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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With over 16 million people and nearly 8.6 million jobs, America's older industrial cities remain a vital-if undervalued-part of the economy, particularly in states where they are heavily concentrated, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. They also have a range of other physical, economic, and cultural assets that, if fully leveraged, can serve as a platform for their renewal.

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Across the country, cities today are becoming more attractive to certain segments of society. Meanwhile, economic trends-globalization, the demand for educated workers, the increasing role of universities-are providing cities with an unprecedented chance to capitalize upon their economic advantages and regain their competitive edge.

Many cities have exploited these assets to their advantage; the moment is ripe for older industrial cities to follow suit. But to do so, these cities need thoughtful and broad-based approaches to foster prosperity.

"Restoring Prosperity" aims to mobilize governors and legislative leaders, as well as local constituencies, behind an asset-oriented agenda for reinvigorating the market in the nation's older industrial cities. The report begins with identifications and descriptions of these cities-and the economic, demographic, and policy "drivers" behind their current condition-then makes a case for why the moment is ripe for advancing urban reform, and offers a five-part agenda and organizing plan to achieve it.

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Connecticut State Presentation 

Michigan State Profile
Michigan State Presentation 

New Jersey State Profile
New Jersey State Presentation 

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Ohio State Profile
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From a distance, the finger-pointing and the hand-wringing over the seeming demise of plans to build rail to Dulles Airport make it appear that the project collapsed under its own weight.

The Dulles dust-up is not a unique disease, but rather a symptom of a much larger national transportation illness. As hard as it may be to think of a $5 billion mega-transportation project as a “microcosm” of anything, right now that is exactly how one should consider the Dulles rail controversy.

The disagreements about the planned 23-mile Metrorail line through Tysons Corner in Virginia, continuing to Dulles International Airport — stalled now due to ideological differences over the appropriate federal role in transportation — are a subset of a larger battle taking place.

Around the country, metropolitan-based civic and business leaders are constructing 21st-century visions for transit, engaging local governments in true regional decision making and leveraging private funding for infrastructure projects.

Formerly auto-centric metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles and Dallas have made transformative use of new investments in key transit corridors. Metropolitan Denver is embarking on arguably the most extensive transit expansion this nation has ever seen.

These regions have looked to transit to shape future growth, to provide more choices and to at least somewhat mitigate climate changes.

Unfortunately, most of this innovation is happening in spite of — rather than in conjunction with — the federal government.

The sad fact is that our national government takes an impeding and outmoded approach to transportation innovation, establishing starkly different rules that favor highways over transit projects.

This unlevel playing field has profound effects on metropolitan America and, by extension, on the economic competitiveness of the nation.

The federal program that funds new transit projects is totally discretionary and highly regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Projects must prevail through an onerous review before final recommendation is made. Even then, each project is subject to the annual congressional appropriations process.

Clearly, some kind of competitive process is warranted. However, the current bureaucratic rigmarole is so torturous, it is no wonder that some metropolitan areas are forgoing the federal process completely and funding new transit segments on their own.

In addition, this administration’s inexplicably hostile approach to nonhighway projects has compounded the problem, resulting in shortsighted thinking that ignores the realities and challenges of the modern metropolis.

But no such federal gantlet governs highway projects. Simply put, the states do not have to seek federal permission to build them.

More inequity exists in terms of what the federal government is willing to contribute to investments.

Federal law created 50 years ago establishes 80 percent to 90 percent of the funding for highway projects. For transit investments, the contribution is much lower — just 47 percent, according to the Office of Management and Budget. The Dulles share is only 20 percent.

Finally, developers of federal transit projects must demonstrate a long-term ability to operate and maintain the facility.

Makes sense, right? It is one thing to create a project but, as the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis underscored, maintaining it is entirely another. Yet recipients of highway dollars amazingly are not responsible for this.

All of this brings us back to the Dulles rail project. Understandably, many feel that the Department of Transportation’s lack of clear guidance and direction, astonishing miscommunication, unprecedented heavy-handedness and traditional, road-centric thinking may be too much to overcome.

Yet the hope is that cooler heads prevail. The focus now must be on making Dulles rail a negotiated success rather than a standoff failure, because too many benefits are on the line.

The project promises to transform a congested suburban corridor, contribute toward energy independence and take advantage of a unique private finance and development partnership to accommodate decades’ worth of metropolitan growth. It also will anchor Washington’s status as an international capital.

Right now, though, our outmoded transportation infrastructure, both here and around the country, is ill-served by an outmoded federal partner.

Robert Puentes is a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

Introduction

During 2006, the United States saw a considerable upswing in the number of new mortgage defaults and foreclosure filings. By 2007, that upswing had become a tidal wave. Today, national homeownership rates are falling, while more than a million American families have already lost their homes to foreclosure. Across the country, boarded houses are appearing on once stable blocks. Some of the hardest hit communities are in older industrial cities, particularly Midwestern cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, and Indianapolis.

