The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato.

Spud we like

Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them. Yet China has a surprisingly lively intellectual class whose ideas may prove a serious challenge to western liberal hegemony

China's new intelligentsia

Marine ecologist writes book, fights terror.

Paleobiologist meets neoconservative, spawns book.

Arms races among invertebrates, intelligence gathering by the immune system and alarm calls by marmots are but a few of nature's security strategies that have been tested and modified over billions of years. This provocative book applies lessons from nature to our own toughest security problems--from global terrorism to the rise of infectious disease to natural disasters. Written by a truly multidisciplinary group including paleobiologists, anthropologists, psychologists, ecologists, and national security experts, it considers how models and ideas from evolutionary biology can improve national security strategies ranging from risk assessment, security analysis, and public policy to long-term strategic goals.

Read the first chapter, then visit the companion web site, Darwinian Security (not much there yet).

Recent news coverage is collected at the author's web site, although the link to a recent interview instead (mysteriously, obscurely) points to a simply named Thai Cafe near Duke.

Some of this analysis seems like overkill:

A biological assessment of the TSA’s methods found that the agency’s well advertised screening procedures may lead to a kind of natural adaption by terrorists.

Was such an "assessment" really necessary to reach that conclusion?

Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World

Francis Fukuyama reviews Samantha Power's new book, "Chasing the Flame".

Samantha Power, whose earlier book, “‘A Problem From Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide,” won a Pulitzer Prize, has written a comprehensive biography of Vieira de Mello that explains how his personal evolution paralleled that of the United Nations and how his contradictions and failures were rooted in those of the institution he so loyally served.

In the wake of the Iraq debacle, the idea that strong countries like the United States should use their power to defend human rights or promote democracy around the world has become widely discredited. From an overmilitarized foreign policy, we are in danger of going to the opposite extreme, forgetting the lessons of the 1990s that hard power is sometimes needed to resolve political conflicts, and that we do not yet have an adequate set of international institutions to deploy it legitimately and effectively.

“Chasing the Flame” argues, as Vieira de Mello himself once did, that the United Nations is often unfairly blamed for failures to protect the vulnerable or deter aggression, when the real failure is that of the great powers standing behind it. Those powers are seldom willing to give it sufficient resources, attention and boots on the ground to accomplish the ambitious mandates they set for it. At present, the United Nations is involved in eight separate peacekeeping operations in Africa alone; failure in a high-profile case like Darfur (which seems likely) will once again discredit the organization. Power (who has been a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama) makes the case for powerful countries like the United States putting much greater effort into making the institution work.

In the end, the book does not make a persuasive case that the United Nations will ever be able to evolve into an organization that can deploy adequate amounts of hard power or take sides in contentious political disputes. Its weaknesses as a bureaucracy and its political constraints make it very unlikely that the United States and other powerful countries will ever delegate to it direct control over their soldiers or trust it with large sums of money. But surely the life and death of Sergio Vieira de Mello is a good place to begin a serious debate about the proper way to manage world order in the future.

The Internationalist

Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future.

In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film.

On May 10, 2008 -- Pangea Day -- sites in Cairo, Dharamsala, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv will be videoconferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music.

Pangea Day

ONE year after Israel’s devastating 34-day war with Hezbollah, it seems as though both sides are readying themselves for another round. Recent statements by American and Israeli officials, as well as the United Nations, assert that Hezbollah has largely re-equipped and refortified, compliments of Syria and Iran. On the other side of the border, the news media report that the Israeli Defense Force has done the same, with, of course, the help of American military aid.

Given what may be a regional movement toward conflict, the United States and Israel would do well to pause and take stock of the nonviolent alternatives that Hezbollah itself says would lead it to shun military action. Indeed, the best way to contain Hezbollah may be to give it some of what it says it wants.

Getting Hezbollah to Behave

Consider it a counterpoint to "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony."

Some myths about the rise of China and India

What Makes a Miracle: Some myths about the rise of China and India

Mike McConnell:

Against this backdrop, I will focus my statement on the following issues:

* The continuing global terrorist threat, but also the setbacks the violent extremist networks are experiencing;
* The significant gains in Iraqi security since this time last year and the developing political and economic improvements;
* The continuing challenges facing us in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, where many of our most important interests intersect;
* The persistent threat of WMD-related proliferation:

o Despite halting progress towards denuclearization, North Korea continues to maintain nuclear weapons;
o Despite the halt through at least mid-2007 to Iran’s nuclear weapons design and covert uranium conversion and enrichment-related work, Iran continues to pursue fissile material and nuclear-capable missile delivery systems.

* The vulnerabilities of the US information infrastructure to increasing cyber attacks by foreign governments, nonstate actors and criminal elements;
* The growing foreign interest in counterspace programs that could threaten critical US military and intelligence capabilities;
* Issues of political stability and of national and regional conflict in Europe, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Eurasia;
* Growing humanitarian concerns stemming from the rise in food and energy prices for poorer states;
* Concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China, and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to achieve political ends.

Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Seymour Hersh:

What did Israel bomb in Syria?

Annals of National Security: A Strike in the Dark

Over recent months, the level of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has begun to rise substantially, with some of it spilling into the United States. Last week, the Mexican government began military operations on its side of the border against Mexican gangs engaged in smuggling drugs into the United States. The action apparently pushed some of the gang members north into the United States in a bid for sanctuary. Low-level violence is endemic to the border region. But while not without precedent, movement of organized, armed cadres into the United States on this scale goes beyond what has become accepted practice. The dynamics in the borderland are shifting and must be understood in a broader, geopolitical context.

The Geopolitics of Dope