Perhaps the Emperor Needs Clothes...

For the last, uh, ten years, my satorial choices for Halloween have generally involved donning a suit and sunglasses. This stylistic strategy has worked wonders for me; it leads many people to "guess" what I'm dressed up as (in high school, normal responses included "a mobster" and "one of the Blues Brothers." Post-the Matrix, they mostly shifted to "an Agent" or "those computer dudes from The Matrix").

This year, perhaps, I will try something different. I'm not a big fan of creative, fancy, or complicated costumes. They require money, effort, and time. Putting on a suit I already owned essentially did this for me without requiring money, effort, or time.

And such, I feel I should do something similar this year. I thought about going as Keith Richards, because I have his ears and nose, but I'd need to buy a wig for that and somehow create lots of wrinkles on my boyish face (ugh!). Indeed, ugh to that.

Instead, my current best idea is to put some fake 'tats' on my fingers, put on a skull cap I already own, put on a guitar I already own, and go as The Edge.

But I wonder if anyone will get it unless I label myself somehow... like a big "U2" sign on my back. Hmmm...


Edit: Well, The Edge costume went alright after all! I had to tell most people who I was dressed up as, but afterwards everything went alright ("You really do look like The Edge!").

Sep didn't get any good pictures of me, but here's two... please note that the facial hair is my own facial hair covered in a lot of black makeup. I am not actually this scuzzy.

The More Security You Have, The More You Will Need

Subtitle: A Little Bit About My Research

Here's what I've been doing all night -- a slide on Canadian perceptions of the War on Terror for Dr. Frank Harvey, who presented his CDFAI thesis "The Homeland Security Dilemma: The Imagination of Failure and the Escalating Cost of Perfecting Security" (pdf) in Ottawa this morning. The slide was laboriously constructed as per the directions given in his email, which I received on Wednesday, after I enquired about when he'd need a slide by:

Hi Chris,

I'll need the slide by tomorrow if at all possible (I leave for CASIS Thursday
evening). Just need some recent polling trends on terrorism. The Afghanistan
polling can wait for now.

Frank

Yes, we academics like to live on the edge. *Cough* This is a preliminary slide, even though it took me about ten hours to make.

Drum roll:



Explanation: the red line represents support for Canada's operation in Afghanistan (insofar as it pertains to the War on Terror); the blue line represents the "yes" side of a question involving whether or not a terrorist attack in Canada is imminent; and the yellow line represents public opinion regarding our government's preparedness in fighting the War on Terror (this is inclusive of border security) -- i.e., a "positive" response here indicates that we should do more to be prepared.

The timeline begins just after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York and ends in September, 2006.

The graph shows that opinion of Afghanistan has been declining while opinion of the seriousness of a terrorist threat has been increasing. If we juxtaposed this graph with Canadian defence spending (counter-terrorism and non), we'd see a four-headed hydra forming: defence spending goes up -- but public support for Afghanistan goes down, public belief that we will be attacked by terrorists goes up, and the number of Canadians who believe we should do more to be prepared remains the same, with some fluctuation.

The question: where do you draw the line on counter-terrorism spending? And what do you do if you draw the line and are attacked afterward?

再见。

Where Art Thou, O Uncovered Meat?

If I were to eat a meal and don an "Aristotle" hat sometime afterward, it would not be unreasonable for me to conclude that the more opaque food is, the less of it I can eat -- and the more of it my stomach must bequeath great efforts to digest.

(Bear with me here; evidence suggests that the importance of opacity in cuisine is near-universal. For example, Jello and bluefin tuna, prized by bon vivants for smooth texture and fat content, are both greatly cherished in completely unrelated spheres of gastronomy.)

The same could be said of the world of drink, wherein apple juice is easier to consume in large quantities than milk or even, say, orange juice. Milk butter or a thick brand of eggnog, furthermore, cannot be consumed in the same wanton amounts as chocolate milk, lest the toilet cease to be found wanting.

(The more adventurous dipsomaniacs among you will know that while red wine makes for an intoxicant midnight companion, white is easier to drink than red; likewise, a yard of Guinness is more difficult to put down than a yard of light ale; and Kahlua, for various reasons that should be obvious by now, must really be avoided altogether).

Food and drink aside, I do not believe the same goes for human beings.

Magister Mundi Sum

For the last few weeks, my primary occupation in and around Halifax's various watering holes and thinking establishments has been something along the lines of "The go-to-guy on North Korea." I have no qualms with this "occupation," especially given that I spent the better part of last year studying the Korean dilemma, and, aside from a thesis that was read by a handful of people, most of the work I did would otherwise never escape the cavernous hollows that are so beholden to the interior of my skull.

But I am not all about Mr. Kim and his nuclear aspirations. In fact, the one issue that has attracted most of my hollow scholarly attention over the last three or four years is post-secondary education. I've covered it as a journalist, written about it in classes, and, of course, paid for it in tuition. Compared to North Korea, East Asia, nonproliferation, or post-modern discourses, PSE is a fairly simple subject. And thus my head, being the echo-ey place that is, does well when confronted with such simplicity.

Along with my a few of my colleagues, I graduated from Dalhousie University this weekend with a Master of Arts in Political Science. I am proud to receive such an honour. But, to put it bluntly, I ended up doing an MA at Dal by near-coincidence: in the last year of my undergrad, I won an editorship at The Dalhousie Gazette as the student newspaper's lonely copy editor. Faced with the decision between getting paid about $5,000 to be a copy editor at a student newspaper, or taking my chances and possibly making significantly more to be a "real reporter" somewhere else, most of you would probably guess that I chose the latter but simply didn't get anywhere. On the contrary, I specifically chose the former -- more poverty, more student journalism, and more status-quo comfort as an enrolled full-time student (this was a prerequisite for the job) -- dashing my hopes of being a "real" journalist after my BJH.

Why the hell did I do that?

The answer is compound, but to be completely honest, I enjoy copy editing. A lot. And while I enjoy reporting and writing as well, in 2004 I had no desire to jump off to a rural community newspaper and become a media workhorse. I didn't really have the stuff it takes to make it big in print journalism, big like The Globe and Mail or Maclean's, and I didn't want to get stuck on some backdesk beat job, either.

Instead, I convinced the Dal Political Science Department to take me on as an MA student, even though my undergraduate degree was in journalism and my existing marks weren't up to "as good a snuff" as they may have wanted. At the time, I liked political science, but I thought it was a bit of a loony, separated-from-reality discipline.

(A lot of it is, by the way, especially in International Relations).

