Foreign Policy 2017 05-06

Watson with his Piper Super Cub bush plane. the country’s first national parks, most famously the Lag Badana National Park in the fertile southern region, where the Jubba River sustained old-growth forests and visitors could see giraffes, elephants, and lions. The agency also protected pas- tures from overgrazing and banned char- coal exports in order to protect trees. “He was a dictator—I know that,” Karani said of Barre. “But actually he was doing very good things [for the environment].” Under Karani’s leadership, the National Range Agency blossomed from a tiny orga- nization with just one Somali forestry spe- cialist to a government agency with about 2,000 people on its payroll by 1988. The agency put 3,000 more employees to work in the countryside on forestry and sand dunes projects in exchange for food rations. Karani’s goal was to get all Somalis to see Watson’s family couldn’t pay, his and THE TRAIL has been quiet EVER SINCE. COURTESY OF A FRIEND TO THE WATSON FAMILY ing out the communities that depend on stayed for a long time,” Karani explained. conservation as their duty: Environment them. Somalis “give names to the droughts, Some 19,000 people starved to death, and a Day was celebrated three times a year, with and they give names to the wars,” said quarter-million nomads lost most of their the main event in April, the start of the Abdullahi Ahmed Karani, whose work as livestock, leaving them destitute. rainy season. Throngs would gather at the one of Somalia’s pioneering environmen- National Theatre in Mogadishu to hear talists spanned too many of both. After the Dabadheer drought, Soma- Barre’s annual speech about the value of lia’s president, the Marxist-Leninist mili- trees, and the following morning, people It was a massive drought that propelled tary leader Siad Barre, decided that more would turn out to public spaces in their Karani, who is now almost 80, into the job needed to be done to help people cope neighborhoods to plant seedlings. that defined his career. Somalia typically with recurring dry spells; they should be has two wet seasons each year: The long prepared for the next inevitable drought. Like other government agencies, the rains, gu, last from April to June and the So Barre established the National Range National Range Agency benefited from deyr from October to November. But in 1974 Agency to spearhead conservation efforts, Somalia’s Cold War alliance with the United and 1975, the rains never came. The Dabad- and he tapped Karani to run it. Housed States, which channeled hundreds of mil- heer drought, as it became known, trans- in a beautiful building with arching ara- lions of dollars into Barre’s coffers. Leading lates to “the long-tailed one,” because “it besque corridors, the agency established researchers and technicians from around FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 49

the world were drawn to the work—bota- firmed that the plastic hippo appeared to pline, and he resolved to learn as much as LEFT PHOTOS: COURTESY OF RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH; RIGHT PHOTOS: NICHOLE SOBECKI/FOREIGN POLICY nists from Pakistan and Sweden, Indian be female. “If I was a hippo, at 10 meters, he could from the senior scientist. They forestry managers, a Canadian ecolo- I’d consider this one of the more attractive worked together on more missions, and gist. Donor countries sent staff to proj- specimens,” he said. “So whoever’s in the Ali’s admiration for Watson grew. He ects housed at the agency, and foreign back better be ready for action.” became a friend and a mentor, encour- universities set up partnerships. A young aging Ali to pursue a master’s degree at Somali named Abdi Dahir, who had stud- Watson engaged easily with all types, New Mexico State University in the United ied plant curation at the Royal Botanic Gar- possessing a kind of dynamism that won States before returning to the National dens in London, came home to direct the him a vast social circle. He was friendly Range Agency in the late 1980s. Watson new national herbarium that contained with British commandos, with whom he was also the rare foreigner whom even 50,000 plant specimens, all displayed in loved to talk aviation; Somali elites includ- Somali elders respected. After he and his wooden boxes. ing President Barre’s son; and even the team had surveyed a given region, they future militia leader Mohammed Farah would always show local authorities their Of all the international experts attracted Aidid, whom American soldiers would tar- maps. When Ali approached them, com- to the National Range Agency, a Cambridge get in the infamous “Black Hawk Down” munity elders would sometimes ask, “Who University-educated British ecologist operation in 1993. But he was close to few gave you our names? How did you get our stayed the longest. With his mop of curly aside from his researchers. Together, Wat- wells, our mountains, our valleys?” When hair, signature khaki vest, and a penchant son and his team crisscrossed the country Ali would reply that a British man was for flying low over the savannah in his Piper by Land Rover and airplane to document doing this work, they were often stunned Super Cub bush plane, Murray Watson had the environment in minute detail at some in disbelief: How could an outsider know already made a name for himself in Africa, 1,400 sites. They divvied up tasks by spe- the land as intimately as they did? tracking herds of wildebeest in Tanzania cialization—flora, water, soil, wildlife—and and hippos in Zambia. But it was Somalia produced intricate, hand-drawn maps of As the 1980s wore on, political turmoil that captured and held his fascination. vegetation and topography, conducted a began to overshadow the work of the census of livestock, gathered thousands of National Range Agency. Barre, whose reign Watson arrived in Mogadishu in 1978, samples of flora and soil, and took nearly had long been characterized by discrimi- just as the National Range Agency was 10,000 slides and photographs. Though nation along clan lines and suppression of starting its work. Through much of the they didn’t know it at the time, they were dissent, began a brutal counterinsurgency 1980s, he led a small team of scientists creating a detailed record of a place on the campaign to stamp out potential threats to who, with international funding and Soviet cusp of calamity. his rule. The government engaged in wan- maps, carried out the most comprehensive ton bombings and indiscriminate killings land and natural resource survey of Soma- Abdirisak Ali was a of civilians. During this period, hundreds of lia ever completed. thousands of Somalis fled their homes. As 20-something-year-old soil analyst at the reports emerged of Barre’s abuses, donors Watson took his work seriously, and he National Range Agency when he flew his began pulling their support for his govern- expected diligence and even perfection first mission with Watson. Ali had never ment. The United States slashed its annual from his researchers. In many ways, he was been on an airplane before, and his stom- aid to Somalia from $100 million in the like a strict father: On the rare occasions ach leapt as Watson banked low along mid-1980s to less than $9 million in 1989. they returned from the field to stay in Mog- the Indian Ocean, snapping aerial pho- adishu—then a cosmopolitan hub known tographs of the coastal vegetation on his “Clearly the present situation is a disas- as the “pearl” of the Indian Ocean—cavort- Olympus OM-1 camera. The day was sunny ter-in-waiting,” Watson wrote in a typed ing with other expats was discouraged. But and windy, and the Cessna bounced to a memo dated Dec. 27, 1990, that he mailed rather than alienate his team, Watson’s landing near the town of Hobyo. to donor contacts in Western countries. A dogged commitment won him their fierce loosely aligned coalition of rebel groups loyalty. There was also a lighter, irreverent There was no airport, just acres of sand was gaining against Barre’s forces. Thou- side to him. During the 1970s, he appeared and scrub. The team set up camp and sands of people had died in street battles in on Jacques Cousteau’s hit adventure tele- relaxed. But Watson didn’t join them, vision series, which featured Watson in his recalled Ali, who at 61 is now a leading envi- On the left are images taken from Watson’s element, studying hippos in Lake Tang- ronmental consultant in Somalia. Instead, land surveys of Somalia; on the right are anyika in Zambia. As the crew unveiled a he worked late into the evening, using a images of these same sites taken 30 years life-sized hippo costume intended for the ruler, a compass, and a Rotring technical later. From top to bottom: the town of Borama; photographers who were attempting to pen to make detailed maps of the region a working hospital in the distance and a live- get close to the animals, Cousteau asked they had just surveyed. stock market, outside of Berbera; highlands Watson for his expert opinion on the suit. near the town of Ceerigaabo, Somaliland; The scientist’s grin broadened as he con- Ali was impressed with Watson’s disci- an airstrip in Qardho, where Watson’s land survey team once had its field base. 50 MAY | JUNE 2017



the capital. “The future holds little hope of Watson stands beside one of his company’s were with him. COURTESY OF A FRIEND TO THE WATSON FAMILY; COURTESY OF MATS THULIN; a rapid return to proper governance,” Wat- vehicles at the Qardho airstrip in 1980 (left); NICHOLE SOBECKI/FOREIGN POLICY son predicted in the same memo. Abdi Dahir, the former director of the herbarium The United States backed Ethiopia’s inva- in Mogadishu, inspects a yeheb nut bush during sion of Somalia in 2006, plunging the coun- Watson’s pessimism would prove an a research trip in the mid-1980s (above); an try back into a civil war from which it has understatement. On Jan. 26, 1991, after a old photo from Abdullahi Ahmed Karani’s yet to emerge. Today, those elements of the month of intense fighting, rebels stormed personal archive shows the former head of the Islamic Courts Union that most worried the presidential palace in Mogadishu and National Range Agency talking with Chinese the United States continue to fight under brought Barre’s 21-year rule to an end. Wat- contractors at the 1981 opening of the agency’s a familiar moniker: al-Shabab. son, one of the few foreigners still in the new headquarters in Mogadishu (right). country, called the BBC with an eyewit- The environmental work headed up ness report that aired the day after the The National Range Agency—its elegant by the National Range Agency has long coup. “You cannot imagine the carnage building nestled between foreign embas- since come to a halt. Karani fled Moga- that the president … is wreaking on his sies in an upscale part of town—met the dishu in 1991. He made his way to a refu- own people,” he said over a rasping phone same fate. On the ground floor, the herbar- gee camp in Kenya and eventually on to line. “I took some photographs of bodies in ium was looted and burned; Dahir’s neat India, where his children re-enrolled in the street just now. There are not so many wooden boxes lay crushed. school. Ali also ended up in a refugee camp bodies in the street because the dogs have in Kenya, resigned to the fact that environ- eaten most of them, but there’s still hands “Nothing exists today,” Karani said. sticking through the sand.” “Everything after the war, the civil war in Somalia, was…” He couldn’t finish the sen- Soon after the president fell, the rebels tence. “That makes me very sad. That’s why turned on one another and destroyed huge I never talk about those things, because swaths of Mogadishu. Footage Watson shot what we built was demolished.” on his camcorder shows residential blocks reduced to rubble; pickup trucks loaded Somalia is often cited as with heavily armed rebels careening past burned-out cars; a lone fighter wandering the longest-running real-world example of through the wreckage of a government anarchy, from the coup in 1991 until 2006, building, documents littering the floor and when a federation of Islamic courts took blowing through its abandoned corridors. control of the southern half of the country and briefly imposed order. But the Islamic Courts Union, as the group was known, governed by sharia, or Islamic law—a shock to Somalia’s more moderate Muslim sensi- bilities—and some of its elements had ties to al Qaeda. That made neighboring Ethi- opia and the United States deeply uneasy. 52 MAY | JUNE 2017

