The (Spectre of a) Chinese Threat

The following is an article by the Associated Free Press found on Yahoo! News.

Latest Chinese missile to target US carriers: report
TOKYO (AFP) - China plans to equip its upcoming missiles with infrared
technology to give them the ability to hit US warships in Asia, a Japanese
newspaper said Wednesday.

The upgrade is part of preparations for a potential conflict over
Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory and which has a security
pact with the United States, the Sankei Shimbun said.

Citing unnamed military sources in Japan and Taiwan, the conservative
newspaper said that China was developing an infrared detection system for its
medium-range Dongfeng-21 missiles so they can pinpoint warships.

The upgraded Dongfeng would discourage the United States or Japan from
sending in their warships equipped with the Aegis technology designed to shoot
down incoming missiles, the newspaper said.

The Dongfeng-21 has a range of some 2,150 kilometers (1,350 miles). The
Sankei estimated that around 100 are deployed.

Western analysts have also speculated that China is also developing a
next-generation long-range Dongfeng-41 capable of hitting the US mainland.

Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade Taiwan, where nationalists
fled in 1949 after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong's communists, if the
island declares formal independence.

The United States and Japan in a first-of-a-kind statement in February
2005 declared that a peaceful resolution of Taiwan Strait issues was a common
strategic objective of the Pacific allies.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/070516/usa/china_us_taiwan_japan_military

The question this raises is an interesting one. Is China really a threat? The Associated Free Press seems to think so. But, then again, all American-owned and operated media outlets during the Cold War were completely convinced that the Soviet Union was an imminent threat and that a red tide of communism would sweep across Europe and the rest of the world unless American governments continued to pursue a foreign policy of containment and the American people continued to vote for governments that would put money that could have improved the quality of life into military spending. Is China the new Soviet Union? The new threat that only exists in the imagination and on paper, but hardly not in reality?

Al-Qaeda and the threat of Islamo-fascism was the initial spectre which the American government seemed to wish to do imaginary battle with. But the problem with that route has become apparent. The Islamo-fascists might not have any military infrastructure or nice toys like the Soviets did, but they can certainly fight. Afghanistan and Iraq turned out much differently than what the Bush Administration thought they would. Afghanistan is turning out quite all right, yes. But the Afghanistan mission has required a significantly higher investment than what was initially anticipated. Sadly, there are still people working in defence policy who believe that there is such a thing as an "easy in, easy out" mission and that by simply killing the bad guys, you can create a successful and highly developed liberal democracy.

With a cost-benefit analysis, one can see that making the Islamo-fascists of the Taliban and al-Qaeda the enemies of America for the next 50 or so years would be highly unprofitable. With these enemies, it requires the US to engage them in direct action in order to make such an intangible enemy more "real" to the American public. And direct action results in casualties and the loss of resources. Casualties hurt the resolve of the American public and the loss of resources hurts the economy. The whole purpose of making an enemy for the American people to rally against is the benefit of the economy. Ever seen "Flags of our Fathers"? The average American will not care what really happened at Iwo Jima, but they will love to hear, see, eat, smell and touch the myth of it- the romanticized version. And in order to get a piece of that myth, they'll be willing to open their wallets. When they open their wallets, the ponderous wheels of the country's economy begin to turn even more rapidly and the people- or, at least, some of the people- get richer.

With a pull-out of American troops from Iraq seeming to be a very real possibility for the near future, is someone getting ready to make a much more profitable enemy? China would be as perfect as the Soviet Union was. China has nukes just like America does. With both sides pointing nuclear missiles at each other's capitals and main population centers, it would be suicidal for either side to engage each other directly. They could fight over resource-rich third-party countries to the conflict and skirmish with each other via proxy wars just as the US did with the USSR. Very few Chinese and Americans would die from the ordeal, but both sides would see great benefit to their military industrial complexes and, by extension, their economies. A mutually beneficial business partnership to some. A heinously amoral and wasteful endeavour to those of us who still have moral consciences.

Cold War Two anyone?

EU-Russia Summit... and Polish meat

The much anticipated EU-Russia summit is set to take place later this week. In the lead-up to it, the European Council of Foreign Ministers is meeting to draw up a strategy and a list of grievances that need to be addressed with the Russians.

What is most interesting about this is that I recently completed a simulation course at University which dealt with a series of European Council meetings. During the negotiations about the internal energy market, the issue of Polish meat exports to Russia came up and became a central point for the debate. After a somewhat satisfactory resolution was generated and the class-time was up, our professor condescendingly assured us that, "The European Council would never waste so much time on debating Polish sausage." She punctuated the sentence with a roll of the eyes. I begged to differ, but what do I know? My name isn't followed by a series of letters alleged to convey learnedness and wisdom.

Apparently my professor was quite wrong. As was the case in our simulation, Polish meat exports have become a major talking point from the EU side of things for the future EU-Russia summit. I guess I can now smirk and say something witty like, "The European Council would never waste so much time debating on whether or not it should be debating about Polish sausage."

The following is the article, taken from EuroNews:

EU and Russia approach summit gnashing teeth

An EU summit with Russia scheduled for this Thursday and Friday threatens to degenerate into acrimony, over problems ranging from Polish meat to Kosovo. The 27 European Union foreign ministers have been meeting in Brussels to discuss a growing list of disputes involving Russia and new EU members once within the Soviet sphere.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the EU's current presiding nation Germany stressed that both sides needed each other. "Complicated though the situation is," Steinmeier said, "in times of difficulty it is particularly important to talk. Right up to the summit we will try to resolve the conflict concerning Polish meat."

