In the course of two days last week, the U.S. Congress passed two foreign aid bills.

What’s more, in the course of five months, Congress has passed three foreign aid bills!

All three bills passed with strong bipartisan leadership and support.

Equally important, all three bills reflect a new era of a more modernized approach to assistance.

The bills avoid many of the problems of past aid legislation, including micromanagement, earmarks, and requirement of frequent reports that are seldom read by members of Congress or their staffs. Each bill was developed in cooperation with the Obama administration and reflects its policies and civil society priorities. And they emphasize strategic approaches, results, use of data, monitoring and evaluation, and learning.

The Foreign Assistance Accountability and Transparency Act of 2016, sponsored by Republicans Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Ted Poe and Democrats Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Gerry Connolly, is grounded in important principles of foreign aid reform. It enacts into law key policies advocated by the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network and supported by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and many other international development and foreign policy organizations. Robust evaluation and aid transparency, first elevated as elements of the Millennium Challenge Corporation by the Bush administration and later adopted by the Obama administration across all foreign affairs agencies, are institutionalized by the bill. The bill calls for two reports 18 months after enactment, not annual, year-after-year reports, which had been the normal practice and usually resulted in shelves of unread reports. One report will be from the president outlining the monitoring and evaluation guidelines called for in the report, and the other report will be from the Government Accountability Office assessing those guidelines.

This type of independent, objective evaluation is essential to improving assistance; it assesses what we have tried and improves our understanding of what does and does not work. When aggregated across multiple evaluations of similar programs, it produces new knowledge and learning.

Transparency, another important element of aid reform, brings multiple benefits. It provides all stakeholders, including Congress, U.S. taxpayers, intended beneficiaries, government officials, and civil societies in recipient countries, with data and information that allows them to understand where and how assistance is used. It provides data that is critical to making informed decisions. And it keeps agencies and programs focused on their mission and objectives by permitting public scrutiny and accountability.

The Global Food Security Act of 2016, sponsored by Republicans Sen. Johnny Isakson and Rep. Chris Smith and Democrats Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Betty McCollum, writes into law the administration’s initiative Feed the Future. The core of the bill is a mandate of the president to coordinate a comprehensive U.S. global food security strategy—such a forward-looking strategy will help gain stakeholder buy-in and ultimately provide more consistent, rationale policies and programs. Also included are guidelines that we know from experience produce good development—measurable goals and performance metrics, solid monitoring and evaluation, clear criteria for selecting targets, alignment with local policies and priorities, multi-sectoral approaches, building local capacity and resilience, and partnership with the private sector. The bill authorizes funding for food security but does not earmark it—meaning the funds are authorized but are not required to be expended. And the bill calls for only a single report to Congress a year after the issuance of the strategy.

The third bill, the Electrify Africa Act of 2015, sponsored by Republicans Sen. Bob Corker and Rep. Ed Royce and Democrats Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Elliot Engel, is centered on a comprehensive energy strategy for Africa. Similarly, the legislation calls for a strategy that is flexible and responsive to local communities and for policies that promote transparent and accountable governance, local consultation, and monitoring and evaluation. The bill requires two reports, the first within six months of enactment to transmit the strategy and the second three years after enactment to report on implementation. The bill directs U.S. government agencies to use accountable and metric-based targets to measure effectiveness of assistance and to leverage private and multilateral finance.

For those who say that Congress does not support foreign assistance, let’s hope this legislative triple-hat puts that to rest. Similarly, for those who say the Congress does not understand a more effective approach to development, maybe it’s time to become a believer.

In this presentation Robert Puentes provides a deeper understanding of trends that are impacting metropolitan America and how those trends may impact the demand for multi-family housing in the coming decades. The presentation stresses several key points including dramatic changes in household formation, the plight of older, inner-ring "first" suburbs, and the increasing diversity reflected in both cities and suburban areas.

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At a legislative conference in Cambridge, Ohio, Bruce Katz stressed the importance of cities and metro areas to the state's overall prosperity. Acknowledging the decline of Ohio's older industrial cities, Katz noted the area's many assets and argued for a focus on innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality communities as means to revitalize the region. 

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Strickland says this is the time for bold, new thinking and adds that strengthening Ohio''s cities is a required step in reclaiming the state''s prosperity.

Executive Summary
Stressed by the catastrophic mortgage foreclosure crisis and the long-run decline of older, industrial regions, communities around the country are becoming increasingly burdened with vacant and abandoned properties. In order to alleviate the pressures on national prosperity caused by these derelict properties, the federal government needs to advance policies that support regional and local land banking for the 21st century.

Land banking is the process or policy by which local governments acquire surplus properties and convert them to productive use or hold them for long term strategic public purposes. By turning vacant and abandoned properties into community assets such as affordable housing, land banking fosters greater metropolitan prosperity and strengthens broader national economic well-being.

America’s Challenge
During the mortgage crisis of the past two years, the nation has seen the number of foreclosures double, and almost 600,000 vacant, for-sale homes added to weak real estate markets. In older industrial regions, chronic economic and population losses have also led to vacancies and abandonment. When left unaddressed, these problem properties impose severe costs on neighborhoods, including reduced property values and tax revenues, increased arson and crime, and greater demands for police surveillance and response. Eight cities in Ohio, for example, were forced to bear $15 million in direct annual costs and over $49 million in cumulative lost property tax revenues due to the abandonment of approximately 25,000 properties. Such negative consequences drain community resources and prevent cities and towns—and the nation—from fully realizing productive, inclusive, and sustainable growth.

Limitations of Existing Federal Policy
The Emergency Assistance Act in the Home and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 is the first to express recognition of land banking in federal legislation, but it has several weaknesses. The act lacks clarity regarding the scope and target for the allocated funding which may hinder effective policy implementation in the short term. Moreover, as an emergency response to the immediate mortgage crisis, it does not sufficiently address the concerns of land banking in the long run. In particular, the act’s $3.92 billion does not come close to meeting the costs associated with the two million foreclosures projected by the end of 2008 and the local revenues lost from vacant and abandoned properties.

A New Federal Approach
Federal policy needs to support effective and efficient land banking. In the short term, the federal government should deploy the Emergency Assistance Act with local and regional flexibility for determining funding priorities. Over the long term, the federal government should implement a new, comprehensive federal land banking program that would:

• Capitalize local and regional land banking by providing sufficient funding to support the several million properties in the process of foreclosure or those that are already vacant and abandoned
• Incentivize local and state code and tax reform to ensure that land banking is not hampered by outdated rules and procedures
• Advance regionalism by encouraging new inter-jurisdictional entities to align the scale of land banking authorities with the scale of metropolitan land issues

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On September 8, Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown participated in a Center for International Policy and Washington Office on Latin America event, “Using Militaries as Police in Latin America: A Discussion on Citizen Security and the Way Forward.” Felbab-Brown was joined on the panel by Adam Blackwell, secretary for multidimensional security at the Organization of American States; Richard Downie, executive vice president for global strategies at OMNITRU; and Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America. Sarah Kinosian, lead researcher on Latin America at the Center for International Policy, moderated the event.

Felbab-Brown argued that police reform across Latin America over the past two decades has often been at best deficient or has failed outright. The lack of rule of law characterizes many countries in the region, including continually Mexico. Police forces are often not only corrupt, but highly abusive, and both police forces and military forces deployed for policing engage in major human rights violations. Even assumed exemplary experiments, such as the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) approach in Rio, have struggled to execute an effective handover from heavily-armed takeover forces to regular policing.

If governments choose to deploy their militaries in local policing roles, suboptimal as that is, the forces should adopt population-centric strategies, immediately develop concrete handover plans to police forces, and operate under a civilian coordinator. A key requirement for military forces is to respect human rights and due process and diligently prosecute perpetrators. Ultimately both police and military forces need to understand that their role is to protect society.

To some extent, Felbab-Brown argues, the resort to military forces for policing purposes is compounded by the lack of expeditionary police capacity by outside partners and donors, who overwhelmingly tend to deploy military forces for training policing. However, if the United States and outside donors want to make their policing assistance more effective, they should consider developing expeditionary police forces for such training purposes as well as a range of stabilization operations.

The most important factor for security efforts is citizen support. Marginalization, exclusion, and abuse from policing forces—be they police or military ones—have often prevented local populations from cooperating with law enforcement units and buying into rule of law: security or insecurity is co-produced as much as by citizens as by the police or military.

The loss of the Afghan provincial capital Kunduz was a psychological shock to the Afghan people, a strategic and tactical defeat for both Afghanistan and the United States, and a tragedy for those at the Doctors Without Borders hospital there. Yet the shock may prompt essential changes. It is important to examine both Afghan and U.S. responsibility for the disaster, what is happening now and what needs to be done. President Obama’s decision Thursday to maintain existing U.S. force levels into next year was absolutely correct to achieve the goal he stated of “sustainable Afghan capacity and self-sufficiency.”

