RFERL - Tefft: U.S. Move To Suspend Nonimmigrant Visas In Russia ‘Not Vindictive’

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ("Free Media In Unfree Societies") reported on Amb. (to Russia) Tefft's remarks.

Money quote(s):

"Russian President Vladimir Putin last month directed the United States to cut 755 out of about 1,200 employees at the U.S. Embassy and consulates in Russia, after the U.S. Congress passed a tough new law cementing sanctions against Moscow over its aggression in Ukraine and for allegedly meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said on August 21 that it was suspending "all nonimmigrant visa operations" at U.S. missions across Russia as of August 23 due to the Russian-imposed cap on U.S. diplomatic staff.

The embassy said operations will resume in Moscow on September 1, but they will “remain suspended indefinitely” at U.S. consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok.

“It's unfortunate, but we don't have any choice, because we have a lot of responsibilities here,” the ambassador told TASS."



https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-tefft-nonimmigrant-visas-not-vindictive-ambassador/28692902.html

WP - U.S. Embassy stops issuing nonimmigrant visas to Russians as diplomatic standoff deepens

Andrew Roth at the Washington Post ("Democracy Dies in Darkness") offered a well-written article.

Money quote(s):

"The decision comes after Russia demanded that the U.S. mission in the country reduce its staff from more than 1,200 employees to 455, the same size as the Russian diplomatic mission in the United States. The American Embassy’s announcement will likely mean delays for the hundreds of thousands of Russians who apply for nonimmigrant visas to the United States each year."

Wait times will go up, and keep going up, and applicants will have to travel much farther for their interviews.

"Senior Russian lawmakers in the Duma and the Federation Council on Monday suggested a “mirror” response that could affect Americans seeking Russian visas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he believed that by slowing the visa process the United States may be trying to “provoke discontent of Russian citizens against the actions of the Russian government,” but Lavrov also appeared to rule out a similar response by the Russian government."

In a functioning representative democracy, like the U.S. por ejemplo, that sort of "discontent" means writing your congressional representative or even the White House, and telling them to do something about it.

What that means in Russia, CAA can't predict.

"With a Sept. 1 deadline to cut more than 750 staff positions looming, the embassy announced on Monday that it would suspend all nonimmigrant visa applications and interviews until then, and that afterward it would suspend U.S. visa interviews at the American consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok — effectively forcing Russians across the vast country to travel to Moscow for a U.S. visa."

A staff cut of this magnitude (roughly 60 percent) and including U.S. staff who have to be packed-up and relocated back to (usually) Washington means a huge (if temporary) ramp-up in administrative and logistical tasks, which is why non-essential services get dropped even before the September deadline.

Read the whole thing here.

Reuters - U.S. scales back Russian visa operations after Putin cuts embassy staff

Andrew Osborn and Polina Devitt at Reuters ("the world’s largest international multimedia news provider") report something-wholly-to-be-expected.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S. Embassy said it was suspending all non-immigrant visa operations across Russia on Wednesday and that when they resumed on Sept. 1, they would be offered "on a greatly reduced scale"."

This is what happens when you (Russia) force an embassy staff cut of 60 percent (755 positions) spread out over four posts, all of which have provided consular, including visa, services.  While visa operations are not horribly manpower intensive, taken in aggregate the represent something of an easy target if you don't mind making reducing or eliminating the ease of obtaining a U.S. visa.

""Capacity for interviews in the future will be greatly reduced because we have had to greatly reduce our staffing levels to comply with the Russian government’s requirement," it said in a statement."

Sixty percent is huge staffing cut and the U.S. is all about reciprocity in this sort of situation.  

In a working democracy, local citizens who suddenly can't visit relatives, go on business trips, vacation at Disney (either of them), or have to travel multiple time-zones just to go for their interview (and months later than they'd planned) would scream to their elected representatives to do something.  

In less representative countries, the bigshots (who have no trouble getting visas themselves, even if they have to tag-along as members of an official delegation) are untroubled by this.

"Russian citizens wanting to visit the United States for business, tourism or educational reasons will no longer be able to apply via U.S. consulates outside Moscow and will have to travel to the Russian capital instead.

That will pose a logistical challenge for many Russians, whose country is the world's largest by territory. The United States has consulates in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg."

That's gotta suck.  The flipside is there's just not a similar American demand for Russian visas at their U.S. offices in Washington, New York, and San Francisco, so whatever the retaliation reciprocity will be, it's likely to appear in something not directly linked to visas.  CAA is not a Kremlinologist, but he's been reading the papers long enough to recognized this M.O.

"The U.S. Embassy signaled its new scaled-back visa regime could be in place for some time.

"We will operate at reduced capacity for as long as our staffing levels are reduced," it said."

