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[ by Charles Cameron — part 1 was Climate change & its impacts, rippling out across all our futures, 1, and dealt with the impact of climate change on the Hajj and other pilgrimage sites ]
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Climate change, of course, has ripples in many other areas of geo-political, national security and intelligence interest besides Islam, Mecca, and the Hajj.

I’m by no means the first person to foresee what’s now called climate migration — nor that it will involve massive migrations across national borders as well as within sovereign nations.

So that’s another version of the issue variously addressed in a recent NYT op-ed, a New York Intelligencer piece, and a Franklin Foer piece in The Atlantic — the impact of climate change on the nation-state system:

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Quinta Jurecic, Who Owns the Amazon?

Quinta Jurecic is the managing editor of the highly regarded Lawfare blog, and the subtitle of his piece reads:

The raging fires are straining the usefulness of the concept of sovereignty.

That’s quite a whammy, coming from an impeccable — ha, unimpeachable — source: sovereignty, the self-determination of the nation state, comes into question, and thus the nation state itself. Because fires in the Amazon rain-forest aka the lungs of our planet are too dangerous to be left to the actions of autonomous nations — and the same goes for climate change more generally:

The Amazon fires are a test case of sorts for how the climate crisis will strain the usefulness of seemingly simple concepts — like national sovereignty. Before calling up the military, Mr. Bolsonaro accused countries donating money to preserve the rain-forest of wanting to “interfere with our sovereignty.” He also declared that the international condemnation he faced spoke to a “colonialist mentality,” criticizing what he saw as Mr. Macron’s encouragement for the G7, which does not include Brazil, to grapple with the problem on its own.

Question: what happens to national sovereignty when global interest supervenes?

David Wallace-Wells, The Glimmer of a Climate New World Order

Wallace-Wells is the author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. That may be a book I shall have to review. In this article, however, he makes a point about our academic and technical readiness for climate change, which I’d see as expanding on Jurecic‘s point about sovereignty:

If climate change does transform life on this planet at anything like the scale and speed scientists promise it will, our politics will change with it — and probably quite dramatically. One question this raises is: In what ways? Another is: Will we like what warming does to us? The answers to both are very much open, and we’ve barely begun to develop a political science around climate change that might help us think through the possibilities.

we’ve barely begun to develop a political science around climate change. Not as political science theory, but as diplomatic reality, required to avoid politics turning into warfare — in a nuclear-tipped age.

Question: What might a planetary political science adequate to climate change look like?

Franklin Foer, The Amazon Fires Are More Dangerous Than WMDs

Franklin Foer‘s piece in the Atlantic is subtitled:

One person shouldn’t have the power to set policies that doom the rest of humanity’s shot at mitigating rising

Man, nation, planet — Planet, nation, man?

Arguably, a nation has the right to impose its rule or rules on a man, and analogously, a planet has the right to impose its rule or rules on a nation — but note that the planet’s rules are none other than the laws of nature, so we’ve shifted register from what is humanly imposed tpo what is imposed on humans. And if humans try to emulate those laws, via the UN, or the International Criminal Court in The Hague, some nations may not be exactly happy..

Question: when planetary needs collide with national interfests, rich or poor, who wins, and who needs to win?

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Okay, those are the three main pieces I wanted to draw your attention to. These are also of possible interest:

Laura Parker, 143 Million People May Soon Become Climate Migrants

Climate change will transform more than 143 million people into “climate migrants” escaping crop failure, water scarcity, and sea-level rise, a new World Bank report concludes. Most of this population shift will take place in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America—three “hot spots” that represent 55 percent of the developing world’s populations.

This worst-case scenario is part of a ground-breaking study focused on the impacts of slow-onset climate, as opposed to more visibly dramatic events such as extreme storms and flooding.

Sujatha Byravan & Sudhir Chella Rajan, Before the Flood

Conservative climate and hydrological models suggest that the average sea level will rise by about a foot by 2050, regardless of what new actions we take to reduce greenhouse gases. In some cases, entire nations will disappear; a harbinger of this is Tuvalu in the Pacific, whose government has asked Australia and New Zealand to accept its citizens as the sea swallows their island.

Brian Kahn, How Climate Change Is Becoming a Deadly Part of White Nationalism

Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old suspect police took into custody after the shooting, is believed to have uploaded a four-page white nationalist document to the message board 8chan … outlining his motives for killing at least 22 people at Walmart on Saturday. Included among its racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric are ideas central to the mainstream environmental movement. “[O]ur lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country. The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations are heading the destruction of our environment by shamelessly overharvesting resources,” it reads.

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Is that last quote surprising?

It is if, and only if, one’s basic assumption is of the left / right divide, with the left being ecologically conscious and the right (see Trump) being blind to, and thus potentially blindsided by, climate change. If your significant divisor, on the other hand, is extremist / moderate, then it’s not so surprising after all.

[ by Charles Cameron — brewing, churning, fighting, lashing out, crush, slam, push back, skewer, walk away, road warrior, hit job, full court press, cage match, power grab, bombshell, wow ]
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It’s almost a chyron blizzard today, after the calm weekend!

