Greenie schizophrenia

Almost in the category, "you gotta laugh", the Wall Street Journal today recounts the extraordinary contortions of the greenies, hoist with their own petard.

With the Democrats embracing an "anything-but-carbon avant-garde" – as the paper puts it – they are finding that, when wind and solar power do start to come on line, they face a familiar obstacle: environmentalists and many Democrats.

Specifically, the problem with renewables is that the best sites are out in the sticks and, to connect them up to the grid, new transmission lines are needed. Yet, while the greenies are swooning over the prospect of more wind and solar power in the deserts and plains of America, they are contesting the construction of the power lines needed to bring these installations into production.

Only last week, we are told, Duke Energy and American Electric Power announced a $1 billion joint venture to build a mere 240 miles of transmission line in Indiana necessary to accommodate new wind farms. Yet the utilities do not expect to be able to complete the lines for six long years - until 2014, at the earliest - because of the time necessary to obtain regulatory approval and rights-of-way, plus the obligatory lawsuits.

In California, home of greenie theology, hundreds of treehuggers turned out at the end of July to protest a connection between the solar and geothermal fields of the Imperial Valley to Los Angeles and Orange County. This same greenie class is likewise lobbying state commissioners to kill a 150-mile link between San Diego and solar panels because it would entail a 20-mile jaunt through Anza-Borrego state park.

Even the latter-day greenie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is losing patience. "It's kind of schizophrenic behavior," he complains. "They say that we want renewable energy, but we don't want you to put it anywhere."

Even in oh-so-green Oregon, the utility companies are having problems. Once people realised that transmission lines would cut through forests, all sorts of obstacles have been raised. Transmissions lines from a wind project on the Nevada-Idaho border are clogged because of possible effects on the greater sage grouse. Similar melodramas are playing out in Arizona, the Dakotas, the Carolinas, Tennessee, West Virginia, northern Maine, upstate New York, and elsewhere.

In other words, says the WSJ the "liberal" (code for illiberal) push for alternatives has the look of a huge bait-and-switch. Washington responds to the climate change panic with multibillion-dollar taxpayer subsidies for supposedly clean tech. But then when those incentives start to have an effect in the real world, the same greenies who favour the subsidies say build the turbines or towers somewhere else. The only energy sources they seem to like are the ones we don't have.

Of course, we are experiencing exactly the same dynamic over here, as the greenies get their knickers in a twist over the conflict between saving the little tweetie birds and indulging in their wet dreams of a carbon-free future.

But then, since the real greenie agenda is to force us back into the Stone Age – as long as we don't light any fires with our flints – this sort of confusion is grist to the mill. There is nothing quite so carbon-free as no power at all – the inevitable consequence of this greenie schizophrenia.

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You don't say!

"Britain has been strangely absent from the Russo-Georgian conflict," proclaims the leader in The Daily Telegraph. "To the extent that we have had anything to contribute, we have contributed it through the Council of Europe and the EU", it continues. "We have, in other words, been represented by Nicolas Sarkozy. And while the French president has admirable qualities, his interests are not identical to Britain's."

Well, blow me down with a feather. What were we writing yesterday? And now The Telegraph has actually noticed that, when it comes to our foreign relations with Russia, we defer to the European Union, relying on Mr Sarkozy, in his role as (temporary) president of the EU.

Waking up from its deep sleep, the paper then intones, "The truth is that a common European foreign policy is already upon us. Britain could no more act unilaterally in Georgia than in the World Trade Organisation."

You don't say! Really! But for the stunning intelligence of the Telegraph leader writers, we would never have noticed. How grateful we should be that they are really on the ball and picked this up, especially when they tells us that, "The EU has a foreign minister, Javier Solana, and an accompanying diplomatic corps, known as the European External Action Service."

Go to any non-EU country, they tell us, and you will find an EU mission alongside national embassies. Then they have the nerve to tell us: "The debate about whether or not there should be a common foreign policy is being conducted decades too late."

Er … And why is that? Why is it that, as the EU's Common Foreign Policy has developed, through Maastricht, through Amsterdam, through Nice and now extended via the constitutional Lisbon treaty, there hasn't been a debate? Could it just be – perhaps – that dismal little comics like The Telegraph have been obsessed with their trivia and tat to the extent that they have taken their eyes off the ball?

Entirely unconscious of the irony, however, the paper pronounces that "Britain" – meaning, of course, successive generations of politicians and dim-witted hacks - has given too little thought to the consequences of this development, and needs to consider urgently how a British foreign policy would differ from the current European one.

But, it says:

…before being able to implement such a policy, we must first recover control, in practice as well as in theory. Britain is the world's fifth-largest economy and fourth military power. We have had a benign impact on mankind: ending slavery, spreading free trade, helping to defeat Nazism and Communism. If we cannot act independently on the world stage, it is hard to see who can.

Well, we cannot act independently and remain within the framework of the European Union treaties. That is what being a member of the European Union is all about. If you want to "recover control" over our foreign policy – and any of the other policies that are within the competence of the EU - we have to leave the EU.

But is the Telegraph actually suggesting that? Don't bother answering. That remains the elephant in the room – positioning the paper in its usual hazy mish-mash of incoherence. When it wakes up, it can see the problems, but is terrified of articulating the solution. But, now that it has woken up, perhaps it might think about growing up.

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Changing the equation

One of the "killer points" against reliance on nuclear energy is the enormous cost of decommissioning power the power stations at the end of their working life. Currently, to deal with first generation of power plants, the cost is estimated at £73 billion.

However, out of the blue, we learn that the nuclear industry has produced a "hidden" resource in the form of a stockpile of plutonium and uranium equivalent to 2.6 billion barrels of oil. If converted to fuel, it could be worth nearly £160 billion and power three nuclear reactors for 60 years.

Furthermore, this stockpile is to become the responsibility of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which acts on behalf of the State. At the moment it is classified as neither a liability nor an asset but, if it is now classified as an asset, this would make a nice little nest egg for Gordon Brown.

More to the point, by recycling plutonium and uranium into so-called mixed oxide fuel (MOX), these materials can be used in advanced nuclear reactors, of the types currently operated in France, Germany, Japan and Belgium.

Although we have no commercial capacity for using MOX, all three reactor designs being considered for Britain by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate could burn this fuel. MOX is already made at Sellafield for use overseas, but a £1-2 billion investment in a new fabrication plant would be required to produce commercial quantities for UK use. That cost, however, could be offset against the £2 billion disposal costs that would be incurred if the stockpile was not used.

Happily, the fuel is hated by the greenies - alone a good reason for using it - but, even better, its use as nuclear fuel would further discomfort them by saving 0.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

All of a sudden, therefore, the nuclear power equation has tilted decisively in favour of building new nuclear plants. Far from being a liability, it looks as if the industry has been paying its way and the cost-hurdle of decommissioning should no longer be an issue.

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The ultimate joke

Whatever the outcome of the Russian escapade in Georgia, the one thing on which most commentators seem to agree is that the EU has not come well out of the experience.

Few, however, are as forthright as US columnist, J R Nyquist, writing for Global Analaysis who has decided that Moscow's "blitzkrieg" in Georgia is more than a military campaign.