Kunduz, which has since been recaptured by Afghan forces, was more than just the first provincial capital to be taken by the Taliban; its fall was highly symbolic because it was the site of the Taliban’s last stand in 2001. The poor initial performance of Afghan security forces and the tragic bombing of a nongovernmental organization hospital in the midst of a chaotic response to the attack sparked national disappointment in Afghanistan and international concern. All this came on the back of a dismal year in which many more Afghan civilians died than did so while international forces fought the Taliban, and the national unity government, which came into office on a wave of hope a year ago, stalled on filling essential positions and reforming governance.

The United States and its allies share responsibility for the military losses. We built security forces that depend on air power and need continued intelligence and advisory support. But instead of ensuring that these capabilities are available, we have severely limited air support, transferred key intelligence enablers to Iraq and created a patchwork system that left key areas, including Kunduz, without effective advisers. Our withdrawals from these vital functions based on politically driven timetables ignored reality on the ground, including Taliban capabilities and the embrace of the Islamic State by some militants.

But Afghans need to understand that U.S. support is not, and should not, be a blank check. Both the government and the opposition need to work to improve their military, political and governance performance, and come together instead of pulling the country apart.

The Kunduz setback does not mean the war is lost. Elite Afghan commandos delivered by recapturing critical areas. Whereas Mosul in Iraq remains in enemy hands a year after it fell, Kunduz has returned to government control. President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah appear to be heeding the call to action. During our recent 10-day visit to Afghanistan, each told us that they have agreed to an accelerated appointment process. Five new governors have been named, including three to critical provinces; further appointments and the long-delayed replacement of numerous senior officers is promised and must happen quickly. Appointments must involve effective individuals and cannot be merely political payoffs. Ghani has created a commission to investigate Kunduz, with a mandate to recommend action, that is led by opposition voices, including a former head of intelligence, though it sadly lacks female members.

If government performance takes off, public confidence could begin to be restored. More remains to be done. Afghan power brokers, intent on advancing personal agendas, seek to replace the government. They need to be pressed to stand down. The effort to reduce predatory governance in the provinces and Kabul cannot be shoved aside. Ghani and Abdullah must work effectively together despite the rapacious desires of their supporters and opponents. Broader consultation with the Afghan people is needed.

The United States needs to continue to step up to its own responsibilities, as well. Ground combat troops are not needed, but advisers and air power must be kept in place and not reduced on some blind, years-old timetable. Air power must be available to preempt attacks and not confined, as it is now, to desperate defense after attacks have begun. Afghan and foreign officials we spoke to foresee a crescendo of Taliban attacks as international forces withdraw. An even bigger Taliban offensive next year is likely to stretch battered Afghan forces further. We have not ended a war, only left it to the Afghans too soon.

The United States should maintain its current forces and funding levels, which are less than 10 percent of expenditures a few years ago, and focus on effectively advising Afghan forces. A reduction of the U.S. effort to a “pure” counterterrorism effort, still foreshadowed by the president’s hope of getting to about half the current force level sometime next year, would be disturbingly similar to what President George W. Bush tried a decade ago. Such a premature drawdown would abandon Afghan forces before they are ready, increasing the risk that a renewed terrorist haven will emerge.

Asking our allies to do jobs they are not equipped to do raises the risk of more reversals such as Kunduz and tragedies like the hospital bombing. Obama’s decision to maintain forces properly avoids preempting his successor’s choices about a difficult and evolving situation. That focus, and not a predetermined timetable, should continue to guide decisions throughout the remainder of this administration. The president’s public determination to maintain our current training and advising effort until Afghan forces do not need such help will provide a needed boost to both Afghans and our NATO allies — some of whom have been ahead of us in urging that we stay. And it is the right thing to do for our national interests.

This piece was originally published by The Washington Post.

The gruesome theatrics of the Islamic State (IS) captivate the world’s attention, instilling fear in the public from Los Angeles to Paris to Beirut. Yet while arrests are made in Europe and airstrikes continue in Raqqa, Americans ignore developments on another worn-out battlefield: Afghanistan.

Afghanistan faces numerous crises in 2016 that could rock the country and threaten U.S. security investments. The United States still has 10,000 troops stationed in the country. It must take decisive action not to supply vast numbers of troops or massively increase spending, but instead abandon inadequate policies before something catastrophic occurs. These must be more than incremental policy changes that merely stave off disaster for the interim, as this would compound the seriousness of each crisis. After traveling to Afghanistan in October 2015, we have identified key security risks and steps the United States can take to forestall disaster.

In 2015, Taliban violence resulted in more Afghan civilian, police, and military casualties than in any year since U.S. and NATO forces began fighting in Afghanistan. More fighters, better weapons, and new tactics made the 2015 Taliban offensive their most effective yet, with a recent attack in Parwan province that killed six U.S. soldiers serving as a terrible reminder of this grim reality. Next year, the Taliban will aim to take provincial cities, pounce on Kandahar, and spread fear through spectacular attacks. A major Taliban offensive following this year’s fierce assault is almost certain. Indeed, as a recent Department of Defense report describes, the security situation in Afghanistan has grown more precarious over the last year.

The Afghan army has done its best to counter the Taliban assault. Afghan forces retook Kunduz and pushed back serious Taliban offensives in other cities, including Ghazni. While attrition is high due to soldiers overstaying leaves, desertion, and Taliban threats to soldiers’ families, recruitment of new forces has exceeded losses. Yet, strong ground forces cannot compensate for inadequate air support, modern intelligence capabilities, well-functioning logistics (to maintain vehicles and keep essential supplies available), and higher-order assistance for Afghanistan’s still-nascent security institutions. The United States must help fill these critical gaps while maintaining its promises to complete these critical, but unfinished, programs. The United States must also amend the very restrictive rules of engagement that currently limit air support capabilities, and restore intelligence assets that have been withdrawn. Stronger battlefield intelligence capabilities are essential, as we learned after the tragic bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz. More effective air attacks and improved intelligence could seriously disrupt Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban is no longer the only threat to stability in Afghanistan. The influence of the Islamic State is growing, as it recruits more extremist Taliban members and brings in fighters from non-Afghan communities, including Uzbeks and Pakistanis. These IS-inspired groups challenge the new Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who seeks to cement his leadership after the years-long deception over the death of his predecessor, Mullah Omar. The Taliban fragmentation and competition from IS, especially prominent in the provinces of Zabul and Nangarhar, have led to increased violence, including the recent beheadings of minority Hazaras. The renewed violence reduces already slim hopes for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan.

The United States and NATO must intensify actions against IS in Afghanistan. Like al Qaeda, the group must be a priority target for air and counter terrorist missions. Now is the time to destroy it. At a minimum, coalition forces must restrain the growth of this hostile force before it becomes a significantly larger threat.

Afghanistan is undertaking a unique experiment in elected government. Nearly 70 percent of the electorate voted in 2014, despite threats from the Taliban to kill or mutilate anyone who did so. However, the results were clouded by accusations of widespread fraud. After an extended political impasse, the United States brokered a peaceful settlement and a power-sharing agreement between the two contenders in the run off. The National Unity Government (NUG) was formed with Ashraf Ghani serving as president and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, as chief executive officer.

Military solutions alone cannot solve all of the country’s woes, as the electorate’s participation and the elected officials’ ability to govern are as critical to a stable state as a strong security apparatus. Now, at a time when insurgent attacks need a strong response and the government needs to stop its internal wrangling and start delivering services to civilians, the NUG finds itself politically distracted. Ex-president Hamid Karzai and mujahedeen leaders continue to undermine the government in an attempt to spur its collapse. These attempts are little more than a naked power grab that, if successful, would usher in months of political paralysis while the victors squabble over the spoils of power. This would be disastrous, at a time when insurgent attacks need a strong response and the government needs to start delivering services. The United States and other coalition nations must voice strong opposition to all efforts to change the constitution through a Loya Jirga or the scheduling of early elections. Without first reforming the electoral system, another massively fraudulent election will surely follow. Quiet opposition will be taken as willingness to see the NUG undone.

Despite some positive developments, the Afghan government is losing popular support. More and more Afghans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Thousands of Afghans are fleeing the country, and along with them goes the potential for economic growth. Crime and insecurity in the cities contribute to this brain and asset drain. Stakeholders in Afghanistan must demand governance improvements from the NUG – including opposition to vicious ethnic discrimination and power abuse, which the Taliban exploited in Kunduz – that the Afghan people crave. The government should focus on increasing effective anti-criminal and anti-corruption policing in the major cities, such as Kabul, Herat, and Jalalabad. This would require significant government action against some major power brokers. Additionally, a concerted foreign advisory effort with the police is needed to improve civilian security. These actions require vigorous U.S. and international backing.