Two years later, however, I've both kept up with student journalism and become somewhat of a tweed-jacket-wearing "real academic" -- or, at least, I've turned into someone who sees a whole load of opportunity in political science as a discipline. A future PhD is in my cards — but so is writing for a magazine (hmmm... perhaps Foreign Policy?). My journalism background makes me vomit a little anytime I think of working for the man in some cubicle somewhere, so I've almost ruled out a life in the public service. A life as a public intellectual, however, would suit me just fine, provided someone eventually cares about what I say.

(As a matter of record, I am fully prepared to die unknown and hated by all, so long as the incidence of my demise is accidental and quick. On another aside, I am very attracted by the prospect of working on Parliament Hill, or helping out with an election campaign. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, this means I'd have to finally reveal myself as someone who usually votes one way or another... by... well, working FOR a political party. Not yet, I don't think... Non-partisan to the end...)

I digress. As you might imagine, there is a fair amount of overlap between what journalists do and what political scientists study. And no subject has coincided more with my own education than post-secondary education funding in Canada.

Hence the topic, and title, of this post. I am a 'master of the universe' by degree, but that universe that finds itself thinner and poorer in the east and thicker and richer in the west. In other words, Canadian PSE funding is in dire need of reform because it is lopsided all across this country. PSE reform is precisely why I jumped on the Michael Ignatieff bandwagon a while ago -- he said something to the effect of wanting to make PSE funding follow students across provinces, rather than stay in one province, where the funding for PSE is based on total population. And while "saying something" is not much, it's better than saying nothing at all on the matter.

In essence, a per-student PSE funding formula revamp would make Dalhousie University rich, and perhaps make my degree worth more to those that read Maclean's or the Times Higher Education survey. Universities such as UBC, UCal and UofA do well under current funding formulas because they operate in provinces with "profitable" student-per-capita ratios. Universities like my alma mater, The University of King's College, or Dal, do not do so well, mostly because Nova Scotia has far more students per capita than the national average. It's a bit of complicated scenario to explain to kids from Quebec or B.C. who ask "what? What do you mean N.S. universities are unfairly disadvantaged on a whole number of levels? I thought you bluenosers were just poor!"

(It is, but this is hardly the only crux in the problem!)

In any case, the fine folks at The Dalhousie Gazette (my real alma mater, I suppose) let me take up a whole page of theirs so I could throw a bit of my weight around -- in a news-reporting format, of course (I'm shy of 150lbs, so what did you expect?). Thanks to Liberal Party luminary Devin Maxwell for already linking this on his blog. Here she blows:

University consolidation a hard sell

It was once called ‘rationalization.’ Now it’s called ‘consolidation.’ But no matter the dressing, the idea is the same: Nova Scotia's universities should be downsized so that they become more financially viable. It's politically difficult to implement -- but it may make Nova Scotia universities more competitive.

Chris LaRoche
Special to The Gazette

On the surface, Peter Marshall Butler is not a man you’d expect to be an expert on Nova Scotia’s university infrastructure. A quick glance at his recent publications doesn’t reveal as much. But the Dalhousie sociology professor, who specializes in political behaviour and methodology, acted as an adviser to the provincial Department of Education between 1980 and 1991. And, among the issues he dealt with, the prospect of merging Nova Scotia’s universities was a big one.

“My job, primarily, was to be the person on hand in the government who assessed the way in which the universities could be rationalized,” says Butler.

“When I came in, the issue was all about a shortage of money… we had more universities than Nova Scotia could afford.”

The reasoning behind university rationalization, Butler says, is that overlap in the Nova Scotia university system makes the province’s universities less cost effective — and therefore less competitive — than larger systems with fewer universities. Essentially, economies of scale play a large role in determining how effective university departments are. Nova Scotia, endowed with many small universities offering many of the same degrees, is bound to have a lot of overlap.

During Butler’s years, cuts in the federal government’s transfer payments to the provinces turned the N.S. government’s attention to reducing overlap in post-secondary education, culminating in a Royal Commission report tabled in 1986, says Butler. In a province with more students per capita than any other, and therefore with much less money to spend per student, these cuts made a big difference.

“In the 80’s, we certainly weren’t flush with money,” he says. “And there was no doubt that what [the government] wanted to do was deal with questions of amalgamating bits of Nova Scotia post-secondary education.”

Under Butler’s watch, the N.S. government divvied up various university departments between post-secondary institutions across the province, sometimes closing entire universities. This was the case when the Atlantic Institute of Education, which offered education degrees, was broken up, its degree-granting powers distributed to Mount St. Vincent, Saint Mary’s and Dalhousie. This was also the case when the Technical University of Nova Scotia merged with Dalhousie University in 1997, creating DalTech.

And this may be the case again. During a Sept. 21 press conference, N.S. Education Minister Karen Casey said her government might push universities toward further “consolidating” their administrations or programs if enrolment in N.S. post-secondary institutions continues to decline.

Although David Finch, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, later told The Gazette that talk of future consolidation is still “very preliminary,” some ideas he mentioned included collapsing each university’s admissions department into a central office and further re-allocating departments within the university system.

“Maybe every university doesn’t have to have a Bachelor of Arts English program,” says Finch. “It would make more sense for three universities to have full English programs, as opposed to five universities with two-thirds of a program each.”

Provincial universities are already strapped for cash because federal funding for education is based on a per-capita formula — and Nova Scotia, with less than a million residents but 11 small-to-medium-sized universities, has far more students per capita than any other province in Canada.

Politically difficult

But while university consolidation in the province could improve its PSE infrastructure from a financial standpoint, it is “a very, very difficult thing to do,” Butler says, pointing out that a major barrier to university consolidation is university constituencies. Mount St. Vincent University, Université St. Anne and Cape Breton University all act as community centres, Butler says — and attempting to amalgamate portions of these institutions with other universities or close them completely was, and is, politically difficult.

“What do you do about a very small place, Université St. Anne, that is culturally and politically symbolic?” Butler asks. “Nobody has a particular axe to grind [with downsizing] these institutions.”

Small universities do not present the only barrier to consolidation. Butler says one of the areas he explored while acting as an adviser was to “work out an arrangement” between Dalhousie and Saint Mary’s regarding the universities’ business schools. “Boy, was that controversial,” he says, mentioning that both universities now have brand-new management buildings, effectively sparing them from any future program amalgamation.

“As good an idea as [rationalization] was, it’s not an idea that is politically acceptable.”

Dalhousie: bearing the brunt?

The significance of N.S. university downsizing is not lost on Dalhousie, which, although it’s the largest university in the province, could suffer from any government-enforced downsizing because of the breadth of degrees it offers.

Dal spokesperson Charles Crosby acknowledges that discussion of departmental or administrative amalgamations “hasn’t happened yet.” But he says he’s concern that such a discussion would focus only on university downsizing, rather than the benefits universities bring to their communities.

“If we’re going to have that discussion, it should be a broader, more holistic process,” says Crosby.