Although most media attention has focused on the role of the federal government in stemming this crisis, states have the legal powers, financial resources, and political will to mitigate its impact. Some state governments have taken action, negotiating compacts with mortgage lenders, enacting state laws regulating mortgage lending, and creating so-called “rescue funds.” Governors such as Schwarzenegger in California, Strickland in Ohio, and Patrick in Massachusetts have taken the lead on this issue. State action so far, however, has just begun to address a still unfolding, multidimensional crisis. If the issue is to be addressed successfully and at least some of its damage mitigated, better designed, comprehensive strategies are needed.

This paper describes how state government can tackle both the immediate problems caused by the wave of mortgage foreclosures and prevent the same thing from happening again. After a short overview of the crisis and its effect on America’s towns and cities, the paper outlines options available to state government, and offers ten specific action steps, representing the most appropriate and potentially effective strategies available for coping with the varying dimensions of the problem.

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Event Information

The 2008 Ohio Summit – Restoring Our Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing Ohio’s Core Communities convened more than 1000 government, corporate, civic, neighborhood and academic leaders from around the state, including Governor Ted Strickland, Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher, Senate President Bill Harris and Speaker of the House Jon Husted confirmed as speakers. The Summit was co-convened by the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings and GreaterOhio.

The purpose of The Summit was to elicit reaction to a draft set of proposals for state policy reforms that reflect a critique of past policies, aimed at revitalizing communities throughout Ohio. Each of the recommendations was carefully tailored to the unique assets and challenges of Ohio’s 32 core communities whose revitalization is the springboard to a more prosperous and competitive state as a whole. Comments derived from this gathering will help to shape the final report to be released in early 2009.

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Event Presentations:

• Bruce Katz Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program
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• Scott Bernstein President, Center for Neighborhood Technology 
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• Rob Greenbaum Professor, John Glenn School of Public Affairs, Ohio State University 
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• Mark Partridge Swank Chair in Rural-Urban Policy, The Ohio State University 
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• Jane Dockery Associate Director, Center for Urban and Public Affairs, Wright State University 
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• Alan Mallach Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution 
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Event Resources:

• Welcome Letter 
• Summit Agenda 
• Sponsor List 
• Biographies of the Speakers 
• Executive Summary- Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing Ohio’s Core Communities 
• A Restoring Prosperity Case Study: Akron, Ohio 
• Working Draft: Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing Ohio’s Core Communities 
• Working Draft: Our Joint Future: Rural-Urban Interdependence in 21st Century Ohio 
• Restoring Prosperity to Ohio: Fact Sheet 
• Ohio Summit in the News

Video

• The Honorable Michael Coleman
• Lavea Brachman
• Bruce Katz
• The Honorable Ted Strickland

Ohio has the assets that matter in growing a prosperous economy, Bruce Katz explains, and that the state's ability to compete globally relies on its 32 core communities.

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Video

• Recommendations to Foster Prosperity in Ohio

Louisville/Jefferson County is the principal city of America’s 42nd largest metropolitan area, a 13-county, bi-state region with a 2006 population estimated at 1.2 million. It is the largest city by far in Kentucky, but it is neither Kentucky’s capital nor its center of political power.

The consolidated city, authorized by voter referendum in 2000 and implemented in 2003, is home to 701,500 residents within its 399 square miles, with a population density of 4,124.8 per square mile.² It is either the nation’s 16th or its 26th largest incorporated place, depending on whether the residents of smaller municipalities within its borders, who are eligible to vote in its elections, are counted (as local officials desire and U.S. Census Bureau officials resist). The remainder of the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) population is split between four Indiana counties (241,193) and eight Kentucky counties (279,523). Although several of those counties are growing rapidly, the new Louisville metro area remains the MSA's central hub, with 57 percent of the population and almost 70 percent of the job base.

Centrally located on the southern banks of the Ohio River, amid an agriculturally productive, mineral rich, and energy producing region, Louisville is commonly described as the northernmost city of the American South. Closer to Toronto than to New Orleans, and even slightly closer to Chicago than to Atlanta, it remains within a day’s drive of two-thirds of the American population living east of the Rocky Mountains.

This location has been the dominant influence on Louisville’s history as a regional center of trade, commerce and manufacture. The city, now the all-points international hub of United Parcel Service (UPS), consistently ranks among the nation’s top logistics centers. Its manufacturing sector, though much diminished, still ranks among the strongest in the Southeast. The many cultural assets developed during the city’s reign as a regional economic center rank it highly in various measures of quality of life and “best places.”

Despite these strengths, Louisville’s competitiveness and regional prominence declined during much of the last half of the 20th Century, and precipitously so during the economic upheavals of the 1970s and ‘80s. Not only did it lose tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs and many of its historic businesses to deindustrialization and corporate consolidation, it also confronted significant barriers to entry into the growing knowledge-based economy because of its poorly-educated workforce, lack of R&D capacity, and risk-averse business culture.