mental work wouldn’t be a priority. “These uted to more frequent drought across East of Mogadishu in ruins, he quietly packed people were just a bunch of gangs,” he said Africa. Somalia’s relatively flat landscape up the records of his land surveys—pho- of the various factions vying for control of leaves it even worse off than its neighbors, tographs and slides, maps, field notes, and Mogadishu throughout the 1990s and early Kenya and Ethiopia, which can reliably natural resource reports, thousands of doc- 2000s. They were not interested in land expect to get at least some rain in moun- uments in total—and spirited them out of management. Watson stayed in Somalia tainous areas where clouds get trapped the country. He let Karani in on the plan, until 1992, working on a nutrition survey among the peaks. but few outside his inner circle knew. Exfil- as the country was wracked by famine. trating state documents would have been Finally, when it became clear his scientific The link between climate change and a serious offense had the government still expertise was being ignored, he moved to conflict is still poorly understood. But been functioning, and doing so meant tra- Laos and restarted his surveying business last year, the African Union’s Peace and versing territory controlled by unpredict- there under the name Resource Manage- Security Council held a session on cli- able warlords. ment and Research. Several of his devoted mate change, warning that the warming researchers went with him. of the planet was a potential trigger for “Watson was telling me that he was intercommunal violence. U.N. experts saving something important to Somalia, As the years passed and Somalia have reached a similar conclusion, as has something very valuable,” Karani recalled a descended further into chaos, no one the U.S. Defense Department, which in a quarter-century later. “I told him I felt safe enforced the ban on charcoal produc- 2014 strategy document referred to climate knowing those documents were with him. tion that was designed to halt deforesta- change as a “threat multiplier” because of Otherwise, like everything, all other doc- tion. No one monitored pasturelands to its potential to exacerbate everything “from uments—nothing would have been left.” prevent overgrazing. And no one noticed infectious disease to terrorism.” In Somalia, when an old Barre-era project aimed at where fishermen-turned-pirates troll the How exactly Watson moved the survey stopping erosion—by introducing an inva- coastline looking for cargo ships to hold documents out of Somalia remains a mys- tery, though it seems likely he flew them “I told him I felt safe knowing those documents Otherwise, LIKE EVERYTHING … nothing would have been left.” sive species of mesquite—went haywire hostage and farmers-turned-insurgents into Kenya in a bush plane. Eventually, and snuffed out indigenous plants across menace civilians on land, these reports Watson brought them to Britain, where hundreds of thousands of acres. Most large simply confirm the obvious. “The fact one of his most trusted researchers stored mammals migrated or died, as war and [is] that many of our youth have lost jobs them in her attic. For more than a quar- environmental degradation ravaged their because of desertification, deforestation,” ter-century, Watson’s work sat there gath- habitats. Illegal fishing and toxic waste said Buri Hamza, who served as Somalia’s ering dust, untouched in carefully labeled dumping increased as foreign companies top environmental official. “This is one of boxes and binders. Over the years, word of took advantage of Somalia’s lawless waters. the major causes of radicalization.” their existence spread to a small group of environmental researchers, most of them In a punishing confluence, climate sci- Before he left in 1992, Watson employed by the United Nations, but few entists also recorded a persistent drop in inside Somalia knew that the blueprint rainfall during these years, especially the carried out the most daring mission of his for understanding how and why the envi- spring gu rains that are vital for agricul- career—and perhaps his greatest service ronment was changing—and, possibly, ture. Meanwhile, the warming of water to Somalia. With the wholesale looting of for reversing the damage—had survived. and atmospheric currents in and over the government agencies underway, and much Indian and western Pacific Ocean contrib- On an unusually sunny morning in 2015, FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 53

I visited Watson’s former researcher at her he spent the rest of our interview quizzing succulent branches reaching skyward, as ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH home in the British countryside. (She asked me about the contents of the attic, almost captured in the slides he took that day. But not to be named.) We spent hours in her as if he didn’t believe the survey documents as I drove along the escarpment 35 years study flipping through Watson’s field notes, had survived. later, I couldn’t find a single candelabra poring over his maps and photographs. tree. Most had died out long before, locals Held up to a light, his old slides offer a The road through the Cal Madow said, as the earth dried up and people fed glimpse into another time: broad, hun- branches from the remaining trees to their dred-year-old trees in southern Somalia, Mountains, home to the highest peaks in camels. Near a cluster of houses made from vines creating a thick canopy over the road, Somalia, snakes through highland juni- skinny logs and blue corrugated metal, I Mogadishu’s cathedral—now an iconic per forests bounded by dramatic lime- stopped to ask if even a single candelabra ruin—intact and majestic. stone cliffs. When Watson traveled along remained: A man selling coffee pointed this route in 1981, likely in his gray Land toward two trees in the distance, one of Months later, at a café in the Somali Rover, the junipers were interspersed with which had lost all of its branches. Those city of Garowe, I told Ali what I’d seen. He abundant candelabra trees, their thick, were the very last, he said. was quiet at first as the news set in. Then 54 MAY | JUNE 2017

From Watson’s 1980s files (clockwise): an aerial photo of livestock grazing on plentiful green pasture; a photo of tradi- tional Somali homes and livestock pens; field notes from Watson’s land survey, including photographs and hand-drawn maps; aerial photographs of the city of Hargeisa taken by Watson, pieced together to create a pre-satellite cityscape. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 55

But it wasn’t candelabras that had Left: Abdirisak Ali, the former Watson acolyte, in and violence leads NICHOLE SOBECKI drawn me to the Cal Madow Mountains; an office where he worked in Garowe, the capi- it was a murder. In the plains that slope tal of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. in 2012, and al-Shabab has been chased gently down from the range, where the Right: Abdullahi Ahmed Karani, who ran the out of most cities—some have started to deep jangle of hand-carved wooden bells National Range Agency for more than a decade, trickle back. A small group of environmen- announces roving herds of camels, violent in Nairobi’s Karura Forest in April. talists, some of whom got their start at the clashes have grown more frequent as pas- National Range Agency, is trying to revive toralists increasingly abandon their tradi- members of his own family. “Fencing of the conservation work that began there. tional migration routes in search of water land and [claiming of] water are the major and pasture. When they encroach on the factors that start conflict,” he said. Watson returned to Somalia to undertake lands of settled farmers, as they did near the fateful survey of the Jubba and Shabelle the town of Aynabo about two weeks before Adan worries about the cycle of violence rivers. Abdi Dahir, who long ago directed I arrived, bloodshed often follows. that his cousin’s killing could spark. Some the herbarium in Mogadishu, came back of the men in his family have gone in search briefly in 1994 to work on a survey of Somali The community there is built around a of the shooter, who fled right after the inci- flora and then moved home permanently single well. A few small farms—each just dent. Tradition dictates that there must be in 2012, joining an aid group called Adeso several rows of beanstalks, watermelon, restitution for Mohamed’s family. If the that focuses on environmental projects. and tomatoes—pump their water from shooter doesn’t return—alive or dead— Abdirisak Ali, Watson’s former acolyte, also it through hoses connected to a central someone else will likely be killed. Revenge generator, which the farmers invested in is a powerful force in the way justice is prac- together. The population, which for most ticed in Somalia, far beyond the reach of the of the year is small enough to squeeze into state. “Cases like this are becoming more a handful of dome-shaped houses made of and more common, which worries me,” wood, reeds, and cloth, swells slightly when said Farax Arab, a health worker who pre- nomads arrive in anticipation of the rains. pared Mohamed’s death certificate. “It’s Last year, a pastoralist named Mohamed like a chain. It goes on and on.” sought to graze his herd on a patch of land claimed by another member of the com- Across the country, the cycle of retri- munity. With most of the pastures barren bution often plays out between clans in and the rains still weeks away, both men an intricate pattern of revenge killings. knew the survival of their animals hung Twenty years from now, if tit-for-tat killings in the balance. escalate in the wake of Mohamed’s death, few will remember that a grazing dispute “Both men lived in the same area. They’d was the cause of the first bloodshed. had a fight before, and the shooter went to the victim’s family to resolve the conflict, Manyof those who fled Somalia but none acknowledged his arguments,” said Ali Yusef Adan, a muscular farmer in during its quarter-century civil war never a white tank top and loosely laced boots. returned, making new lives as migrants Adan is a cousin of both the shooter and and refugees abroad. But as the country the victim. “The shooting came from that inches toward stability—the transitional direction,” he said, gesturing to a deso- government became a permanent one late clearing still strewn with empty car- tridges. “He fired four bullets, and two of them hit the man.” Adan’s father was a nomad, but as he grew older, persistent lack of rainfall made that lifestyle increasingly difficult. When Adan inherited his father’s livestock after his death, he decided to settle and start a farm. It wasn’t an easy decision. Claiming plots of land goes against tradition in many Somali communities, and Adan realized that doing so might cause friction with 56 MAY | JUNE 2017

returned, serving from 2014 to 2016 as the In June 2016, a month after we spoke, of scientists and historians studying the director-general of the Ministry of Envi- al-Shabab detonated a car bomb outside link between land degradation and con- ronment, Wildlife, and Tourism in Punt- the Hotel Nasa Hablod in Mogadishu, flict in Somalia. The field notes and pho- land, one of Somalia’s semi-autonomous where Hamza had lived for the past eight tographs are especially valuable, he says, states in the northeast. Later, he was offered years. Militants then stormed the complex, because they are the only known baseline another prestigious ministerial post but shooting civilians and taking hostages. At data on vegetation, water, soil composi- turned it down in order to continue working least 15 people were killed in the attack, tion, and erosion. “To hear there’s this as a consultant on environmental projects. including Hamza, who was crushed as the potential gold mine of scientific informa- Ali worries that the overwhelming focus walls came tumbling down. tion sitting in someone’s attic.… It’s just on security issues means that the Somali mind-boggling to us.” government and its international backers With Watson likely gone forever and the are treating the symptoms rather than the infrastructure that once supported his work Last summer, not long after I told him causes of the violence. “Yes, we need the in disarray, it has fallen to the next gener- about Watson’s archive in London, Ali trav- military. We need the police. But what are ation of Somali scientists to pick up the eled to the World Agroforestry Centre in the root causes? What is actually driving this mantle and do what they can to help break Nairobi, Kenya, which has one of the larg- transformation in Somalia—the poverty, this deadly cycle. est collections of tree seeds in Africa. For war, clan conflicts?” he said. “And I came to months, he and one of the directors of the the conclusion: It’s the natural resources.” The trove of documents Watson left seed bank, Ramni Jamnadass, had been dis- behind could prove the key to doing so— cussing the possibility of working together This is the vicious cycle Somalia’s gov- though it might seem odd or even crazy to reintroduce several extinct species of ernment finds itself locked in nearly a to place the hopes of a war-torn country trees to Somalia, starting in some peace- decade after Watson’s disappearance: on a decades-old land survey stashed in ful pockets of Puntland. One of the trees, Environmental changes spark violence, a house in the English countryside. But the yeheb nut bush, was a kind of wonder Watson’s archive is both a unique histor- Environmental changes spark violence, to FURTHER environmental DESTRUCTION. and violence leads to further environmen- ical record and a vital scientific resource, plant that could survive in arid climates. tal destruction. Foreign governments and one that environmentalists believe can institutions, which gave $1.3 billion in offi- help them understand the impact of cli- It had yellow flowers that animals ate and cial development assistance last year, can mate change in Somalia, begin to repair be reticent to invest in environmental ini- its degraded environment, and possibly nutritious nuts that fed humans. But with- tiatives as long as bombings and assas- to alleviate conflict. sinations are still a regular occurrence. out a record of where these plants had once Buri Hamza, Somalia’s top environmental “The potential is huge, because this official at the time, told me last year that kind of historical information is needed thrived, and in precisely which conditions, he struggled to get donors to come and for any country—or any society—to witness the scale of the country’s conser- understand processes of ecological change they were planning to enlist the memory of vation crisis. “They say, ‘Until you guys in some sort of systematic and dispassion- bring about security in your country, we ate way, which is fundamental for effective local elders and draw on Ali’s own recollec- won’t really be able to come,’” Hamza said resource management,” said Sean Fox, a of international donors. lecturer in geography at the University tions—a method that boiled down to guess- of Bristol in Britain who is part of a team work and that both of them feared might fail. Now Ali had news to share. Q LAURA HEATON (@lauraeheaton) is a writer and journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. Reporting for this story was made possi- ble in part by The GroundTruth Project. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 57