But with enrolment down for the last two years, and a looming demographic change that will reduce the number of Canadian citizens entering university, PSE downsizing may soon become a reality in Nova Scotia.

Dalhousie Student Union President Ezra Edelstein says Dal’s unique funding scenario makes consolidation a unique challenge. The university houses a larger proportion of high-cost students than other universities in the province, says Edelstein, and this means that downsizing could be both bad and good.

According to Edelstein, Dal offers research-intensive graduate degrees and programs such as engineering, where upper-year students must study at Dal but can do their first two years elsewhere. So, while Dal must pay high costs for lab infrastructure and faculty to support these programs, other universities can specialize in low-cost degrees.

“We’re stuck carrying the burden for the more expensive students,” Edelstein says. “But there’s also a benefit to Dal for having some overlaps in programs, especially the cheaper ones, such as arts degrees, non-lab degree, math, etcetera.

“Program offering contributes to the problem, but it’s also a very positive aspect of how Dal works.”

* * *

The plight of Nova Scotia’s 11 universities is long and complex, but essentially entails a lack of funding from the federal government and a lack of priority from the provincial government. Here’s a step-by-step look at why you pay the second-highest tuition in the country:

First, Ottawa sends Canada Social Transfers (CSTs) to the provinces based on how many residents each province has. These lump sums of cash are aimed at closing the gap between funds raised by the federal and provincial governments and their respective spending responsibilities. (Generally speaking, the federal government has more taxing powers than the provinces, but the provinces are responsible for the implementation of more programs.)

Second, the provinces are responsible for divvying up the CST sums so that they fund the various social programs the provincial governments are responsible for administering. Among these programs are public education and post-secondary education.

Problem #1: Nova Scotia has too many students. While a per-capita CST transfer would make sense if everyone in Canada went to a university in his or her home province, they don’t. In fact, Nova Scotia has many more students per resident than the national average. So while the Nova Scotia government gets a CST transfer proportionate to Nova Scotia’s population, the post-secondary portion of that lump must cover many more students than it should.

Problem #2: The Nova Scotia government does not prioritize PSE in its budget. The provincial government can divide a CST transfer in whatever way it pleases. Even if the Nova Scotia government divided the post-secondary education portion of the CST on par with every other province, this amount would not cover the high number of out-of-province students enrolled in post-secondary institutions. But it doesn’t, and the provincial government has prioritized health care and other social programs much higher than PSE. As a result, a smaller proportion of the CST transfer goes to PSE than in other provinces. To make up the difference, Nova Scotia universities charge more for tuition.

Solution #1: Revamp PSE funding formulas. As a first step, CST transfers from the federal government could be divided so that a portion is specifically marked for PSE. A second step would be to alter the PSE transfers from a per-capita basis to a per-student basis. Nova Scotia would therefore get federal funding for the precise number of students it has, rather than how many students it “should” have according to its population.

Solution #2: Reinvest in PSE. The provincial government, which is ultimately responsible for PSE funding, could reinvest in direct PSE funding, regardless of federal funding formulas.

Solution #3: Cut university costs. The provinces and universities can downsize, lay off staff, hire more part-time professors and reduce waste to improve their existing finances.

You can read the story in its natural environment here, or if you pick up a copy of The Gazette before this coming Thursday (the electronic version of the story is missing an entire box).
再见。

Where oh where...

...is China's resolve to tame North Korea? Oh wait, here it is. To my friends in Asia: if you read reports that China is securing its border with the DPRK, and you live in any major city that sits within range of a Nodong, well... I suggest you quickly become friends with your basement, or at least the bottom of a desk.

UPDATE: Dual-Citizenship review? Can we spell "bad idea"? I am all for the Asia-Pacific Gateway initiative that Harper launched last week. Even the N.S. premier caught on -- ol' MacDonald will be snooping around for a similar Asia-Canada programme, this time focussed on the East, when he heads to O-Town. But a dual-citizenship review would throw the gateway intitiative out the window, not to mention put a big dent in the economy of Vancouver, or, shall we say, Hongcouver.

* * *

Here's an interesting poll. Ironically, Canada already had nuclear arms in the early 1960s, installed in missiles meant to replace the not-so-popular-with-Dief's-liver Avro Arrow. Oh, and I love this from Bourque.com -- Canada is surrounded by nuclear powers, it seems.

Ahem:


Another irony is that the CANDU reactor, built and designed by Canadians, is responsible for a whole whack of the colourful nuclear proliferation you see above. Yay!

In other news, I've become a facebook addict. Well, sort of. I was enthralled for the first 48 hours, adding people I knew to my friends list, sending messages, writing on walls, and poking people (why does this sound like high school?).... then the high wore off and I thought, "what is the ultimate point of this?" At least I can exchange useful information with people on MSN. Or here, even.

Nobody knows what it's like when you're down and out... and a nuclear power

Subtitle: A Few Obligatory Thoughts on Mr. Kim's Nuclear Brinkmanship

The current round of UN sanctions targeting North Korea, now approved by the United Nations Security Council, are pretty much what I expected. They're also mostly useless, and continue to point out a flaw in U.S. strategies toward North Korea: sanctions simply won't work because the only countries that can sanction North Korea really, really don't want to.

China and Russia have refused to allow a UN Chapter VII citation, which would make enforcement of the sanctions through threat or use of arms completely legal under international law. Chapter VII references have therefore been dropped from the sanctions document to avoid a veto at the UNSC table. The rest of the document involves inspecting cargo and attempting to prevent illegal anything from getting in and out of the DPRK.

Russia has very little trade with North Korea, but China and South Korea do. And they will do very little, since they'd essentially be sanctioning their own investment. The big ol' North Korean investment, that is. Both China and South Korea support the North Korean regime because an immediate collapse would be a nightmare for either country -- in military terms, in humanitarian terms, in political terms, what have you. North Korea makes a lot of money off of illegal dealings, and although both the PRC and the ROK would rather North Korea open up and pursue the "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" driving the Chinese economy, neither country want to deprive North Korea of its livelihood, either.

As for the other two countries involved in the region -- Japan and the U.S. -- very little can be done. Japan has already imposed its own set of unilateral sanctions on Japan-North Korea trade, most of which came in the form of remittances from Korean nationals in Japan. And the U.S. involvement at this point is essentially irrelevant, since it does not trade with North Korea whatsoever.

So what's going on here? Nothing new. A now-confirmed North Korean nuclear test is a major loss of face in Beijing. We would presume the Chinese would be more willing to push North Korea around, and by the looks of things, they are, as they were after the July 4, 2006 missile launches, and as they have been on occasion.

But Chinese patience with North Korea is deep and wide, especially considering sanction might make Kim's regime go belly-up.

