The economic crisis is now the top US security concern, with a prolonged downturn raising the worldwide risk of “regime-threatening instability,” the US intelligence supremo said on Thursday.
Social unrest in Europe has already highlighted the security risks unleashed by the crisis, and many poorer nations are ill-prepared to cope, US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said.
There is the deeper menace of tit-for-tat trade barriers going up and so “unleashing a wave of destructive protectionism,” the retired admiral told Congress in presenting the US intelligence community’s annual risk assessment.
“The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications,” Blair said in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“Time is probably our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to US strategic interests,” he said.
Blair said about a quarter of the world’s countries, notably in Europe and the former Soviet Union, had already experienced “low-level instability,” including government changes.
While two-thirds of countries have sufficient financial means to limit the impact for now, “much of Latin America, former Soviet Union states and sub-Saharan Africa lack sufficient cash reserves” or access to aid or credit.
“Statistical modeling shows that economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one to two year period,” Blair said.
“Besides increased economic nationalism, the most likely political fallout for US interests will involve allies and friends not being able to fully meet their defense and humanitarian obligations.”
Even fast-growing China and India have taken a hit, Blair said, and much of East Asia cannot export its way back to health as was the case in the region’s 1997 to 1998 crisis, because the crisis today is so widespread.
“Indeed, policies designed to promote domestic export industries — so-called beggar-thy-neighbor policies such as competitive currency devaluations, import tariffs, and/or export subsidies — risk unleashing a wave of destructive protectionism,” he cautioned.
US economic leadership is under threat given the widely held view that excesses by Wall Street and inadequate regulation from Washington were to blame for the global crisis.
“It already has increased questioning of US stewardship of the global economy and the international financial structure,” Blair said, with trading partners already upset over a “Buy American” provision in a US stimulus bill.
One geopolitical beneficiary could be China, he said, if Beijing “can exert a stabilizing influence by maintaining strong import growth and not letting its currency slide.”
But the economic crisis also gives opportunities for renewed US leadership in international forums such as the WTO and the G20 club of rich and developing nations.
“The US tradition of openness, developed skills and mobility probably puts it in a better position to reinvent itself,” the US intelligence chief said.
Global coordination is essential to rebuild trust in the financial system and to ensure that the crisis does “not spiral into broader geopolitical tensions,” he said.
The steep fall in oil prices triggered by the worldwide slowdown could lead to a “serious supply crunch” if crude producers choke off investment, Blair said.
But it could also “put the squeeze on the adventurism of producers like Iran and Venezuela.”
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS