Long View – Oil Policy – Strategic Vulnerability?

The Power of Four Dollars, By Charles Krauthammer Townhall.com, June 6, 2008.

At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up, and, while complaining profusely, keep driving like crazy. At $4, it is a world transformed.

The wholesale flight from gas guzzlers is stunning in its swiftness, but utterly predictable.

Unfortunately, instead of hiking the price ourselves by means of a gasoline tax that could be instantly refunded to the American people in the form of lower payroll taxes, we let the Saudis, Venezuelans, Russians and Iranians do the taxing for us — and pocket the money that the tax would have recycled back to the American worker.

Building a 300 room hotel in 20 weeks

WEBLOG: Remember when Sears and Roebuck sold you a house-in-a-box? by Thomas P.M. Barnett on June 2, 2008.

Posting is in reference to the article: “Arriving in London: Hotels Made in China,” by Fred A. Bernstein, New York Times, 11 May 2008, p. BU19.

Verbus Systems, a London-based company that builds rooms in metal containers in factories near Shenzhen, China, and delivers them ready to be stacked into buildings up to 16 stories tall.

Verbus Systems’ commercial director, Paul Rollett, said his company “can build a 300-room hotel anywhere on the planet in 20 weeks.”

Innovative adaptation of an “old” technology.

Air Force Synthetic Fuels – Challenges

Air Force To Perform First Supersonic Flight Using Synthetic Fuel Blend, By Katherine McIntire Peters, GovExec.com, March 18, 2008

A key hurdle for the Air Force and other potential users of synthetic fuel is likely to be the production process itself, which now generates more greenhouse gases than conventional petroleum refining.

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which President Bush signed into law last December, prohibits federal agencies from purchasing alternative fuels that generate more greenhouse gases over the course of their lifecycle than conventional petroleum fuels. Some House lawmakers now want to overturn the provision, contained in section 526, because it could limit Defense Department fuel purchases in the future.

Air Force and DARPA — Energy independence?

Air Force Certifies B-52H Bomber Fleet To Use Synthetic Fuels, Inside The Air Force, — John Liang, August 10, 2007, Pg. 4

Alternative energy and conservation efforts undertaken by the Air Force could have a major impact on the renewable and sustainability marketplace because the military is a major purchaser of energy technology and fuels. Moreover, the efforts could reshape national priorities about reducing reliance on foreign energy supplies as a matter of national security.

Wynne said his service, with the help of DARPA, had developed a process to qualify alternative fuels in its aircraft fleet.

I was looking for some good news regarding the potential for alternative energy sources. Air Force is the largest consumer of oil in the federal government and the Secretary of the Air Force has emphasized the need for clean alternatives to petroleum-based fuels.

Managing the Financial Cost of War

ARTICLE: For Defense, Crunching The Numbers Is Half The Battle
(Washington Post)…Stephen Barr, May 12, 2008 , Pg. D1

…From her Pentagon office, Jonas is responsible for the department’s financial management policies, the computer systems that track $3.4 trillion in assets and liabilities, an annual budget of more than $600 billion and efforts to modernize business practices.

Jonas also has moved to cut operating overhead. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which once had 22,000 employees, is down to 13,000 and will shrink to 7,000. With the reductions and improvements in technology, the department has saved $500 million in operating costs.

Such savings “in the back office,” Jonas said, make millions of dollars available for the armed forces. “It matters to the soldiers, it matters to the Marines, it matters to the airmen, it matters to the sailors, and all their families and all our defense workers whether or not we are efficient.

“So at least we are trying to change the culture, and we think we’ve made some good progress.”

Cost of War … two sides of the issue

EDITORIAL: The Price Of War? Obscuring the debate with fuzzy math.
(Washington Times)…Chris Duquette, May 9, 2008, pg. 21

Editorial provided a counter argument to economist Joseph Stiglitz, author of the book: “The Three-Trillion Dollar War”, that the war is the cause of our recession, contributed to the increase in the cost of war, and added to our national debt.

Editorial provides more facts on the debate: Rise in oil prices can be attributed to global demand and the weakening dollar. We are not in a recession as defined as two straight quarters of negative economic growth , and regarding debt, relative to an annual U.S. GDP of $14 trillion, the war is not unaffordable.

Food and Security

ARTICLE: Mullen Directs DOD To Assess Security Impacts Of Global Food Crisis, Inside The Pentagon…Jason Sherman, May 8, 2008, pg.1

The Pentagon’s top officer has directed his staff to size up the national security implications of what many experts believe is a global food crisis, the latest development in a wider push by Defense Department planners to increasingly factor non-military dynamics with the potential to disrupt international order into contingency plans.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week directed the Joint Staff to examine whether the recent spike in the prices of food staples like wheat, corn, soy and rice, which some food aid experts warn could trigger unrest around the world, presents a challenge the Pentagon should consider, according to military sources.

Reinforces the importance of systems or strategic thinking, e.g., changes in one area can contribute to effects on others.

Wild Cards – National Power

ARTICLE: Where The Wild Cards Are (Washington Post)…David Ignatius, May 8, 2008
Pg. 23

The potentially transforming events in the 2008 campaign are matters of war and peace. Both may be in play between now and November, in ways that add extra volatility to the presidential race. Let’s start with war: The United States is already fighting two of them, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But judging from recent statements by administration officials, there is also a small, but growing, chance of conflict with Iran.

The 2008 campaign has been so mesmerizing that it’s easy to forget what’s going on out in the real world that could disrupt, once again, the certitudes of the pollsters and strategists. The campaign in recent weeks has focused on pocketbook issues because of worries about a deep recession. But as these economic anxieties fade a bit, we are likely to return to the ground zero of the Middle East, and to the themes of war and peace that will be interwoven through the remainder of this campaign.

What Price Freedom?

Washington Times, August 16, 2008, Lawrence Kudlow “Having failed to puncture Gen. David Petraeus’ story about great improvements on the ground in Iraq, liberals now say the cost of the Iraq war has somehow undermined the economy – even caused the current slowdown. What complete nonsense.”

Kudlow, who is host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and a syndicated columnist, provides economic facts that the economy has not been harmed. Total cost of the war is estimated at 1% of GDP and with projected troop cuts, total cost would be half of one percent of GDP. Real GDP has increased by 16%, unemployment has been below 5%, and industrial production expanded by 13.5 percent. He raises some good questions about the costs of not going to war. Has the war helped to prevent additional terrorists attacks in the U.S.? How much would it have cost to contain Saddam Hussein?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/ what_price_freedom.html