Thinking Bits

Contribute to a new article about Italy!

2008-07-21T15:43:00.003-04:00

Hi all!

I teamed up with two more Italian geopolitics experts to deliver a report for the most important Italian geopolitics magazine, "LIMES".

The topic is the perception that Americans have of Italy.

This "perception" will concern political, commercial and social aspects.

If you want to give your opinion, please shoot me a mail at stefanocasertano@gmail.com

Ciao!

Stef

Saudis agree to increase production at 10 million barrels per day

2008-06-14T03:52:00.005-04:00

Berlin - Saudi Arabia has announced it will increase production of 300,000 barrels per day, at 10 million. The NYTimes report is here.

After the Saudis rejected a presidential request to increase production last month, they are autonomously deciding to do so! The kingdom's national oil company Aramco is also opening up a new field, Kurai, which is projected as the second largest after the legendary Gahwar one.

It is not the first time that Saudi Arabia rejects such a proposal from the US, and then does something else. In 1984 Bill Casey of CIA flew to prince Turki to ask for a production increase, in order to facilitate US growth and curb Soviet oil profits. After a "no", Turki opted for a production ramp-up, and by May 1986 prices had fallen below 10 dollars per barrel.

In the current case, it seems that fears for the economic development of client countries is at the base of the Saudi decision. Oil at 140 dollars is destroying the market, with black clouds in the future of Oil economies as alternative energies are a more and more viable solution. An OPEC meeting to discuss these prospects is planned on 20th June.

- Stefano Casertano

Gulf states may soon need coal imports

2008-05-19T15:22:00.001-04:00

Gulf states may soon need coal imports to keep the lights on

The Emirates were built on oil and provide fuel to the world but already they need other sources of energy

They are countries so rich in oil and gas that they would never want for fuel to drive their booming economies and the lavish lifestyles of their rulers.
Now, however, in a role reversal that makes selling sand to Saudi Arabia look like a sensible business transaction, the oil-rich Gulf states are planning to import coal.
An acute shortage of natural gas has led to the city states of the United Arab Emirates seeking alternative fuels to keep the air cool, the lights on and the water running.
Abu Dhabi is working with Suez, the French utility company, on a nuclear power project but coal is emerging as the best quick fix to avert blackouts as the worldÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s biggest hydrocarbon exporters struggle to cope with high prices for oil and natural gas, infrastructure weakness and a development boom. Some of the world's biggest oil exporters may soon find themselves reliant on imported fuel from a leading coal exporter, such as South Africa.

As a result, Taqa, Abu DhabiÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s national energy company, plans to take a half share in a proposed Ã‚Â£500 million coal-fired power plant, while Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) hopes to start work on a clean-coal project this year.
Oman Power and Water Procurement Company indicated in December that a planned 700-megawatt power and water desalination plant may need to be fuelled by coal instead of natural gas.
The dramatic transformation is taking place because, for the first time, the Gulf states are beginning to feel the burden of the soaring cost of fossil fuels. In March Dubai introduced an electricity pricing system that increased tariffs for heavy users. The new tariffs apply only to foreign businesses, expatriates and foreign-owned businesses. Emiratis are exempt.
The sudden gas shortage has caught the Gulf states by surprise at a time when demand for power and water desalination is increasing annually at double-digit percentage rates. Investment in infrastructure has lagged behind the region's population expansion and construction boom. Anecdotes abound of apartment complexes left empty because there is not enough capacity in the local electricity grid.
According to Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultancy, the UAE's demand for gas will double within a decade if power consumption continues to grow. Dubai's peak power consumption rose by 15 per cent last year, according to DEWA's statistics.
Ã¢â‚¬Å“Demand for natural gas is rising at 12 per cent per annum. In the summer the UAE is burning liquid fuel [fuel oil and diesel] for peak power generation,Ã¢â‚¬Â said Peter Barker-Homek, TaqaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s chief executive. Ã¢â‚¬Å“Should there be alternatives [to burning oil], such as coal and nuclear? Probably, yes. If you have a product worth $120 per barrel, you want to sell it. The question about coal is always the environment. It is definitely cheaper than using crude oil.Ã¢â‚¬Â
Last summer Abu Dhabi's oil output fell by 600,000 barrels per day as natural gas was diverted from injection into oil wells to power stations to meet peak demand for electricity.
The Emirate has substantial reserves of gas but much of this is earmarked for injection into wells to maintain pressure and to improve oil output. With the crude oil price reaching $125 (Ã‚Â£64) per barrel, the diversion of gas into local power stations is a huge cost to the country.
Meanwhile, the price of natural gas in the Gulf has soared amid shortages and increased global demand. Local gas resources in the Emirates have dwindled, and Abu Dhabi and Dubai are already importing gas by pipeline from Qatar.
Iran, which holds some of the worldÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s biggest gas reserves, is another option, but relations between the Western-friendly Emirates and Iran are uneasy. A project led by Dana Gas, a private sector company based in the Middle East, to bring Iranian fuel across the Gulf to Sharjah has been locked in pricing disputes.
In a desperate attempt to avert power and water shortages in the summer, Dubai entered into a 15-year contract with Royal Dutch Shell last month to supply liquefied natural gas in the summer period from 2010. However, this is an expensive fuel, and the Emirates have built their economies on gas at almost nil cost.

Beseechimg the Saudis

2008-05-19T12:09:00.000-04:00

From the WSJ last saturday

Beseeching the Saudis

We don't know who advised President Bush to go on bended knee to Saudi Arabia yesterday, to plead with King Abdullah to ramp up oil supply and ease prices at the American gas pump. But about that adviser, our suggestion to the President is: Fire him Ã¢â‚¬â€œ or her.
A cardinal rule of presidential diplomacy is never to ask publicly for favors unless you know in advance they will be granted. The same request by Mr. Bush had already been rebuffed by the Saudis during his visit to Riyadh in January. This time around, the Saudi response was particularly blunt and condescending: "If you want more oil, you need to buy it," said Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister.

This second presidential humiliation comes even as the Administration is defending its decision to sell the House of Saud billions of dollars in advanced weapons, over the increasingly hectic objections of New York Senator Chuck Schumer. The Administration is also proposing to help the Saudis develop civilian nuclear reactors to provide for their energy needs. That may help the Kingdom export more oil by easing its domestic requirements. But we await the explanation for why the world needs another politically unstable Islamic theocracy in possession of radioactive fuel rods.
It isn't clear how much reserve oil-pumping capacity the Saudis have at their disposal. According to Mr. Naimi, they have already increased supply in recent months by 300,000 barrels a day, to 1.7 million, and much of the remaining crude may be difficult to refine. As it is, rising prices are less a reflection of inadequate supply than they are of the dollar's collapse. For proof, look no further than Europe, where gas prices haven't risen nearly as sharply as they have in the U.S.
We never like to see an American President of either party go begging. But if Mr. Bush really needs to beseech a political authority, he'd be better served turning to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, creator of our current commodity-price spike.

Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov to become head of Gazprom

2008-05-15T14:20:00.003-04:00

Here is the article.

So, the roundabout is:

- Vladimir Putin went from President to Prime Minister.
- Dmitry Medvedev went from chairman of Gazprom, to President.
- Viktor Zubkov went from Prime Minister to chairman of Gazprom.

I ws reading a book about the history of the Cold War, by Walter LaFeber (America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-2006, McGraw.Hill), saying in 2006 that there was uncertainty how Putin would have changed the electoral rules in 2008 to retain power after his second mandate. Apparently, the new system of power did not make use of such low key solutions.

Oil barrell at 200$: reality or mith?

2008-05-12T14:06:00.004-04:00

The Economist says that from a financial standpoint commodity prices will go down, since the current spike is mostly due to speculation:
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=10903471&fsrc=RSS

Goldman Sachs then published a report stating that the barrel could spike up to 200$: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSL0691448820080506.
GS says that there is not enough investment in exploration.

The Italian "Sole24Ore" says that Arabian national oil company are not as good as international ones in exploration and production, and the current shortage is a consequence of the problems in 1972, when Western companies were forced outside the Middle-East: here.

Then I found a rational, pessimistic solution by Paul Krugman on the NYT: speculation is not the explanation, because stocks are not piling up.

Who knows...

-Stefano

ENI and Gazprom making plans...

2008-05-11T22:28:00.003-04:00

It seems that Silvio Berlusconi met Vladimir Putin in Sardinia last April, and the two discussed new development plans between their two national energy companies, Gazprom and ENI.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/18/europe/EU-FIN-Italy-Russia-Gas.php

In 2007, Gazprom and ENI completed the construction of a gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey, bypassing all the Caspian area (Blue Stream), and agreements are being completed to create another one from Russia to Italy and Europe (South Stream). ENI also teamed up with the Russian company Lukoil to develop a gas pipeline along the Baku-Ceyhan corridor (South Caucasus).

It seems now that Gazprom wants to have a stake in a new pipeline linking Libyan gas fields to Italy. In exchange, ENI's CEO Paolo Scaroni seemingly declared that ENI would like to participate in the development of arctic fields. It seems that between Washington and Moscow, Italy has taken a clear stance...

- Stefano

"Berlusconismo", or “That Strange Thing That Foreign Journalists Do Not Want To Understand”

2008-05-11T20:05:00.011-04:00

Hi all! This article has been published on the newsletter of the Italian think-tank "vision". It is just so frustrating that everytime Berlusconi wins the elections, Italians have to be depitched as TV-gonzos. Moreover, the event of Berlusconi winning the elections tend to happen quite often...

Let’s make it clear from the beginning: this article does not have the purpose of backing an Italian political party or the other, neither to discuss the “conflict of interest” issue of the current Italian Prime Minister. This article is a brief investigation about why the foreign press finds it so difficult to understand a phenomenon such as “Berlusconismo”.

The German ZDF TV News commented the last Italian election outcomes with an embarrassing “Mamma mia” by the host Marietta Slomka, introducing a report where the basic logics is the classic “Italians voting for Berlusconi because he owns a media empire and TV viewers believe in it”. This thesis was completed by two “vox populi” interviews with enthusiastic fans screaming their love for the new Prime Minister.

The Wall Street Journal commented that “His $12 billion fortune, and ownership of three national television networks and a slew of newspapers – and the larger than life story of a Milan boy who built an empire – will always set him apart”, or even that “For all his familiar Viagra cracks and promises to put "hotties" in his cabinet, Mr. Berlusconi didn't look to have his heart in this race. His platform was far less ambitious than in the past”. One is left wondering: are “hotties” enough of a reason to win an election?

The “Forbes” turned surprising in its statement that “Media-savvy Berlusconi also seems adept at telling people what they want to hear, even if little or no action is likely to follow”, with an outright threat that “If Italians were hoping that the 71-year-old, taught-faced media billionaire would be able to save their faltering economy, they may be bitterly disappointed”.

Since Italy started opening up its borders to international economy in the early nineties, foreign media became progressively interested in the events of the country. Reporters from all over Europe could not help sharing funny thoughts with their fellow citizens concerning observations about Roman politics.

