Article: US-Pacific Relations: Pacific-Minded (The World Today)

Cleo has just published an analysis of geopolitics in the Pacific for in Chatham House's magazine The World Today. You can see it online here. And below:

In early March, United States (US) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made unusually direct comments to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about America's position in the Pacific. "Let's just talk straight real politik. We are in competition with China," she said. All over the Pacific, China is trying to "come in behind us and come in under us."And it is working. China's influence in the island nations of the Pacific is growing dramatically, and the repercussions are global.

But the fault does not lie completely with the US, and the win is not completely China's. The door for China's dramatic increase in influence in the island nations of the Pacific was opened by decades of mismanagement of Pacific affairs by western allies Australia and New Zealand. And if the US and the west want to regain ground, the two Pacific partners are going to have to rethink how they engage with the region.

It should not have come to this.

Article: Why We Build Nuclear Power Plants in Earthquake Zones (HuffPo)

Cleo's latest HuffPo blog entry has been published here. You can also read it below:

The nuclear tragedy currently unfolding in Japan started decades ago on a piece of paper. Before any infrastructure project that size is approved, a risk assessment needs to be done. Hazards are identified and a cost/benefit analysis is made about how to approach those risks.

If constructing in a seismic zone that hasn't seen an earthquake above a magnitude of M6.5 in 100 years, do you build to withstand a magnitude of 7? Or put in extra the millions upfront to protect against a magnitude of 8 that may never come? Or do you simply choose not to build a nuclear power station in an earthquake zone at all?

Every critical energy installation (and much of all infrastructure) is built on the basis of such risk assessments. In the case of the energy sector, getting it right is crucial not only for the ability to generate power, but also for site integrity. However, there are increasingly problems, both physical and economic, with the way the risk assessments are done.

Video: Cleo Paskal on Copenhagen and Geopolitics

And the discussion continues here on Keith Kloor's blog.

Article: WikiLeaks: New Zealand Sells Itself as "a more Pacific country" than Australia - And As Key to Pacific Security. US Buys It. (Huffington Post)

In her latest Huffington Post blog entry, Cleo writes about what Wikileaks has to say about the security situation in the Pacific. An excerpt:

In a time when the Pacific is getting more attention from Washington, Wellington's role in advising on the region is becoming more valued.

This is potentially problematic in two ways.

First, NZ's information and advice may not always be as reliable as thought. There are examples of failure to predict/manage critical situations. For example, mismanagement of the Fiji coup by NZ/Australia resulted in pushing Fiji closer towards the China camp.

Similarly, in Tonga, New Zealand has been backing the 'pro-democracy' movement. That group triggered riots in 2006 that burned down much of the capital city. Following the riots, failure by NZ to substantially participate in the reconstruction resulted in Tonga having to take out a debilitating loan from China. The fact that a group supported by NZ as pro-democracy resulted in the country becoming indebted to an authoritarian country is a small indication of the something going wrong.

Another problem is the character of NZ's engagement of the region (which can affect intelligence gathering, analysis, and operations).

There is a perception of a pervasive NZ 'we know better' attitude towards Pacific island nations. For example, NZ is proposing sending a team to train the new Tongan parliamentarians in governance, in spite of the fact that the Tongan system is fundamentally different than the NZ one.

Second, NZ's interests are not necessarily US interests. NZ has its own range of national priorities and one would expect it to put those above the interests of partner states, no matter how close the relationship.

Article: Pacific Geopolitics (Tonga Chronicle)

Cleo's latest Tonga Chronicle column is about how foreign policy decision permeate life in the Kingdom. An excerpt:

Nuku’alofa, Kingdom of Tonga – All Tongans feel the effects of foreign policy, whether it is when shopping for New Zealand products in Chinese shops, or applying for loans at an Australian bank, or paying for energy imports from the Middle East, or going to a hospital built by Japan, or having to fly through Auckland to visit relatives in the US.

Foreign policy decisions that affect Tonga are made all the time. But often, those decisions are not made in Tonga. Someone in New Zealand decides how many Tongans get seasonal worker visas. Someone in Australia sets import regulations that can limit Tongan exports. Someone at the World Bank writes conditions for funding that will keep the Tongan government solvent. Someone in Beijing decided the loan for rebuilding downtown would be paid back in Chinese currency.

Every day, and in many ways, foreign policy pervades, and shapes, life in Tonga. But, often, Tonga isn’t in control of that policy.

For more, click here.

