Canada @60....dollars a barrel

The falling world price of oil is concentrating minds everywhere these days. Friday's closing price of US$58.22/barrel represents a 5-year low, the effects of which are being felt unevenly in different parts of the world. Falling prices are a double edged sword. For some, lower energy prices are effectively a tax cut that will improve profitability. For others, dependent on natural resource revenues (especially governments like Russia, and OPEC countries), falling prices are creating serious budget challenges.

According to the International Energy Agency, falling prices are the byproduct of dramatically increased supply from countries like the United States, coupled with a more worrisome decline in global demand and what that says about global economic growth generally.

Yet, the impact of the rapid decline in oil prices on Canada is another sobering reminder of the country's vulnerability as a major exporter of basic commodities like energy. In his most famous study, The Fur Trade In Canada (1930), Harold Innis described Canada's perpetual status as a resource economy, and Canadians themselves as the "hewers of wood and drawers of water." Indeed, while Canada might be firmly entrenched in the ranks of rich, industrial economies, the parallels with developing economies dependent on natural resources are hard to ignore.

Four More Pinocchios for POTUS

Last week, President Obama turned up the heat on the U.S. immigration debate by announcing a series of administrative actions to delay the deportation of some categories of illegal immigrant, particularly those whose citizen children would be harmed by such a deportation. In my view, it's about time. Moreover, I applaud Obama for taking the fight to Republicans on this, challenging them to pass a real immigration reform bill.

But,....

Among the talking points issued and repeated by White House officials was that other presidents had essentially done the same thing. If President Obama's executive actions were different, they were differences of degree, not kind. Of particular note, the White House pointed to administrative action taken by George H.W. Bush in 1990 which, the Obama Administration claims, covered a much larger percentage (1.5 Million, or 40%) of the illegal population in the U.S. than anything being proposed by the current president. 

Well, not so fast! Turns out that the White House argument rests on a single suspect source from 1990 that differed widely from other estimates of how many people would be covered by Bush's program.

The Obama White House seems to be trying to take some of the sting out of those critics who claim his immigration actions are a significant overstep of his authority. Best to do that when the facts really are on your side.....

For this Washington Post, this earned President Obama 4 Pinocchios out of 4. Ouch!

It's Official.... Carter Syndrome!

Good grief! Can things get any worse for the Obama Administration? This morning, Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel resigned after less than two years on the job. Many will recall that he more or less limped into the job after being roughed up pretty severely by his former colleagues during his Senate confirmation hearings. As a result of that lacklustre reception, many believe Hagel deliberately took a back seat on national security matters to people like Secretary of State, John Kerry or the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey.

Things are not going swimmingly anywhere at the moment. In addition to all of the existing problems on the President's plate (ISIS, Russia-Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc), Benghazi continues to fester (with only a little help from Republicans, a la Whitewater in the 1990s). More seriously, it was also announced that nuclear talks with Iran remain at an impasse and that the deadline for completion will be extended once again, this time to July 2015.

Back in May, I wrote about Presidential Doctrines and suggested they were difficult things (link here). Foreign policy is messy, and it's not hard for a president to be called out for inconsistency over them. Moreover, that alone is probably the main reason such Doctrines are seldom coined by presidents themselves. It was all a small asterisk next to my joining the bandwagon of critics who were taking shots at Obama's foreign policy. Tell-all books by former officials are a robust cottage industry at the best of times. But the list of those throwing this particular Commander-in-Chief under the bus is both long and distinguished; Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta have all had unflattering things to say. I expect Chuck Hagel will soon be dishing on a book tour of his own.

Hence, with this morning's news about Hagel's resignation-- quite obviously encouraged by POTUS himself-- it is hard to craft an interpretation of Obama's foreign policy that doesn't conclude it's in near free fall. Who in their right mind would accept the President's nomination to be Hagel's replacement? The President will, of course, find someone. But who ever it is will receive a rough ride from a GOP majority in the U.S. Senate still smelling victory vapours following their midterm wins earlier this month.

Asterisk removed! Obama is in Carter-land!

POTUS Gets 3 Pinocchios

Anyone that regularly reads the Washington Post knows that they have a group of staffers fact-checking the various distortions of fact used by public officials. To be fair, many such distortions are actually laudable efforts to simplify complex issues into more digestible component parts. In other instances, such oversimplifications cross the line into distortions so large that they deliberately mislead the public. Part of the problem is that which of these one sees in the pronouncements of public officials is often in the eye of the beholder. The Washington messaging machine is in a constant spin-cycle where, too often, coming up with a clever-- but too frequently disingenuous-- sound bite for the 24 hour news cycle is all that really matters.

This weekend, the Post decided to fact check some of President Obama's claims regarding the merits of the Keystone XL pipeline. Many of you know that the Keystone XL debate heated up again last week as both the House and Senate took up measures supporting the line's construction (see my post on this). As many of you also know, the key measure under consideration was taken up in the Senate and ultimately defeated 59-41(link).

Yet, in many ways it was comments by President Obama about Keystone XL made while he was in Asia that struck many observers because they suggested a strongly negative view of the merits of the project. The essence of his remarks was that Keystone XL was essentially a conduit through American territory for Canadian oil to be exported to overseas markets. Americans, he argued, would see few of the benefits. It is a line of argument that the Washington Post has called the President out on and issued him a dubious award of 3 Pinocchios out of 4 (see story here).