To their disappointment, we must state that Italians did not vote Berlusconi because of his media influence. If some did, they were not enough to justify a 9,3% difference in the electoral outcome for the lower house. What is really happening in Italy is that citizens opted for a “leadership” positioning, such as Berlusconi’s, rather than a “compromise” one, as expressed by center-left coalitions since the early 1990’s.

Italy is a complicated country. Its republican history was born from the ashes of a two-decades long fascist regime, pushing constitutionalists to a “compromise” approach, avoiding strong leadership positions. That is, for example, the reason why the current Berlusconi III is the 60^th government since 1948: clashes had always to be resolved through new alliances, rather than cutting decisions. Italians are afraid that this approach is not able to solve the problems of international economies anymore, and wanted a change.

In this sense, “Berlusconismo” may represent a change that center-left parties understood with some too much delay, except for their leader Veltroni. He actually did speak “compromise”, but practically cut all radical left parties off his alliance. He was widely criticized for this, yet it seems that he was the only one in his coalition to have understood the essence of the Berlusconi appeal, and to set a strategy to counter it.

The same “Forbes” article mentioned before gives a hint of what Berlusconi could represent: “The victory of Berlusconi was as much a vote for Berlusconi, as a vote against Prodi, said Franco Pavoncello, a political science professor at John Cabot. ‘Berlusconi won because he has a strong coalition and because people feel that on the other side, the government is going to take them nowhere’.”

Young people are more active every election. Participation to elections is among the highest in the world, with more than 80% of the people casting their vote. Governments use to last much longer now than before: since 1948, out of 59 governments a stunning 58% lasted less than one year; recently, Berlusconi II set the record at 1409 days; Prodi I is third at 875; Prodi II is seventh at 617. Politics in Italy are changing: it is not just about Media empires.

Ian Fisher on the New York Times gives a blitz of spotlight to this element, conceding that “Experts on the left and the right said — and in some cases lamented — that the election had shown a shift toward a more American- or British-style system of two dominant middle-ground parties”. This statement is sunk into a longer lamentation of “media-influence”, “personal politics” and “a moment of national self-doubt” where “a man whose dramas — the clowning and corruption scandals, his rocky relations with his wife and political partners, his growing hairline and ever browner hair — play out very much in public”.

To the benefit of foreign journalists, I humbly remember that Italians know this: there is an interest conflict; some Berlusconi performances, especially at the EU Parliament, where all but necessary; the focus on personal life is questionable. Yet, Italians voted for him. It seems too much of an easy solution to depict Italians as frustrated gonzos that make what the TV-set says.

- Stefano Casertano

New Article on "Limes"

2008-04-07T21:13:00.009-04:00

For the few readers who speak Italian... "Limes", an Italian geopolitics magazine, published an article I wrote about the history of the Cold War for resources, from 1945 to today.

My thesis is that Russia and the United Stated have been fighting over Oil and Gas since WWII, and the recent struggle is a continuation of a sixty-three years old confrontation.

The 1991 fall of the Soviet Union is read as a "change of strategy" by Russia, to adopt an economic system that could better allocate scarce resources.

My roommate fell asleep more or less at this point...

The synopsis is here; the 17-pages hard-core pdf is here.

- Stefano Casertano

The Worrysome Democratic Policy for Iraq: is New Democrat the New Barbarism?

2008-03-25T18:51:00.007-04:00

New York - "Leave Iraq and Leave it Now" is the Democrat mantra since the electoral campaign started; but are we sure the party really understood why the US is there? As far as it seems, center-left intelligentsia, from prof. Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, to Carter's former adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, enjoy focusing more on the costs of the war, than on the global effects of a distressed situation.

Stiglitz's recent book "The Three Trillion Dollars War", made the point; Brzezinski conference at Columbia on March 25th remarked it: "Who will be paying for the Iraq war?".

Everybody would love to exit Iraq as soon as possible, but such an action at this point in time could have serious consequences. The "surge" military strategy mostly leverages Sunni forces to avert Shiite activity, through negotiations and actual military engagement (surprisingly, not that much of a different policy from those of the late Saddam). Leaving now would lead to a collapse in the Middle-East quadrant, with Sunni Saudi Arabia directly confronting Shiite Iran and Syria in the Iraq battleground. Beyond the unbearable social and human consequences, do we really need an oil supply crisis of such proportions now?

The risks of an abrupt exit are comparable to the disaster following the Shia's fall in Iran (1979), which led to the Iran/Iraq war. Iraq was backed by Saudi Arabia, and of course the US and sometimes by the USSR. Right after the Shia's fall, oil prices soared and led to a worldwide energy crisis.

People may call Iraq 2008 dirty war, yet a mature solution is needed, considering of course the human costs of the conflict. Will the Democratic Party come up with a real strategy for Iraq, instead of an excel sheet with calculations? Also in electoral terms, this lack of responsibility by Clinton and Obama just remarks the better standing of the Republican candidate McCain in foreign policy.

In 1979, Carter was President and Brzezinski was at the White House. With Khomeini flying to Tehran, Brzezinski had no choice but ordering Americans to leave Iran. Now the US can still chose whether to stay and try to fix a country, or to leave it shattered. It is more than a moral dilemma.

- Stefano Casertano

Nukes for the People

2007-11-29T10:25:00.001-05:00

Nuclear smuggling from the former Soviet Union: are security cameras enough to control deposits? US money is flowing in, Uranium is flowing out, the Kurds are watching

Moscow, we have a problem

"I don't know their location. I don't know whether they have been destroyed or whether they have been sold or stolen. I don't know." The former Russian Council Secretary Alexander Lebed’s appearance on CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” in 1999 gave a strong shake to a West not yet awake from the Soviet Union collapse after-party. He was referring to something most people had only read about in Tom Clancy novels: a set of 80 nuclear suitcase bombs, weighing between 30 and 45 kilos, in the practical size of 60x40x20 cm. They were the result of a KGB request to the Moscow’s nuclear program planners; the devices were meant to be carried “behind enemy lines” and ignite in a blast equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT.

The suitcase story was just another incident in a situation which saw together the fall of socialism and, regrettably, of the security measures protecting atomic devices from misuse. There are over 1,000 nuclear deposits in Russia, totaling 70 million tons of waste in 2005. They plutonium enriching facilities in the south Urals and in Siberia have been feeding them since the ‘40s, together with dozens nuclear plants providing used fuel, and submarines changing core material. To this we should add, of course, material from the disposal of atomic weapons.

During the Soviet era, stocking facilities were managed with a very strict military rule, which pervaded both working hierarchies and personal ethics of controllers. Stealing nuclear material from a deposit would have been considered an unacceptable State crime; he who stole was a State criminal. In the word of a worker of a facility in Ekaterinenburg, “All nuclear material was secret. State secret. So there was fear. Real fear. People who worked in the nuclear sphere were frightened. If something got lost somewhere, maybe a piece of paper, or materials, or if there was a mismatch in the plutonium, a person understood that he would be exiled forever. But then this... change took place”. Suddenly after the collapse of the political system, an illicit market of global waste developed in what someone defined as a “clandestine global trade”. In 1992, Arkadi Chuvin, Deputy Head of the State company responsible for nuclear transports, admitted it was impossible to check the “end delivery” of nuclear materials from Russia. Policies had driven relaxed, as new control standard were poorly enforced, or not even planned.

Nukes for the people

The first times after the fall of the Union were the worse. The economic turmoil forced workers at the facilities to simply leave the posts and look for profitable second or third jobs. Some others decided to express a renewed entrepreneurial spirit by offering nuclear byproducts for sale. A US federal indictment indicates that Osama Bin Laden was among the first tentative customers, trying to buy various A-bomb components since 1992. The Japanese cult Akun Shirinkyo followed different ways to buy a nuclear warhead; luckily, it failed in this intent, but opted for the Sarin gas to carry on an infamous attack in the Tokyo subway.

These two stories were just the most prominent in a situation of widespread leakage. In 1992, two Russians were arrested in Bavaria, while they were scoping the market to find a buyer for three pounds of HUE; it was one of the 25 smugglings attempted in Germany that year alone. Also Russian businesses developed suspect behaviors, as witnessed by a Norway firm: a counterpart from Volgograd offered eight tons of heavy water at 440$ per kilo.

Shortly afterwards, an American visitor to the prestigious Kurchatov Institute near Moscow discovered 160 pounds of weapons-grade uranium "secured" in "American high school style lockers fastened only by a single chain through the handles". The problem was then known in all its breadth; too many people had access to the material. Just to quote some relevant episodes, in 1993 two Russian sailors stole 1.8 kg of 30 per cent enriched uranium-235 from the Adreeva Guba Northern Fleet Naval Base; the following year, Czech authorities, acting on anonymous information, searched a Saab parked in a busy street in the centre of Prague; in the boot they found 2.72 kg of highly enriched uranium with a Russian certificate of authentication. The three occupants of the vehicle were nuclear workers in former Soviet block industries.

Beneath the problems in basic security standards, a great deal of risk arose from a new cooperation between former members of Eastern secret services. Such network provided a tight knit of secrecy and trust, the basic ethical set required in this business. In the black year 1992, dismissed KGB and Stasi officers attempted to sell 45 kg of cobalt-60 to a German arms dealer. KGB agents were also responsible for a spectacular attempt to sell four tons of beryllium to North Korea. Stasi and KGB people eventually teamed up with Bulgaria’s Kintex, the former State weapon trading company, to smuggle 6 grams of 99.75% pure plutonium, above the percentage required to create bombs.

(Nuclear) winds are changing

Since 1993, around 1,000 cases of attempted traffic have been detected, although in the period up to 2001, the ones involving weapon quality material were twenty. The trends in the business seems promising. From spectacular multi-kilo quantities of the first years, new deals are limited to amounts such as the 0.004 kilos of HUE detected at the Bulgarian-Romanian border in 1999, or the 0.005 carried by Cameroon citizens in France, in 2001. The tendency altered in the last years: the IAEA reported in August that there were more than 250 reported thefts or losses of nuclear material around the world in 2006, an increase of about 200 percent from 2002. The latest news seem confirm the new market memento, as on November 29^th of this year Slovak police arrested three people attempting to set up a fire sale of 2.2 pounds of HUE for 1 million dollars.

The mixed results are the effects of various interacting countermeasures. The first one to be implemented was the security upgrade of Russian deposits: the action plan led to the securing of 113 buildings in 2000, yet containing a modest 7% of the estimated 650 tons of weapon level Russian material. The security systems of the most sensible facilities were upgraded by devices such as surveillance cameras, digital storage maintenance of material, and two-persons access systems. As the security inspectors from the US National Nuclear Security Administration entered the buildings, workers started bricking windows, while technicians reviewed vigilance operations planning. The program was mostly funded by US funds, and seemed to lead to the first promising results of reducing, at least, smuggled quantities.

As the program was carried on, it comprised 55% of all former Soviet nuclear buildings at the end of 2006, but as reported by the Harvard Belfer Center, “If only the buildings where the two sides have agreed on cooperative upgrades are counted, 63-percent of the work was completed”. The remaining third is still a “horror train” bust to international inspectors. Moreover, a new 350 million dollars US funded building meant to receive plutonium from dismantled bombs, completed in 2004, has never become operational. Domestic budget planned for spent fuel management received around 10% of the promised money. All this means that, possibly, US operations have met a renewed opposition, in form of the strong leadership of the President Valdimir Putin.