Can't put it much more clearly than that.

Foreign Policy Goals

Somewhere I recall, perhaps fallaciously, reading Russia described as being "Mexico with nukes."

(All apologies to Mexico.)

The main point apparently was that if Russia didn't have nuclear weapons, it's international significance would shrink accordingly to the purely regional powers, like Mexico.

As I observe what passes for foreign policy these days in Washington, I can't help but suspect that the over-arching strategic goal seems to be of reducing America's international significance to being something that could be summed up thusly:

Russia with precisions-guided munitions.

re: "China and Russia: Nothing to Worry About Here. Just Keep Whistling... "

The Conservative Wahoo at Information Dissemination ("The Intersection of Maritime Strategy and Strategic Communications") provided a stellar example of an alternate futures study.

Money quote(s):

"One of the reasons the military (and the commercial world) deal in alternative futures studies is the value that they provide in forecasting potential future events--events which in many cases, had been proceeded by a series of events that portended their arrival. These "signpost" events are then cataloged and monitored, for if more and more of the signposts line up, the event then grows more likely to occur."

CAA has some experience with this, having read a few of these and helped to write and edit one once. They're a very clever and hopefully useful product which combine the best of intelligence research and analysis tools and methodologies into something that should intellectually engage the reader.

"One of the things we speculated on in our work was a condominium of power between Russia and China, and for some reason, it was one of the most criticized portions of the piece (among those seeking to make thoughtful comments). Shortly after we published the paper, just such a "signpost event" occurred when I linked to a coordination of effort between the Chinese and the Russians with respect to missile defense."

This is not so crazy an idea, given that Russia (under its Soviet incarnation) and China were once closely (more-or-less) allied as major components in what was then thought of as "monolithic communism."

(Signpost or milestone events are intended to be clearly observable developments which indicate that a certain trend towards an alternate future is unfolding.)

"(A)nother signpost event (courtesy of a Galrahn Tweet): China and Russia are going to stage a naval exercise in the Yellow Sea in April. Russia plans to send 10 ships to participate. This of course, will occur in a body of water that the Chinese have increasingly indicated they wish we would not visit.

Have the two nations exercised jointly in the past? Yes they have."

There's already something of a framework for Russian-Chinese codominium already in existance, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has been considered in alternate futures scenarios in the past (see p. 7, "World Without the West").

4/1

re: "Chinese Dragons and Russian Bears"

"Sam Huntington" at Always On Watch ("Semper Vigilans") reviewed strategic issues involving our near-peer competitors.

Money quote(s):

"(A) far more dangerous situation is developing in Asia. No surprise, Americans are not hearing about any of this from the state-run media. Here are a few examples:

· China is claiming island territory within fifty miles of the Philippines.

· Chinese frigates regularly intruded Philippine territorial waters.

· Chinese ships fired upon Philippine fishing boats.

· Chinese naval vessels rammed Vietnamese fishing boats (See Note 1)

· Chinese accost Indian naval vessels operating off the coast of Vietnam, demanding to know why they are operating in Chinese waters.

· Chinese military aircraft intrude into Taiwanese air space.

· China intruded Japanese mainland territorial waters on 14 occasions.

· China intruded Okinawa territorial waters on 10 occasions.

· China created six major incidents with the US Navy at sea.

· Raise your hand if you aren’t aware that North Korea is China’s redheaded stepchild.

Note 1: Vietnam possesses one of the world’s largest armies: (China: 4.5 million, Vietnam: 5.9 million)."

You know the one about amateurs studying tactics and professionals studying logistics?

Well, in terms of international relations, geopolitics, and grand strategy, the professionals are studying China.

"Danger of a regional conflict is real. The consequence to China’s arrogance has been a dramatic increase in military spending among Southeast Asian countries. Australia, Japan, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan have all dedicated billions of dollars on new or upgraded military hardware. The United States is upgrading naval facilities in Guam —so much so that Representative Hank Johnson(D-GA) worries the island may capsize. Nevertheless, all of these countries recognize the wisdom of pooling their resources to keep China in check; Japan has taken the lead in establishing mutual defense cooperatives with Australia, South Korea, India, and the United States. Singapore has offered to provide bases for the US Navy."

CAA no longer worries that Guam will become overburdened, over-balanced, and capsize, having received assurances that Guam possesses a sufficiently sturdy keel and gyroscopic stabilizer.

"Owing to the fact that we don’t know what motivates Chinese behavior, the Australian General Staff worries that a mistake could lead to disastrous consequences —particularly when it is likely that China will attempt to use its military to enforce a Chinese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The problem is that while demanding that other nations treat Chinese EEZs as its sovereign territory, China routinely refuses to acknowledge the EEZs of other nations. From the standpoint of international law, EEZs are not sovereign territory. We can therefore see how China might regard the US Navy’s mission to safeguard open sea-lanes as an intolerable trespass —a situation that could lead to deadly confrontation."

