Biological WMD

I came upon a very interesting read last night. While some of my friends were falling into the traps of one of America's top consumerism traps -St. Valentine-, I snobbed the evening away by hidding at the SIPA library: Ken Alibek's Biohazard: A first hand Cold War account of a top scientist responsible for a large chunk of the Soviet Union's secret biological weapon's program. The book, an easy read that will keep you awake all night -and not because it is minus 10c outside-, explains in laymen's terms how easy it is to develop such a program and the risks we are currently facing.

Biological weapons have always been considered the poor man's nuclear bomb. Believe it or not, you can nowadays create a facility for as little as $10 million, making them easily available to rogue states and terrorists. Alibek, in an interview given in 1999, said that there are probably former Soviet scientists familiar with bio-weapon technology working in the so-called rogue states.

Even though the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) bans the production, stockpiling and transfer of Biological and Toxin Weapons, the treaty was weakened from the beginning by the absence of formal and systematic ways of verification or enforcement. This was tragically evidenced by the 1979 Soviet Union's accident in their top secret plant at Sverdlosk. More than a hundred people died because a filter was not replaced by a technician who left for home in a rush! As the scientifical community likes to say, human nature always triumphs over the best designs.

Biological weapons have the unfortunate advantage of dual use. That is, how can you know that laboratories are being used for pharmaceutical purposes or to make weapons? Enforcement measures of the BWC should be immediately implemented. Talks have been going on for the last 15 years. The Clinton administration tried to reach an agreement, but the moment Bush took over, everything was halted again. The pressure from pharmaceutical lobbies was just too great for this president. They were afraid their secrets would be revealed if an international commission of experts visited their facilities. I guess some prefer to be dead than to run the risk of sharing a vaccine...

Anyway, the one question experts have not yet been able to answer is tragic: Why, if everything is so simple about them, have biological weapons not been used more? A question I should not make; self-fulfilling prophecies are dangerous things...

Nuclear proliferation is a big thing and all diplomatic efforts to halt it should be vigoriously pursued, but beware of biological weapons.

Eugene Onegin at the Met

Last Friday, the Lincoln Center seemed to be the Red Square. The premiere of Eugene Onegin occurred at the Met, after an absence of almost ten years. The Russians were everywhere: Valery Gergiev conducted his first Russian role at the Met; Hvorostovsky proved what we all knew, namely that his charisma was born for the role of Onegin. Elena Zaremba performed wonderfully well as Tatiana's lively sister and other roles, such as Olga's mother and her nanny were also played by Russian singers. Even Netrebko was attending the event, probably to enjoy Renée Fleming's skillful performance.

Nevertheless, the surprise came from the the Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, who performed his first role in Russian -Ouch! Not only was the singing splendid, one could clearly identify Pushkin's Lenski in his improvised insecure gestures. I was also deeply moved by the love aria powerfully sang by Sergei Alekshashkin. His voice melted the cold reluctant wall we unconsciously build up after repeatedly experiencing the dispair of rejection. He succesfully brought us back to that good feeling of falling in love again.

The Israeli Lobby

In March 2006, Professors Mearsheimer (Harvard University) and Walt (University of Chicago) published a controversial paper on the Israeli lobby in the prestigious Harvard Faculty Research Working Papers. They defend that American Foreign Policy is highly influenced by the Israeli Lobby by efficiently convincing the American People that Israeli and American interests are perfectly aligned, if not identical.

Israel is the largest recipient of American foreign aid since the end of World War II receiving "total direct U.S. aid amounting to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one‐fifth of America’s foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year, apart from consistent diplomatic support". The article, a must read for anybody trying to understand American Foreign Policy, then moved on to explain the reasons why neither American strategic nor moral values go hand in hand with Israel's.

Both Professors were inmediately accused of anti-Semitism and there were questions surrounding Walt's stepping down as Academic Dean at the Kennedy School (which Walt defended as being coincidential). To understand the extent of such criticism, it is totally worth reading the article published by the Jewish Paper Forward.

We discussed this paper at Columbia, during our "Conceptual Foundations of International Relations". I found it to be a positive sign that this reading was presented under the "American Foreign Policy" class. Nevertheless, I was shocked to see that during the associated discussion session, not a single American student was willing to make a comment on what has become one of the most controversial articles since Huntington's "Clash of Civilisations". Even after recklessly pointing out outloud my confusion for such silence and reminding my classmates that their OWN taxes were paying for this support, none of them dared make a comment. Our Professor, Hisham Aidi, tried to, for at least ten good minutes, get a discussion going; without success.

I was therefore very excited when I found out last week that the authors were coming to Columbia to discuss the related book they are currently working on. In a closed-doors debate, a controversial discussion with famous scholars such as Richard Betts, Jack Snyder, Mahmood Mamdani, Kenneth Waltz, Scott Sagan, John Mearsheimer, Rasheed Khalidi and Robert Jervis took place and I was lucky enough to be in the room.

