Don’t Barack Obama and Canadian opposition chief Michael Ignatieff look like a natural pair of left-leaning, book-writing fans of global governance?  The Winnipeg Free Press scents a plot against Canadian Conservative PM Stephen Harper:

The Obama administration is heaping praise on some old Liberal ideas about Canada’s role on the world stage — policies the Harper Conservatives have been accused of dumping.

Esther Brimmer, the U.S. State Department’s assistant secretary for International Organization Affairs, lauded ex-Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy and his signature “human security” agenda during an exclusive interview with The Canadian Press.  Brimmer also said her government strongly supports a key tenet of Axworthy’s old agenda — the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine that the United Nations endorsed five years ago in an attempt to prevent genocide and protect innocent civilians from abuse by their own political leaders.

Canada struck an international commission a decade ago to write the doctrine and the panel included current Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff in his academic life before he entered politics.  “Canada and other countries were leaders in thinking about what does human security mean,” Brimmer said in an interview this week on the margins of an international aviation summit in Montreal.

Brimmer’s remarks are timely because she is watching the race for the two temporary seats on the United Nations Security Council — a contest between Canada, Germany and Portugal that will be decided by a secret ballot at the UN on Oct. 12.

Since winning power in 2006, many observers say the Harper government has all but abandoned the R2P agenda at the UN.

Brimmer attended the General Assembly in New York last week when Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the assembly’s 190 countries that Canada has a stellar track record and is ready to serve a two-year term on the Security Council.  Brimmer declined comment on Harper’s speech, saying it is U.S. policy not to publicly endorse candidate countries vying for the Security Council.

We’re not fooled!

Have we tried everything possible to save Afghanistan? No! We have not turned over the entire state-building exercise there to scholars from Michigan State University.

Does this seem like an unlikely option to you? Then you weren’t in Nam. Rufus Phillips, who has a new piece in the World Affairs Journal, was:

Despite warnings [of a South Vietnamese insurgency] at the time, Pentagon planners judged the principal security threat to be an overt North Vietnamese invasion across the 17th parallel. Hence the Vietnamese army was taken out of its territorial security role and converted into a conventional army of corps, divisions, regiments, and battalions to act as a blocking force long enough for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to come to the rescue.

A newly created South Vietnamese constabulary, the Civil Guard, was supposed to replace the army in its rural security role. However, our economic aid mission gave the training and mentoring job to Michigan State University, which used traditional policing as a model and hired former American state and local police as trainers and advisers…

Phillips goes on to argue that the U.S. and UN are actually repeating a lot of Michigan State’s Vietnam errors in Afghanistan. His piece is worth a read. If you want to learn about how Michigan’s finest flopped in Vietnam, check out James Carter’s Inventing Vietnam.  It’s a great cautionary tale for any academic or analyst who thinks that they could do a better job in Afghanistan than the guys on the ground…

Back in 2008, just as the oil price started to plummet after hitting its all-time high of $147 a barrel, I did a post pondering whether the drop was “the start of a long decline, or just a brief pause to draw breath before a resumption of the relentless upward march of recent years”. I argued that oil prices would stay low as long as the credit crunch lasted, but that

once we’re through the crunch, we may be back to a game of cat and mouse between oil supply and economic growth. Demand falls, oil price falls; demand picks up, oil price goes back up too – but never for long enough to give investors a clear signal to pump cash into new oil supply infrastructure

Over at the Energy Bulletin, Dave Cohen’s just published a post thinking about the same question – and wondering when the next oil spike is due. His take is that the next crunch will likely be in 2013, give or take a year, as his graph below illustrates:

As Dave notes, this graph is not a forecast on oil prices, but rather a schematic illustrating that a) demand surges cause oil price shocks [i.e. the peaks on his graph]; b) oil price shocks cause recesssions and force reductions in demand [the troughs]; and c) the average price of oil goes up over time [the straight line]. Informally, he notes, “we can say there’s been an oil price shock when the real (inflation-adjusted) price goes over $100 per barrel and stays there for at least 2 months”.

His whole post is worth reading (n.b. especially his emphasis on the key variable in all this, namely prospects for Chinese growth) – and leaves the reader wondering: how do we break out of the cycle?

As I argued back in 08, one answer could be massive new investment in oil production – remember the IEA’s consistent warnings throughout the downturn about how under-investment in new oil production is setting the stage for a new supply crunch. But there are two problems with that option. One: we’re into diminishing returns territory. With the age of easy oil over, production increases from now depend on unpalatable options like tar sands, oil shales and, ahem, a lot more deepwater drilling (which is projected to account for 40% of global oil demand by 2020). Two: this approach does nothing to solve climate change.