It's the old "what's-mine-is-mine-what's-yours-is-negotiable" attitude turned somewhat sideways: China will use existing international norms and fora to its own advantage and ignore those which infringe upon its own interests. That's what one does when one is the center of the Earth, after all.

"Some politicians argue that given China’s dependence on global trade, a deadly confrontation is unlikely. They may have forgotten that economic ties did not hinder German aggression at the beginning of the 20^th Century —a costly mistake for France. ....but here is where we find the real and present danger. Defense cuts may encourage China to challenge allied nations within the region of Southeast Asia —they are that arrogant."

Nor did close economic ties deflect World War I; for that matter, the United States' close economic ties with Saudi Arabia deter the 9/11 attacks.

(Marx notwithstanding, man is not solely, nor even primarily, an economic animal.)

"From Russia’s perspective, there couldn’t be a better time to threaten the United States and NATO with pre-emptive strikes unless we agree to cancel the so-called Missile Defense Shield, designed as a safeguard from Iranian ICBMs."

This seems a little over-the-top; threatening pre-emptive strikes is way more sabre-rattling than is necessary. Russia has far more effective economic and political levers to pull than jacking things up on the defcon meter.

"If one understands international relations, Russia’s timing couldn’t be better. We should anticipate this sort of behavior by an adversary whenever they perceive American leadership as weak, incompetent, ineffective, or confused."

Harsh words, but hardly unwarranted.

The "reset" button must have been like those ones installed near crosswalks: not really wired to anything but they give pedestrians something to do with their hands while waiting for the lights to change.

"This situation should once again remind us that American politicians and diplomats seldom learn important lessons of history. America cannot afford another war right now. Neither can we afford the perception of weakness, incompetence, or abject stupidity. We continue to live in a dangerous world"

Diplomats actually aren't slouches when it comes to learning their history lessons; however if you expand your definition of "diplomat" beyond those actually trained and experienced in it to those who practice it on our behalf at the highest levels....

"Rather than facing a deadly and costly regional conflict in Southeast Asia, it would be far less expensive to deter Chinese aggression vis-à-vis a strong military presence along the Pacific Rim. As for the Russian Bear, they understand but one thing: force or its promise."

5/4

re: "Voodoo Science; Praetorians; borrowing to pay bunny inspectors; missed opportunities; and more."

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor ("The Original Blog and Daybook.") dealt with several topics of interest.

Money quote(s):

"(T)the Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies to military and policy organizations, particularly in peace time; it’s not quite so visible or severe because the standards for admission to the organization can and often are kept high, and the Mamelukes and Janissaries and Praetorians do not admit fools and cowards to their brotherhood; but of course that may change in peace time.

We live in a Republic founded by political leaders who were very much aware of Roman history, who had read their Plutarch, who seriously debated the working of the Venetian Republic – in 1787 the longest surviving Republic in the history of mankind, not yet ended by Napoleon and the bayonets of the French Army – and who were quite familiar with the careers of Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, Octavian, Marius, and Sulla, the Gracchi – most of whom are known to modern Americans from movies."

Iron Law of Bureaucracy?

Oh yeah, that.

Our military is an armed bureaucracy, at least some of the time.

"The French want us to sit on Fritz. The Germans like having Americans spend money in Germany, and not having to have a large Wehrmacht. The troops like it in Europe. The taxpayers have never read George Washington’s advice on entangling alliances and not being involved in overseas territorial disputes. So it goes."

The taxpayers (and their representatives) in the immediate post-WW2 period should, perhaps, be forgiven their understandable desire to not have to come back and settle the Jerries hash, so to speak, for a third time; the second time being perceived as the result of their disengagement after the first time.


"Europe could afford Socialism because they didn’t need to defend their territory against Russia during the Cold war. It’s a tradition."

Likewise, Russia harbors lingering fears about various of its neighbors to the west; that too is tradition and it informs their view of geopolitics even today.


"The Marines acted without thinking of the consequences and must be made to realize that; but I have always believed that far more serious acts take place in every combat action. War is Hell. A rational army would run away. Those men did not run away, and I’d far rather have troops who urinate on the enemy than troops who surrender to get their throats cut while in captivity."

That about sums it up.

_____

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

1/15

re: "Diplomatic Carrots, Undiplomatic Sticks"

Charles Crawford at Blogoir ("aims to explain in a open-minded, reasonable way how diplomacy works in practice") made some excellent points about diplomatic (and other) negotiations.

Money quote(s):

" Do the Chinese/Russians/N Koreans think that a key aim of negotiation is to 'reach agreement'?