I think President Obama has lots of good reasons (politically) to hold off approval of Keystone XL. As I've argued in previous posts, Keystone is a small card he could play with Republicans on some other issue during his next two years as an increasingly lame-duck president. However, he doesn't help his own credibility on the issue by stooping to the same level of oversimplification as his political opponents. For a president that is often accused of being so deliberative that he is often indecisive, his simplistic statements on Keystone XL are both a bit of a surprise and indicator of the steep political hill Keystone XL still needs to climb.

3 Pinocchios!!!! Nicely done, Mr. President.

Tombstones, Cornerstones, and Keystones, Oh my!

This morning Stephen Blank and Monica Gattinger of the University of Ottawa published a fantastic piece with the Canadian International Council about the Keystone XL debate. It's great because it puts the necessity of the Keystone pipeline in the context of the profound changes taking place in North American energy markets. I've noted a few of these changes in earlier posts, but Blank and Gattinger are far more thorough, laying them all on the table, including the big changes being initiated with Mexico's PEMEX. Together, they raise a number of critical questions about the future of the Keystone XL pipeline.

I've linked Blank and Gattinger here: Keystone XL: Tombstone or Cornerstone?

Blank and Gattinger wisely refrain from making predictions, but their piece reaffirms my own sense that Keystone XL will be a tombstone for the next president to deal with, perhaps sometime in 2017.

Keystone about to be built?... Don't bet on it...

The Keystone XL pipeline issue was thrust onto the Washington political agenda again this past week, scarcely a week after the drubbing at the polls suffered by Democrats in the Congressional midterms. In a series of twists and turns that can only really be understood inside the Washington beltway, the Keystone XL pipeline project suddenly seems to have new life.... or does it?

I may have to eat some humble pie six months from now, but I don't think everyone should be getting too excited about this. Shovels are no closer to going in the ground this week than they were last week.

In fact, I predict that Keystone XL will still be on the next president's desk when he or she assumes office in January 2017.

Is NAFTA a Dead Parrot?

Depending on when you decide to mark the occasion, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) turned twenty years old this year. In last week's Edmonton Journal, former federal MP Rob Merrifield, and current Alberta Envoy to Washington, along with Congressman Bill Owens (D-NY) penned an op-ed piece extolling the virtues of the NAFTA at Twenty (link to story here). For Merrifield and Owens, the NAFTA has been a tremendous success and remains a golden opportunity for all three countries. I agree!

The problem with some of this happy talk about North America is that it increasingly resembles Monty Python's Dead Parrot skit (linked here). Like the shop-keeper who insists the parrot isn't dead, only resting, some advocates of North America seem stuck in a time-warp, unaware of how far away from the North American vision we've actually drifted.

COOL Compliance updated.....

In one of the first blog posts to this site, I wrote about Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) requirements imposed by Congress on a range of agricultural products sold in the United States (Link to that original post here).

As I argued in that post, COOL and similar measures are likely here to stay. However, I also noted that the World Trade Organization would soon rule on whether COOL provisions were being applied in a discriminatory manner that violated the WTO's rules. It has certainly been Canada's position (and Mexico's) that the way COOL was being applied was highly discriminatory. It seems the WTO agreed. Earlier this week, the WTO issued a Compliance Panel ruling that said COOL remained uncool; in 2012, the WTO's Appellate body reaffirmed the original 2011 finding that COOL was being applied in a discriminatory manner and called on the U.S. to bring it into compliance. The Compliance Panel assessed whether the U.S. has done so. It has not. (Link here to see dispute summary and documents).

Okay, now what?

Potpuourri.... Presidents, Ebola, and ME Bedfellows...

I've started several posts in the past several weeks only to scrap them in the face of rapidly changing events. Indeed, the past several weeks have been both interesting and sobering. So, instead of a single topic here, I thought I'd mention several that have caught my attention:

1) Obama's Legacy. As most know, after November's midterm elections, President Obama will firmly enter "lame duck" territory-- if he wasn't there already. The volume of commentary on Obama's legacy can already fill bookshelves. Among the more interesting pieces is something that appeared in the Washington Post this past weekend by Arron David Miller, titled Barack Obama, the Disappointer in Chief. Among Miller's points is that absent a real national crisis it's actually very difficult to be a "great" American president. Americans want greatness from their leaders, were taken in by the soaring rhetoric of candidate Obama in 2008, but then were inevitably disappointed, in part, because there isn't a national consensus about whether sweeping change of any kind is necessary.

Miller's piece is worth reading on its own, but it reminded me of the difficult position presidential candidates are in when trying to appeal to the electorate. We are now familiar with the critiques of Obama, many of which I have tossed around in this blog; he's too deliberative, too professorial, indecisive, always seems to see every side of every issue. That's a luxury that university professors have that American presidents do not. For some, Obama is all sizzle and no steak.

How Sovereign will Scotland Actually Be?

 POST REFERENDUM UPDATE

So, the Scottish independence referendum wasn't quite the nail-biter than everyone thought it might be. It was exciting for a while, but the "No" side walked away with a resounding victory (55% No, 44% Yes). However, it could turn out to be a a phyric victory for the "No" side if many of the 11th hour Constitutional reforms promised my Westminster are carried out. In effect, the UK would broadly become a much more devolved, federal-like constitutional monarchy. Stay tuned. Some of what is being bandied about could take a long time, possibly giving pause to some Scots in the "No" camps to re-think their decision.

