domingo, 27 de abril de 2014

Siempre Francia...

Siempre Francia

Construir Europa es entender la tensión estructural entre el idealismo jurídico de Berlín y el realismo político de París


El País de Madrid.
Columna de
José Ignacio Torreblanca 
Abril, 26 de 2014



Alemania es la potencia que no quiere ser, Francia la potencia que ya no puede ser. Todos los problemas actuales de Europa pueden ser expresados retornando una y otra vez a esta asimetría de las voluntades. Las dos están siempre en tensión: Alemania buscando que se cumplan las normas, Francia buscando la oportunidad de hacerlas o rehacerlas. “Si todo el mundo cumpliera las reglas”, he oído decir en la Cancillería en Berlín, “no necesitaríamos líderes”. Pero la reflexión en el Elíseo es completamente distinta, más bien un lamento: “¡ay si nosotros tuviéramos el poder de Alemania!” 

Berlín no quiere liderar, dice que para eso se hacen las reglas, para que todo el mundo sepa lo que tiene que hacer sin necesidad de que nadie tenga que decirlo. Pero en París, que saben mucho más de la vida, no se les ha olvidado ni por un minuto que el poder consiste en hacer las reglas y que las reglas reflejan la distribución de poder en una comunidad.

El contraste entre el autocontenido liderazgo de los Cancilleres alemanes más relevantes de la Alemania democrática (Adenauer, Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl y la propia Merkel) y la recreación en el poder de los Presidentes de la V República (De Gaulle, Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterrand, Sarkozy y Hollande) es todo menos una casualidad. Nada explica mejor la manera de gobernar de Merkel que esa aversión a los hombres fuertes grabada (por suerte) en lo más profundo del ADN democrático alemán de hoy. Y, a la vez, nada explica mejor Francia que la obsesión con el poder ejecutivo, la búsqueda constante del líder clarividente que mostrará el camino, una patología que los politólogos llamamos “ejecutivismo”.

Construir Europa es entender esa tensión estructural entre el idealismo jurídico alemán y el realismo político francés y lograr que se complementen. Mientras Alemania huye de la confrontación, Francia es la que siempre está en lucha. Y las batallas que libra son siempre épicas: la globalización, la identidad, la laicidad, el Estado, los mercados, los derechos sociales. Francia nunca elige enemigos pequeños, parece que se recrea, que se gusta en lucha. Ahora estamos ante otro momento épico, un nuevo viraje que se asemeja mucho al impuesto en 1981 por el presidente Mitterrand, que ya experimentó en primera persona la imposibilidad de hacer políticas clásicas de izquierdas en una economía abierta con libertad de circulación de capitales. La derrota de Mitterrand entonces corrió en paralelo a la llegada al poder de Margaret Thatcher en el Reino Unido y Ronald Reagan en Estados Unidos, abriendo el paso a la consolidación de un modelo económico muy alejado de las preferencias de la Europa continental democrática, que desde la posguerra había oscilado entre dos opciones (la socialdemocracia y la democracia cristiana) que compartían un alto contenido social y un papel central para el Estado como regulador y redistribuidor. Poco queda de esa Europa: la democracia cristiana hace tiempo que tiró la toalla y los socialdemócratas están instalados en la confusión.

Para muchos socialistas franceses, la derrota de 1981 significó el comienzo de una nueva andadura: habiendo entendido que la construcción de la socialdemocracia en un solo país era imposible, centraron su empeño en construir una Europa protectora, que sirviera de pantalla y vehículo de actuación para, en una economía globalizada, preservar los valores políticos y sociales europeos. Pero la fe en ese proyecto mostró fisuras peligrosas una década después, en 1992, cuando el Tratado de Maastricht que instituía una unión monetaria solo logró ser ratificado en referéndum por un estrecho margen. Si lo hizo fue gracias a que Mitterrand, a la manera de Felipe González en España en torno a la OTAN, hipotecó una buena parte de su capital político para convencer a una izquierda sumamente reticente de que la moneda única amplificaba (y no reducía, como decían los críticos de entonces y de ahora) las posibilidades de llevar a cabo políticas de izquierdas. La fe de la izquierda francesa en Europa registró otra brutal sacudida en 2005, a raíz del fallido referéndum sobre el proyecto de tratado que creaba una Constitución para Europa.