58 MAY | JUNE 2017

THE Timely DISAPPEARANCE of CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL IN CHINA Illustration by Eddie Guy

From Western plot to party line, for the minister, vice minister, and vari- how China embraced climate ous other subordinates in the immediate aftermath, and obtained by the Guardian science to become a green-energy in February 2010. The report’s authors con- powerhouse. cluded that the plan pushed by the United States, which proposed cuts on all countries by Geoff Dembicki instead of just developed ones, had been “a conspiracy by developed nations to divide the camp of developing nations.” The report also lauded China’s decision to oppose a legally binding climate treaty, trumpeting, “The overall interests of developing coun- tries have been defended.” Far from being the destructors of a progressive plan for cli- mate change policy, the view from within China was that its delegates had possibly faced down a vast Western plot. It was a strong reaction but one mostly rooted in diplomatic objections—a rejec- tion of a deal that could be seen as ask- ing China and India to pay for the sins of countries that had grown rich and mod- IN against Copenhagen December 2009, climate-watchers the the country added 500 new 600-mega- ern by their bad behavior. But just over a world over were trying to make sense of watt coal plants; it was responsible for month later, the idea of the Western plot how the most promising attempt to date at more than 40 percent of global coal con- took a strange, sharp turn. While speak- preventing a global climate disaster went sumption in 2009. From the outside, the ing at a diplomatic event in New Delhi, so horribly wrong. The Copenhagen Cli- rationale for China’s alleged resistance Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate change mate Change Conference had just come to a was rather simple. It just wasn’t in Chi- negotiator—as well as vice minister of Chi- close, and the summit, which had brought na’s interest to put the brakes on its rapid na’s National Development and Reform together 192 countries, was meant to cre- growth for environmental considerations. Commission, the country’s economic plan- ate the world’s first legally binding treaty What could the country possibly gain by ning agency—surprised an audience of on global warming. But in its final days, capping emissions? foreign environment ministers by saying during negotiations between China and that “we need to adopt an open attitude” the United States, talks had sputtered, tee- Back in Beijing, however, there was no about whether humans or natural atmo- tered, and ultimately collapsed. To observ- doubt about the threat of climate change. spheric changes were to blame for the cli- ers eager for good news, the result came as Behind closed doors, officials were telling mate’s warming. It was a shot against the a stunning and disheartening anticlimax. a different story about the failed negotia- very foundation of climate science. tions in Copenhagen. To most of the West, it appeared that China had come intent on playing the “It was unprecedented for a conference spoiler. The country’s coal consumption negotiating process to be so complicated, had been growing steadily for decades as for the arguments to be so intense, for the the government pushed industrialization. disputes to be so wide and for progress to be In the four years preceding Copenhagen, so slow,” observed an internal report com- missioned by the Environment Ministry 60 MAY | JUNE 2017

Though the remark flummoxed the dip- and colder, but they are still lying through life story in school textbooks. In the early lomats in the crowd, it could have been their teeth. These disgusting Westerners 1970s, toward the tail end of his career, he written off as a negotiating ploy. Chinese never stop trying to topple China,” argued drew from historical Chinese records to leaders had been cagey about the politics one online commenter in response to hypothesize that global temperatures had of global warming and had assented to sign Lang’s show. “These foreign bastards are risen and fallen by several degrees Celsius the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen’s so worried that China will rise and sur- during the past 5,000 years—due to natural predecessor, on the condition they not pass the United States. Because they are fluctuations. It was a different conclusion be forced to limit emissions. It was known jealous of China, they even made up lies from that reached by researchers in the that there were still powerful forces in the about China … the scientists are all pup- United States and Europe, some of whom government that were antagonistic toward pets controlled by politics,” read another. speculated that the planet was cooling. any plan that could curtail the country’s The commenter continued: “Copenhagen Others were already finding links between freedom to burn fossil fuels. But this was liars! American liars!” human activity and the steady rise in global something new. Back in China, the pub- temperatures. And though to most, Chu’s lic backlash against Copenhagen—and Over the next year, more than a half- work on cooling was a footnote at the end of climate science in general—had already dozen books on the West’s climate con- his career, China’s climate skeptics latched begun. spiracy were published in China. Social on—less for the particulars of his conclu- media posts theorizing an American con- sions than for the fact that he’d reached On Jan. 17, 2010, a highly popular—and spiracy proliferated. them independently of the West. provocative—television host named Larry Hsien Ping Lang devoted an entire episode Then something strange happened. It is hard to overstate how critical that of his current affairs talk show, Larry’s Eyes After 2011, no more climate skeptic books distinction would become in validating on Finance, to the “great swindle” of global were published. China’s state leaders Chu’s work in his native country. The con- warming. Lang, a University of Pennsyl- stopped their skeptical statements, and viction that Western powers are trying to the intense online discussions dimin- Back in China, the public backlash and CLIMATE SCIENCE in general had already begun. vania-educated economist who was once ished. Just as it was gaining steam, the control and humiliate the country is a described as China’s version of Larry King, conspiracy theory seemed to disappear. recurring theme of China’s modern polit- told his millions of viewers that the goal of And along with it, any public mention of ical development—and closely linked to Europe and the United States at the Copen- climate change denial. As climate skep- its wave of climate skepticism. hagen negotiations was to prevent China tics were gaining a steady foothold in U.S. from being a global leader. politics, why did China’s suddenly vanish? This sense of aggrieved nationalism has a legitimate historical basis. China was often “The Western countries manufactured The origins of climate change treated like a lesser power by Europe and the climate myth without any scientific Japan in the mid-19th and early 20th cen- integrity,” and they have proceeded to skepticism in China can be traced to a sci- turies. Even as the Communists opened “demonize and constrain China in the entist named Coching Chu. A pioneering China to globalization in the 1970s and name of climate,” Lang said. Clips of the meteorologist in the 1920s and 1930s, Chu 1980s, wounded national pride remained episode were viewed tens of millions of later became vice president of the Chinese a potent undercurrent of political life. It times on Youku, China’s YouTube. Academy of Sciences and attained national would eventually give rise to an intellec- fame after authorities decided to teach his tual movement that started in the late 1990s Lang’s worldview seemed to resonate. loosely known as the “New Left.” Members “[The weather] is obviously getting colder FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 61

of this cadre believed China had too firmly na’s delegation snubbed the meeting by United States invented the idea of climate embraced Western-style capitalism, and sending a lower-level diplomat in the place change as a way to exercise control over that to address widening inequality the of the premier Wen Jiabao. Then it opposed China. “Behind the back of the demonizing state must take more control over eco- targets such as a peak in worldwide emis- of ‘carbon,’ we must recognize that it is the nomic life. sions by 2020 and a long-term emissions sinister intention of the Developed Coun- drop of 50 percent. Merkel appeared to tries to attempt to use ‘carbon’ to block the In 2006, after decades of unchecked be furious, Lynas later recalled, and at living space of the Developing Countries,” industrial growth, China’s cities were one point then-Australian Prime Minis- he wrote. In another section, he argued, choked with smog and the country was ter Kevin Rudd banged his microphone “We can see it clearly from the Copenha- poised to surpass the United States as the in annoyance. In Lynas’s opinion China gen Summit that the struggle between [the] top emitter of greenhouse gases—a super- was “torpedoing” hopes of an effective cli- two camps has intensified.” lative it would claim the following year. mate treaty to ensure its access to cheap The Communist government responded supplies of coal. He recounted the meet- Liu had never seen anything like it. He by enacting the Renewable Energy Law ing in a Guardian article: “China wrecked bought as many of the books as he could that same year, which ordered that 15 per- the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack find. cent of the country’s electricity needs be Obama, and insisted on an awful ‘deal.’” met by alternatives to fossil fuels. It cre- Later, as a sociologist at Occidental Col- ated some paradoxical numbers. In 2009, Wen said his name was never included lege in Los Angeles, he did an exhaustive air pollution was so bad that China spent on invitations to the meeting Lynas search for conversations about climate an estimated $110 billion dealing with the attended. And China Daily, a govern- change denial on Weibo, a popular Chinese health impacts, according to the World ment-run English language paper, later social networking site, and sifted through Bank. At the same time, it had quickly argued that China “played a vital role” in decades’ worth of issues of China Daily. Liu become the biggest global investor in clean salvaging the talks by convening a last-min- has published his findings on climate-skep- energy, spending nearly $35 billion in 2009 ute meeting with Brazil, India, and South tic literature in a 2015 journal article titled: alone, compared with about $19 billion in Africa. the United States. There was a strong eco- the country was nomic rationale for doing so. Former Pres- In the immediate aftermath of Copen- ident Hu Jintao argued that China must hagen, China’s foreign ministry spokes- “Low-Carbon Plot: Climate Change Skep- “seize preemptive opportunities in the new woman Jiang Yu accused Britain of ticism With Chinese Characteristics.” round of the global energy revolution.” demonizing and isolating China on the Before long, he was considered the fore- world stage. “We urge them to correct mis- most expert on China’s denier community. These competing forces of distrust of takes, fulfill their obligations to developing the West, a nascent but promising commit- countries in an earnest way, and stay away When I met him earlier this spring at ment to clean energy, and a willful belief from activities that hinder the interna- the university, he was dressed in a but- in the country’s right to develop came to a tional community’s cooperation in coping ton-down shirt, slacks, and glasses—the head in Copenhagen as negotiations stalled with climate change,” she said. It rein- typical outfit of academia. In his small, over the disagreement about who should forced the narrative that the Communist tidy office, he produced a stack of eight bear the burden for cutting emissions. leadership had been teaching for decades oversize paperback books that, after years Though China was at least theoretically in China’s schools: The West was conspir- of research, he has concluded are the most primed to support action against climate ing against them. Some far-left national- influential and widely read skeptic books change, the particulars of the deal—and ists took it further. They began to argue published in China. “[They] all came out even the negotiations—were equally set to that global warming is a hoax. right after Copenhagen,” he said. derail an agreement. “It was a very frenetic, emotional, high-pressure time,” said Mark John Chung-En Liu first stum- With titles like In the Names of CO2, Lynas, a U.K. writer and environmental- ist who was in Copenhagen as an advisor bled upon China’s particular brand of cli- to Mohamed Nasheed, then president of mate denial in 2013, when he walked into the Maldives. a bookshop in Beijing and saw Low-Car- bon Plot: The Life and Death Battle Between At one point during the talks, Lynas China and the West displayed prominently found himself in a room with then-Presi- on a shelf featuring a host of similar dent Barack Obama, German Chancellor tomes. Written in 2010 by a then-rela- Angela Merkel, and two dozen other heads tively unknown Chinese writer named Gou of state. Posted against a wall, Lynas was Hongyang, it argues that Europe and the shocked by what he witnessed. First, Chi- 62 MAY | JUNE 2017

