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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Friday, June 27, 2003
Theories of Justice
Some people believe in individual responsibility and guilt. That is, if someone commits a crime against you, that person should be punished - but his (or her) family, clan, community, race, whatever should not be. Even if the guilty man (or woman) escapes justice somehow (say, dies before he's caught), you don't go after that person's relatives, community, or race.
Others believe in collective guilt and punishment. This is actually a very old theory of justice. If someone wrongs you, his family, clan, community, race, or whatever is culpable and bears responsibility.
Nowdays, almost no one openly professes to believe the latter. Almost everyone claims to believe in individual culpability rather than collective guilt (which is one reason why there have to be circuitous arguments based on the wonders diversity - racial, never, say, intellectual - can bring to an institution, when everyone really knows that's not the real reason). But when push comes to shove, many people are willing to act otherwise (their sense of justice is fulfilled by enforcing collective punishment and, likewise, collective compensation - someone wronged a member of your group, so you're entitled to restitution, even from people who did not commit the wrong themselves).
To accept one's fair share of the collective responsibility for the evils of [one could really fill anything into this blank; Ottoman overlordship over the Serbs, whatever, as "J.R" points out in the comments]
However, I think many people would disagree with DeLong that this is what America is or what being an American is all about.
By the way, some forms of Affirmative Action - outreach programs in particular, and institutional practices to make sure that everyone is given due consideration - are fine.
I'm making a larger point here that is often allowed to be - or pushed (because we all want to be open-minded, tolerant, and not be seen as bigots keeping people down) into the background.
Perhaps one finds this particular aspect of our society so critical that it can only be dealt with in ways that we, who say we subscribe to a individual theory of justice, can only rectify the matter by violating our principles and imposing collective compensation and, conversely, collective punishment. But don't pretend this is what America is and what real Americans do or should do as a general principle.
The mission comes as companies looking to invest in Iraq or win reconstruction contracts are being warned of an "even" chance of the country descending into open revolt.
The US military reported on Thursday that one special forces soldier was killed and eight more injured in an attack, while one Marine was killed and another two injured in an accident on the way to assist forces that had come under fire. In addition the Pentagon confirmed that two other soldiers were missing.
An even chance of a revolt? Note that this is probably the optimistic assessment (such assessments tend towards putting the better, not the worst, face on things).
I hope we're doing more than just waiting to see how it goes, but this makes me all the more emphatic about what I wrote yesterday.
Regarding that, John wrote:
I've mentioned in a number of places online recently that a major restructuring of the armed forces seems to be in order. In the post-Vietnam period the big heads in the defense department purposely put major chunks of our combat support and service support units into the guard and reserves specifically to prevent the government being able to commit to long term combat operations on the cheap without mobilizing the reserves (I include the Guard in the reserves).
In GWI, we saw the result of that policy with the bulk of the land combat being undertaken by regular forces and the support being fleshed out by the reserves. We won, so there wasn't much need to change. Yeah, we bought more JDAMs but the force structure survived pretty much intact, smaller in quantity but with pretty much the same distribution between active and reserve.
That system certainly has its flaws in a situation like this but does make sense in other situations (Gulf War situations; btw, I don't consider what we engaged in/are engaging in here "Gulf War II" - I consider it the "Iraq War". So I don't use GWI and GWII. That's just me).
The hardest parts of a reserve force to keep proficient tend to be the combat elements (this isn't the case so much with regards to aircraft, but is a major factor for infantry, armor, artillery, and the like); so during the Cold War, especially the '70s when budgets and troop levels were tight, it made sense to concentrate support units (which often have civilian counterparts and indeed the personnel not infrequently work in a related civilian job, so their skill levels are kept up) in the Guard and Reserves and the combat arms (there's little call - thankfully - for artillerists in civilian life) in the active force.
It's worth remembering that while plenty of Guard and Reserve support units, and air units (especially transport) served in the Gulf War, the divisions that were sent which otherwise would have received a Guard "round out" Brigade opted instead to take one from another active Division (or just go as-is; I don't remember off the top of my head if any were deployed that way). The combat Guard units that were activated spent the war training up (part of this was that many Guard units actually hadn't been issued some of the equipment they needed, they were lacking in things that needed to be supplied; according to James F. Dunnigan this hadn't really been fixed, at least up to Sept. 11th. I'm not sure it has been yet).
