Atlantic Sentinel

Category: News

  • The Man Who Will Save UK Defense

    Like most world nations, faced with massive debt and unemployment, Great Britain is currently planning deep cuts in government expenditure to balance the budget. Not surprisingly, many of these will fall on the military, already greatly strained with replacing Cold War era weapons stocks, while at the same time fighting an ongoing counterinsurggency in Afghanistan. According to this report from Xinhua:

    The Treasury, the Finance Ministry, revealed over the weekend that most departments should prepare for budget cuts of up to 40 percent. However defense was told to prepare for cuts of between 10 percent and 25 percent.

    With cuts looming, and threats not going away, the nation is forced to decide between maintaining historical alliances, while at the same time assuring its sovereignty against foreign threats. The only program which seems safe are the most expensive, such as the Navy Trident submarine replacement and the two multibillion pound aircraft carriers, that will create a further burden on the already minuscule Royal Navy force structure.

    Some good news, perhaps even a breeze of fresh hope to Defense is the appointment of General Sir David Richards as chief of the Defense Staff, the British version of the American Joint Chiefs. Richards’ mindset has been reborne in Britain’s new small wars, especially that of the battleground of Afghanistan. Often called the Graveyard of Empire for the tendency of superpowers to fail in conquest attempts, there we are also seeing a rebirth in tactics and a refashion of Western armed forces to face current era threats. These more often than not include hybrid armies — Third World powers equipped with First World weapons which have managed to hold there own against immaculately equipped Western armies with the world’s most expensive and powerful tanks, planes and aircraft.

    In pointing this out, General Richards proved in a January speech before the IISS he has learned the lessons of his tenure in the Afghan:

    In the globalized world I have described, Afghanistan is both a great opportunity and a great risk. It is a testing ground for us and our enemies: a signpost to our global futures.

    In stark contrast, is Royal Navy Admiral Sir Jock Slater, who recently encouraged his country to “look beyond Afghanistan,” in the BBC:

    It takes a long time to build a ship and to prepare the crew, so we really need to look beyond Afghanistan.

    Afghanistan must be our top priority. It simply must be and we’ve got young servicemen, particularly in the Army and the Royal Marines, who are losing their lives.

    We must concentrate on Afghanistan today but we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that beyond Afghanistan is the future, and the future is uncertain.

    What Sir Jock, along with the current Navy Chief Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope is certain about is they intend to go full speed ahead on the world’s most powerful and costly warships, the Tridents and aircraft carriers. But at the same time he bemoans the shrinking fleet:

    The carriers remain in the program and that is great… but tied to that were 12 air defense destroyers and there are now going to be just six new Type 45s.

    […]

    I argued for 35 frigates and destroyers, George Robertson reduced it to 32, and it’s gone down to 22. That’s simply unsatisfactory.

    Oddly the Admiral sees no contention between the Navy plans and ongoing Cold War era building practices. Again we recall the IISS speech of General Richards who seems more concerned over the Navy’s future than the admirals, whose procurement plans are forcing the fleet into irrelevance:

    Operating among, understanding and effectively influencing people requires mass — numbers — whether this is “boots on the ground,” riverine and high-speed littoral warships, or UAVs, transport aircraft and helicopters… This re-balancing could result in more ships, armoured vehicles and aircraft not less. But they will not necessarily be those we currently plan on.

    Some in the Navy appreciate a fresh-thinker in charge at Defense, not hidebound by traditional thinking. Here is a recent quote from ex-Rear Admiral Chris Parry:

    The Royal Navy won’t have anything to fear from Sir David. They should welcome him as he’s got good experience of joint operations, he supports the carriers and he’s very balanced. He’s a very out of the box thinker and he won’t worry about telling politicians the truth.

    So while the old school is fighting for their last pound in the shrinking budget, hanging on to very costly platforms which are overkill and too few to manage today’s enemies, or even at risk from tomorrow’s foes, here is the new Chief of the Defense Staff calling for expansion, continued relevance, and a renewed sense of purpose from the Armed Forces. Comments such as these should give the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of Britain a renewed hope, they their labors to securing a free country have not been in vain, with lessons learned from one of the world’s backwater nations considered irrelevant until recent times:

    Success in Afghanistan is necessary for our future. Not because of its position or resources, although our campaign there must be placed in a wider and longer term geostrategic context, but because of the global consequences of our success or failure.