Ashton Carter, an Assistant Secretary of Defence under Bill Clinton, asked an apt question today on CNN: where do we want these sanctions to go? Unfortunately, the answer to his question is a resounding "nowhere." If the sanctions are supposed to encourage North Korea to go back to the Six-Party negotiating table, they will probably fail miserably. Only two things can get North Korea back to the multiparty format: (1) increased pressure from South Korea and/or China; and/or (2) a Six-Party recommitment to carrots-and-sticks-based "rewards for cooperation" negotiation strategies.

The first is very politically difficult to do, even after the nightmare scenario nuclear test. The problem is that the PRC or ROK don't want Kim's regime to collapse, and they think that the U.S. is pushing for such an end, even in the multilateral format. So they'll only really push North Korea on anything if they know the regime will not be put in danger as a result. And chances are Beijing is now trying to get North Korea back to the Six-Party Table as best as it can.

The reality is, however, that the U.S. does not see (2) as a tenable strategy. It doesn't swim well in circles where North Korea is considered a "cheater for life," and is (perhaps rightly) seen as too likely to use any economic concessions to sustain its illiberal self and further develop its nuclear programme.

The bottom line: the growing China-DPRK split still hasn't widened to the point where Chinese and Russian leaders have decided that taking hardline against North Korea is in their best interests. Sanctioning North Korea into a hard-landing collapse (or near-to) may work in that it will force the regime to recalculate the benefits of its nuclear plans. But China, Russia and South Korea are still unwilling to risk such a maneuver because of the immense strategic loss that could come as a result of a failing North Korean regime.

What comes next? A PRC-DPRK or ROK-DPRK divide that would make additional sanctions useful isn't likely to happen unless things go really haywire (i.e., more haywire than a live nuclear test). This would entail either:

• Some impending military action on North Korea's part, or;

• A shift in China or South Korea's greater East Asian strategy away from supporting the North Korean regime.

The second point is where the U.S. may be able to build more negotiating room, and is partly aided by the first. A new government in South Korea could usher in cooler DPRK-ROK ties; a new set of leaders in the standing committee of the CCP's politburo could have a similar effect.

China-U.S. relations, which are much more important to the politburo than PRC-DPRK relations, may change in the future so that Chinese support for Kim Jong-Il and his successors becomes less and less cost-effective or politically desirable for China's decisionmakers.

On the other hand, support for the DPRK may become more and more politically desirable in China's highest political corridors if the U.S. further pushes China on issues such as Taiwan, cross-Pacific trade, and Japan's remilitarization.

Whatever the case, trust issues between the U.S. and North Korea stemming from the 1994 Agreed Framwork continue to obstruct a viable alternative -- the soft-landing strategy -- under which North Korea is rewarded for cooperation. North Korea may cheat, but as I've felt all along, a cheating North Korea with a limited nuclear programme will be an easier nut to crack than a sanctioned, noncompliant North Korea that has lifelines from China and South Korea and can develop its nuclear programme as it pleases.

Let's hope the international community's dealings with Iran go a little better....

No, it's not sparkling wine

What a sharp and acute change it was to do what those in power must do -- fundraise at auctions -- just after doing what those in power want to do -- drive around in a limo (or two!). Alll night, picking up random Haligonians while sipping from a few bottles of Dom Perignon.

Props to my friend Li Dong, who rented two limos, booked a table at Bish, brought us to Seven, and paid for every last bit of it, limos, wine, champagne, beer and company included. Props also to those who couldn't make it -- unfortunately Li had to cut the first portion of the evening down to a very small number of people, though we did our best to accomodate everyone we could after dumping the small limo at Bish. There's nothing quite like roaming around Halifax at 3:30 a.m. in a stretch SUV and stopping anyone who looks like they might be fun -- and inviting them in.

Oh, and while we sipped $200/bottle champagne and listened to Li's "new-new-new-money" sountrack of Hip Hop beats (with a tad of Franz Ferdinand), we barked orders at the driver: "To the Citadel!" "Stop here!" "We need to let these people in!" "We must find ice!" "Drive around some more!" Not even running The Dalhousie Gazette was this fun.

Aside from the late-night cat calling (you'd be surprised how many randoms will actually approach a moving limo and try to open the door), the best, most "this is absolutely nuts" moment of the night actually happened very early as Li and I roamed about the city looking for ice and cold beer. Imagine this: you work at a gas station, a liquor store, or Sobey's, and a limo drives up, two young gents in suits jump out in a rush, and yell/ask "Do you have ice???? We need ice!!! We have really expensive champagne and we need ice!"

The facial expressions were priceless.

So was the guy-to-girl ratio, which at my end of the Limo was about 1-5 in my favour.

:)

Check a few pictures here, or on Li Dong's facebook page.

* * *

Additional props must be given to Jen Bond for inviting me to a Halifax-Citadel Liberal Party fundraising event, held at Halifax Curling Club. The whole event was a lot less "Liberal" than I expected, although a joke I made about an autographed copy of Bob Rae's book that was being auctioned ("What's it called? How I Ruined the Ontario Economy?") didn't go over so well. I sat directly straight across a cramped table from the ultra-friendly MLA Diana Whalen, though, which was a treat; her husband, Mount Saint Vincent University VP and former DFAIT diplomat Michael Whalen, had a number of interesting and not-exactly PC (thank God!) things to say about potential Nova Scotian university "consolidation." And I got a free meal, too. Even though I still consider myself nonpartisan and often vote across Party lines, this was an inexpensive and very informal treat.

* * *

Last, I'm beginning work on my to-be-published thesis this week. It needs a new title, a thourough rewriting, and a completely new introduction. This sounds like a lot of work considering the original took me the better part of a month just to get down on paper, but hey, if the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies wants to stick something I wrote in its own book, hell, I'll rebuild the 38th parallel DMZ with my bare hands. I'll keep everyone updated on what happens.

Blatant Self-Promotion Vol. III - Letter in the Post

The National Post was kind enough to print a letter I sent to them earlier this week. Kudos to Richard, who has an online subscription and could check up on the paper for me (for those of you outside N.S.: the Post no longer delivers east of Quebec City. Apparently they made no money off of Canada's far east... capitalist roaders...).

Here it is, from Thursday's issue. The last two paragraphs are sliced-and-diced a little, but it otherwise accurately conveys what I meant:

What do we do about North Korea?
Re: Kim Jong-Il’s Explosive Mistake, editorial, Oct. 10.

This editorial does a fine job of highlighting the various problems presented by attacking or ignoring North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear program. Unfortunately, it leaves much to be desired in terms of diplomatic solutions. While a concerted, international plan for regime change in North Korea sounds like a novel idea, it may not be so novel in practice.