whose cover depicts a flaming dollar sign cations of climate science. They argued driven by a strong economic incentive?” hurtling toward Earth, and The Global that the West leveraged its scientific Low Carbon War raises similar con- Struggle Behind the Low-Carbon Hoax, authority to impose restrictive policies Liu believes the books are crucial to under- on China. This position is central to a 2011 cerns about shifting to renewable energy. standing the worldview of China’s climate book by Deng Guangchi titled Low Carbon “Because developing countries do not have skeptics: Science isn’t neutral, and which- War: The Transformation of the 4th Indus- leading new energy technology, in the end, ever country produces it controls the world. trial Revolution. “The United States uses they have to spend an enormous amount “The Europeans have made great effort [climate policies] as camouflage to force of money to purchase it from the European on climate science for so many years,” developing countries, China in particular, Union,” it reads. In the Names of CO2 argues. “They have to lower carbon emissions and halt their tons of publications and an enormous industrialization processes,” it reads. Liu But as Liu points out, underneath all amount of data to back up their claim.” disagrees, but he can see where this line of the vitriol and paranoia, the core of this This, it explains, gives the West “discur- thinking originates. “For such a long time climate change movement was less about sive power”—a Chinese buzzword used China has had this antagonistic relation- science and more about power politics. As to describe Western domination of global ship with the U.S.,” he said. “This is not the author of The Empire of Carbon Bro- conversation. about the science. It’s about who can emit kers: Carbon Capitalism and Our Bible— how much, and it’s about the West trying whose cover displays a big red grenade Here, the skeptics Liu studied do have to contain China’s development.” in the shape of Earth with a smoking fac- something of a point. When the Intergov- tory on top—writes: “The key is that China ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) This argument is being driven by a wider should not argue whether climate change produced its fourth assessment report in distrust of the capitalist system that China is real or not with the West, but be part of 2007, only 28 Chinese scientists partici- has been embracing over the past decades. the game.” In the end, “many of them are pated in the review, representing less than One of its most outspoken critics is the pop- agnostic,” Liu says. “It doesn’t really mat- ter if climate change happens or not. It’s After decades of unchecked industrial growth, emitting MORE GREENHOUSE GASES than the United States. 2 percent of the report’s contributors. Three ulist and conspiracy theorist Song Hong- really about this huge power play.” years later, the deputy director general of bing, who wrote the 2007 best-selling (in And if China has to compete against the China’s National Climate Center, Xuedu Lu, China) book Currency Wars. It argues that said: “The majority of the IPCC’s references Western financial elites, such as the Roth- West, it might as well win. came from Europe and North America. schild family, are trying to dominate the Developing countries also want their voices world under the guise of open borders and In 2012, with assistance from Yale to be heard in the drafting stage.” Only two free trade. The book’s 2011 sequel claims of the climate skeptic books that Liu stud- that the adoption of financial markets University, Beijing’s Renmin University ied were written by scientists. Their aim for greenhouse gases—in the form, say, of China conducted a rare national climate was to make technical critiques of the IPCC of a cap and trade system—is part of this survey that resulted in some seemingly consensus. One argued that global “tem- plot. “Who would spend so much time contradictory findings. On the one hand, perature change is different from what the and money spreading the idea about car- it suggested that 93 percent of Chinese IPCC [predicted],” Liu said. bon emissions?” Song says. “How can we people think climate change is happen- believe that things like carbon currencies, ing and the majority of respondents believe Most of the authors in Liu’s collection, carbon trading, and carbon tariffs are not it “will harm themselves and their own though, focused on the geopolitical impli- family.” (For comparison, a Yale survey of FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 63

Americans taken around the same time Leaders in China also saw global warm- DeSmogBlog. And Greenpeace estimates found that only 70 percent believe in cli- ing as a looming threat to domestic sta- that Koch Industries has spent $100 mil- mate change, and a far smaller portion says bility. “In China’s thousands of years of lion over a similar period. “In the United it will affect them.) Yet the Renmin study civilization, the conflict between human- States, casting doubt on the human cause found that just 55 percent of Chinese peo- ity and nature has never been as serious as of climate change has been one of the major ple think humans are the primary cause it is today,” Environment Minister Zhou strategies of industry,” said Anthony Lei- of global warming, a percentage roughly Shengxian said. serowitz, the director of the Yale program comparable with the United States. on Climate Change Communication, who China’s new climate policies were helped provide academic assistance for The numbers were surprising, says Bin- accompanied by extensive state outreach, Wang’s study. “There’s been a very con- bin Wang, co-founder of the Beijing-based Wang says. It appears many Chinese peo- certed disinformation campaign.” China Center for Climate Change Commu- ple were receptive to the message—and the nication, who helped design the survey. messenger. Renmin’s 2012 climate survey It’s possible the Chinese skeptics played She had anticipated high rates of belief, found that 86 percent of respondents trust a similar, if truncated, role during a period but the response she found was off the the central government as a source of infor- of internal debate in the government, with charts. Though the months and years fol- mation about global warming. Similarly fossil fuel-friendly interests in the govern- lowing Copenhagen marked a high point high percentages trust scientific institutes ment helping to get the books published. for China’s climate skeptics, internally and China’s news media, which are largely the Communist leadership was coming controlled by the state. This helps explain In China, when the party line cohered to a consensus that global warming war- why so many of the people Wang surveyed around the greener path in 2012, the space ranted serious action, quietly but decisively accept global warming. for that debate disappeared. The leader- pushing out nonbelievers. Without a big ship in the state-run energy companies was announcement of change, the subtle but As for the 45 percent of respondents who largely purged during a recent anti-corrup- steady shift in messaging had gone largely aren’t sure if humans are to blame? Wang tion campaign and now they would have unnoticed by the rest of the world. “The says it’s lack of education. The 4,200 Chi- leaders needed to rethink where China nese adults she and other researchers con- the conflict between should go,” Wang said. One of their main tacted came from affluent urban centers considerations was China’s slowing eco- along with poorer and less-educated rural very clear incentives not to promote denial, nomic growth and whether green technol- regions, whose dwellers can plainly see that even if state-owned fossil fuel companies ogy had the potential to reverse it. droughts and extreme weather are becom- like Sinopec and China National Offshore ing more common—even if they’re unsure Oil Corp. wanted to question the existence The survey revealed that most of the exactly why. “Many Chinese have at least of climate change. “Top [oil and gas] exec- public did not agree with the skeptics. heard about climate change because most utives have always been very much aware Climate change denial was no longer an of them experience it,” she said. of the fact that their promotion depends on acceptable opinion. Indeed, this seems the Party,” a report from the Oxford Insti- to be the moment that China’s climate Liu has tried to find out what happened tute for Energy Studies stated. skeptics vanished. The authors Liu stud- to his once-buzzing hive of deniers. “I tried ied stopped writing books about global to hire a student to look into ‘Do we have In the years leading up to the 2015 cli- warming; no new titles were published any new things coming in from this camp?’ mate change negotiations in Paris, China’s after 2011. The pockets of intense online and so far nothing really,” he said. government made low-carbon growth one discussion they’d inspired appeared to of its top priorities. “It’s a totally different subside. A new perspective had taken hold. There’s the possibility of a de facto cen- situation in China than the U.S.,” Wang said. sorship. Although “we can assume that the By the time China adopted its 12th Five- Chinese government does not actively sup- Another reason China’s skepticism Year Plan in 2011, a green strategy had press such skepticism,” Liu said in a 2015 begun to crystalize. The plan proposed to academic article, it certainly does not pro- turn low-carbon industries into a major vide the conditions that would allow for driver of the economy. China aimed to the kind of climate denial you see in West- spend $761 billion by 2020 transitioning ern countries to flourish: a large network off fossil fuels. “It is a historical moment,” of anti-government think tanks heavily Beijing-based economist Hu Angang wrote supported by oil, gas, and coal companies. at the time, “the point at which China ExxonMobil, for one, has spent $33 million launches—and joins—the global green since 1998 funding organizations like the revolution and adopts a concrete plan of Heartland Institute, which questions the action for responding to climate change.” link between humans and climate change, according to research from the publication 64 MAY | JUNE 2017

receded is that climate change stopped old times to become the weapon to con- lion into renewable energy. All this “is serving the same ideological purpose. strain, oppress, and exploit poor countries.” likely to widen China’s global leadership In Copenhagen, China felt attacked and in industries of the future,” concluded a humiliated by the United States and But nobody in China’s government is recent report from the Institute for Energy Europe. But in Paris, China worked closely publicly echoing those opinions. In the Economics and Financial Analysis. Yet with the United States to negotiate the media and academia, they have also all the United States is still the most import- world’s first comprehensive climate agree- but disappeared. “It’s really fringe,” Liu ant global actor on climate change. “All ment. Obama phoned Chinese President Xi said. “It’s not mainstream.” It seems likely the rest of the world, including China, we Jinping shortly after the talks “to express to stay that way, too. are looking at Trump—what will he do?” appreciation for the important role China Wang said. But no matter what happens, played,” the White House said in Decem- If climate change has been a piece of the she added, “the green transformation for ber 2015. Climate change no longer made larger game that China was playing with China and the world is a reality.” China look weak. It was now a story of Chi- the West, it’s possible that, almost a decade na’s strength. “The current leadership is after the collapse at Copenhagen, Beijing is During the U.S. presidential campaign, really setting its sight on having China be finally—and decisively—winning. reporters dredged up a 2012 tweet that the preeminent global power of our time,” sounded as if it might as well have been said Victor Shih, an associate professor at Shortly after Donald Trump won the drafted by one of Liu’s writers. “The con- the University of California at San Diego presidency, Xi told him in a call that China cept of global warming was created by and a well-known commentator on China. will continue fighting climate change and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. “[Fighting climate change] does give China “whatever the circumstances.” Though the manufacturing non-competitive,” Trump the opportunity to do so.” new U.S. president has staffed his admin- wrote. But perpetuating hoaxes and plots istration with skeptics such as Scott Pruitt, won’t win the coming fight against climate But it doesn’t mean climate skepticism the head of the Environmental Protection change. It’ll be the ability—and the will- Agency, China released data suggesting it could meet its 2030 Paris targets a decade “In China’s thousands of years of civilization, HUMANITY AND NATURE has never been as SERIOUS as it is today.” in China has disappeared—not completely. early. “The financial elites I talk with,” ingness—to adapt. And while China has When Liu and his colleague Bo Zhao, an Shih said, “they think that the fact that assistant professor at Oregon State Uni- the Trump presidency has so obviously seized onto climate change as the issue on versity, did an extensive search of all the withdrawn from any global effort to try Weibo posts mentioning climate change in to limit greenhouse gases provides China which it could be both a technological and the months before and after the Paris nego- with an opportunity to take leadership.” tiations, they found contrarian opinions. A moral leader, the United States has taken U.S.-educated physics researcher named The paths both countries are taking Wan Weigang speculated in one of the more couldn’t be more divergent. While Trump a great leap back. popular climate denier posts that, “Maybe rescinded Obama’s Clean Power Plan with in five years, the global warming theory will a promise to end America’s “war on coal,” In November, the world will come be cited as a joke.” They found other state- China aims to close 800 million tons of ments that could have been lifted right out coal capacity by 2020. The U.S. Office of together again in Bonn, Germany, for the of the skeptic books in Liu’s office: “Climate Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy is replaces guns, cannons, and warships in facing a budget cut of more than 50 per- latest United Nations conference on cli- cent when China is pouring over $361 bil- mate change. We’ll have to wait and see who the spoiler will be this time. Q GEOFF DEMBICKI (@GeoffDembicki) is the author of Are We Screwed? How a New Generation Is Fighting to Survive Climate Change, out in August. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 65

THE Radically INTERNATIONAL History of AMERICA’S BEST IDEA The United States may have invented national parks—but the rest of the world helped perfect them. Now, generations later, that spirit of cooperation and competition might just be the thing that saves them. by Tim Murphy Illustration by Kevin Tong 66 MAY | JUNE 2017