    This story first appeared on New Wars, July 19, 2010.

  • Apple, AT&T and Antitrust

    In California, a federal judge has ruled that an antitrust class action suit can proceed against Apple and AT&T. What have those companies done to warrant being hauled into court? Basically, they agreed to sell only “locked” iPhones. A locked phone is one that works only on a specific mobile network — in this case, AT&T’s network.

    So, let’s get this straight. Both Apple and AT&T want to make money. Apple makes money by creating cool mobile devices like the iPhone — creating, as in designing and manufacturing phones that didn’t exist before Apple’s brilliant designers and engineers thought of them. AT&T makes money by creating a mobile phone network–creating, as in erecting a complex array of electronic equipment capable of transmitting messages from handheld phones, a network that didn’t exist before AT&T created it.

    Then Apple and AT&T decide to make money by working together. Although details of their deal aren’t public, it’s clear that AT&T saw an opportunity to increase its subscriber base by becoming the only retailer of iPhones. Apple, for its part, looked forward to receiving payments from AT&T based on a percentage of every iPhone subscriber’s monthly bill. Was this collaboration a good idea? You be the judge: consumers have bought 50 million iPhones in three years.

    Let’s pause at this point to remind ourselves that the Apple-AT&T agreement does not interfere with anyone else’s smartphones or networks. The makers of Blackberry or Palm phones can choose to sell phones locked or unlocked. Networks such as Verizon and Sprint can choose whether to enter into exclusive contracts as AT&T did with Apple. In short, every other firm in the industry is free to make as much money as they can competing with Apple and AT&T.

    So far, does this sound like conduct that should be illegal? Let’s look at what the plaintiffs are complaining about. According to reports, their lawsuit charges that the locked phone agreement “hurt competition and drove up prices for consumers.”

    “Hurt competition?” This is competition. Apple and AT&T are competing with other makers of smartphones and with other mobile networks — and those other makers and networks are competing right back. In a free market, everyone else in the universe is at liberty to enter the market and offer a product that is better, cheaper, or both. No competitor can forcibly prevent another’s efforts.

    “Drove up prices for consumers?” There was no price for an iPhone before Apple created and sold it. There was no price for an AT&T iPhone subscription until AT&T offered it. Those prices were not “driven up” from some arbitrary level that the plaintiffs would have wished to see. The prices were set by the owners of the goods and services being sold. Consumers were free to buy or to wait for some competitor to offer an equally attractive, unlocked phone.

    As this suit progresses, observers should look closely at what conduct is illegal under this nation’s antitrust laws, and whether it should remain so.

    This story first appeared on Voices for Reason, July 14, 2010.

  • IMF Gaining in Power

    Given the current economic problems of both Europe and the United States — well, the whole world really — the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is becoming more and more involved and gaining in power almost daily. As Rahm Emmanuel says, never let a crisis go to waste.

    It’s time we paid attention to organizations such as the IMF and didn’t just take it for granted that they have our best interest at heart. They do after all control huge sums of the world’s money, most of which is taken from tax payers in various nations for the IMF to redistribute across the globe as they see fit, with no oversight, beyond their own internal “watchdog” group.

    Their official line on accountability: The IMF is held accountable by multiple stakeholders, including by its own internal watchdog, member governments, the media, civil society, and academia. But no one with any power to actually make them behave themselves, avoid corruption, or seek redress in case of wrongs. A country may advise or even recall its representative, but has no recourse in case of actual differences. Once money is given to the IMF, the “donor” country has no more control over it.

    The IMF is essentially to countries what government social programs are to citizens. If a country finds itself in need of monetary assistance because of stupid fiscal policies the IMF will take money from solvent, or at least rich, countries in order to help the “low to middle income countries.” It’s essentially redistribution of wealth on a global scale.

    By now we should understand that when government holds the purse strings it also holds the power, so what does that mean in terms of the IMF? Nearly every country in the world is either beholden to the IMF and dependent on its loans or is in some other way inextricably tied into the IMF redistribution program. The IMF holds the purse strings for the whole world.