However, one of the most interesting revelations to flow from the Referendum is actually in the minutes of this past summer's deliberations by the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee. Central banks have become much more transparent in recent years, and this window in to the BOE's preparations for the financial uncertainty that would ensue after a "Yes" vote are particularly interesting. In short, the BOE would have flooded the UK with signifcant liquidity and strongly signalled to everyone that while a political decision had been made, there was no reason to panic since the negotiations to separate Scottish financial institutions from those in the rest of the UK would be years in the making. In other words, Keep Calm, Carry On!

Reports from central banks are usually a good cure for insomnia, but this one is worth a look (Financial Policy Committee Report, September 26, 2014).

____________


There's a little referendum taking place in Scotland on September 18 with huge implications for the future of Great Britain and the European Union. If you haven't paid attention yet, you should!

As the vote has neared, public opinion polling suggests it will be a white-knuckle affair. For a rundown of the debate over Scottish independence, you can do no better than the September 13 issue of The Economist. But what intrigues me most about this debate are the arguments over the financial arrangements that might be negotiated (or not) between a newly independent Scotland and what remains of the United Kingdom. As part of the debate, Scottish-based financial institutions like the Royal Bank of Scotland, have made it know they will likely pull up stakes and move their headquarters to London; makes sense given London's position in global finance. Yet, even more interesting is the debate over what currency the Scots will use in the event of an independence vote?

Perfect Foreign Policy Storm....

The past few months have not been kind to the Obama Administration. War (or what ever it is) in Ukraine, a dangerous Ebola outbreak that the World Health Organization says could infect 200,000 by the end of the year, and the alarming advance of ISIS through parts of the Middle East, ought to be more than enough to keep the President awake at night.

President Obama has certainly endured his share of criticism about his handling of foreign policy, in my view a lot of it justified. Recent events have ignited a firestorm of commentary, a lot of it more pointed and informed than anything I've pointed out. Last week, President Obama was at pains to emphasize that the campaign against ISIS would NOT involve American boots on the ground. Yet, the very next day, the CIA's assessment of ISIS's capabilities was revised significantly. ISIS is no rag-tag militia force. They are large (now estimated at 20-25K) well-financed, organized, and equipped, thanks in-part to the speed with which the Iraqi Army melted away from their US-supplied equipment. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee today on Capitol Hill, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had to conceded that US boots could end up in the middle of some combat, even if only as a result of their advisory role.

The President's speech to the nation (in prime time) gave the impression that ISIS was a significant threat and that the ultimate goal of the US was to destroy ISIS; not just contain or degrade, but destroy. That's a lofty (unrealistic?) objective for military action restricted to the air.

The debate over whether Obama took his eye off the ball in Iraq, didn't intervene when he could have made a difference in Syria, or has had the US in retreat from foreign affairs generally will go on. However, as I think about the situation with ISIS in Iraq and Syria in particular, I keep coming back to an article that appeared in Foreign Affairs in February 2002 by Michael Scott Doran entitled "Someone Else's Civil War." It is a fascinating piece that walks through a centuries long struggle for political Islam's heart and soul. Doran's focus at the time was Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, but the piece can still be read with relevance today since ISIS is largely an even more radical off-shoot of Al-Qaeda. The gist of Doran's argument is that Bin-Laden attacked the United States on 9/11 in a shift of tactics in a broader effort to unite a larger cross section of the Islamic world against a common enemy; America. However, their real target was the authoritarian regimes dominating the region.

Gruesome and as ISIS's video beheadings of westerners have been, I am struck by the way in which they have shifted public opinion and motivated the Obama Administration to action in a region the President clearly wanted to be done with. Moreover, I have seen no explicit claim by ISIS that it is at war with the west. Indeed, their main fight has been with the Assad regime in Syria and they seem mainly to want a new Caliphate established anchored in and around Iraq.

I'm not saying the US should stand by and watch from afar while a centuries-long civil war grinds on. Moreover, the United States doesn't have a great track record of getting it right in a complex part of the world it seems to understand in the vaguest of terms. However, I am also among those stooges that thinks the US is indispensable in any effort to set things right. My main concern, like Doran's, is that the President isn't being straight with the American public about the level of engagement that actually be required to make a substantive difference. As Niall Ferguson so clearly argued in his 2004 book Colossus, the United States doesn't have the stomach for long-term overseas engagement, and as a result hasn't been very good at it. America got tired of the projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be interesting to see whether America's stomach for engaging ISIS over the long-haul will become queasy too.

More POTUS and the Environment

I thought I'd write a quick post here to flag a piece in the New York Times about the Obama Administration's strategy on global climate change talks that loom over the next couple of years (link). Back in April, I wrote about and linked some pieces about the likely use of "executive power" or administrative authority to pursue some kind of global climate change deal (linked here).

As today's Times' story notes, any measure pursued by the President is, of course, going to upset Republicans already up in arms about what they regard as Obama's excessive use of executive authority (see story). Yet, it's important to note that the inter-branch tug of war over the president's use of the "executive power" given to him in Article II of the US Constitution goes back a long way. As students of American politics will know, the division of authority as laid out in the US Constitution was intentionally designed to set up these kinds of struggles (see Federalist 10 and 51).
 
A new climate accord concluded by the President will also generate howls from the US Senate (for now, controlled by Democrats). That body will be upset with Obama because of the Constitution's Article II requirement that the president present treaties to the Senate for formal ratification. Yet, a moment's reflection suggests the US Senate hasn't ratified all that many treaties (anyone remember Versailles?), and yet the US is a bound Party to all kinds of international conventions. In fact, presidents have been binding the United States to all kinds of conventions for years through Executive Agreements without the "advice and consent" of the Senate.

