Martin Meenagh blog

The Straits of Hormuz; Globalization, The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the USS Stark Affair The issues involved in the latest dispute in the Straits of Hormuz immediately seem as though they relate to a straightforward competition which is well underway between Persia and its claims to the leadership of the anti-Western bent within the lands of Islam, and the USA. Actually, the issue seems much more complicated than that. It is not exaggerating, of course, to say that blogland, like Oxford, is full of slightly strange people shouting 'and ninthly....' at those captives who did not speed by quickly enough. However, there are clearly at least four issues involved in the latest affair that really should be brought to people's attention. The reason it has come to prominence, of course, is that yesterday, several Iranian ships were alleged to have threatened American ships. It could all blow up into war either this year or next and a Persian war would be a disaster f...

Fighting Pirates; is Obama being set up for a test stranger than fiction? The painting is Breughel's Fall of Icarus. Sometimes, history is much better than science fiction. All of the following facts and most of the arguments are true. Two hundred years ago, international shipping was menaced by the growth of a piratical federation centred upon Tripoli. Previously, the pirates had been kept in check for the better part of a millennium by an old order of Knights . The charismatic general, Napoleon, on his way to becoming Emperor, betrayed and broke the Knights in their island stronghold, Malta, in 1798. France and England then turned to their own world-struggle. The American Vice President, bitterly opposed to his President and who had negotiated a way of living with the pirates, became concerned at their freedom of manoeuvre. One of history's great secularists, he saw the menace of criminals who stole, killed and enslaved Christians on sight for what they were. On becoming pres...

The International Sea Bed Authority We're very used by now, in the west at least, to breathless media reports detailing how 'the arctic is shrinking'. This is despite many surveys over the past few years showing that it is not. The ice at the top of the world is falling back in comparison to previous seasons in some areas, but it seems actually to be growing in others, as do some glaciers . A simple explanation for all of this seems beyond the wits of clever men and women. Some have suggested a change in the salinity of the ocean ; some have suggested the influence of undersea volcanoes . Interestingly, given that solar sunspots are slow in appearing these days-- solar cycle 24 is overdue, and overdue or inactive solar cycles historically correlate with cold periods --some have suggested that we might be in for a spot of global cooling anyway. None of this has stopped stories about the 'North-West passage' opening up . This has had policy effects. The idea that t...

Thomas Jefferson's War on Terror On of the things about American foreign policy is that it is at least consistent in its 'can-do' pursuit of victory. The tradition stretches back a long time. In 1801, for instance, President Jefferson deployed the new American navy into the Barbary War against the 'pirates' of North Africa, a loose confederation of states associated with Ottoman satraps, Deys and others that menaced the Mediterranean with fast ships. Winning an inconclusive victory in 1805, America returned ten years later and began the attacks that culminated in the final suppression of the Terror ships at the hands of an international coalition. As with many aspects of American history, of course, the true tale has an almost impossible resonance of science fiction. The story is an interesting one. For three hundred years, the Knights of Malta (an order of papal knights who still exist as a papal order and who have observer status at the UN) maintained a degree of...

Russia and the Mediterranean Rim Western leaders have always been prone to miss bigger pictures. In the space race, for instance, which seems to have resulted in western success at huge cost with little return, amazing things were achieved to little purpose. In a far darker way, World War One, the struggle for Empire, and the Cold War, were all predicated on the idea of a defined task the achievement of which resulted in 'victory'. What the West has not been culturally good at is the integration of the bigger picture and the greater game with this capacity for determined focus. We tend to move from the histrionic to the practical with no connexion in between. That was OK when rivals were self-defeating because of the grand sweep of their designs. We could pat ourselves on the back and assert that versions of liberal materialism added to technological leads could get us anywhere. What happens, though, when ineluctable forces, and cold, calculated, patient planning of a sort that...

More than Slouching towards a Crisis Things are picking up pace now. For the past year, I've been sounding (I know) like some 'moaning weirdo' about the very real issues that the West faces. I can of course do nothing about them, I am, like the vast majority of the inhabitants of the world impotent in the face of things. I have eyes to see, though, and at least this odd combination of commonplace book and diary that a blog is can put that down for you, should you wish to plough on. The present collapse of our souffle economy is just a preliminary to an absolutely inevitable adjustment. We have had eight years of deficits, spending growth, and the mortgaging of the British and American states to over indebted economies. The banks, if one looks at the rates of interest they impose upon loans to each other, and to their attempt to retract their own exposure to the global economy, have seen it coming for some time. Sovereign funds in the east are not a sign of the east's gr...

The South Ossetia Anschluss and an American Suez News about Ossetia is greatly complicated at the moment. A very well funded public relations campaign is in full swing on the part of the Georgian government, which yesterday, for instance, took out full page advertisements in the Financial Times and other newspapers. Others seem to be spinning sources. For example, a statement by the South Ossetian 'parliamentary speaker' becomes a 'prediction by a senior official' whom some reports imply is a Russian official. The summary of what seems to be being mooted this morning, however, is that South Ossetia will be joined at some point to north ossetia and that it will become 'Alania'. The Alans, of course, were last heard of this side of Europe when they menaced the Romans at the fall of the West. 'Alania' will then be absorbed as some sort of oblast or Krais or autonomous republic in Russia. Ripples from the Russian action keep spreading; just have a look at ...

Another China-US Clash I've been noting for some time that there has been a decisive shift against the American interpretation of the concept of 'the High Seas'. The International Convention on the Law of the Sea has given impetus to the idea that that the sea can be owned and ships upon it challenged by the forces of land powers who assert sovereignty. I thought that the first major challenge to Obama internationally might stem from that--either over pirates or Iranians in the Straits of Hormuz, or in a dispute in east asia. Now, the potential for a Sino-American clash seems to be growing. And remember--the People's republic now owns a large percentage of American debt. Get your snorkel on, there are strange things going on on the waves. UPDATE: 13th March. The picture is becoming a little clearer. Despite being a signatory to the ICoLS , which allows for control of waters 12 miles out (and an economic zone 200 miles out), the People's Republic of China now seem ...

The Continuing Pressure on Iran As I write, vast naval armadas are off the coast of Iran. The Straits of Hormuz are in theory subject to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea and its provisions about the extent of coastal waters, but this has not been tested--yet. The United States has taken a position in which it seeks, through straining muscles cramped by financial crisis, to pressurise the murderous government of the Islamic republic. At a time when oil prices are falling , and Iranian treasury revenues are consequently declining, when inflation is rising, and when Teheran's middle class is growing, hardliners yet have hope that they can unite their nation around an outside threat. Precious little else these days would. Persia and all the other nations within that country are easily inside one of the most fissile of those states which seek to contain the disparate remnants of millennial Empires. Have a look at these headlines on 'Iran Daily' or the 'Te...