The discussion was not as heated as I was hoping for and unfortunately many comments on methodology (content unrelated) were made. Nevertheless some argued that the criticism should be rephrased under other titles as "strategic consideration" (Israel as a democracy and close ally) or "moral grounds" (from victim to victimizer) but not in terms of the "all-powerful lobby" or "domestic pressure".

Overall I was glad to see, as a European who favours a more balanced aproach in America's Middle Eastern foreign policy, that the debate is on and that once the book is out, discussion will slowly make its way to the 2008 American Presidential Elections and hopefully, to our discussion sessions!

Please read the article on the Israeli Lobby, you will start hearing a lot about it.

The Waltz - Sagan debate or optimism vs pessimism

Netrebko, please forgive me yet again, but my Professor Waltz deserves this publication asap!

Columbia attracts the biggest geopolitical thinkers. Yesterday we were treated with a debate on Iranian nuclear proliferation between Stanford Professor Robert Sagan and Columbia’s Kenneth Waltz. These men are geniuses.

Waltz basically reflected Chirac’s -unofficial- position. Namely, if Iran gets the nuclear bomb, what is the big deal? We will be able to cope with such a threat. After all, we coped with much bigger risks during the Cold War. You might argue that the nukes are now in hands of a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists, but, if we make an effort to remember, I do not recall we considered Khrushchev and Mao “enfants de coeur”. Plus, in almost 60 years, only 9 countries have nukes, “this is not proliferation, this is glacial spread”.

After all, if you were Iran, would you not do the same if you were under the American threat? If the President of the United States had named you as part of the Axis of Evil and had already taken down one of those countries carrying the same honorific distinction, would you not do all you can to protect yourself? History has proven that the only way to deter the US, if they are really going after you is by getting nukes. Look at South Korea, they got the bomb and the United States has not been able to do anything about it, the risk is too great.

Waltz’s overtly optimistic conclusion was to “sleep well”.

Sagan, famous among other publications for his “Why do States Build Nuclear Weapons” article had a very different point of view. No optimism here.

View the famous article under: http://www.jstor.org/view/01622889/di008157/00p0004z/0

Sagan accuses Waltz of still living in the Cold War and not understanding the current situation. Risks are high but diplomatic intervention can still work. He mentioned three reasons why Iran should not go nuclear:

1.- If Iran has the bomb it will feel safer thus becoming more aggressive. How would we now prevent them from selling nuclear material to terrorist groups and being more provocative in Irak? They might even feel safer to attack American bases!

2.- Ambiguous control of the nukes: In Iran’s case the keys would be kept by the Revolutionary Guards which support Ahmadinejad. Trouble!

3.- Theft: A possible risk of attack by the US would force Iran to spread its weapons along the countryside, thus increasing the risk of theft by terrorist groups

He also made an interesting point, many scholars consider that Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear energy under Article 4 of the NPA (Non Proliferation Agreement). But, as he correctly pointed out, Article 4 clearly states that only "states in good stading" are allowed to make use of such energy. Cleary, Iran sacrificed this option when trying to hide a nuclear program and not allowing inspectors to their cites. This could hopefully change overtime, under a new Governement that would accept these rules.

Two different points of view, the only agreement being that we need to leave the table to the diplomats. Military intervention is not the solution and the next elections, both in Iran and the US might help us all out. Food for thought…

Death in Venice

My dearest Bernat gave me a call while I was in the library revising my Weapons of Mass Destruction class. Eduardo, “how about rememorizing your German times, my dear friend? Ouch, Germany... Nevertheless, it turned out to be the best evening of the week. I truly hope Anna Netrebko does not yet check my blog since her Monday performance as Elvira in Il Puritani was sublime. Details to come in one of my next posts…

It was my first ballet, my first time at BAM (The Brooklyn Academy of Art) and the first time we break the golden rule and a third person, Ashley, becomes a part of our “discovery nights”. Death in Venice, a novel from Thomas Mann, was about to be brilliantly choreographed and staged by John Neumann and interpreted for us by the Hamburg Ballet.

You can view the full review online, it has been such a success there are hundreds of reviews made by more suited persons than myself (such as my friend Bernat’s). I just wanted to leave you with a question that has been haunting me ever since I have seen this Ballet:

What is it about human nature that constantly makes us rebel against our preset comfortable lives? What is it that makes Dionysus so attractive and makes us run away from Apollo’s safety? For Aschenbach it is a young boy, a young Dorian Gray, portrayed as a feminine Polish boy wearing a tailored navy blue suit.

The whole ballet had been danced under heartrending bits of music by Bach and Wagner, when suddenly, while we were preparing ourselves for the next scene, strident harsh rock music made us take a deep breath of air as we impotently watched Aschenbach’s fascination for the boy turn into love and provoking an accelerated spiral of folly which lead to death in Venice.

If you are in NYC, you are in for a treat, but make sure you have this question answered before you go. As a last piece of advice, watch out for the possible frustration that will arise after the show: While you walk to the subway and think about these men who dance like angels, you will have the oppressing feeling that you barely manage to walk like a duck.

Watch a video preview.