My bet is that Obama's pursuit of a climate accord intended to bind the US to certain goals will be big enough to push the debate over who has the proper authority (the executive branch or the legislative) to a head. Perhaps more importantly, where that legal battle goes will depend mightily on the American public and their views on the importance of dealing with climate change in the 2016 presidential campaign. I'd suggest that prospective candidates for President in 2016 brush up on this stew of issues since Obama looks poised to firmly plant this issue on the national agenda.

Stay tuned....

More Security Industrial Complex and Pearson Gong Show....

While I was away on a short vacation, two things grabbed my attention, both related to my previous post on the Security Industrial Complex.

1) The militarisation of local police.
......
UPDATE: It seems there is suddenly a lot of interest in this issue. Obama has ordered a review of federal policy regarding the armaments sold to local police forces (see story). The New York Times is now posting raw data via GitHub about local police purchases of surplus Defense Department equipment. Lots of big Excel spreadsheets, but quickly demonstrates the scale of these purchases.
.......

There are many questions flowing from the depressing set of circumstances in Ferguson, Missouri over the last few weeks. However, I have been struck by the evident level of surprise on the part of media commentators about the degree to which modern local police forces resemble Marine infantry units. There is actually a surprising amount of research on this issue, a lot of which sources the militarisation of local police to the post-Cold War blurring of domestic and international security. As the end of the Cold War seemed to unleash a barrage of non-state and transnational actors onto the international stage, they further blurred the already fuzzy distinctions between the domestic and foreign. Many states responded with their own blurring of previously bright lines between domestic law enforcement (justice system, investigation, incarceration) and the state's power internationally (diplomacy, military, intelligence gathering).

As a primer on how the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States accelerated that process, one can do no better than have a look at the 9/11 Commission Report, and Chapter 13's recommendations in particular. Homeland Security works more closely with local law enforcement than ever before, including through a national network of Fusion Centers that bring together multiple elements of America's security apparatus. Improving local law enforcement's capacity to act as a first line of defense against terrorist attacks, where ever they originate, has been a major objective of U.S. national security for quite some time. Making sure local law enforcement has the proper gear to respond is part of that (one local police force example linked here).

Hence, the fact that police forces in small communities like Ferguson, Missouri have a lot of new toys to show off, or that they get carried away with their displays of force, should surprise no one.

2) Pearson Airport Gong Show.

Given my academic interests, you can imagine that when I travel I am keenly interested in how border security functions. As I stand in line with everyone else, I like to observe how quickly the lines move, the new gadgets that are deployed to "expedite" the process, and even how well some of the trusted traveler programs speed (or not) passengers through the lines. I recently traveled through the US Customs pre-clearance facility at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. I have been going through US Customs at Pearson for many years, including many painful trips through the old Terminal 1. Without question, Pearson is a much more pleasant experience than it used to be.

Pre-clearance facilities across Canada vary considerably, likely owing to the sheer passenger volumes at each. As Canada's busiest airport and US pre-clearance facility, Pearson undoubtedly has unique challenges to overcome. There have been a number of innovations everywhere, including more straight forward ways of matching bags to passengers remotely rather than having to pick them up in the pre-clearance hall, present them to the officer with your customs forms, and then deposit them on another belt before going through security screening yet again. Under the old procedures, inexperienced passengers could be seen emerging from the whole process a frazzled, sweaty, mess.

Over the past couple of years, Pearson has implemented a number of new procedures, many of which were solid improvements. Yet, when I traveled through there last week, a new, supposedly simpler, and more automated, system of kiosks and lines had been put in place. I was stunned at how bad it was. I have not been in a more chaotic pre-clearance line since early 2002. The procedures themselves are not that different from those experienced travellers have seen in the past. But, the efforts at streamlining them at Pearson need a serious re-think. I'll be keen to see if they've work the bugs out next time.

3) Okay, There's a Third Thing....The Big Apple.

The occasion for my trip was a short vacation to the Big Apple. The flight was extraordinary. A beautiful early evening sunset. An approach that took us low down the Hudson River toward lower Manhattan. And then a sharp turn on final approach to LaGuardia Airport that offered a spectacular view of the World Trade Center site. I won't soon forget it.

Lower Manhattan and the recently opened 9/11 Memorial were on the tourist agenda a couple of days later. After all the emotional bickering and delays over what to build at that sight, I think they got it almost exactly right! Not everyone agrees. But, in my view, both above and below ground, it's solemn, beautiful, interesting, and impressive. Moreover, it has brought a life to lower Manhattan that, truthfully, didn't exist when the twin towers were still there. Check it out for yourself.

Beware of the Security Industrial Complex....

In January 1961, President Eisenhower went on national television to give his last public address from the Oval Office. The best known element of that speech was the President's admonition that America be weary of the growth of the "military-industrial complex." What Eisenhower meant by this has been the subject of much debate (and the source of many conspiracy theories), but he was openly worrying about the peacetime growth of the American military and the troubling intersection of Pentagon bureaucracy, private sector military contractors, and their political paymasters in Congress; a classic "iron triangle."

I have been giving some thought to whether a similar kind of complex has perhaps descended on post-9/11 North America; the Security Industrial Complex?

New West Partnership and Neoclassical Integration

Many Canadian newspapers ran a story this morning wherein the premiers of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan called for an overhaul of the 1995 Agreement on Internal Trade. For many people, the AIT is likely to illicit snoring, but it is actually part of a fascinating case study in the neoclassical stages of integration.