But this was a good system for the situation it was devised for: reasonably well-trained reserves that could be mobilized relatively quickly if the fecal matter hit the fan in Europe and the Soviets invaded. Our reserves would have been more than a match for their Sovworld counterparts (the problem would have been that there were so many of the later. Still, the consensus now seems to be that any attack would have been defeated).
Also, in GWI, our job was to go in, kick booty, go home, and we did. The reserves de-mobbed, rank-appropriate [spit] medals and attaboys were passed out by the bucket load and the air force and army resumed their ongoing
spat [almost 50 years now] over close air support and the aircraft that fly it.
Our reserve system is good for situations like that. Not so good for long-term peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts.
Now, following GWII we find that we have forces ill-suited to the purpose and insufficient in quantity leading us to a potential crash when we just flat run out of folk trained to do the jobs that we need to have done overseas. This leads me to think that rather than keeping 10 divisions on active duty with the bulk of their CS and CSS in the reserves perhaps we should be thinking about putting our heavy forces (Armored and Mechanized Divisions) in the reserves and fleshing out the active forces with the sort of low density, high value forces (MPs, medical, engineers, logistics, etc.) needed for extended 'nation-building' deployments which also, strangely
enough, tend to be the types of forces most needed during the early stages of deployments. Now there's an achievable 'transformation'.
I've thought that we should put more of our "heavy" components in the reserves, too, and increase the proportion of lighter units in the active forces. I don't think in terms of all-or-nothing, though on this. Also there's the point I made, above: combat skills are the ones that are most difficult to keep proficient in.
In addition, as I wrote in response to an excellent post by Trent Talenko, in this post on America's 21st Century Army (it focused on the army rather than the military as a whole), you do need a fairly sizable number of riflemen - infantry - for these deployments; not just MPs (having more MPs would certainly be good, but you also need well-trained infantry on these missions. Some supporting armor is good, too - as it might have been in Somalia). So pretty soon you're talking a "real" unit (people might be surprised, really, how few 11 Bravos there are in an entire American Infantry Division).
I do think we should go more towards making Brigades, rather than Divisions, the basic component of our Army, too (things are already shifting in that direction) - not that Divisions aren't needed, but perhaps in the future we should treat Divisions the same way Corps used to be (you have Divisional HQs and Divisional components, and attach Brigades to it as-needed. Now, there are drawbacks to this for sure and I'm not recommending we do it with every Division we have - some should be kept closer to what we have now, but others more "flexible" like this so that, say, Brigades can be rotated in and out of an area (like Iraq) but the Divisional HQ would remain (thus insuring that the leadership would be experienced with the local conditions, retaining continuity even while getting fresh troops) (By the way, I encourage people to read this article that was published in The Atlantic Monthly right before Sept. 11th).
I'd retain battalion and higher headquarters staffs on active duty and make them responsible for the training and maintenance of their component companies (which would be reservists). Companies can be brought up to speed more quickly than headquarters staffs and many of the things that staffs do depend on personal relationships that take time to develop and aren't generally addressed adequately by sop's and regulations.
I don't know if I'd do that. One thing people may not know is that the reserve (Guard & Reserves) units do maintain active (full-time) cadres at many levels (you go by the local Armory on a typical weekday and you will find people working there, and these do tend to be the folks who the "weekend warriors" like I was look to for guidance, instruction, and the like). It's at (just about) all levels, not just the HQ level.
I'd keep the armored cavalry regiments active as they can usefully beef up light divisions. In fact, I can see two more of them being handy which would give us three deployable and two tied up in the training
establishment as opfor at Ft Irwin and Ft Polk.
Yes, I think we need more ACRs, too.
Having a large proportion of our active duty end strength tied up in heavy forces was necessary when we were faced with the possibility of having to deal with a come-as-you-are conflict in central Europe. That scenario doesn't seem so likely these days and I believe that Rumsfeld's transformation of the heavy forces into lightfighters or light(er)fighters is pointed in the general area of the solution but not quite on target.
I tend to be an incrementalist. I do wonder about some of the "light" of the light forces (especially since I read - dead tree so can't link - that the Stryker, which is intended as the basic vehicle for our "light" units, is actually too big to fit safely in a C-130 and it would take all our C-17 lift capacity - all of it, plus, really - to move a Brigade equipped with them in two weeks; and that wouldn't happen because much of the C-17 transport capacity would, naturally, have to be used for other purposes as well. If that's true, then the Stryker sounds like an unsuitable vehicle). I also, as mentioned above, believe that some "heavy" Divisions (the 2nd ID in South Korea, plus at least one additional ID and one AD. I'm not sure if the 1st Cavalry Division should remain "heavy" or be "transformed" into a cutting-edge air Cavalry unit) will have to remain in active service.