II. free-for-all at the time of his visit. The The United States may have been the government had let private owners set up first country to christen a national park bathhouses on the grounds, which might with the founding of Yellowstone in 1872, not have been so bad except those own- but it did so not out of intrinsic brilliance ers were rarely around. In their absence, or wisdom passed on from the Founders. bathers were at the mercy of one another. Rather, America’s parks got their start I N January 1886, a Canadian bureaucrat Someone with rheumatism “may enter a through a series of fortuitous—and often named John R. Hall was dispatched on an tub immediately after it has been vacated shameful—events. Certainly, by modern urgent mission to Hot Springs, Arkansas. by some one afflicted with a contagious dis- standards, many users of the early parks The Dominion government had recently ease,” Hall noted in his report. The federal were decadent and depraved, hunting protected 10 square miles outside Banff government had disbursed little money for wolves and chipping off pieces of geo- in Alberta, Canada, having learned of the staff or improvements. “I have mentioned logical features to bring home. U.S. law- “remarkable curative properties” of the the apparent laxity of management,” Hall makers were not environmentalists then. area’s steamy, sulfur-rich waters. Given the wrote. “[I]t would be more strictly accurate Federal protection began in earnest only close proximity to a railroad depot there, the to say that there is no management at all.” after the Civil War, when the U.S. Army Canadian Pacific Railway Co. had prodded Despite Hall’s disparaging assessment, pivoted to fighting American Indians. The the government to act in the hope that the the Canadians decided the problem lay in campaign of ethnic cleansing and reloca- new preserve would boost tourism on its the execution, not the idea. When park sup- tion that followed opened up expanses of recently completed transcontinental line. porters in the Canadian Parliament finally the West to exploration for the first time. But the cart had gotten ahead of the iron made the country’s parks official in 1887, Reports from the region confirmed its nat- horse. Visitors who hoped the waters would beginning with Banff, lawmakers plagia- ural grandeur, and the government started restore their health began descending on rized their enacting language from the U.S. carving out land for posterity. By the time the springs before the government could legislation that had authorized the “public figure out how to manage its new posses- park” at Yellowstone. sion. To further complicate things, squat- Whether Canada or the United States ters (some of whom had helped construct gave it much thought at the time, the delib- the railroad) had made their own claims to eration over Banff marked one of the first the land and built shacks near the springs. acts of national-park diplomacy. The two So, the Canadians turned their gaze south nations had broken ground on a new way “America’s Best Idea” to Arkansas where the U.S. government of thinking—not just about the ways gov- had been running a similar operation for ernments interact with their land, but also some 50 years; its popularity was widely how they interact with each other. Though known. Hall’s instructions were to study the the Canadian and American systems would workings of America’s first protected pub- stumble through missteps over the next lic land and report back on how the Yanks half-century (Banff would even host a World had done it. War I internment camp), Hall’s early visit Hall’s train was held up by a snowstorm shed light on a fundamental and valuable in Missouri, but he eventually made it to lesson. Commerce could be an essential Theodore Roosevelt left the White House in the then-912-acre preserve in the Ouachita lubricant for getting new parks off the 1909 there were eight national parks, nine Mountains and promptly panned it in a note ground, but government was essential to national monuments, and an expanding to his superiors. He declared that the springs keep them running. network of national forests. lacked “intelligent supervision, modern The story of public lands in the United Word of these parks and their stunning appliances, cleanliness and civility.” States hinges on the tension between the attractions quickly spread, hurried along President Andrew Jackson had origi- country’s most entrepreneurial impulses by private sector advertising. Beginning in nally signed a bill setting aside the land and its most utopian ones, and the parks the late 19th century, visitors came to the that would become Hot Springs National could not exist without either. That tension American West from around the world and Park as a federal reservation in 1832. But has not diminished. If anything it may be returned home as converts, determined to after enacting protections for the site, Old more heightened than ever, and it’ll take start their own parks. A former New Zea- Hickory and Congress seem to have left the a new, more muscular brand of conserva- land premier was moved to preserve his area mostly unregulated. Conditions had tion and diplomacy to keep two centuries country’s geothermal hotspots after an reached rock bottom in the years before of slow, complicated progress from crash- 1873 painting expedition to California’s Hall’s mission, and it was still largely a ing down. Yosemite Valley and Hot Springs. The 68 MAY | JUNE 2017

long road to a national park system in the alism about U.S. parks, has often been he encouraged Washington to devote full- United Kingdom began with a visit in the attributed to the prolific American novel- time attention to its crown jewels. Here was 1920s to three American parks—and two ist Wallace Stegner, whose writings on the a Brit suggesting that the United States Canadian ones—by a British lord. When West helped promote conservation. Docu- adopt an idea that Canada had embraced Poland opened its first park, the govern- mentarian Ken Burns credited the novelist the previous year, 1911—the Dominion ment proudly cited the motto above the with the phrase and used it as the name of Parks Branch. The roles were now reversed. north gate of Yellowstone: “For the Bene- his 2009 series about the parks. Actually, The Americans followed Canada’s exam- fit and Enjoyment of the People.” Because Stegner ascribed the original description to ple, and the U.S. National Park Service was Europe was already densely populated, its someone else—a British ambassador, Lord authorized four years after Bryce’s address. parks first took hold in colonial enclaves James Bryce, a friend of Teddy Roosevelt that, like the United States, had dispos- and an amateur explorer who claimed to Complementing this regulatory trend, sessed native populations of vast swathes have discovered a plank from the remains a capitalist strain, more concerned with of land and then deemed it wilderness. of Noah’s Ark. If Bryce did say it, he tem- commerce than ecology, was glamorizing Australia’s first park, which was creatively pered his admiration with constructive the parks. In 1906, a group of railroad exec- called The National Park, came a few years criticism. During a 1912 speech in Balti- utives, entrepreneurs, and representatives after Yellowstone’s founding. The Dutch more, he praised the American system of from the U.S. government, Mexico, and created a preserve in Java in 1921, and King parks, but warned of the perils ahead if Canada had met in Salt Lake City to hash Albert set aside more than 59,000 acres of the nation didn’t take a stand against new out a plan to compete with the booming the Belgian Congo in 1925. threats being pushed by some of the parks’ European tourism market. Their solution boosters in the tourism industry. was called “See America First,” a simple Today, there are more than 209,000 des- slogan that for its isolationist echo was ignated protected areas across virtually Railroads had lobbied for Yellowstone, in key ways international. It wrapped the every country on Earth. By almost any Glacier, and other parks in the late 19th cen- country’s northern and southern partners They would never have been mythologized as if the parks HADN’T BEEN SHAPED by foreign influences. metric—square miles covered (more than tury, recognizing them as a major source in its embrace, inviting tourists from across 12 million) annual visitors (a record of revenue for their lines. The automotive the Atlantic to visit all three countries in a 330 million in U.S. national parks last year industry and attendant motels and drive- North American version of the grand tour. alone and some 8 billion to natural areas throughs soon followed, and would turn The founding document emphasized the internationally each year), wildlife selfies the great Western road trip into a national plan’s economic benefits and “vast amount (data unavailable)—they are bigger, and rite of passage. of good” to Mexico and Canada in addition more crucial, than ever. to the United States. But Bryce presciently wondered where It’s worth remembering that in typical such developments might end. He pro- The result was that at a critical moment American fashion a lot of what made the posed the radical idea of banning auto- in history, with the park service soon to country’s parks great was borrowed from mobiles and paved roads in parks like be established and the West still empty somewhere else. They would never have Yosemite, anticipating, in some form, enough to save, the United States went succeeded or been mythologized as “Amer- the wilderness areas that would sweep big—and inclusive. What followed was the ica’s Best Idea” if the parks hadn’t been public lands decades later. And at a time flowering of an intracontinental conserva- shaped by foreign influences. when parks were overseen haphazardly tion movement, focused on drawing tour- by a patchwork of government bureaus, ists to North American wonders as opposed That slogan, which captured the ide- FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 69

to European ones. (The slogan was ubiq- Every spring tourists encounter spectac- of the 21st century is omnipresent and uitous enough to inspire a 1916 Broadway ular evidence of the internationalism that existential. You can keep condos out of romantic comedy by the same name, with shaped America’s parks: the very cherry Yellowstone; you can’t easily keep sum- music by Cole Porter.) Under the auspices trees lining the National Park Service’s mers from getting warmer. The balance of “See America First,” the United States walkways that were a gift to the United between development and conservation quintupled its number of parks (with 34 States from Japan in 1912. The park area has been thrown way off kilter. If the per- by 1968) and coaxed its neighbors to do was championed by first lady Helen Taft, ils facing parks are no longer local or even the same. After the establishment of Gla- who was inspired by a similar arbor she national, then the way we address them cier National Park in Montana in 1910, by had visited—not in the United States, but can’t be either. Protecting the parks in a which time Canada had already designated on a visit to Japan. This year, though, the moment of global environmental upheaval its own park, Waterton Lakes, across the canopy of pink blossoms appeared weeks means thinking of them as the global insti- 49th parallel, the two countries agreed to ahead of schedule because of the chang- tutions they are. a “peace park” spanning both sides of the ing climate. What started as a symbol of border. At the same time, the United States peace has become evidence of something It remains to be seen whether Trump, sought a similar arrangement with Mexico, more ominous. who seems determined to alienate many of and the U.S. government set aside public the nation’s oldest allies, can be persuaded lands in the hope of forming a southern III. to temper his most destructive impulses. peace park. The dream was never quite Who knows? Maybe a businessman as realized—at least not in so explicit a form. Today, with the U.S. National Park Ser- obsessive about branding and building However, borderland preserves, such as vice still on a victory lap for last year’s cen- big things could understand the value of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument tennial celebration, America’s parks may “See America First” to include the coun- in Arizona and Big Bend National Park in be on their shakiest footing since their try—an entrepreneurial experiment on the Texas, are enduring descendants of this inception. grandest scale. Since he became president, aspirational moment. President Donald Trump, elected on a global environmental Parks and land preserves had become a promise to put “America First,” is working global currency by which countries com- to roll back air and water regulations and though, his actions have been cause for pete, negotiate, and curry favor. In more open public lands for drilling and mining. alarm. At an impromptu ceremony for the recent decades, for good or ill, natural Republican members of Congress recently White House press corps in April, Press Sec- preserves have remained political the- pushed for legislation that would allow retary Sean Spicer announced that Trump aters—the terrain on which nations fur- for a fire sale of public lands to state gov- would donate his first paycheck—$78,333— ther dialogue, coerce, or extend influence. ernments. The new administration is also to the park service for the purpose of main- In 2009, when the United States wanted moving to change the protected status of taining national battlefields. But that was to demonstrate progress in post-Taliban some two dozen national monuments, a pittance compared with the $1.5 billion Afghanistan, it pointed to the establish- including a 1 million-acre swathe border- he proposed to cut from the Department ment of that nation’s first national park, ing the Grand Canyon, that were estab- of Interior’s budget in March. That bud- Band-e-Amir. Bill Clinton grew U.S. influ- lished by Presidents Clinton, George W. get, incidentally dubbed “America First,” ence in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Bush, and Barack Obama. There are plans also forecasted a smaller role for the park Iron Curtain by sending park rangers to the to build a 20-foot wall through one of the service, deemphasizing land acquisi- Carpathian Mountains to rebuild the out- most ecologically diverse regions in North tion and advocating for increased reve- doors economy. Ecuador and Peru averted America. Meanwhile, the parks are facing nue from “environmentally responsible” conflict in the late 1990s by setting aside a new threat. Climate change will cause their disputed border region, the Cordil- Joshua Tree to lose its Joshua trees and lera del Cóndor, as a peace park. In 2013, Glacier to lose its glaciers. Israel hastily designated a new national park near Jerusalem to serve as a buffer When unwelcome or unlawful develop- against Palestinians moving into a tense, ers began to encroach and sully America’s disputed neighborhood. (One Israeli press picture-perfect landscapes in the 19th cen- headline referred to the project as the “Stra- tury, the solution seemed simple enough: tegic National Park.”) Draw red lines on a map and cordon off selected areas from intruders. The crisis There may be no more powerful sym- bol of cultural diplomacy in a national park than Washington D.C.’s Tidal Basin. 70 MAY | JUNE 2017