Hell no. They want to WIN, or failing that win as much as possible. Negotiation and 'agreement' are simply possible methods to get there.

So is another outcome - negotiations crashing in failure - that shows steely resolve, as the Poles this very week have been keen to demonstrate within the EU.

In other words, very often a negotiation is not about what it says it is about. On the surface it is about EU Emissions Targets, or Global Climate Change, or new World Trade regimes. In substance it is more likely to be about who decides what, this time round and on into the future." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Sometimes I wonder if U.S. diplomacy suffers from an internal, systemic flaw our negotiations must result in some, er, result. That in some fashion our diplomat's next annual evaluation simply must include a successful treaty or something.

And that for our political leadership the motivation is even stronger to get some agreement, any agreement.

Just once I'd like to see a U.S. diplomat publicly receive an award, a medal even, for refusing to settle for a bad deal.

"Most negotiations are all about one thing: who in fact is weaker?"

How one measures weakness doesn't matter at that point, the negotiation will settle who is the weaker negotiator.

"The whole point of Moscow's time-honoured diplomatic negotiating style is to project a sense of depersonalised inexorable doom for anyone or anything which gets in the way of whatever Moscow currently wants.

This can be countered, of course, by hanging in there very tough: some of it is bluff, and Russian diplomacy can be as inept as everyone else's. But the very fact that the Russians set about their business in this way helps frame issues and likely outcomes on their terms and projects toughness/determination. A handy way to start." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Again, sometimes you need to walk away from the table in order to win.

"(T)he reason why Carrots and Sticks work (or don't) in diplomacy has little to do with their 'objective' size and plausibility.

It's all much more 'subjective'. It's about how the person with the carrots/stick is seen by the supposed target, and even more about how both the carrot-sticker and the target perceive themselves and what they believe the other one believes about the problem, the balance of forces and how this situation plays into other situations."

See above: negotiations will hinge on who is the better negotiator. (And I make no great shakes about being much of a negotiator myself.) Of course, holding a strong hand makes up for a lot.

re: "Guns or butter? Saving food stamps at expense of national defense"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") lays out some facts about cutting defense spending.

Money quote(s):

"(T)here’s a whole lot of military spending going on in the world, and we do most of it.

But we’ve known that for decades. What the chart doesn’t tell you, for instance, is how much China’s spending has increased. China’s defense budget for the past few years has seen double digit jumps, with the only year in single digits being 2010 when it only increased the budget by 7.5%. This year, it’s back in double digits at 12.7%. So that wedge you see in this static chart is a rapidly growing wedge. As China’s economy has heated up over the years, so has China’s military spending.

Russia too is increasing its spending on defense. It plans on spending $650 billion on its armed forces over the next 10 years.

France, on the other hand, has been cutting its level of military spending consistently over the years since 1988. But a country that isn’t cutting its spending and which now spends more of its GDP on the military than does France, is Iran.

The point, of course, is that while it is evident that we spend an inordinately larger amount than any other country on defense, we’ve done that because we’ve assumed an international role that others can’t fill or we don’t want them to fill.

And that’s an important point. One reason that we’ve generally seen a peaceful 50 or so years (with most wars being of the regional, not world wide, type) is because we’ve been the country which has shouldered the burden of keeping the peace. Peace through strength.

Obviously there is certainly an argument that can be made that we shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden and it’s time we gave it up. But as soon as you say something like that, you have to ask, “but who will fill the role”?

Certainly not the Third World Debating society known as the UN. They’re inept, corrupt and incompetent. And certainly not NATO – as Libya has proven, they can’t get out of their own way.

So who keeps Russia in its place and stands up to China as that country flexes its newly developed muscle? What about Iran? Or North Korea?

That’s the problem with being about the only country standing of any size after a world war. So we have to ask ourselves, is it in our best interest to back out of our pretty dominant role and cut back drastically in our spending in that area? If we answer yes, we have to ask who we trust to pick up that slack. I know my answer to that – no one. But rest assured that power vacuum will indeed be filled. A dilemma for sure."

One of the fun facts about Russia is that the millions of dollars we've given them in aid to clean up, secure, and demilitarize their older nuclear force freed them to spend their defense budget (remember: money is fungible!) on modernizing and upgrading their new nuclear forces.

"We lead the world in spending but do not have the largest military – not by a long shot. In fact, our entire military is just a bit smaller than the Chinese Army alone. Looking at that, and considering the spending chart, what would it tell you?

It would tell me we spend the majority of our money on technology. It costs money – and a lot of it – to maintain our level of superiority. We spend it on things like 5th generation fighters, state-of-the-art naval vessels, and the like. Programs that are designed not only to give us the technological edge on the battlefield, but also to deter would-be enemies from even trying, given their inability to match our capabilities. It is obviously an intangible – we can’t really measure how much this has saved us from brutal and even more costly wars – but with the budget battles and the fiscal crisis, we’re in a position where we certainly have to clearly state our priorities."

