New Atlanticist |  |
| Posted: 27 Jul 2012 08:47 AM PDT Nineteenth century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once described London as the modern Babylon. Today, the Games of the XXX Olympiad begin in London. Over five weeks both the Olympic Games and the Paralympics will, to employ one of the many Olympic cliches now in the starting blocks, shine the light of the world on Britain’s capital city. What London will it reveal? In a sense it was entirely appropriate that London was awarded the Olympics and not Britain. For a long-time now a settlement founded by the Romans between AD 43 and 50 has been a city-state within a state. This old, great city now has a population of over 9 million people, which according to the 2011 national census released last week grew by some 800,000 over the past decade and probably many more. Today, London contains over 20% of the UK’s total population. London’s economic and corporate stats are simply stunning. London contributes some 17% of Britain’s total GDP, with an economy roughly the size of Sweden, Belgium and Russia. It is home to the European headquarters of 35% of the world’s largest companies, many of them Olympic sponsors. 65% of Fortune’s Global 500 companies base their operation centres in London with more foreign banks represented than any other world city. London is thus the very symbol of globalisation – for good and ill. Like many Britons my feelings for London are profoundly ambiguous. Naturally, I am proud of what this city has come to represent as a beacon of freedom during war and a world power in its own right. And yet much of its wealth was founded on oppression and its under-regulated banks have done much to tarnish the reputation of London and done much damage to the wider British economy. And yet this is the paradox of London. The British Government might pretend it will act to tighten regulation over Mammon, but in reality it is Mammon which runs the British Government. London’s financial clout is far too important for a government desperate for tax revenues in a depression. This week it was announced that year-on-year the British economy had shrunk by 0.7% by the end of Q2 2012. Thus, the benighted banks will receive no more than a slapped wrist for their many manipulations, the LIBOR scandal being but the latest and probably by no means the last. However, it is London’s over-bearing political influence that is perhaps most profound. London long ago subjugated England and turned a green and pleasant land into a sometimes quaint, sometimes fractured hinterland. The little countries on London's periphery have retreated into the fantasies of faux self-government replete with myth and legend. Indeed, the Scots pretence that they can gain pretend independence if they press the Braveheart button will only reveal further the true power in the land - London. Scotland the Brave will forever be Scotland the Broke without London. Having vanquished the rest of Britain a new battle is being fought by London and over London. On one side of the front-line stand those who see London as the champion of free-market globalisation. Capitals flows are their weapons of choice, their aim to make London as attractive as possible to as much foreign capital as possible wheresoever its provenance and however ill-gotten a gain. Leading the assault on the City walls is the European Commission at the head of a medieval assembly of European regulation barons. At heart this struggle for London is one between Anglo-Saxon-led free-marketeers and continental statists. It is a struggle that has already seen many continental free market refugees arrive in London like latter-day Huguenots. The struggle even takes a physical form. The new high-speed rail link through the Channel Tunnel to Paris, Brussels and shortly beyond is a physical manifestation of attempts by continental Europeans to forever tie London’s destiny and that of Britain to their own, which is unlikely to be a happy one. And yet, even though that great old River Thames which has for two millenia defined London flows to the East it rises in the West. In this age of electronic capital it is ultimately the West, South and far East where London sees it destiny. Globalisation will prevail. Yes, European markets matter but the greater the effort by Brussels to tether London the more likely it will break free. At this defining point in ‘Europe’s’ destiny one thing is clear, London is with them but not of them, to paraphrase Churchill’s great dictum about Britain and Europe. So, in a sense, the Olympics and London are made for each other. For, if the Olympics these days represents the place where global capital meets global sport, the London Olympics represents the global capital that pays for Olympic sport. Citius, Altius, Fortius! Julian Lindley-French is Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy, Fellow of Respublica in London, Associate Fellow of the Austrian Institute for European and Security Studies and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council. He is also a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the NATO Defence College in Rome. This essay first appeared on his personal blog, Lindley-French's Blog Blast. Photo Credit: AP Photo This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Oversight or Not, Drones Are Here to Stay Posted: 27 Jul 2012 08:39 AM PDT In "The Imperial Presidency: Drone Power and Congressional Oversight," Michael Cohen argues persuasively that the U.S. Congress has abdicated its constitutional and statutory responsibility to reign in the executive branch in matters of national security policy. Then again, few who have been paying attention this past decade -- some would say, the past several decades -- need much convincing on that point. Yet, while I agree with Cohen that we desperately need Congress to do its job here as a matter of principle, it's far from clear that it would change our policy. Cohen cites the extraordinary decision to kill