Kim Jong-Il’s regime has proven resilient to international sanctions, no matter how “crippling” their nature. In fact, increasingly aggressive behaviour from external aggressors only further legitimizes the country’s unyielding belief in Juche, a siege-mentality of sorts that stresses international isolation, economic autarky and Kim Jong-Il’s own cult of personality.

A carrots-for-compliance, sticks-fornon-compliance approach has a better track record. The 1994 Agreed Framework successfully limited North Korea’s nuclear program for nearly a decade. And it fell apart not because North Korea had any latent desire to cheat, but because a similarly non-compliant United States gave North Korea room to so.

It would make little sense for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arms, the only real hand it can play at the international table. But concentrating only on regime change, as your editorial suggests, would be at best futile, at worst dangerous. If North Korea is to be gradually opened up to the world, short-term co-operation with North Korea on the nuclear issue will be necessary.

On the other hand, if North Korea is to undergo a “hard landing,” in which it collapses, South Korea and China will have to be convinced that it is in their best interests to ruin the North Korean economic system. The country will attempt to stay afloat by selling its nuclear technologies, WMDs and missiles to anyone who will buy. And, in his dying hour, Kim Jong-Il may very well push every red button he has.

Christopher LaRoche, MA researcher,
Dalhousie University, Halifax.

再见。

Blatant Self-Promotion Vol. II

I am in The Daily News again, this time in the Letters to the Editor section. I'm not sure why this excites me so much, especially considering I once wrote a bunch of feature stories for The Montreal Gazette, which has a circulation of like 300,000 as compared to the Daily's +/- 100,000, but who knows... maybe I'm getting old and washed up and giddy to see my stuff in print somewhere. :) In any case, here she is:

Korean Conundrum

To the editor:
Re: Your Oct. 10 editorial, Nuclear Club Gains News Member:
This editorial propoagates two misunderstandings about North Korea: that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is mad and plans to nuke the world, and that only pushing North Korea will solve this problem.

The record of evidence points to the opposite of these conclusions.

North Korea has shown no ability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile that could be delivered to South Korea or Japan. Nor would it want to any time soon, as such an act would result in the regime's immediate destruction by American, Japanese and possibly South Korean forces.

Since the U.S. administration adpoted a hardline approach toward North Korea in 2003, pushing the country has gone nowhere. Offering the country positive incentives in exchange for co-operation on the nuclear issues, and negative incetives if it does not co-operate has a proven positive record.

Such an approach resulted in a 1994 agreement under which North Korea' nuclear program was frozen. In the end, both U.S. and North Korea broke the agreement. And the possibility that North Korea will cheat on any agreement the outside world makes is something to consider.

But while this may be true, a short-term, "carrot-and-stick" solution that limits North Korea's nuclear program is much more desirable than attempting to sanction a country to death that simply will not die — Chinese support or not.

The editing job is a bit hacky, and misses the point that a cheating North Korea still must be dealt with in the long run. But, otherwise, it beats the two lines I got in yesterday's paper:

Local reaction to nuke test low key

[...]

Christopher LaRoche, a Dalhousie University researcher, said he wasn't surprised at the reported test, but said it remains to be seen what impact it will have.

Turning to a plan that offers economic incentives for disarmament may be the best solution, LaRoche said, if it means opening up North Korea to the world.

Well, I suppose you get a semi-full picture if you read both of them in tandem. More updates to come!

Incontinence We Trust

Now that thanksgiving has given my brain plenty of terrestrial, non-plastic food to work from, I've found the ol' lump o' green lard catching up on magazine reading, blog visiting, T.V.-watching, and movie gorging, all done in earnest, and all performed with a haste natural only to the worst manifestations of lethargy, unambition, and lackadaisical sloth. Among the winners this week:

• Barry Lyndon is surely one of the most underrated movies in history. Captured on special lenses designed so that artificial lighting wasn't necessary (the largest apertures ever used in film), Lyndon is both the oft-copied blueprint and the defining oeuvre of "period" cinema. Everything in this movie is gorgeous, cinematic, and thouroughly 18th Century. Looking very much like a series of Early Modern and late-classical paintings, and using not one film set, Lyndon follows a young Esquire from Ireland (Redmond Barry, Esq., who is later to assume the title of the movie's namesake) as he makes his way across Europe, posing, at different times, as a solider, a deserter, a spy, a gambler, an addict, a chauvenist, a debutante, a sidekick, a conman, a Prussian, a Prussian solider, an Irishman pretending to be a Prussian police officer, an Irishman pretending to be a Prussian police officer pretending to be an Irish spy, a British lieutenant charged with delivering fictional dispatches to a rather deceased General, a father, a deadbeat, and so on. Just read this bit of a passage, all delivered in deadpan Irish by the actors, with great pauses of silence inserted between each line (the accent is essential for things like "How do you do?", which end up sounding more like "Whoodyadoo?"):

Captain Feeny: How do you do? I'm Captain Feeny.
Redmond Barry: Captain Feeny?
Captain Feeny: Captain Feeny at your service.
Redmond Barry: The Captain Feeny?
Captain Feeny: None other. May I introduce you to my son, Seamus?
Seamus: How do you do?
Redmond Barry: How do you do?
Captain Feeny: To whom have I the honor of speaking?
Redmond Barry: My name's Redmond Barry.
Captain Feeny: How do you do Mr. Barry? And now I'm afraid we must get on to the more regrettable stage of our brief acquaintance. Turn around, and keep your hands high above your head, please.
Seamus: There must be 20 guineas in gold here, father!
Captain Feeny: Well, well, well. You seem to be a very well set up young gentleman, sir.
Redmond Barry: Captain Feeny, that's all the money me mother had in the world. Mightn't I be allowed to keep it? I'm just one step ahead of the law myself. I killed and English officer in a duel, and I'm on my way to Dublin until things cool down.
Captain Feeny: Mr. Barry, in my profession we hear many such stories. Yours is one of the most intriguing and touching I've heard in many weeks. Nevertheless, I'm afraid I cannot grant your request. But I'll tell you what I will do. I'll allow you to keep those fine pair of boots which in normal circumstances I would have for myself. The next town is only five miles away, and I suggest you now start walking.
Redmond Barry: Mightn't I be allowed to keep my horse?
Captain Feeny: I should like to oblige you, but with people like us, we must be able to travel faster than our clients.



Later, from the narrator, this passage is read in a taught, dry English accent:


The Prussian service was considerably worse than that of the English. The life that the private soldier led was a frightful one. Punishment was incessant, and every officer had the right to inflict it. The gauntlet was the most common penalty for minor offenses. More serious ones were punishable by mutilation or death. At the close of the Seven Years' War, the army, renowned for its disciplined valor, was officered by native Prussians. But it was composed, for the most part, of men from the lowest levels of humanity — hired, or stolen from almost every nation in Europe. Thus Barry fell into the very worst of courses and company, and was soon very far advanced in the science of every kind of misconduct.



