Nauru in the Arc of Instability: Too Many Degrees of Freedom?
ously in any credible “arc of instability”, even one whose span includes the remotest region on earth. Yet, for its own special reasons, Nauru deserves some mention in the arc of instability if only to demonstrate its idiosyncratic contribution to this image of a putative zone of unstable states to Australia’s north threatening the Commonwealth’s security. There are, perhaps, a variety of explanations for Nauru’s inclusion in this arc of instability. A principal one is a propensity in the popular media to conflate such terms as “failed state” and “rogue state” thus including Nauru with a wide range of states that have abused their sovereign obligations. A less visible factor is the human tendency to try to find symmetry at the expense of consistency when explaining diverse events under a single rubric. Thus, to use a phrase like “arc of instability” encourages the search for examples to make such an arc complete or continuous. Another rationale may be an expectation of what Nauru is to become as the island’s one significant natural resource – phosphate – runs out. At least until very recently, Nauru has probably been more “roguish” than “failed” but it would seem that Australia has not found Nauru’s willingness to sell its sovereignty necessarily all that threatening; at least when it agrees to process would-be refugees targeting Australia. This chapter presents an overview of Nauru’s inclusion in the arc of instability against a perspective of responsible state behavior. The logic of this approach is grounded largely in the ambiguity surrounding the linkages that make the arc of instability a coherent and useful concept. If there is one constancy that unites countries as disparate as Indonesia, the Solomons and Nauru in a concept such as the arc of instability, it lies in their inability or unwillingness to manage fully the demands of sovereignty. Whether the grounds for this failure to meet expectations of responsible state behavior stems from a lack of will or a lack of means may not be material for those adversely affected although it will affect the response. In the case of Nauru, the question of state responsibility goes back more than just to the origins of the minuscule republic since the same can be said of all the other states in this arc. It also goes to the special, almost unique, circumstances that appeared to give Nauru every advantage to be an effective state despite its small size (Figure 11.1). Linking Nauru’s own special circumstances in managing state responsibility with Australia’s perception of an arc of instability is the island’s long ties to Australia. The primary association was Nauru’s quasi-colonial subordination to Australia under the mandate/trusteeship systems. This United Nations’ moderated relationship enabled Nauru to hasten the pace of national self-determination at a time that was especially congenial in terms of international expectations of smaller polities. The minimal 11. NAURU IN THE ARC OF INSTABILITY: TOO MANY DEGREES OF FREEDOM? RICHARD HERR AND DONALD POTTER
Between Two Worlds
Abstract: Sometime between August and December of 1991, the Second World vanished. Global society has been divided into the First or Industrialized World, the Third or developing World, and this effervescent Second World that was identified with the communist model of development. When the Cold War officially ended and the Second World vanished, many in the West supposed that any new state freed of the yoke of Soviet domination would enthusiastically embrace the free-market economy. However, Central Asian attitudes toward both political and economic reforms did not conform to Western expectations. Even after 8 years of independence, and more than a decade after the reforms of perestroika, the Central Asian leaders still favor levels of state intervention in the economy and state provision of economic services more reminiscent of the Soviet era than of a Western market economy. Text: Obstacles to Development and Prosperity Sometime between August and December of 1991, the "Second World" vanished, Global society had been divided into the "First" or Industrialized World, the "Third" or Developing World, and this effervescent Second World that was identified with the communist model of development. This middle world evaporated in these short five months between the unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev in August 1991 and the end of that year, when the last of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia accepted their independence and began the process of disavowing Soviet Communism. The Second World was thought to have its own agenda for development, and Central Asia in particular was sometimes proposed as a model that Middle Eastern and Asian countries might follow should they choose the Soviet side of the Cold War. Economic and social development were entirely state-implemented, rather than market-driven. The agricultural sector, the most important in Central Asia, was dominated by industrial-style farm enterprises that were sometimes nominally in the hands of farmers' collectives and occasionally run by state farms, but always driven by the centrally--planned command economy, which dictated crops, prices, and even rates of growth. Ideological weight was given to the development of an industrial proletariat and thus to heavy industry. However, investment in this sector was highly integrated into the central Soviet economic ministries, and it focused on a small number of urban centers or sites of mineral extraction. As the breakup of the Soviet Union would eventually demonstrate, these pieces of the Soviet industrial framework were so dependent on the interlocking network of inputs and exchange as to be unviable without that framework Reluctant Exit In 1991, neither the Central Asian governments nor their populations had chosen to abandon the Second World. In a referendum earlier that year, Central Asian leaders asked their populations whether they wished to remain in the Soviet Union. The response was overwhelmingly positive-perhaps unsurprisingly, given the strong suggestion on the part of the leadership. But events in Russia, the Baltics, and the Caucasus severely challenged the union, and when it was dissolved, the Central Asians found themselves with an independence that they had not asked for. Nor had there been significant public discussion regarding the Soviet form of economy. When the Cold War officially ended and the Second World vanished, many in the West supposed that any new state freed of the yoke of Soviet domination would enthusiastically embrace the free-market economy. However, Central Asian attitudes toward both political and economic reforms did not conform to Western expectations. The elites, who had carried over their position of influence and privilege from the Soviet order, agreed to those changes that only would improve their own position. As elsewhere in the post-communist world, this meant that the bulk of state resources was transferred to the private ownership of the communist elite at the expense of a majority plunged deeper into poverty. …
Atmospheric drag effects on the KOMPSAT-1 satellite during geomagnetic superstorms
We examine the atmospheric drag on the low earth-orbiting satellite, KOMPSAT-1 in a sun-synchronous orbit at ~685-km altitude starting in 1999, during a 3-month (October-December) period in 2003. This 3-month interval includes the October 29-30 and November 20 magnetic superstorms and weak to moderate storms. We observed that the daily KOMPSAT-1 drag acceleration transiently responses to transient storm-time disturbances. That is, there is an one-to-one correspondence between the KOMPSAT-1 drag accelerations and the storm events. We find that the drag acceleration correlates strongly with the level of geomagnetic disturbance. This indicates that the trajectory of KOMPSAT-1 is significantly perturbed during extremely disturbed intervals because of atmospheric density increase. The main contributor to the density increase is Joule heating associated with the geomagnetic activity rather than the solar EUV radiation, as reported by previous studies. We suggest that understanding how the upper atmosphere responses to the geomagnetic-associated heating is important to predict space weather impacts on low earth-orbiting satellites.