Programa conducido por el periodista uruguayo-venenezolano experto en temas internacionales Lic Walter Martinez, quien analiza los temas más importantes sucedidos en el mundo desde una perspectiva equilibrada con el objetivo, de brindar a los habitantes "de esta unica y contaminada nave espacial" una versión más real de los hechos.Julio ha sido hasta ahora un mes durísimo para las tropas británicas desplegadas en Afganistán. La muerte de 19 soldados en tres semanas, la mayoría a causa de la explosión de artefactos, ha impulsado en Londres un furioso debate sobre si las tropas del Reino Unido cuentan con equipamiento a la altura de la situación. La imagen del general Richard Dannatt volando por Afganistán en un helicóptero estadounidense -"me habría desplazado en uno británico, si hubiese habido uno disponible", dijo el militar- elevó la polémica al máximo grado. El propio Gordon Brown tuvo que intervenir para calmar las aguas.
Más allá de las escaramuzas políticas sobre el número de helicópteros y blindados británicos disponibles en la provincia afgana de Helmand, el debate en el Reino Unido -junto con Francia, la mayor potencia militar europea- plantea una trascendental pregunta política a todo el continente: ¿en qué estado se hallan los músculos de Europa? ¿Acompañan de manera adecuada su ambición de potencia global? Las estadísticas sobre gasto militar ofrecen una respuesta clara: mientras todas las grandes potencias mundiales han aumentado a ritmos de vértigo su inversión en la última década, Europa gasta hoy lo mismo que hace 10 años. Comparativamente, la fuerza militar europea se está erosionando a gran velocidad.
Los datos son contundentes. China aumentó su gasto militar un 194% entre 1999 y 2008, en términos reales. Rusia, un 173%. Estados Unidos, un 66%. India, un 44%. Frente a esas cifras, en el mismo periodo, Francia incrementó su gasto un 3%; Italia, un 0,4%; Alemania retrocedió un 11%. El Reino Unido avanzó un 20%, debido a su alta implicación en las guerras de Irak y Afganistán. El continente, en su conjunto, registró un avance del 5%. Los datos son del prestigioso Instituto Internacional de Estudios para la Paz de Estocolmo (SIPRI). Según ellos, China se convirtió en 2008, por primera vez, en el segundo inversor militar del mundo.
"El gasto militar es impulsado por tres factores básicos", comenta en conversación telefónica Samuel Perlo-Freeman, investigador del departamento de gasto militar del SIPRI. "Estar involucrado en conflictos armados, como EE UU; tener ambiciones de potencia militar global, como China o Rusia; o gozar de un crecimiento económico elevado, que facilite el aumento del gasto militar. Europa no es empujada por ninguno de los tres. Los países europeos han priorizado objetivos por los que no consideran necesario o útil desarrollar su poder militar".
Así, la capacidad de influencia europea a escala global queda siempre más dependiente del llamado soft power que brota del poderío económico y comercial, de la seducción cultural, del atractivo de su particular mezcla entre libre mercado y protección social. Para muchos, eso es positivo. Al respecto, hay opiniones de todo color. Pero los hechos hablan de duros competidores en un mundo menos noble de lo que ambicionan los partidarios del soft power. Un mundo en el que el hard power no cuenta mucho menos que cuando Stalin, preguntado por las relaciones con la Iglesia católica, dijo irónicamente: "¿El Papa..? ¿Cuántas divisiones tiene el Papa?".
"Europa se ha descolgado del ritmo de crecimiento de los demás. Esto es fuente de preocupación", observa desde Francia Yves Boyer, director adjunto de la Fundación para la Investigación Estratégica francesa. "Si queremos evitar una Europa condenada a la decadencia, los Gobiernos tienen que dotarla de medios en los sectores industriales, culturales, diplomáticos, pero también militares. Aunque sea en contra de las opiniones públicas, los Gobiernos tienen el derecho de actuar en el interés estratégico de un país".
La tendencia, sin embargo, muestra un estancamiento absoluto en la última década, y las proyecciones para los próximos presupuestos no la invierten. La crisis económica global reduce más aún el margen de maniobra.
"Pese al frenazo de las inversiones que perjudica la disponibilidad de materiales", prosigue Boyer, "Europa goza todavía de ventajas comparativas en cuanto a savoir faire. Pero incluso el savoir faire necesita medios para mantenerse en el tiempo, y la espiral actual puede ser peligrosa".
Para hacerse una idea de las magnitudes, las cinco principales potencias militares europeas -Francia, Reino Unido, Alemania, Italia y España- con una población equivalente a la de EE UU y un PIB conjunto poco inferior, suman un gasto militar que representa el 40% del estadounidense.
Pese al espectacular crecimiento, China, y más aún India y Brasil, quedan todavía lejos en términos absolutos de Europa como bloque. Pero hay matices: si el gasto se calculara a paridad de poder adquisitivo, el peso relativo de la inversión china o india subiría mucho. Un mismo millón de dólares en distintas manos compra la misma fracción de un cazabombardero, pero paga muchos más salarios de soldados chinos que de europeos.