A Mad Max film ref, perhaps?

— and the ideal Full Court Press example — I’ve had quotes before, but never a chyron. Excellent!@

Fast tracking — is that a spooorts term? Not sure:

A shutdown fight? Okay:

Best mano a mano.. definitely a trove!

IO think I had an explosive interview chyron recently — here’s another, just in case:

And I’ve been tracking arcs, moral and otherwise — trajectories belong in that collection:

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pushback — nothing much:

power grab — better:

skewers — excellent

sparring:

hmm: — move along:

lashes out:

slams as treasonous — that’s quite a hit ~

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Time for a break:

Judge Jackson and those cross-hairs

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Okay, how about some quotes — not many, this has been chyron season with a vengeance — but a few:

Robert Costa: Through the churning political waters of the Robert Mueller investigation and everything else that could come ..
Hardball, we Biden: walk up to the starting gate, and then walk away .. ?
One thought that comes to mind, Ben, is the bullet that was dodged in Sessions having to recuse himself early on, given the account McCabe gives of Sessions behind the scenes ..
it was actually the general counsel of the FBI who said That’s a bridge too far, we’re not there yet ..

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Back for some headers and a tweet:

hm, hit job:

cage-match is a pretty good one..

and this one goes to our continuing liminal / borders collection:

[ by Charles Cameron — an invitation to explore some suggested comparisons — Afghanistan, too ]
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ben wittes, lawfare blog

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I generally find Ben Wittes’ Lawfare blog worth reading, and was accordingly struck when I read The Methodology of Historical Misrepresentation and came across this paragraph:

There is a widespread tendency amongst scholars, journalists, and legal experts to app double standard when relating to Israel and the Palestinians. Israel is often singled out for prejudicial treatment in comparison to cases far more severe than its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, such as the killing in Syria of over half a million people, the hanging of hundreds of dissidents in Iran every year, the Chinese occupation of Tibet, Russian behavior in Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, and countless other human rights infringements infinitely worse than the Israeli occupation and settlement movement.

That wasn’t, I’ll admit, what I expected when I read the post’s title: in the context of the Israeli/Paalestinian issue, I could iagune the misrepresentation might be found in Israeli hasbara as easily as in Mahmoud Abbas‘ tendency to say things about the “occupied territories” that only include the West Bank and Gaza when addressing English-speaking audiences, and the whole shebang including Tel Aviv when speaking in Arabic — as repeatedly shown by Itamar Marcus of Palestinial Media Watch

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That said, I’d be interested in specific comparisons in detail, one at a time, between these levels of documented human rights infringements..

For instance, the Israelis have established “facts on the rgound” in the form of both settlers and their sccompanying schools, synagogues, etc within the Palestinian und, with military enforcement, while the Chinese appear similarly to have established “facts on the ground” in Tibetan territor in the form of both settlers and their institutions, militarily enforced.

Howw can one compare these two situations in greater detail, fairly?

Israel separation wall in West Bank

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The first problem any such attempt will encounter is that both sides will produced partisan accounts of history, law, populations, etc, and that accounts by “honest brokers” are desperately hard to find — I mean, educate me in the comments section.

I’ve tried to propose a graphical/typographical system for conducting bilateral debates.. but maybe the Talmud is not ideal for these particular debates..

Talmudic page

Specifically, I took my early inspiration from the Talmud because it explicitly llows divergent viewpoints in its graphical format, as explained by Eliezer Segal on his interactive (ie clickable) Page from the Babylonian Talmud. But perhaps the Talmud is not the ideal basis for these particular debates, in which the Israelis (often deeply influenced by forms of Judaism) are one of the contending parties…

In any case, how, with all the affordances of the web, can we provide a space in which written debates can be refined in light of written (and equally valued) responses, iteratively, so as to provide a record for ongoing dialogue, with both sides equitably represented, and able to respond point by point whwere they disagree or wich to provide additional material, and to agree where they agree.

I am encouraged to know what such a format can eventually produce a document where twwo adversaary-friends collaborate, because of the collaboration of Mustafa Hamid and Leah Farrall, friend of Mullah Omar and OBL and Australian Federal Police AQ expert respectively, on their book, The Arabs at War in Afghanistan, in which some sections indicate that the two co-authors were agreed on theie contents, while some sections are attributed to Mustafa alone, and some to Leah likewise. Two adversaries first meet on the net, then in person in Alexandria, Egypt, then after months and months of collaboration, and no doubt much excellent coffee — this book!

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PS & NB:

Ben Wittes has notably and repeatedly challenged Vladimir Putin to a martial arts match: I’ll Fight Putin Any Time, Any Place He Can’t Have Me Arrested.

That would be something to watch on both RT and MSNBC!

Global politics might never be the same if the #fearlessshirtlessone answered @benjaminwittes's challenge!

— Anne-Marie Slaughter (@SlaughterAM) October 17, 2015

[ by Charles Cameron — a meander in praise of, variously, Piers at Penn, Alice in Wonderland, Caitlin Fitz Gerald, and Benjamin Wittes ]
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Strategic theology:

Goliath, distracted by David's awesome moves, didn't see the stone coming.