In response, Louisville began a turbulent, two-decade process of civic and economic renewal, during which it succeeded both in restoring growth in its traditional areas of strength, most notably from the large impact of the UPS hub, and in laying groundwork for 21st century competitiveness, most notably by substantially ramping up university-based research and entrepreneurship supports. Doing so required it to overhaul nearly every aspect of its outmoded economic development strategies, civic relationships, and habits of mind, creating a new culture of collaboration.

Each of the three major partners in economic development radically transformed themselves and their relationships with one another. The often-paralyzing city-suburban divide of local governance yielded to consolidation. The business community reconstituted itself as a credible champion of broad-based regional progress, and it joined with the public sector to create a new chamber of commerce that is the region’s full-service, public-private economic development agency recognized as among the best in the nation. The Commonwealth of Kentucky embraced sweeping education reforms, including major support for expanded research at the University of Louisville, and a “New Economy” agenda emphasizing the commercialization of research-generated knowledge. Creative public-private partnerships have become the norm, propelling, for instance, the dramatic resurgence of downtown.

The initial successes of all these efforts have been encouraging, but not yet sufficient for the transformation to innovation-based prosperity that is the goal. This report details those successes, and the leadership, partnerships, and strategies that helped create them. It begins by describing Louisville’s history and development and the factors that made its economy grow and thrive. It then explains why the city faltered during the latter part of the 20th century and how it has begun to reverse course. In doing so, the study offers important lessons for other cities that are striving to compete in a very new economic era. 

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Chattanooga a few years ago faced what many smaller cities are struggling with today—a sudden decline after years of prosperity in the "old" economy. This case study offers a roadmap for these cities by chronicling Chattanooga's demise and rebirth.

Chattanooga is located in the southern end of the Tennessee Valley where the Tennessee River cuts through the Smoky Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. The city’s location, particularly its proximity to the Tennessee River, has been one of its greatest assets. Today, several major interstates (I-24, I-59, and I-75) run through Chattanooga, making it a hub of transportation business. The city borders North Georgia and is less than an hour away from both Alabama and North Carolina. Atlanta, Nashville, and Birmingham are all within two hours travel time by car.

Chattanooga is Tennessee’s fourth largest city, with a population in 2000 of 155,554, and it covers an area of 143.2 square miles. Among the 200 most populous cities in the United States, Chattanooga—with 1,086.5 persons per square mile—ranks 190th in population density.2 It is the most populous of 10 municipalities in Hamilton County, which has a population of 307,896, covers an area of 575.7 square miles, and has a population density of 534.8 persons per square mile.

With its extensive railroads and river access, Chattanooga was at one time the “Dynamo of Dixie”—a bustling, midsized, industrial city in the heart of the South. By 1940, Chattanooga’s population was centered around a vibrant downtown and it was one of the largest cities in the United States. Just 50 years later, however, it was in deep decline. Manufacturing jobs continued to leave. The city’s white population had fled to the suburbs and downtown was a place to be avoided, rather than the economic center of the region. The city lost almost 10 percent of its population during the 1960s, and another 10 percent between 1980 and 1990. It would have lost more residents had it not been for annexation of outlying suburban areas.

The tide began to turn in the 1990s, with strategic investments by developing public-private partnerships—dubbed the “Chattanooga way.” These investments spurred a dramatic turnaround. The city’s population has since stabilized and begun to grow, downtown has been transformed, and it is once again poised to prosper in the new economy as it had in the old.

This report describes how Chattanooga has turned its economy around. It begins with a summary of how the city grew and developed during its first 150 years before describing the factors driving its decline. The report concludes by examining the partnerships and planning that helped spur Chattanooga’s current revitalization and providing valuable lessons to other older industrial cities trying to ignite their own economic recovery. 

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Part of the larger Northeast Ohio regional economy, the Akron metropolitan area is composed of two counties (Summit and Portage) with a population of just over 700,000, and is surrounded by three other metropolitan areas. Akron is located approximately 40 miles south of Cleveland, 50 miles west of Youngstown, and 23 miles north of Canton. The Cleveland metro area is a five-county region with a population of 2.1 million. The Youngstown metro area includes three counties, extending into Pennsylvania, and has a population of 587,000. Canton is part of a two-county metropolitan area with a population of 410,000.

The adjacency of the Akron and Cleveland Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) is an important factor in the economic performance of the Akron region. The interdependence of economies of the two MSAs is evidenced by the strong economic growth of the northern part of Summit County adjacent to the core county of the Cleveland metropolitan area. This part of Summit County beyond the city of Akron provides available land, access to the labor pools of the two metropolitan areas, and proximity to the region’s extensive transportation network.

Although affected by economic activity in the larger region, the fate and future of Akron and its wider region are not solely determined by events in these adjacent areas. While sharing broad economic trends with its neighbors, the Akron metro area has been impacted by a different set of events and has shown different patterns of growth from other areas in Northeast Ohio.