energy development. Before his donation, ment on climate change, perhaps Obama’s Roosevelt’s dream of a peace park, Amer- the administration’s first interaction with most important contribution to the parks. ican and Mexican officials announced a the park service was to chide the agency for Trump hasn’t abandoned the landmark compact to commit to its long-term protec- posting a photo of the thinned-out inau- accord, but has taken steps that would pre- tion. In lieu of a toast, they released 267,000 guration crowd on Twitter. vent the United States from meeting the Rio Grande silvery minnows into the river carbon-reduction requirements mandated to celebrate. Before they left in the 1940s, Trump’s experience with conserva- by the treaty. Energy Department staffers ranchers in the Big Bend had culled much tion has mainly been limited to an over- have been instructed not to use the term of its wildlife—bears, wolves, and bighorn grown state park outside New York City “climate change” in their work. sheep. But more than four decades after the that he donated to the state of New York last one lived in the park, a mother bear in exchange for a massive tax break after Meanwhile, the Department of Home- that had wandered across the river was acquiring the land for about $3 million. land Security has begun preliminary plan- spotted with two cubs that had evidently His green spaces are golf courses, not for- ning for a wall along the southern border, been born in the Big Bend. In the 1990s ests, and the cultural heritage he chooses through some of the lands proposed for a and 2000s, that transient population grew to celebrate is often one of his own cre- peace park in the early 20th century. One into a stable community. As of the most ation. When Trump unveiled a newly ren- early proposal obtained by Reuters calls recent count, there were some 30 bears in ovated golf course on the Potomac River for the wall to (somehow) pass through the park, an unassisted species recovery outside Washington, he added a histori- the canyons and mountains of Big Bend that is almost unprecedented along the cal marker—not to any of the dozen or so National Park, although the actual route is southern border. Bighorn sheep have been park service-protected forts or battlefields uncertain. From a conservation standpoint reintroduced to the area; wolves might be nearby, but to a fictitious Civil War bat- the idea seems almost cruel, because there a bit further off. tle that had been conceived for the pur- may be no better example than the Big poses of selling the course. Conservation Bend of what a collaborative, international Megafauna do not recognize political Protecting the parks in a moment of UPHEAVAL means thinking of them as the GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS they are. for conservation’s sake has never appealed approach to the parks can accomplish. boundaries. The parks are international to him; the land is only as valuable as what In the 1990s, the Mexican government he can sell it for. in their origin and in their function—mon- finally established two small preserves Obama, by contrast, viewed himself as along the Rio Grande, across from Big uments to cooperation, commerce, and a steward of the land, and actively con- Bend—and added a third in 2009. Just as cerned himself with the climate science importantly, the cement giant CEMEX, soft power. America’s early conservation- relevant to its protection. While visiting which owned an entire mountain range on Yosemite last year, he expressed alarm that the Mexican side of the border across from ists recognized that borders could be pro- “Bird ranges are shifting farther northward, the park, announced that it, too, would alpine mammals like pikas are being forced be setting aside its property for conserva- tected not as heavily policed barriers but farther upslope to escape higher tempera- tion. The result was the creation of what tures,” and “Yosemite’s largest glacier— conservationists call a “transboundary as shared, global public trusts that man once a mile wide—is now almost gone.” mega-corridor,” an interlocking series of public and private protected borderlands. and beast could roam across freely, and The Trump administration has been In 2011, invoking President Franklin D. foggy about the future of the Paris Agree- that responsible stewardship of the land makes nations more—not less—prosper- ous. That’s a pretty radical idea—maybe even one of America’s best. Q TIM MURPHY (@timothypmurphy) is senior reporter at Mother Jones. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 71

“GMAP helped me become a relentless learner.” Photo By: Peggy Sirota – Guilherme Athia, GMAP13 Senior Director, Government and Public Affairs: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Nike, Inc. ђђѡȱ ȱќћȱѡѕђȱќюё Geneva, Switzerland: June 1–2 Visit us at etcher.tufts.edu/GMAP and contact us at [email protected] for more information, to RSVP, or to schedule a Skype or phone call with a member of our admissions team. MAKE BREAKFAST HAPPEN SO KIDS CAN BE HUNGRY FOR MORE I was one of our nation’s hungry kids growing up. Today, 1 in 5 children in America struggle with hunger. But when they get breakfast, their days are bigger and brighter. Learning, attention, memory and mood improve. Together, we have the power to get breakfast to kids in your neighborhood— let’s make it happen. Go to hungeris.org and lend your time or your voice. Viola Davis, Hunger Is Ambassador Hunger IsÆ is a joint initiative of the Albertsons Companies Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation, which are 501(c)(3) charitable organizations.

“Unfortunately, the Trump administration is bowing to the old special-interest line that the United States must choose economic competitiveness over environmental protection even though history says otherwise.” GINA MCCARTHY, P. 6 Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

deep state cafe by DAVID ROTHKOPF The Wages of Sin Is the Death of the World The biggest threat to a fragile planet is human frailty. 74 MAY | JUNE 2017 This is the theory known as the butterfly effect—the notion that a butterfly batting its wings on one side of the world could trigger violent storms on the other. Pair this theory with “human warm- ing” and we arrive at a corollary that could be called the “Weiner- fly effect,” which would explain how the small movements in the vicinity of Anthony Weiner’s fly could have an impact on the global environment. (Past examples include the Berlusconifly effect, the Strauss-Kahnfly effect, and, most relevant to this discussion, the Clintonfly effect.) This might seem like adolescent humor (and it is), but bear with me: The politics of sex has had an impact on our climate, and they illustrate an even bigger challenge we face. To understand the Weinerfly effect, we have to first understand its consequences, then work backward to the causes. Today, we have an administration in Washington that is resolutely commit- ted to battling not climate change but the idea of climate change. President Donald Trump has done more than openly question climate change. He has appointed an Environmental Protection Agency head who has been an anti-climate activist throughout Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK his career; he has signed executive orders And what triggered this investigation? one of the seven deadly sins applies, first undermining the climate protections that An unrelated inquiry into the sexting of for- and foremost: greed (the attempts by Exx- Barack Obama put in place; he has actively mer Rep. Anthony Weiner. That’s right. As onMobil, the former company of Secretary promoted the use of coal (one of the worst virtually everyone knows by now, because of State Rex Tillerson, to battle and under- among our major energy sources) as well Weiner was a perv the FBI investigated him, mine climate change activists and scien- as promoted the myth of “clean coal”; he and because he had some emails from his tific findings). Sloth plays a role (People in appointed the head of one of the world’s wife, Huma Abedin, on his laptop and Abe- the United States and in many countries largest petrochemical companies as sec- din was a top aide to Clinton, those emails around the world have failed to make bat- retary of state; and he has threatened to were relevant to the FBI’s investigation into tling climate change a priority). Gluttony pull the United States out of global cli- the then-Democratic presidential nominee. is there, too (Cattle ranching has caused mate accords. And through all of this, So, the FBI not only reopened the investi- tremendous environmental degradation, the Trump administration has been sup- gation into Clinton, but announced it in threatens water supplies, and is linked to ported by most of the GOP leadership who a way that may have tipped the results in global warming). And envy and pride drive have made it a point to take the bold stand Trump’s favor. Indeed, it seems likely it against science and facts. did. Which means that the uncontrolled impulses of Anthony Weiner will have In fact, no administration in modern his- directly led to grievous damage being done tory has done so much so fast to endan- to the environment. ger the environment, and it is committed to doing more—for all the wrong reasons. The most distinguished champion of the environment to achieve high office in But how did such outliers (and out- rageous liars) come to hold positions of WHAT I AM TRYING TO ILLUSTRATE power? According to recent studies, Amer- icans strongly believe global warming is IS THAT BAD BEHAVIOR UNRELATED TO occurring, and, according to recent poll- CLIMATE ISSUES CAN ACTUALLY HAVE ing data, over two-thirds of Americans PROFOUND EFFECTS ON THE CLIMATE. want to limit carbon emissions from coal power plants. The president and his team modern times in the United States may the consumption of petroleum byproducts remain firmly outside the mainstream even well be former Vice President Al Gore. He, and the acquisition of cars and jet planes. as obvious changes to the planet—shrink- like Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote ing ice caps, increased extreme weather, and narrowly lost the Electoral College. He In other words, while emissions create record- breaking temperatures—receive was also a victim of the indiscretions of a global warming human behavior creates recognition. politician, in this case his former boss, Bill the demand for the emissions, the impulse Clinton. Had Clinton not taken advantage to continue to violate the environment, the Trump won the election by a margin of an intern and created a scandal, perhaps lack of political will to act with sufficient of just under 80,000 votes in three states Gore would not have been afraid of politi- urgency, and the success of politicians who (affording him the Electoral College edge). cal contagion and asked him to campaign are faithless stewards of the environments Experts like Nate Silver have since indi- in Arkansas, which might well have won that have been entrusted to them. cated that this difference could have that state for Gore and made him president. resulted from then-FBI Director James The biggest threat to a fragile planet is Comey’s decision, just days before the elec- Now, I am not suggesting for a moment human frailty. Regulations and laws and tion, to publicly reveal that he was inves- that sleazy politicians are responsible for cli- policies and international agreements won’t tigating a previously unknown batch of mate change. What I am trying to illustrate change that. Only a good long look in the Hillary Clinton’s emails. is that bad behavior unrelated to climate mirror (or the rising seas around us) will. Q issues can actually have profound effects on the climate. Certainly, more than just DAVID ROTHKOPF (@djrothkopf) is CEO and editor of the FP Group. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 75