Most Canadians have probably never heard of the AIT, but was essentially an effort to eliminate inter-provincial barriers to trade within Canada; a NAFTA for Canada's provinces. The analogy between the two agreements is not far fetched. Indeed, a quick comparison of the texts of the two agreements reveals similarities many would find shocking, complete with institutional architecture like dispute settlement (see for yourself AIT vs. NAFTA).

When we think about trade liberalization, we more commonly think about the elimination of barriers to trade between countries and protracted, high-level, and controversial negotiations to bring all of it about. The World Trade Organization's various "Rounds" of negotiations, the infamous NAFTA negotiations from the early 1990s, or the ongoing Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations often come to mind.

Leading from behind.....

President Obama has been mocked for his assertion that America has been "leading from behind."

Back in early June, President Obama did a bit of plain old leading by proposing new rules on carbon emissions from power plants (link). The new rules are the first significant exercise of authority exercised by the EPA under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. In earlier posts to this blog, I detailed how this interpretation of the Clean Air Act came about (link to February 2 Post) as well as my belief that President Obama would indeed invoke "executive authority" to tackle climate change during his remaining two years in office (link to April 23 Post).

Reaction to the proposed rule was generally positive, particularly among those who have been pushing for decisive U.S. action on climate change. It was an important step forward, but also one that will not dramatically alter America's contribution to global emissions. In fact, if fully implemented, the rules' main impact may be to force the closure of some of America's oldest, dirtiest, and least efficient coal-fired power plants (see link).

Here's where it gets rich.... The day after Obama's announcement, Alberta's Minister of Environment, Robin Campbell, suggested that Canada and the United States work together on climate change initiatives; something I have argued would grease the political skids for Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline (link). Campbell seemed to be arguing that Alberta was doing some leading. Hmmm....

Immigration and Governance....

Immigration is one of those lightening rod issues about which hardly anyone is without an opinion. That, of course, is a key element in understanding why the issue is so intractable. Major foreign policy crises such as the Ukraine and the apparent unravelling of Iraq have overshadowed developments in long-simmering debates about immigration in the United States. In the last several months, a bizarre crisis has been unfolding along U.S.-Mexico border as thousands of children, most from Central America, have crossed into the U.S. unaccompanied by their parents (See Link). Since October 2013, some 47,000 children have crossed the border and immediately surrendered themselves to U.S. immigration officials who have then shipped them off to make-shift detention centers to await processing. What's going on? It's simply people responding to incentives.....

Iraq is Back.....

Those who have followed (or at least tried) Iraq's progress since the withdraw of all U.S. military personnel in 2011 know that Iraq has been on a long descent into chaos. The sources of the descent are multiple, but are largely anchored in unwillingness of Iraq's Shiite dominated government to compromise with the Sunni and Kurdish minorities in the country. Instead, the levers of power have been used to settle old scores, alienate enemies, and consolidate power. I wholeheartedly agree with those who argue that the lion's share of the responsibility for all of this rests with Iraq's government (see article).

The rapid advance of ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) into some of Iraq's most important cities is yet another example of the perils of "presidential doctrines" I wrote about in my previous post. Foreign policy is tough and seldom presents officials with simple choices. To the degree Obama Doctrine can coherently be described as the use of "necessary force," the advance of ISIS, and the related conflict next door in Syria, continue present the administration with an almost unfathomable set of difficult problems in deciding if, where, how, and when force should be deployed. If foreign policy were an old silent Hollywood western, we'd start lobbing missiles at the guys with the black hats. But it's not a Hollywood film.

Even if there are no good solutions for American policy makers, there are plenty of boo-birds tossing around diagnoses of what has gone so rapidly off the rails, many of them pointing to President Obama. House Speaker John Boehner yesterday said the president had been "taking a nap" as Iraq has been spinning out of control. Senator McCain, a regular critic of Obama's foreign policy, called for the resignation of the President's entire national security team (see link). For those interested, the Rand Corporation produced a lengthy diagnosis of America's failures in Iraq that makes for sober reading (PDF via this link).

However, when looking for source material for what is transpiring today, it's hard to ignore some of the "what ifs" that flow from Coalition Provisional Authority Orders No. 1 and No. 2 in the spring of of 2003; the de-Ba'athification degree issued by CPA Administrator, Paul Bremer.

Presidential Doctrines are Tough.....

President Obama was at West Point Wednesday to deliver a commencement speech to the new crop of officers, and reset the stage for American foreign policy (transcript linked here) as the United States winds things down in Afghanistan, possibly later this year. In many quarters, both at home and abroad, his speech has gone over like a lead balloon. The President's supporters think he is threading the needle perfectly between intervention and restraint in global affairs (see story). Others think Obama's approach is just the latest bit of evidence that the President is willfully hastening America's slide into irrevocable decline (see story). Some of the punditry and arm-chair quarterbacking is predictable, perhaps including this blog post.

Only the most delusional of partisans would describe President Obama's foreign policy as successful. However, Obama is not the first American president to have their foreign policy efforts blow up in their face. At bottom, I think President Obama would rather the world take a time out so he could focus entirely on issues he cares much more deeply about, such as healthcare, climate change, and the economy. Unfortunately, the world is a messy little place in which foreign policy aims regularly seem to wash up on the complicated rocks of reality.

Those who study American foreign policy spend a lot of time teasing out "presidential doctrines" on foreign affairs. These so-called "doctrines" have become shorthand for both the world view and policy emphases of every U.S. president since Monroe. Experts focused on Wednesday's speech saw in it modifications to Obama Doctrine. Yet, what and who doctrines are for is itself a curious thing. In the rest of this post, I offer a few thoughts about why....