Mr Putin, who started his career as KGB agent, suspects that all this American interest in securing nuclear facilities is a cover for the supposed real goal of Washington: controlling the Russian nuclear power. Access to some sensible sites has been denied to NNSA agents, and some resources provided for monitoring are not used. Yet, the Russian leadership is particularly able at excerpting rich fees from the American counterparts, at least reading the published US 2007 budget to control nuclear material. Russian nuclear weapon storage will require 87 million dollars; 30 more are needed for nuclear transportation in the country. Research reactors fuel return flies high at around 15 billion dollars. The strategic partner Kazakhstan receives 8 billion for the management of its BN-350 spent fuel. The US and Russia have developed a complicated partnership were nuclear waste is a matter for monetary bargain.

Unluckily, it seems that the close KGB ties of the President are not enough to reduce trafficking. As far as it seems, organized crime is pressing hard on the resistance of people and security devices, and smuggling reports in 2006/2007 have turned back to host an interesting collection of small trade stories. In October 2007, four people were arrested in Moscow for trying to place two ampoules of Osmium-187; the same material was found in the apartment of another individual in August. The countries once bundled by the Warsaw Pact seem to live days of nostalgia, as nuclear commerce with Mother Russia regains memento. Energy official of Ukraine are suspected of having imported illegal material from Moscow; the port of Vladivostok is a regular scenario for radiation detection.

The main security issues seem to come from the independent republics of Belarus, Ukraine, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, as geographically they also represent to logical ways to intermediate with the rest of the world. In the effort to develop a “Second line of defense”, radiation detection gates have been installed in many places, yet their efficiency is to be proven. Many Russian regions have had a somehow too close relationship with nuclear waste since the fifties; some environments are highly polluted, and even a lake fish in a man’s net can make the security gates go crazy. Even in this case, to make alarms turn on he should be walking through a custom border, that does not really seem the case for many semi-nomadic tribes around the Caspian See.

The third line of defense

Western estimates were that by 1991 the Soviets had an excess of 27,000 nuclear weapons: at least 11,000 strategic weapons on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and at least 15,000 warheads. Later information suggested that the total might have been as high as 45,000 warheads. Additionally, the Soviets had as much as 1,200 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium and 160 metric tons of plutonium.

Eighty percent of the strategic weapons were deployed in bases in Russia; the remainder was deployed in the Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. It is not certain that the military challenge of the US was the only reason for the Soviet atomic weapons build up: some scholars believe that the stockpile of missiles was mainly the result of unaccountable Red Army officials, who wanted to show off their power to colleagues and wives. The results were nevertheless impressive, both in quantity and in their political effects, which supposedly led to the fall of the Soviet system. Now it is a global duty to get rid of them.

As the NNSA continues its diplomatic discussions with the Kremlin, as radioactive trouts make border officers jump on their seats, a third line of defense is being watched, and should considerably increase in importance: that of the population.

The Kurdish region extends on the tops of Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. It is the world Mecca of illegal trafficking. It is not officially recognized as a State, and neighboring countries are common in their views of not suffering the Kurds. But the Kurds actually felts as a separated culture since centuries, and are able now to control every angle of the area. A tribal leader recently reportedly declared that “No one could pass through these valleys if I did not want to. The government cannot control the border; the Kurds just naturally do”. It is not a surprise then, that as tensions with Turkey build up in 2007, the Kurds lost partial control of their territory, and trade has responded to rules closer to free-market.

Also Turkey could play its part. An extraordinary position on the two sides of the Bosporus makes Istanbul a great spot for sightseeing and illegal trafficking, although the latter does not come as easy as it may seem. If a foreigner leaves the main business and tourist streets, he would be greeted by curios looks by the locals. The city is a patchwork of social systems that constantly monitor each other. Smuggling requires complicated marketing and advertising: the risk to be detected is quite high.

Contention programs could therefore try to leverage the opportunities offered by societies. Intelligence, once again, becomes fundamental in the era of social warfare. Maybe word-of-mouth may also help to detect where the lost nuclear cases have gone; or, even better, it could inform the eventual possessors that the devices require constant maintenance, and are certainly unusable: he should better give them back.

- Stefano Casertano

The wild truth about Lions and Gazelles

2007-10-29T14:17:00.003-04:00

What teachers do not tell you about the laws of the Savanna. Do you really think running is the first thing animals do when they wake up? Another episode of theory controverted by facts.

New York - An over-abused parable at MBA courses is the one of the Lion and the Gazelle. With face expressions posed at "Hemingway telling his African adventures" style, lecturers repeat and repeat the prayer of Savanna capitalism:

"Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle. When the sun comes up, you'd better be running."

Nice. MBA students normally laugh. Some even write it down, ready to patronize younger analysts as Business School is over. Yet, this story should be used with much caution: there are yet some points that lecturers are missing.

First, lions hunt at night. Only untalented lions, unable to catch anything at night, would stay awake in the morning and try to get something to eat. Moreover, normally it is female lions that hunt. So the MBA teachers claim is valid for "untalented female lions" only, to avoid generalizations.

Second, gazelles seldom run. They only do that when they see a threat; such threat is rarely represented by a lion. Most of the times it is a van packed with tourists and screaming kids. Gazelles like to perform other activities when they wake up, than start running like crazy. If they do such a thing, park guards would think they have gone nuts and would shoot them down.

Third, lions also like to eat other stuff than gazelles. Call it antelopes, zebras, wildebeests, young giraffes, children elephants, humans: all that was in your kid Savanna animals book fits the feline mouth. So if a proper gazelle is running too fast, the lion may also opt for a tender, little, slow moving dik-dik.

Fourth, in the remote case that gazelles may wake up and run, it is only old or children gazelles that are left behind by the group, and are eventually eaten by predators. So if you are young and fairly fit, as most of the people pursuing an MBA degree are, lions should be no great worry for you.

Nevertheless, the mass of quadrupeds willing to catch Gazelles is fairly more various than lions only. Cheetahs are just next in the list. So, gazelles who only watch out for lions are eaten by cheetahs.

Finally, whenever all of the above conditions are respected, the wild creatures would have to run trying to avoid park buses that traditionally station around hunting scenes, following the lions step by step. I saw it personally last August, in the Serengeti park in Tanzania. After no less than ten vans teamed up to follow two untalented female lions hunting a nutty old gazelle, one of the big cats raised her head from the bush, and seemed to gave a "What shall I tell you" look to her companion. The gazelle was happily jumping away on the horizon.

The correct claim would then be:

"When the sun goes up in the Savanna, untalented female lions should run faster than any old eatable quadrupeds, or humans; they always get something in the end, as slower individuals will be left behind. When the sun goes up in the Savanna, gazelles should open their eyes and give a look around to spot possible predators; if no one is there, they can relax and graze some grass. It does not matter if you are an untalented female lion or a gazelle. When the sun goes up, vans packed with tourists will bother you."

So, the morale of the Lion and Gazelle parable is that if a professor has no better example than that, he has no idea about what the life in the Savanna looks like, and you may better drop the course.

- Stefano Casertano

The Gazpacho of Trevi

2007-10-22T17:14:00.001-04:00

Genius or idiot? Italy's circus at its best talking about the Trevi Fountain water tuning red. Between reminiscences of Futurism and Dada, but less expensive than the originals

New York - Let us make it clear from the beginning: had the red paint be of any harm to the marbles of the Roman Trevi fountain, the perpetrator should have been forced to clean up statues and friezes with his toothbrush. Yet, the color resulted being a fully self-erasing color. All that is left are some pictures of an odd looking baroque monument, fulled with a liquid resembling fruit punch.

A leaflet left on the site argued that the liquid was the blood of "unemployed, pensioners and exploited youngsters". It eventually went further up, quoting a cultural link to the late "futurist movement", an artistic wave that shook Italy between the two world wars. Eventually, the Major of Rome screamed in despair that too many people seem to hate the Eternal City.

Yet, it seems incontestable that the "art attack" was so extreme that it crossed border with real contemporary creations. "Why should Christo be allowed to pack up the Reichstag, and we cannot turn the Trevi water red? It seems that the city council prefers to allow larger scale vandalisms, than innocuous art actions", said the infamous critic Vittorio Sgarbi, a legendary figure in the right upper-class Roman parties. The vandalism reference was to the transformation of Ara Pacis, a monument from the imperial age, covered up by the architect Richard Meier in a new structure curiously resembling a gas station.

The art scene in Italy is prone to provocations. Neo pop-artist Maurizio Cattelan showcased a JPII hit by a meteor, and a dead JFK in a coffin. In the Seventies, actor Carmelo Bene was the inventor of "Golden Rain", a not-so-welcomed performance involving theater attenders sitting in the first rows. Before that, Lucio Fontana cut some painting frames to revolutionize dimensional spatiality of works, and the outcast Piero Manzoni canned his daily products, selling them at "the same price of gold".

The Trevi gesture claims to be the first linked to "Futurismo" in a long time; after the fall of the fascist regime, cultural rebirth of Italy understandably went through refusal. But is it really what it claims to be? Futurist art pieces were focused on the depiction of movement and action. The gazpacho-like water is more reminiscent of the earlier Dada style.

Accept it or not, there was everything that would have made Tristan Tzara happy. The coloring was unnecessary, senseless, absurd; it created a "distortion between the object and the subject", or even between "background and subject"; it was a joyful laugh in the face of the happy bourgeois ready to photograph crystal clear water. The first Dada exhibition in Paris (1921) included a wig drown in a pool of blood-like liquid. The Trevi version was a "shake in a city which in 200 years has not produced anything new", in the words of a somewhat too extreme blogger.

Let us hope that nobody now would be considering to spray the Coliseum in smurf blue, or put Groucho's mustaches on the "Bocca della Verità"; as for the Trevi fountain, the attack was unwelcome, original, and not to be forgotten. It should be mentioned for its artistic value, rather than its penal consequences. Italy is taking itself too seriously lately; it is taking seriously also what really should not, such as a stupid joke. Or an artwork, as you please.

- Stefano Casertano

Ahmadinejad at Columbia: Welcome to Nehanderthal Politics!

2007-09-30T18:45:00.001-04:00

How hard is it to make Iranian President Ahamadinejad look smart? Columbia President Lee Bollinger succeeded in the uncommon task. Bottom note: please hire a proper Farsi translator soon.

New York - One could serenely concede that one week is long enough to express a safe judgment about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the Columbia Campus; and maybe one could be even more serene is asserting that Columbia President Lee Bollinger succeeded in the uncommon task of making the Iranian President look smart.

Media stressed how the Bollinger's opening list of true, yet dialogically unprovoked insults offered an easy play to Ahmadinejad, who called for respect as due to a guest. It has been argued that Bollinger did not follow diplomatic etiquette; the mainstream opinion among Columbia students is simply that the opening remarks were not necessary.

"Ahmadinejad was absolutely hilarious", commented an MBA student, "he should be invited over and over to the US". How could one react when the answer to questions about women stoning is "families are happier to have girls than boys"; or when he suggests that it is a pity that "more research has been made on physics than on the holocaust"?

