地政学を英国で学んだ

日本にミサイルテストをさせるな！

アメリカの一部の本音がよくわかる社説記事がボストン・グローブ紙に載っておりました。重要部分だけ張り付けます。

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Obama's missile test
March 16, 2009

NORTH KOREA has announced plans for a satellite - read missile - launch between April 4 and April 8. President Obama needs to seek ways to dissuade Pyongyang from firing a missile over the Sea of Japan and the Pacific. But if that fails, the Obama administration will have to muster the kind of restraint the previous administration displayed in 2006.

（中略）

The first step in avoiding a missile launch ought to be US-North Korean dialogue at the highest possible level. Since the North has already turned down a request for a visit from the new US envoy for North Korea, former dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts Stephen Bosworth, Obama might consider sending Bill Clinton or Henry Kissinger - figures who could expect to be received by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

The message to Kim should be that the Obama administration intends to live up to the terms of the six-party agreements, eventually including a peace treaty ending the state of war with the North and the establishment of full diplomatic relations.

If no such talks are held and North Korea does launch a missile in the guise of a satellite, Obama should discourage Japan from trying to shoot it down. Doing so would only place Japan, rather than North Korea, on the wrong side of international law.

Obama will also need to refrain from imposing sanctions on the North if it goes through with a ballistic missile test. Sanctions will not produce the desired results. Only in direct, give-and-take negotiations can North Korea be persuaded to close down its missile and nuclear programs.

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最後の太字の部分は、逆に深読みすると日本に対する恐怖感から出たコメントとも言えますよね。「国際法」という概念が使われているのも面白い。

南沙諸島の争い？

ジャパンタイムズに良い記事がありました。南沙諸島の新たな覇権争いについてです。

この論説記事はタイトルも地政学してて良いですねぇ（笑

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Maritime lines of conflict in South China Sea

By MICHAEL RICHARDSON
Special to The Japan Times

SINGAPORE — America's protest last week to China over the alleged harassment of two of its navy ships by Chinese vessels, and China's reaffirmation of ownership of the contested Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, highlight two festering maritime disputes. Either position could lead to conflict in the region unless it is carefully managed.

The tiff between Washington and Beijing resurrects a long-standing disagreement over the rights of coastal states in Exclusive Economic Zones that extend for 200 nautical miles from their shores, and the procedures to be followed by foreign military ships and planes when using EEZ waters and airspace.

The United States says its unarmed ocean surveillance ship Impeccable was about 120 km south of China's Hainan Island last Sunday towing sonars, when it was forced to leave the area after Chinese vessels engaged in "dangerous maneuvers" nearby. The Pentagon says another U.S. surveillance ship had been harassed days earlier in the Yellow Sea, 200 km from China's coast.

U.S. ocean surveillance vessels probe the ocean to gather acoustical data and detect underwater threats. Their work helps the U.S. Navy strengthen its antisubmarine defenses.

Although the U.S. has not signed the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that regulates ocean use, it insists that its military ships and planes have freedom of navigation and overflight in "international" waters, including EEZs of foreign states.

China, which has signed the law of the sea treaty, maintains that military operations, hydrographic surveying and intelligence collection by foreign ships or planes can be carried out in an EEZ only with permission from the coastal state. Some Asian countries take a similar view, even though they may be reluctant to challenge the U.S. or other naval powers in the way China does.

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この記事では「アメリカは国連海洋法条約にサインしてないが中国はしている」という点が指摘されてますね。

理詰めで考えれば中国側のほうが強いということを匂わせておりますが、とにかくここでの一番の主張はこれから紛争が起こってくる可能性が非常に高いということです。

クレイマー vs スチュワート

「ベア・スターンズを買え」と番組で言っていたCNBCの名物パーソナリティ、ジム・クレイマーが、コメディーセントラルの人気番組をやっているジョン・スチュワートから猛烈な非難を浴びております。

株のブローカーの権威失墜を見ているようで痛々しいですが、「ニセジャーナリスト」対「株のプロ」の戦いという意味では面白い泥仕合です。アメリカのメディアではかなり話題になってます。



元のインタビューの映像はここでみれますが、こりゃ完全にクレイマーの負けです。証拠をこれでもかと見せられてコテンパンにやられてます。とくに１０分をすぎたあたりから完全にノックアウト状態です。

最後は「君の番組で“クレイマーを信頼せよ”という誇大広告をはずしてくれ」と言われて「手打ち」をしてますね。

カナダも治安強化

あのカナダさえ備えております。

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Military readies reservists for threats to 'domestic front'

Adrian Humphreys, National Post
Published: Wednesday, March 04, 2009

The Canadian military has embarked on a wide-ranging plan to turn its reserve soldiers into focused units trained and equipped to respond to a nightmarish array of domestic threats, including terrorist "dirty bomb" attacks, biological agent containment, Arctic catastrophes and natural disasters.

The creation of seven units within each region of the country -- including unusual all-terrain vehicle (ATV) squadrons and perimeter security teams to cordon areas of potential devastation -- prepares reserve soldiers for operations on the "domestic front" while freeing regular force soldiers to concentrate on foreign battlefields.

"There is a recognition, certainly within the military and we have heard the government say, that domestic security is the number one priority. A number of these conclusions come from the post-9/11 world we live in," said Brigadier-General Jean Collin, commander of the army in Ontario, during an exclusive interview with the National Post.

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「国内安全保障が最優先事項」ということです。英米圏の政府では恐怖心が高まりつつあるような。日本はまだなんでしょうか？

アメリカは誰からカネを借りてるの？

グレン・ベックの番組より