This study provides an in-depth look at Akron’s economy over the past century. It begins by tracing the industrial history of the Akron region, describing the growth of the rubber industry from the late 1800s through much of following century, to its precipitous decline beginning in the 1970s. It then discusses how the “bottoming out” of this dominant industry gave rise to the industrial restructuring of the area. The paper explores the nature of this restructuring, and the steps and activities the city’s business, civic, and government leaders have undertaken to help spur its recovery and redevelopment. In doing so, it provides a series of lessons to other older industrial regions working to find their own economic niche in a changing global economy. 

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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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Introduction

Ohio has already taken important steps to address the state’s ongoing foreclosure crisis, yet the crisis continues, causing distress for thousands of families and individuals, and destabilizing cities, towns and neighborhoods across the state. Therefore, the state, its local governments and private stakeholders need to do still more to deal more effectively with the crisis and its impacts on the state’s housing stock, cities and neighborhoods.

What is often termed the “foreclosure crisis” is actually a multi-dimensional crisis, in which the collapse of the housing bubble, the devastation caused by the lax and often irresponsible credit practices that accompanied and perpetuated that bubble, the resulting freeze on commercial and consumer credit, and the worldwide recession are interwoven, and can only with great difficulty be untangled. In Ohio, those forces are further exacerbated by profound changes to the state’s historical economic underpinnings. Ohio cannot solve the crisis by itself, but it can significantly mitigate its impact on people, neighborhoods, and towns and cities. These mitigating efforts will also help preserve the value of homes and neighborhoods in the state, and place Ohio in a stronger position to benefit from the future economic recovery.

The paper begins with a short summary of current conditions and the actions the state has already taken to address the wave of foreclosures, followed by a discussion of areas for future action. This discussion will address mitigating both the individual and community impacts of foreclosure, but will give particular emphasis to the critical issue of softening the blow of foreclosure on communities, which up to now has been less of a focus for state action.

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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.

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.

Event Information

The United States alliance with Saudi Arabia dates back to 1943, making the U.S. relationship with the Kingdom one of America's longest-standing in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a key counterterrorism and diplomatic partner within the region, yet the alliance has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, especially in the period following the 9/11 attacks, when questions about Saudi support for extremist causes emerged. Saudi Arabia’s prosecution of the war in Yemen has added to the criticism, with many observers blaming the Kingdom for the unfolding humanitarian crisis within the Arab world's poorest state. In recent comments, President Barack Obama has been critical of Saudi policies, despite U.S. logistical and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia’s war effort in Yemen.

On April 21, the Intelligence Project and Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut to discuss the U.S.-Saudi alliance with Senior Fellows Bruce Riedel and Tamara Cofman Wittes. Senator Murphy has urged a more rigorous approach to cooperation with Riyadh that balances U.S. counterterrorism interests, strategic imperatives, and human rights concerns, and has led efforts on Capitol Hill to debate the war in Yemen. Cofman Wittes, director of the Center for Middle East Policy, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion. 

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On July 20 and 21, defense ministers from several nations will gather in Washington, D.C. at the invitation of U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The meeting will bring together representatives from countries working to confront and defeat the Islamic State (or ISIL). French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will be among those at the summit discussing how to accelerate long-term efforts to fight ISIL in Iraq and Syria. The close relationship between France and the United States has provided a solid base for security cooperation for decades, and in recent years, France has become one of America’s strongest allies in fighting terrorism and a prominent member of the international coalition to defeat ISIL.

On July 20, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings hosted Minister Le Drian for a discussion on French and U.S. cooperation as the two countries face multiple transnational security threats. Since becoming France’s defense minister in 2012, Le Drian has had to address numerous new security crises emerging from Africa, the Middle East, and within Europe itself. France faced horrific terrorist attacks on its own soil in January and November 2015 and remains under a state of emergency with its armed forces playing an active role in maintaining security both at home and abroad. Le Drian recently authored “Qui est l’ennemi?” (“Who is the enemy?”, Editions du Cerf, May 2016), defining a comprehensive strategy to address numerous current threats.

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Over 30 years ago, the World Bank began to develop policies to safeguard the rights of those displaced by Bank-financed development projects. The safeguard policy on involuntary resettlement initiated in turn a series of follow up policies designed to safeguard other groups and sectors affected by Bank investments, including the environment and indigenous people. Since its adoption in 1980, the Bank’s operational policy on involuntary resettlement has been revised and strengthened in several stages, most recently in 2001. The regional development banks – African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, InterAmerican Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – have all followed the World Bank’s lead and developed policies for involuntary resettlement cause by development projects financed by these multilateral banks.