It is designed, he writes, to empower Russia's diplomatic strategy, which seeks to make the European Union the West's chief representative in future negotiations with Russia. Quite naturally the Kremlin wants to escape the logic of U.S. and NATO policy, which is to contain Russia within her national borders.

The logic of this, according to Nyquist, is that the European Union is an entirely different animal: "toothless, utopian and ready to please." Better to deal with this organisation than a tough nut United States. Today, he continues, the European Union confronts Russia in the same way Neville Chamberlain confronted Hitler in 1938; being outwitted and tricked in the cease fire negotiations, there is no possible outcome other than appeasement.

Pointing at Sarkozy's "triumph", he notes now the Russians insisted that their troops were accepted as peacekeepers in Georgia and the French mediators caved in and allowed this. Thus, the stipulated withdrawal of combatants does not apply to Russian troops.

Under this ceasefire agreement Moscow can claim – in a strictly legal sense – that Russian troops can stay in Georgia indefinitely. President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are laughing at the French while observing international law. Meanwhile, occupied Georgia is looted and burned; Georgian ships are sunk and the Georgian capital is strangled.

Nor is the purple prose confined to the commentators. My co-editor has already taken a side-swipe at the Common Foreign Policy - when she featured our favourite Polish politician - but, it appears, dear old president Lech Kaczynski was only just warming up.

To the Rzeczpospolita newspaper yesterday he declared that the EU was "too soft on Russia", complaining that it should have been more critical of Russia's military assault on Georgia, with the bloc making clear to Moscow that "imperial times have ended".

As for the Common Foreign Policy, this he said was dictated by France and Germany. "Once again it turned out that, in actuality, decisions of this organisation (the EU) were being taken between Berlin and Paris. (French President Nicolas) Sarkozy agreed the position with Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose voice proved to be decisive," Kaczynski said.

He also complains that the French deal lacked a key element – recognition of Georgia's territorial integrity, adding that he believed the EU reaction "should have been more decisive."

With all that, it was a "joke" to suggest that the 27-nation EU had a common stance. Then speculating on what such a policy would be, he had but one word, "submissiveness".

Perhaps the biggest joke of all, however, is perhaps our own politicians, whose posturing has been noted, even by the Independent. Gordon Brown and David Miliband, we are told, "merely mouthed empty platitudes about the crisis".

What this rabidly europhile newspaper does not say, though, is that there is a "common position" on relations with former Soviet satellites and Russia. Therefore, any dealings must go through the EU presidency – in this case the egregious Sarkozy.

That is indeed the ultimate joke. Great Britain, once the head of an empire on which the sun never set, is reduced to a bit part, while a French president supposedly represents our interests. And all because our political class is so enamoured of the EU.

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Unintended consequences

On this blog we have always maintained that former President, now Prime Minister, Putin and his teddy bear (mishka), President Medvedev tend to be less than adroit when it comes to foreign adventures, whether attempts to bully and blackmail or, as has now happened, actual military invasion (and no, I do not mean South Ossetia, which has been under Russian occupation for something like ten years).

Chancellor Merkel, who led the nay-sayers during the last NATO Summit in Sofia, and thus may be said to have helped to precipitate the crisis in the Caucasus, has now changed her mind. She is reported by AP as saying that Georgia is strongly on track to becoming a member of NATO, which is not entirely logical but there you are.

Her comments, as reported by AP are not precisely accurate. It is not an EU ceasefire we are talking about but a Russian one that they keep offering but never quite keeping to. The EU has not precisely covered itself with glory. Also, the state of the Georgian military is not entirely clear. There are several opinions, some maintaining that the Russians did not have a totally easy ride.

Meanwhile, thanks to Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit, we learn that

Ukraine has agreed to take part in a missile defence system designed by the United States to protect Western countries. The government in Kiev defended its decision for military co-operation with the West, saying Russia cancelled a bilateral treaty with Ukraine earlier this year.

No doubt, this will be interpreted by all the Kremlin-lovers, since they cannot be described as Russia-lovers, as a "humilation" for Russia.

Whatever one calls it, this is not precisely what Mr Putin had intended, one assumes. Some things have changed in the last forty years. Time for Russia's rulers to understand that.

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The scourge of the greenies – US style

Confounding my earlier prediction that Booker would not be able to file his column this week – having been stuck in Newark for a day – The Sunday Telegraph gave him a time extension which enabled him to file late Saturday instead of the customary Friday.

So it is that Booker has been able to make as his theme our recent experiences from our journey into the land of the free where, like me, he was shocked by the extent to which the "greenies" have taken over the energy agenda.

What particularly struck Booker were a series of television commercials for the two presidential candidates, Senators McCain and Obama, each of whom were shown in front of film of the same giant wind farm, to lay claim to virtually identical "green" credentials.

Since, Booker writes, America has already built five times as many wind turbines as Britain, covering thousands of square miles, he checked out how much electricity all those 10,000 turbines actually produce. His answer came to around 4.5 gigawatts - not much more than a single large coal-fired power station.

Actually, these were "back of the envelope" calculations. The installed capacity for US wind farms is just over 18 GW, while the average output is a mere 16.8 percent, giving a system-wide output of around 3 GW. This is less than the coal-fired Robert W Scherer power plant at Juliette, Georgia, which produces 3.52 GW.

In fact, the situation is even worse than that. Because the output of the wind turbines can range from 0-49 percent of installed capacity, the average figure of 16.8 percent is considered too optimistic because it fails adequately to recognise the intermittency of wind generation. To meet peak system demand, a wind capacity value of a mere two percent of installed capacity is being considered, reducing the 18 GW to just over one third of one gigawatt.

That the two presidential candidates should, despite this, endorse wind power, comes as something of a shock. After years when America was vilified for not taking "global warming" seriously, the greenie agenda is now threatening to transform what is still the largest and richest economy in the world.

For instance, both candidates favour a version of the proposed "cap and trade" scheme, McCain coming out in support in May, following Obama into the pit after he released his energy plan last October.

Yet, conservative estimates of the cost of reducing US greenhouse gas emissions by 63 percent of 2005 levels run to more than $600 billion a year, at by 2030 of - representing a cumulative loss to the US economy, within 22 years, of $4.8 trillion - and Obama wants to go for 80 percent.

Although America is still dependent on coal for around half its electricity, with reserves estimated as likely to last 200 years, state after state is proposing to ban new coal-fired power stations. Environmental groups, with powerful political support, are now lobbying equally fiercely against natural gas or any new nuclear power plants.

Most dramatic of all are the implications of a Supreme Court judgement in the case of Massachusetts v EPA which ruled by a single vote that the EPA (effectively) must treat any greenhouse gases as "pollution", to be regulated under America's Clean Air Act.

The EPA is thus mandated to impose drastic new limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from pretty well any source, not just industry and transport but schools, hospitals, even lawn mowers.

The implications of this development – which have escaped the attention of the British media - are so immense for almost every sector of the US economy that government departments - commerce, agriculture, energy and others - have been queuing up to protest, arguing that the effects of such regulation would be so damaging that it should be regarded as unthinkable.

But politicians of both parties, led by the two men vying for the presidency, are so carried away in the rush to appear "green" that it seems there is no longer any national voice powerful enough to question the sanity of such measures.