Doubts are growing about the United States’ and NATO’s commitment to long-term support for Afghanistan. While President Barack Obama’s decision to retain major security hubs in Afghanistan was a step in the right direction, this progress was undercut by the planned force reductions at the end of 2016. In a worsening security environment, Afghans fear being abandoned by their international partners. To rebuild confidence, a U.S.-led NATO review of conditions on the ground and a demonstrated willingness to fill major gaps, such as air support, would counteract this sense of abandonment.

Not all is gloom. Unlike Karzai, who blamed the United States for most of Afghanistan’s problems and refused to move against massive corruption, Ghani remains committed to reform. There is progress in revenue collection, enforcement action against fraud in Kabul Bank, and some members of the new cabinet are making progress in less visible but important reforms like speeding business licensing and settling land titles. Unlike in Syria and Iraq, militias do not yet dominate either politics or the battlefield. Actions are still available to minimize the looming crises. But planning and decisions are needed now, not after the crises explode.

This piece was originally published by Foreign Policy. 

In this interview, Vanda Felbab-Brown addresses issues of terrorism, organized crime, and state responses within the context of Boko Haram’s terrorism, insurgency, and militancy in the Niger Delta. She was interviewed by Jide Akintunde, Managing Editor of Financial Nigeria magazine.

Q: The Boko Haram menace has been with Nigeria for seven years. Why is it that the group does not appear to have run out of resources?

A: Boko Haram has been able to sufficiently plunder resources in the north to keep going. It has accumulated weapons and ammunition from seized stocks. It also taxes smuggling in the north. But its resources are not unlimited. And unlike other militant and terrorist groups, such as ISIS or the Taliban, Boko Haram faces far more acute resource constraints.

Q: Boko Haram is both an insurgent and a terrorist group. Does this explain why it is arguably the deadliest non-state actor in the world and the group that has used women for suicide bombings the most in history?

A: Boko Haram’s record in 2015 of being the deadliest group is a coincidence. Very many other militant groups have combined characteristics of an insurgency and a terrorist group. Its violence belies its weaknesses as much as its capacities.

Boko Haram’s resort to terrorism, often unrestrained terrorism and unrestrained plunder, reflect its loss of territory and most limited strategy calibration and governance skills. Its terrorist attacks, including by female suicide bombers, also reflect the limitation of the military COIN (counter-insurgency) strategy. For instance, after the international clearing, little effective control and “holding” is still exercised by the Nigerian military or its international partners.

Q: Although many views have rejected economic deprivation or poverty as the root cause of the insurgency, almost everyone agrees that military victory over the group would not help much if economic improvement is not brought to bear in the Northeastern Nigeria – the theatre of the insurgent activities. Is this necessarily contradictory?

A: Economic deprivation is hardly ever the sole factor stimulating militancy. There are many poor places, even those in relative decline compared to other parts of the country, where an insurgency does not emerge. But relative economic deprivation often becomes an important rallying cause. And indeed, there are many reasons for focusing on the economic development of the north, including effectively suppressing militancy but it also goes beyond that. Improving agriculture, including by investing in infrastructure and eliminating problematic and distortive subsidies in other sectors, would help combat insurgency and prevent its reemergence.

Q: While Nigerians remain befuddled about the grievances of Boko Haram, we are clear about the gripes of the militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta: they want resource control, since the Nigerian state has been unable to develop the area that produces 70 per cent of the federal government’s revenue. So, is the state always just and right in suppressing militant groups?

A: Indeed not; the state is hardly always just in suppressing militancy, even as suppressing militancy is its key imperative. Economic grievances, discriminations, and lack of equity and access are serious problems that any society should want to tackle. Even if there are “no legitimate grievances,” the state does not have a license to combat militancy in any way it chooses. Its own brutality will be discrediting and can be deeply counterproductive.

The Nigerian state’s approach to MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta) is fascinating: essentially the cooptation of MEND leaders through payoffs, but without addressing the underlying root causes. The insurgency quieted down, but the state’s approach is hardly normatively satisfactory nor necessarily sustainable unless new buyoffs to MEND leaders are again handed over. But that compounds problems of corruption, accountability, transparency, and inclusion.

Q: We can raise the same issue about economic justice in the way criminal and terrorist organizations operate their underground economies. How flawed have you found the alternative social orders that the leaders of criminal and terrorist organizations claim to foster?

A: The governance – the normative, political, and economic orders -- that militant groups provide are often highly flawed. They often underdeliver economically and they lack accountability mechanisms, even when they outperform the state in being less corrupt and providing swifter justice.

However, the choice that populations face is not whether the order that militants provide is optimal or satisfactory. The choice that matters to people is whether that order is stable and better than that provided by the state. So the vast majority of people in Afghanistan, for example, say they don’t like the Taliban. But they don’t like corrupt warlords or corrupt government officials even. It’s not the absolute ideal but the relative realities that determine allegiances or at least the (lack of) willingness to support one or the other.

Moreover, the worst outcome is constant contestation and military instability. A stable brutality is easier to adjust to and develop coping mechanisms for than capriciousness and unstable military contestation.

Q: The Nigerian amnesty programme seemed to be a model in resolving issues between the state and the non-state actors in the Niger Delta, given the quiet in that region in the past few years of the programme. But since the political power changed at the federal level, we are seeing signs of the return of sabotage of oil installations. What models, say in Latin America or elsewhere, can help foster more sustainable peace between governments and non-state actor militant groups?

A: I don’t think that the MEND programme is a model, precisely because of the narrow cooptation I alluded to. Many of the middle-level MEND commanders as well as foot soldiers are dissatisfied with the deal. And much of the population in the Delta still suffers the same level of deprivation and exclusion as before. The deal was a bandage without healing the wounds underneath. It’s a question how long it will continue sticking. Despite its many urgent and burning tasks and a real need to focus on the north, the Nigerian government should use the relative peace in the Delta to move beyond the plaster and start addressing the root causes of militancy and dissatisfaction there. 

This interview was originally published by Financial Nigeria.

2016 is shaping up to be a potentially critical year for Afghanistan. ISIS is rising there, the Taliban is gaining ground, the stability of the Afghan government is deteriorating by the day, and national elections are coming in October. The US, China, Pakistan, and the Afghan government are currently holding talks aimed at bringing the Taliban to the table to try negotiate an end to the war.

Of those countries, it's Pakistan that is the most significant. Pakistan has probably the most influence of anyone over whether those talks will succeed in getting the Taliban to agree to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement with the Afghan government. But there's a lot more going on with the peace talks that are perhaps the country's best or only remaining hope.

To understand how this works and why it matters, I spoke to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution and an expert on Afghanistan. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length.

Jennifer Williams: Could you start by just explaining how Pakistan has been involved in the conflict between the Taliban and Afghanistan historically?

Vanda Felbab-Brown: That goes back to the creation of independent Pakistan, with issues having to do with the Pashtun minority in Pakistan, which is also the majority population of Afghanistan, and irredentist claims by Afghan Pashtun politicians, as well as the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States, who at different times supported either Pakistan or Afghanistan and played the two against each other.

Then you have the Taliban emerging in the 1990s, and Pakistan fully supports the Taliban: They help equip it, they provide intelligence, advisers, and during the Taliban era when they ruled country, Pakistan is one of only three countries that recognize the Taliban regime.

They continued supporting the Taliban throughout the past decade, and US-Pakistan relations became very fraught and complicated. It's never been easy. Pakistanis sometimes use the expression that the United States treats Pakistan like a condom: uses it when they need it then discards it when they are finished with it. It's a fairly common saying in Pakistan, especially in the military. So there is a sense of betrayal on the part of the United States, untrustworthiness, that it's an exploitative relationship on the part of the US toward Pakistan.

I should also say that Pakistan has long supported many Islamic extremist groups as part of its asymmetric policy toward India, and some of these groups have now mutated, or they slipped Pakistan's full control.

Even with respect to the Afghan Taliban, there is a lot of support from the Pakistani state intelligence services and military to the Afghan Taliban. At the same time, Pakistan has been under enormous US and international pressure to act against them, and so they will take the occasional action against the Afghan Taliban as well. But those actions are mostly seen as halfhearted, incomplete window dressing.

JW: So what role is Pakistan playing today? I know that they just had the four-party talks and that Pakistan has been insisting that these talks take place in Pakistan. Are they trying to speak for the Taliban?

VFB: I'm not sure that it's a fair characterization that they are speaking for the Taliban. Certainly the Afghan government, including in the latest talks, often insinuates or alleges that Pakistan speaks for the Taliban. But they clearly do not.

The relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan is hardly smooth and perfect. Many members of the Afghan Taliban deeply resent the level of Pakistani interference, even as the group has been supported by Pakistan. There is a lot of Afghan Pashtun nationalism also among the Taliban that deeply resents the influence and attempts at control by the Pakistani state.