La crisis del euro no ha hecho sino agravar esta percepción sobre Europa. Los socialdemócratas están acosados y en retirada en toda Europa; todas sus opciones son malas: si giran al centro, aunque las mieles del poder compensen la mala conciencia, sienten que traicionan sus principios y pierden el apoyo de las clases trabajadoras; si se van a la izquierda, las clases medias y los mercados les abandonan. Elegir entre esas opciones ya es difícil en un país con plena soberanía política y autonomía financiera. Hacerlo, como ha experimentado España, en un país que ha cedido sus principales instrumentos de política económica y que se encuentra constreñido por un marco institucional supranacional y unos objetivos de déficit acordados con los socios de la eurozona, es sencillamente imposible. No es de extrañar que, como vemos en las encuestas, los grandes beneficiarios electorales de estas políticas sean, por un lado, la abstención, que se adivina masiva, y el auge del Frente Nacional de Marine Le Pen.

Para muchos en la izquierda, Europa se ha convertido en un juego con las cartas marcadas: cara, ganas tú; cruz, pierdo yo. De ahí que el túnel por el que tiene que discurrir la integración europea se haya estrechado tanto. Eso explica por qué el resultado del giro político y económico que está imprimiendo el presidente Hollande en Francia, tanto si sale bien como si sale mal, tendrá profundísimas consecuencias en toda Europa: en él se van a dilucidar un gran número de las preguntas sobre la crisis del euro, la democracia, el futuro de la izquierda y el proyecto de integración europea. Si pese al ajuste de 50.000 millones, o precisamente debido a él, Francia no logra cumplir los objetivos de déficit fijados, tendremos la oportunidad de comprobar hasta qué punto los mecanismos de vigilancia y sanciones puestos en marcha en Europa los últimos años se aplican. Si se aplican, se liberará una cascada de sanciones contra Francia, a la que seguramente seguiría una fuerte penalización por parte de los mercados, que dejará la relación franco-alemana profundamente deteriorada y hará crecer aún más la desafección con Europa en Francia. Si no se aplican, y Alemania se sienta a negociar otra política anticrisis con Francia, se abrirá un nuevo horizonte político y todo lo escrito hasta ahora será papel mojado. Y si, finalmente, el ajuste funciona, el sur de Europa quedará desprovisto de la pantalla protectora que hasta ahora le ha proporcionado Francia. Pase lo que pase, todos los caminos pasan hoy por París.

miércoles, 23 de abril de 2014

Uruguay y la Minera Aratirí








CRÓNICA DE UN CONTRATO (RE)ANUNCIADO


La firma del contrato de inversión entre el Poder Ejecutivo y la minera Aratirí para la explotación del hierro de Valentines viene sufriendo una serie de postergaciones que revelan la distancia entre una decisión política y el respeto por normas legales y procedimientos técnicos y de consulta
requeridos para validar social y políticamente una decisión de esa envergadura.

 
Revista "No te olvides" - N° 18, abril de 2014.
 Por  Víctor L. Bacchetta



La Ley de Minería de Gran Porte (No. 19.126), que comenzó a ser tratada en el Parlamento en febrero de 2013, terminó aprobada siete meses más tarde solo con los votos de los senadores oficialistas y uno de ellos, el voto decisivo, dejó constancia de que lo hacía por fidelidad partidaria. Poco después, en declaraciones a la prensa, el presidente José Mujica anunció que para fines de noviembre estaría firmado el contrato de inversión con la empresa minera Aratirí. 

El anuncio no se cumplió y, el 2 de diciembre, el Movimiento Uruguay Libre de Megaminería lanzó una campaña de recolección de firmas para promover la realización de un plebiscito que decida sobre una enmienda al Artículo 47 de la Constitución. La propuesta dice:
"Prohíbese la minería metalífera a cielo abierto en todo el territorio nacional" y agrega que toda autorización o concesión que vulnere esta disposición quedará sin efecto al entrar en vigencia la reforma.

En los días siguientes, el presidente exhortó a sus ministros a explicar a la población "las virtudes" del proyecto de Aratirí aunque la evaluación de los impactos sociales y ambientales a cargo de la Dirección Nacional de Medio Ambiente (DINAMA) estaba lejos de ser concluida. De esta manera, al menos una parte del gobierno pasaba a desempeñarse como socia de la minera, ya que daba por sentado que el proyecto sería aprobado sin esperar el dictamen de los técnicos. 

En el último Consejo de Ministros de 2013, el 27 de diciembre, el asunto principal volvió a ser la inversión extranjera. Mujica reclamó la aceleración en 2014 de los proyectos pendientes y se refirió en especial a la red de ferrocarril, la regasificadora, el puerto de aguas profundas y Aratirí. En la conferencia de prensa habitual, el prosecretario de Presidencia, Diego Cánepa, afirmó que el contrato con la minera se firmaba en enero, "a más tardar el 20 de enero"(sic). 