To the famous homosexuals question, beneath translation errors, he replied that the "phenomenon" is different in Iran, and that gays are prosecuted (and persecuted) only if calling up for a place in the society, implying some sort of acceptance of hanging as an instrument of behavioral control.

The Iranian President has well learned the lesson of Kohmeini, the imam that led the transition from the Shah dictatorship to the first "Islamic Republic" in the world in 1979. Short messages, based on the logics of demagogy, leveraging the religious conservatorism well spread within some social strata in the country.

Try attacking a demagogue, and he will use the attacks to show his people how others aggressive and full of hate are. Ahmadinejad and Bollinger ended up talking to two different audiences, resulting in a speech good to feed newspaper columns (and maybe this blog), but less strong on the side of diplomatic progress. It was an episode of "Nehanderthal Politics", where words were said not to reach a dialog, but to show off verbal force from both sides.

It would be also advisable a proper translator from Farsi be hired soon. This time it was about homosexuals; last time the translator wanted Ahmadinejad to have said desiring Israel wiped off the map, while his opinion was a no less regrettable, yet pretty different "Israel will disappear from the page of history".

More on translations: at the beginning of the meeting, Bollinger asked Ahmadinejad to send back to the US the activist and Columbia alumnus Kian Tajbakhsh, offering a position as "visiting professor". In the end, Ahmadinejad invited "all Columbia students to visit the 400 Iranian Universities". Ever wondered that "Visiting professor" might have been mistranslated, leading to a "visiting students" invitation? To avoid any doubt, the students crowd in the campus greeted the proposal with an applause, misunderstanding or not.

- Stefano Casertano

The Duisburg Massacre: a thought after the bullets

2007-09-07T08:27:00.001-04:00

Six Italian gunned down in a German town: a Capone style execution which gives a hard time to European police. Stop making jokes about Mafia: it is knocking at your door. It is better to start understanding it.

Rome - Last August, two " 'ndrangheta" affiliates traveled all the way from Calabria to Duisburg, in Germany, to shot down six Italians presumably members of criminal organizations. It is the first time ever that such a large scale mafia massacre takes place outside Italy; in the word of Police chief Anotnio Manganelli, the episode reveals "a surge in the international activities of the clans, scaling up from mere finance and money laundering, to actual gunshots".

Germans used to refer to mafia as some sort of folkloric issue present more or less in whole Italy, and a few just loved calling Italian emigrants "mafiosi" as an insult in the most various occasions. As a consequence of internationalization, mafia has become global; it could therefore be helpful to really start understanding what this phenomenon is.

As a long time "Italian emigrant", I tried to sum up the most popular questions I have been asked about mafia, as a reference for those who want to have a deeper knowledge of the problem.

1) What is Mafia?
- The most common answer is "Mafia is a form of culture". Italy has a story of being split up in various kingdoms, with intervals of foreign dominations; especially in the South, the only continuity was represented by informal ruling of local families, which covered up for the lack of State order. As after 1866 the new Republic started gaining control, such organizations where so much eradicated that they refused to step away. Mafia groups also had a role in terrain and workers control during the passage from feudal to market economies, servicing large owners.

2) How does Mafia rule?
- Mafia knows its people. If a family controls a town, it knows it cannot allow, say, a girl being raped in the area. If someone tried to do it, he would be tracked down and killed. On the other hand, if someone wants to open up a shop, he has to ask for a "permission", and eventually pay for a monthly "protection fee", or "pizzo". Safety is ensured, together with underdevelopment; but only the first is really perceived.

3) Where does Mafia make its money from?
- Drugs, prostitution, protection fees; increasingly since the nineties, from regular business "corrected" the mafia way. 50% of confiscated Mafia assets is constituted by businesses. Mafia accounts for an astonishing 5% of the Italian GDP.

4) Where is Mafia?
- Traditional Mafia, or "Cosa nostra" ("Our thing") is located in Sicily; Calabria hosts " 'Ndrangheta", the Duisburg guys; Puglia is the land of smaller "Sacra Corona Unita"; the Naples region is home for the increasingly successful "Camorra". Rome developed an own criminal group in the late Seventies, the "Magliana Gang", but it self eliminated through internal fights in the early nineties.

5) Is Mafia dangerous for tourists?
- Mafia is not a problem for people traveling in Italy, although in the last years two tourists have been hit in Naples by bouncing bullets: a really unlikely event.

6) Why is it so hard to get rid of Mafia?
- Mafia is not a group of people separated from the rest of society; it acts on many levels, from very high finance operations, to giving weekly pay to sons of jailed members. Author Roberto Saviano described the phenomenon of illegal plants around Naples, where owners pay fees to Camorra families, and sometimes are affiliated themselves; the employees are underpaid and have no contract; sometimes women workers marry the owners, so that Mafia becomes a transversal issue inseparable from a normal society.

7) How is Mafia changing?
- In the early Nineties, Mafia bosses ordered spectacular attacks which led to the killing of State prosecutors Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone. Tons of TNT were used to blow up a highway passage close to Capaci (Sicily), and a car in the center of Palermo. Citizens revolted against the families, and in a few months prominent criminals were arrested.
This made Mafia understand it had to use a "lower profile". It avoided noisy actions since then, preferring the mere control of finance flows and the use of personal violence.
In Naples, the arrests of Camorra leaders led to a fragmentation of power, with families that now control areas as small as a single street. Locals talk about the lack of "values" of the new generations, which make wide use of violence, and have less capacity of assuring social order, due to their smaller scale.

8) Why is Mafia expanding outside Italy?
- Expansion is possible in those territories where it is more simple. Germany does not have technical or legal instruments to really fight this form of organized crime, and the families have spotted this opportunity. The expansion is a direct consequence of market internationalization, which has not been completed by a renew of international security cooperation.
As far as it seems, Italian and German police have started a closer collaboration, leading to around 40 arrests for the Duisburg massacre.

9) Is every Italian a mafioso?
- Only restricted groups of people really profit from Mafia; 99.5% of Italians do not. If you meet an Italian working abroad, he is more likely to be there to escape mafia driven underdevelopment, than to expand drug traffic.

10) Will Mafia ever be beaten?
- Yes, mostly through development. That is why Mafia does not like expanding economies.

- Stefano Casertano

Chinese inflation: so what? Happy about the (depreciated) dollar

2007-08-09T23:30:00.001-04:00

If Chinese prices rise, the Us could appreciate the dollar and limit impact on domestic inflation. A new strategic asset in the monetary market, revealing once again how smart Alan Greenspan has been.

New York - On 13th August, China should be announcing the highest inflation rate in ten years: 5.5% or more, the highest since 1997. Investors from all over the world are worried, as an increase in Chinese prices could make the country's exports more costly, disturbing other economies. China outbound trade is vital for international stability.

When the financial market tumbled in 2002, the President of the American Central Bank Alan Greenspan chose an aggressive strategy, pumping huge amounts of money in the economy, and fostering the loosening of the debt market. Interest rates became very low, and it was suddenly possible to get credit money at virtually no extra cost. The stock crash was off-set by an housing boom.

This strategy normally yields more inflation than a central banker could ever desire; this was not the case of the US, that survived years of real interest rates at zero, with price increases around 2%. Many economists explain this phenomenon through the massive insertion of cheap Chinese goods in Western economies: your 3$ T-shirts and low-profile chinaware forced prices to stay low, expanding overall consumption. Should they become more expansive, inflation would skyrocket also in your country.

Yet, is there any way out? Greenspan's strategy is ready to roll out its second phase: the dollar is depreciated in the national money market; the new Fed President, Ben Bernanke, could work for its appreciation, and make Chinese goods as cheap as before.

The main obstacle would be to grant a larger floating band for the renmimbi towards the dollar; this already seems to be the case, given the last moves by the Chinese central bank in such direction. The Us will have been the highest profiters from China labor supply, and would make Europe pay for the inflationary consequence: it will not be positive to have a strong euro like the current one. For once, the weaker guy wins.

- Stefano Casertano

Cold War reloaded: exporting gas instead of socialism

2007-07-15T17:30:00.002-04:00

Russian President Vladimir Putin retired the European non Proliferation Treaty. "Energy" is the new power discriminant between a world of market economies, comparable to "political influence" during the communism/capitalism confrontation. A new era of the Cold War begins.

New York - What if Russia decided to cut the European gas supplies? In 2005/2006, such action led the leaders of the largest continental economies to protest together from Bruxelles, with Ukraine portrayed as the symbol of new Soviet aggressions from the East.

Few words were spent to clarify that Ukraine actually received discounted gas from Russia, and local households paid less for gas than Russian ones. Yet, media pressure worked, and the two countries managed to find an agreement. Should a similar dispute happen again, such a solution would no more be the case.

Russian President Vladimir Putin helped the State energy monopolist Gazprom to close separated agreements with different European economies; a threat on the gas flow would cause a struggle between the different continental governments, aiming at appease Moscow to protect their revenues, thus making Putin's game. Unified protests from Bruxelles would be accompanied by an echo of "yes, but" by profiting governments.

Italy's Eni has financial relations with Gazprom, and the couple has made plans to create a new pipeline reaching the South of the Mediterranean peninsula. Germany's former Chancellor Gerhard Schoroeder sits on the board of the Gazprom company building the Nord-Stream pipeline, from St.Petersburg to Grunewald. France's Total was the less likely winner for a bid to set up exploitation of a gas field in the Arctic. Everybody gets a piece; everybody is happy.

Yet, the European gas situation is becoming more and more risky. The future of a much needed political European Union is binded to paper games about the new constitution. Lack of common governance has always been risky in energy matters; just think about the sectarian problems in Oil rich regions, prone to social unrest. As energy becomes more and more valuable, Russia will gain a broader control of Europe.

Old fashioned tactics of seeking US cover might not be working anymore. Washington accepted the Russian attitude towards Europe up to the recent local agreements, then pushed on a plan to install anti-missiles rockets in the Czech Republic, with radar facilities in Poland. The declared purpose was that of containing the Iran menace of launching atomic armed rockets.

Putin said the plan was not acceptable, and retired from the European non proliferation treaty. It was signed when the capitalism/communism struggle was fading away. Now the treaty disappears, as a new struggle raises up: from politics to energy, it is just a new phase of the Cold War.

- Stefano Casertano

Smart as a Costantinople Emperor, but against Costantinople

2007-07-11T16:26:00.001-04:00

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not over in her plan to reshape Europe. New proposals in country voting rights in the European Union virtually cut Turkey out, as in the plans of Merkel's party

New York - It was already in her electoral program: German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes that Turkey should not be part of the European Union, and would prefer a status of "preferential partnership" for the country.

What this partnership would actually mean is yet unclear: it may be based on a set of commercial facilitations and business integrations, which will still require Turkish workers to get a visa to work in continental Europe. This is not a minor issue for Germany, where Turkish immigrants constitute 30% of the total seven million "Gastarbeitern".

The clear thing is that Merkel is using a very subtle strategic plan to reach her goals: he will have other European countries decide for her. In the European Summit of 28th June, the Chancellor proposed a "reform treaty", basically an heir of the misfortuned European Constitution, anchoring voting weights of each country to the size of population.