Part of the key issue in the relationship is that although Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban, and although it has historically supported other extremist groups, it does not have perfect control. And arguably, its control is diminishing. And so they posture, they do their double game. They want to appear strong, and so they posture that they have much greater control than they have, but at the same time they deny that they have any nefarious role.

In reality, they are playing both sides against the middle, and they often have much less capacity to control and rein in the extremist groups, including the Afghan Taliban, than many assume. The widespread criticism of Pakistan is one of its duplicity and its nefarious activity and its lack of willingness to act against the Afghan Taliban. Those are true, but they are also coupled with limits to their capacity. They are riding a tiger that they cannot control fully.

So they have been hosting these four-way talks that involve them, the US government, the Afghan government, and the Chinese government. The Afghan government is desperate to achieve some sort of negotiated deal with the Taliban. It feels under tremendous pressure, the military is taking a pounding from the Taliban, and the government lacks legitimacy.

The US has similar views on the notion that the way out of the predicament in Afghanistan is a negotiated deal. The Chinese also like the idea. They have their own influence in Pakistan. China would very much like to say that they finally achieved what the US failed to do over the past decade, that they will bring peace to Afghanistan, and that they will do it by enabling the negotiations.

Pakistan is responsive to China. Their relationship with China is much stronger than their relationship with the United States. They often tell the US that China is their old friend, that China is the country that hasn't betrayed them, unlike the United States. China has promised massive economic development in Pakistan at $40 billion. The Pakistanis often say to the US that the Pakistan-China relationship is "greater than the Himalayas and deeper than the ocean." Very flowery.

JW: What's the relationship like between the Afghan government and Pakistan today?

VFB: The crucial man there really is the Pakistani chief of the army staff Raheel Sharif; no relation to [Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif. I think that there is sort of goodwill and motivation right now, even on the army staff — but that is juxtaposed with, again, the limits of control even the chief has. With almost clockwork regularity you have a round of negotiations in Pakistan or you have a meeting between Raheel Sharif and [Afghan President Ashraf] Ghani, and the next day a bomb goes off in Kabul and people die, or the Indian consulate is attacked.

All those ploys are meant to destroy any beginning of a more positive relationship and have been very effective in subverting the process. The same goes on between Pakistan and India. Meanwhile, Ghani is taking an enormously risky strategy with respect to the negotiations. It's vastly unpopular in Afghanistan, and many, many Afghans hate Pakistan and blame it for all of their troubles.

They use Pakistan as the explanation of everything that ever goes wrong in Afghanistan. And the Pakistanis are responsible for a lot, but there's much, much blame and responsibility that lies on Afghan politicians and Afghan people.

So Ghani's outreach and engagement with Pakistan is extremely unpopular. He's spending an extreme amount of political capital, and does not have support from his partner in the government, Abdullah Abdullah, and the northern Tajik factions that hate Pakistan with great vitriol. So the more Pakistan is unable to deliver things like the Haqqani network, reducing or stopping its attacks in Kabul, the more politically impossible for Ghani the process will be.

JW: So what does that mean in terms of the stability of Afghanistan's unity government?

VFB: The unity government is extremely strained. "Unity" it isn't. The Pakistani negotiation angle is just too big for the strain. It might be strategically important. It might be a very significant element in getting any negotiation going, but it's also extremely politically costly, and the longer it doesn't produce anything, the more politically costly and unsustainable it will be.

In October, there are supposed to be parliamentary elections and district elections in Afghanistan, and, more important, this loya jirga [a national assembly of Afghan elders]. And unless there is some sort of major breakthrough by the summer, a lot of the negotiations and political process with both the Taliban and Pakistan will be put on ice, because it will just be politically impossible in the context of the loya jirga and the elections.

So they really have until the summer to make some sort of breakthrough, and then you will have months of morass and extreme political instability in Afghanistan, but it will also not be conducive in any way to improving either the relationship with Pakistan or the negotiations.

JW: How does Pakistan fit into the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan? What's the relationship there? And how might this affect the peace negotiations?

VFB: The rise of ISIS-Khorasan is one of the most interesting developments. It complicates the negotiations for the Taliban. They oppose the negotiations, and they're a big problem for Mullah Mansour and those who want to negotiate. They enable defections, make them easy, and make them costly.

At the same time, it is interesting because ISIS does not have the same linkages to Pakistan that the Afghan Taliban had, even though ISIS includes many defectors from the Taliban. They quite specifically reject what they call the "yoke" that Pakistan has put on the Afghan Taliban, and they call the Afghan Taliban leadership traitors because of the close relationship with Pakistan.

Moreover, ISIS-Khorasan also has quite a few members of various Pakistani extremist groups like Lashkar-e Taiba and members of TTP [Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan]. So there is also a lot of resentment and hostility toward Pakistan.

I think the rise of ISIS might make Pakistan be cooperative to some extent, but on the other hand, I think it will also reinforce in the mind of many Pakistan security controllers that it's important to cultivate the Afghan Taliban as friends against the bigger danger of ISIS.

JW: Now that ISIS-Khorasan has directly targeted Pakistan, the consulate in Jalalabad, do you think Pakistan will take action?

VFB: I think they'll take action against ISIS and groups like Tehrik-e Taliban. I don't think it will produce more resolve to go after the Afghan Taliban. That's my view. Others are hoping that they will finally accept the realities and really believe that they have to fight all of the insurgents, all of the terrorists, and that they cannot differentiate among them. I am not persuaded that that will, in fact, happen.

JW: So what does this all mean for the prospects for peace? Are you hopeful at all?

VFB: I think the peace negotiations are important, but I am skeptical that anything will happen quickly.

I think that if by summer the Taliban has been willing to join the negotiating table, that will be an important breakthrough, but nothing will be agreed. The summer will be very bloody, and then there will be the political [wrangling] associated with the loya jirga and the elections.

In my view, even if the Taliban comes to the negotiating table, we are looking at years of negotiations, and certainly no breakthrough before 2017 and likely much longer.

And so the question is whether we, the United States, are prepared to stand by with Afghanistan for that long and whether the Afghans will have the resolve. So it's really important that the military and the police fight as hard as they can, because the weaker they fight, the more they defect, the more intimidated they are, the more brain drain that flows from Afghanistan, the stronger the Taliban is viewed and the more intransigent they will be in the negotiations. Now the negotiations will be very much about the military battlefield as much as they will about what's happening at the table for a long time.

This interview was originally published by Vox.

Vanda Felbab-Brown writes that after more than a decade of struggles against al-Qaida and the Taliban, U.S. President Barack Obama hoped to extricate the United States from participating militarily in Afghanistan’s counterinsurgency. But as the end of his presidency approaches in the summer of 2016, Afghanistan again faces crisis. Very few trends in the country are going well. The U.S. drone killing of the Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in Baluchistan, Pakistan in May 2016 provides a fillip to the embattled Afghan government and may in the long-term result in fragmentation and internal withering of the Taliban. But that outcome is not guaranteed nor likely to materialize quickly. In fact, the Taliban swiftly announced Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, a deputy to Mullah Mansour, as its new leader to avoid the tensions and chaos that surrounded Mansour’s appointment.

The Taliban has mounted and sustained its toughest military campaign in years, and the war has become bloodier than ever. Despite the Taliban’s internal difficulties, its military energy shows no signs of fizzling out. The influence of the particularly vicious Haqqani network within the Taliban has grown. Moreover, the Islamic State established itself in Afghanistan in 2015, although it faces multiple strong countervailing forces.

Most ominously, Afghanistan’s political scene remains fractious and polarized. The National Unity Government of President Ashraf Ghani and his chief executive officer and rival Abdullah Abdullah (created in the wake of the highly contested presidential elections of 2014) has never really found its feet. Fundamental structural problems of the government remain unaddressed, and after two years in power the government may face its end as a result of a possible Loya Jirga assembly in the fall of 2016. Even if the Jirga does not meet, Afghanistan’s leadership will face potentially debilitating crises of legitimacy. Afghanistan’s elite has not taken any steps to heal the country’s deep and broad political wounds. Instead, the dominant mode of politics is to plot the demise of the government and focus on a parochial accumulation of one’s power at the expense of the country’s national interest, and even the very survival of the post-2001 order.

Struggling to deliver the promised improvements in government efficiency and reduction in corruption, President Ghani staked the two first years of his presidency on negotiations with the Taliban. In order to facilitate the negotiations, he reached out to Pakistan in a daring and politically costly gambit in the fall of 2014 and repeatedly since. The payoff so far has been limited and Ghani’s political space is shrinking. The death of Mullah Mansour is likely to complicate the process even more.

In the paper, Felbab-Brown discusses the evolving international support for Afghanistan; military developments in Afghanistan since the fall of 2014 and the intensity of the Taliban’s battlefield thrust; the Taliban’s internal cohesion, fragmentation and leadership successions; President Ghani’s outreach to Pakistan and the effort to negotiate with the Taliban; and Afghan political processes and trends.