How not to build a pipeline... and how social science could have helped

The Keystone XL saga continues to deliver head-scratchers. While everyone awaits the decision of the Nebraska Supreme Court (link to case here) expected late this year, a number of items have crossed my desk that reinforce points made in earlier blog posts. A couple of weeks ago, the business pages of the Financial Post reported that TransCanada Pipeline sent letters to some Nebraska land-owners suggesting they are running out of time to get a solid compensation offer in exchange for pipeline right of way (link here). It's a curious development since just a few months ago, TransCanada sent out similar notices with dramatic increases in offers of compensation (link here). In one family's case, a 2012 offer of $8,900 for right of way across their property rose to nearly $62,000 in January 2014. Now, some of those same landowners are being told that unless they sign on the dotted line now, they might be left holding the bag. Not a great way to win friends.

Does "North America" Exist?

The Canadian International Council has produced a fantastic graphic that vividly depicts how deeply (or not) North America is integrated economically (See link). In fact, what this chart really depicts is a North American economic space dominated by two bilateral trading relationships; U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico. It is a classic hub-and-spoke situation. Unfortunately, this chart is also suggestive of some of what plagues trilateral relations. In recent years, the comparatively tenuous economic ties between Canada and Mexico have been reflected in the relative frostiness between the two over a host of issues (border security, immigration, visa requirements, regulatory cooperation, etc), with both Mexico City and Ottawa (but mostly Ottawa) electing to pursue issues with Washington bilaterally.

As I wrote back on January 21 (post linked here), the rebilateralization of North America is a troubling development. That economic ties between Canada and Mexico are not strong enough to have forestalled rebilateralization may ultimately prove an unfortunate development for both countries. 

POTUS and the Environment....

I wanted to make a quick post today because of an interesting article in Rolling Stone (Link to story here) about President Obama's efforts to address climate change. In addition to the interesting details on how he plans to address climate change through his executive authority via the EPA, the politics of last week's Keystone XL pipeline delay (my previous post) are also here.

All of it is part of a broader strategy on climate change by the administration, part of which was outlined in February's State of the Union Address. I wrote about that in my post from February 2 (linked here). It remains relevant and mirrors much of what Jeff Goodell says in his Rolling Stone piece, including how Obama's domestic strategy fits into global climate change talks scheduled for 2015. My scribbles didn't make it to Rolling Stone, but it's always nice to read something that mirrors some of your own analysis.

The Keystone Punt and Political Culture....

I was running around town today when my phone started buzzing with alerts from the various news sites I subscribe to. Several of them brought me the news that President Obama had once again delayed a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, this time indefinitely. I couldn't help but laugh. There are plenty of people that think this project is a "no brainer." Yet, as I have been arguing for some time now (see February 2 post, for example), there is little incentive for Obama to approve this project. It now appears that no decision will be made until at least the first quarter of 2015, at the earliest. By then, the approval picture will be even murkier since the President will officially be entering lame-duck territory, and will have to work harder to remain relevant as the jockeying for the 2016 nomination in both parties sucks up all of the political oxygen.

Campaign Finance Floodgates?

Last Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a set of rules limiting the aggregate amount individual donors could contribute to candidates or political action committees. The 5-4 ruling (McCutcheon et al. vs. Federal Election Commission) has been viewed by many as opening the floodgates even further to the corrupting influence of money in the American political process (see story). While the ruling maintains limits on how much can be contributed to any single candidate or action committee, there are now effectively no limits on how many candidates or committees across the nation a wealthy donor could conceivably support.

This latest ruling comes in the wake of the major SCOTUS decision (Citizens United vs. FEC) back in January 2010 that political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment and that the government cannot limit the capacity of firms or unions to spend money to support or oppose candidates in elections. Such organizations were still limited in their ability to contribute to specific candidates, but Citizens United took the gloves off where spending on independent advocacy: advertising.

The End in Afghanistan

Yesterday, March 12, marked the formal end of Canada's military presence in Afghanistan after more than a decade. The last 100 soldiers lowered the flag and prepared to exit the country. Canada's role in Afghanistan will be studied for years. At the outset, Canada had little capacity to be engaged in military conflict on the other side of the world. That it did so anyway, and quite well, will be the subject of much study in the years ahead. A number of great books already exist, including Eugene Lang and Janice Gross Stein's The Unexpected War (2008), detailing how Canada became involved in the first place. It's still too early to evaluate many of the lessons from Afghanistan. Was it a victory? A defeat? A failure? Or a success? In too many ways, it was none of the above...

Fodder for the Fire (Keystone)

There were two news items regarding the Keystone XL pipeline project that struck me this week, both raising issues I've touched on in previous posts. Late last week, Saskatchewan Premier, Brad Wall argued that Canada needed to give the Obama Administration more "environmental elbow room" to approve the project. Speaking in Ottawa last Friday at the Manning Networking Conference, Wall suggested that Canada could help its cause on Keystone by getting serious about curbing greenhouse gas emissions. In doing so, Canada would undercut the criticism of its own climate change record swirling beneath the Keystone debate and allow President Obama to save face with his most ardent supporters even as he approves the line.

In light U.S. poll numbers released today, Wall's suggestion might actually do the trick.

Obama, Religion, and Trade

If you want to kill a dinner party, you could do no better than mention any of the three words in the title of this post. If you are following U.S. trade policy, these three words in the context of events over the past week would lead you to conclude that President Obama has had a crisis of faith when it comes to the merits of international trade.