One can place domestic politics and policies, re-election concerns, and "transforming America" at the top of one's "to do" list, but that doesn't make the rest of the world go away.

"Defense spending is 4.7% of GDP and it is approximately 20% of the federal budget."

Just keep that part in mind. It's an important fact. Hmmm. If defense spending is twenty percent of the federal budget, what's the other eighty percent? Foreign aid? Not too likely, considering non-Defense "discretionary" spending is only nineteen percent of the federal budget.

(And according to the pie charts at Blackfive, Medicare & Medicaid are 23%, Social Security is 20%, other "mandatory" spending is 12%, and interest on federal debt is 6%.)

"And we’ve so overspent that we’re spending 6% on interest alone. So 62% of the budget – as designed by those brilliant legislators we’ve elected decade after decade – is untouchable by law. That leaves 39% that these yahoos want to “balance the budget” on. The elephant in the room is ignored to go after the dog. And only part of the dog." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"(U)ntouchable by law" means untouchable-until-the-law-is-changed. Entitlements and mandatory spending are labels used by politicians to convince the public that transfer-of-wealth payments used to redistribute income are God-given and Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

(And they ain't.)

"Is it a core commitment of the government of the United States to protect and defend the citizens of the country as outlined in the Constitution of the United States, or is it a core commitment to take other people’s money and redistribute it?

Because that’s the choice we’re talking about here. Make the commitment to national security and, within reason, the cost that entails, or (snip) throw it under the bus in favor of redistribution of income instead." (Bold typeface in original text. - CAA.)

re: "Diplomats: Loyal to Whom/What?"

Charles Crawford at Blogoir ("A digital hybrid of blog and memoir presented on a daily basis, or not.") self-quotes from DIPLOMAT magazine.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Libya case has given rise to a spectacular number of high profile diplomatic changes of side, with one Libyan ambassador after another announcing support for the opposition forces struggling to bring down the Gaddafi regime.

Whereas host governments might or might not commend the high principle shown by such a defection, unwelcome problems quickly arise if some diplomats in an embassy switch sides but others don’t. Who is running the local Libyan embassy for the purpose of carrying on routine diplomatic business? Who gets invited to which functions? Does a Libyan diplomat who has announced a switch of loyalty still get diplomatic immunity? What about the official embassy car?

What if the uprising fails and Gaddafi wins – must we throw these people out of the Libyan Embassy?"

From a perspective of diplomatic visa issuance (and cancellation), what happens when a Libyan diplomat defects from his embassy, thus invalidating his legal reason for being present in your country?

"Could a worst-case scenario unfold, namely a de facto or even de jure partition of Libya, with unfathomable complications for Libya’s diplomatic representation at the UN and around the world? In short, the Libya drama exemplifies the greatest challenge to any diplomat’s loyalty to his/her country: what to do if the country slumps into civil war or even disappears altogether?

This problem was faced in acute form by Soviet diplomats when the USSR disintegrated in 1991. They had represented one massive state – what to do when the 15 former Soviet republics had each become a new country? For most diplomats born and raised in Russia, the choice was simple: stick with the new Russian Foreign Ministry.

But those diplomats born and raised elsewhere in the Soviet Union had a painful choice. Better to stay on in powerful Moscow as a Russian diplomat, or return to one’s home republic and hope for a role in the nascent and disorganised Foreign Ministry there? If the latter, would they be trusted by the new leadership?

Many chose to stick with the Russian Foreign Ministry. Thus in 1995 when Russia and Ukraine were haggling over the fate of the Black Sea Fleet, the negotiating team representing Russia included plenty of ethnic Ukrainian expert diplomats."

Which didn't work out so well for Ukraine.

He concludes with an excellent question.

"Could we see a tumultuous test of British diplomatic loyalties in the coming years if Scotland holds a referendum and opts for independence? Recent SNP gains show the country may well be heading in this direction.

Will the FCO’s sizeable tartan army of Scottish diplomats vote to stay in London representing a reduced UK or will they go north en masse to help Scotland set up its new diplomatic service?

In either case, who will trust them?"

Are they trusted now?

A related question attaches to those European diplomats who leave their own service for the EU's External Action Service. Does anyone trust them now? Will anyone trust them afterwards?

re: "SPLAT!!!"

LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") assembles some information and does a little forecasting.

Money quote(s):

"The Dark Times are no longer a matter of if; but rather of when, how long, and how bad. The Great Depression is now one of the best-case scenarios. It IS going to get hungry out there. “Out there” meaning outside our own homes."