While the policies are complex, the basic thrust of these safeguard policies on involuntary resettlement has been to affirm:

• Involuntary resettlement should be avoided where feasible.
• Where it is not feasible to avoid resettlement, the scale of displacement should be minimized and resettlement activities should be conceived and executed as full-fledged sustainable development programs on their own relying on commensurate financing l and informed participation with the populations to be displaced.
• Displaced persons should be assisted to improve, or at least restore their livelihoods and living standards to levels they enjoyed before the displacement.^[1]

Even with these safeguards policies, people displaced by development projects risk – and very large numbers have actually experienced – a sharp decline in their standards of living.^[2] Michael Cernea’s Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction model identifies the most common and fundamental risks of such displacement and resettlement processes: landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, food insecurity, increased morbidity and mortality, loss of access to common property, and social disintegration.^[3] If insufficiently addressed, these embedded risks convert into actual processes of massive impoverishment. And particular groups may be especially affected, as noted in the World Bank’s Operational Policy: “Bank experience has shown that resettlement of indigenous people with traditional land-based modes of production is particularly complex and may have significant adverse impacts on their identity and cultural survival.” (OP 4.12, para.9)

These safeguards policies are an important instrument to minimize and overcome the harm suffered by those displaced by development projects. It should be noted, however, that there have always been problems in the implementation of these policies due to the evasive implementation by borrowers or the incomplete application by World Bank staff. The Bank’s interest in researching the impacts of compulsory resettlement triggered by its projects has been sporadic. In particular, World Bank has not carried out and published a comprehensive evaluation of the displacements caused by its massive project portfolio for the last 20 years. The last full resettlement portfolio review was conducted two decades ago, in 1993-1994. In2010, with the approval of the Bank’s Board, the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) undertook a broad review on how not only the policy on involuntary resettlement, but all social safeguards policies have or have not been implemented. Reporting on its findings, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) publicly faulted World Bank management for not even keeping basic statistics of the number of people displaced and not making such statistics available for evaluation.^[4] Similar analytical syntheses are missing from other multilateral development agencies, such as, IADB and EBRD. There is a strong sense within the community of resettlement specialists that successful cases are the exception, not the norm. In sum, projects that are predicated on land expropriation and involuntary resettlement are not only forcibly uprooted large numbers of people, but leaving them impoverished, disenfranchised, disempowered, and in many other aspects worse off than before the Bank-financed project.

While the Bank’s safeguard policies were in need of review and many argued for a more explicit incorporation of human rights language into the policies, the Bank took a different approach. The Bank’s team tasked with “reviewing and updating” eliminated many robust and indispensable parts of the revised existing safeguards, watered down other parts, and failed to incorporate important lessons from the Bank’s own experiences as well as relevant and important new knowledge from social, economic, and environmental sciences.

At the end of July 2014, the Bank published a “draft” of the revised safeguards’ policies which were not based on consultation with civil society organizations (CSOs) as had been promised. Rather the newly proposed policies were held close and stamped “strictly confidential.” The numerous CSOs and NGOs involved for two years in what they thought was a consultative process learned only from a leak about plans by Bank management for proposals to the Bank’s Board and its Committee for Development Effectiveness (CODE). Because of this secrecy, the Bank’s Board and the CODE itself were not made aware of the civil society’s views about the Environmental and Social Safeguards draft policy, before CODE had to decide about endorsing and releasing it for a new round of “consultation.”

As is well known, the process shapes the product. These bizarre distortions in the way the World Bank conducted what should have been a transparent process of genuine consultation resulted in some deep flaws of the product as manifest in the current draft ESS.

The backlash was inevitable, strong, and broad, coming from an extensive array of constituencies:’ from CSOs, NGOs, and various other groups representing populations adversely affected by Bank financed projects, professional communities , all the way to various organisms of the United Nations. More than 300 civil society organizations issued a statement opposing the Bank’s plans and at World Bank meetings in mid-October 2014, civil society organizations walked out of a World Bank ‘consultative meeting’ on the revised policies. The statement argued that the consultative process had been inadequate and that the safeguards were being undercut even at a time when the Bank is seeking to expand its lending to riskier infrastructure and mega-project schemes. While the Review and Update exercise was expected to strengthen the provisions of existing policies, instead the policies themselves were redrafted in a way that weakened them. The civil society statement notes that the revised draft “eliminates the fundamental development objective of the resettlement policy and the key measures essential to preventing impoverishment and protecting the rights of people uprooted from their homes, lands, productive activities and jobs to make way for Bank projects.”^[5] Not only did the revised policy not strengthen protections for displaced people, but each of its “standards” represents a backwards step in comparison to existing policies. According to the draft revised policies the Bank could now finance projects which would displace people without requiring a sound reconstruction plan and budget to “ensure adequate compensation, sound physical resettlement, economic recovery and improvement.” Moreover, the application of some safeguards policies would now become optional. Although the regional development banks have not – so far – begun to take actions to weaken their own safeguard policies, there is fear that they will follow the Bank’s lead.

Just as humanitarian response to internally displaced persons seems to be sliding backward, so too the actions of development agencies – or at least the World Bank – seem to be reversing gains made over the past three decades.

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.

Dear President Obama,

Your decision to give the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) wilderness status and to ban future oil and gas drilling on the Arctic Coastal plain represents the death knell of a coherent national petroleum policy, especially when combined with limitations on new leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic Coastal plain alone contains an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil. These actions, combined with your hesitation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline (despite five environmental assessments which conclude that the pipeline can be built and operated safely) make your so-called “all of the above energy policy” a mockery of policy incoherence.