Turkey has a little more than 71 million inhabitants, a figure that would represent the second largest country in the European Union, after, no hard guess, Germany. The new voting system would reassure the de facto primacy of the central European economies; as a side effect, fewer governments would be willing to accept the entrance of such a large population country as Turkey.

By now, some protests rouse only from Poland, as the Polish President Lech Kaczynski observed that "Poland would have had a much larger population if Germany had not killed so many people in the Second World War". Eventually, Poland managed to retain its 27 votes, while Germany, Italy, France and Britain stood at their historical 29. It seems there is few room for new requests from the South.

As assured by Merkel last year in a visit to Turkey, she will not stand in the way of EU negotiations. Now we know she may let others do the job.

- Stefano Casertano

The thunder from Down Under: Italy on the gas scene

2007-06-27T11:31:00.001-04:00

Germany may not be the only distributor of Russian gas in Europe; plans are set to create a new pipeline to Southern Italy and Austria, developed by Gazprom and Italy's Enel. Is it promising as it seems?

New York - Gazprom is the Russian State company controlling almost all the energy assets of the country; as Italian energy company Enel bought a stake in the oil division Gazprom Neft last year, most observers thought it was doing that only to resell back to Gazprom the following year. Yet, Enel proudly announced that it will retain the share.

The oil division originated from the bankrupt of the Yukos company, owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, enterpreneur not aligned to the politics of the Kremlin. Enel should have acted as an upfront investor, tied to a resell operation through a buying option Gazprom could exercise next year.

Last week, Enel CEO Paolo Scaroni announced plans to build a 900km (550 miles) pipeline to transport Gazprom gas from the Black sea, to two trunks ending in Austria and in Southern Italy. The stake will be retained.

It is hard to say if such were the original intentions of the partners; the current geopolitical events in Europe might have had an influence.

The main gas project in the continent sees Germany as primary hub; some recent discussions with Poland, and the struggle about defense missile radars in the Czech Republic, suggest that Russian President Valdimir Putin is seeking a differentiation in the distribution markets.

The executive of Gazprom Alexander Medvedev announced that the aim is to diversify "the paths of supplying Russian gas to European countries and notably guaranteeing Europe's energy security".

Is it promising as it sounds? The most safe answer is: not yet. It could reveal to be only a message sent to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to push towards the resolution of the Polish and Czech crisis.

It is too early to call Italians smart or lucky; yet, Enel favored the creation of this privileged business position, and hopefully will profit from it. Luck and smartness go hand in hand.

- Stefano Casertano

Smart, bad and violent: the Iran plan to destabilize Israel

2007-06-17T15:29:00.001-04:00

Why did Hamas revolt now? The coup in Gaza has been orchestrated by Iran to create chaos the area, as an answer to Us/Russia plan to install anti-rocket missiles in Azerbaijan

New York - "Lehvi mahfuz" is a term that Islam theologists use to define destiny. Things do not happen incidentally; the will of the Creator can be read as in a book; the term means "preserved tablet". The current chapter about the Israel and Palestine is a particularly troubled one.

Last week the extremist Hamas party succeeded in a coup to oust the relatively moderate Fatah party from the Gaza strip territories.

Fatah representatives were pulled out of their offices and shot on the street; the Palestinian President, Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, called for the dismissal of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, an Hamas officer, who refused to step down. The Palestinian territories are now split between the two forces.

As in books, nothing happens incidentally. The time for the Hamas move has been strategically decided by the forces who back the party: Iran and Syria. These States collaborated to the foundation and surge of Hamas, a party which does not recognize Israel. The objective is clear: tie Israel into a vise.

From the North, the States back Shiite Hizbullah troops in Lebanon; success has been such, that these armies resisted Israels's attacks during a war in 2006. Down in the Gaza strip, the role of Syria and Iran has become prominent since last year, when the Us suspended humanitarian aid, in response to Hamas's success in the Palestinian elections.

Last week, two rockets have been shot from Lebanon to Northern Israel, to witness the double side of the territorial risks; Hizbullah, anyhow, denied being responsible for the launches.

Why did they decide to tighten the vise now? The overall goal of Iran in the Middle-East is to destabilize the Us local strategy, directed at energy control and elimination of extremist opponents.

One of the most important outcomes from the recent G8 meeting in Germany was an Us/Russia agreement to set up an anti-rocket base in Azerbaijan, with the objective to contain Iran. The coup in Gaza is a response to such intent.

The situation for Israel is as hard as it rarely has been in the last years. It is not just a cultural challenge; the country is facing problems outside its reach. Israel is now a more vulnerable territory: the attack on Lebanon last year brought the problem to the surface, and deepened it.
A military action has far more unforeseeable consequences compared to the Israel campaigns of last century, as the Yom Kippur or the Six-Day wars. Israel cannot be alone in finding a good finale to this book chapter.

- Stefano Casertano

I hate Alexanderplatz, I love Alexanderplatz

2007-06-14T09:16:00.002-04:00

How Berliners got to love socialist architecture: are we still in time to stop the dismantling?

New York - As first-time visitors land in Berlin, most of them express the desire to go visit Alexanderplatz. The roots of this common behavior are unclear; some trace them back to an old rainer Werner Fassbinder movie; among Italians, a melodic song of the eighties should bear the responsibility.

Most of the times, as they reach their goal tourists ask "Where is it?": all the imaginary they had about a fairy tale central European square collapse under tons of socialist concrete. Between Fassbinder and 2007 there have been a war and a socialist regime; the first cleared the place, the second built it up with "realist architecture" solids.

High cubic constructions surround the area; nothing could be more distant than the complicated neo-classical style of other neighborhoods. After the German reunification, the new ruling of the city looked at the buildings with political disgust and aesthetic repulsion. They represented the Soviet long-hand, and there undoubtedly ugly for that time.

Erasing started. The DDR parliament, the "House of the People", was chosen for dismantling. Renovation plans were set up for Alexanderplatz, as for many other former East parts of the city.

Yet, people slowly realized that the huge residential buildings provided a special atmosphere, all of its own. Cleared of the Stasi terror, and injected with new Western wealth, the small apartments hosted new generations of people paying as few as seventy euro a month for a two-bedroom apartment. Artists, intellectuals and young professionals populated the terrace-less constructions; Berlin newspapers spoke of the "late realized Soviet dream of living communities".

Beyond political interpretations, people are realizing that the "Plattenbau" are a vivid part of the city cultural heritage. On Google Earth, together with the Brandenburger Tor, many 3D models of these buildings have been realized. The Museum of Modern Art in New York is selling paper replicas of the most prominent ones. There is also a card game on sale, reporting information such as year of construction, number of apartments and similar data.

The greatest celebration arose from the latest G8 meeting in Rostock. The Kempinsky Hotel, chosen to host the heads of the States, is a "Wedding cake" building: a prefabricated work with decorations glued on it. Examples of this style populate the centers of many German cities; they give a clean visual sense, when the falling plasters do not reveal the Disneyworld-like approach.

Socialist realist architecture is now accepted as a different concept from the Western taste, although parallels have been made with Italian fascist architecture, lately celebrated by numerous exhibitions and restorations. Detractors only compare it to popular fast-expansion condos of the seventies, such as the ones portraited by a marvelous Michael Wolf photo set.

As the DDR Parliament reaches the ground level, Alexanderplatz is interpreting a social debate between capitalism and socialist past. It had been projected as the vision Communists had of tomorrow. There is a TV-tower; a world clock; a futuristic fountain; mosaics on buildings with ideal workers; meeting halls and a large train station. These elements are being modified to modern taste.

A large cube hosting a mall had a cage of small inclined metal squares all around, to "break the linearity of the Pythagorean perfection", in the words of its conceiver. The cage is gone, and now the building is an anonymous concrete block.

No renovation will make Alexanderplatz a good looking place. Time could have given it the deep taste of history. Maybe it is not too late to save it.

- Stefano Casertano

The neverending Italian transition

2007-06-13T15:57:00.001-04:00

Projects for a central democratic party are all but promising: average age of board is 54 and nobody is under 40. Youngsters are reacting.

New York - "Go for it, make us dream!": this is not the scream of a football fan to his running idol: the runner is Mr Giovanni Consorte, head of Italian leftist insurer Unipol; the fan is deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Massimo D'Alemalarmingly, the goal was to block a foreign takeover of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.

The tapings have been made public this week. Prime Minister Romano Prodi declared he is worried that "someone wants to create a climate of tension". The clear reference to the Seventies is just mild rhetoric to avoid coping with a bad case of politicians driving private business. Other memorable quotes from the tapes involve prominent left politician Piero Fassino complimenting Consorte for his brilliant "social" finance skills.

This episodes are just another sign of how the Italian political class is revealing incapable of acquiring a modern standard of public governance. The transition started in the early nineties, and is celebrating now its fifteenth anniversary. Other European States lived the change better than Italy.

As the Berlin Wall fell, there were fewer reasons to sustain strong State based economies. In the UK of the eighties, the strategic acumen of the Prime Minister Margareth Thatcher forecasted the change, and the country switched to a strong presence of finance; a new generation of politicians grew to sustain the paradigm, from New Labour to posh Tories.

In Germany, Chancellor Helmut Kohl bore the political burden of reunification; after some uncertainty, his successor Gerhard Schroeder gave a strong impulse to reform hitting the key of a new energetic alliance with Russia. Social benefits, pensions, cost of workers, and even the beloved company governance system have been put into discussion.

France reasserted its role as security force the hard way, through the Mururoa nuclear tests; then President Jacques Chirac concentrated on the economic alliances with UK and Germany. In 2007, he resigned in favor of Nicolas Sarkozy, the first President who did not work for De Gaulle.

In Italy, the fall of the Soviet block was seen with despair by the higher circles. Other rules had to govern the country: competition instead of agreements; merit instead of nominations; in few words, more economy and another role for politics.

The current Prime Minister Romano Prodi is a former manager, dealing with the dismissions of the largest Italian economies; the principal opponent, Silvio Berlusconi, is the owner of a media empire. In need of mature politicians to administrate an open economy, the Italian parties turned to managers. It works well for a transitions, to teach politicians how markets work. But are fifteen years enough for a change?

Last week, the centre-left coalition presented the plan for a new democratic party, eventually led by the "rising star" Roman major, Walter Veltroni, aged 52. A kid in the forming group of 45 leaders, where the average age is 54 and there is nobody under 40. Eventually, Romano Prodi stepped in and claimed the leadership, sure of his 68 years of age. At least, the new party does not lack self-irony: they baptized the leading group "The 45 wise men".

Youngster around the democratic area reacting throwing elections for a "shadow committee", containing people rigorously under 40 years of age; the results are due later this week.

An infamous "The Economist" reportage about Italy titled "Addio, Dolce Vita". The author, John Peet, was convincing in his disbelief for the country's perspectives, yet the title was a tremendous misunderstanding. Italians would just love to get rid of Dolce Vita. It refers to the flashing Roman life of the sixties, full of stars and crazy parties. Mr Prodi and his opponent were in their twenties; fifty years later, the party still goes on.