At issue is the evident lack of enthusiasm from the White House in pursuit of so-called Trade Promotion Authority from Congress to continue working on two of his signature trade policy initiatives, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)  and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Much has been written about TPA, formerly known as Fast-Track (See Link for a piece on this by yours truly). For most of the postwar period, some form of delegated trade policy authority from Congress to the Executive branch has been a major component of American foreign policy; TPA is one form of this delegation. Yet, for most of the past two decades, this basic delegation of authority has been either hard won and full of caveats or has been allowed to lapse entirely, depriving the U.S. President of a key set of foreign policy tools. The most recent lapse in TPA began when the last delegation of authority expired in 2007. Given President Obama's recent conversion to the merits of international trade, and progress on two major negotiations, advocates of trade liberalisation thought there would be an important push for a renewal of TPA in 2014, in spite of the looming mid-term election campaign. Evidently not.

Amigos and NA Energy

In the wake of the North American Leaders' Summit in Toluca, Mexico last week, Monica Gattinger of the University of Ottawa had a great post on energy issues on the CIPS blog (linked here).  It's hard to think of anyone doing better work on these issues over the last 5 or 6 years. This post is spot on. In addition to the link, I've copied the text of her post below:


By Monica Gattinger

Shale Gale or Shale Fail? Will North America’s Leaders Miss the Boat on Energy?
At the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico this week, Prime Minister Harper, President Obama and President Pena Nieto committed to tasking their respective energy ministers to meet in 2014 to “discuss opportunities to promote common strategies on energy.” Observers and practitioners of things energy in North America would say it’s about time. We haven’t had trilateral talks on energy in years.

But is this too little, too late? North America is in the midst of an energy revolution. The twin technologies of hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) and horizontal drilling have unlocked the potential to profitably produce oil and gas from the continent’s vast shale resources.
For the moment, the ‘shale gale’ is mainly filling America’s sails, with U.S. oil and gas production surging to heights mainstream forecasters weren’t predicting a few short years ago. Then, concerns over the country’s energy security and mounting dependence on foreign imports dominated policy debates.

Three Amigos and Pipelines that Keep Giving

Wednesday was the latest edition of the North American Leaders' Summit (NALS). Didn't know there was such a process? You wouldn't be alone. The NALS was created as part of the ill-fated Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in 2005. In addition to all the other agenda items the three bureacracies agreed to work on at the time, the NALS was supposed to have given all that bureaucratic dirty work some political backing. In short, the annual meeting would signal that the North American agenda mattered to them.

Whether North America matters is a subject worthy of debate, and something I've addressed in earlier posts. The first few meetings of the NALS were relatively successful, partly because the "Three Amigos" that created the summit in the first place continued to attend. However, the NALS is not something that President Obama, President Nieto, or Prime Minster Harper created; it's not their baby, so why do it? The 2010 edition of the NALS actually never happened. Prime Minister Harper was busy doing things like hosting the G20 in Toronto and the NALS got set aside. Moreover, each meeting since 2005 has gotten shorter, and shorter. Some might say this is a sign of how great things are going in North America. Nonsense.

Relevance of Academia?

This past weekend, Nicolas Kristof reignited a debate over the role of academia in public life (link to NYT Piece). He was particularly scornful of political science for having allowed the discipline's practices to marginalize it from public life. The reaction to Kristof's piece suggests he struck a nerve.

See:
Monkey Cage
politicalviolenceataglance
saideman semi-spew
tompepinsky
coreyrobin

(Thanks to Bob Murray of the Frontier Center for Public Policy for all of these)
 
My broad reaction to all of this is something along the lines of "thou dost protest too much." Kristof's piece struck a nerve with me as well, but mainly because I am in broad agreement with his basic point. As I wrote in my very first blog post (link), the entire point of the IPE Soap Box is driven by the issues raised by the Stephen Walt article I reference there, some of which are touched on by Kristof. Newspaper columns necessarily simplify issues, so I again recommend you check out the Walt piece (link).

However, the nerve touched by Kristof has me thinking about a few things (three) raised by both Kristof and my disciplinary colleagues who have taken him to task.

COOL not so cool?

 Canada has once again been stiffed by the U.S. Congress (see Globe and Mail). On Tuesday last week, the US Congress finally passed the so-called Farm Bill (Text at Library of Congress), one of the more contentious (the latest has been debated for several years) pieces of legislation regularly considered by Congress, but structured in a way that it ultimately wins bi-partisan support. For obvious reasons, the Farm Bill's provisions appeal to legislators from rural agricultural states, but also appeals to urban members because of provision for low-income food stamp programing (nearly 80% of the funds go to these programs) (See analysis in Washington Post here). The remaining 20% of the Farm Bill continues to fund various agricultural support programs, many of which are the subject of vigorous discussion in the context of the Doha Round of WTO negotiations (a subject for a later blog post).

Canadians were interested in this year's Farm Bill for several reasons, among them language regarding so-called Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) that would impose new consumer labeling for a variety of agricultural product entering the U.S., notably beef, pork, and poultry. Ottawa was hoping that some last minute lobbying in Washington would modify the requirements or perhaps eliminate them altogether (see story). Canada may have had a point. Requiring U.S. importers and retailers to apply more consumer information about where beef, pork, and poultry was born, raised, and slaughtered is likely to raise consumer prices. Moreover, the market for these products in North America is so integrated that tracing the travels of cattle, hogs, and chickens as they cross borders at different stages could be challenging. More importantly, Canadian producers are worried that new labeling requirements will be inherently discriminatory. For example, rather than deal with the hassles of labeling compliance for Canadian or Mexican products, American importers and retailers will simply opt to source more of their products from American producers because it will be easier to demonstrate where it came from.