The lack of coherent policy and contradiction continues in other areas as well. While your supporters will argue that the simultaneous opening up of areas from the Chesapeake to North Florida and parts of the western Gulf Coast shows that you are willing to allow exploration in areas deemed less environmentally sensitive, one has to query both your seeming lack of concern for East Coast bird and marine sanctuaries, not to mention possible despoliation resulting from the potential for oil spills along the East Coast. Is protection of the endangered loggerhead sea turtle and the ACE Basin along the East Coast really of lesser concern than protection of the walrus and polar bear in the Arctic? Furthermore, nearly one-third of all seafood production in the continental United States is harvested in the Gulf. The argument that Alaska is to be protected because of its “special” environmental concerns seems hypocritical given the vital importance of the petroleum industry to the Alaskan economy. Meanwhile the East Coast does not need the petroleum industry to survive or as a means of large scale employment like Alaska does.

Before President Clinton placed the Arctic Coastal plain off limits for drilling, the Department of the Interior conducted a study on the impact oil and gas drilling might have on the polar bear habitat in the region, an area equal in size to Rhode Island. The study found that there were less than four established polar bear dens in the whole region, suggesting the possibility, however remote, in the minds of Clinton administration officials, that Arctic wildlife and marine life can co-exist with development, as they have done at Prudhoe Bay since oil production commenced in 1978. Likewise, it is useful to remember that when the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system (TAPS) was built, many in the environmental community predicted a disaster for the migration of caribou herds across northern Alaska. Today, the caribou population is in fact larger than at the time the pipeline was built.

Mr. President, your actions would be hard enough to understand if they only centered on diverse points of view about the nature of fossil fuel usage and how fast we can transition to a non-fossil fuel era—not only in the United States but also around the globe. While your administration may see the closing of Alaska and the opening of the East Coast to oil and gas drilling as giving each side a bit of what they want, you fail to see that these are not juggling the interests of two constituencies. Rather, these are localized issues with high stakes, especially for the people of Alaska who often do not have the diverse employment opportunities found along the East Coast. In Alaska, the economic vitality of the state is deeply tied to resource extraction. The royalties and taxes from those industries fund the state’s public education and health care systems, while also providing Alaskans with jobs as ship captains, oil field workers, fishery workers, etc.

Further, your actions on ANWAR and the Coastal Plain are seen as likely to end any hope of revitalizing the TAPS flow rate and the resulting enhanced revenues generated through new sources of production. Mr. President, for thousands of years native Inuit populations have inhabited regions bordering the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, living on local fish and wildlife and native flora and fauna. With the discovery of oil and the inflow of oil-related money, the Inuit people have seen vast improvements in their health, life expectancy, education and financial security. Now with Prudhoe Bay production in serious decline and TAPS running at less than 600,000 mbd (down from 2 mmbd), the benefits that have accrued to them—as well as all Alaskan citizens through the royalty and taxes placed in Alaska’s Permanent Fund—are in danger of being lost, casting Alaska once again into the status of a subjugated territory of the lower 48 states.

Mr. President, in May, the United States will take over chairmanship of the Arctic Council, a pan-Arctic organization designed to address Arctic issues in a multilateral context. Alaska is our only state in the Arctic, and because of Alaska we are an Arctic nation. It also is the only place where we share a border with Russia providing an opportunity for collaboration rather than the confrontation we see today. It seems strange that, at a time when we will be in a position to lead the Arctic nations on mitigating the threats posed to the region by climate change and in insuring that the opportunities for resource development are done using environmentally-sound practices through effective regulation and oversight that we choose now to close off this great resource rather than allowing their benefits to flow to the local Alaskan population while providing resources for the nation as well as the rest of the world.

In a few short weeks, the National Petroleum Council, after months of painstaking work, will submit a report on the future direction of the nation’s Arctic policy and on offshore oil and gas development in Alaska. This report was done at the request of Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. As a member of the deliberative study group that consulted on the report, I hope you will examine its findings closely and hopefully will reconsider the opportunities afforded by prudent development of this vast resource in a way that recognizes the interests of Alaskans as well as the broader interests of our nation.

Is it possible to isolate the well-established mode of Arctic cooperation from the disruptive impact of the Ukraine crisis? Many stake-holders in cooperative projects with Russia keep insisting on an affirmative answer and seek to bracket out tensions emanating from such obscure locations as Debaltsevo or Mariupol. The European Union (EU), which is due to adopt a new Arctic Policy by the end of the year, would have been content to maintain the focus on environmental protection and economic development; the discussions in Brussels, however, have increasingly shifted to far less appealing “hard security” matters. Officials from the European Commission seem deeply reluctant to deal with Russia’s military activities in the high north but have to acknowledge that they are making it much more difficult to cooperate with Russia. As April’s Arctic Council ministerial meetings approach, the United States and Europe must be realistic about the ways in which far away events will negatively affect the possible achievement of their goals. 