So, I concluded 2 years ago, “it looks like the only way through is for policymakers to agree a global climate policy framework that’s both global in scope and sufficiently long term to provide investors with an unequivocal signal of where to put their cash: this is the only way of squaring energy security with climate change”.

I still think that’s right – but obviously, prospects for that have dimmed considerably since Copenhagen. So where does that leave us? That leaves us, alas, stuck in the yo-yo world depicted in Dave’s graph (which looks a lot like the Multilateral Zombie climate policy scenario that David and I described in our 2009 report for the UK government on global climate architecture – see page 7 onwards).

Oh – and it also leaves us on track for 3 degrees plus of global warming.

This map of New York City, produced by photographer Eric Fischer, is colour-coded by race: Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Gray is Other, and each dot represents 25 people. Compare it to this one of San Francisco – a far more integrated city:

38 more US cities available to view on Fischer’s Flickr page.

Foreign Affairs has just published a fascinating short essay by Seth Cropsey online:

While visiting Japan in late August, Admiral Robert Willard, the leader of the U.S. Pacific Command, told journalists that China is almost ready to make operational the world’s first anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). Anti-ship cruise missiles already exist in abundance, but they travel at about one-tenth the speed of a ballistic missile, possess far less kinetic energy, and are proportionately less lethal. According to recent Pentagon reports, the Chinese ASBM will have a range of at least 1,000 miles, whereas a long-range cruise missile has a range of about 600 miles. Chinese military planners expect that the missile’s maneuverability will allow it to hit and put out of action or destroy large-deck aircraft carriers while they are at sea and too distant from the Chinese mainland, as a result of the fact that even the next generation of naval fighter aircraft will lack the range to return to their carriers safely if launched further than 600 miles from their intended target. This unprecedented missile range and accuracy would allow China to finally achieve its oft-stated goal: denying major U.S. naval forces a significant portion of the Western Pacific.

What could this mean?

Such an extension of Chinese firepower would erode the United States’ ability to honor its commitment to defend Taiwan if it were attacked. The U.S. Navy has no defense against the ASBM, nor does it have one in development. If the United States cannot counter and overcome the ASBM, U.S. influence in Asia will likely decline, China’s implicit claim to regional hegemony will gain traction, and a regional arms competition, driven by territorial disputes in the South China Sea, may erupt.

What can the U.S. do?

China’s ASBM threat is serious, but the United States has the capacity to respond. Reductions in the size of U.S. carriers, increases in their number, and changes in aircraft design to expand their range, as well as other new technology, could neutralize the threat of Chinese missiles. Yet the growing U.S. deficit makes this unlikely, as does U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ skepticism regarding the utility of such large naval forces. For the immediate future, the administration is right to shore up U.S. alliances in the Western Pacific and continue to pursue a region-wide agreement on how to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It should also increase the level of naval exercises with allies in the region and proceed as scheduled with joint naval exercises planned with Japan in December on or around the Ryukyu Islands, which form the eastern perimeter of the East China Sea.

This may be the best policy article I’ve read this year – and one of the most unnerving.

David Foster Wallace in the Atlantic has a good question:

What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”? In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours?

Via Bruce Schneier.

Somehow, with all the excitement of the UN General Assembly last week, I missed this press release:

22 September 2010 – The United Nations and partners today launched the Year of the Bat to conserve the world’s only flying mammal and its critical role in seed dispersal and pollination for the benefit of humankind.

Who on earth writes this stuff?

“From insect-eating bats in Europe that provide important pest control to seed-dispersing bats in the tropics that help sustain rainforests, bats deliver vital ecosystem services across a wide range of environments,” the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said, noting that bat populations have declined alarmingly in recent decades due to habitat loss, human disturbance at hibernation sites, increasing urbanization and epidemics.

Vital ecosystem services?

The joint campaign, led by the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats (EUROBATS), concluded under the auspices of the CMS, will draw attention to the world’s 1100 bat species – around half of which are currently at risk.

“Compared to animals like tigers and elephants, bats receive little positive attention,” EUROBATS Executive Secretary Andreas Streit said. “But they are fascinating mammals and play an indispensable role in maintaining our environment.”

True.  And the first thing they need is someone who can draft a half-decent press release on their behalf.