All the fashionable talk is of how fossil-fuels must be replaced by massively subsidised sources of "renewable" energy, such as vast arrays of solar panels, even though a recent study (which we pointed out in an earlier piece) showed that a kilowatt hour of solar-generated electricity costs between 25 and 30 cents, compared with 6 cents for power generated from coal and 9 cents for that produced by natural gas.

What is terrifying, writes Booker, is the extent to which America's leading politicians seem oblivious to the economic realities of what they are proposing. The readiness of Messrs McCain and Obama to posture in front of pictures of virtually useless wind turbines symbolises that attitude perfectly.

Here, in the EU we are only too sadly familiar with politicians floating off into cloud cuckoo land over our future energy policy, with the virtual certainty that before many years this may leave us with a colossal shortfall in our electricity supplies.

But "the lights going out all over Europe" is one thing: if they go out in the richest economy in the world - while China cheerfully continues to build one new coal-fired power station a week - we may look back on the US presidential election of 2008 as a time when history really did reach a watershed; the moment when the nations of the West finally signed up to the most bizarre suicide note the world has ever seen.

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Good news and bad news

The most important economic news of recent weeks, Irwin Stelzer tells us in today's edition of The Sunday Times is the recovery of the long-comatose dollar.

But what is good news for the US economy seems to be bad news for the eurozone. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported earlier this week that the ECB was taking a hammering for making a serious error by raising interest rates a quarter point to 4.25pc last month.

It seems that it has misjudged the seriousness of the downturn in the eurozone economy, which has seen a contraction of 0.2 percent in the second quarter, compared with the first three months of this year, with the economies of Germany, France and Italy probably now in full recession.

In Spain, the picture is darkening so fast in Spain that Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero cancelled holidays and called his cabinet back to Madrid mid-week for the first emergency session of its kind since the Franco dictatorship. The crisis meeting agreed to a €20bn (£16bn) blitz on public works, tax cuts, and a mortgage rescue to halt the downward spiral.

Growth has also turned negative in Ireland, Denmark, Latvia, and Estonia, while grinding to a halt in Sweden and The Netherlands. Iceland contracted by a staggering 3.7 percent.

However, if Ambrose always has a "down" on the eurozone, and is thus considered by some a little biased on the pessimistic side, not so the Wall Street Journal which yesterday took a swipe at the "colleagues".

Throughout the depth of the financial crisis in the US, the Euros have been warbling consistently about "decoupling" – arguing that the mighty European economy is no longer a slave to the American economy, and obeys its own rule. Europe would remain sound while the US would sink into a bottomless pit.

And, says the WSJ, Euro-zone hopes about decoupling from the US economy seem to have come true. But, in tune with the immutable law that dictates that nemesis always follows hubris, this decoupling is not quite as planned. While the eurozone contracted by 0.2, the US posted second-quarter growth of 0.5 percent

Like US fears of a recession, says the paper, the eurozone's economic resilience appears to be, if not mostly "mental," at least somewhat exaggerated. Despite all the talk about a US recession, it concludes, the economy may actually unravel faster across in Europe.

This is certainly what the markets think, for the moment, even the Financial Times reporting that they are becoming increasingly convinced that the US is best-placed to weather the global downturn. But then, if you think about it, for an organisation that gave us the Common Fisheries Policy, it never was a safe bet that the EU would be any better at managing the eurozone economy.

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And so it goes

As we approach the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia it seems almost incredible that I should be attending another rally where the cry is "Russian troops out". But so it was today opposite Parliament.

A respectable number of Georgians (given the short notice of the demo) and representatives of a few other countries who are wondering who is next on the menu were there. Here are a couple of pictures, taken on my phone after the battery on the camera went.

Sadly, these pictures show the rather ramshackle "peace camp" whose denizens did not join the demo as clearly they did not know where Georgia is and why anyone should care about it. The other photos, to be uploaded soon, avoid them.

The rather elegant St George's flag is, as most readers will know by now, that of Georgia. The other one is of Albania. There were also Ukrainian flags, Lithuanian and one or two others, including one I did not recognize that was carried by a clearly Muslin family. Some research will be needed.

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The decay of a nation

Having for the last week enjoyed the Wall Street Journal as breakfast reading, returning now to trivial venality of the British press, I am warming to my co-editor's view that the WSJ is definitely the paper to read.

Even without the print copy though, much of the content is still available in the online version and yesterday saw a superb article by Edward Gresser and Marc Dunkelman highlighting how "Free Trade Can Fight Terror".

What warms us to the thesis, of course, is that we made precisely that point in June, arguing that the best way forward to long-term peace in Afghanistan was by developing trade, and in particular the country's exports.

Gresser and Dunkelman, however, take this further, noting that there is a fierce competition among foreign countries to sell their products in the United States – "the largest commercial market in the world".

By opening up the US market to Muslim countries, they argue that this could not only help American consumers, "but also serve a larger strategic goal: that of boosting the economies which now produce large pools of unemployed, embittered youth." We can, they add, make trade an effective weapon against terrorism.

As always, at the heart of the problem is the tariff regime. This puts many nations in the Middle East, whose young people are susceptible to the sirens of Islamic fundamentalism, at an unintended disadvantage and works against our efforts to stamp out jihadism.

Fortunately, write Gresser and Dunkelman, the problem is easy to fix. The US buys about a fifth of all the goods and services traded world-wide - importing $2.63 trillion worth of the world's products last year alone. Socks come in from the Caribbean, towels from Pakistan, cheese from France, and oil from Saudi Arabia.

But apart from oil, the pair tell us, very little comes from the Muslim world. The 30 majority-Muslim states of the greater Middle East, from Morocco through Egypt to Pakistan and Central Asia, account for about 10 percent of the world's population. Yet they provide only about one percent of US manufactured imports, and an even smaller fraction of US farm imports.

These statistics, they say:

… hint at one of the least-studied but most ominous aspects of the modern global economy. Most of us frame the last quarter-century with narratives about globalisation, the rise of China and the spread of the Internet. But for the Muslim countries of the Middle East, and their neighbours in Pakistan and Central Asia, it was a period of economic disaster rivalling our Great Depression.

Between 1980 and 2000, their share of world trade fell by 75 percent, and their share of investment fell even faster. The region's unemployment rate became the world's highest, rising to an average of 25 percent for young people. With the region's population rising by nearly a quarter-billion, the high unemployment rates mean a pool of perhaps 25 million jobless and sometimes hopeless young people, often easy targets for fundamentalists.

The relationship between unemployment and insurgency recruitment has been well established. In Kabul, for instance – where displaced rural workers are flooding into the capital – it is well known that the Taleban hire young, unemployed men to engage in terrorist activities

At last, however, the problem is being recognised – in part. Democratic senator Maria Cantwell has introducing a bill called the Afghanistan and Pakistan Reconstruction Opportunity Zones Act of 2008. It aims to waive tariffs on many goods from Afghanistan and Pakistan's frontier provinces, so promoting trade from those regions.

But, with trade inevitably featuring large in the continuing presidential campaign, Gresser and Dunkelman argue that the next president should follow up with a broad, tariff-exemption initiative to help the Muslim world break its downwards spiral, revive trade and put its young people back to work.