Bréviaire de Belleville, vol. II (partie été), c.1323-26 pic.twitter.com/kLe9MOSxzD

— Emily Steiner (@PiersatPenn) July 31, 2017

Compare Nigel Howard, in Confrontation Analysis: how to win operations other than war, writing:

the problem of defense in the modern world is the paradoxical one of finding ways for the strong to defeat the weak.

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Okay — Alice, in Wonderland, asks:

And what is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?

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By dint of sickness, I haven’t been able to purue my efforts to see Caitlin Fitx Gerald‘s fabulous Clausewitz for Kids make its brilliantly-deserving way into print:

That image is from Caitlin’s work, as praised by Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare blog — whom I know not because he’s become a go-to source on many things Trump / Comey —

Suddenly, he was D.C. famous; the very next day, Collins and Wittes bumped into each other in the Morning Joe greenroom. “It used to be that what was going to be written on my tombstone was ‘Benjamin Wittes, former Washington Post editorial writer,’ or ‘Benjamin Wittes, who wasn’t even a lawyer,’?” he says. “Now it’s just, like, ‘Benjamin Wittes, who’s a friend of Jim Comey’s.’?”

— but way before that, because he knew Caitlin and her work:

The other day, Wells drew my attention to what could be the single most excellently eccentric national security-oriented project currently ongoing on the web: It is called Clausewitz for Kids. I am apparently not the first to discover it. Spencer Ackerman had this story about it last year. But I had missed it until the other day, and I suspect most Lawfare readers are unto this very day unaware that a woman named Caitlin Fitz Gerald is currently writing a comic book edition of Clausewitz’s On War–entitled The Children’s Illustrated Clausewitz–featuring lectures in a Prussian forest by a hare in a military uniform. To make matters all the more fun, she is blogging the process to boot.

Hey, “single most excellently eccentric national security-oriented project” is pretty damn high praise, eh?

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Benjamin Wittes and his tick, tick, as seen and summarized by Rachel Maddows:

Ben Wittes now runs a well-regarded blog that`s called Lawfare, which I think is kind of a pun on warfare, Lawfare, warfare. Anyway. Lawfareblog.com.

So, Ben Wittes. On May 16th .. Ben Wittes, he did this online, on Twitter, which is a weird thing, right? Nobody knew what was wrong with him. Nobody knew exactly what this was about.

tick tick tick tick tick tick

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) May 16, 2017

You can see the time stamp there right beneath the tick, tick, tick, tick. He sent it at 3:18 p.m. on May 16th. Hey, Ben Wittes, what`s that about?

Well, then later, boom – literally the word boom. Two hours and eight minutes after that initial tweet, we now know in retrospect what that tick, tick, ticking was about. Ben Wittes tweeted “boom” and a link to that huge story that had just been posted at “The New York Times”.

Quote: Comey memo says Trump asked him to end Flynn investigation.

That was a huge story when it broke and apparently somehow Ben Wittes knew it was coming out because he tweeted, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, two hours before it came, and then boom once it landed. That was May 16th.

And then two days after that, Ben Wittes started ticking again.

[ read the rest.. ]

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Go Caitlin, go Wittes!

Go Clint Watts too, if you know what I mean!

[ by Charles Cameron — as i tweeted, if you fire the guy who’s investigating you, that’s ouroboric – it creates & instantly breaks the circle, too ]
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Okay, the Comey firing.

Shortly after President Trump‘s firing of FBI Director Comey today, Jim Hanson of Frank Gaffney‘s Center for Security Policy commented on Fox:

You know, this may be the first bipartisan thing Trump has done that both sides can get behind.

It was an extraordinary comment. That’s not how the Wall Street Journal saw things. Their headline and sub-head read:

Comey Dismissal Upends Probes of Trump Campaign Ties to Russia
Move adds impetus to calls for a special counsel to handle the case

Quite the opposite: I’ll show you nonpartisan:

Nonpartisan, right now, means disturbed by the firing, by its timing, by its implication for ongoing investigation into Team Trump’s ties with Russia..

And as John Schindler notes:

The optics of firing the FBI director investigating your Russia ties then meeting the Russian FM on THE VERY NEXT DAY defy easy description.

Or Blogs of War:

When you fire the guy who is investigating you on Tuesday and meet with your case officer on Wednesday..

Ahem: case officer..

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From my analytic point of view, alert for pattern and archetype, what leaps out here is another damned ouroboros — this whole place is getting to be quite a snake-pit.

Trump has in fact bitten off the hand that was investigating him. Or to put that into Politico’s prose:

The extraordinary dismissal of the FBI director by a president whose own campaign is the focus of an ongoing FBI investigation is sure to produce a torrent of criticism that Trump is interfering with the independence of law enforcement.

There’s even a sub-ouroboros, given that Trump cited a letter from AG Sessions as contributing to his decision — as Sen. Schumer noted in his press conference:

Attorney General Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russian investigation, played a role in firing the man leading it.

Maybe we could call that “recusal of the recusal”?