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• Blood and faith in Afghanistan: A June 2016 update

Event Information

Global warming is changing environmental conditions in the Arctic and opening new opportunities for resource extraction. Greenland, long thought to have excellent potential for iron ore, copper, zinc, lead, gold, rubies, rare earth elements and oil, has looked to strengthen its economy through the development of these resources. For many in Greenland, including the current government, resource extraction is seen as a necessary step toward the ultimate goal of independence from Denmark.

On September 24, the Energy Security Initiative (ESI) and the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings hosted Premier Aleqa Hammond of Greenland for an Alan and Jane Batkin International Leaders Forum address on the future of natural resource extraction in Greenland. Following her address, a panel discussion highlighted the findings of a new Brookings report, “The Greenland Gold Rush: Promise and Pitfalls of Greenland’s Energy and Mineral Resources.” Report co-author Kevin Foley, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, was joined on the panel by ESI Director Charles Ebinger and University of Copenhagen Professor Minik Rosing, who served as a discussant. The panel was moderated by Jonathan Pollack, a senior fellow with the China Center and Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings.

This event was part of the Alan and Jane Batkin International Leaders Forum Series, a new event series hosted by Foreign Policy at Brookings which brings global political, diplomatic and thought leaders to Washington, D.C. for major policy addresses.

 Join the conversation on Twitter using #Greenland

Audio

• Natural Resource Development in Greenland: An Alan and Jane Batkin International Leaders Forum with Greenland's Premier Aleqa Hammond

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20140924_greenland_transcript

In recent weeks, many analysts have expressed considerable surprise as oil prices have hit $80 per barrel and prices at American gas pumps have fallen. This “surprise” seems to have crept up on us, but evidence of shifting market demand and energy production has been available for some time. Over the past three years, high oil prices have generated increased interest in oil and gas in remote locations such the Arctic and East Africa. In addition, breakthroughs in oil and gas technology have also driven the development of unconventional oil and gas resources in regions of the world that were previously considered too high-cost, too high-risk or too far away from established markets for profitable energy production. Further, as a result of climate change melting Arctic ice, new oil fields and delivery routes have opened up, while technological advancements in resource extraction are opening vast new regions for resource exploration in countries like Mozambique and Tanzania, which lack even the most the most basic infrastructure and need high energy prices to justify their development.

Despite possible environmental and infrastructure challenges, a number of countries and regions are motivated to pursue increased resource development and extraction for a variety of non-energy related reasons. For example, the political leadership of Greenland views the development of energy and mineral resources as an opportunity to gain independence from Denmark. For its part, Canada sees the development of its northern territories as a way to bolster its claims to national sovereignty over its “internal waters,” a view contested by both Washington and Moscow. In the case of Russia, development of the Yamal Peninsula and its offshore Arctic waters has been a major priority for President Vladimir Putin, who believes the policy will catapult Russia into the vanguard of future global oil and gas producers and, as a result, will make Russia a market player in the Far East as well as Europe.

Unfortunately, while these emerging energy producers are coming on line, the market for energy has been shrinking—at least for the near-term. Since June 2014 (when oil was at $115 per barrel), oil prices have been in a free fall, with demand dropping across Europe, Japan, India, China, Brazil and much of the emerging world market. The drop in demand is the result of a number of factors, including:

• Slowing global economic growth;
• Rising global oil production (especially in North America);
• Unexpected resumption of oil production in Libya, Nigeria, South Sudan and Iraq;
• Increasing energy efficiency, a response to three years of oil prices in excess of $110 per barrel, which, in turn, had an impact and continues to impact long-term global demand;
• A decision by Saudi Arabia in August 2014 to cut oil production by 400 thousand barrels per day, an attempt to defend its market share in the face of falling global oil prices;
• Record oil output from Russia;
• Surging natural gas liquids and hydrocarbon gas liquids production outside the OPEC quota system;
• Natural gas eating away oil’s market share as a refining fuel and as a feedstock in petrochemicals;
• The decision by Japan to restart some of its nuclear reactors, reducing forward demand for fuel oil in the power sector;
• Dumping of oil onto the marketplace by hedge fund managers who had gone long on oil prices (by some estimates as much as two million barrels per day) in anticipation of further price rises – the hedge funds had no alternative but to liquidate their positions when the market turned against them.

In August, Saudi Arabia tried and failed to stop the slide in oil prices. Now supported by the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, the Saudis have decided to send a message to the world market that it will do whatever is necessary to maintain its market share, even accepting a near-term loss in revenue over the next two years. The Saudi goal is to slow or halt unconventional oil production, which is undermining their market share and profits. The short-term decline in oil prices also serves Saudi Arabia’s agenda by hurting their adversaries (Iran and Iraq) and squeezing Russia’s ability to fund the Assad regime in Syria.

However, the Saudis and their allies may be overlooking the complex economics of unconventional oil production in North America. For example, while drilling new wells in some unconventional basins may not be profitable at $80 per barrel, many existing wells have largely been amortized by current tax policies making them economic at prices in some basins such as the Permian at prices as low as $40 to $50 per barrel. The most important factor is that the production profile of many unconventional wells is very different. For example in the Bakkan wells flow very strongly but then crash often initially only recovering four percent of the oil in place while the Permian wells tend to plateau but ultimate recovery is much higher.

While various pundits have opined on this question, the truth of the matter is that no analyst really knows the full range of production costs across the unconventional crude oil production continuum since this information is highly proprietary. Nonetheless, with oil prices for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at $81 per barrel and Brent at $83 per barrel and with Wall Street in turmoil and Europe poised on the brink of a new recession, the specter of a major price decline similar to that of 2008 cannot be ruled out. While prices could overshoot on the downside, I believe that prices will fall to $60 to $70 per barrel, before stabilizing at a level still far above the $38 per barrel we saw in 2008.

The precipitous drop in oil prices could not have come at a worse time for U.S. oil producers, who have been advocating for the United States to lift the long-time ban on crude oil exports (in place since 1975).  According to the Brookings Energy Security Initiative’s research on the issue, if the ban were to be lifted immediately, the United States could be exporting 1.7 million to 2.5 million barrels per day (mmbd) by 2015. With the market in such a weak position and demand falling, adding as much as 2.5 mmbd to the world market would significantly drive down both crude oil and petroleum product prices (gasoline and home heating fuel). While beneficial to consumers in the near term, the effect on crude prices will only add to the current market turmoil and a further downward spiral in crude prices. Furthermore, with many unconventional oil wells also producing natural gas, to the extent that oil prices fall below $60 per barrel, some natural gas production could also be affected.

Keep in mind, however, that the further crude prices fall in the near term, the faster they may rebound, as low prices become the engine that leads to a resumption of demand and world economic growth. The fall in oil prices will have various effects on different countries, though the magnitude is often overstated. For example, any further fall in oil prices could have serious deleterious effects on the Russian economy. As a major oil export economy (with oil accounting for 14.5 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product), Russia’s budget for 2014 is predicated on an average price of $97 per barrel. Therefore a price slide to $80 per barrel or below would pose a major economic setback for that country. The fact that prices have averaged at $110 per barrel for the year-to-date however allows Russia some cushion in the event of a short term price drop – as do Russia’s large financial reserves. However, any prolonged drop in oil prices will pose serious challenges to the Russian economy.

Countries that produce at a high cost with large populations, subsidized consumer prices and various political constraints, such as Iran (sanctions), Indonesia (falling energy exports), Iraq (political turmoil), Nigeria (political instability and falling exports) and Venezuela (a collapsed economy in need of high export prices) will be thrown into turmoil. Fearful of low prices, Venezuela recently attempted and failed to call an emergency meeting of OPEC to discuss the situation. Given the already fragile nature of many of these regimes, the prospect of serious social upheaval cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, large oil importing countries such as China, India, Brazil, Japan and South Korea stand to benefit from falling oil prices.

It is against this backdrop that OPEC will meet in late November. The oil price slide and efforts to reverse it will be priority one on the ministers’ agenda. While the Saudis may be willing to cut production if all the other OPEC members also agree to substantial cuts, the prospects for an agreement are slim to none, given their individual internal political realities and revenue needs.

As a long-term observer of the oil market, I have seen this game played out in various manifestations over the last 40 years. We are clearly in for a wild ride; buckle your seat belts. 

In September 2014, we released a study on mineral and energy resources in Greenland and were honored to have Aleqa Hammond, then the Premier of Greenland, with us at Brookings for the launch event. Since gaining political autonomy from the Kingdom of Denmark in 2009, successive governments in Greenland have been aggressively promoting the development of a mining industry as a solution to its deep and worsening economic woes. Our study concluded that Greenland was likely to develop large-scale mining and energy projects eventually, but that the pace of development would be much slower than the government of Greenland anticipated due to steep declines in iron ore prices and unrealistic expectations of demand for rare earth elements.