Not to get all "survivalist-compound" on you, but keep reading.

"We have been watching the mayhem in Tunisia, Egypt, and around the Third World with more than a little emphasis on the Ummah, the Muslim world. There are riots in the streets, and general unrest. Most of it caused in large part by the rise in the price of food."

As food prices rise, those on the margins get squeezed past the breaking point; leading one "illegal" Tunisian food vendor to self-immolation.

"Our poor, those officially designated by the government, have as high a per capita income as much of the middle class in the rest of the world, and have more and better material goods and in many cases housing than the middle class of the rest of the world.

One of the points where we come out ahead, even our poor, is in the percentage of income and effort that has to be devoted to getting enough food to eat. In this country, we average 10-15% of our income having to be spent on food. For most of the rest of the world; it is 40-60%. There is also a qualitative difference."

"In our country, the primary dietary problem of the poor is acute obesity. In the Third World, there is not a productive agricultural sector and the governments spend a large proportion of their budgets importing food from overseas and selling it to the people at subsidized prices that do not reflect the actual cost at all. Our government interventions into agriculture are designed to keep prices high enough to continue to encourage continued high volume production by our agricultural sector. We produce enough food to feed our own, fatten our poor, and usually export enough to feed much of the world. And we do it with less damage to the environment than pretty much all the rest of the world.

Now let us consider those rough figures about the cost of food in the family budget. If food prices rise 10% in this country, that means that the total cost of food out of the family budget goes to 16 ½%. Not pleasant, but bearable. We have enough leeway in income to adjust things to make it work. Cutting back on Starbucks and a few other optional purchases more than covers it without touching other necessities. In the Third World, a 10% price increase can mean the food portion of the budget goes to 2/3 of their income; and there is not much other leeway."

"The supply of food is not fixed. It is shrinking.

Aside from the deliberate policy of currency inflation by all the major economic powers [which raises all world commodity prices], there is an actual shortfall of food grains. There are 5 major producers/exporters of food grains that cover the shortfalls in food production around the world.

Russia/Ukraine, Canada, Australia, Argentina, and the United States. Russia/Ukraine has embargoed food exports due to crop failures [drought and fires] so they can hope to feed their own people. Canada’s wheat crop is down 12% below normal due to flooding. Australia has floods and storms in the east and crop destroying droughts in the west. Argentina does not have that great a surplus. And the United States is using 1/3 of its grain crop to make energy inefficient moonshine to burn instead of using it for food.

That is why the governments of Third World countries that can afford it are buying up food grains as fast as they can and are paying a premium for it. And this is not because of any sense of responsibility for those people. It is to avoid being literally torn to pieces by a mob. There is no longer the slack to maintain the subsidies, so food prices are rising. Hungry people who are subjects, and not citizens with alternate means of getting at the government,* will turn to violence fairly immediately."

* I.e., fair and democratic elections, independent judiciaries, rule of law not men, &tc.

"Hunger and inflation are major factors in what is happening in Egypt, both as triggers, and in limiting the riots [people have to stop and find food for their families, as the government food distribution system broke down right smartly]. There is no solution to what is happening there that will come from either a change of government, or some form of the old Nassarite system holding on. Population pressure, and the economic chaos caused by worldwide inflation and a shortage of food grains mean that no matter if things settle down under the Supreme Military Council, eventually it will fall apart. There is not going to be a Constitutional Convention at that point. At one or another interation, the Muslim Brotherhood or a like group is going to end up in charge."

The writer does, in his post, offer some constructive suggestions (not quoted here) as to how the global food shortage may be alleviated by unilateral action of the U.S.

"1/3 of the winter wheat crop in China has been lost to drought. More, maybe all, may be lost.
Think about that for a moment, because there are some pretty dire consequences.

China has made food self-sufficiency a key policy goal since 1949, except for politically caused famines. It has succeeded pretty well up till now. China avoids massive grain imports most years. It just failed."

Bear in mind also that rising incomes in China have led to a more Western type diet among the growing middle class. After all, if you can afford it, why eat like your peasant forebears if you don't have to.

As any honest political scientist (or intelligence analyst) will tell you, it's not downtrodden peasants who make successful revolutions; it's dissatisfied middle classes with rising (and frustrated) expectations.

"China is NOT going to suffer a major famine now if the Chinese government can help it, because over a billion hungry Chinese are going to remember how certain dynasties ended if they do. And the Chinese government can afford to buy the food from overseas. China has a huge trade surplus with us. They have dollars coming out the south end of the northbound dragon. They will bid whatever it takes to secure food supplies. The amounts of both money and grain will be horrendous. And the world price will go up. And up. And up. And the supply of grain available for purchase by the rest of the world is going to go down. And down. And down. It is going to get damned hungry out there in the world. And hungry people do not have much patience."