Paralelamente, el asesor de Presidencia, Pedro Buonomo, adelantó que el contrato con Aratirí incluiría un plazo de seis meses para el otorgamiento de la autorización ambiental requerida para el inicio del proyecto. Este procedimiento había aparecido por primera vez en el contrato por la regasificadora firmado en octubre con Gaz de France, que incluyó un plazo para la autorización ambiental, so pena de renegociar el contrato o pagar una multa por el retraso. 

Para minimizar este punto, que configuraba otra presión obvia sobre la Dinama, Buonomo agregó que el cronograma "no obliga al gobierno a cumplir los plazos" y que podrían darse autorizaciones parciales. No es creíble para nadie que un contrato entre el gobierno y una empresa pueda incluir disposiciones no vinculantes. Por otra parte, la subdivisión del proyecto en partes era un aspecto sobre el cual la Dinama ya se había pronunciado expresamente en contra. 

El contrato con Gaz de France tampoco podía ser usado como antecedente porque la Ley 19.126, en el Artículo 25 (Exigencia de contrato), estableció que "Las disposiciones del contrato deberán ajustarse a las condiciones comprendidas en las autorizaciones ambientales correspondientes". En la opinión de juristas como Alfredo Caputo, titular del curso de posgrado de Derecho Minero en la UdelaR, firmar el contrato con la minera sin la autorización ambiental es ilegal. 

Había otras disposiciones de la Ley 19.126 que debían ser reglamentadas y cumplidas antes de formalizar un contrato, tales como las mejores prácticas mineras del Artículo 5 y el plan de cierre del Artículo 13. Asimismo, por el Artículo 6, la empresa debía contratar una auditoria del estudio de impacto ambiental y, por el Artículo 27, debe presentar una garantía por el 5% de la inversión que, según la cifra declarada por Aratirí, ascendería a 150 millones de dólares.

Opiniones en disputa

A comienzos de enero, Uruguay Libre cuestionó frontalmente la firma del contrato con la minera en tales condiciones, indicando además que la constitucionalidad de la Ley de Minería de Gran Porte estaba en tela de juicio y que se desconocía la necesidad de una consulta a la población sobre la conveniencia de ese proyecto. El día 20 el gobierno justificó la postergación de la firma con el pretexto de que no habían sido notificados todos los padrones involucrados. 

En el primer Consejo de Ministros del año se volvió a tratar Aratirí..
Esta vez, los ministros Edgardo Ortuño y José Bayardi alegaron que la firma del contrato, fijada ahora para el 7 de febrero, es una condición para que Aratirí realice los estudios requeridos del proyecto. El argumento no tiene base legal y la oposición solicitó que los ministros de Industrias y de Medio Ambiente concurrieran a la Comisión Permanente del Parlamento para informar sobre el acuerdo con Aratirí. 

La sesión para escuchar a los ministros fue fijada para el 20 de febrero, con la cual se esfumaba la intención de firmar antes el contrato. En estas idas y venidas se supo que la minera no había presentado aún la certificación de las reservas para su propuesta extractiva. Era inexplicable cómo se podía consentir el proyecto sin ese dato, pero el gobierno dijo que no iba a revelar el contenido del contrato y, de hecho, desde ese momento dejó de dar nuevas fechas. 

El mismo día en que el ministro de Industrias, Roberto Kreimerman, hablaba en el Parlamento de 15 años de operación minera y un aporte fiscal de 400 millones de dólares anuales, el presidente Mujica asumía una cifra mucho mayor y reafirmó que el país no podía renunciar a ese beneficio. En esa semana, un informe del FMI había sostenido que, en 27 años de operación de Aratirí, Uruguay recibiría un aporte de 26 mil millones de dólares, unos mil millones anuales.

En sendos comunicados, Uruguay Libre mostró que las previsiones del FMI contenían gruesos errores y que los cálculos de Kreimerman tampoco cerraban. Para corroborarlo, la organización publicó en "http://uruguaylibre.org" una planilla que permite verificar esos cálculos.

Sin embargo, la ofensiva oficialista no se detuvo, se promovieron instancias a favor del proyecto de Aratirí en ámbitos académicos y sindicales. En este proceso, la determinación política de un sector del gobierno a favor de la minera hacía que se pretendiera firmar el contrato pasando por encima inclusive de las normas legales promovidas desde el oficialismo para estos proyectos y con esto se contribuyó a desorientar aún más a la opinión pública a este respecto. 