They accept that a comprehensive solution to Middle East economic problems will require efforts to stamp out corruption, improve schooling and end political oppression. But few things, they declare, could do more to combat terrorist recruitment than draining the pools of angry and unemployed youth that are spread across this region. "Fixing American trade policy would be a good start."

Apart from agreeing completely, we would argue that that should include fixing the Bumpers amendment, the malign effect of which we noted in our piece. Support for rebuilding the Afghan cotton industry (cotton trading pictured above) could then be permitted.

That apart though, the key issue here is that the United States is capable of having a meaningful debate about trade policy during its presidential election campaign. Not so the UK where the Gresser/Dunkelman argument applies with equal force to our involvement in Muslim countries. In our benighted country, trade policy is a matter for the European Union.

So, while we still have the residual powers to send troops on combat operations, we do not have the wherewithal to fix the underlying conditions which give rise to – or perpetuate – terrorism. These could never become an issue in a general election. In this, therefore, we are no longer a complete nation, and thus become part of the problem which must be resolved by others.

Few people – and especially the British media – understand or accept how much thereby we have lost our independence but, at least, the WSJ in providing a contrast, gives those who wish to see it the opportunity to understand how deep-rooted has become the decay in our body politic and our nation.

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A journey from hell

Well, we left central Washington yesterday at about 2 pm local time, in order to catch the 4.59 pm shuttle to Newark and thence back to the UK - me to Manchester and Booker to Bristol.

On arrival, we were told the shuttle had been delayed - half an hour initially, and then an hour, and then two, and then three ... Booker was alright but my connection was lost and I had to rebook for a 10 pm flight. Frustration mounting, we were finally let on board, only to be stuck in the "penalty box" off the runway for another two hours.

By the time we got to Newark, we seemed doomed. More in hope than expectation, we split up and dashed to our separate gates. My gate area was empty, so I went up to the booking desk to ask what to do next... Miracle - your flight is boarding, I was told. It had been delayed and then re-allocated to a different gate. By the skin of my teeth, I caught the flight and got back to Manchester shortly before 11 am UK time - some 17 hours after leaving downtown Washington.

However, my luggage is still in Newark and so, as I have now discovered, is the unfortunate Booker. He missed his connection and is waiting there for a flight out tonight. And like me, he is also separated from his luggage. Worse still, without his computer and suitable facilities, writing is impossible. For the first time in many a moon, there will be no Booker column in The Sunday Telegraph this weekend.

Happy bunnies we are not. But, even if Booker is the wrong side of the pond, normal blogging will resume here shortly.

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Concentrates the mind

I do not like drawing inexact historical parallels but the news that Poland and the USA will shortly sign (if, indeed, have not already done so, as the BBC Russian Service says) that agreement for setting up a defence shield made me smile (as well as I can do so after a very painful session in the dentist's chair).

The plan would see the US base 10 missile interceptors in Poland in exchange for help strengthening Polish defences, said PM Donald Tusk.

Of course, the parallels with 1938/9 are not really that. It was the Poles who were dragging their feet this time but I imagine the argument about strengthening Polish defences came to the fore in those negotiations.

No blogging yesterday at this end

Fortunately, the boss managed to weigh in about his trip to the land of the free and the brave (the only country that seems to be standing up for beleaguered Georgia but more of that later) as I had various other preoccupations, including a chat with some Georgians who were demonstrating opposite the Russian consulate in Bayswater Road. The embassy is in a private road that can be closed off.

It revived fond memories of past demonstrations in that very place, including some about forty years ago - the anniversary of those tanks rolling into Prague is coming up soon.

Today I shall try to bring the Georgian story up to date and do that posting about Russia's "victim" status. Meanwhile, I have abandoned the open threads. With one exception they were not a success.

In the meantime, here is a quick posting on the BrugesGroupBlog about the EU's common foreign policy (not!). Enjoy.

Counting chickens

Top news in the US press, alongside Georgia, is the harvest prediction report from the US Department of Agriculture – somewhat indicative of a nation that is still closer to its agricultural roots, rather closer than in the UK where such news tends to be given little prominence.

Although covered in detail in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the best online report – predictably – comes from the Chicago Tribune, the latter conveying the headline message that a bumper crop is expected. Those massive grain silos (pictured) are soon to be full again.

Confounding early expectations, a "fortunate mix of sunshine and rain" has combined to produce this happy event but, say the papers, this won't make much difference to prices because so much of the grain will be used to make ethanol.

This, therefore, creates an interesting paradox – and a warning for us on the other side of the pond, as the EU gets stuck into its "renewables" policy.

There was a time when a bumper crop of corn was welcome news for consumers and livestock producers alike, especially the latter when you remember that grain prices dominate animal feed costs. But, even with a record crop of 12.3 billion bushels expected - 573 million more than it expected last month and second in size only to last year's harvest - ethanol will take more than 30 percent of that harvest. Thus, prices are expected stay high.

It is not just ethanol though. Although prices have retreated from their February highs while inputs costs for fertiliser, diesel and even land are rising, creating a classic "price squeeze" for farmers – even the arable farmers are complaining. Food processors and retailers, on the other hand, are expected to claw back earlier losses, when they were not able to pass on the full increases in raw material prices.

However, despite the influence of ethanol, the Environmental Protection Agency has rejected a request by Texas governor Rick Perry to abandon the ethanol quota (or "mandate"), spurring warnings from livestock and poultry industries that their prices are going to have to go up.

Early signs of distress are already evident. A Utah turkey processor, Moroni Feed Co., is planning to shut down operations for three months after Thanksgiving, a decision the firm, which has $125 million turnover, reached because of the cost of corn.

Meanwhile, the NYT retails a dissenting word from Illinois farmer Dan Meinhart, who does not share the government's optimism about the bumper crop. Having planted late because of the unseasonable weather in the spring, his yields are down. Furthermore, he is seeing signs of early frosts, within six weeks – while it will take him ten weeks to get his crops in.

We are not out of the woods yet – the USDA may be counting chickens (extremely expensive ones) before they have hatched. And, even without that, the greenie agenda is beginning to hurt.

COMMENT THREAD

Sarkozy is pleased

It seems that Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev have agreed on a six-point peace plan that the Georgians will be required to sign. As Sarkozy was supposed to have gone to Moscow with the European plan that President Saakashvili already signed yesterday, one can only assume that there had been some change or substitution of plans.

Moscow Times reports that the Russians want Georgia to agree to a cease-fire (which they requested two days ago), a return of their troops to their bases and the continuing presence of Russian troops peacekeepers in the two break-away regions. This cannot be all as these terms merely restore that famous status quo ante.

What are the other three points? If Russia is happy to restore matters to what they were at the beginning of last week the whole expedition becomes questionable. Did they get a bigger mauling than anybody had realized?

Sarkozy also emphasised that the South Ossetians and Abkhazians should be asked whether they want to be part of Georgia. The answer almost certainly will be no. On the other hand, will they be asked whether they want to be part of Russia, which seems to be their fate? I predict serious military problems in South Ossetia within a year.

The BBC Russian Service website reports that President Saakashvili has signed the document that Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev had put together. (Where is former President, now Prime Minister Putin, we ask.)