- Stefano Casertano

Rockets for Gas: the promising and unstable G8 agreement

2007-06-09T11:52:00.001-04:00

Russia can sell gas in Europe, and the Us can have their missiles to control Iran: a thin (pipe)line connects the brilliant results of the latest G8 agreement

New York - Can we be happy as we should be? From 5 to 7 July, the government heads of the eight most industrialized countries in the world gathered in Germany to discuss about global security and development issues; as far as it seems, Russian President Vladimir Putin and American homologous George W. Bush found a solution to the European missile crisis, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel built consensus for a new carbon emissions reduction document.

The main German newspaper, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", spoke of a "success". Many people wonder if this may be the beginning of a new, responsible phase in international relations. After a closer look, we may as well establish that the success was a formidable matter of correlated strategies.

Step 1 - Carbon dioxide's agreement: Us placet to Russian-German energy alliance
Merkel pushed for emissions reduction because it implies that European countries have to switch from Oil to gas. The new St.Petersburg-Berlin pipeline will raise the portion of German gas imports from Moscow from 44% to 80%, thus forcing the country to have a granted local market.
As the Us agreed on the emissions proposal, helped building a forced path for other European countries towards connecting to the Berlin distribution.

Step 2 - Russia's payback: agreement on missile sites and Iran containment
The much publicized crisis on the Polish missiles turned out to be a diplomatic message from Washington to Moscow, stating "what about managing together Iran"? The missiles were bound to control the Persian State; Russia backs Iran with nuclear consulting and weapons sales. As the Us allowed the creation of a secured Russian gas market in Europe, Putin had less reasons to hold his grip on the middle-East.
Russia proposed a co-managed missile site in Azerbaijan, the frontier territory between the two world forces for the control of the area.

Conclusions:
Winners: Germany spent few strategy and won a virtual gas distribution monopole; both Us and Russia won their strategic objectives. Merkel should be thankful also to the SPD component of the government, as her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder was the architect of the baltic pipeline project.
Losers in the short run: few words have been spent by Italy and France, both seeking preferential energetic alliances.
Losers in the long run: a "Foreign Affairs" article by former Ucrainan Prime Minister Julia Timoshenko pointed out that the Russian gas fields are depleting. The three main areas, accounting for 3/4 of production, are in steep decline, and there is already an internal energy deficit.

A production shock may create severe consequences. As every energy based equilibrium, the G8 agreement is far too sensible to production problems; but this is always better than mutual silence.

- Stefano Casertano

Time for a New Middle-Class?

2007-06-04T12:51:00.001-04:00

A strategy revealed: how the .com bubble burst has been off-set by a housing bubble, making the middle-class implode. Good to overcome a crisis, but it is time to move on.

New York - A bored student at Columbia University approximated that at least 50% of the conferences taking place at the institution concern economic polarization. Declining middle-class, uncertainty on the job place, lack of social and sanitary assistance: the topics are known; what is always different is the explanation people have for them.

A recent McKinsey survey stated that American middle-class is not in that terrible situation people believe. Price adjusted earnings are in line with historical data, while only a reduced portion of manufacturing jobs is being off-shored; this percentage should be less than 3%. Nevertheless, the workplace is less "sure" than before.

This element is key to understand the new situation. Contemporary scholars believe that economic crises last less than before; this is due, among other factors, to a diminished amount of inventories, connected to a general higher flexibility of the economy.

The workforce is being increasingly compared to a mere productive factor; as high technologies tend to "standardize" human operations, people can be more easily called on and off their jobs. Like ware in reduced inventories.

Is this bad? It depends on the points of view. 2001 has been a dramatic year. The Nasdaq Index started declining in February, and was followed by 9/11, bringing it to its lowest ever in November.

How much did it take to the economy to recover? Not that long, when compared to previous crises. Very short, if we consider concomitants the above mentioned events.

The quick recovery due to the FED on a large extent. Former President Alan Greenspan brought interest rates to virtually zero. Saving rates dropped dramatically: the central bank was giving money away fro free. The American economy managed to overcome the slump; huge investments have been secured in the housing market.

A .com bubble bust has been offset by a bubble in real estate. This allowed to avoid critical economic blocks.

Yet, the middle-class had to suffer higher housing prices. 2001/2002, then, showed how large downsizings are a preferred solution to recover from slumps. The problem is that such temporary solution got to be considered as the normality of things; and a job is not safe as it used to be.

It has been better than a long-lasting crisis like the '29 one, but maybe it is time to move on. Overall, large personnel restructurings seem not to have the magic of some years ago. The New Yorker recently noticed that managers declaring such operations benefited a 7% increase in stock prices, but this is not the case anymore. Is it a middle-class revenge?

- Stefano Casertano

Find the Right Man

2007-06-01T20:08:00.001-04:00

The new World Bank President Robert Zoellick may prove the right man to help solve the Russian missile crisis

New York - There are few reasons for saying no to the new World Bank head nomination. The most relevant one is the usual "why should the Us President have the pick"; yet, this time Mr Bush seems to have chosen a person whose record is incontestable from any side.

Just to start, Robert Zoellick did not plan large scale conflicts, as his predecessor Mr Wolfowitz has done in Iraq. Among the republican bunch, then, he has been defined by "The Economist" as "one of the few who did not destroy his reputation."

The key element in his CV is the role he had in the reunification of Germany. As Deputy Secretary of State, he worked under James Baker III to sustain the German right for self-determination. The year was 1990, and the plan was that of rebuilding a strong central European nation to stabilize the area, as the Soviet empire was imploding.

The idea worked beyond any expectation. Western Europe felt but few of the distress of the collapsing neighbor. Some integration problems between former DDR and RDT are to be solved, but the continent survived the shock.

Germany is now the principal energy trading partner of Moscow. The new pipeline linking St. Petersburg to Greifswald will make Berlin the main gas hub of Europe. Chancellor Angela Merkel has tried to step up as the mediator between Bush and Putin in the recent rocket crisis.
On the other hand, Russia is using World Bank funds to sustain some local programs, such as the renew of the historical center of St. Petersburg.

Zoellick could leverage his reputation in Berlin and eventual funds in Russia to unlock the rocket dilemma. Is he going to perform a miracle like 1990? It is difficult to say before the next G8 meeting, on 6-8 June. The location should help: Rostock, in Northern Germany.

- Stefano Casertano

"You stop the conflict!"; "No, you do!"

2007-05-26T20:10:00.001-04:00

Democrats want Bush to end the Iraq conflict before they have to do it: who will bear the political consequences of the defeat?

New York - Mr Bush managed to have is Iraq spending bill signed: 122 billion dollars will find their way to the Eastern sands, into tanks, ammos and recruits training. The Democrats tried to impose a "pull-out timeline" to the bill, with precise dates for the troops to leave Iraq. Without enough votes to support the claim, the party leadership retired the request.

As the Los Angeles Times reports , Democratic strategists are seeking other legislative opportunities to glue the request back to the bill; but dissatisfaction is rising from all fractions of the party.

Radical anti-war representatives claim not to understand why the party stepped back on the bill, through what campaign strategist David Siriota defined "giving Mr. Bush a blank check. Other democratic fractions are sensible to comments such as that of Arizona Senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who said to be "very disappointed to see Senator Obama and Senator Clinton embrace the policy of surrender by voting against funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan".

So, why are the democrats sticking on a strategy with few chances of success, with a disunited backing?

No one wants to end the war that President Bush started four years ago. Polls suggest a widening advantage for the Democratic party; its representatives are urging the Republicans to solve the mess they built in Iraq. Should this strategy not succeed in gaining an early withdrawal, it would anyway lessen the political wounds of a Democratic Party eventually in power, in case it decides to take the troops back home.

The very issue of the time-line is a clear strategic absurd. It will leave a country rampaged by ethnic conflict, as once again pointed out by a NYTimes poll. An anarchic Iraq will experience significant breaks in the Oil production, with consequences for both sellers and buyers. The Democratic request, when accepted, would also give the rebels a time map to better set up attacks on receding troops. Although it will save the State account some money, it will definitively destroy Us reputation in the area.

In the Seventies, pollster Patrick Caddell introduced the concept of "permanent political campaign". Actions of politicians are more aimed at public opinion, than at the collective benefit. In the Iraq edition, this strategy has turned into a reversed chair game. When we were kids, no one wanted to be standing when the music stopped. Now, no one wants the music to stop when he is sitting. Just change "music" for "war", and "chair" for the presidential one.

- Stefano Casertano

What is behind Wolfowitz

2007-05-18T18:38:00.001-04:00

Paul Wolfowitz packs and leaves the World Bank: is it really about the girlfriend story? The Iraq disaster presents its bill.

New York - Paul Wolfowitz's leaves the World Bank, and another crack opens on the authority of the White House setting international relation agendas; above all, in setting agendas for other countries.

As the largest contributor to the institution, it has always been given for granted that the US chose the World Bank president. In 1968, brilliant strategist Robert McNamara was nominated, after he had served as a Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy Administration. The strong ties to the administration allowed him to reshape the whole organization, expanding both lending and operations spans. Until 2005, no such strongly political personalities sat on the chair; Lewis Preston and James Wolfensohn were both finance guys.

That is the reason why few people outside Washington were happy when Paul Wolfowitz, former US Deputy Secretary of Defense, was appointed. But this time things were different than the McNamara era. Such a nomination can be strong if the government beneath it is strong as well. And now American skills in the world exchequers are not.

Although general David Petraues, from his command post in Iraq, says things are doing better, the Iraq war development has gone beyond any bad expectation. Afghanistan is experiencing a new instability. As President George Bush longs for more troops, no one sees a real way-out strategy, while clueless Democrats aim at gaining electoral support by submitting absurd war cut spending proposals. Observers are concerned is this is the best way to manage an international strategy.

A plot was set to oust Wolfowitz. He had been informally asked to take care of his girlfriend's problem: she was an employee under him; he eventually moved her to another institution, and then the board accused him of having behaved "unethically", on the basis of pay raises granted to the fiancée. A simple, two moves game.

America needs world power. It is both the biggest money spender and the biggest money borrower in the world. The value of dollar is based on the Oil trade. If the international system has a flaw, the US economy pays more than any other country. America needs grip on financial and military scenarios. Wolfowitz was no king; he was an important pawn to keep things going as Washington wished; it seems that sometimes also pawn can be checkmated.

- Stefano Casertano

Italy turns its back to the Us, towards the unknown

2007-05-09T22:20:00.001-04:00

An Italian tribunal will process a Us soldier for a shooting in Iraq: an eccentric choice coming after the walks of Minister D'Alema with hizbullah deputies in Lebanon. Has Italy become an Us hating country?

New York - Soon it is scheduled to start the Italian process to Mario Lozano, a Us Army Specialist whose friendly fire hit and killed the Italian agent Nicola Calipari, heading back from a rescue mission in Iraq.

Two years have passed since the tragedy; the agent eventually managed to save the life of Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist of the far-left newspaper "Il Manifesto". An American military trial stated that Lozano followed all procedures, and relieved him from all accusations.

Yet, an Italian prosecutor declared the episode to be also under Italian jurisdiction; the extraordinary claim is "political homicide". The author of this article is constantly in touch with American military personnel; the widespread opinion among such circles is that all the peninsula is backing this proceeding.