Al final, las arengas radiales de Mujica contra el "terrorismo ambientalista" y las insinuaciones de que la movilización social opositora podía estar financiada por intereses ocultos solo lograban aumentar la confusión. Al término de una sesión del Consejo de Ministros, en plena Semana de Carnaval, donde se trató nuevamente el tema Aratirí, se dijo a la prensa que el presidente había solicitado informaciones "de primera mano"(sic) sobre la propuesta minera. 

Una encuesta de opinión pública de Equipos Mori divulgada a comienzos de marzo dio cuenta de que 26% de los consultados se manifestaba a favor de Aratirí, 23% en contra, 15% no se decía de acuerdo ni en desacuerdo, 26% respondía que no había oído hablar de Aratirí y 10% que no sabía o no contestaba. En el Frente Amplio, 33% estaba a favor y 17% contra la minera, evidenciando que en el propio oficialismo el gobierno no contaba con un sólido respaldo. 

A fines del primer trimestre seguía sin haberse firmado el contrato, se reconocí a que la evaluación social y ambiental del proyecto requeriría varios meses más y las perspectivas de caída del precio internacional del hierro hacían dudar de la propia viabilidad económica del proyecto de Aratirí. Al mismo tiempo, la recolección de firmas para realizar un plebiscito nacional estaba confirmando la preocupación de la población por los impactos de este y otros proyectos similares.

domingo, 20 de abril de 2014

THE PRICE OF THE UKRANIAN CRISIS ?




Finland and Sweden Debate NATO 

Membership

April 17, 2014.
(KAZIM EBRAHIMKHIL/AFP/Getty Images)
Swedish soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force outside Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.



Summary

 

The West's standoff with Russia over Ukraine is triggering debate over the adequacy of defense spending and cooperation to confront a more assertive Russia across Europe. In Finland and Sweden, an important element in this debate is whether the two countries should join NATO.
While the events in Ukraine strengthen the argument for NATO membership, general support for the idea is still lacking in both countries -- such a step would represent a big shift from Finland's and Sweden's strategy of avoiding too strong a military alignment with the West in order to prevent any conflict with Russia.
Only if the crisis in Ukraine persists, and if Russia grows more assertive in the Baltics, might public opinion in Sweden and Finland shift strongly enough to make NATO membership likely. Before joining NATO, the two countries would try to strengthen regional collaboration and bolster their own national defenses.

Analysis

 

The standoff between the West and Russia is increasingly affecting Nordic Europe. On April 15, the Barents Observer reported that politicians in Norway are debating whether plans to cooperate with Russia on hydrocarbons exploration along the countries' shared border should be put on hold in light of the events in Ukraine. In Finland and Sweden, the crisis is fueling the debate over eventual NATO membership. Finland and Sweden are both members of the European Union, and thus have tight economic and institutional bonds with the West, but both have stayed out of NATO.

Sweden, after suffering great territorial losses to Russia in the early 19th century, has abided by a neutrality policy since the end of the Napoleonic wars. It maintained that policy at least nominally throughout the two world wars, though it did provide economic and logistical assistance to the Germans, the Allies and the Finns in World War II. Neutrality was meant as a way to minimize the risk of further defeats comparable to the ones Sweden was dealt in the early 1800s.

Image: The Nordic Countries and Russia
 
Finland, the only Nordic eurozone member and a country that shares a long border with Russia, was once absorbed by the Russian Empire, remaining Russian territory for more than a century before declaring independence in 1917. Finland aligned with Germany during World War II to fight the Soviets but ultimately could not recover the territory it lost during the Winter War in 1939 and 1940.

These experiences strongly influenced the Finns' strategy in dealing with their eastern neighbor. During the Cold War, Finland and the Soviet Union had an understanding that Moscow would accept Finland's independence as long as Helsinki abstained from stronger military integration with the West. Finland, since the breakup of the Soviet Union, has integrated institutionally with Western Europe and has procured a growing proportion of its weapons from the West. Much like Stockholm, Helsinki has established strong ties with NATO through joint missions and training. Still, unwilling to sour its relationship with Russia, Finland has abstained from formally joining the military alliance.

As a result of the past decades of European integration and collaboration with NATO -- for example in Afghanistan -- the nonalignment policy in both countries has been a constant issue of debate and is drawing renewed attention as a consequence of the tensions with Russia.

Lacking Support

 

The Finnish and Swedish political elite has been split over the question of NATO membership for a long time. Governments, including those run by parties that advocate NATO membership, have refrained from holding a referendum on the question due to general public opposition in both countries to joining the military alliance.