The BBC World Service is cautious, remarking that some of the details, where the devil is, no doubt, are still up for discussion. Both sides are still accusing the other of ruthless murder of civilians though only the Russians have used the word "genocide", hoping, presumably, to remind their own people yet again of World War II. After all, much of Putin's foreign policy has been conducted with an eye on domestic population - win or lose, he had to appear tough.

The Russian Service lists the six items as read out by President Medvedev and fairly anodyne they are, too [my translation]:

eschew all use of force

final cessation of military activity (at this stage it was still temporary as there had been no Georgian signature)

free access to humanitarian aid (NGOs have not been allowed into Chechnya - will they be allowed into South Ossetia under its new status?)

Georgian armed forces return to their permanent bases

Russian forces return to their positions before the start of the military activity; Russian peacekeeping forces will remain and institute additional security measures until trust between Georgians and Ossetians is restored

there will be an international discussion of the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as well of the two regions' security [something Russia has always shown herself to be against in the past]

So far, none of this seems worth the trouble the Russians have gone to. Although President Sarkozy seems certain that the Russian government will not demand a change of government in Georgia and Russian forces will not occupy any part of Georgia proper, President Medvedev's language about his opponent remains extreme and personally abusive.

Later on today, I expect, there will be some more twists.

UPDATE: According to Reuters, the reference to talks on the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been removed. It probably was not all that important to Medvedev, anyway. Saakashvili is talking about international peacekeepers replacing Russian ones in South Ossetia. Medvedev is saying nothing about that.

So what now?

The news is that Russia has ceased its military action. Or has announced that she has done so, though there are still reports of fighting. It is not quite clear what that means, since before doing so, its forces penetrated far into Georgian territory. What will they demand in return for taking them out and, indeed, will they take them out?

The whole subject of South Ossetian independence has disappeared into a memory hole. Yesterday I took part in a discussion on the BBC Russian Service, together with Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation and a Russian political analyst and former member of the Duma (whose name I managed not to catch, which is really annoying but had something to do with me having to adjust my earphones).

The latter very calmly informed us all that there was no question of going back to status quo ante because only Russian troops (I don’t think he bothered with the words peacekeepers or peacemakers) could guarantee the two break-away republics’ security and they were staying. Under no circumstances would international peacekeepers be allowed in.

Nor did he argue when I made the point that this was not about South Ossetian independence. Of course, not. Only those who are wilfully blind can say so.

Indeed, the gentleman in question remained very calm and full of certainty throughout the discussion, losing his temper only when I started enumerating the various ways in which the West can respond without any military intervention. “And who are you going to buy gas from,” he asked me angrily. “Lots of people,” replied I airily. “Who are you going to sell it to if we don’t buy it? There are no pipelines to China.” This did not make him very happy.

While we are on the subject of what the West can do to prevent attacks on other countries (the idea that Russia will do no such thing now that it has taught Georgia a lesson can be believed only by people who also think that stars are God’s daisy chains), here is a posting on a blog that has recently come my way, which makes me look like a real ninny.

What we could not find out was Russia’s endgame. What is it they want? We still don’t know, though according to the BBC Russian Service website [it’s in Russian but I think there is a way of having the article translated] some experts are saying that Russia has achieved her aims. Others are more cautious and suggesting we should wait and see.

On the whole, waiting and seeing sounds like an excellent idea. Not least we should hear what it is Mr Putin or his teddy bear, Mr Medvedev are going to demand. Simply asserting that they have punished the aggressor and reasserted the security of the civilian population (something that Mr Putin cares about desperately) as well as of the peacemakers is not the end. There will be more demands.

Meanwhile President Saakashvili has announced to around 50,000 people in Tbilisi that Georgia is leaving the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russia’s post-Soviet attempt to control the break-away republics.

While the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline appears not to have been damaged (apart from the fire caused by an explosion in Turkey a few days before the hostilities in Georgia began) BP has prudently closed it down for the duration. When they will reopen it might well depend on the separate battle that is being waged for the control of the joint Anglo-Russian consortium TNK-BP.

We can but speculate why Russia has decided to end hostilities for the time being, while there is still fighting in Abkhazia. It may be that they do feel that they have taught Georgia a lesson and, in any case, they are in a good position to resume the teaching of that lesson if the Georgians refuse to kiss the rod.

It may be that the Georgian forces fought back with greater vigour than the Russians had expected and there was a sudden worry (which we have speculated on before) of another quagmire like Chechnya. It may be that the angry conversation between President Bush and former President, now Prime Minister, Putin included certain very specific threats possibly to do with ships in the Mediterranean.

As opposed to that last point Russia may well have reassured herself that the West will do nothing if she proceeds to reconquer the old Soviet colonies as Putin has always threatened to do and there is no need to do anything else for the moment.

I shall do a separate posting, possibly on the other blog about Russia, her so-called humiliation and the amazing lengths to which her supporters in the West will go to. For the moment, let me just point out that if there has been any humiliation it was that of President Medvedev. He may say that he has decided to end the hostilities and he may look solemn during his meeting with President Sarkozy as the Reuters picture above shows but the whole world has been watching and we know who has been in charge all the time.

As the International Herald Tribune wrote today:

In recent days, Putin has appeared on television with his sleeves rolled up, mingling with refugees on the border with South Ossetia — the very picture of a man of action.

By contrast, Medvedev is shown sitting at his desk in Moscow, giving ceremonial orders to the minister of defense.

"All his liberal speeches which he made in Berlin and elsewhere are forgotten," Rahr, who serves on the German Council on Foreign Relations, said of the new president. "He is playing the game which is designed by Putin."

Yulia L. Latynina, a frequent critic of Putin's government, noted with amusement that on the eve of the conflict in Georgia, when President George W. Bush and Putin were deep in conversation in Beijing at the start of the Olympics, Medvedev was taking a cruise on the Volga River.

"Now he can cruise the Volga for all the remaining years, or can go right to the Bahamas," she wrote in Daily Magazine, a Russian Web site. "I must admit that for the first time in my life I felt admiration for the skill with which Vladimir Putin maintains his power."

What, one cannot help wondering, will happen if the worm or the teddy bear turns?

UPDATE: The announcements were all premature and wait and see remains a good policy. It seems that the Russians are shelling Gori, which is, indeed, Stalin's birth place. More to the point, it is a long way from the disputed territory, some days after the Georgians asked for a cease-fire and a day or so after President Saakashvile agreed to the European plan for negotiations. Of course, it could be that President Medvedev's announcements are not worth the paper they are described on.

Tee hee

It gives one a certain malicious pleasure to read theTelegraph online when we see the headline "Autumn begins early after a washout August".

Here in Colorado, the weather was brilliant this morning – bright sun and clear skies, with temperatures up in the 80s (Fahrenheit, of course – none of this foreign muck here). Clearly, there is now global cooling in the UK while here in the US of A, we're still benefiting from warming – which sort of questions the whole idea of presenting a single global temperature.

Certainly, though, in this "liberal" town of Aspen, where the media is full of climate change propaganda, the agenda does not seem to have reached the street. I have never seen more SUVs and trucks in such a small area – and this is a seriously "one horse" town.

Funnily enough, although everyone I speak to is conscious of the Russian invasion of Georgia, it isn't really registering as a major political issue. It seems to be regarded as a "European" problem, with much ribald comment on the "impotence" of the European Union.