And finally, this gem of a dandy:


Fate had determined that he should leave none of his race behind him, and that he should finish his life poor, lonely and childless.



Unfortunately for Ryan O'Neal, whose career never went anywhere afterwards, Barry Lyndon was directed by Stanley Kubrick and is thus looked down upon in light of its directorial company, the likes of which include A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, and, of course, Lolita. I love a good period piece, though, and Barry Lyndon stands head-and-shoulders above most as one of the best (along with recents like Master and Commander, Gangs of New York and Memoirs of a Geisha... though the latter two were somewhat contrived, I still find them simply beautiful pieces of setwork and photography). Plus, Lyndon is Martin Scorcese's favourite Kubrick film. Do give poor Barry a try!

• Heroes is a great show. I haven't seen the first two episodes, but "sat in" on the third when it aired earlier this week. I quickly found myself looking up the plots to the first two episodes online — as lame as a show about people with "superpowers" could be, this one is not.

• Lastly, thanks to my friend Devin DeCiantis at The Walrus Magazine for passing this along. It seems the Chinese have an Area 51-type installation in Ningxia, Northern China — but instead of hiding aliens and testing stealth technology, the Chinese have decided to built a 900m x 700m, 500:1 exact scale model of their border with India and Pakistan... some 2,500 kilometres away from that border. And, according to a snapshot taken by Xinhua News Agency, the area is inhabited by men in blue jumpsuits. Utterly bizarre. The best part of all of this is that someone simply stumbled on the site while using Google Earth.

Zaht is Ahl,
再见。

Blatant Self-Promotion

I don't normally do this (wait... yes I do), but yesterday I was interviewed by the Daily News for today's story on local reactions to North Korea. I can't find an electronic copy of the story, but my two lines (w00t!) appear at the bottom of "Local reaction to N Korea test low key" on page 3. I'll type a copy here once I get my hands on it!

Update: I've sent letters to the editor to both The Daily News and The National Post. While I enjoyed The Daily News' editorial, it makes a few errors, putting too much emphasis on the role of China in getting the Six-Party Talks ... talking... again. The current Six-Party impasse in fact stems from U.S. sanctions on a non-nuclear issue -- the ball is in the U.S.'s court to get North Korea back to the negotiating table, and back to the September 2005 agreement that held so much promise.

The Post's editorial is a little bit more ridiculous. Check it out here. In effect, the editorial advocates abandoning negotiations and concentrating on regime change. While this isn't a bad idea in principle, the editors at the Post have completely underestimated South Korea's unwillingness to push North Korea into a hard-landing collapse. No amount of sanctions will topple Kim Jong-Il's regime, especially if either South Korea or China are reluctant to go ahead with a harder line. Here's my letter:

The National Post's October 10 editorial ("Kim Jong-Il's explosive
mistake") does a fine job of highlighting the various problems presented
by attacking and/or ignoring North Korea's burgeoning nuclear programme.
Unfortunately, it leaves much to be desired in terms of diplomatic
solutions. While a concerted, international plan for regime change in
North Korea sounds like a novel idea, it may not be so novel in practice.
Kim Jong-Il's regime has proven resilient to international sanctions, no
matter how "crippling" their nature. In fact, increasingly aggressive
behaviour from external aggressors only further legitimizes the country's
unyielding belief in Juche, a siege-mentality of sorts that stresses
international isolation, economic autarky, and Kim Jong-Il's own cult of
personality. Sanctioning and threatening North Korea with sticks will only
compel the nation to develop its nuclear technologies faster, as it has
done in the past.

A carrots-for-compliance, sticks-for-noncompliance approach has a better
track record. The 1994 Agreed Framework successfully limited North Korea's
nuclear programme for nearly a decade. And it fell apart not because North
Korea had any latent desire to cheat, but because a similarly noncompliant
U.S gave the DPRK room to do so.

(By 2003, when evidence of North Korea's alleged uranium programme was
presented, almost every promise made to North Korea by the U.S. had been
delayed, cancelled, or forgotten. And evidence of North Korea's HEU
programme has yet to surface anywhere, with many corroborating agencies in
the East Asian region now recanting their claims.)

North Korea may indeed be a cheater for life. It would make little sense
for the regime to give up its nuclear arms, the only real hand it can play
at the international table.

But concentrating only on regime change, as your editorial suggests, would
be at best futile, at worst dangerous. If North Korea is to be gradually
opened up to the world, short-term cooperation with North Korea on the
nuclear issue will be necessary, cheating or no cheating. If North Korea
is to undergo a 'hard-landing' in which it collapses, South Korea and
China will have to be convinced that it is in their best interests to ruin
the North Korean economic system. If by some miracle this works, we can
rest assured that North Korea will attempt to stay afloat by selling its
nuclear technologies, WMDs and missiles to anyone who will buy. And, in
his dying hour, Kim Jong-Il may very well push every red button he has.

Christopher LaRoche, BJH, MA
Researcher,
Dalhousie University

Oh, Kim, How You Kill Me (and other human beings)

A few thoughts on the latest North Korean affair:

• A North Korean nuclear test isn't a big deal in itself. We've known that the Kim Family Regime (KFR) has probably had nuclear arms for some time now -- maybe even as early as 1993 -- and all international attempts to disarm North Korea have worked off of the assumption that KFR has built somewhere between a half-dozen and a dozen or so primitive warheads. The October 9 test simply confirms our working assumptions. They've got em.
  
  
• The big danger here is what this means for the region. Japan and China now have more compelling excuses to go ahead and eat their parts of the East Asian re-militarization cake. Japan, because it is a liberal democracy and its pro-military MPs gain ground anytime Kim Jong-Il pulls something threatening, has no defence mechanisms against a nuclear-equipped North Korea. In fact, Japan has few defence mechanisms against an emboldened North Korea whatsoever, aside from the hollow comfort of knowing that if and when a North Korean MRBM lands on Tokyo, North Korea will be flattened by American and South Korean bombs (although, my guess is far more of the former and few of the latter).
  