    The IMF’s fundamental mission is to help ensure stability in the international system. It does so in three ways: keeping track of the global economy and the economies of member countries; lending to countries with balance of payments difficulties; and giving practical help to members.

    That sounds all well and good, but in order to ensure the economic stability of the entire world economy, you have to wield massive amounts of power and that power must be usurped from sovereign nations. The IMF also has a track record of aiding and abetting financially dictatorships that routinely violate basic human rights, like Sri Lanka in 2009. When the IMF loan application from Sri Lanka was challenged by a lawsuit in the district court of the District of Columbia based on human rights violations, Timothy Geithner and Meg Lundsager argued that the court had no jurisdiction and the plaintiff had no standing anyway. They’re worried about a technicality when they are being sued over supporting massive human rights violations.

    What court would have jurisdiction then? The IMF seems to be beyond the reach of any one government. It did approve the loan to Sri Lanka with the Britain, France and the United States abstaining from voting.

    Meg Lundsager is one of a board of 24 directors who oversee the activities of the IMF and, coming from countries all over the world and supposedly representing those countries or groups of countries. She previously worked at the Treasury Department and was appointed in 2007 by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate to represent the United States as a member of the IMF board.

    Usually these “spread the wealth” types are also all about human rights, but not in the case of Sri Lanka. They argue that to not approve the loan would mean hardship for the general populace of Sri Lanka; a weak argument since the aid would not be sent to the people of Sri Lanka, but to the government of Sri Lanka. If you want to aid the people of Sri Lanka, you’ll have to resort to voluntarily funded private charities. But the IMF is not interested in aiding people; they are only interested in manipulating markets.

    But the IMF doesn’t limit itself to monetary transactions; they also want to control invisible gasses. If you thought the failed Copenhagen Conference on global warming was the end, you thought wrong. The IMF with its already massively funded programs has taken on global warming, setting up “Climate Funds.”

    These funds, which currently consist of the Clean Technology Fund and the Strategic Climate Fund were launched at the G8 in July 2008. So far, $6 billion has been committed by the different nations involved.

    Not paying attention to powerful organizations like the IMF could very well be fatal to the economy of the whole world, including the “poor and middle class” countries they claim to help.

  • State Lawmakers Debate States’ Rights

    Since the recent Federal Universal Healthcare Legislation has been made into quasi-law, state governments have been taking a stand for their constituents arguing that it is unconstitutional to force citizens to pay a penalty for refusing to participate in the federal health-care program. This includes states that Barack Obama both won and lost in the last presidential election.

    Could it be that the Democrats that voted against the bill but weren’t given a backdoor deal are feeling a little bitter that their fellow representatives got something that they didn’t? Or could it be that the tide has largely turned against universal health care since it has been rushed through the House behind closed doors?

    Whatever their reason, if the state governments can hold out against the federal government it is a victory for the freedom to choose, the rights of the individual and a victory for small government in general. It is also a victory for politicians actually listening to those whom they represent.

    But perhaps the biggest reason for my home state of Michigan to oppose this bill is the negative economic impact it will ultimately have. We are already suffering from a staggering 14 percent unemployment rate. What is the first thing businesses do when expenses go up? Cut down on other expenses. This usually results in employee layoffs and hiring freezes. Historically small and medium businesses have been the power house for job creation and job growth. When the big industries fail, small and medium businesses keep communities together. We have experienced this with the automotive industry and have yet to rebound.

    Yet this bill is aimed specifically at small and medium businesses. Not only will they face a tax that they cannot afford; it will increase as they try to hire more employees. When you punish businesses for hiring more people, they generally stop… hiring people! Ultimately unemployment gets worse (14 percent is already above the national average).

    So now it makes sense why my Attorney General Mike Cox and dozens of his colleagues from other states are fighting back. Apparently (hopefully), he understands this principle. The question is; why is our governor attempting to stop him?

    Jennifer Granholm, who has done little more than increase the size of the state government to “increase jobs” and has repeatedly worked against tax credits for businesses (except for the entertainment industry), believes he “wasn’t representing her or Michigan citizens who would benefit from the law.” Apparently we wouldn’t benefit from the freedom to refute our government. Or maybe she is just a little too focused on the first part of that sentence, and is worried about losing her influence with the commander-in-chief; after all she can’t be reelected next term.