For sure, the papers are reporting events, but they do not have the same sense of immediacy and importance that is coming over in the European press. It is amazing the difference a few thousand miles make. Perhaps the perspective will look different in Washington, where we are headed tomorrow.

COMMENT THREAD

Politics across the pond

Talk about energy supplies to people on this side of the pond and it will not be very long before the subject of shale comes up – a major new source of natural gas in the United States.

It is that which provides in part an explanation for the phenomenon we reported on this blog last week - the extraordinary situation where consumers across the globe and especially in Britain are paying hugely more for their gas while US consumers are enjoying substantial price cuts.

Coincidentally, in the Wall Street Journal today (no link), there is a long piece which remarks on precisely this, telling us that US natural gas companies are actually facing a problem of what to do with all the gas they are producing, with analysts talking about a potential "gas glut".

The big turn round came in the1990s, with the development of technologies which enabled drilling companies to extract gas from shale – dense rock formations which hitherto had resisted exploitation. By pumping in pressurised water, the gas can now be released, which has led to the development of the Barnet Shale, a massive field in Fort Worth, Texas which now produces about four billion cubic feet of gas per day, some 6.5 percent of total US production.

Following this success, new exploitable fields have been found, most recently the Haynesfields Shale in northwest Louisiana and East Texas, estimated to hold "staggeringly large" reserves of 250 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.

Overall, it is now estimated that US shale reserves could amount to 850 trillion cubic feet, equivalent to 140 billion barrels of oil, more than half the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, today's New York Times features not this news but a story on how American supermarkets, amongst them Wall Mart, are turning to solar power to "reduce energy costs", the piece also telling us that, currently, it costs about 6 cents per kilowatt hour to produce electricity from coal, about 9 cents from gas and between 24-30 cents to deliver the same amount from solar panels.

Of course, the only way this latter option makes economic sense is if the cheaper options are made more expensive by the imposition of carbon tariffs, such as was proposed recently in the Lieberman-Warner Bill, copying the EU's emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Over here, this sort of stupidity is seen for exactly what it is amongst conservative circles, to the extent that we see a refreshing distinction in philosophies over the political divide, as opposed to the leaden consensus between political parties in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

Asked why there is not the same of opposition in the UK to the ETS as is growing to the "cap and trade" equivalent, and I tell people that is because, in the UK, in key respects, we no longer have a government in Britain. For key strategic decisions, our government is in Brussels.

So it is that our politicians do not talk about such issues, which are central to political discourse over here, giving eloquent testimony to just how much power we have ceded to the EU. If we were truly an independent nation, such issues would be at the top of our political agenda, as they are in the US.

And that is why Booker and I are over in the States, giving talks to appreciative audiences while in Britain, the political classes are mute.

COMMENT THREAD

Straws in the wind?

A really interesting article in Der Spiegel (well, the first part of it), which suggests that what with one thing and another, it may be time for Germany to think again about phasing out nuclear power. So far this remains taboo in German political circles and the article was written before the war in the Caucasus erupted, thus making the greatest challenge global warming. But Russian behaviour must be making even the German government a little uneasy. Maybe. At any rate, Der Spiegel seems to think very little of renewables as the answer to the problem.

Read the whole piece.

It's the same old story

If anyone out there really believed that Russia's attack was about South Ossetia or Kosovo, do get in touch with me. I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. Russia is sweeping into Georgia proper, despite pleas for a cease-fire, and we hear the same question as many heard before: where are our friends?

Get used to it - if Russia bullies anyone, the West keeps schtumm. Georgia will get no help any more than the Balts did, or Poland, or Hungary or Czechoslovakia. We shall see no large demonstrations against blood for oil (and believe me, oil comes into it). The UN will not condemn or do anything. How can it, with Russia on the Security Council?

Something may come out of the US's unreserved condemnation of the aggression (oh, by the way, did the UN approve this and where does international law stand on the Russian attack on Georgia?), which was supported by Senator McCain. Senator Obama waffled about the UN and the international community. This is just to warn everyone.

Can we, at least, offer real help to those who are the next on that list, Ukraine and the Baltic states?

As I look through my various postings and articles about Russia I feel that, once again, I have played the part of Cassandra. Appeasement is never a good idea, particularly if the one you are appeasing is strong only through the folly of its opponents. Yes, Russia looks to her interests and makes no secret of it, though nothing good for the country or its people will come from it getting bogged down in another war in the Caucasus. Nothing good came from the Soviet empire and this will be no different. But the Kremlin cares little as we can see from the little trolls that have cropped up on all the sites and forums (even Facebook, I am told).

The question is, however, is it not time we all looked to our interests. Do we even know what they are?

COMMENT THREAD

The EU moves at its usual speed

The French EU Presidency, we are told by EUObserver, is preparing to call an emergency EU "summit" on the Russia-Georgia "conflict" (when does it become a war?) at Poland's request. This is how the EU functions and why it is impossible to use that organization and any other tranzi for the development of foreign policy, quite apart from the fact that there is no EU policy on the Caucasus.

Russia is bombing cities inside Georgia, including the outskirts of Tbilisi, and has sunk at least one Georgian boat in Georgian waters. Gori is being evacuated and the Baku-Tbilisi oil pipeline has been bombed though not, apparently, put out of action.

The EU, the body that demands that it becomes our sole representative on the international scene is preparing to call an emergency meeting of foreign ministers and this will take place, possibly, on Wednesday. Or possibly not.

"The proposal of [Polish] prime minister Donald Tusk to hold a meeting of the European council at the level of heads of government has been accepted. We don't know the date yet," Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said at a press briefing in Warsaw on Saturday.

"There is...a possibility a formal summit will take place in Brussels later in the week," Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, told Swedish news agency TT.

It seems that Wednesday will probably be the day after French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner and his Finnish colleague, Alexander Stubb, return from Tbilisi.

Meanwhile, other countries who have a clearer understanding of what Russia might do next, have been speaking up.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland called on the European Union and NATO to oppose Russia's "imperialist" policy towards Georgia.

And even countries such as Sweden, which was not part of the Soviet bloc, expressed extreme concern at the conflict, making comparisons to Adolf Hitler's tactics as leader of Nazi Germany.

Russia has in turn been vocal in criticising neighbours such as Ukraine, which it accused of "encouraging" Georgia to attack the separatist region of South Ossetia.

"The EU and NATO must take the initiative and stand up against the spread of imperialist and revisionist policy in the east of Europe," the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland said in a joint statement.

Ukraine has plenty to worry about, being the next on the shopping list. After all, former President, now Prime Minister, Putin has always made it clear that he intended to restore the Soviet geopolitical territory and, in particular, he was anxious to take back the two biggest ones that got away: Ukraine and Georgia. Obviously, he meant that, if necessary, it will be done by force.

Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, has demanded a very strong response from the European Union. That will be a little hard to achieve with Germany being so dependent on Russian gas and with other West European states being more anxious "to stand up to America" than pay attention to what is going on next door to it. Well may Ukraine and the Balts worry.

Miffed is what I am

The American blogosphere has been inundated by comments from Russian contributors who call themselves Anton, Sergey, Ivan, Russian, Rossiyanin or plain Anonymous. To be fair, they appear only on blogs that are writing about the war in the Caucasus (the latest war in the Caucasus as the one in Chechnya remains inadequately resolved).