Moscow is expanding rather than camouflaging the scope of exercises undertaken by its newly-formed Arctic Joint Strategic Command. Russian President Vladimir Putin used to proudly proclaim Russia’s abiding interest in Arctic cooperation, but even the most pro-engagement Arctic partners cannot fail to see that Russia’s interest is clearly slackening. This may be partly due to the disappearing attractiveness of exploration of the Arctic resources, since the estimated production costs of the off-shore platforms go far beyond the expected returns on the current level of oil prices. Another reason may be the disappointment in the commercial prospects of the Northern Sea Route (or Sevmorput), where maritime transit contracted by an astounding 77 percent in 2014, after several years of promising growth. A further reason may be Moscow’s recognition that the much trumpeted (and still not submitted) claim for expanding its “ownership” over the Arctic shelf cannot be legally approved because Denmark has presented its own claim, and the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf cannot make any recommendations on clashing claims.

It is hard to find an active lobby in Russia for sustaining cooperative projects or at least the joint work in the Arctic Council, as many actors who promoted the Barents Cooperation in the 1990s, are either on a short leash (as is the case with regional governors) or branded as “foreign agents” (the NGOs that want to avoid such branding have to curtail or cut ties with Western colleagues). The appointment of Dmitri Rogozin as a chair of the new government commission on Arctic matters bodes ill for the cooperative endeavors because this firebrand “patriot” deservedly holds a spot on U.S., EU, and Canadian sanctions lists. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry is still circulating a message of commitment to the Arctic dialogue. The forthcoming session of the Arctic Council ministers in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, might test this commitment with the issue of granting observer status to the EU. It was Canada who blocked the resolution of this issue at the previous meeting in Kiruna, Sweden, in 2013, but the controversy about seal products has been resolved, and Canada is ready to put the question on the agenda as its chairmanship of the Council expires. European Commission officials expect that during the 2015 meeting, Russia will raise objections because the EU is now seen as an antagonist, but EU officials still feel it is important to force Moscow to put their opposition on the record.

One external party that aims at enhancing and also at reformatting the Arctic cooperation is China, and while Moscow has to show eager attention to Beijing’s opinions, it cannot be comfortable with this “encroachment.” Russia’s traditional position has been that Arctic matters were the responsibility of the littoral states, but China insists on having a say and even entertains notions of the high north as a “global common,” a prospect which Moscow finds hard to swallow. 

It is indeed futile to praise the value of cooperative ties when seven members of the Arctic Council are compelled to tighten step by step the regime of sanctions against the eighth member, which is sinking into a deep economic crisis but persists in building its power projection capabilities in the High North. The usefulness of engaging Russia is beyond doubt, but it would be irresponsible to expect that joint projects in monitoring climate change could reduce the risks from expanding Russian military activities. The high north is one area where Moscow fancies itself to be in a position of power, but so far it has not found a way to enjoy it. It is not my intention to give the Kremlin war-mongers ideas about putting this military advantage to good political use, but when the likes of Rogozin or Nikolai Patrushev (secretary of the Security Council and former head of the Russian Federal Security Service) profess particular interest in the Arctic, it is only prudent to expect a brainstorm of sorts. The technique of “hybrid war” is not only the continuation but also a driver of Putin’s politics of confrontation, and this drive transforms the unique Arctic landscapes into just another “theater.”

This weekend the United States will assume the chairmanship of the Arctic Council for a two-year term. While the Obama administration has been preparing for this for several years, it remains to be seen how the president will balance the concerns of most Arctic residents who view development of the region as vital to improving their economic and social livelihood and those individuals inside and outside the administration who want to limit development out of concern for the how economic development may cause local environmental degradation while also accelerating climate change.

As part of this preparation, in May 2013, the president launched a new National Strategy for the Arctic Region based on three principles

1. Advancement of U.S. security interests defined as ensuring the ability of our aircraft and vessels to operate, in a manner consistent with international law through, under, and over the airspace and waters of the Arctic; to support lawful commerce; to achieve greater awareness of activities in the region; and to intelligently evolve our Arctic infrastructure and capabilities including ice-capable platforms as needed;
2. Pursue responsible Arctic regional stewardship defined as protection of the Arctic environment and conservation of its resources, establishment of an integrated Arctic management framework, charting of the Arctic region, and employment of scientific research and traditional knowledge to increase understanding of the Arctic;
3. Strengthen international cooperation defined as working through bilateral relationships and multilateral institutions, including the Arctic Council, to advance collective interests, promote shared Arctic state prosperity, protect the Arctic environment, and enhance regional security, and to work toward U.S. accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Undergirding these principles were commitments to make decisions using the best available information, to foster cooperation with the state of Alaska, other international partners, the private sector, and to consult and coordinate with Alaskan natives to gain traditional knowledge. As part of this new strategy, the president appointed Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr. as the U.S. special representative for the Arctic in July 2014. Shortly after his appointment, and in several major speeches since, including one at Brookings, the admiral has stated that the administration’s agenda centers on stewardship of the Arctic Ocean including insuring its safety and security, improving economic and living conditions for the regions’ inhabitants, and addressing the impacts of climate change on the region. 