I think what we really do need are more units, not just shifting the deck chairs around (I do think that some of the Pentagon "bureaucracy" that grew up during the Cold War - I'm not talking the folks who act as technical support for the combat units, but the "bureaucracy" aspect of things that didn't seem to get reduced as much as the combat components every time we brought troop strengths down, could be cut back some. Cut back some on that and shift a ten or twenty thousand people into combat elements and you've got two new Brigades and their "non-Divisional" support components). But still, what we really need are higher troop strengths, not just a shuffling of the deck, IMO.
In this same line of thought I'm thinking that our armor is good enough now that we don't need the density of them on the ground that we currently have in our force structure. A light division of the 101st/82d/10th type stiffened with an ACR approaches what to me would be an optimum density of heavy armor teamed up with infantry. (Disclosure: most of my career in the military was spent as a tank rider in cavalry outfits of one flavor or another)
Yah; I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to say. I do think such pairings as you mention make a lot of sense in many situations but less so in others. One of the strengths of our current force is a strength that has to be kept (but enhanced, which is what we're talking about here) - ability to handle any given situation.
I am somewhat surprised that we haven't given more serious consideration to low-profile "light" tanks (which would be easier to move around the world than an Abrams is but aren't liked because, well, they have lighter armor and thus aren't as durable).
This may be dwelling on nuts-n-bolts stuff here but I think also that the armor community needs to rethink their ammo load. Currently there is no high-explosive round available to the Abrams tanks. There is a high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) round, the crescent wrench of ammo types, does some things okay but nothing really well, kind of like the whole multi-role combat jet thing but I won't go there. There is also a kinetic energy round (APFSDS in various flavors) as well as some rather expensive special purpose rounds that are not going to be present in large quantities due to their cost. A basic, unguided, inexpensive high explosive round would be useful in just about any situation except when opposing massed armor formations and I suspect that we're not likely to see anything like that any time soon. Our basic load currently is optimized for anti-armor at a time when our potential opponents just don't have much armor to begin with.
Oh, well then what we need is another coaxial machine gun on the tank, really. Or, as mentioned above, a lighter tank (if they aren't likely to go up against other tanks because, such as is the case in Iraq right now, the other side really lacks armor, then they don't need to be an Abrams).
On the air force side of things the first order of business would be to put the kibosh on the f-22. It's waaaaaaaaaay too expensive and renaming it as the new, improved A/F-22 is laughable in the extreme. Someone needs to slap some fighter generals up the side of their heads and get them some adult supervision.
Everything gets more expensive, seemingly exponentially, as the capabilities improve (and the F-22 is an improvement, at least in the Fighter role, and a significant one. I myself like keeping way ahead of the potential opposition). I'd probably buy fewer of them though.
Put the money into strategic lift and an affordable follow-on to the B-52 (Flying Dump Truck). No one in the foreseeable future is going to be able to mount a credible threat that the f-15s and f-16s aren't likely to be able to handle. I'd also scrap the f-35 if it even thinks about approaching the $50,000,000 a copy level. The next 'strikefighter' could be remotely piloted and I suspect that the fighter generals are going to have to have that stuffed down their throats screaming and kicking.
Yah, they really don't like that. I do seriously agree with you about an affordable heavy bomber to follow up the B-52, though.
This may not be too apt, but the air force has the B-1 and B-2 as their gate crashers to beat down the defenders and open the way for the B-52s. In a similar sense, I see the Marine Corps as the gate crashers on the ground to be followed on by the Army for the sustained rice-bowl smashing.
Going back to the adult supervision thing, I wouldn't mind seeing the defense department split into a Navy Department (including the Marines) and a War Department (including the Army and a stripped down Air Force). By stripped down I mean that Mobility Command (the transports and tankers) would become independent, possibly become part of the Navy Department. The nuclear missiles would also be moved out from the day to day administration of the Air Force and placed in a separate Strategic Forces along with the SSBNs of the Navy.
Hmmmn. . .the first part sounds good (Navy Department and War Department), the last I'm not so sure about.
I think we just need more forces, period. Ground forces at least (we're probably ok in Naval and Air strength, but of course it's always harder to increase the Army budget while keeping those of the other services level than it is to do the reverse and, notably, the Bush Administration is inclined to the reverse - increase the funding for the other branches while leaving the Army level; again, at least they aren't talking about cutting Army strength anymore). See also this VDH piece.
