Are We headed into a new Cold War

[GregBurch]

Which is still interesting, as Khrushchev was clearly the least dogmatic of all USSR leaders. He just knew how to make the tail wag the dog.

Agreed, and a great irony of history. I suspect he felt pressure from hard-liners to seem publicly tough against the West, and after his first meeting with Kennedy, believed he was up against a light-weight. Thus one of the worst crises of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

[SiberianTiger]

If there is a new Cold War, it will last until the US has achieved energy independence.

Can't see your point. How much energy does USA buy from Russia? USA seems to be quite an unsignificant export partner for Russia - at least less significant than most of the European countries.

 

[GregBurch]

Can't see your point. How much energy does USA buy from Russia? USA seems to be quite an unsignificant export partner for Russia - at least less significant than most of the European countries.

It's a global oil market. The US's dependence on foreign oil keeps the price high, which puts money into Putin's coffers. If we can generate our own energy, the price will go down substantially. And if we can do it, others can.

 

[SiberianTiger]

It's a global oil market. The US's dependence on foreign oil keeps the price high, which puts money into Putin's coffers. If we can generate our own energy, the price will go down substantially. And if we can do it, others can.

Okay, just don't forget to warn us one day before you stop needing more oil, and we will diversify our economy here too, in a blink of eye. :beach:

 

[GregBurch]

Okay, just don't forget to warn us one day before you stop needing more oil, and we will diversify our economy here too, in a blink of eye. :beach:

Well, don't hold your breath. Right now, what passes for "leadership" on the issue in America involves the two presidential candidates mumbling about things that might make people feel good for a few days (McCain's gas tax holiday, Obama's "let's do it green" theme), but neither has sucked it up and said we have to build lots and lots of nukes, and change the way we build nukes to do it. McCain's SLIGHTLY better than Obama on this issue (Obama's scared of alienating his left/green base with their terror of nuclear energy), but in my opinion McCain is missing a huge political opportunity by not making it the number one issue in his campaign and pushing a massive nuke/electric car program.

 

[Linguofreak]

By "nukes", you're refering to nuclear reactors, not nuclear bombs, right?

In any case, on the power-generation front, yes, building nuclear power plants would help alot. But finding alternative fuels for electrical generation is the easy part. Transportation is where finding alternative fuels becomes really nasty. Fixed installations have options that vehicles, especially personal vehicles, don't. Electric vehicles do help deal with this somewhat by using grid power (either stored in the case of electric cars, or taken directly from the grid in the case of trains), but there are tradeoffs. Pure electric cars tend to be short legged, because batteries tend not to have good energy densities. Plug-in hybrids deal with the range problem, but don't wean you completely off of oil for long trips. Electric trains don't have problems with range or fossil fuel dependency, but are stuck to fixed routes, so they aren't good as personal vehicles. (Changes in American culture and urban layouts could help by reducing the importance of personal vehicles, but making those changes is easier said than done).

Despite the preceding comment about it being more easily said than done, I actually do prefer the electric train route. I was quite impressed, upon visiting Europe 2 years ago, with how easy it was to get around using only the trains and my two feet.

 

[Andy44]

I'm curious about the whole "energy independence" thing. How would this prevent war, hot or cold? People found lots of excuses to conquer each other before the industrial era and oil refining. Oil is just the current "macguffin" in the game of power.

The idea of being energy independent is counter to the principles of free market capitalism, is it not? You buy your energy like you buy everything else, from whomever has the best price and reliability. We buy Japanese cars because they are cheap and reliable. We don't buy American oil because currently we don't pump enough to keep up with the Arabs and others (perhaps due to government interference?).

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for nuclear power personally, I like the way France didn't send troops to Iraq. But I don't think France (currently) has the instinctual obsession with garrisoning the planet and democratizing everything that walks that the U.S. does. I think meddling in others' affairs while trying to build some sort of socialist "energy plan" (which is what all this energy independence stuff eventually boils down to) is the opposite of good sense.

 

[GregBurch]

By "nukes", you're refering to nuclear reactors, not nuclear bombs, right?

Sorry -- yes -- I meant nuclear reactors. In context, that was an extremely poor choice of words on my part!

