Robert L. Paarlberg

Knowledge as Power: Science, Military Dominance, and U.S. Security

maintain its global lead in science, the new key to its recently unparalleled military dominance? U.S. scientiac prowess has become the deep foundation of U.S. military hegemony. U.S. weapons systems currently dominate the conventional battleaeld because they incorporate powerful technologies available only from scientiacally dominant U.S. weapons laboratories. Yet under conditions of globalization, scientiac and technical (S&T) knowledge is now spreading more quickly and more widely, suggesting that hegemony in this area might be difacult for any one country to maintain. Is the scientiac hegemony that lies beneath U.S. weapons dominance strong and durable, or only weak and temporary? Military primacy today comes from weapons quality, not quantity. Each U.S. military service has dominating weapons not found in the arsenals of other states. The U.S. Air Force will soon have ave different kinds of stealth aircraft in its arsenal, while no other state has even one. U.S. airborne targeting capabilities, built around global positioning system (GPS) satellites, joint surveillance and target radars, and unmanned aerial vehicles are dominating and unique.1 On land, the U.S. Army has 9,000 M1 Abrams tanks, each with a are-control system so accurate it can and and destroy a distant enemy tank usually with a single shot. At sea, the U.S. Navy now deploys Seawolf nuclear submarines, the fastest, quietest, and most heavily armed undersea vessels ever built, plus nine supercarrier battle groups, each carrying scores of aircraft capable of delivering repeated precision strikes hundreds of miles inland. No other navy has even one supercarrier group.2

Feeding china: a confident view☆

Abstract Lester R. Browns recent argument, that large Chinese grain imports could drive world prices to dangerously high levels by the year 2030, is mistaken on three counts. First, Brown is badly mistaken to argue that Chinas own grain production will decline by 20% in the next three decades; the consensus among more careful analysts is that Chinese grain production will continue to increase. Second, Brown is wrong to characterize Chinese grain imports, when they do occur, as something to worry about; increased reliance on imports is going to be the best way for China to protect its rural environment and ensure continued income growth and improved nutrition for its population in the years ahead. Third, Brown is wrong to characterize international grain markets as incapable of servicing Chinas larger import needs; even if those needs should grow very large, real prices in international grain markets are likely to continue their long term trend of decline.

Food, Oil, and Coercive Resource Power

It was fashionable several years ago to argue that both food and oil could be used as tools for coercion. International security, once defined and preserved by military might, had suddenly been threatened by the uncertain availability of critical economic resources. Nations seemed in a position to struggle for dominance over one another by offering or refusing access to increasingly scarce primary commodities and raw materials. In one view, the most dramatic aspect of this struggle was to occur between producers of food and oil. Food power was ro be arrayed against oil power. The oil-starved industrial countries, some of which exported food, would confront food starved non-industrial countries, some of which exported oil.’ This looming contest between ”agripower” and ”petropower” was not unwelcome to some in the United States who foresaw their own ultimate triumph, with what had come to be called the “food weapon.“ Having earlier identified food as “one of the principal tools in our negotiating kit,” Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz predicted in 1975 that, “In the long run, agripower has to be more important than petropower.” Assistant Secretary of State Thomas 0. Enders warned in November 1974, at the time of the World Food Conference, that U.S. food power was a natural counter to Middle East oil power. He claimed that “The food producers’ monopoly exceeds the oil producers’ monopoly.” Other State Department officials asserted in 1975 that “we could make OPEC look sick if we were just to use what our agriculture gives us.” The Central Intelligence Agency published its speculation that food abundance might allow the United States to regain the primacy in world affairs which it had enjoyed at the close of the Second World War, when it was the only nation to possess nuclear weapons. Lester R. Brown concurred with these official assessments, observing that, “The issue is no longer whether food represents power, but how that power will be used.”a Yesterday’s prophets of food power have today fallen silent. Exportable oil has

Policy reform and reform myopia: Agriculture in developing countries☆

Abstract Recent decades witnessed major efforts on the part of many developingcountry government to alter existing economic policies and undo constraints on agricultural growth. This article compares the dynamics of agricultural policy reform initiatives of the 1970s with those of the 1980s. The authors argue that when the definition of what is needed in terms of policy to ‘get agriculture moving’ changes, the political economy of policy making and implementation also shifts. Such shifts are often accompanied by a myopic focus on new crisis definitions and new policy solutions, to the detriment of more integrated approaches to agricultural development.

The New Century of Multi-Agriculturalism

Two large issues face American agriculture in the 21st century. Commodity policy has erred by placing excessive regulations on prices and production levels, creating rent-seeking opportunities for some farm producers. Escaping the lingering adverse consequences of these market regulations remains a challenge, both at home and abroad. A new challenge will be to avoid an onerous reregulation of agriculture according to production methods, creating new rent-seeking opportunities. Diverse farm enterprises can prosper in the future if informed consumer choice is preserved within free and competitive food markets, but finding a policy framework to foster this desirable multi-agriculturalism will prove daunting.

The Soviet burden on the world food system : Challenge and response

Abstract Through its disruptive entry into western food markets and its non —participation in global efforts at food policy management the Soviet Union has placed a burden upon the world food system. Dr Paarlberg examines this burden and the US response which has been to seek better information on Soviet agriculture, impose ad hoc controls on food sales and to enter a bilateral agreement in 1975. Three other suggested responses —grain reserves held without Soviet participation, a US wheat board, and a North American export cartel —are discussed. The author concludes that the Soviet burden is decreasing and is best lifted by increasing the free supply available for export. In future. Soviet reliance on food imports may draw it into a greater dependence on the non-socialist world.

Harnessing University Strengths in Multi-Sectoral Collaborations for Planetary Health

Abstract Although significant achievements in human health have been made globally, progress has been made possible, in part, through unconstrained use of natural resources. As the health of our planet worsens, human health is also endangered. Scholars and policymakers from diverse disciplines highlighted complex, multisectoral approaches for addressing poor dietary intake, over- and undernutrition, and chronic diseases in sub-Saharan Africa at the Agriculture, Nutrition, Health, and the Environment in Africa Conference held at Harvard University on 6–7 November 2017. A planetary health approach to addressing these challenges offers a unique opportunity to advance solutions for environmental and social factors that influence agriculture, nutrition, and overall health in the larger context of rapid population growth and transitions in food systems and livelihoods. This paper outlines 3 key avenues for universities to promote science at the intersection of public health and the environment in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Politics of Precaution: Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries

In this original study Robert Paarlberg examines local policy responses to GM crop technologies in four important developing countries: Brazil, India, Kenya, and China.