■"India keen to lure Russian oil investment," by Sujata Rao, Reuters, 21 February 2005, pulled off the web by reader Tom Walsh.
■"China's Oil Diplomacy in Latin America: Deals With Venezuela Include Offers of Needed Development Aid," by Juan Forero, New York Times, 1 March 2005, p. C6.
■"All Quiet on the Eastern Front?" op-ed by , New York Times, 1 March 2005, p. A1.
■"U.S. Loans for Reactors In China Draw Objections: A $5 billion aid package would assist a British-owned firm," by Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, 28 February 2005, p. C5.
The Indians want Russian help on oil and gas, and China's going to fund some development work in Venezuela to get at its oil.
Get used to such diplomacy. India imports 70% of its energy needs, and China's percentage will skyrocket in coming years. There is money to be made, and companies will make it. Cairn Energy of Scotland has tripled it market capitalization after making a number of new strikes off India's shore. We had the CEO of Cairns at one of our New Rule Sets workshops atop World Trade Center one before 9/11, and listening to that guy talk about India was to realize where the energy trade was going. We're talking almost 4 out of every ten humans on the planet: India and China. They join the Core and it's Katie-bar-the-door on energy.
Will that reshape some global diplomacy? Will that reshape some political alignments and security relationships? You bet. We can either use it to our advantage, exploiting the connectivity it creates, or we can increasingly look upon these states as obstructionists, complicating factors and the like. But whatever we choose, this train has left the station.
Why aren't we seeing the strategic opportunities in Asia? Francis Fukuyama says it's because of "the compartmentalization of decision-making in Washington between economic and security specialists." Ah, that old military-market nexus. So he warns: "The exigencies of Iraq and the war on terrorism must not blind us to the fact that China's rise will likely be the biggest geopolitical development of this generation."
As Gary Hufbauer, another alumni of the Cantor-War College economic exercises atop World Trade Center one, says regarding a contentious effort to support a Westinghouse bid to China for four huge nuclear reactors, "the choice is, as this case illustrates, not between 100 percent U.S. and 100 percent U.S.; it's between 50 percent U.S. and no percent at all."
Gary was talking about how Westinghouse's bid involves it deeply with a British firm, but he could have been talking about U.S. grand strategy in the years ahead. It isn't how we keep global domination 100% American, but whether we want our 50% or not.
Fukuyama ends his op-ed with the question: "We need to think seriously whether the political structures left over from the Cold War will be adequate to this task, and be creative in devising new ones."
Hmmmm. I'm feeling better about PNM-II by the day. . .
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