The current US Foreign Policy seeks to maintain a balance of power among Nation States. The US expects to confront all manner of persistent conflict through a global engagement strategy.
BY DR. TERRY TUCKER | APRIL 12, 2013
Although there are different political, military, economic, and social elements that compose the National Security Strategy, the strategy generally relies on cooperation, strength, and power to develop desired security end-states. Trade partnerships, and as well as military security-force-assistance engagements and programs remain the primary means of achieving the desired ends. These activities seek to build partner capacity while stabilizing and improving existing governmental structures. The expected results include an increased sharing of techniques and knowledge to improve skills and education in formal and informal settings, improving quality of life,and in some countries, to arrest the dichotomy between power and morality in governance. This opens the door for what ultimately could become a shared understanding of democratic concepts to improve meaning, purpose, and positive impact on people at a personal level.
Globalization connects every geopolitical region in real-time with mutual impact through the process of exchange. The US Financial crisis of 2008 and immediate bleed-over to the Eurozone provides a glaring example of our global interconnectedness and vulnerability.
The following three examples illustrate the various traditional methods in which globalization connects.
- Recent news reports attribute the 40% plunge in the Iranian Rial to International Sanctions. The follow-on of recent large demonstrations in Tehran, has subsequently caused Israel to re-consider its strategy on Iran.
- The Keystone XL Project, a proposal for a pipeline to carry oil extracted from tar sands in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. is likely to remain a focus of heated political debate on environmental issues vs employment, national strategy, and energy dependance issues. A project originating in Canada has implications on the US economy as well as global energy markets.
- The weekly Drought Monitor, as of 2 Oct 2012, indicated the current epic drought in the US had spread to more than 65% of the US Continent. Crop production, according to the report, had dropped by $12 Billion and had shaved 0.2% off the US GDP for the Quarter. The US Department of Agriculture reports that Corn and Soybeans will be down 15 to 20%. The USDA reports that it will take a full 12 months to realize the full impact of the drought and in the meantime, international commodity and crop prices have risen carrying a direct economic impact on local markets around the world.
The five examples below show how barriers have been eliminated and yet remain connected in both a virtual and traditional way. These examples also demonstrate integrated and expanded social networks linked through centers of commerce.
- Cloud Computing. Although viewed as a North American invention, cloud computing has clear and present business applications in the Energy sector (Google’s seawater-cooled facility in Finland, and Facebook’s hydropowered plant in Sweden.) Dublin is once again emerging as a tech data center with the European home-base for Amazon Web Services’ and Microsoft’s cloud businesses.
- Basic commodities. Under pressure not only from t higher demand within traditional sectors, basic commodities are also under the pressure of increasing alternate uses. For example, corn will be needed for food and ethanol. Water will be required for consumption, agricultural production and energy production The epic drought conditions in the US have global impact on energy and commodities.
- DataSift. Headquartered in Reading, England, DataSift is one of three companies (along with Gnip and Topsy) certified to resell all the billions of data points streaming from Twitter every day. Social media, and Twitter especially, are a huge focus of corporate analytics efforts. This is big data that impacts several domains at once.
- The Occupy Movement. As of October 5th, 2012, 1483 Occupations for financial reform had been plotted globally by the Occupy Movement. There is a monthly calendar of planned events. The organization has consolidated its efforts and is extensively represented globally through a number of allies and supporting organizations. http://occupywallst.org/infotent/http://directory.occupy.net/
- The Arab Spring, and The Occupy Movement. Both of these movements represent more than social upheaval. They have used digital influence across boundaries’ to change policy and influence change in global politics, economics, and social conditions.
Published in Political Reflection Magazine Vol. 4 No. 1