A lot has changed since then, but our original conclusions still hold. While there has been progress on smaller mines such as the Aappaluttoq ruby and sapphire project in southwest Greenland, it appears increasingly unlikely that any of the large-scale mining and energy projects that Greenland has been counting on will get off the ground in the near term. Global events beyond Greenland’s control have conspired in recent months to reduce the incentives for investment in mining and offshore oil and gas projects.

Political Crisis in Nuuk, But Siumut Remains in Control

Following her trip to Washington, Premier Hammond became embroiled in a political scandal concerning the misuse of public funds. She resigned from office and an election was called. Hammond’s incumbent Siumut party, now under the leadership of former Environment Minister Kim Kielsen, held on to power against its main rival by a tiny margin of 326 votes.

All major political parties in Greenland support the development of a mining industry, but the two main parties are divided on the issue of uranium mining, with the opposition Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party opposed on environmental grounds. However, following the election Siumut successfully negotiated a coalition government, bringing together rival parties (the Democrat party and Atassut) that support uranium mining.

Ebola Outbreak Leads London Mining to Bankruptcy

Global events continued to conspire against Greenland’s efforts to develop a mining industry. Just before the November elections London Mining, the British company developing the Isua iron ore mine, went bankrupt and was placed into receivership after incurring heavy losses at its Sierra Leone mine due to the Ebola crisis.

As we noted in our report, London Mining’s project in Greenland sought to attract investments, labor and engineering support from Chinese partners, but the company was not successful in its efforts to secure that support given the high costs of the project (estimated at about $2 billion) and the unique engineering challenges associated with the project. Nevertheless, the company’s plan to bring nearly two thousand foreign workers to Greenland along with the government of Greenland’s efforts to pass legislation that would exempt workers on large projects from Greenland’s minimum labor standards sparked an enormous controversy in Denmark over the scope of Greenland’s autonomy. It also led some commentators in Denmark and elsewhere to suggest that this investment was part of a larger strategic plan by Beijing to establish a foothold in the Arctic region. We concluded in our study that there was no evidence of any such geopolitical connection and emphasized that, contrary to many reports, there was in fact no Chinese investment in Greenland.

Last week, London Mining’s Greenland operations were purchased by a Chinese investment and trading group based in Hong Kong. Like London Mining, the project’s new owners are unlikely to develop the Isua project unless they can locate a major Chinese mining company willing to provide capital, labor and engineering. This would seem unlikely in the near term given the precipitous drop in iron ore prices since 2012 and increased production by the international mining majors.

The buyer, General Nice, is a privately held trading and investment conglomerate with subsidiaries in mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and South Africa. The company’s corporate background is unclear. It was founded in 1992, but a quick search reveals no information about the group’s activities prior to 2006, when General Nice acquired Singapore-listed Abterra. This listed subsidiary has reportedly come under scrutiny in Singapore for its lack of transparency concerning unusual investments in coal mines in Shanxi province. General Nice has made a handful of financial investments in overseas mines, all in partnership with major mining companies from mainland China. The company does not appear to have experience operating iron mines.

China Cancels Its Rare Earth Production Quotas

China’s decision last week to drop export quotas on rare earth elements is another bad sign for Greenland’s plans to develop mining projects. Investment in rare earth projects outside of China has largely been driven by expectations of limited supply from China, where production capacity has been restricted by quotas on both production and export. The removal of the export quotas may reduce interest in international rare earth projects, including the two projects in Greenland.

Security concerns expressed in Denmark over the mining of uranium and rare earth have not yet been resolved. A working group established in early 2014 between Greenland and the Danish government to resolve these issues was scheduled to conclude in late 2014, but these talks have been interrupted by the change in government. While the new coalition supports uranium mining, these issues will have to be worked out before mining can move forward. This is particularly important for the development of the Kvanefjeld rare earth project, which contains significant levels of uranium, but may also be a factor for the Kringlerne rare earth project—which does not contain uranium – as Denmark has reserved the right to reject proposed rare earth projects on security grounds regardless of uranium content.

In addition, several rare earth element projects outside China (but not in Greenland) have in fact moved ahead, further reducing the urgency to develop a project in Greenland.

Falling Oil Prices

Oil extraction was always at best a long-term prospect for Greenland due to harsh conditions, limited infrastructure and the wide availability of cheaper alternative supplies. As oil prices started falling in June 2014 and global demand growth slowed, arguably the need for exploration in high-cost areas like Greenland further diminished. Thus, in September we concluded that under the most optimistic scenario it would take at least ten years before commercial oil production would take place in Greenland. Oil prices have continued to fall, and if prices remain low the timeline for exploration in Greenland is likely to be further extended.

Dim Economic Prospects

None of this is good news for Greenland, which has hoped to meet anticipated budget shortfalls with revenue from new mines. This week the new government publicly acknowledged the difficulty in securing major investments in the near term and will place more emphasis on developing infrastructure to support the tourism industry, which now appears to be Greenland’s best hope for economic development. One such project is a proposed new airport serving the tourist hub Illulissat. Any such measures will be important as the government faces a growing gap between expenses and the annual block grant from Denmark, which is likely to increase further as the population ages.

During his address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduation this week, President Obama highlighted climate change as “a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to (U.S.) national security.” Is President Obama right? Are the national security threats from climate change real?

When I listen to the “know-nothing” crowd and their front men in Congress who actively ignore ever-stronger scientific evidence about the pace of climate change, I want to quit my day job and organize civic action to close them down. The celebration of anti-knowledge, the denial of science, the treatment of advanced education as a mark of ignominy rather than the building block of American innovation and citizenship—these are as grave a threat to America’s future as any I can identify. So I’m sympathetic to the Obama administration’s desire to take a bludgeon to climate deniers. But is “national security” the right stick to move the naysayers forward? 

The Danger of Overstating for Effect

The White House’s report on the national security implications of climate change is actually pretty measured and largely avoids waving red flags, but it overstates for effect, as do the President’s remarks to the Coast Guard Academy. 

The report gets right the notion that climate change will hit hardest where governance is weakest and that this will exacerbate the challenge of weak states; but it’s a pre-existing challenge and almost all weak states are already embroiled in forms of internal war—climate change may exacerbate this problem, but it certainly won’t create it. The White House report also asserts a link to terrorist havens, and of course there are risks here—but it’s far from a 1:1 relationship, and there’s little evidence that the countries where climate will hit governance worst are the places where the terrorism problem is most serious. 

The report also highlights the Arctic as a region most dramatically effected by climate change, and that is true—but so far what we’re seeing in the Arctic is that receding ice is triggering commercial competition and governance cooperation; not conflict. The security challenge from the Arctic is modest: the climate challenge of melting ice caps and potential release of trapped greenhouse gases is potential very serious indeed. 

Then there are the domestic effects. The report highlights that the armed services may be drawn in more to dealing with coastal flooding and similar crises, and that’s a fair point—though it’s a National Guard point more than its an armed forces point. That is to say, it’s about the question of whether we have enough domestic disaster response capacity: an important question, not obviously a national security question. And it oddly passes over what’s likely to be the most important consequence of climate change in the United States, namely declining agricultural productivity in the American heartland. America’s farmers, not just its coastal cities, are in the front lines here. 

All of these are real issues and the U.S. government will have to plan for lots of them, including in the armed services; all fair. But is national security really the right way to frame this? Is linking it directly to the capacities needed for America’s armed services the right way to mobilize support for more serious action on climate change? 

Of course the term “security” has been evolving, and has long since extended beyond the limited purview of nuclear risks and great power conflict. Civil wars and weak governance and rising sea leaves are certainly a security issue to somebody, and we’re sure to be involved—whether it’s in dealing with refugee flows, or more acute crises where severe impacts overlay on pre-existing tensions. These are global security issues for someone, to be sure; I’m not sure they are “immediate risks to our national security.

Words Matter

Why does the rhetoric matter? Am I glad that we have a President who cares about climate change? Yes. Do I want the Obama administration to be focusing on mobilizing the American public on this? Yes. So why does it bother me if they use a national security lens? A national security framework implicitly does several things: it invokes a sense of direct threat, which I think distorts the nature of the challenge; it puts military responses front forward, which is the wrong emphasis; and although the report doesn’t get into this question, if the President highlights the immediate national security risk from climate, it displaces other security threats that we confront and truly require U.S. strategic planning, preparedness, and resources. None of this is totally wrong, but surely there are other ways to mobilize the American public to an erosion of our natural and agricultural environment than to invoke the security frame? 