green politics by GINA MCCARTHY Lean In to Climate Change To maintain an edge against China, America must continue to be an environmental leader. 76 MAY | JUNE 2017 eventually pushing the Chinese government to respond by bet- ter connecting the dots among clean air, climate change, and economic growth. International relationships have always been influenced by the availability (or constraints) of natural resources essential to public health, well-being, and economic growth. Unfortunately, the “America First” mantra touted by the Trump administration seems blind to the fundamental need for clean water, air, and land. There are vast economic opportunities and diplomatic leverage the United States can either seize on or cede to China through climate leadership. The proven economic benefits of domestic action to advance clean energy, such as tax incentives for wind and solar energy, have supercharged our fast-growing clean-energy industry, added hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs, and promoted sig- nificant economic growth. Clean energy helped pave the way for the Obama administration to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 1994 levels, while managing to create 11.3 million jobs with 75 Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK straight months of employment growth. requires multilateral cooperation, which ucts. During the Obama administration, In short, the current administration will always demand a strong, global leader. Without a path paved by nations bold and we set a course with the auto industry to doesn’t seem to get it. It argues that the considerate enough to set terms, craft solu- Environmental Protection Agency needs tions, and sell them to the rest of us, we double fuel efficiency and prevent mil- to return to its “core mission,” as if carbon will all suffer the consequences of inaction. pollution doesn’t threaten public health lions of tons of carbon pollution. Today, and safety—never mind its impact on clean In the past, the United States has been air and water. that leader. the industry is thriving. If the Trump administration fails to As a country, we became stronger and Bullish environmental leadership and show leadership on domestic climate more competitive because of our unflinch- actions and support the Paris Agreement ing action, not in spite of it. When the climate action are not costs; they’re invest- on climate change, it will cede a competi- thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer tive economic edge to nations like China. threatened the well-being of all people, ments. By weakening or withdrawing our It would place the health and safety of our the United States seized an opportunity to families, communities, and country at risk lead. In 1988, the Reagan administration nationally determined contribution to the and waste our international expertise and led a historic charge to institute a global leverage, which are essential to ensuring agreement to attack the pollution causing Paris Agreement, we would be sending the the problem. To this day, the global regime to combat ozone-depleting substances is wrong signal to clean-energy investment hailed as one of the most successful mul- tilateral agreements ever. dollars and the rest of the world, which Unfortunately, the Trump administra- historically looks to us to set the pace and tion is bowing to the old special-interest tone of the global economy. Under President Barack Obama’s lead- ership, we tactfully secured China’s sup- port for a joint climate agreement before BULLISH ENVIRONMENTAL striking the Paris climate deal. In sharp LEADERSHIP AND CLIMATE contrast, climate change was not a topic ACTION ARE NOT COSTS; THEY’RE of discussion during Chinese President Xi INVESTMENTS. Jinping’s visit to the United States in April. And the Trump administration refuses to name a special envoy for climate change, a key U.S. position in international climate negotiations. that each country is accountable to its com- line that the United States must choose Although the EPA and American cli- mitments and achieves lower emission lev- economic competitiveness over environ- els that science may demand over time. It’s mental protection even though history mate diplomacy may be less relevant under misleading of this administration to point says otherwise. to China’s 2030 reduction goal under the this administration’s regressive brand of Paris Agreement, as if it gives the nation During the EPA’s 46 years, the United a free pass until then. China must act now States experienced record growth while scorched-earth leadership, no one per- to meet its commitment, and it is already curtailing pollution. For every dollar spent making substantial investments in renew- on lifesaving regulations, we’ve seen up son—not even the president of the United able energy and disinvestments in coal- to $9 in health benefits—a boon for eco- fired power plants. In fact, during the next nomic welfare. Conventional air pollutants States—can reverse global economic forces five years, China is expected to remain the have been reduced by 70 percent, while largest player in wind-energy growth. our economy grew by about 250 percent. moving toward a lower carbon economy. By 2008, the environmental technologies Combating environmental health risks and services industry supported 1.7 million The train to our clean-energy future has is an exercise in addressing the “tragedy jobs and generated $300 billion in revenue. of the commons.” Pollution, like carbon, is That year, the industry exported goods left the station. diffuse and blind to borders. Addressing and services worth $44 billion, topping global environmental health risks always U.S. sectors like plastics and rubber prod- If we want to lead the world and reap the benefits, the United States must lean into climate action, not away from it. We’ve been that nation before, and we can be that nation again. Q GINA MCCARTHY (@GinaEPA) was the head of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2013 to 2017. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 77

national security by JAMES BAMFORD The Ministry of Preemption To stop security breaches before they happen, U.S. intelligence agencies are surveilling everything. 78 MAY | JUNE 2017 the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which reports directly to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. For decades, from the first World Trade Center bombing to 9/11 to the recent Syrian poison gas attack, U.S. intelligence agencies have consistently been caught off guard, despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent on spies, eavesdroppers, and satellites. IARPA’s answer is “anticipatory intelligence,” predicting the crime or event before it happens. Like a scene from Minority Report, the 2002 film where crimi- nals are caught and punished by a “precrime” police force before they can commit their deeds, IARPA hopes to find terrorists, hackers, and even protesters before they act. The group is devis- ing robotic machines that can find virtually everything about everyone and issue automatic “precrime” alerts. That’s the idea behind the agency’s Open Source Indicators (OSI) program: Build powerful automated computers, armed with artificial intelligence, specialized algorithms, and machine learn- ing, capable of cataloging the lives of everyone everywhere, 24/7. Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK Tapping real-time into tens of thousands the NSA as the deputy national intelligence are already in place, and that administrative of different data streams—every Facebook officer for signals intelligence connected to decision can be changed at any time by the post, tweet, and YouTube video; every toll- weapons of mass destruction. Trump administration, which has shown booth tag number; every GPS download, little regard for privacy issues. web search, and news feed; every street To process such mammoth amounts of camera video; every restaurant reservation information, both open and secret, IARPA During his confirmation hearing last on Open Table—largely eliminates surprise is racing to develop the world’s fastest com- February, Dan Coats, the new director of from the intelligence equation. To IARPA, puter, one capable of “beyond exascale” national intelligence and the head of the the bigger the data, the fewer and smaller speeds—1 quintillion (a million trillion) office to which IARPA reports, expressed the surprises. operations per second—program manager his support for the NSA’s warrantless Marc Manheimer told the Next Platform, a overseas internet spying, which has also If all this sounds familiar, it is. In 2002, news site that covers high-end computing. scooped up some domestic communica- the U.S. Defense Department created Total Under IARPA’s Cryogenic Computing Com- tions. The authority, contained in Section Information Awareness (TIA). Similar to plexity program, the agency is focused on 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance IARPA’s OSI, TIA’s goal was to create a “vir- moving from traditional semiconductors Act, is due to expire in December, but Coats tual, centralized grand database” made up to an energy-efficient superconducting vowed to make reauthorizing it his “top leg- of unclassified, publically available infor- supercomputer able to crunch data and islative priority.” And, as a senator, Coats mation. But following press reports and break encryption at unimaginable speeds. a public outcry, Congress killed it. How- ever, the Pentagon secretly shifted some But collecting the data is useless without resources to the National Security Agen- analysis, and that’s where the dangers of cy’s own research center, the Advanced anticipatory intelligence and “precrime” Research and Development Activity policing are myriad and growing, with (ARDA). Then, in 2007, ARDA quietly mor- the shape of a subject’s face now the lat- phed into IARPA. est determinant of his or her likelihood Even more troubling is IARPA’s secre- COLLECTING THE DATA IS USELESS tive program Mercury, which focuses on data mining private communications col- WITHOUT ANALYSIS, AND THAT’S lected by the NSA. Last year, for example, WHERE THE DANGERS OF “PRECRIME” the agency collected more than 151 million POLICING ARE MYRIAD AND GROWING. phone call records involving Americans, according to a U.S. intelligence commu- to be or become a terrorist. That capabil- voted against the USA Freedom Act, the nity report released May 2. Worldwide, the ity is, at least, the assertion of Faception, number is likely in the billions. an Israeli company that says its software bill that prohibited the bulk collection of uses “advanced machine learning tech- Like OSI, Mercury is outsourced to pri- niques” and “an array of classifiers” to Americans’ phone records. vate contractors who develop computerized “match an individual with various per- robots to scan the ocean of NSA intercepts sonality traits and types with a high level In Minority Report, the precrime pro- for clues to potential terrorists, hackers, of accuracy.” Thus, according to the com- social unrest, and war. According to IARPA, pany’s website, its program can simply gram was shut down after the system was “The Mercury program seeks to develop pick out the likely terrorists, pedophiles, methods for continuous, automated anal- and white-collar criminals from “video proved to be subject to manipulation. That ysis of SIGINT in order to anticipate and/or streams (recorded and live), cameras, or detect political crises, disease outbreaks, online/offline databases.” plot provides a lesson for IARPA. In Decem- terrorist activity, and military actions.” The program manager for the Mercury project, To its credit, IARPA claims that the open- ber 2016, Sean Kinion, a scientist working Kristen Jordan, had previously worked at source data it collects is anonymized to protect privacy—but the group makes no on a program for IARPA, was sentenced to mention of the NSA intercepts. Neverthe- less, the hardware, software, and algorithms 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to faking data. Q JAMES BAMFORD (@WashAuthor) is a colum- nist for FOREIGN POLIC and the author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on Amer- ica. He also writes and produces docu- mentaries for PBS. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 79

history lesson by GRAHAM ALLISON The Thucydides Trap When one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result— but it doesn’t have to be. 80 MAY | JUNE 2017 Of the cases in which war was averted—Spain outstripping Portugal in the late 15th century, the United States overtaking the United Kingdom at the turn of the 20th century, and Germa- ny’s rise in Europe since 1990—the ascent of the Soviet Union is uniquely instructive today. Despite moments when a violent clash seemed certain, a surge of strategic imagination helped both sides develop ways to compete without a catastrophic conflict. In the end, the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Although China’s rise presents particular challenges, Washing- ton policymakers should heed five Cold War lessons. Lesson 1: War between nuclear superpowers is MADness. The United States and the Soviet Union built nuclear arse- nals so substantial that neither could be sure of disarming the other in a first strike. Nuclear strategists described this condition as “mutual assured destruction,” or MAD. Technology, in effect, made the United States and Soviet Union conjoined twins—nei- ther able to kill the other. Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK Today, China has developed its own and China today might involve limits on NSC-68, which provided the road map for robust nuclear arsenal. From confronta- cyberattacks or surveillance operations. tions in the South and East China Sea, to countering this threat, U.S. officials devel- the gathering storm over the Korean Pen- By reaching agreements on contentious insula, leaders must recognize that war issues, the United States and China can cre- oped a winning Cold War strategy: contain would be suicidal. ate space to cooperate on challenges—such as global terrorism and climate change— Soviet expansion, deter the Soviets from Lesson 2: Leaders must be prepared to in which the national interests the two risk a war they cannot win. powers share are much greater than those acting against vital American interests, that divide them. Overall, leaders should Although neither nation can win a understand that survival depends on cau- and undermine both the idea and the prac- nuclear war, both, paradoxically, must tion, communication, constraints, com- demonstrate a willingness to risk losing promise, and cooperation. tice of communism. In contrast, Ameri- one to compete. Lesson 4: Domestic performance is ca’s China policy today consists of grand, Consider each clause of this nuclear par- decisive. adox. On the one hand, if war occurs, both politically appealing aspirations that seri- nations lose and millions die—an option What nations do inside their borders matters at least as much as what they do ous strategists know are unachievable. In abroad. Had the Soviet economy overtaken that of the United States by the 1980s, as attempting to maintain the post-World some economists predicted, Moscow could have consolidated a position of War II Pax Americana during a fundamen- hegemony. Instead, free markets and free societies won out. The vital question for tal shift in the economic balance of power the U.S.-China rivalry today is whether toward China, the United States’ real strat- egy, truth be told, is hope. In today’s Washington, strategic think- ing is often marginalized. Even Barack WASHINGTON MUST THINK THE Obama, one of America’s smartest presi- UNTHINKABLE TO CREDIBLY dents, told the New Yorker that, given the DETER POTENTIAL ADVERSARIES SUCH AS CHINA. pace of change today, “I don’t really even need George Kennan.” Coherent strategy does not guarantee success, but its absence is a reliable route to failure. Thucydides’s Trap teaches us that on the historical record, war is more likely no rational leader could choose. But, on the Xi’s Leninist-Mandarin authoritarian than not. From Trump’s campaign claims other hand, if a nation is unwilling to risk government and economy proves superior war, its opponent can win any objective to American capitalism and democracy. that China is “ripping us off” to recent by forcing the more responsible power to yield. To preserve vital interests, therefore, Maintaining China’s extraordinary eco- announcements about his “great chem- leaders must be willing to select paths that nomic growth, which provides legitimacy risk destruction. Washington must think for sweeping party rule, is a high-wire act istry” with Xi, he has accelerated the the unthinkable to credibly deter potential that will only get harder. Meanwhile, in adversaries such as China. the United States, sluggish growth is the harrowing roller coaster of U.S.-China new normal. And American democracy is Lesson 3: Define the new “precarious exhibiting worrisome symptoms: declin- relations. If the president and his national rules of the status quo.” ing civic engagement, institutionalized corruption, and widespread lack of trust in security team hope to avoid catastrophic The Cold War rivals wove an intricate politics. Leaders in both nations would do web of mutual constraints around their well to prioritize their domestic challenges. war with China while protecting and competition that President John F. Ken- nedy called “precarious rules of the status Lesson 5: Hope is not a strategy. advancing American national interests, quo.” These included arms-control treaties Over a four-year period from George and precise rules of the road for air and sea. Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram,” which they must closely study the lessons of Such tacit guidelines for the United States identified the Soviet threat, to Paul Nitze’s the Cold War. Q GRAHAM ALLISON is director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. This article is adapted from his book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucy- dides’s Trap?, available May 30. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 81

