ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Alfred McCoy January 20, 2014 - For more than six months, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) have been pouring out from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, Germany’s Der Spiegel, and Brazil’s O Globo, among other places. Yet no one has pointed out the combination of factors that made the NSA’s expanding programs to monitor the world seem like such a slam-dunk development in Washington. The answer is remarkably simple. For an imperial power losing its economic grip on the planet and heading into more austere times, the NSA’s latest technological breakthroughs look like a bargain basement deal when it comes to projecting power and keeping subordinate allies in line -- like, in fact, the steal of the century. Even when disaster turned out to be attached to them, the NSA’s surveillance programs have come with such a discounted price tag that no Washington elite was going to reject them. For well over a century, from the pacification

The American and Canadian energy industries have transformed so quickly that pipelines connecting producing regions with consumption centers are now overwhelmed. Bottlenecks have even led to discounted prices for benchmark crudes such as West Texas Intermediate and Western Canada Select, a prospect that could threaten future investment. (Benchmark crudes serve as a reference price for oil buyers and sellers.) With pipeline projects facing political scrutiny, oil producers have turned to North America's unrivaled railway network . In 2013 alone, rail transport rose by 70 percent. And even though it costs roughly $10 more per barrel to ship it that way than by pipeline, railways offer several advantages. First, they can adapt to increased production volumes because the infrastructure is already in place. Second, they can carry any type of crude, so they have fewer restrictions on where they can take their cargo. For example, light sweet crude extracted from North Dakota's B

Summary Editor's Note: The following is the first installment of a three-part series on growing debt for Russia's regional governments. Since the 2009 financial crisis , the Kremlin has allowed Russia's regions to take the brunt of the country's economic decline in order to keep the federal government seemingly healthy, with a nominally small budget deficit and large currency reserves. But now most of Russia's regional governments' debt is so high, it is becoming dangerous for the federal government and big banks and could soon become unmanageable. Analysis Russia is so large that the Kremlin lacks the resources to run each region of the country directly. Currently Russia is split into 83 regions of all shapes and sizes, which fall into categories of oblasts, republics, krais, federal cities and autonomous okrugs. Historically, the Kremlin has given regional leaders (mayors, governors, heads or republic presidents) the power to run their own regions and ensure

A derelict fishing village on the Russian coast along the Barents Sea in 2010. (PIERRE-HENRY DESHAYES/AFP/Getty Images) Summary As the geopolitical importance of the Barents Sea region grows over time, so too will the potential for economic disputes between the primary players in the region, Norway and Russia. The countries' foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Borge Brende of Norway, met Jan. 20 in Russia and discussed, among other things, collaboration in the Barents region. The stakes are high given the area's natural resources and potential growth in maritime traffic, and tensions will likely grow as Russia tries to strengthen its influence in the region. Analysis The Barents Sea region spans across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and northwestern Russia. Although the region is roughly the size of Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain combined, it is home to only about 5.2 million people. Most of the population and territory is Russian, as

By Dave Lindorff January 19, 2014 - Climate skeptics in Congress, and oil and coal industry lobbyists like the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Coal Council (ACC) may be preventing any significant action in the US on reducing this country’s emissions of carbon into the atmosphere, but at the Pentagon, and in the executive suites of the oil industry giants, there is no doubt about the reality of climate change. As Admiral Robert J. Papp of the US Coast Guard wrote in 2012 in the magazine of the US Naval Institute: “The world may seem to be growing smaller, but its seas are growing bigger—particularly in the great North, where a widening water-highway beckons both with resources and challenges.” Admiral Papp didn’t futz around. Without any caveats or bows to corrupted scientists on the payroll of the Koch Brothers, he wrote: “The Arctic Ocean, in the northern region of the Arctic Circle, is changing from a solid expanse of inaccessible ice fields into a growing navigab

A member of one of Mexico's self-defense groups stands guard at a barricade in Uspero, Michoacan State, on Jan. 16. (HECTOR GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images) Summary The emergence of self-defense groups in Michoacan state in February 2013 has greatly complicated the nature of armed conflicts in the region, where violence had previously stemmed primarily from competition between rival criminal organizations. The self-defense militias have been expanding into a coordinated body and now operate in more than a dozen municipalities. Their primary goal is to combat the Knights Templar, the dominant criminal group in the state, while taking charge of public security in each town they enter, at times by disarming local police. The expansion of the militias, along with the increase in violence related to them and the Knights Templar, has triggered several recent deployments of federal troops to the economically important state, which is home of the strategic port city of Lazaro Cardenas and near

Men stare across the Jordan Valley on Jan. 8. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a brief and unannounced visit to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah on Jan. 16. The visit is not altogether unusual, despite some media reports to the contrary; Netanyahu also visited Abdullah in December 2012 and March 2013, each time without giving advance notice. After the prime minister arrived, Amman issued a statement saying the visit reflected the king's desire to make "tangible progress" on peace talks with the Palestinians and "protects the interests of the Jordanian kingdom." Netanyahu's spokesman gave a more vague description, saying the visit was to discuss "economic cooperation between the two countries and other regional matters." There is little reason to expect much headway in negotiations over the peace process. However, there are less high-profile negotiations underway between Israel and Jordan ove

A South Sudanese policeman in the southern state of Western Equatoria on Jan. 14. (PHIL MOORE/AFP/Getty Images) Summary In the absence of a cease-fire between the South Sudanese government and rebel representatives who are currently meeting in Addis Ababa, both sides continue to maneuver on the battlefield. In addition to tribal violence throughout the country, larger military confrontations are ongoing in Bor, Malakal and Bentiu. However, there is no direct threat to the oil-producing region of Upper Nile state or to the capital, Juba. Should a cease-fire be achieved, it would still not make negotiations over the conflict's underlying causes much easier. Analysis Since Jan. 14 there has been heavy fighting, including tank battles, in the streets of Malakal, the regional capital of Upper Nile state. Upper Nile is South Sudan's primary oil-producing region, but the unrest has not directly threatened oil production. Meanwhile, a stalemate has emerged in the fighting along the r