A new OECD report finds Britain has the highest rates of overweight and obesity in the EU, and rates 5th overall (after the US, Mexico, NZ and Australia). Japan and Korea are the trimmest kids on the bloc, but the problem’s getting worse everywhere.

And guess what - Italy’s the least overweight EU member of the OECD. Who knew?

H/t Owen Barder.

The New York Post has by far the best story of UN week in NYC:

New York cops found themselves in the middle of an international incident Thursday night after members of the Sudanese UN delegation balked at going through metal detectors at an East Side hotel.

The dust-up started when the Sudanese diplomats, invited to a party by members of the UN Iranian delegation after yesterday’s General Assembly, showed up at the nearby Tudor Hotel, NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly said today.

“There was a bit of a dispute … there was some pushing and shoving and some resistance on the part of the Sudanese and members of their delegation to go through the magnetometer,” Kelly said.

Kelly said the party area became “overcrowded” — and that a detective from the NYPD intelligence unit hurt his thumb after being “involved in a scuffle.’”

“Eventually,” he said, the Sudanese agreed to go through the metal detector.

One person was taken into custody — but released when it was determined he had diplomatic status.

Check out the comments from irate New Yorkers on Post website too. Sample: “these diplomats are absolute scum.”  Aw shucks, can’t the Axis of Evil party now and then?

Today’s FT has a piece about a bit of malware called Stuxnet, which “has infected an unknown number of power plants, pipelines and factories” (or more specifically, the SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition – systems that control them). According to the FT, Stuxnet

…spreads through previously unknown holes in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and then looks for a type of software made by Siemens and used to control industrial components, including valves and brakes. 

Stuxnet can hide itself, wait for certain conditions and give new orders to the components that reverse what they would normally do, the experts said. The commands are so specific that they appear aimed at an industrial sector, but officials do not know which one or what the affected equipment would do.

While cyber attacks on computer networks have slowed or stopped communication in countries such as Estonia and Georgia, Stuxnet is the first aimed at physical destruction and it heralds a new era in cyberwar.

For the tech details, see this briefing from Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center back in July, and also this comprehensive overview from Wired – which notes that Symantec is calling the worm “the most complex piece of malware we’ve seen in the last five years or more … it’s the first known time that malware is not targeting credit card [data], is not trying to steal personal user data, but is attacking real-world processing systems. That’s why it’s unique and is not over-hyped.”

So is this down to hackers, terrorists or organised crime targeting the soft underbelly of OECD economies? Not necessarily. Some analysts are speculating that the target may be Iran’s nuclear program, given that the majority of infections have taken place there. That’s not confirmed by any means – but what analysts do know, according to Wired, is that

the worm is designed to attack a very particular configuration of the Simatic SCADA software, indicating the malware writers had a specific facility or facilities in mind for their attack and had extensive knowledge of the system they were targeting

Analysts have been expecting this type of attack for a long time – John Robb highlighted SCADA vulnerabilities in an excellent blog post on infrastructure attacks all the way back in 2004 - but it’s been slow to materialise.

The headache for governments is that defending critical national infrastructure successfully against this kind of attack depends on how good utility companies’ security is – which is why governments have been spending a lot more time and energy on stuff like this.

Yesterday, the Managing Global Insecurity project hosted an event in New York on the U.S. and UN.  You can read a transcript or watch a video online.   The line-up included Strobe Talbott of Brookings and Jim Traub of the NYT and Foreign Policy.

Jim raised an issue that he has written about before: his view that Ban Ki-moon is a liability for the UN and should stand down after one term next year.   Strobe recalled the Clinton administration’s veto of Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s second term:

I will recall what it was like to be part of an administration that actually did grasp the nettle of denying a second term to a sitting Secretary General. It was not fun, and it was not pretty, and it was successful. And the reason it was successful was that there was a very powerful alternative available [i.e. Kofi Annan] and there was a very doable process whereby to bring it about, and as I observe the current issue as it plays out, and listen to people I have a lot of respect for, I don’t see either of those being the case here.

What does that mean for the UN?

When we talk about the leadership of the U.N., we should not treat that as a singular noun. It’s a plural noun. It’s a collective noun. And my guess is that unless the current Secretary General decides he wants to be the next President of the Republic of Korea, he’s going to be a second-term Secretary General. And a lot of thought should be given, including by him, to strengthening the team and the system around him.

It’s hard to imagine a clearer statement from a better-connected U.S. policy figure.

Ban’s second term is already secure.