Frankly I also think we need more Marines. Why? Even though they want to do the "crash the gate" (as John puts it) then get out thing, they actually have much stronger institutional traditions when it comes to the kind of operations we're talking about here.
Unfortunately, all this is really moot at the moment since it takes at least a year to mobilize, train, and equip new units (better if you have two). We should have started when we had the time. Now we're more or less come-as-you-are in Iraq.
Additional: The more I think about it, I might have been hasty in saying that the Air Force and Navy force strengths are fine as-is. We probably need more transport capacity (both air and sea), and its possible that we should have some additional carrier battle groups (I'm not as sure on this one, though).
I also hope I didn't imply that I think we have enough logistical & support units in the active Army.
What it really comes down to is the more I look at things the more I think our total (active) force strengths should be raised back up to close to where they were in '90, though with a different underlaying structure (one designed not for the Cold War, but for the smaller-but-numerous missions that we've been engaged in for the last decade and will be engaging in for at least the next decade).
I know that we need not so much high-end stuff now (like the F-22) that would be useful against another great power, but robust stuff to support our forces in these conflicts (so we need "cheap new B-52s" and ground support). However, the reason why I don't think we should scrap the high-end stuff entirely is because we do, IMO, need to keep our "edge" (not just edge vs. others, or "cutting edge", but keen edge in the sense of ongoing, organic experience in these things, rather than jumping into what will, in essence, for the troops, be the unknown when we suddenly - usually for us it happens by surprise - discover that we now need this. In other words, find ourselves in the obverse of the situation we're in now).
Also, regarding remote-piloted combat aircraft, I wanna see it before I believe it or put all our eggs in that basket; at minimum, the pilot in the remote location should receive sensory information as good as the pilot would receive on the spot. Also, as far as stuff like "the pilot can sit in a remote 'cockpit' in Colorado and fly a mission in Central Asia", I think people sometimes forget Light Speed Lag here; you can see it in action whenever there is a satellite feed between a news anchor sitting in New York and a reporter in the Middle East - that split second in delay.
Is that split second a difference maker in air combat? Do you need split-second reflexes? I donno; I'm not a pilot, much less a combat pilot. I do know that unmanned, remotely piloted drones will be able to do some things better than manned craft (for one thing, the rob't doesn't face g-force blackout during violent maneuvers, and there are tons of other gains that come from removing the weight and space a person takes up. Plus, you can "relieve" pilots a lot easier if the person piloting the drone is in the air base rather than in the air, so pilot fatigue becomes less of a factor). But there's a lot to be said about having a human on the spot, stuff we tend to take for granted because, well, we're always on the spot.
In general, our forces are well equipped for a come-as-you-are major war. But overall, for the situations we face now, the tendency is "too much of a good thing". The tank example is a good one; it was good to have such a powerful MBT in Iraq during "major combat action". But if we had a smaller, lighter tank (smaller is a key because the lighter tank will have less armor, but if it has a lower profile and is able to defilade in more situations, it is still reasonably able to protect itself in the situations it is likely to encounter, would be less expensive and far easier to deploy than the 70-ton Abrams. Almost fifteen years ago the Army was experimenting with such light tanks that could be transported by a C-130, but it seemed to fade away, like the LAV-75 program.
So I haven't dropped this subject. I'm as interested in it as ever. I think it's absolutely vital that we succeed.
It's just that it's hard to tell what direction things are going in; every time it seems things are going to hell in a handbasket, reports come out that show some decent progress, and every time I'm convinced (or half convinced) we're turning the corner and things are looking up, the news gets full of (continued) chaos, sniping, skirmishing attacks, sabotage, and the like (which is where we are now).
One thing's for sure, I'm more convinced than ever that we need to strengthen the size of our military. If things fall apart in Iraq because we didn't - don't - commit what is needed, then I'll be very upset. I've said before and I'll say again that I would gladly give up the tax cut if all (and I mean all; none of this "other priorities" crap; we either make this a priority or not) the money went to bolster our military resources and expand force levels - if they need to be expanded (I'm enough of an expert to know that I'm not sufficiently expert to know for sure that they need to be, y'know what I mean?) - to undertake the missions that need to succeed.
But we really don't even need that. The fact is, even in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11th when even the Dennis Kucinichs of the world acknowledged we were at war, we didn't move to a wartime budget. Now, that doesn't need to mean "budgeting for total war, put twenty million men under arms" - but it might have meant, oh, I donno - that the time for feeding at the trough, something that could be indulged in during a time of relative peace, should have been over (and I point fingers at no particular party here, because they're all - and all of us who like little projects for our area and overlook or accept such spending because "well, everyone does it, at least we should get our share").