  China has a remilitarization case, of course, because it is the rightful Asia-Pacific hegemon, or something like that, and balancing against imperialist American presence in the region is a must. Well, a must only insofar as Chinese militarization does not jeopardize the greater Sino-U.S. relationship or destabilize the region. China is happy with the status quo: Japan, though no longer in a recession, is in wane as the predominant Asian economic power. China has pursued major remilitarization for almost two decades without serious contention from its neighbours, and its economic renaissance still goes undaunted by protest over yuan undervaluation, trade defecits, and intellectual property issues. A remilitarized Japan is a real threat to China's regional ambitions, particularly if that remilitarization goes hand in hand with harder lines on China-Japan regional disputes (it's the oil, stupid!). Thus we have a real Asian domino effect: North Korea tests, Japan builds up its arsenal, China does the same, and the U.S. responds by further encouraging South Korea and Japan to build. North Korea announces that it feels increasingly threatened, and uses the remilitarization outside of its borders as an excuse to conduct further nuclear tests. This is not to mention Taiwan -- the real Asian flashpoint -- which could jump into the gun game at any point.
  
  What would all this remilitarization mean? Hopefully, nothing -- but one thing is certain: at some point, Kim Jong-Il will die, or his regime will collapse, or both. And who knows if his predecessor will have a firm grip on things. If North Korea collapses as functioning state, which it would without continuing Chinese support, any number of scenarios could happen. Missiles could get launched, nuclear arms could be used or sold, and armies could march across the 38th parallel. Refugees would certainly pour across the DPRK-PRC border in the hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- once the North Korean state apparatus stops feeding its citizens the few scraps it now manages. And as for all that military ordinance -- who knows? North Korea has hundreds of MRBMs, a few nuclear arms, lots of WMDs, and thousands of other odds and sods that any terrorist group with half a sense of mind would certainly want to get its hands on. In other words, a North Korean collapse would be a disaster.
  
  China-DPRK relations are in an obvious thaw. In a surprising move, China supported the UNSC sanctions stemming from North Korea's July 4, 2006 missile tests. Just the other day, PRC officials teamed up with the Japanese to condemn a possible North Korean nuclear test. China will likely support future sanctions being put to the UNSC by the U.S. following yesterday's nuclear test. And, as far as the Six-Party Talks are concerned, simmering DPRK-PRC relations could mean that China will be more receptive to the U.S. strategy of using sticks as an inducement for North Korean cooperation, rather than carrots.
  
  
• A second, related danger is what the test means for the nonproliferation regime. The success of both bilateral and multilateral negotiations in the Korean case is stunning: aside from talking North Korea into limiting its nuclear programme between 1994 and 2002, every element of the nonproliferation regime has thus far failed to achieve a peaceful solution to the Korean nuclear dilemma. North Korea has since 2003 been developing its nuclear arsenal while the rest of the world, afraid of claiming ignorance or simply bombing the country, has attempted to talk the DPRK into doing otherwise. And it has done this with good cause: ignoring North Korea is simply not an option, particularly given the regime's track record of selling WMD technology to anyone who will buy. Bombing North Korea, conversely, would be extremely military risky, and would almost certaintly result in the deaths of thousands if not millions of Korean citizens. Because of a lack of alternatives, and because diplomacy did succeed in 1994, the Six-Party Talks are still option number 1 for the international community. But will they get anywhere? And what can we expect if they do?
  
  My hunch is that North Korea has no reason to give up its nuclear arms, and will not do so so long as KFR remains in charge. Worse, the regime does not respond well to threats -- it either does not believe it will ever be invaded, or thinks it can win a confrontation with the U.S. It therefore will not give up its nuclear arsenal under threat of sanction. Rewarding North Korea with positive incentives for good behaviour has its uses -- we can limit its nuclear programme and resolve the short-term crisis -- but KFR is unlikely to order a full dismantlement given that the regime is hated around the world, under sanctions for a number of non-nuclear related activities, and consistently targeted by post-Cold War foreign policies, nuclear arms or not. A robust nuclear capability, then, is the only real international card of value the North Koreans possess.

Can we live with a nuclear North Korea? Probably, but it could be dangerous, particularly given the regime's dwindling ability to economically sustain itself. Money counterfieting, drug smuggling, kidnapping, and missile trafficking are among the regime's favourite means of procuring funds. And we can probably add WMD/nuclear warhead exporting to that list if we give it a few more years, particularly if China decides to pull the plug. To prevent North Korea from threatening the world with its arsenal (and possibly selling weapons to groups who will use them without fear of retaliation), the international community would have to give North Korea no good reason to possess nuclear arms in the first place. Unless international norms suddenly reverse so that isolated, human rights-violating, totalitarian regimes are given their proper place amidst the celebrated nations of the international system, this sort of in medias res carte blanche of international acceptability is unlikely.

So we are left with nonperforming negotiations, nonperforming nonproliferation, nonperforming threats, and a very well-performing North Korean nuclear programme.

What's to be done? A carrots and sticks negotiations approach may get us another agreement that will limit North Korea's programme, ease tensions, and build trust among the East Asian nations. But North Korea will probably cheat on that agreement. Given this, a noncompliant North Korea will simply have to become an acceptable reality -- that short-term limitations will have to suffice, and that the region's players will have to look outside of the nonproliferation regime to find a real solution to the nuclear impasse. Regime change is obviously a major factor in framing the Korean secuirty dilemma, but regime change can take many, many forms. Easing the pressure on North Korea in the short term may make a soft-landing -- a longer, more drawn out process of reintegration and opening up -- a much better alternative to an immediate hard landing, and it'll be one that won't get lots of people killed. For all we know, Kimg Jong-Il really is nuts, really does want to retake South Korea, and really will push every button he can as soon as he feels he is ready. And that's a risk we shouldn't be willing to take.

再见。

Hmmm...

I have been listening to too much James Blunt.

You're beautiful? It's true.

Ugh. Pass the garlic powder.

(Real post coming soon...)

A few points of thought

1. Check out this line from a John Ivison article in today's National Pest:

But there is little doubt that whether it is now or on the second ballot, Brison will back Ignatieff. If he does reach this conclusion, the Stockwell Day comparisons will disappear from memory like snow on a river. Brison, freshly ensconced as Ignatieff's new economic point man, will wax lyrical about how his new boss is the Canadian Kissinger, while Ignatieff will flash his malevolent grin -- the one that makes him look like he's just evicted an orphanage.

Just evicted an orphanage??!! Really?? I'm thinking John "Ivison" might actually be John Ibbitson's evil, less-articulate (but more-entertaining) twin.

2. My friend John sent me this, care of Bruce MacKinnon at The Halifax Herald. It is, especially in light of this photo, quite funny:


...and, on a related note...

3. Bob Woodward of Watergate and All The President's Men fame will be on Charlie Rose for a whole hour tonight (no commercials!), no doubt blaming Donald Rumsfeld for 99% of the U.S.'s current woes in Iraq. Oh, and he's probably abut 99% right, too. Check it out.

Was that something about a Liberal?

Because the preliminary Liberal leadership delegate tally has been beaten to death on just about every other blog out there, I'd like to simply ask a favour: forget policies, forget histories, and forget this race -- if you had to vote Liberal, who you want standing next to Harper, Layton and Duceppe at the next leaders' debate, on a primal, instinctual (and perhaps rock-em-sock-em) gut level?