This is just a sign of how Italian politics would need a shape up in their abroad image. Last August, Foreign Affairs Minister Massimo D'Alema gave lots to talk when he took a walk in a bombed Beirut, shoulder to shoulder with hizbullah deputy Hussein Hassan. This year, Mr D'Alema spent his Easter break visiting dictator Muammar Gheddafi, not really a Us fanatic; "It was a personal visit", justified D'Alema.

A few days later, as the British mariners had been freed by Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad, D'Alema wasted no time to "Congratulate for the constructive attitude showed by Iran". The episodes were enough to raise some too many eyebrows across the Atlantic.

The point is not judging whether it is good or bad turning the back to the Us. The point is having another foreign politics strategy. D'Alema's actions seem to point at making Italy the best pal of problem children all across Arabia; in the eighties, this approach worked out, with Italy becoming the mediator of Us interests in the area.

But now, Italy does not seem to be much welcome in Washington. The next official visit will be performed by opposition's leader Silvio Berlusconi, with the White House sending a clear signal by not inviting current PM Romano Prodi. On the other side, Italy is setting up important energy provision contracts with Russia, a Us challenger in the Poland missile crisis.

Enough to grow a subtle suspect: is it just ideology driving Italy's choices, or is there a plan beyond that? The latter would be not an easy one. It would imply a full side switch to the Russian one. Italy has never been there. Except, of course, for some politicians of the left.

- Stefano Casertano

Germany: do you remember when we were Communists?

2007-05-06T11:14:00.001-04:00

Berlin - Would you set up an exhibition were objects on display are covered by paper sheets instead of glass? This uncommon solution has been adopted by the curators of "Party Dictatorship and Everyday Life in the German democratic Republic". Although the title may remind of some entertainment challenging shows of the Seventies, it is actually an interesting event, notwithstanding the above mentioned exploit.

The exhibition is hosted by the "German Historical Museum" in Berlin; the Institute was once dedicated to celebrating the heroes of East Germany, and the show itself pays a tribute to the preceding cultural direction, by "showing how objects were shown during Communism"; therefore the paper covered displays. As I asked the guide whether they had money for glass covers, she objected that "they actually had glass; the papers are intended by the curators of today's show, to show the showcase, and not letting people concentrate on the objects within them.

A hat that belonged to Ernst Thaelmann, head of the Party. Reading glasses of Otto Groterwohl, Ministerpraesident. Wool hat of Walter Ulbricht, Head of the State Council. I thank the reader for the sacrifice of reading such not-so-much everyday names; they were actually very popular personalities at their time; so much, that a former East-German objected the guide: "What if Helmut Kohl dies and the widow donates you a scarf of his"?

It is a hard task to detect points of interest in the very objects displayed in the exhibition. The really attracting part is how contemporary Germans are dealing with their partial Communist heritage.

GDR was a ruthless dictatorship, but also a model of economic success within the Warsaw Pact. Nevertheless, the popular author Sebastian Haffner compared this dictatorship and its social model to the Nazi's. Instead of the Hitler Youth, there was the Young People Front (FDJ); instead f Gestapo, Stasi; instead of Hitler, party-chef Honecker. By other accounts, it was a rather "human" approach to Communist dictatorship, although showing the typical problems of such ruling: scarcity, poverty, repression.

As for now, all signals seem to indicate a refuse, better than an acceptance of the Communist part. There has not been any "national reconciliation", like the one led by Konrad Adenauer and Gunther Grass after WWII. The GDR reliquary is covered by paper sheets; GDR has to be erased and prematurely archived.

Only two kilometers of wall are surviving the time rubber. It is the portion where artists like Keith Haring painted their hate for the city division in the eighties. The famous portrait of Honecker kissing Nikita Krushev, by Dmitrij Vrubel, is covered by graffiti.

In the Berlin center, the GDR Parliament, with its ball-rooms and display halls, is being dismantled. Official reasons are presence of asbestos, and need to re-build the ancient city Castle; burnt by allied bombs, it had been removed by the Communist government in the fifties.
Modern Germany seems not to need this sort of debate. A board in front of the Castle work zone explains the need for the real estate operation: "Without a great, symbolic effort, modern Berliners will never manage to demonstrate their power as builders of a new metropolis". The parliament goes down; a rebuilt castle comes up, hosting no kings or princesses, but offices, apartments, and a museum. Every age leaves its sign.

- Stefano Casertano

Would you call political art "bastardized"?

2007-05-02T18:35:00.001-04:00

New York - In times of crisis, artists tend to politicize their works. This is the thesis a debate at the Museum of the City of New York will explore on 5th June. The question is also whether political influences "bastardize the aesthetic ideal" of art.

We may well be sure that Berthold Brecht and Geroge Grosz are flipping in their graves. Things we are less sure about is what the conference organizers mean for "aesthetic ideal". By the presentation, it seems that "aesthetic" is just everything that has nothing to do with reality. The aim to visual gratification should have somehow nothing to do with contemporary themes.

A part of the European critic, particularly the most lefty one, is an advocate for the opposite point of view. Art critic Mario De Micheli, in his "Artistic Avant guards of the XX Century" , demolished any conception of art which was not dedicated to the "people". He denounced that the impressionist movement started a communication fracture between art and population, because Monet and company were aiming for a figurative ideal which had few to do with true human struggles, including political debate.

On a broader extent, a large portion of art from the early to the late middle ages was "political". Christian subjects were committed by the church as demonstration of magnitude.

The question could be reversed: is nowadays a purely aesthetic art possible? What is the value of a contemporary art which has no practical uses? Is this the time of "Verwaendte" (as "employed", "used") Art? The topic of the City Museum conference can have a double meaning: it can be either progressive, or reactionary. As a progressive topic, it wants to State that art should disembrace the "materiality" dogma, dictated by business and sales. By a reactionary point of view, it would express the other dogma that art should not mess up with real problems: art is just for fun, art is innocuous.

Last March, the Metropolitan Museum of New York hosted an exhibition of German portraits in the '30. It was the period of the Weimar Republic, with cabarets, dancing, drinking and raising Nazis. In the museum, a little crowd was constantly standing in front of "The Pillars of Society", a ruthless graphic description of the roaring Hitler power, with a pot-head journalist, a crap-headed left politician, and a dictating Nazi. It was painted eight years before Nazis seized power; in a new century, the visitors in New York still witnessed the force of the work. Not bad for a bastardized piece of art.

Museum of the City of New York - Tuesday, June 5, 6:30pm
Conference: The artist and Intellectual in Political Conflict
Register here

- Stefano Casertano

Turkey taking itself seriously

2007-04-30T12:56:00.001-04:00

Anticipate elections to solve the presidential crisis: this is the most likely solution to the difficult situation in Istanbul. Old memories and new threats follow army's declarations about "observing developments".

New York - Rumors in Turkey suggest that the most expectable solution for the recent crisis is anticipated elections, to be declared next Wednesday as the Parliament reunites to take decisions concerning the Presidential nomination.

This time, the Turkish crisis did not come unexpected. In 1997, the Welfare Party was overthrown by a the Islamist Justice and Development Party, led by PM Recep Tayip Erdogan. As the Presidential elections were approaching, commenter suggested that he might have stepped up for the post. Yet, the only nominee last month was Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a long-time ally of Mr Erdogan. Convinced secularist were nevertheless perplexed.

The opposition vehemently protested, declaring that the nomination represented just another stage towards the "islamization" of Turkey. Also General Yashar Buyukanit declared that the army was "observing" the development of the situation, with a more than subtle reference to the eventuality of a coup. Mr Gul failed to reach the parliamentary quorum, even with a non-voting opposition; 300.000 secular protesters rallied the streets on 29th April.

The path to Turkish secularization has been all but an easy one. Kemal Ataturk's dictatorship led the shift from Sultanate to non-religious dictatorship; more open forms of democracy were only achieved in the fifties. Since the, the Turkish army seemed to be responding a fixed call every decade to step up and intervene in the country's political life, to "safeguard secularism". It happened in 1960, '71, '80, followed by a period of relative quiet in the last years. Is this a new case?

Turkey has been growing many social contradictions in the last fifteen years, and the current presidential issue means that the country is trying to solve them. Few women in Ankara and Istanbul wear head scarfs, a must have in smaller cities; fathers are less religious than sons; Christians have become a new target for extremists' attacks. Even the European Union admittance, a declared goal of the PM, has been put into question by the majority of the population.

Is there room for a new social contract? Taking a look at the formidable steps taken by Turkey in the last Century, the answer would be yes. The question is about where the Turkish spirit really is: in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, or at Ataturk's Cenotaph in Ankara. Or maybe in both places.

- Stefano Casertano

The new plan for Iraq: get the Kurds in and get away

2007-04-28T19:18:00.001-04:00

Kurd soldiers take part to Western operations in Iraq, while US and Britain try to back up insurgent movements in Iran. Military, media ad ethnicities: a new phase in the Middle-East war has begun.

New York - The fog of war is slowly expanding from Iraq to its neighboring countries. Government sources report that Tehran is expanding intelligence operation along the Southern border; the US are responding with some deployment of troops on the other side.

West from Iraq, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is putting into practice the menaces of attacking Israel. Israeli military sources report that Iran should be providing economic and military support for the arsenal build-up. Syria is also insisting that Iran leaves the Golan Heights, a mountainous territory which historically hosted two Damascus attacks already.

The picture is complete to give some explanation about why Iran kidnapped 15 British mariners last month. It was a message: we are ready to disturb oil transporters operations in the Gulf. More on the hard skills, the deputy director of the Iran intelligence threatened the West with "Heavy bombardment in case of interference with Iran minorities".

These operations should come in response to the new strategy implemented by the US and Britain in the area. A customary strategy before 1991, they are trying to destabilize governments through support to sectarian organizations within unfriendly countries. Three candidate movements have been rumored to be fulfilling this duty. The Mojahedin Khalq Organization is the first, but the spokesperson supported no evidence. A second one should be the Sunni "God's Brigade". But the only group which has taken an active role is Kurdish "Party for a Free Life".

Kurds are a State-less population living in a territory between Iraq, Iran and Eastern Turkey. Kurd soldiers have taken part to military operations with the US lately. The Herald Tribune interviewed one of them, carrying on a research mission for a Shiite insurgent. Less zealous Muslims as other ethnicities, Kurds are being given a new role, towards reaching the long desired stability in Iraq.

On the media, Iran is trying to cut the bridges to all Iran representatives that could fuel up Western resentment. Arrests of intellectual and professors continue, after many episodes last year. Last April, 45 teachers have been detained for protesting versus some new rights limiting laws. A professor arrested last November, on his way back from a conference in Bangkok, has been sentenced to three years, and fined for 23,000 dollars. He was accused of being a spy for "foreigners" who allegedly bribed him with 2,300 dollars. "Who could become a spy for 2,300 dollars?", asked then the Professor after the sentence.

The new scenario is a match made out of rockets, magazines and oppressed population. The US are trying all the ways to find a new equilibrium before leaving the area. Will the Kurdish move work? It is too early to say. It is possible that Kurds will have new problem in their home territory, and may be facing other challenges. The Turkish part of the Kurds regions would not be safe from a shift in the Ankara government: the situation is more unpredictable than ever.