Por otra parte, es evidente que la suma del gasto militar europeo sigue siendo más una realidad aritmética que política. Pese a que el ascenso de Sarkozy -su acercamiento a la OTAN y a EE UU- facilite el camino para el desarrollo de una defensa común europea, la realidad es que no hay avances significativos en la materia. El esfuerzo militar europeo permanece pulverizado en muchos fragmentos, mientras realidades nacionales cohesionadas y cada vez más armadas surgen en el horizonte.
WASHINGTON — President Obama tried on Wednesday to rally public support for overhauling the nation’s health care system and said for the first time that he would be willing to help pay for the plan by raising income taxes on families earning more than $1 million a year.
“If I see a proposal that is primarily funded through taxing middle-class families, I’m going to be opposed to that,” Mr. Obama said in a prime-time news conference in the East Room of the White House. A surcharge on the highest-income Americans, under consideration in the House, “meets my principle,” he said.
On a day when the leader of fiscally conservative Democrats said a deal was a long way off and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that she had the votes to push a bill through, Mr. Obama used the news conference to take his message over the heads of lawmakers and straight to the public. Conceding that “folks are skeptical,” he sought to convince Americans that overhauling the nation’s health care system would benefit them and strengthen the economy.
“If somebody told you that there is a plan out there that is guaranteed to double your health-care costs over the next 10 years,” he said, “that’s guaranteed to result in more Americans losing their health care, and that is by far the biggest contributor to our federal deficit, I think most people would be opposed to that,”
“That’s what we have right now,” he said. “So if we don’t change, we can’t expect a different result.”
While Mr. Obama declared, “it’s my job, I’m the president,” he did not use the appearance at the White House to make any fresh demands on Congress, which is struggling to meet his timetable for both chambers to pass legislation before members break for August recess. Mr. Obama did not repeat that demand Wednesday night.
Instead, he sounded cerebral as he delved into policy specifics for nearly an hour and tried to link them to the concerns of ordinary Americans.
As he sought to reassure the public that a new health care system would be an improvement, he also acknowledged that there would be changes that could be unsettling, a point that is often raised by critics of overhauling the health care system.
“Can I guarantee that there are going to be no changes in the health-care delivery system? No,” Mr. Obama said. “The whole point of this is to try to encourage changes that work for the American people and make them healthier.”
Health legislation is Mr. Obama’s highest legislative priority, and his success or failure could shape the rest of his presidency. But while he is under increasing pressure from leading Democrats to delve more deeply into the negotiations by taking positions on specific policy issues, he largely resisted doing so Wednesday night.
But the president did weigh in how the government might pay for the plan.
In addition to saying he would be open to taxing those households earning more than $1 million — a scaled-back version of an earlier proposal that would have imposed a surcharge on households earning $350,000 or more — he signaled that he was also receptive to another idea under consideration in the Senate: taxing employer-provided health benefits, as long as the tax did not fall on the middle class.
On Capitol Hill, Ms. Pelosi said Democrats remained on track to reach a deal on major health care legislation. But she acknowledged that the process had slowed in response to concerns among conservative Democrats about the cost of the bill, and that some House Democrats were reluctant to embrace the income surtax on high-earners without knowing whether the Senate would go along.
Indeed, even as Ms. Pelosi insisted that Congress was closer than ever to achieving a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s health care system, leaders of the Blue Dogs, a conservative faction of Democrats, said a deal was still a long way off. Asked if the House Energy and Commerce Committee could resume work on the bill by late Thursday, as House leaders hoped, Representative Charlie Melancon, a Blue Dog from Louisiana, said: “No way.”
A senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill said party leaders now believed it was essential for Mr. Obama to be more specific about what he wanted in a health care bill — and not just exhort Congress to pass one.
“The president needs to step in more forcefully and start making some decisions,” said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be publicly identified as criticizing Mr. Obama. “Everyone appreciates the fact that Obama has devoted so much time to health care. The bully pulpit is powerful. But in view of the deadlines Congress has missed, we would like to hear more from the president about what he wants in this bill.”
While he faces pressures from fellow Democrats, Mr. Obama is also fending off attacks from Republicans who sense an opportunity to knock him off his stride by arguing that the health care bill, estimated as costing more than $1 trillion over the next decade, will not slow or reduce the growth of health spending.
The White House has been in a running debate this week with Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, who predicted that health legislation would prove to be Mr. Obama’s “Waterloo moment” and would break the president. To that, Mr. Obama said: “This isn’t about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every member of Congress.”
In his opening remarks Wednesday night, Mr. Obama said he was aware that many Americans are asking, “What’s in this for me?” But he also tried to appeal to the nation’s conscience, casting the issue as a matter of urgency to families who are losing their life savings trying to pay for medical care and to businesses burdened by trying to provide coverage to their employees.
Asked what the rush was to meet his August deadline for passage of House and Senate bills, Mr. Obama replied: “I’m rushed because I get letters every day from families that are being clobbered by health care costs. They ask me, ‘Can you help?’ ”
In fact, there is another reason Mr. Obama is rushed: he knows time is not on his side. The more Congress delays passage of a health bill, the more time his Republican opponents will have to marshal their opposition and kill it.
“If you don’t set deadlines in this town, things don’t happen,” Mr. Obama said. “The default position is inertia.”
David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear contributed reporting.