In a poll carried out in late 2013, about one-third of Swedes supported NATO membership. In Finland, a poll carried out online of members of the Finnish Reservists' Association (conscripts who have finished their military service) in early April indicated that more than 40 percent would like Finland to join NATO within a few years. According to Finnish media, this is a 10 percentage point jump from a similar poll conducted a year ago. The increase was probably strongly influenced by the events in Ukraine. Polls from the general public give far lower numbers. A February poll, commissioned before Russia annexed Crimea, showed that less than 20 percent of Finns favored NATO membership, a percentage comparable to the levels in 2002, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported.

A number of factors explain the middling support for NATO membership in Finland and Sweden. Russia is Finland's greatest security concern, but it is also an important economic partner -- one with which Helsinki hopes to maintain a stable relationship. According to Trade Map, Russia was Finland's second-largest import and export market in 2013, behind Sweden. Russia would not likely use its military to keep Finland from joining NATO, but Moscow would probably implement policies that would hurt Finland economically. With Europe going through a structural economic crisis and Finland itself caught in the midst of an economic crisis, keeping good economic ties with Russia is of particular importance. Sweden would face fewer repercussions than Finland, because it does not share a border with Russia. Sweden and Finland would likely coordinate efforts to join NATO, but membership remains unlikely until other revisions in defense policy have been made.

Debates over Swedish and Finnish defense policy are gaining more attention because of the crisis in Ukraine, but NATO membership is just one element. The core question under debate is whether the Swedish and Finnish governments should focus more on protecting their own borders after years of defense spending cuts and foreign engagement. While there is growing support for higher defense spending, this does not necessarily translate into greater enthusiasm to join NATO because it is debatable whether formal accession would add much in terms of national security.

The current status of Finland's and Sweden's relationships with NATO allows both to show their commitment to certain Western allies without having obligations toward all NATO members. Sweden and Finland, despite their nonalignment, could also likely count on material assistance from NATO and European partner countries in case of a military conflict because of their geographic position. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Sweden or Finland were attacked and the NATO members surrounding it simply stood by. Seeing security in the Baltic Sea region threatened, NATO member states would probably be drawn into any such conflict.

Before formally considering NATO membership, Sweden and Finland will seek stronger regional defense collaboration. The five Nordic countries -- Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland -- have a relatively long history of collaboration since they share similar geopolitical concerns. In the late 1940s, the Nordic countries considered forming a defense union, but differences among the countries, the presence of NATO and the strengthening of the European institutions weakened Nordic collaboration. However, in recent years, the will for stronger regional defense collaboration has seen somewhat of a revival through the establishment of the Nordic Defense Cooperation.

This collaboration could strengthen, but its growth will depend on how NATO evolves as a consequence of the current crisis in Ukraine. The difficulty for Sweden and Finland will be to get the other Nordic countries to commit to further regional collaboration. Norway, Iceland and Denmark already are NATO members and hence see less urgency to build an additional alliance. Such an alliance would be particularly de-emphasized if the United States made moves to strengthen NATO. Other regional defense cooperation initiatives, such as the cooperation among the Visegrad states, are dealing with similar issues -- countries see that NATO's weaknesses could be corrected through regional cooperation platforms, but the countries have different national security concerns, slowing efforts to build alliance mechanisms. Stalling collaboration among the Nordic countries would perhaps increase the support for NATO membership in Sweden and Finland.

Moscow is watching events in Nordic Europe with worry, although the debate over Finnish and Swedish NATO membership could quickly die down if the crisis in Ukraine does not escalate further. Russia knows there is a great risk that the more aggressive it is in its periphery, the more a rationale will exist for stronger U.S. military involvement in Eastern Europe, or for a strengthening of military alliances among European countries.

miércoles, 16 de abril de 2014

From Stratfor Global Intelligence: On Asian Status Quo





“The Asian Status Quo”

By Robert D. Kaplan and Matt Gertken


Arguably the greatest book on political realism in the 20th century was University of Chicago Professor Hans J. Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, published in 1948. In that seminal work, Morgenthau defines the status quo as "the maintenance of the distribution of power that exists at a particular moment in history." In other words, things shall stay as they are. But it is not quite that clear. For as Morgenthau also explains, "the concept of the 'status quo' derives from status quo ante bellum," which, in turn, implies a return to the distribution of power before a war. The war's aggressor shall give up his conquered territory, and everything will return to how it was.

The status quo also connotes the victors' peace: a peace that may be unfair, or even oppressive, but at the same time stands for stability. For a change in the distribution of power, while at times just in a moral sense, simply introduces a measure of instability into the geopolitical equation. And because stability has a moral value all its own, the status quo is sanctified in the international system.
Let us apply this to Asia.