In any case, on the power-generation front, yes, building nuclear power plants would help alot. But finding alternative fuels for electrical generation is the easy part. Transportation is where finding alternative fuels becomes really nasty. Fixed installations have options that vehicles, especially personal vehicles, don't. Electric vehicles do help deal with this somewhat by using grid power (either stored in the case of electric cars, or taken directly from the grid in the case of trains), but there are tradeoffs. Pure electric cars tend to be short legged, because batteries tend not to have good energy densities. Plug-in hybrids deal with the range problem, but don't wean you completely off of oil for long trips. Electric trains don't have problems with range or fossil fuel dependency, but are stuck to fixed routes, so they aren't good as personal vehicles. (Changes in American culture and urban layouts could help by reducing the importance of personal vehicles, but making those changes is easier said than done).

Despite the preceding comment about it being more easily said than done, I actually do prefer the electric train route. I was quite impressed, upon visiting Europe 2 years ago, with how easy it was to get around using only the trains and my two feet.

We're on the cusp of an electric car revolution. There are two excellent pure electirc cars very close to market:

http://www.teslamotors.com/
http://www.aptera.com/

that both have ranges well over 100 miles. Behind them are three or four more that are only about a year more away from market. I think that 100+ mile range will prove to be a major tipping point for pure electrics. I drive a lot, and a car with that range would satisfy 90% of my needs. Given that most American families have, on average, more than two cars, replacing the one with the highest usage with an all-electric would make a major dent in our oil consumption for transportation.

As for trains, well, I have an opinion about that (big surprise):

http://www.gregburch.net/cars/plans.html

I'm curious about the whole "energy independence" thing. How would this prevent war, hot or cold? People found lots of excuses to conquer each other before the industrial era and oil refining. Oil is just the current "macguffin" in the game of power.

The idea of being energy independent is counter to the principles of free market capitalism, is it not? You buy your energy like you buy everything else, from whomever has the best price and reliability. We buy Japanese cars because they are cheap and reliable. We don't buy American oil because currently we don't pump enough to keep up with the Arabs and others (perhaps due to government interference?).

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for nuclear power personally, I like the way France didn't send troops to Iraq. But I don't think France (currently) has the instinctual obsession with garrisoning the planet and democratizing everything that walks that the U.S. does. I think meddling in others' affairs while trying to build some sort of socialist "energy plan" (which is what all this energy independence stuff eventually boils down to) is the opposite of good sense.

Thinking about energy has been one of the major causes of an alteration in my political thinking. Ten years ago, I was as pure an anarcho-capitalist libertarian as you are, Andy. But no more. I still hold those principles, but I now realize that the world isn't ready for them, because they are premised on a kind of world-wide social order that simply doesn't exist. When major players in the game don't follow the rules, it doesn't make sense to keep playing the game.

That doesn't mean I've completely abandoned my libertarian principles. It just means that I don't think they can be applied without condition where there isn't a sufficiently large number of actors in a particular market or polity that recognize those same principles.

Fully explaining my meaning on this fundamentally important point would probably take a book, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I'm not sure 'cold war' is the best way to describe it, but yes. Having been on opposite sides of the coin so long, I don't think either side is wholly comfortable just tossing down the guns and getting chummy with the other side.

Western (and in particular, US) attitudes to Russia have been to blame for this. We have approached Russia with the attitude that they were the 'loser' of the last cold war, a lesser power to be pitied. Given the economic conditions after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the understanding that the degree to which the west will listen to Russia is in direct proportion to their military strength, it makes complete sense that someone like Putin would come along and do all he could to bolster Russia's military power and to flex it. Socially and economically, how could any Russian leader afford to do otherwise? It is somewhat analogous to the position of Germany after WWI - the humiliations inflicted and the isolation imposed made radical nationalism and rearmament all but a foregone conclusion.

Certainly the fact that NATO never really stood down, and these missile defense systems are just as readily arrayed against Russia as Iran, then of course Russia should feel threatened.