None of them seem to know much English. They do not simply make ordinary Russian mistakes of occasionally picking the wrong word or leaving out articles (there are none in Slavonic languages so it is easy to get it wrong). No, these Sergeys and Antons seem to have a very rudimentary knowledge of English so they are clearly not among those who have been diligently and at some risk to themselves scanning English-language blogs.

They have checked through Google, found the blogs that are covering the war and have proceeded to take part in the discussion though only after a fashion. What they do is reproduce in that rudimentary English, laboriously translated from Russian, the latest line in Kremlin propaganda.

Because they do not actually know enough of either what is being said or shown in the West or what other commenters are saying (that rudimentary knowledge) they cannot get involved in any discussion. When there is a response they repeat the propaganda, still badly translated but in slightly different words.

This, I must say, is pathetic and falls well short of the high level of propaganda I expect from the Comintern's heirs. For all of that, I am more than a little miffed. I have been blogging on the subject on EUReferendum and on the BrugesGroupBlog but have had no Sergeys or Antons or, even, Ivans producing their illiterate version of the Kremlin point of view. Why not?

Do these people not take us seriously? Do they, perhaps, not take the British blogosphere seriously enough to send their rather immature shock-troops to attack us? This is outrageous.

UPDATE: Hurrah, we've acquired one of them as well on my colleague's thread. Phew what a relief.

We arrived

After 22 hours non-stop travelling, we got there in one piece. To say the last leg in Aspen was "hairy" is perhaps to overcook it, but the approach is not for the faint-hearted.

Unfortunately, the flight was late and it was nearly dark as we approached, with the wing-tips seemingly skimming the mountains (on which there was indeed snow). Thus, the photos I took, barring this one, are too poor quality to put up.

Anyhow, Booker and I arrived safety and I will try to do a proper blog tomorrow (today?) when we've had some sleep.

COMMENT THREAD

No news is not good news

Apart from the Beijing Olympics, where the Russians seem to have won a silver medal for some kind of shooting (there's a surprise), there is only the Caucasus to write about. Maybe that silver medal will keep the Russians happy for a while.

So here is a brief summary of what I have gleaned from various sources, mostly in Russian. The number of casualties are under dispute. The Russians maintain 1,400 or 1,500; the Georgians disagree; the South Ossetians are busy being evacuated to North Ossetia, which is in Russia or being brought back. Some of the South Ossetian officers have come up with extraordinary and so far unsubstantiated tales of Georgian officers throwing handgrenades into basements where women and children are hiding out. Sounds a little like all those tales of "Jeningrad" but, I suppose, one cannot tell.

Mikheil Saakashvili has called for a cease-fire and has declared a military situation in Georgia itself. Russian jets have bombed Gori and other targets inside Georgia, well outside South Ossetia. Georgians maintaint that the Russians have been trying to bomb oil pipelines but missed.

Former President, now Prime Minister, Putin has gone to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia to sort things out, presumably the way he has been sorting matters out in the other parts of the Caucasus. He has also claimed that Georgia's actions in South Ossetia amount to genocide.

President Medvedev has made furious statements, demanding that Georgia withdraw troops from South Ossetia, then demanding that Georgia withdraw troops from just outside South Ossetia. So far he has not demanded that Georgia withdraw troops from Georgia.

The UN Security Council has failed to agree on action. American and European officials have sped to Tbilisi to try to negotiate a cease-fire. I have put up more details on the BrugesGroupBlog but the situation remains murky.

However, for the benefit of some of our readers I shall try to define the arguments used by the present-day appeasers. They are surprisingly familiar. Here goes: Russia is being victimized by the nasty evil Western imperialists in the shape of Georgia becoming pro-Western, more or less democratic and, possibly, economically far more successful than Russia itself. Therefore, Russia has every right to assert her influence in the region and protect her interests. The West, on the other hand, has no right whatsoever to support its ally or to ensure that Russia does not control the entire flow of oil from the Caspian region. There, that sums it up.

I have been challenged by another blogger to come up with an answer to the question of what is to be done now. So far, I have managed three different versions but none satisfactory. Maybe tomorrow.

Re-learning every lesson

By now I have lost count of the number of talks I have heard from people who should know something about the subject (one of them was Peter Clarke, until recently in charge of the Metropolitan Police Service's section on counter-terrorism), which all come up with the same point. It is so difficult to deal with Islamists and their supporters because we are not used to the way they think, act and organize themselves.

In particular, they tell us, the Islamist groups are not like the IRA. Well, no, they are not. But then, the IRA was a relatively untypical terrorist organization in that its aims were limited and clearly stated; they organized themselves as an army with a command structure; and if they infiltrated any other organization it was for a specific purpose, be that gathering of information or terrorist activity.

On the other hand, there have been plenty of political and terrorist organizations in the past whom our present-day enemy does resemble. These thoughts were once again going through my mind as I was reading Caroline Fourest's "Brother Tariq - The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan", a book I can sincerely recommend to anyone who is interested both in the eponymous hero and in the swirling movements around him.

Tariq Ramadan, who is, to my great embarrassment but no suprise, a fellow of my old college at Oxford, is a very dangerous man. He confuses many of his Western interlocutors because he appears to be a steady follower of the rules of action laid down by his maternal grandfather, Hassan al-Bana, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is what Ms Fourest, a highly regarded French writer and journalist and a woman of the left, says about the Muslim Brotherhood:

From the very start, the Muslim Brotherhood has been based on an ambiguity: that of being at one and the same time an organized movement and a way of thinking. The movement's founding law, which dates from 1945, defines an 'active member' as someone who has pledged allegiance to the Guide, but the great majority of those committed to serve the Brotherhood's ideology do so on an informal basis. These agents spread al-Banna's message and his methods, without being an integral part of the organization.

The movement had, to be sure, an official structure that represented it in political dealings with institutions. The Brotherhood even ahd a flag: two crossed swords with the Koran as a background. The organization's officers intoduced themselves as members of the Muslim Brotherhood if, in so doing, negotiations with the Egyptian government or other administrations were facilitated.

But the Brotherhood consisted of much more than this official façade. Some sections were engaged in infiltration operations that were of necessity undercover. Other sections organized terrorist attacks that had to be publicly condemned so as not to discredit the official line taken by the head office.

Steps were taken to separate, as far as possible, the sections that were in the public eye from the undercover cells, either because the latter were more radical or because their mission had to remain confidential.

This led to the creation of an unofficial branch, knowns as the Secret Organization, in charge of the most sensitive operations.

Well, well, I thought, now who does that remind me of? Could it be the Communist Party and the Communist International, who created parallel structures in most countries where it was possible, from the very beginning? Not much changed between the early days of 1920 - 21 when gold was exported from starving Russia (famine caused, naturally enough, by the Bolshevik government's policies) not to buy in grain but to fund subversive organizations in the United States and Britain and the situation in the seventies and eighties when the mighty Soviet Union secretly sent funds to such organizations as the German "Generals for Peace".