Because Japan was the aggressor in World War II and was vanquished by the U.S. military, it lay prostrate after the war, so that the Pacific Basin became a virtual American naval lake. That was the status quo as it came to be seen. This situation was buttressed by the decades-long reclusiveness of the Pacific's largest and most populous nation: China. Japanese occupation and civil war left China devastated. The rise to power of Mao Zedong's communists in 1949 would keep the country preoccupied with itself for decades as it fell prey to destructive development and political schemes such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. China was not weak, as the United States would discover in the Korean and Vietnamese wars and later turn to its advantage against the Soviets. But its revolution remained unfinished. The economy did not truly start to develop until the late 1970s, after Mao died. And only in the mid-1990s did China begin its naval expansion in a demonstrable and undeniable way. Thus the United States, in its struggle with the Soviets, got used to a reclusive China and a subordinate Japan. With these two certainties underlying the Cold War's various animosities, the United States preserved calm in its lake.

But the 21st century has not been kind to this status quo, however convenient it may have been for American interests. China's naval, air, cyber and ballistic missile buildup over the past two decades has not yet challenged U.S. military supremacy in the region, but it has encroached significantly on the previously unipolar environment. Moreover, to measure China's progress against U.S. supremacy is to neglect the primary regional balance of power between China and Japan. Tokyo, over the same time period, has come to see China as reaching a sort of critical mass and has accelerated its own military preparations, both in a quantitative and a qualitative sense. Recently, Tokyo has taken to trumpeting its abandonment of quasi-pacifism in order to adjust the world's expectations to what it sees as a new reality. Japan was already a major naval power -- it ranks fourth in total naval tonnage, has more destroyers than any navy besides that of the United States, and its technology and traditions give it a special edge. But now it is moving faster to loosen restrictions on its rules of engagement and to upgrade the capabilities it needs to defend its most distant island holdings.

While Beijing sees Japan's actions as aggressive, it is primarily China that is altering the status quo. No doubt Japan was once the region's most ambitious and belligerent power, and no doubt China cannot assume good intentions, but Japan's current military normalization has little in common with its 1930s militarization, and Tokyo is for the moment mostly reacting to Beijing. China, for instance, has largely succeeded in shaping a global narrative of a legitimate dispute over islands in the East China Sea. 

But Japan has controlled the Senkaku islands (known as Diaoyu in Chinese) for more than 40 years, and China has only recently asserted its claims. Japan's other territorial disputes, by contrast, show a continuation of the status quo: Russia administers the southern Kuril islands but sees Japan offering dialogue while moving military forces away from that border; South Korea controls the Liancourt Rocks, but any feared Japanese appetite for overturning that status quo remains in check by the Americans. Nor were Japan's sea-lanes under any conceivable threat of interference from China until recently. Keep in mind that Japan's supply line anxieties are inherent to its geopolitical position.

Indeed, in the eyes of the Pentagon, Japan now has every reason to tailor its military capabilities in order to take precautions against China's rise. For years U.S. defense officials have argued that a stronger Japan would help ensure China's peaceful ascent. Only a few years ago, defense officials and think tank analysts in Washington were fretting that the Japanese might not muster the courage to stand up to China. The explanation for all this is clear: Almost seven decades of U.S. military presence in Japan has created, on an emotional level, a powerful Japan lobby within the American military and on the Pentagon's E-Ring. This was further buttressed during the Rumsfeld years, when the United States encouraged Japan to spend billions of dollars on defending itself against North Korean missiles and to host a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier strike group, despite Japan's neuralgic attitude toward nuclear weapons at the time. (See "What Rumsfeld Got Right," by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic, July 2008.) 

From a purely geopolitical point of view, a more assertive Japan could someday revive an old threat to the United States, since both are maritime powers. But for now, Washington sees immediate benefits in Japan's growing willingness to defend itself rather than rely so heavily on the United States.

The real danger Japan poses to the Americans is that attempting to establish a formidable defensive posture could provoke China into a dangerous escalation that, in turn, could ensnare the United States in a confrontation with the latter.

While Japan reacts to a changing of the status quo, China is aware of its own role as an agent of change. Beijing knows that it is an emerging power. It knows that emerging powers disrupt the international system. But it needs to buy time, since it isn't ready to confront directly and unapologetically the American-led status quo in the Pacific. China's lack of readiness is heightened by the precarious consolidation of political power and economic reforms that the Xi Jinping administration has undertaken out of necessity.