The only way to avoid this cold war is to get Russia involved, and to respect their position. NATO needs to be ditched - it is Russia's 'enemy'. Another defensive alliance needs to be developed that puts Russia under the same umbrella. It means understanding Russia's concerns for it's economy and access to energy. It means really putting old rivalries aside and trusting - something that may be impossible for our leaders. This is part of the reason I am not a McCain fan - I think he is a cold warrior and he just can't possibly consider Russia as anything other than an antagonist.

 

[Andy44]

No entangling alliances.

 

[GregBurch]

No entangling alliances.

... good advice from a very wise man ... in 1796.

 

[simonpro]

Sorry -- yes -- I meant nuclear reactors. In context, that was an extremely poor choice of words on my part!

Are you aware of where the vast majority (47%) of Uranium used in the USA comes from?


It's Russia.

There are some areas of nuclear material production in which the USA produces a grand total of 0kg/year, it imports everything (mostly to do with spacecraft power sources, but other areas too). Russia has a virtual monopoly on these areas and is free to charge whatever it wants.
If US submarines were ever to fire missiles towards Russia it'd be a final irony that those submarines, in most likelihood, were powered by Russian uranium.


Btw, your page here is very misleading: http://www.gregburch.net/cars/plans.html

The US does not have cleaner air in cities than the majority of European cities, and even on average it still has dirtier air than all the Scandinavian countries and (somehow) Romania, as defined in the recent (2006) EU survey on the subject.

 

[GregBurch]

Are you aware of where the vast majority (47%) of Uranium used in the USA comes from?


It's Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_market :

but beyond that, as I've written here before, I'm an advocate of swift development of thorium reactor technology.

Btw, your page here is very misleading: http://www.gregburch.net/cars/plans.html

The US does not have cleaner air in cities than the majority of European cities, and even on average it still has dirtier air than all the Scandinavian countries and (somehow) Romania, as defined in the recent (2006) EU survey on the subject.

A couple of minutes' searching did not reveal a chart comparable to the one I used back in 2003 when I wrote that piece. I don't doubt things have changed since then. One of the major factors changing the numbers will have been the adoption of unleaded gasoline in the last decade across Europe.

But I stand by the more important point of my little essay, which is that commuter trains are not necessarily a superior solution to transportation issues in the US.

 

[Andy44]

Well, at the risk of straying farther off topic, I've done some thinking about the train issue, being a railfan myself, and it's ocurred to me that the best system of rapid transit for the U.S. would be buses, not trains. Trains were a great idea 50 years ago when you couldn't walk 2 blocks without crossing a railroad track in the U.S., but the heavy subsidizing of the road network by the federal and state governments resulted in the railroad industry nearly going bankrupt in the 1960s. Since then, the railroads wisely dumped their passenger business off on Amtrak* and have consolidated their lines into very profitable high-volume freight service, using major long distance trunk lines. There is almost no profit in transporting passengers at all. And since so many rail lines have been deactivated and paved or built over into high-value real estate, there isn't much chance of rebuilding those lost local networks without huge cost.

Buses, on the other hand benefit from the subsidized road network already in place and maintained by government funds. Do a google on Chinatown Bus to see just how cheap it can be to travel from city to city in the US via bus. Only problem is nobody likes buses, least of all the train-loving yuppies who push for all these lossy light rail systems.


-----Posted Added-----


*Amtrak, of course, was created by the federal government, and is a complete waste of money, as expected, but at least it's a nice way to travel. The common carrier railroads in the U.S. are completely private, including the railroad tracks themselves, but the federal government required these companies to provide passenger service, no matter the loss or profit. Amtrak was a deal by the government to let the failing railroad companies shed their losing pasenger business by giving it to Amtrak.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

No entangling alliances.

I don't know about entangling alliances, but I think it better to at least engage Russia as an equal, and stop behaving as if the cold war is still being fought. The missile shield is a throwback to Reagan's cold war doctrine - we now say it is to protect against Iran and others, but why should Russia believe that? There is no compelling need for a missile shield as any nation foolish enough to use an ICBM against the west or Russia would be a puddle of molten glass within half an hour. The only arguable reason for a missile shield is to disrupt the idea of mutually assured destruction, and to make a nuclear attack with impunity. I am sure this is how Russia sees it, and for every nation that signs on to the missile defense deal, the sooner we come to a time where Russia must act militarily to protect itself.