the xer interview by LAURA DIXON Bogotá, Colombia Álvaro Andrés Cardona Gómez on where to find the best cafés, libraries, and manly manicures of the new post-FARC era. WHERE TO WHAT TO READ ON A HIGH PLATEAU in the Colombian Andes, WHERE TO SEE some 9,000 feet above sea level, Bogotá, ENCOUNTER HISTORY Alberto Salcedo a bustling capital of 8 million, is a city to AND BE SEEN Ramos is one of the rival New York, Mexico City, and São Paulo. In the CANDELARIA most important It is impossible for you get a feel for the journalists in Colombia’s largest city is flush with cul- politicians and peo- history of Bogotá, Colombia. He won ture—vibrant cafes, plentiful libraries and ple like that to pop from the ugliest the Rey de Asturias, bookshops, art galleries and museums. into a Bogotá bar. parts to the most and his “cronicas,” It has earned a reputation for car bombs They would have to beautiful. THE PAL or stories, have and violent left-wing guerrilla movements, arrive with 25 body- ACE OF JUSTICE, where been very import- but it is also known as the “Athens of Latin guards. The pow- 11 Supreme Court ant. As for novel- America.” erful go to places judges were killed ists, Juan Gabriel like CLUB EL NOGAL, during a 1985 Vásquez, who wrote The country’s 52-year conflict with the although it, too, was hostage crisis, is Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia bombed in 2003 by worth seeing. The The Sound of Things (FARC) officially ended with a peace deal the FARC. These Falling, is very pop- last November. Today, Bogotá’s colorful clubs offer a wide INDEPENDENCE MUSEUM ular at the moment. if gritty colonial center, the Candelaria, is selection of bever- being revamped. In some neighborhoods ages, including cof- on the corner skeletal future high-rises mark nearly every fee and whiskey, as of the square tells block. There is a buzz in the air, and a sense well as a spa where you more about that after decades of conflict this is a place they look after you the siege. Those set to boom if the deal can hold. completely. To with their eyes on spot celebrities, try the city skyline The peace agreement, which was more a disco called THE will find 33 sculp- than four years in the making, brought END on the 30th tures of Jorge Olave to an end the longest-running war in the floor of the Hotel fixed to the roofs hemisphere, but the hard work continues: Tequendama. of the colonial clearing this country of landmines, tack- buildings in the ling land reform, and reintegrating guer- WHERE TO HEAR MUSIC neighborhood. rilla soldiers who have only ever known a country at war. QUIEBRA CANTO in the Candelaria is In the wake of the peace agreement, a great place for fixer Álvaro Cardona has never been busier. live music and Everyone wants an interview either with salsa dancing. On the FARC or the leaders of the narco gangs the roads between that operate in Colombia’s jungle zones. Caracas Avenue and Calles 53 to In 2011, Cardona, tired of photographing 72, musicians play grisly murders for a tabloid newspaper in all types of music, the coffee-region city of Manizales, moved such as romantic to Bogotá with just $150 in his pocket. He Colombian and has worked as a fixer for journalists from ranchera. If you’re Brazil, Finland, the United Kingdom, and having a party, ask the United States. His work has afforded them how much a quick intimacy with his adopted home- for an hour of music. town, a place he calls “a city of opportuni- They will serenade ties” and terrible traffic. your wife or play at your daughter’s quinceañera. Photographs by JUAN CRISTÓBAL COBO 82 MAY | JUNE 2017

OBSERVATION DECK WHERE TO RELAX LOGISTICS Visitors looking to MALE NAILS kick back inside the city limits can In most cities, while away an beauty salons are afternoon in SIMÓN the domain of BOLÍVAR PARK, where women, but in Bogotanos picnic Bogotá, they are and walk by a packed with men meandering lake or having manicures. along winding trails. Even Colombia’s most macho men WHERE TO SEE ART WHERE TO EXPLORE WHERE TO EAT have transparent polish painted on Visitors who want a Bogotá is known for The ZONA G, which their fingernails. gallery experience its many libraries. stands for the Gas- will enjoy the BOTERO All are worth a visit. tronomy Zone, is in LAST CALL MUSEUM and the GOLD The PASAJE RIVAS a restaurant-packed MUSEUM, as well as market is 120 years area north of the At 3 a.m. It used the NATIONAL MUSEUM. old and a popular city where movers to be that places Colombia’s artists area for crafts, like and shakers like to would be open all have long created wicker baskets and eat. For fine dining, night, but the new masterpieces that woven bags from try EL CIELO, run by mayor has tight- deal with the around the country. the award-winning ened things up. country’s troubled Nearby is the CAFÉ Colombian chef That said, hidden past. Doris Salcedo PASAJE, which poli- Juan Manuel Barri- underground recently put up a ticians frequented entos, whose dishes discos go until 10 temporary work in during the times include coal-black- in the morning. the PLAZA BOLÍVAR— of Jorge Eliécer ened river fish and a massive white Gaitán, the popular prawns cooked WHAT TO EAT shroud printed leader of the with the local fruits with the names of Liberal Party who lulo, papaya, and Stay away from pan war victims. was assassinated in passion fruit. con chicharron— 1948. Now it is an salty bread with almost sacred place pork fat. It will give to sit and have a you indigestion. coffee or beer. Colombian food is very heavy. Bandeja paisa, one of our national dishes, is a plate of beans, rice, chorizo, fried pork belly, eggs, avo- cado, and mince- meat. Not everyone is going to feel good after that. Watch the chichi, too, a drink made from fermented corn or pineapple. It’s nice when it works, but it can make you ill for a week. FP (ISSN 0015-7228) May/June 2017, issue number 224. Published six times each year, in January, March, May, July, September, and November, by The FP Group, a division of Graham Holdings Company, at 11 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20036. Subscriptions: U.S., $119.99 per year; Canada and other countries, $59.99. Periodicals Postage Paid in Washington, D.C., and at additional mailing o ces. POST- MASTER: Send U.S. address changes to: FP, P.O. Box 283, Congers, NY 10920-0283. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6. Printed in the USA. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 83

the nal word by JANE GOODALL monocultures ruins the soil, polluting streams and groundwater. We’ve harmed this planet most griev- ously. No wonder young people are los- ing hope. I meet students who seem apathetic, depressed, or angry. They all say more or less the same thing: “Well, you’ve compromised our future. There’s nothing we can do about it.” Indeed, we have compromised their future. There is a saying: “We haven’t inher- ited this planet from our parents. We borrowed it from our children.” But we haven’t been borrowing—we’ve been The Trees of Gombe stealing. And we’re still stealing. When we elect leaders who promote economic development over the protection of the environment and buy products made with unsustainable practices, we betray the future of our children. Certainly there are reasons to despair, but there are also reasons to hope. Per- I arrived in Gombe Stream National were more people living there than the haps the most driving reason for hope Park, in what is now Tanzania, in land could support, cutting down the is the commitment of young people. 1960 to study chimpanzees. trees as they struggled to grow food. And I’ve seen how their behavior can change that’s when it hit me: If we didn’t improve once we empower them to take action. At first they were afraid, but eventually I the lives of these people, we couldn’t save Everywhere I go around the world, young won their trust. As I came to understand the chimps. people involved in our Roots & Shoots them, I found they are like us in so many The greatest threat to chimpanzees is movement greet me and, with shining ways; they are intelligent with personal- the destruction of their habitat as a result eyes, share what they’ve been doing to ities, family bonds, and emotions simi- of human population growth—people tak- make this a better world for people, other lar to our own. They can be brutal to one ing over more and more of the forest for animals, and the environment. another, but also compassionate. human settlements and farming. Then Nature, if given the proper care, has During those early years I spent hours there is the commercial hunting of wild great resilience. Animals and plants alone in the rainforest. I came to see how animals for food, the international live on the brink of extinction can be given everything is interconnected, each spe- animal trade, mining operations by for- another chance when people take action. cies with its own special role. I always eign corporations and destructive logging; The human spirit is an indomitable thing, found a great sense of a spiritual power all put the chimpanzees as well as the for- visible in those who tackle what seems when I was out in the forest. That’s when I ests’ natural resources at risk. impossible and succeed. Like the peo- concluded that if I have a soul, these other Forests elsewhere in the world are ple in Gombe, who were able to conserve creatures have a soul: If I have it, so does threatened by the expansion of palm oil their land with the help of the Jane Good- the chimpanzee. I sometimes wondered operations, which have devastated thou- all Institute’s TACARE program. Now the about the trees as well—about every liv- sands of square miles of Asian rainforests hills are no longer bare, and the trees of ing thing. and is beginning to in Africa. In addition, Gombe flourish once again. At that time, Gombe was part of the intensive livestock operations that have We have a window of time when we can equatorial forest belt that stretched from grown to meet the world’s demand for heal some of the harm. Maybe it’s wish- western Tanzania and Uganda, through meat penetrate the forest, destroying new ful thinking. I don’t know. But I choose to the Congo Basin, and on to the west coast growth and causing soil erosion. Further, believe that if we get together and develop of Africa. About 30 years later, I flew over industrial agriculture using chemical pes- a new way of thinking we can start put- Gombe in a small plane and was shocked ticides and herbicides on vast areas of ting things right. Q to see it had become a small oasis of for- est surrounded by bare hills. Clearly there As told to David Rothkopf. This conversation has been edited for publication. 84 MAY | JUNE 2017



Addressing the critical issues facing Asia in the 21st century Rapid urbanization is transforming Asia, creating areas particularly vulnerable to disasters and climate change due to rapid growth and incomplete infrastructure. In Vietnam, The Asia Foundation, working with the Ministry of Construction, has piloted a City Resilience Index in five cities to detect vulnerabilities and proactively address risks. Last year, we piloted the index in five cities and trained 110 professionals. This year we roll out the index in 28 more cities. The Asia Foundation, informed by six decades of experience and deep local expertise, plays an essential role in addressing Asia’s critical environmental challenges. READ MORE AT ASIAFOUNDATION.ORG