China thus seeks a "new kind of major country relationship," a phrase Chinese and American diplomats have taken to repeating, whereby the two countries will find some way of accommodating each other to China's military emergence without causing the disruption and conflict that history books suggest is inevitable. The problem with this rhetoric is that, as the Napoleonic Wars and World War I showed, the awareness that a collapsing status quo often precedes a bellum is not the same thing as collective action on all sides to reform the old status quo. Knowing theoretically what causes wars -- though good in and of itself and a prerequisite for prudent statecraft -- is not the same as sacrificing some portion of one's own interests to try to prevent them.

The United States must try both to accommodate rising Chinese power and to fortify U.S. allies in response to it. But it acts from a position of military security that Japan -- not to mention China's smaller neighbors -- cannot assume. Regardless of whether Japan overcorrects, the status quo in the Pacific is changing. And the stability of the region can no longer be taken for granted.

domingo, 13 de abril de 2014

BRAZIL: ”THE PROGRESSIVE CHAOS”




Grand Visions Fizzle in Brazil

Brazil plowed billions of dollars into building a railroad across arid backlands, only for the long-delayed project to fall prey to metal scavengers. Curvaceous new public buildings designed by the famed architect Oscar Niemeyer were abandoned right after being constructed. There was even an ill-fated U.F.O. museum built with federal funds. Its skeletal remains now sit like a lost ship among the weeds.

As Brazil sprints to get ready for the World Cup in June, it has run up against a catalog of delays, some caused by deadly construction accidents at stadiums, and cost overruns. It is building bus and rail systems for spectators that will not be finished until long after the games are done.
But the World Cup projects are just a part of a bigger national problem casting a pall over Brazil’s grand ambitions: an array of lavish projects conceived when economic growth was surging that now stand abandoned, stalled or wildly over budget. 

The ventures were intended to help propel and symbolize Brazil’s seemingly inexorable rise. But now that the country is wading through a post-boom hangover, they are exposing the nation’s leaders to withering criticism, fueling claims of wasteful spending and incompetence while basic services for millions remain woeful. Some economists say the troubled projects reveal a crippling bureaucracy, irresponsible allocation of resources and bastions of corruption. 

Huge street protests have been aimed at costly new stadiums being built in cities like Manaus and Brasília, whose paltry fan bases are almost sure to leave a sea of empty seats after the World Cup events are finished, adding to concerns that even more white elephants will emerge from the tournament. 

Brazilians headed home past the abandoned station for a cable car meant to go to their hilltop favela in Rio de Janeiro. The mayor rode in the $32 million cable car in 2012, but it hasn’t functioned since. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times.
 
“The fiascos are multiplying, revealing disarray that is regrettably systemic,” said Gil Castello Branco, director of Contas Abertas, a Brazilian watchdog group that scrutinizes public budgets. “We’re waking up to the reality that immense resources have been wasted on extravagant projects when our public schools are still a mess and raw sewage is still in our streets.”

The growing list of troubled development projects includes a $3.4 billion network of concrete canals in the drought-plagued hinterland of northeast Brazil — which was supposed to be finished in 2010 — as well as dozens of new wind farms idled by a lack of transmission lines and unfinished luxury hotels blighting Rio de Janeiro’s skyline.

Economists surveyed by the nation’s central bank see Brazil’s economy growing just 1.63 percent this year, down from 7.5 percent in 2010, making 2014 the fourth straight year of slow growth. While an economic crisis here still seems like a remote possibility, investors have grown increasingly pessimistic. Standard & Poor’s cut Brazil’s credit rating last month, saying it expected slow growth to persist for several years.

 

 

Long stretches of the Transnordestina railway in northeastern Brazil, begun in 2006, lie deserted. The project has dislocated villagers, who have not been paid for their destroyed land. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
 
Making matters tougher for the government, it is an election year, with a poll last month showing support for President Dilma Rousseff’s administration falling to 36 percent from 43 percent in November as sluggish economic conditions persist.

Ms. Rousseff’s supporters contend that the public spending has worked, helping to keep unemployment at historical lows and preventing what would have been a much worse economic slowdown had the government not pumped its considerable resources into infrastructure development.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Ms. Rousseff’s political mentor and predecessor as president, put many of the costly infrastructure projects into motion during his administration, from 2003 to 2010. In a recent interview, he acknowledged that some of the ventures were facing long delays. But he contended that before he came into office, Brazil had gone for decades without investing in public works projects, so the country essentially had to start from scratch.
“We stayed for 20 years without making or developing any public infrastructure projects,” Mr. da Silva said. “We had no projects in the drawer.”
Still, a growing chorus of critics argues that the inability to finish big infrastructure projects reveals weaknesses in Brazil’s model of state capitalism.
First, they say, Brazil gives extraordinary influence to a web of state-controlled companies, banks and pension funds to invest in ill-advised projects. Then other bastions of the vast public bureaucracy cripple projects with audits and lawsuits.

