Stability

Published April 19th, 2010 by Future Atlas

Is US Stability at Risk?

Future Americas?The AP reported last week that some “Tea Party” leaders and Oklahoma legislators are discussing forming a militia to defend against encroachment by the federal government.

There are other indicators that extremism is finding new purchase.

In February, a man used his light plane to launch a terrorist suicide attack on a government office in Austin, Texas. He appeared to be a troubled man acting alone, but that is the case with many people who are also political terrorists, such as the Fort Hood shooter Major Hassan. Stack invoked politics directly as a motive:

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.

Stack is citing classic insurgency theory as well: trigger an overreaction that fuels a rebellion.

His manifesto is also highly reminiscent of much of the rhetoric emanating from factions of the Tea Party movement, which brings us to the question: is that movement symptomatic of a threat to American stability? There are a number of worrying signs:

  • Scale: There has been a right wing of this ilk for decades, but this incarnation seems larger and has more tendrils into the “mainstream.” If even a tiny fraction of turned toward violence, they might number in the tens of thousands.
  • Celebration of violence: Tea Partiers have formed ties with “militia” groups that have preparing for violence as their central activity.
  • Lack of restraining mechanism: In the past, mainstream media and the Republican Party provided dampers on the spread of right-wing radicalism. Now, extremists can confirm their views with them own media (which includes some corporate media entities as well). And the most of the Republican Party is either silent in the face of extremism, or actively panders to or reinforces it.
  • Irrationality: The strong role of anger, and the strange visions of socialism and / or fascism, are also worrying. One could have a perfectly rational (or at least reality-based, if passionate) movement that favored radically downsizing government, but this doesn’t seem to be that movement. Many seem to have headed straight for the black helicopter rabbit holes.

Foreign terrorists can do the US harm; domestic extremism is orders of magnitude more dangerous, as it can undermine fundamental stability.

And the danger does not have to involve violence: a competent and trusted government is rare in the world, and one’s of America’s biggest competitive advantages. Destroying that trust and dismantling that competence would deal a severe blow to American prospects.

| Post in North America, Security, Stability, Terrorism, United States | 2 Comments

Published November 23rd, 2009 by Future Atlas

Locking In World’s Agricultural Land

Ethiopian farmland (mrflip, Flickr)The WaPo reported today on a trend that could have impacts from African stability to the global food supply: companies and governments from developing nations are leasing or buying large swaths of agricultural land, especially in Africa, but also in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

The WaPo article focuses on Ethiopia, which uses only about a quarter of its arable land despite facing chronic food shortages. Indian investment there has already reached $2.5 billion, and Saudi Arabian and Chinese firms are moving in as well, with active encouragement from the Ethiopian government.

This could have positive effects:

  • This kind of project could increase global farmland and the global food supply.
  • This could bring new flows of investment to poor nations, and improve their infrastructures.
  • Access to inexpensive food might rise in the land-leasing countries.
  • People could gain access to paid work, and learn modern farming skills.

However, the potential downsides seem serious:

  • Land may be diverted from local food production to exports, increasing hunger.
  • Poor locals might be deprived of land and water so that governments or elites can profit from it.
  • This could extend the “resource curse” to agriculture, as it could enable elites to make money from farmland while largely excluding their own countrymen from the benefits. The WaPo article notes an Ethiopian river that is now to be used for irrigation, with locals banned from watering their cows in it.
  • With many of the companies coming from India, Saudi Arabia, and China, the potential for serious ill-treatment of workers, and even human rights abuses, is vast. Indian and Chinese companies often treat their own workers abysmally, and Saudis sometimes revert to near-enslavement of foreigners, so the fate of African workers could be grim — especially if their own governments fail to protect them, which is likely in many poorly governed countries.
  • The land leases run for as long as 99 years; exactly what this means, and how far the rights of the leasing country extend, could bring diplomatic clashes.
  • The sum of the problems above points suggests that this trend could drive instability in some land-leasing countries.

(Image courtesy mrflip, Flickr)

| Post in Africa, Development, Stability | 0 Comments