The administration’s new policy was buttressed in January 2015 by an executive order designed to enhance coordination of all the various agencies responsible for different aspects of federal oversight of the Arctic (Alaska). Paradoxically, however, the fact that the reorganization came nearly in tandem with the announcement of new wilderness restrictions on the exploration of oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Arctic Coastal Plain. This announcement left many Alaskans skeptical on how further restrictions on development of the state’s resources could be viewed as improving economic and living conditions of people in the region. In a February 2015 meeting of Arctic Council Senior Arctic Officials (SAOs) in Yellowknife, Canada, the administration looked to put meat on the bones of what it intended to pursue upon assumption of the chairmanship of the Arctic Council. This resulted in an additional elucidation of 15 broad themes that had originally been presented in a Virtual Stakeholder Outreach Forum on December 2, 2014 in Washington, D.C..

The announced reorganization of government agencies and lines of authority dealing with U.S. Arctic and Arctic Council policy has done little or nothing to streamline the overlapping and sometimes conflicting policies governing natural resource development or energy projects in Alaska. These overlapping jurisdictions are well highlighted in a major new National Petroleum Council (NPC) report, Arctic Potential: Realizing the Promise of U.S. Arctic Oil and Gas Resources. This report was prepared at the request of Energy Secretary Moniz to address how best to pursue prudent development of Alaska’s offshore oil and gas resources and ironically issued shortly after the president’s closing of ANWR. Whether or not the White House was even aware of the NPC’s report, which represented months of substantive work by many people, remains open to question.

The Arctic reorganization plan did little to resolve some key questions as to actually who is in charge of Arctic policy in the United States. While Admiral Papp was named “Coordinator” of the U.S. Arctic Council Chairmanship, this position is not listed in the Council’s enabling documents. Historically, the foreign minister or the secretary of state of the country chairs the Council while a career diplomat chairs the meetings of the senior officials dealing with the day-to-day activities of the Council. It appears that Admiral Papp has neither of these positions. In any case, it looks from the organizational chart that the White House science advisor will be the real coordinator of U.S. Arctic policy.

The chief problem that U.S. Arctic policy must resolve is that while in the Arctic Council we have to address issues affecting the entire Circumpolar North, our domestic Arctic policy centers only on Alaska, where a slew of domestic agencies have overlapping and often conflicting oversight and regulatory responsibilities. The situation is made still more complex by the large amount of the state that is owned by the federal government. This makes it almost inevitable that any resource development project by private or state interests will run into federal government restrictions, in terms of needing to cross federal land to get a resource to market, permitting to ensure that water resources are not polluted, or making sure that fish and wildlife habitats are not disturbed, etc.

Our Arctic policy also suffers from an acute lack of awareness by most Americans that we are an Arctic nation with a huge maritime boundary and very limited resources (ice-worthy ships, proper navigation charts and aids, lack of port facilities, lack of search and rescue capabilities, lack of knowledge of what fishery resources we possess) to protect it. While many of these issues lie outside the scope of the Arctic Council, many are cross-cutting with our Arctic neighbors, most notably with increased traffic in the region (from tourism, fishing, energy development, and shipping) comes the increased possibility of an accident. Currently, the United States does not have the capable means (both in terms of timely response and adequate infrastructure) to respond to an accident in the Arctic, which could be catastrophic, as all of these industries are active and gaining popularity every day.

As the United States takes the helm of the Arctic Council, there are several core issues that the administration must address. Some critical questions are: What is the U.S. position on the development of the Arctic’s oil, gas, mineral, and fishery resources? What specific action is the United States prepared to support in the Arctic Council to uplift the standard of living of Arctic people across the Circumpolar North? Given that each icebreaker costs at least $700 million and that we only have one in operation, what resources are we prepared to expand to build a fleet capable to respond to events in the Arctic? Should any of these expenses be viewed as vital to our national security and defense, and if so, which budget should they be taken out of? What role does the United States in its chairmanship role see for closer interaction between the Arctic Council and the Arctic Economic Council? Would the United States support the closing off of certain ecologically sensitive parts of the Arctic to all commercial exploitation? Finally, how does the administration in its Arctic Council leadership role get its Arctic policy in sync with that of the state of Alaska in its recently released Alaska Arctic Policy Implementation Plan?

Other Arctic nations surpass the United States in terms of Arctic policies. Norway, Russia, Canada, and even Denmark (through complicated ties with Greenland’s claim on the Arctic) all have the Arctic at the front and center of policymaking decisions. I hope to see these issues addressed as the United States moves to enact effective policy on the Arctic over the next two years as the alternative is too great a risk and too great a wasted opportunity. 

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.