 

[Linguofreak]

As for trains, well, I have an opinion about that (big surprise):

http://www.gregburch.net/cars/plans.html

Which pretty much matches my analysis of the potential problems with rail, except with a different estimate of the overcomability of those problems.

 

[pattersoncr]

I don't know about entangling alliances, but I think it better to at least engage Russia as an equal, and stop behaving as if the cold war is still being fought. The missile shield is a throwback to Reagan's cold war doctrine - we now say it is to protect against Iran and others, but why should Russia believe that? There is no compelling need for a missile shield as any nation foolish enough to use an ICBM against the west or Russia would be a puddle of molten glass within half an hour. The only arguable reason for a missile shield is to disrupt the idea of mutually assured destruction, and to make a nuclear attack with impunity. I am sure this is how Russia sees it, and for every nation that signs on to the missile defense deal, the sooner we come to a time where Russia must act militarily to protect itself.

The US's TBMD (Theater ballistic missile defense) ability is not the "Missile Shield" you seem to credit it with being. It's not SDI. It does not have the ability to stop the sort of massive volume of fire that the Russians would be able to lay down if they really wanted. On the other hand, if you want to knock out the handfull of missles that one of the world problem children (I'm not going to name any names here but their names start with I and NK) could put in the air then that's a different story. In other words, TBMD is not a threat against Russia and is not intended to be since the Russians could easily overwhelm the systems capabilities. The Russians, being smart enough to know this, still like to use TBMD as a subject they can pressure the US and NATO about.

 

[Andy44]

Let's not have any illusions about missile defense. The party line about it being for "rogue nations" is just to make it publicly acceptable in the near term, and to give it a chance to develop into a real missile shield capable of taking on the big guys, like Russia and China.

Not that I have a problem with the idea of protecting my country from nuclear annihilation, mind you, I just don't like the BS we're being fed. I just can't imagine the government would spend so much money on a system that can only shoot down at most a handful of warheads. Not to mention slighting Russia by blowing off the ABM treaty, which cost the US diplomatic capital.

The problem with missile shields is tangled up in game theory. Morally, there is nothing wrong with a purley defensive system, taken in isolation. But when the user of that defensive system is also armed with massive offensive capablity, it's a different story, because all the potential target people wonder if the shield will be used to make an attack with near impunity. So the theory is that M.A.D. is actually a better idea than defenses.

I guess you have to decide which version of insanity you'd like to live in. I would prefer to live on the Moon, but for now I'll have to settle for Orbiter.


-----Posted Added-----


And TBMD, BTW, is not for "rogue nation" defense, but for defending deployed forces from a full-scale attack from theatre missiles, such as advanced Scuds with precision guidance and nuke warheads, just one of which could seriously threaten a carrier task force.

 

[Urwumpe]

The next problem with Missile Defense is that you enter a new pace of an arms race. You already have decoys, now the amount of decoys will grow, the decoys will become better, etc. And why decoys? Because defense systems always existed in development. The Russians had even an operational system for defense of Moscow.

Also, the best way against ABM systems is always the MIRV technology. And you can be sure, when the US violate the ABM treaty, it will not take long until the SALT treaties are obsolete and rockets can carry their full load of warheads again. Or bigger rockets.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

The US's TBMD (Theater ballistic missile defense) ability is not the "Missile Shield" you seem to credit it with being. It's not SDI.

True, it's not SDI, not yet...Once we sign all the land deals and make base installations and start making upgrades, who knows what it could develop into? It means that, if Russia is smart, it must kill the eggs in the nest before it becomes an insuperable SDI array. Poland put itself in very grave danger of attack - maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Diplomacy has yet to run it's course.

SDI disrupts the power balance significantly, and it creates a need for pre-emptive action. It is far better to live as strong equals who know they could simultaneously kill each other if they wished, but know it would be a losing fight no matter who struck first. It also permits diplomatic discussions where armaments can slowly be whittled down on either side - so long as it is done slowly, with free confirmation, and at a rate that prevents one side from ever being stronger than the other, it could be done. Before Reagan and SDI, this was being accomplished with the ABM and SALT agreements.