(Sadly, my answer is Pierre Trudeau. Even more sadly, I'm not sure his corpse would be able to take the heat from the bright TV lights without turning into small piles of half-mummified flesh. I suppose I'll take Ignatieff as a close second. *Sigh*).

Zaht is Ahl,
再见。

A New Era in East Asian Security?

On Friday, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Japan got a new Prime Minister. Shinzo Abe, a man I know almost nothing about, took over for Junichiro Koizumi, one of the most important reformers in recent Japanese history.

Two things are clear: Koizumi, while a great leader on domestic issues, didn't have the best foreign policies in the world. And Abe, who appears much like the standard bureaucrat type in comparison, will have a good chance to clean up Japan's international image. As far as I can tell, however, this could be a longshot.

You may be wondering: what's wrong with Japan's international image? Simple answer: a lot. Here in the West, we generally look to Japan as another modernized state with a powerful economy, a vanguard technologies sector, and a burgeoning alternative-energy plan. More specifically, Japan is the United States' best and most important ally in the entire Asian region, India, Russia, South Korea and Kazakhstan included. Japan contributed troops to the Iraq conflict and continues to promote U.S. interests through multilateral corridors such as the Six-Party Talks and ASEAN, and through bilateral relationships with its neighbours.

For Japan, the reasoning behind these foreign policy positions are simple: the country is threatened by North Korea, threatened by a rising China, and threatened by any anti-U.S. "balancing" blocs that may develop out of the Shanghai Cooperation (China, Russia, and some Central Asian countries) or a similar "alternative" alliance to Western hegemony.

From the U.S.'s perspective, likewise, Japan is a vital ally in a region with a few bad, unsteady, or worsening relationships (those with China, Thailand, South Korea), a number of flashpoints (Taiwan, North Korea), and an enormous amount of strategic and economic potential. The China-Japan-U.S. trading relationship, in terms of numbers, is one of the largest trading triangles in the world, for example; with very few exceptions, South Korea, China, and Taiwan have posted major GDP increases for the last two decades plus; and Japan is now coming out of its 13-year recession, poised to (at least for the time being) regain some of its international importance as the world's second or third largest economy (after the U.S. and, if you count it as such, the EU).

The bad news is that to countries like North Korea, Vietnam, South Korea and China, Japan's pro-U.S. stance makes it a "hegemonic puppet" in a region the U.S. has no real "right" to be in, period. And unlike Taiwan, Japan has a history of being a hegemonic power in the region, invading almost all of East Asia in both World Wars. Protectionist trading policies, recalcitrant militarism, and a history of invading and subjugating other nations in the region all make Japan the most hated nation in the East Asian region.

Abe should be wise to fixing this, and it looks like he already has a gameplan. Unfortunately, his gameplan reveals a major crux in Japanese domestic opinion: while Japan would like to have better relations with its neighbours, Japanese politicians continue to use nationalism to consolidate domestic support. And lately this 'nationalism' has come in the form of: government-authorized (but unpopular) textbooks that skim over or deemphasize Japan's World War II history; high-profile visits to a Shinto shrine that honours Japan's war dead (including war criminals); and most importantly, proposals to amend Japan's constitution so that it would allow the Japanese military take a more active role abroad.

(This is not to mention Japan's eager participation in the U.S.'s BMD project, a system that would at best prevent North Korea from mounting a reasonable nuclear deterrence and at worst create a new arms race among Asia's nuclear powers.)

Abe's leadership goals show no signs of a Japanese paradigm shift. The PM has not said whether he will discontinue visits to Yasukuni shine, and he has made it clear that constitutional reform is on his agenda. BMD is a no-brainer. The big problem with these developments is not that Japan has no right to a larger military mandate or ballistic missile defence. Nor is it particularly important to consider whether Chinese and South Korean officials are legitimately offended by Koizumi's Yasukuni visits.

What is more important, in all cases, is that Japan's seeming militarism is used by other East Asian nations to legitimize their own strategic objectives. This is particularly acute in democratic nations such as South Korea (and Japan, of course), where anti-Sino or anti-Japanese "rhetoric" can win legislative seats and be used to promote militaristic agendas. China is able to legitimize its military policies toward the Korean peninsula and Taiwan by pointing out the fact that Japanese militarism has increased. China has no real domestic need to legitimize its military policies, but within the CCP and politburo, legitimacy is everything. A more peaceable Japan would likely do a lot to disenfranchise the militaristic voices of China's top leadership.

Likewise, in South Korea, more aggressive Japanese and American military stances in regards to Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea have resulted in widening anti-Japanese and anti-American sentiment. The last two South Korean elections have empowered left-wing governments who are eager to continue rapprochement with North Korea and much less eager to tow the U.S. line on North Korea's missile programs, human rights abuses, financial activities, or nuclear posturing.

What should Abe do? Cutting out the Yasukuni visits and making some formal progress on acknowledging Japan's history might be a big step. If China's long-term strategic goals entail dominating the East Asian region, retaking Taiwan, and ending U.S. involvement in the Western half of the Pacific, the shrine visits are irrelevant (as is anything else Japan can do).

Even if this is true, though, China's long-term strategic goals are not set in stone. A more conciliatory approach from the Japanese side could have an effect on the ongoing "expansion" debates that take place within the Chinese leadership. It could further entice China to take a harder line on North Korea in the Six-Party Talks, and ease tensions over Taiwan as soft-liners and moderates gain more say in Beijing's politburo standing committee. A Japanese-Sino reconcilliation could also help resolve a number of outstanding regional disputes over oil patches, sea access, and island clusters that exist between North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, and pave the way for broader, stronger East Asian multilateral cooperation. We should never forget that North Korea and Taiwan represent two flashpoints in which millions of civilians could very easily die; while "rhetorical" events such as protests over textbooks, shrine visits, and the cancellations of high-level talks between East Asian nations may not significantly inform the underlying strategies of China, Japan, the Koreas or Russia, they certainly do nothing to acknowledge East Asia's potential for increased cooperation, mutual understanding, and formal mediums for dispute resolution.

The next big step in East Asia's future will be the establishment of a multilateral institution that aims to stabilize the region's ongoing security dilemmas. Such an institution will have to go beyond ASEAN, and it will have be inclusive of issues such as North Korea's nuclear programme, BMD, and the legitimacy of China's supposed "peaceful rise." In a region where appearances simultaneously mean everything and nothing, clearing the air on a high-level basis could help avoid a sudden disaster and better reconcile the region's progressive economic relationships with its political ones. And, hopefully, Mr. Abe knows this.

再见.