"We will not be exempt. Food prices will rise. We will be competing with foreign bidders for our crop, which is as it should be. That will be good for our farmers. And we do produce enough for ourselves, if we are allowed to. The only way to limit the food price increases would be to do like Russia, and embargo food exports. That will put Malthus on steroids and increase the bad results elsewhere."

&

"Another possible consequence. China will be using dollars to buy a huge amount of food. They also buy the worthless script that we call Treasury Securities. What if they use the money they buy Treasuries with to buy food; or if they start selling our Treasuries to pay for food. The reduced demand for Treasuries means that government interest costs skyrocket and the shell game is over." (Emphasis in original.)

This last possibility has had me concerned since the Egyptian protests started and I became aware of the food shortage problem. I've since read (can't remember where) that China has already begun selling T-bills and its Japan that's picking up the slack.

I can't confirm it, I definitely read it online (so it must be true) rather than anywhere governmental, but it is worrisome.

re: "Glass Houses"

Walter Jon Williams focuses his creative lense on the whole mess.

Money quote(s):

"The cables reflect pretty well on the State Department. These diplomats are doing what they’re trained for. They’re collecting local information, they’re reporting the candid views of foreign sources, and they’re providing information about personalities, sometimes hilariously— you’ve gotta love the detail about the Chechen dictator dancing at a wedding with his gold-plated pistol hanging out of his waistband.

It has to be said, though, that the big news is that this information was so easily obtained. The Pentagon’s Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet) is a worldwide US military network to which the State Department and its embassies have access. It runs on Windows XP, not exactly your best model of Internet security. Anyone with a Secret clearance has access not only to the diplomatic cables, but to everything else."

"SIPRNet is a classic example of a good idea gone haywire. The idea was to put every document related to terrorism on a single source, so that it could be accessed by anyone who needed it. But they dumped in loads of unrelated stuff as well, and now their own system has well and truly bitten them on the butt."

Actually, SIPRNet predates the GWOT by quite a few years, although Mr. Williams is correct (I think) if what he's getting at is State's inclusion of classified cable traffic. That came well after SIPRNet's establishment.

"It occurs to me that Russia may only exist because a few important people have decided that it does. And if those props are knocked out, does Russia just become another Iceland?"

It occurs to me that Russia already is another Iceland.

Except, of course, for all the things that make it so much more (and so much less) than Iceland.

No offense meant, Iceland.

"So for my money, the question now, is whether government and finance is only possible if the vast majority of the citizenry is kept in complete ignorance of what they are doing? If Secretary Rice, for fear of exposure, prevents her own analysts from analyzing anything, does that mean that government can no longer conduct the kind of debate and internal dialog that is necessary for a clear-sighted view of its future and its own operation? If the government can’t talk to itself for fear that someone’s listening, do we actually have a government, or just 2.15 million civil servants operating in a complete vacuum, unaware that a bigger picture even exists?"

Mr. Williams is getting to the heart of what I worry will be an over-reaction to the Wikileaks leaks; hamstringing our intelligence analysts and decision-makers through too-zealous or cookie-cutter application of need-to-know policies. After all, how does an intelligence analyst tell you he needs to know something if he doesn't already know about it? Kind of hard to do that if he's kept from knowing about it, isn't it?

This sort of thing spells "intelligence failure." Intelligence analysts know that there are, after all, only two kinds of military outcomes: operational successes and intelligence failures.

(Just to be clear, Mr. Williams knows that Sec. Rice no longer runs the State Dept.; he's mentioning her in the context of a story I didn't snippet from his post.)

RN - Russian parliament may request ban on U.S. child adoptions

From my archive of press clippings:

RIA Novosti

Russian parliament may request ban on U.S. child adoptions

07:0007/05/2010

The lower chamber of the Russian parliament will discuss on Friday sending a proposal to the Russian prime minister to consider suspending adoptions of Russian children by U.S. citizens.
Read the whole article here.

MOSCOW, May 7 (RIA Novosti)

CNN - U.S. official: Russia still allowing adoptions by Americans

From my archive of press clippings:

CNN

U.S. official: Russia still allowing adoptions by Americans


From Charley Keyes, CNN


May 4, 2010 -- Updated 0056 GMT (0856 HKT)


Washington (CNN) -- A senior State Department official said Monday that Russian authorities continue to approve U.S. adoptions despite some public sentiment there to call a complete halt.
"There are several different moods, I think, in Russia. There is some popular opinion for ending all adoptions to the United States," the official said.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The latest uproar and the high-level meetings were prompted by a Tennessee woman who sent the young Russian boy her family had recently adopted back to Russia unaccompanied.