- Stefano Casertano

Baghdad is not Saigon

2007-04-24T16:49:00.001-04:00

New York - There are few doubts on the course of the Iraq war. In the words of a veteran, "At the beginning troops were greeted with flowers; they actually did, no make-up. Then ethnic confrontation rose up, and Americans started to be seen as invaders."

"The main problem", continues the veteran, "is that the Sheiks controlling the area only respond to the language of force. You threaten, they obey; you ask for cooperation, they see no reason to do it". As opportunities of inside jobs are out of question, the only action troops can take is to contain civil unrest, defend themselves and then, Democrats would say, go away.

Recent parliament debates about the Iraqi pull-out suggest that some Congressional leaders just want a rapid go-home strategy. But would this be the right solution?

The Vietnam pull-out experience partially marks the Democrats opinion. The much feared possibility of a global collapse when the US left Saigon did not materialize; equally, an Iraq exit should not foster a new crisis.

Yet, there are some differences between the two occurrences. The Iraq situation is far more close to that of Yugoslavia in the late nineties, with ethnic tensions and enclaves. It is not possible to split up the territory into different ethnicities, because the distribution is blurred. This is a major cause of civil warfare, and without the US control, the situation would implode.

Logistically, Americans have to take back 9 million tons of gear. Not only this takes time; this has also to be managed. Decisions have to be taken about what should Iraqi troops retain; it is a very delicate task.

On a global perspective, terrorism risks have to be calculated. Are Al Quaida organizations like left-extremists of the Seventies? German RAF and Italian BR were galvanized by the US defeat inVietnam. Nevertheless, Al Quaida has proven more deadly than any other terroristic organization.

A last remark concerns the supposed "non consequences" of the Vietnam war. The pull-out was paid with a terrible genocide in neighboring Cambodia, with dictator Pol-Pot having free hands in the area. A rapid Iraq exit would be more similar to the Lebanon disengage in the eighties. As marines were stepping on the boats, meters away from the coast, Beirut was ridden by bands and explosions. Iraq may be a new case.

- Stefano Casertano

The Virginia Tech tragedy challenging America's morals

2007-04-23T21:45:00.001-04:00

In the latest Newsweek issue, an interesting article by Sharon Begley gives a precise portrait of the personalities that may tend to commit killings, such as the one at Virginia Tech. As one would expect, different causes are listed, from personality, to education, to society. The unexpected part is a precise stress on the "genetic" component of mass murderers'personalities.

A Dutch research is quoted, stating that scientists managed to individuate an "X" chromosome, that should be responsible for socio-criminal tendencies. Of course, natural inclinations could be corrected by culture; yet the DNA element is given for granted. Such idea is similar to that of many opinion groups in the US; extreme ones also tie a "predestination" component to it, as from Calvinistic approach.

America's reactions to the Virginia Tech events will deeply define its personality in the next years. The killings have partially proven the limits of the "integration scheme" of the US society. Citing Newsweek, "Murder and violence are also higher in nations with the largest income inequality. The United States ranks high on this problematic measure. [...] In this country more than others, we admire winners and we blame people for their own inadequacies. Mass murderers tend to be losers, people with a history of failure".

European, Christian societies tend to have less killings than others. This is because their culture is based on the presence of "reference groups" of various kind, from family to larger ones, which control anti-social behaviors. It is a socio-Darwinist system that old European societies have developed to grant survival to their people.

America, as a "Nation of strangers", is more likable to give way to sociopaths and destructive personalities. The current reaction to the shootings is more incline to the control of the individual, better than integrating him. Students are encouraged to report loneliness behaviors; the Newsweek article self subtly suggests that difficult personalities could be tracked down through a DNA test.

In a recent debate at Columbia University in New York, some students even suggested that guns should be less controlled. "Had people in those classes had guns with them, the killer would have been shot at the second step". While listening, I hoped the student who said this did not carry a gun on him.

- Stefano Casertano

The US war with Syria has already started?

2007-04-21T21:57:00.001-04:00

Border clashes between Syrian irregular forces and US troops are a not a rare occurring; it mostly concerns battlers passing the frontier and attacking in Iraq; but in 2006, at least once there have been armed confrontations in Syrian territory. This is what a Marines source recently reported to this website.

These events once more demonstrate the real configuration of the ethnic and cultural warfare in the Middle-East. A general Arabic upraising against the Western forces, as imagined by the later Saddam Hussein, is nothing but utopia; the new version aims at gathering only the most extreme elements of the population, arming and sustaining them, in order to cause as much damage as possible.

"Iran's backing to Hizbollah in Lebanon; financing of Shiites armies in Iraq; backing of aggressive policies in Shiite Syria: all this has only one objective: breaking US's fingers", former ambassador in Egypt Frank Wisner said. This is the new version of Saddam's dream, through a realpolitik lens. There are many subjects responsible for this new approach, ranging to weapon dealers of the area, to Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the the many local rulers which populate the region.

The Iraq war has become a necessary evil to give "order" to the Shiite-Sunni confrontation. Should the land be left to itself, neighboring Saudi Arabia and Iran would engage in a limit-less challenge at sustaining insurgents from both sides, in a black-hole capable of vacuuming all the medium and small forces of the area. It is essential that the US urge to contain the blood shed.

- Stefano Casertano

What if Kasparov was wrong?

2007-04-16T20:22:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday Russian officers arrested 370 people who were demonstrating against the government. Protesters claimed that President Vladimir Putin is taking precise steps in turning the democracy into a dictatorship.

Many of the personalities attending the march have been detained for questioning. Chess-genius Garri Kasparov was arrested even before the rally began. The accusation was that of "shouting anti-government slogans". Kasparov was also fined the non-striking sum of 39 dollars. This is the last of many episodes which see Kasparov taking actions to stimulate popular opposition to the government.

From chess to politics, Kasparov position is clear since he founded a think tank called "United Civil Front", which hosted a notorious police inspection in December last year. Kaparov backs the idea that Russia is no more a democracy, and that the new constitutional reforms are wiping off all the progress made by his country up to the Eltzin's Presidency. Kasparov declared he will be a candidate at the next presidential elections in 2008.

Yet, is Putin as bad as his opponents say, or is he really working for the wealth of Russians? We could answer this question by imagining what would Russia have been without Putin.

The previous president, Boris Eltzin, asked Oil industrials to help up in reshaping the national economy. Putin's nationalizations were directed at limiting the power of these private personalities. As he asked them to step back, those who did not collaborate had to suffer imprisonment and other coercive methods.

Russia has an enormous endowment of natural resources. This is not necessarily a blessing; evidence point out that it is more often a curse. It fosters corruption, inflation, over-spending; spoils the population as prices go up, and stimulates unrest as prices go down. Some Russian regions are then under the influence of political and religious movement whose aim could not be any farther than democracy and civil rights. The new presidential control on local elections is also aimed at avoiding such problems.

Without a course of action such as the Putin's, it is likely that some regions would have dove into complete anarchy; less Oil would have been extracted; the new pipelines linking Russia to Europe would probably have never been started. Oligarchs would have had an even broader control of the economy, with a freedom a Russian President could never imagine.

Given that episodes such the Chechnya interventions are to be condemned, the "Putin cure" was a necessary evil. Putin was the only one who could bring the nation back to a credible track: he leveraged his experience as KGB agent, that provided him with a fundamental set of connections. The point now is whether this cure will lead to a new state of wealth: a progressive weakening of the restrictive measures, leading to a more modern form of government.

Critics argue that Russia has been ruled by the Tzars for centuries, and then by an absolute communist regime: democracy is not in the national DNA. And the end of Putin era seems will be marked by a royal saga taste. The State is now keeper of enormous assets and money. The struggle for power has already started.

Killings such as those of former spy Aleksandr Litvinenko have been ordered by groups of power willing to send "messages" to the other sides. The stakes are high. As Putin steps back in 2008, a candidate with a strong grip on a control group is needed, or the situation could implode. This is also the reason why Kasparov could not be a credible option. No doubts about his intellectual faculties, of course; but he has no strong tied groups he could leverage to compete with the hidden Russian interests. Like chess kings, also real kings need a whole set of other people to succeed.

- Stefano Casertano

Why Russia cannot accept NATO missiles in Poland

2007-04-10T13:38:00.001-04:00

Iran is ready to produce enriched Uranium on "industrial scale", as declared by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The alarming news spawned discussions about the need of installing NATO anti-missiles rockets in Poland. Russian President Vladimir Putin says the installation is not acceptable, and made reference to the Soviet missile crisis of Cuba in 1962.

Under a cold war logic, Putin concerns could be directly understandable: he does not want Western missiles at his borders. But since the fall of the Wall, it is not likely that the Kremlin decides to invade Poland, or that the US threat the internal Russian operations. The strategic explanation lies further South, and depends once again on the control of the Middle-East.

Iran is the key country linking the Persian Gulf and the Caspian See. The Gulf is under US control, from Israel and Lebanon in the West, to Iraq and other aligned regimes in the East. Around the Caspian, Georgia is the border between the Russian and the US interests. The position of Iran is fundamental in determining who really is in control of the two territories.

Russia is backing the Teheran's atomic plan to make US life difficult in the area. Anti-missiles devices in Poland would reduce the Iran threat to the West, making the US stronger in the Oil-rich areas.

Finding a solution would include an European Union diplomatic intervention. Semester Presidency is now German, and Bundeskanzler Angela Merkel called up for a "joint decision" between EU and NATO. For sure, in her mind is also the important gas pipeline project in place, that will make Russian gas flow from St. Petersburg to Berlin, transforming Germany in the central hub for distribution in Europe. Such mixed interests, between defense and energy economy, may make Merkel the best candidate for a mediation.

- Stefano Casertano

Iran's President wins, but wins what?

2007-04-08T17:14:00.002-04:00

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad is the clear winner of the mariners crisis in the Persian Gulf. The Financial Times declared him an "improbable Easter Bunny", that sent the troops home as a present to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Yet it is unclear what Ahmadinejad won.

The Iranian President is playing once again the role of the Islamic paladin. Iran had a major role in supporting the Hizbullah militias during the last Lebanon conflict, and is backing the insurgents in Iraq. Many observers read in this strategy the intent to build up a general "Shiite uprising", an anti-West revolution which will unite Arabs from Iran to Syria.

Will it work? It is not probable.
Shiites are not so united as one may believe. They are split into different movements, more or less conservative; the international Shiite union is then a recent fashion, stimulated by the Western intervention in the area. And the real problem of the Iranian Shiites may not be religion or the US: a far worrisome issue is the national economy. Iran has the second largest Oil world reserves, but very few refineries. The country is in energy deficit, and the government is striving to find new ways to subsidize the plan of selling cheap gas, vital for the sustainment of cities and rural communities.

The Mariners'crisis is very likable to widen the fracture between Ahmadinejad and his moderate electors, as he will be perceived more interested in diplomatic games, than in actual problems. Also externally, economic partners are worried, with Russia on top of the list.

The backlash of the Mariners crisis has yet to hit Iran. Ahamdinejad is not a winner; a winner would help Iran exploit its Oil and his incredible position between the Caspian See and the Persian Gulf. Seventy million Iranian citizens should be much more a concern than fifteen British ones.

- Stefano Casertano