a piece, it must be a great feat of diplomacy indeed.

Let's just hope that Mr Singh's government survives that confidence motion.