Video: Commonwealth Club of California interview with Cleo Paskal

fora.tv has the interview Cleo Paskal did with Amy Standen from KQED at the Commonwealth Club of California (San Francisco). It covers a range of environmental change and security issues. 

Profile of Cleo Paskal (with interview) in the Toronto Star

Antonia Zerbisias, the great Toronto Star columnist interviewed Cleo before her IdeaCity talk. An excerpt:

Q: When you say that the world map will be redrawn, how much upheaval will there be?

A: If the U.S. doesn't start to deal with the domestic disruption, then I am very concerned that it will fragment and destabilize. If that happens, the world will be severely affected.

For more cheerful news, click here. 

Review of Global Warring and Interview with Cleo in the Calgary Herald

Trent Edwards of the Calgary Herald reviewed Global Warring and interviewed Cleo for the paper. An excerpt:


Cleo Paskal may be an academic, but her new book is frighteningly practical.
Frightening, because Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic And Political Crises Will Redraw The World Map (Key Porter Books, $32.95) rings the alarm for all of us about the environmental changes that have the potential to devastate the world during the 21st century....
Paskal, a Canadian geopolitics expert and foreign correspondent who lives in London, England, spent a decade researching her thought-provoking book.
In it, she shows just how interdependent countries have become, and how a fast-changing environment will test nations' ability to adapt, likely causing unexpected shifts in global economic, political and security landscapes along with the more obvious changes in the physical landscape.
She delves into problem areas that could start future conflicts, such as access to water and resources in Asia, economic trends that are shifting the balance of power (such as China's policy of nationalistic capitalism) and geopolitical realignments (such as the burgeoning strategic partnership between the U.S. and India)....
Paskal's book isn't all doom and gloom. She offers helpful advice for how to prepare for, mitigate and recover from the coming changes in the environment.


To read the rest of the review, and the interview, click here.

Interview with Cleo on Zocalo Public Square

Swati Pandey from ZocaloPublicSquare.org interviewed Cleo on the interrelation of the three major shifts happening in the world today: geopolitical, geoeconomic and geophysical. Sample Q&A:

Q. What are the effects now and what are the effects in the future?

A. A lot depends on what the reactions of the different players will be. For example, in the U.S., over 50% of the population lives in areas that are considered coastal. Unless there is a great understanding of what rising sea levels, increasing storm surges, and things like that will do to those areas, it’s going to become increasingly costly, and could have quite a series effect not only on economic development but also on social stability. China has a very serious water supply problem and it also has major infrastructure and industrial areas right on the coast, in a typhoon zone, such as in Shanghai. There are different regions that have different vulnerabilities. What will happen will depend very much on how much of an effort is made to integrate those changes into future planning, and to try to counter the detrimental effects.

We do know certain things are going to become increasingly problematic. Energy supplies will be increasingly compromised by environmental change. The offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico are very likely to face more shut downs due to increasing storm activity or intensity. Hydroelectric installations are designed for very special operating parameters — certain amounts of rainfall, particular river levels, glacier melts. All of that is in flux now. Nuclear stations require an enormous amount of water for cooling. In France, for example, increasingly high temperatures have made it difficult for plants to operate at maximum capacity in the summer. So energy sector disruptions are happening already, and are very likely to accelerate. It’s like putting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. We can see certain critical areas being affected but it’s hard to see what the whole picture will be, because so many of the pieces of the puzzle are changing as our reaction to these events changes.

Click here to read more....

Interview with Cleo on the Huffington Post

Jerry Cope writes in the Huffington Post about climate change and security in Copenhagen, and interviews Cleo on some specifics. Sample Q&A:

Jerry Cope: You seem to be quit clear that the concerns should be domestic as well as international.

Cleo: It's not a complete assessment and if anything contains the words climate change as opposed to environment change you know it's not a complete assessment. Climate change will feed into other environmental changes. If you are assessing climate change but not what the US Army Corps of Engineers is doing to your coastline you are not getting a complete picture.

Click here to read more...

Article By Cleo Paskal and Scott Savitt: New Security Beat blog post: The Real Take Home Message From Copenhagen Is Not What You Think

"A fascinating and potentially game-changing geopolitical pas-de-deux unfolded in Copenhagen. The international media and punditocracy christened the U.S. and China the new G2 in reference to the expected preeminent leadership roles the two hold among their respective developed and developing country contingents. What increasingly became clear, however, was that a different G2 was influencing the agenda:China and India."

To read more of the article, click here....

Interview (video) with Cleo Paskal by Geoff Dabelko of the Woodrow WIlson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program on Global Warring, Vulnerability, and Climate Change