 
Federal money went to build an extraterrestrial museum in Varginha, in  southeast Brazil, where residents claimed to see an alien in 1996. Stray dogs now shelter in its rusting carcass. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
 
A tall viewing platform, designed by the famed architect Oscar Niemeyer, looms over a park in Natal, Brazil, that was inaugurated in 2008 but was soon abandoned. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times.
 
“Some ventures never deserved public money in the first place,” said Sérgio Lazzarini, an economist at Insper, a São Paulo business school, pointing to the millions in state financing for the overhaul of the Glória hotel in Rio, owned until recently by a mining tycoon, Eike Batista. The project was left unfinished, unable to open for the World Cup, when Mr. Batista’s business empire crumbled last year.
“For infrastructure projects which deserve state support and get it,” Mr. Lazzarini continued, “there’s the daunting task of dealing with the risks that the state itself creates.”

The Transnordestina, a railroad begun in 2006 here in northeast Brazil, illustrates some of the pitfalls plaguing projects big and small. Scheduled to be finished in 2010 at a cost of about $1.8 billion, the railroad, designed to stretch more than 1,000 miles, is now expected to cost at least $3.2 billion, with most financing from state banks. Officials say it should be completed around 2016.

But with work sites abandoned because of audits and other setbacks months ago in and around Paulistana, a town in Piauí, one of Brazil’s poorest states, even that timeline seems optimistic. Long stretches where freight trains were already supposed to be running stand deserted. Wiry vaqueiros, or cowboys, herd cattle in the shadow of ghostly railroad bridges that tower 150 feet above parched valleys.


Children played soccer, left, at the abandoned cable car station in Rio, built on their old playground. In the northeast, right, a deserted house sat in the shadows of pillars of the Transnordestina railway. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times.
 
“Thieves are pillaging metal from the work sites,” said Adailton Vieira da Silva, 42, an electrician who labored with thousands of others before work halted last year. “Now there are just these bridges left in the middle of nowhere.”

Brazil’s transportation minister, César Borges, expressed exasperation with the delays in finishing the railroad, which is needed to transport soybean harvests to port. He listed the bureaucracies that delay projects like the Transnordestina: the Federal Court of Accounts; the Office of the Comptroller General; an environmental protection agency; an institute protecting archaeological patrimony; agencies protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and descendants of escaped slaves; and the Public Ministry, a body of independent prosecutors.

Still, Mr. Borges insisted, “Projects get delayed in countries around the world, not just Brazil.”
Mr. da Silva, who oversaw the start of work on the Transnordestina eight years ago, was frank about the role of his Workers Party, once the opposition in Brazil’s National Congress, in creating such delays. “We created a machinery, an oversight machinery, that is the biggest oversight machinery in the world,” he said, explaining how his party helped create a labyrinthine system of audits and environmental controls before he and Ms. Rousseff were elected.

“When you’re in the opposition, you want to create difficulties for those that are in the administration,” Mr. da Silva said. “But we forget that maybe one day we’ll take office.”

A young vaqueiro tended cows below an abandoned Transnordestina railway bridge. The stalled railroad was considered necessary for transporting soybean harvests to port. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
 
Some economists contend that the way Brazil is investing may be hampering growth instead of supporting it. The authorities encouraged energy companies to build wind farms, but dozens cannot operate because they lack transmission lines to connect to the electricity grid. Meanwhile, manufacturers worry over potential electricity rationing as reservoirs at hydroelectric dams run dry amid a drought.

Other public ventures sit vacant. Officials in Natal, in northeast Brazil, spent millions on wavy buildings designed by Mr. Niemeyer, opening them in 2006 and 2008. But they abandoned them almost immediately, allowing squatters to occupy some areas; the authorities now say they have plans to refurbish the buildings. Another Niemeyer project, a $30 million television transmission tower in Brasília designed like a futuristic flower, remains unused two years after it was inaugurated.

Then there is the extraterrestrial museum in Varginha, a city in southeast Brazil where residents claimed to have seen an alien in 1996. Officials secured federal money to build the museum, but now all that remains of the unfinished project is the rusting carcass of what looks like a flying saucer.
“That museum,” said Roberto Macedo, an economist at the University of São Paulo, “is an insult to both extraterrestrials and the terrestrial beings like ourselves who foot the bill for yet another project failing to deliver.”

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Brazil Tracks From Boom to Rust