Why do we have to re-learn the same lesson over and over again? It is bad enough that the powers that be refused to deal with that "unknown unknown" the need for anti-subversion. That has damaged the West and this country in particular a great deal. Our refusal to learn those lessons will harm us again now and in the future.

War in the Caucasus (cont.)

I am blogging about the situation in the Caucasus and attendant matters on the BrugesGroupBlog.

While the cat's away ...

Well, actually, the cats are in residence but the boss is away as the previous posting explained. So, for the moment, I am in charge with long-distance supervision by the self-same boss. This will probably be the last time I spend any time in charge of things so take advantage.

I shall proceed along the same lines as last time. Blog as normal and have an open thread on a subject on the forum. Though there is a certain overlap, on the whole the forum and the blog lead a separate existence so nothing much will be lost. Furthermore, the way to link to a comment thread from the blog seems to have changed while my back was turned, so I shall have to run the two in parallel.

My moderation (DEP.MOD.) will be light to non-existent. Certain rules apply, though. No racism or anti-semitism or conspiracy-mongering; there are plenty of other blogs and forums out there who will cater for your needs. Personal insults will not really be tolerated. I know there is a fine line between easy badinage and rather vicious verbal assaults but, I think, everyone knows when they have crossed it. The boss has solved the problem by starting a Playpen thread for children who cannot play nicely. Such children's comments will be ruthlessly deleted and they will be directed to the Playpen. If they cannot play nicely and do not want to be in the Playpen, they can take their bats home.

As the daily thread will be open there will be no instructions to stick to the topic though, naturally, it might be better if people did rather than ranted in general. Rant on the specific subject but don't rant for long. As it happens there are very few rants that cannot be compressed into a couple of paragraphs. Good practice for all concerned.

Well, now, having said that, I shall set Saturday's topic. In view of the news (no, it is still not the Beijing Olympics) there can be only one: the Caucasus. A wide topic, on which people can write about politics, history, literature even geography though it might be a good idea to get things right. Still, there is an old tradition in the West of writing any old rubbish about Russia and surrounding countries and regions by individuals whose knowledge amounts to being able to hum Lara's Theme from the film "Dr Zhivago". I shall not get annoyed by total ignorance if it is well-meant ignorance.

By the time you read this …

Christopher Booker and should be on our way here (pictured) – although I am told it is snow-free at this time of year (even if the runway – circled - isn't any longer). We should make it by the early evening, travelling via Newark and Denver, spending nearly 13 hours in the air.

We have a gruelling schedule, giving three addresses on "scares" in three widely separated locations, including Washington, from where we will be departing on Thursday evening, catching the "red-eye" to arrive back in England – all being well – on Friday morning.

As with our last visit to the States, I will try to keep up the blogging, although there may be less opportunity, given the tightness of the schedule and the amount of travelling.

The biggest story of the moment

No, not the Olympic Games in Beijing but the other games in Georgia. Some more on the BrugesGroupBlog. As I said there, the story is unfolding.

War in the Caucasus

This is definitely a specialist area for my co-editor, and she will be writing on this issue as soon as it is possible to get some degree of clarity as to what is going on.

The MSM, of course, must rush into to the breach, and as you would expect, is offering various degrees of analysis, of which The Times is an example.

It tells us that it would be a serious mistake for the international community to regard the dramatic escalation of violence in Georgia as just another flare-up in the Caucasus. No doubt, my co-editor will agree with that sentiment, although she will undoubtedly be offering serious health warnings about any other views. Western journalists rarely have the depth of knowledge of these areas to be able to offer much beyond received wisdom and acres of extruded verbal material.

I will confine myself to just a short comment, therefore – posted early for reasons which will become apparent later today. That is simply to observe, as always, that the EU is left floundering, evidence the report in Deutsche Welle.

To be fair, so is Nato and so is little Angela Merkel, who is reduced to squawking from the sidelines, calling for an "immediate stop" to all violence in South Ossetia.

However, we will all rest easier in our beds knowing that the EU commission's spokesman, John Clancy has said that EU officials are "extremely concerned" at the reports of heavy fighting in the South Ossetian conflict zone. The EU "deplores the loss of life," Clancy says, adding that, "The European Commission calls for an immediate end to hostilities and for a swift resumption to negotiations in the framework of existing formats."

He then tells us that the EU "stands ready to increase its contribution to conflict resolution in Georgia with confidence-building measures."

Mr Putin, no doubt, will be studying this statement with very great care, ready to abandon his venture in his rush to appease the mighty ones in Brussels.

COMMENT THREAD

We already knew this

The Irish Times is retailing an article by Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform which states that the demise of the constitutional Lisbon Treaty would not be a catastrophe. "Europe", he says, is working "fairly well" under the existing EU treaties.

This we already knew, in so far as "Europe" (aka European Union) could ever be described as "working", whether "fairly well" or otherwise. But then, despite the consistent repetition of the mantra, in news agency copy and elsewhere, this treaty was never about "streamlining" and "improving the efficiency" of the institutions.

The agenda was, is and always will be, about continuing the process of European integration. That is why the "colleagues" want the treaty and that is why they will continue to chip away at the edges until they get it.

And when they have got this treaty, in whatever form, they will be back for more, and more, and more … And, until they are stopped by whatever means necessary, what is left of our government will continue to oblige.

COMMENT THREAD

The essence of politics

Martin Vander Weyer in The Daily Telegraph op-ed writes that "the great oil bubble has burst".

We would observe that, given what was in the public domain last May, when we wrote this, the only surprise is that it lasted so long.

Equally, we are seeing bullish forecasts on the European cereal harvest, with expectations of output jumping to 16 percent above last year's level, bringing output to almost 301 million tons – a lift of 43m tons from the previous harvest.

Unsurprisingly, European milling wheat traded in Paris at €184 a tonne on Thursday, close to a 12-month low.

Once again, we are ahead of the game, having written this last April, tentatively suggesting that the food crisis was over, or largely under control – given that there were no weather events which had a major impact on yields.

As with price hikes, though, falling prices take their time to feed into the retail market but it is fair to assume that, in the short-term, some of the inflationary pressures that have been driving up prices have eased. Thus, those who are hoping that runaway inflation will destabilise Gordon Brown and ease Mr Cameron into office may well be disappointed.

Indeed, Brown may have pulled off his purple banana trick and may be able to return to the House in the autumn with cheering news, backfooting the Tories on the economic front.

However, while writing in April, we did caution that the putative good news was confined to the short-term. In the longer-term, the obsession with renewable energies and general "greenery", plus other measures which distort policy, are set to drive up prices, creating inflationary pressures that hitherto have been caused (in part) by commodity imbalances.

For those who make the fundamental mistake of believing that politics is about politicians, rather than policies, and thus dissipate their energies and talents on tittle-tattle and personal trivia, might do well to note that such future inflationary pressures as we do experience will be almost entirely government-induced.

Furthermore, those pressures will largely be the same irrespective of which party holds office in London, not least because the Tories share Labour's obsession with greenery, but mainly because the strategic decisions are taken in Brussels where policy is decided.

Our biggest problems, therefore, lie not with "world conditions", globalisation, population growth or even resource shortages, but with our own governments – their distorted and inadequate policies which create problems where none should exist. That is the essence of politics and when (if) the children grow up and take note of this, we might start getting somewhere.

COMMENT THREAD