Every piece of evidence I’ve seen about the state of temperature change; the real pathway we are on in terms of carbon-based fuels consumption (despite optimistic pledges in the lead up to the Paris climate conference); realistic projections of growth in renewable energies; and demand growth in the developing world (especially India) tells me that we’re rapidly blowing past the two degree target for limiting the rise in average global temperatures, and we’re well on our way to a four degree shift. 

We need urgently to pivot our scientific establishment away from the now well-trod field of predicting temperature shift to getting a much more granular understanding about the ways in which changing temperature will affect water sources, agricultural productivity, biodiversity, and dramatic weather events. And we need to treat those who willfully deny science—in climate and other areas—as a serious threat to our nation’s  future. I’m just not convinced that national security is the right or best way to frame the arguments and mobilize the America public’s will around this critically important issue.

President Obama should be congratulated for highlighting the growing links between U.S. national security and climate change in his address before the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s graduation ceremony earlier this week. The president’s speech drew upon earlier administration documents (the Third National Climate Assessment, the White House’s 2015 National Security Strategy, the Department of Defense’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, and the 2014 Department of Homeland Security’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review) to highlight the numerous challenges posed to our nation and the world by climate change, including:

• Threats to the world’s coastal infrastructure
• Rising temperatures and extreme weather
• Creation of failed states
• Degradation to the marine environment and critical ecological regions around the globe
• Threats to our energy production and delivery systems
• The devastating impact on native Arctic inhabitants

While these issues are important and deserve attention, the president was singularly silent on how best to manage threats, posed to the Arctic and the global environment by the rush to develop or utilize its resources (including energy, minerals, fish, and tourism) as the region opens with the melting of sea ice. I raise none of these issues to disagree with the president’s policies, or to suggest we should not develop the region’s resources or allow enhanced international maritime trade through our waters. In fact, I have often called for the economic development of Alaska with high safety standards for oil and gas production. If we allow these activities to proceed, we must be willing to provide the resources for infrastructure of all kinds: pipelines, onshore and offshore, and including ports, airfields, housing, etc., in order to be prepared for all contingencies.

Additionally, the president did not make any mention of the financial demands posed to the country to even meet the challenges in our own Arctic region of Alaska, let alone the many commitments we have already made in the Arctic Council, vis-à-vis instituting a true search and rescue capability and an oil spill prevention and response mechanism. The sad reality is that for all intents and purposes the United States has one heavy icebreaker to patrol our entire Arctic region. With cruise ships now sailing into very dangerous areas without adequate sea mapping, the prospect of a disaster occurring at least 800 miles from our nearest port in the Aleutians looms large. Were a cruise ship to run into ice, there is no logistical infrastructure in Northwest Alaska even to off lift passengers to on shore by helicopter. With icebreakers likely to cost at least $800 million to $1.5 billion each and take many years to build, where is the president's clarion call to the Congress on the need for more revenue for our Coast Guard to deal with the challenges highlighted in his speech?

Likewise, with many Asian nations interested in the fish resources of the Arctic, where are the funds both to determine what fish exist in Arctic waters including fish migrating from the Pacific as well as their volumes and assessments of how to insure their sustainability? If the president is serious about the threat of climate change on America’s front door to the Arctic, where are the U.S. Coast Guard and the State of Alaska as well as the myriad of federal agencies responsible for various activities in Alaska going to get the requisite resources to carry out their mandates?

As a result of the administration’s commendable recent decision, Shell will be allowed to proceed with drilling several wells in the Chukchi Sea, allowing for development that benefits not only Alaskans but also the entire United States. While Shell will be subject to stringent regulatory oversight, Russia also plans to drill in its area of the Chukchi as well. What would happen if the Russians had an accident and the current brought oil into Alaskan waters? Would the United States, in concert with the Russians have the capability to contain it? Similarly, if there were a major maritime disaster in the Bering Strait where a South Korean ship literally disappeared several years ago, what response capability would we have if a ship containing hazardous cargo sank? While I applaud the decision of the administration to allow Shell to drill in the Chukchi, I am apprehensive of the U.S. commitment and ability to respond to any matter of national security in the Arctic, in part due to the severe lack of federal funds going to support this region.

Consequently, while recognizing that the American and broader Arctic is only a small part of the myriad of issues you identified in your Coast Guard address, I would urge that you begin to inform Congress and the American people of the large costs we may have to incur to protect ourselves against the forthcoming economic and social ravages of climate change.

As a first step to begin to prepare for the direct “existential” challenges posed to Alaska and our broader responsibilities as chair of the Arctic Council, I would recommend the following:

1. A request to Congress for $1.2 billion dollars a year for 10 years to build a new fleet of ice worthy ships to deal with various contingencies in the Arctic (as defined by the Coast Guard) financed by an overall increase in the gasoline tax of $0.20/gallon of which $0.02 would go for Arctic infrastructure development;
2. As an interim step before these ships can be built, the appropriation of funds for the leasing of two Arctic worthy vessels per year;
3. An increase in alcohol and tobacco taxes (or perhaps a tax alongside the legalization of marijuana at the federal level) totaling $500 million dollars a year for 10 years for ancillary infrastructure development of ports, airfields, roads, etc. in Alaska to improve our ability to responds to climate contingencies both in  Alaska and throughout the circumpolar north;
4. A surcharge of one percent on all adjusted federal taxable incomes in excess of $200,000 and two percent on incomes above $500,000.

While there will be hews and cries by climate deniers and other opponents of any tax increase if as the president says the changing climate poses graves threat to our own and other nations security, these are modest proposals (particularly in comparison to an outright price on carbon) and should be passed with the greatest urgency.

This week, Royal Dutch Shell announced that it would postpone oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea and the broader American Arctic indefinitely. The decision came in the wake of disappointing output from its Burger field, the high costs associated with the project (already nearing $7 billion), the “challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska,” and a growing public relations problem with environmental groups opposed to Arctic drilling.

This decision is a momentous one—both for the future of the U.S. energy policy and the ability of the international oil industry to balance global oil supply and demand. The announcement came only days after Hillary Clinton spoke out against the Keystone Pipeline, not only because it would lead to the consumption of more fossil fuels but also because much of the oil might be exported. With broader opposition to lifting the ban on crude oil exports gaining momentum in the White House, it is clear that at least part of the nation’s political leadership is moving in a nationalistic direction. This means that the United States—with its vast resources—is unwilling to help meet the burgeoning energy needs of the world’s population: especially the 1.2 billion people who have no access to commercial energy.

Shell’s decision highlights four significant and diverse areas of concern for the future of energy globally and energy policy here in the United States.

Mapping supply and demand

Shell and much of the rest of the international petroleum industry had viewed the Chukchi Sea as one of the last great oil frontiers. The Chukchi and adjoining Beaufort Seas are vital for meeting the estimated 12 to 15 million barrels per day (mmbd) of additional oil demand projected by almost all oil forecasts (both inside and outside the industry) needed between 2035 and 2040. 

Without the U.S. Arctic, the other areas projected to make major contributions by this time are Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, shale oil around the world (including North America), the Orinoco region of Venezuela, and the pre-salt offshore Brazil. Needless to say, given the political turmoil in Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Brazil—as well as concerns about the long term stability of Saudi Arabia—one has to wonder: Where will the world discover additional, reliable crude oil supplies without a major contribution from the Arctic?

Many in the environmental community argue that we will not need fossil fuels in the future, predicting a turn to renewables, enhanced energy efficiency, large scale battery storage, and electric vehicles. Unfortunately, this has no basis in fact. Clearly renewables will grow exponentially as their prices fall, new technologies will increase energy efficiency, large scale battery storage will commence, and many electric vehicles will hit the road. But there are currently more than 260 million gas and diesel vehicles running on U.S. roads alone, with less than 1 percent of these running on electricity. With transportation fuel demand mushrooming globally, it’s unlikely that oil consumption in the transportation sector will die or even decline significantly. 

Fossil fuels for development

Drilling in the Arctic poses unique environmental risks which must be managed through state-of–the-art technology and accompanied by the most stringent regulatory enforcement. A recent National Petroleum Council examination of all possible challenges involved in Arctic offshore drilling found that drilling can be done safely. Yet despite these findings, most major national environmental groups have opposed any drilling in the Arctic and have even asserted that Shell’s decision is a vindication of their position. But these groups don’t seem concerned or even thoughtful about the long-term implications of the U.S. energy industry’s abandonment of the Arctic.

With the world’s population forecast to rise by 1.6 billion people by 2035, do we really think global oil demand won’t continue to rise? While I recognize that we must do everything to limit the growing use of fossil fuels to attack climate change, do we really have no moral obligation to help countries emerge from poverty, which will almost certainly involve continued use of fossil fuels? 

