| | | | How Washington Made Hurricanes More Deadly | | As communities in Houston and now Florida begin to count the cost of recent hurricanes, one thing should already be clear: Washington has made such disasters far more costly – and more deadly – than they should be, writes Michael Grunwald in Politico Magazine.
"Houston's problem was in part a Washington problem, a slow-motion disaster that was easy to predict but politically impossible to prevent," Grunwald writes. "Congress often discusses fixing flood insurance to stop encouraging Americans to build in harm's way, but the National Flood Insurance Program is still almost as dysfunctional as it was 19 years ago. It is now nearly $25 billion in the red, piling debt onto the national credit card. Meanwhile, cities like Houston -- as well as New Orleans, which Higher Ground [a report by the National Wildlife Federation] identified as the national leader in repetitive losses eight years before Hurricane Katrina -- continue to sprawl into their vulnerable floodplains, aided by the availability of inexpensive federally supported insurance."
"Storms are natural events, but floods are usually man-made disasters. That's because flood damage depends not only on how much water is involved, but on how many people and structures are in its path and how prior human intervention had affected that path. Government policies affect all three of those variables, which is one reason why '500-year floods' -- which are supposed to have a 1-in-500 chance of occurring in a particular place in a particular year -- are becoming so common."
| | The U.S. Fell Into Bin Laden's Trap: Korzen | | Sixteen years on, and it's clear that the United States fell into Osama bin Laden's trap with its response to the September 11 attacks, argues David Max Korzen in the Los Angeles Times. "The damage we have wrought upon ourselves far exceeds what al Qaeda could ever have achieved on its own accord."
"Bin Laden's objective on 9/11 was not simply to destroy the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rather, these were the means to an end. Terrorists kill to induce people to alter their behavior, to force them into bad decisions or tempt a government to crack down on their populations," Korzen writes. "In our case, we've bled ourselves dry on military adventures around the world." "More money, bombs, troops, pressure on Pakistan and tough love for the Afghans. It is a tactical approach, designed by generals, to ensure that they do not lose. But it does not even pretend to contain a strategy to win. In other words, half a century later, at a lower human cost, the United States has replicated its strategy in Vietnam. Call it quagmire-lite." "Strikingly, Hamza directs followers not to travel to theaters of war within the Muslim world, but instead to attack targets in the West and Russia," Soufan writes. "He urges 'martyrs' that 'the message you intend to convey through your blessed operation must be explained unequivocally in the media" and suggests talking points to align these explanations with al-Qa`ida's own propaganda.
"In the same statement, Hamza sets up a hierarchy of targets to be attacked, starting with those who 'transgress' against Islam (such as the editors of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo), followed by Jewish interests, the United States, other NATO member states, and, lastly, Russia."
| | Why China Keeps Bailing Out North Korea | | | Some Chinese officials might be growing frustrated with North Korea. But don't assume Beijing will be inclined to ramp up pressure on its bellicose neighbor, suggests John Pomfret in the Washington Post. The Chinese Communist Party puts its own survival first, and that could mean ensuring Kim Jong Un's regime survives, too.
Why does China continue to help North Korea? "For one, despite the increased criticism of North Korea permitted in the state-run press, a significant faction within the Communist Party continues to believe that China's support of North Korea chips away at American strength and prestige," Pomfret argues. "Undermining the United States within China and around Asia remains a central goal of the party, which sees itself as embattled by what it calls 'hostile Western forces' -- in other words, the United States."
"Party officials worry that a revolution in or the collapse of North Korea could set in play forces inside China that would shake the party's rule. Here think of 1989 in Hungary, Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe and what the upheaval there stirred in the Soviet Union. In China, the USSR's collapse is the most studied event in recent history, and Mikhail Gorbachev, who is cast as a hero in the West, is a goat in Beijing." | | The Big Myth of the Iran Deal | | U.S. opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are once again raising the possibility that there's a better deal available, writes Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy. But that's a myth. There are, in fact, only three options: Keep the deal intact, abandon it and pave the way for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb, or launch a preventive war.
"Having failed to stop Obama's original negotiation, they now claim decertifying the deal is the first step to persuading Iran and the other members of JCPOA to agree to major revisions or new restrictions," Walt writes.
But the reality is that "other signatories remain strongly committed to the agreement and want it to remain intact, even if they would also like Iran to modify some of its other behavior in other ways. More importantly, this view incorrectly assumes the United States has unlimited leverage over Iran, and that getting tough now will magically produce a better deal. That take-it-or-leave-it approach was tried from 2000 to 2012, however, while Iran went from having zero centrifuges to more than 12,000. It was only when the United States showed a willingness to accommodate some of Iran's 'red lines' that it actually got them to reverse course. That same logic remains true today."
| | Will U.S. Carmakers Grab China's Double-Edged Sword? | | China's plan to ban the production and sale of gas and diesel cars is poised to shake up the electric vehicle market – and offers foreign automobile makers a chance to cash in. But there's a catch, writes Keith Bradsher in the New York Times. They'll have to hand over some trade secrets.
"From high-speed trains to wind turbines, China has long prodded American, European and Japanese companies to hand over their know-how in exchange for access to its exciting new market. Then Chinese companies have used that knowledge and lavish government support to take on foreign rivals," Bradsher writes.
"China wants the big players to share their electric car knowledge, too. The foreign automakers face new Chinese regulations that put heavy legal pressure on them to transfer electric-car technology to their local partners."
"Still, Western companies say that they know the risks of transferring technology -- and that the opportunities could help them reach their own electric car ambitions faster." | | | | | | |
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