This is one of the economic blockages: A Russian ban on Polish meat imports - over fraud cases Moscow says - is well into its second year. In retaliation, Warsaw is vetoing the launch of new EU-Russia strategic partnership negotiations. These would cover energy, trade, human rights and foreign policy. Certain groups at the European Parliament last week even suggested cancelling the summit in the southern Russian town of Samara.

Russian-EU ties are further beset by: differences over Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province; Moscow's fury at Estonia's removal of a Soviet monument from Tallinn city centre; Russia's interruption of oil supplies to a Lithuanian refinery; and Russian anger at a planned US missile shield in Eastern Europe.

http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=europa&article=422169&lng=1

An Issue of Pedagogy

First of all, I want to begin this entry with an apology. It seems I'm always apologizing here for this, but etiquette still demands it: sorry for the absence. A dozen or more things cropped up and got in the way of writing here in, well, over two months. Embarrassing to say the least, but it's my intention to write here more often. At this current point in time, I'm working on my Honours thesis in University so I should be in the writing mentality quite often over the next year and I'll certainly be spending a lot of time sitting in the library and looking to a computer, like the one I'm using at this very moment, as my salvation from a stack of books describing the inhumanities of Africa's conflicts.

As I'm mentioning academia, I feel it would be relevant to move on to the main topic of this entry: pedagogy. Or, rather, the administration of pedagogy at Universities with a particular focus on the degree programs offered by the University of Calgary's Faculty of Social Sciences.

As you might be able to glean from my past entries and the above two paragraphs, I am an Honours Political Science student at what we'll hitherto refer to colloquially as "the U of C". I have been a student at said institution for just past two years now (I took my first year at Mount Royal College to ease into the post-secondary life) and cannot say that I am impressed. I have no problems with the aesthetics of the buildings, as some do. To be honest, I couldn't care what they look like. I also do not have any problems with the teaching styles of my professors. I've disagreed with the ideological orientations of some of my professors and have been upset by their biases but I see that to be a good thing to have at a University- once your degree is finished, you are going to have to go out into the real world and deal with people of all kinds of backgrounds, so you had better get used to learning how to work around or with such differences of opinions now.

What I do have a problem with, however, are the degree requirements. The system by which my Faculty in particular grants degrees to paying customers is a joke. For such a sweeping remark to be justified, I should explain the way the system works to those who have not studied at the U of C.

The Faculty of Social Sciences here, apparently, feels that its students must be "well-rounded" in their education. In other words, it is not enough for a Political Science student to study Political Science. A Major in one of the Social Sciences must also have a background in several other areas too. To this end, there are things in the system called "Area requirements". There are three categories to these requirements. Area I consists of courses offered by the Faculty of Humanities but also includes some Physical Activity courses and even a few classes from the Faculty of Fine Arts. Area II consists of courses offered by the Faculty of Social Sciences other than the student's Major. Area III consists of courses offered by the Faculty of Sciences.

So what does this all mean? Basically, what it means is that a Political Science student, like myself, cannot take courses relevant to our degree or to our future careers. Instead, I am expected to pick and choose from a very restricted menu as if I were a customer at a cheap sushi bar. It is not, however, a system which belongs at a well-reputed post-secondary institution to which I am paying thousands of dollars to get an education and a slip of paper which is supposed to get me access to higher-paying and much more meaningful forms of employment.

For example, let's say I'm someone who just wants this slip of paper at the end of the four years and doesn't care particularly about how I get there. I could get a Bachelor of Arts with a Major in Political Science but only 25% of my courses might actually be Political Science courses or even be politically related. The rest of my degree could be made up of ball-room dancing (Area I), brain chemistry (Area II- Psychology) and meteorology (Area III). What good would this person serve in a political bureaucratic position? Let's check it out. Say I apply with this butchered degree to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I get the job. I am now a Political Officer with Canada's own diplomatic corps. But what do I know about diplomacy? Very little. But I know how to dance, can prescribe amphetamines for headaches and can predict with some degree of accuracy when it's going to rain. Scary.

In my case, I am very picky about which classes I choose to satisfy my degree requirements. I cannot justify to myself taking, for example, "Climatology" from the Department of Geography when I know that class would serve no purpose to my improvement as an individual or provide me with a better way to serve my future employer. But many can and do. Many just aren't willing to sift through the thousands of classes on the calendar during registration to find something that will not only fit the Faculty's imposed degree requirements and their own personal self-imposed requirements for graduation.

The point of this ramble is, what right does the Faculty of Social Sciences have to impose such illogical requirements? Why is it that a Physical Geography class meets a requirement for a Political Science degree when a Human Geography course is specifically left out? Do they seriously think that soil variation and topography will be useful skills for students of political philosophy to acquire?

To be honest, I find the system absurd and in immediate need of revisal. But with such a stuffy and collegial atmosphere to the Faculty, would they be open to change? Would they understand that students in this current day and age are career-minded and not interested in wiling away their days on a campus taking obscure courses on subjects which are entirely unrelated to their interests or their favoured raison d'etre? Or would they just splutter and scoff, "Well, this is the way things have always been here?"

Perhaps the best thing which I can take away from this University are the words a friend of mine said yesterday as she applied to convocate in June. "I've given up on trying to understand this place. The things they do here don't make any sense and, to be honest, I don't think they ever did make sense."