During his recent visit to America, Pope Francis called for the world to make a renewed commitment to help the “poorest of the poor,” and the United Nations has also put forward new sustainable development goals that include an expansion of energy access to those who are either unserved or underserved. Focusing our policies exclusively on shutting down U.S. fossil fuel development, as some environmental groups advocate, takes away resources that can be used to improve global health, education, clean water, and women’s empowerment—all of which are all directly related to energy access. In looking at girl’s education, for example, increasing energy availability allows water to be pumped up from the river, obviating the need for arduous, tedious work for the women and girls that would otherwise have to carry this water by hand to their communities, limiting time for education. The availability of energy allows vaccines to be safely stored, crops to be refrigerated, and children to have the electricity available to study at night. 

All of these benefits—and many others—cannot happen without improving electricity access, which still involves fossil fuel. The United States can and should play a role in this effort.

Jostling for Arctic access

Shell is not the only company to experience setbacks in the Arctic. Italy’s ENI SpA and Norway’s Statoil ASA just yesterday had another regulatory setback due to delays in obtaining permission from Norway to commence production. In June, a consortium including Exxon and BP PLC suspended its Canadian Arctic exploration, noting insufficient time to begin test drilling before the expiration of its lease in 2020. In addition, Exxon had to curtail its plans to drill in the Russian Arctic after the United States imposed sanctions on Moscow and its energy industry following the annexation of Crimea. 

Russia, though, remains active in the Arctic, and it can be assumed that once sanctions are lifted, many oil companies will try to gain a toehold. China, Korea, India, and Singapore, among other countries, have expressed interest in gaining access to the region’s mineral, energy, and/or marine resources. In several cases, they are building ice-worthy vessels to give them the capability to do so. The Bering Strait is emerging as a significant new maritime route in desperate need of enhanced regulation.

In a report last year, my colleagues and I looked at key recommendations for offshore oil and gas governance as the United States assumed chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Beyond highlighting the resource potential of the region, our work looked at increasing needs for safety and security as a result of increasing transportation across the Arctic. Even as the United States stands to be less involved in Arctic energy development, it is our duty as chair of the Arctic Council to lead in region. 

Alaska is a state, not a park

The promise of the Arctic has inspired adventurers, explorers, geographers, scientists, and entrepreneurs for generations and will continue to do so in the future. The United States should be actively involved in helping to ensure that Arctic resources are developed and used prudently—rather than sit on the sidelines with myopic dreams of leaving the region a pristine wilderness. Arctic inhabitants—both natives and others—of course want to keep the Arctic safe, but they do not want to make it a museum. 

Development of the region’s resources accounts for nearly 95 percent of Alaska’s revenues. If we deny its development, are we prepared to make a line item in the federal budget to pay for Alaska to remain a park? 

The city of Chicago is increasing retrofits by using stimulus dollars to expand the opportunity for energy efficient living to low-income residents of large multi-family rental buildings. To aid this target demographic, often left underserved by existing programs, the city’s new Multi-Family Energy Retrofit Program introduces an innovative model for retrofit delivery that relies on private sector financing and energy service companies.

Chicago’s new Multi-Family Energy Retrofit Program draws on multi-sector collaboration, with an emphasis on private sector involvement supported by public and nonprofit resources. Essentially, the program applies the model of private energy service companies (ESCOs), long-used in the public sector, to the affordable, multi-family housing market. In this framework, ESCOs conduct assessments of building energy performance, identify and oversee implementation of cost-effective retrofit measures, and guarantee energy savings to use as a source of loan repayment.

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As expected, the latest data from the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey (ACS) confirm that the worst U.S. economic downturn in decades exacerbated trends set in motion years before, by multiplying the ranks of America’s poor. Between 2007 and 2009, the national poverty rate rose from 13 percent to 14.3 percent, and the number of people below the poverty line jumped by 4.9 million. Yet because the economic impact of the Great Recession was highly uneven across the nation, the map of U.S. poverty shifted in important ways over the past couple of years, with implications for both national and local efforts to alleviate poverty.

An analysis of poverty in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas, based on recently released data from the 2009 American Community Survey, indicates that:

The number of poor people in large metro areas grew by 5.5 million from 1999 to 2009, and more than two-thirds of that growth occurred in suburbs.  By 2009, 1.6 million more poor lived in the suburbs of the nation’s largest metro areas compared to the cities.

Between 2007 and 2009, the poverty rate increased in 57 of the 100 largest metro areas, with the largest increases clustered in the Sun Belt.  Florida metro areas like Bradenton and Lakeland, and California metro areas like Bakersfield, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, and Modesto, each experienced increases in their poverty rates of more than 3.5 percentage points.

Poverty increased by much greater margins in 2009 than 2008, with cities and suburbs experiencing comparable rates of growth in the recession’s second year.  Between 2008 and 2009, cities and suburbs gained 1.2 million poor people, together accounting for about two-thirds of the national increase in the poor population that year.

Several metro areas saw city poverty rates increase by more than 5 percentage points, while many suburban areas experienced increases of 2 to 4 percentage points between 2007 and 2009.  The city of Allentown, PA saw a 10.2 percentage-point increase in its poverty rate, followed by Chattanooga, TN with an increase of 8.0 percentage points.  Sun Belt metro areas were among those with the largest increases in suburban poverty, including Lakeland, FL and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA.

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Last month, a team from the Metropolitan Policy Program, along with a delegation from the city of Chicago, traveled to Mexico City as part of the Global Cities Economic Partnership (GCEP). Launched at a 2013 event sponsored by the Global Cities Initiative (GCI), this novel partnership aims to expand growth and job creation in both cities  by building on complementary economic assets and opportunities.

Together with representatives from World Business Chicago, the Illinois governor’s office, and members of Chicago’s tech startup scene (organized by TechBridge), the Brookings team arrived in Mexico City just as, after a 20 year debate, reforms to devolve greater autonomy and powers to the largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere were finalized.  Central to that reform is Mexico City’s enhanced ability to plan and implement its own economic development policy, underscoring the growing importance of city-regions assuming roles once solely the province of state and national governments: fostering trade, investment, and economic growth.

Chicago and Mexico City illustrate this trend through the GCEP. Emerging from a GCI analysis that identified unique economic, demographic and and social connections between the cities, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera established a novel city-to-city collaboration. Since signing the agreement, government, business, and civic leaders in both cities have been experimenting with new approaches to jointly grow their economies.  They have tried to foster more trade and investment within shared industry clusters; link economic development support services; and leverage similar strengths in research, innovation, and human capital.

This trip to Mexico City focused on one of GCEP’s early outcomes, a formal partnership between Chicago tech business incubator 1871 and Mexico City incubator Startup Mexico (SUM) that facilitates the early internationalization of firms in both cities. Both organizations advanced the creation of a residency program that will enable entrepreneurs from both incubators to have a presence in each other’s markets.

The GCEP approach of city-to-city global engagement has inspired other GCI participants to try their own models, forming economic alliances to ease global navigation and engagement. San Antonio, Phoenix, and Los Angeles also crafted agreements with Mexico City, each focused on different opportunities built off their distinctive economic assets and relationships. Portland and Bristol have investigated how to leverage their comparable “green city” reputations in the U.S. and U.K., connecting mid-size firms in their unique sustainability clusters for collaboration on research and joint ventures. Similarly, San Diego and London are testing how to promote synergies among companies, academic centers, investors, and workers in their shared life sciences subsectors such as cell and gene therapy.

Home to half of the world’s population, cities generate about three quarters of the world’s GDP, and now serve as the hubs for the growth in global flows of trade, capital, visitors, and information. The future prosperity and vitality of city-regions demands finding new approaches that take full advantage of these global connections.  

The Global Cities Economic Partnership emerged from work supported by the Global Cities Initiative: A Joint Project of Brookings and JPMorgan Chase. Brookings recognizes that the value it provides is in its absolute commitment to quality, independence, and impact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment and the analysis and recommendations are solely determined by the scholar

Image courtesy of Maura Gaughan

ABSTRACT

The overall economic efficiency of a quantity-based approach to greenhouse gas mitigation depends strongly on the extent to which such a program provides opportunities for compliance flexibility, particularly with regard to the timing of emissions abatement. Here I consider a program in which annual targets are determined by choosing the optimal time path of reductions consistent with an exogenously prescribed cumulative reduction target and fixed technology set. I then show that if the availability of low-carbon technology is initially more constrained than anticipated, the optimal reduction path shifts abatement toward later compliance periods. For this reason, a rigid policy in which fixed annual targets are strictly enforced in every year yields a cumulative environmental outcome identical to the optimal policy but an economic outcome worse than the optimal policy. On the other hand, a policy that aligns actual prices (or equivalently, costs) with expected prices by simply imposing an explicit price ceiling (often referred to as a "safety valve") yields the opposite result. Comparison among these multiple scenarios implies that there are significant gains to realizing the optimal path but that further refinement of the actual regulatory instrument will be necessary to achieve that goal in a real cap-and-trade system.

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