More Keystone....

On Friday, the U.S. Department of State issued it's long-awaited Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The EIS basically concluded that the Keystone XL pipeline would have little discernible impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Predictably, proponents of the pipeline hailed the EIS findings as yet more proof that Keystone is in everyone's interests and that the project should move rapidly toward final approval. Opponents of the project pointed to the fact that the EIS merely triggers the next phase of a process that includes a comment period wherein interested federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), can weigh in.

EPA is important for several reasons. Firstly, it has been reported the EPA is not on side with the findings of the EIS and may challenge some of the assumptions made by State. Secondly, the EPA is poised to become an extremely powerful entity in the Obama Administration's climate change mitigation efforts in the remainder of his second term. The US Supreme Court (Massachusetts v. EPA, 2007) has already ruled that the EPA is obligated to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (1963). Anyone that thinks EPA isn't going to get the green light to do so wasn't watching the President's State of the Union Address. Moreover, President Obama made it very clear that he was prepared to spend the remainder of his second term in pursuit of his agenda with or without the help of Congress. In other words, there will be plenty of executive authority exercised in the next couple of years, some of it undoubtedly controversial. Based on his SOTU (linked here) address touting the virtues of renewables, efficiency, and natural gas as a bridge fuel to those things, I expect climate change to be one of the more contentious areas.

Keystone XL and the American Political System

I just finished watching President Obama's State of the Union speech. I didn't expect him to mention the KeystoneXL pipeline explicitly, but was struck by his comments on American energy policy. I was struck by the emphasis on natural gas as a bridge fuel toward more renewables. I was also struck by his emphasis on the improving efficiency of the United States and his continued commitment to weaning America off of fossil fuels. All of this brings me back to KeystoneXL. Like the softwood lumber dispute of several years ago, KeystoneXL has become a new litmus test of bilateral relations for many Canadians. Alberta's leadership in particular has been desperate for construction of this pipeline to commence in the hope that it will relieve some of the price discount on Alberta bitumen relative to crudes from other jurisdictions.

I have maintained for some time that the pipeline will get built, but not nearly as fast as Canadians would like. In part, the frustration of Canada's political leadership in dealing with the United States stems from differences between the two countries that Canadians DO NOT understand as well as they think. All of this inspired me to write a short piece that appeared in Policy Options almost two years ago (Fall 2012) which has stood the test of time.

It didn't get much attention then because it appeared as an "online extra." Thought I'd post it here on a night when the U.S. system was putting itself on display.

 http://www.irpp.org/en/po/canada-in-the-pacific-century/a-dubious-disbelief/

Whither North America

In early January, American University's Robert Pastor died after a 3 1/2 year battle with cancer. Last week I penned a short OpEd in the Edmonton Journal about it. Newspapers being what they are these days, I had to slash it to 750 words.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Opinion+What+left+North+American+idea/9389663/story.html

Although it is just a rough draft, I thought I'd post the full 1600 word piece here.

Is North America Over?

New Year’s Day 2014 marked the 20^th anniversary of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). About a week later, January 8, Robert Pastor, one of the NAFTA’s fiercest defenders, and one of academia’s most tireless advocates of deeper North American integration, died after a 3 ½ year battle with cancer. To the citizen on the street, Robert Pastor is hardly a household name. Yet, among those in academia or public policy for whom North America was a focus, Robert Pastor’s work could not be ignored. Indeed, for much of the past three decades we have all—academics, politicians, and the general public-- implicitly been debating the merits of his policy prescriptions.

Why This Blog....

This is an experiment I've been meaning to try for several years, but never taken the time to do. Part of it was laziness in figuring out how to actually do it, so apologies for the lack of sophistication here so far (still working on Twitter). However, it was also about making the commitment to actually contribute to such a blog regularly enough to make it worthwhile-- aiming for once a week.

This blog draws its inspiration from a 2005 article by Stephen Walt in the Annual Review of Political Science titled "The Relationship Between Theory and Policy in International Relations." (link) It is a piece that explores the gaps between theory and policy in the study and practice of international relations. Specifically, many of the norms and incentives that confront scholars of IR versus practitioners in government are at odds with each other. Academic debates are too often restricted to the pages of scholarly journals or professional meetings, and frequently communicated in abstract disciplinary jargon unusable to most policy-makers, and inaccessible to the average citizen. The flip-side of that coin is that policy-makers are frequently confronted with multiple time-sensitive problems for which they do not have time to read even the most practically-oriented scholarly advice. Yet, scholarly frames of reference, theory, and analysis can be vitally important in broadly shaping policy outcomes.

Moreover, there is much less cross fertilization between academia and government today than in decades past. There are many reasons for this, among them the institutional imperatives placed on each group of professionals. There is little incentive for academics to effectively suspend their research careers to spend time in government. And universities have not been especially good at bringing senior civil servants, and their experience, into the fold. Those few academics who have spend time in government are most likely to do so only after reaching a level of seniority and prominence that affords them the luxury of a leave of absence to work in government. Harvard's Joseph Nye Jr. (of soft power fame) is a rare exception, having several times taken prominent roles in government or as an adviser to policy-makers.

In many ways, the two camps need each other badly.

This blog is partially aimed at filling this gap with, hopefully, interesting and timely thoughts on international relations, political economy, Canada-U.S. relations and other interests; things that are important, but don't lend themselves to long-form essays or the lengthy peer-review process in the ivory tower.