American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan in a Predator strike in Yemen last September as particularly troubling. While Cohen and I both find risible the administration's claim that its internal deliberations over the assassination of U.S. citizens qualify as their constitutionally guaranteed right to "due process," it's pretty clear that we're in the minority. In the immediate aftermath of the raid, President Barack Obama earned effusive praise across the political spectrum. Rep. Peter T. King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, issued a statement declaring, "The killing of al-Awlaki is a tremendous tribute to President Obama and the men and women of our intelligence community." Mitt Romney, already the Republican frontrunner in the race to unseat Obama, called the killing "a major victory in our fight against Islamist terrorism and proper justice for the numerous attacks and plots [Awlaki] inspired or planned against America." Obama's fellow Democrats were similarly effusive. Meanwhile, a June survey by the Pew Research Center found that these strikes were equally popular with the American public, with 62 percent approving, "including most Republicans (74 percent), independents (60 percent) and Democrats (58 percent)." And a February ABC News/Washington Post poll found even stronger support. The Post write-up drolly noted, "83 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s drone policy, which administration officials refuse to discuss, citing security concerns." Cohen, it should be noted, is fully aware of all this. In an insightful piece for Foreign Policylast month, he pointed out that all of the Obama policies that are controversial among foreign policy wonks are wildly popular with voters. Indeed, he remarks, Obama's toughest critics are in "his own liberal base." As Cohen rightly states, "It's hard to imagine that the Obama campaign in Chicago is worrying much about such criticism." This is hardly surprising, as Americans rarely punish a president for taking aggressive actions in the name of their safety. Back in January 2006, when former President George W. Bush enjoyed just 37 percent support in polls, the public nonetheless backed his controversial, arguably illegal, policy of eavesdropping on the telephone calls of Americans without a warrant. A New York Times/CBS News poll found that 53 percent supported monitoring "Americans that the government is suspicious of" in connection with terrorism.A Gallup poll found the identical result a month later. In his 1957 classic, “The President: Office and Powers,” Edward S. Corwin famously declared, "The Constitution is an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy." While the framers clearly intended for Congress to be the predominant branch in domestic policy, both branches were given substantial power in the realm of international affairs, with no bright lines to delineate them. Most notably, Congress is granted the power to declare war, but the president, as commander-in-chief, has the power to send troops into harm's way. In practice, however, presidents have been winning this struggle for more than a century. Teddy Roosevelt was famously contemptuous of Congress in matters of foreign affairs, mocking their dithering over the Panama Canal and sending the Navy halfway around the world, daring Congress not to appropriate the funds to bring it back. Franklin Roosevelt permanently redefined the role of the presidency during his three-plus terms. Demanding in September 1942 that Congress amend the Emergency Price Control Act, he declared, “The president has the powers, under the Constitution and under congressional acts, to take measures necessary to avert a disaster which would interfere with the winning of the war.'' Roosevelt went on to submit the amendments to Congress, which acceded to his demands, so the judiciary never had a chance to rule on whether the president could so brazenly flout the law. During the Cold War, the National Security Act of 1947 further centralized national security policy in the White House, leaving Congress increasingly isolated. This was quickly followed by an undeclared war in Korea, a slow descent into an undeclared war in Vietnam and numerous military and intelligence operations of dubious legality, especially in Latin America. Historian Arthur Schlesinger dubbed this largely unchecked growth of executive power the Imperial Presidency. Congress reasserted itself with the 1973 War Powers Act and the 1975 Church Committee hearings, but the momentum of expanding executive authority was already too great. Presidents have largely treated the former with impunity, and though some of the intelligence abuses of the past have been halted, the latter has received substantial blame for the intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. If the Constitution is "an invitation to struggle," it is to a struggle that presidents have been winning for decades. The modern presidency has reversed the constitutional presumption that Congress is the pre-eminent branch and the president secondary. Since Franklin Roosevelt, it has been axiomatic that "the president proposes, Congress disposes." That is especially true in foreign policy and even more so in national security matters. Congress, of course, retains the theoretical power to reverse all of this. While often reckless, Senate Republicans have demonstrated during Obama's tenure just how much institutional power exists to fight back against a president. But it's almost inconceivable that any Congress would marshal its resources in the cause of "weakening" America’s national security. Which means that oversight or not, the use of drones is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. James Joyner is Managing Editor of The Atlantic Council. This piece originally appeared in World Politics Review. Photo Credit: Getty Images This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from New Atlanticist To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