The senior State Department official said Russians understandably are upset that 18 Russian children have been killed by their adoptive parents since the early 1990s and 17 of those cases involved Americans."

NYT - Russian Orphanage Offers Love, but Not Families

From my archive of press clippings:

New York Times

Russian Orphanage Offers Love, but Not Families

James Hill for The New York Times


A child at Orphanage No. 11. Of the 45 to 50 children there, just one has been adopted this year.


By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: May 3, 2010


MOSCOW — There is nothing dreary about Orphanage No. 11. It has rooms filled with enough dolls and trains and stuffed animals to make any child giggly. It has speech therapists and round-the-clock nurses and cooks who delight in covertly slipping a treat into a tiny hand. It has the feel of a place where love abounds.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The case of a Russian boy who returned alone to Moscow, sent back by his American adoptive mother, has focused intense attention on the pitfalls of international adoption."

&

"Ms. Mizulina noted that for all the complaints about the return of the boy, Artyom Savelyev, by his adoptive mother in Tennessee, Russia itself has plenty of experience with failed placements. She said 30,000 children in the last three years inside Russia were sent back to institutions by their adoptive, foster or guardianship families."

re: "Tragedy Upon Tragedy"

Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement ("on politics, crime, science, foreign affairs, and maritime and military matters in the United States, Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East.") shares, in closing, a criticism of the last Pres. Bush.

Money quote(s):

" (Not particularly reassured by Putin’s taking personal charge of the investigation, given that the former KGB agent heads a government that appears determined to restore some of the worst practices of historic Russian totalitarianism. Theoretically a show of sincerity with personal responsibility. Some people think George Bush’s biggest miscalculation was misjudging the intentions of Saddam Hussein. I think he got those exactly right, and it was Putin’s intentions that he sorely misjudged.)"

CT - International adoptions grow more difficult. Higher standards and costs play a role.

From my archive of press clippings:

Chicago Tribune

International adoptions grow more difficult

Higher standards and costs play a role


By Bonnie Miller Rubin, Tribune reporter


February 15, 2010


For years, Americans hoping to build families through adoption looked overseas because the path was more predictable and less complicated than domestic adoption.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Three of the most popular countries — China, Guatemala and Russia — have scaled back, tightened rules or temporarily halted adoptions as they struggle to establish more transparency and accountability.

Countries also have raised the eligibility bar, excluding more prospective parents based on income, marital status and even — in the case of China — body mass index.

Finally, even if a couple manage to slice through all the bureaucracy, there's the price — which can hit $40,000 in some countries, double what it was 10 years ago and a deal breaker for many families."

&

"A major shift came in 2008 with the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.

The treaty — signed by 70 countries, including the United States — has been widely supported by accredited agencies as an important step in eliminating concerns of baby-selling and coercion. Such allegations were common in Guatemala and Vietnam."

_____
brubin@tribune.com

HSIE - Child abduction case prompts ministerial-level altercation between Finland and Russia

HELSINGIN SANOMAT INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Child abduction case prompts ministerial-level altercation between Finland and Russia


Finnish Foreign Ministry official used diplomatic vehicle to drive father and son back to Finland


18.5.2009 - TODAY


Finland and Russia have sharply differing views with regard to a recent border-crossing child abduction case of a little boy.

Read the whole article here.

ST - DHS grants 180-day delay

Saipan Tribune

DHS grants 180-day delay


Thursday, April 02, 2009

By Kristi Eaton


Reporter

They asked for it and they got it. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday announced the June 1 start date to the federalization law will be delayed by 180 days-the maximum amount allowed by law-until Nov. 28, 2009.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The extension means the CNMI will continue to administer its own immigration system until Nov. 28.

The proposed joint Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver Program, which excludes the emerging Chinese and Russian markets, will also not go into effect until Nov. 28.

Guam's own visa program will operate until Nov. 28."

"According to a DHS statement issued yesterday, “Under the CNRA, the Secretary of DHS has the sole authority to delay the June 1, 2009, transition date to U.S. immigration law up to 180 days, after consultation with the secretaries of Labor, Interior and State, the attorney general, and the governor of the CNMI.

The Secretary has determined based upon those consultations that it is advisable to exercise that authority fully.” "

"The delay will allow DHS to draft and release the remaining regulations relating to the law, and allow for enough time for the public to comment.

The proposed Visa Waiver Program is the only regulation that has been released for public comment, and it has received opposition from many in the CNMI community."

&

"As it is right now, some legal residents of the Commonwealth who do not have a valid U.S. visa will not be able to re-enter the CNMI if they must leave for a medical emergency or other reason."

re: "What Does “Reset” Mean?"

Dave Schuler at Outside the Beltway is considering Russia.

Money quote(s):

"We have no default position with respect to Russia. You can’t return to a nonexistent initial state."