Fact is I could easily find 50 billion dollars in giveaways to interest groups, corporate (and non-corporate) pork, and "era of luxuries" projects (financing this or that research into - well, stuff that's not really vital - and the like. Yah, lots of these things are small beer, but there are lots of these things and cumulatively they start to add up). I could also, I'm sure, find another 50 billion dollars in tax exemptions, write-offs, and the like that really don't make much sense but are a sop to this or that pressure group or industry (and eliminating those would have the benefit of tax simplification). Then we coulda (shoulda, woulda) kept non-defense discretionary spending increases to a more reasonable level (you know, those nasty, program-cutting Republicans that the Dems are always bemoaning, who have only increased such spending the last couple years at close to twice the rate of increase under Clinton, thus crushing vital programs by "underfunding" them); so that'd have been another 50 billion. . .(as for those who might have moaned when I mentioned any tax increase, my offset of that would be to do a regulatory review and cull the Federal Registry of superfluous and/or counter-productive regulations. It's about time for another such review). Oh, and no frigging Farm Bill (that's another few billion here and there. Now we're talking real money, aren't we?) and now might not be the time to add an expensive program to Federal entitlement spending.
I'm not just bemoaning things that can't be undone and being critical for the sake of being critical: I'm making the point that we don't have a wartime budget. Last time that was tried was in the late '60s with Vietnam. Now, that didn't work out for a host of reasons, but the wear-down of the military during the Vietnam era as a result of shorting its funding while having it fight a rather major conflict didn't help it, either. There are significant signs that's a problem at the moment: trying to do major things on what amounts to a shoestring, while we find buckets of money for other things.
I'm gonna be fit to be tied if everything unravels because we didn't commit enough resources to do the job properly. I hold Bush responsible, but I also understand where the pressure is coming from. After all, Bush may not be increasing military budgeting enough, but at least he isn't talking about cutting it the way so many Democrats are (especially their current crop of Presidential candidates, and all those who list "priorities" that we should spend more on - but this isn't one of them. Yes, there are exceptions; a double-handful or so out of the several hundred Democrats in Congress & the Senate. Hardly encouraging, that). The fact that what I outlined above is - well, the first thing anyone's going to notice about it is how politically unrealistic such a scheme is. That, though, says less about the validity of the point than the fact that these are the dudes we're electing now (and it really can't be said that they aren't giving the voters what the voters want. I wonder what would happen to the electoral prospects of anyone who undertook what I outlined? They'd be roasted over an open fire and arguably Bush's re-election prospects would be close to nil if he put something like that forward. So what does that say about our priorities as a whole? Anything good?)
Update: Christopher Hitchens has another good piece on who the revisionists are.
We'll have to see how this works out; it may represent positive movement. But it's less dramatic than some reports seem to suggest:
The final agreement represents a heavily diluted version of the original reform package, though Franz Fischler, EU farm commissioner, managed to rescue the central plank of his proposals - a plan to break the link between subsidies and production, also known as "decoupling".
Decoupling should in theory allow farmers to tailor output to demand, reduce incentives for overproduction and thus minimise the need to dump EU farm surpluses onto the world market. Decoupled farm subsidies are also deemed non-trade distorting under World Trade Organisation rules, which means they are not subject to the cuts widely expected to result from the current Doha world trade round.
However, bowing to incessant pressure from France and other countries, the final agreement will allow member states to keep a share of farm payments linked to production. Early European Commission calculations put the figure at about 30 per cent of overall direct subsidies to farmers.
But the biggest setback for Mr Fischler's reform proposals came as France and its allies blocked a plan to cut the prices at which the EU guarantees to buy cereals. Mr Fischler had hoped to bring EU prices closer into line with those on the world market, another thorn in the eye of Europe's trading partners.
Also note that "decoupling" means that the level of total subsidies will be preserved, it will just be shifted out of direct price supports and instead rationalized on other grounds (social and environmental excuses), which will probably have the impact not of reducing EU agricultural subsidies, but of making it more difficult to uproot them in multilateral trade negotiations. Something that is eluded to sideways at the end of the piece:
"Today's decision will give Europe a strong hand in the negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda. The EU has done its homework; now it's up to others to move to make the WTO trade talks a success," Mr Fischler said.
Still, at least they aren't radically increasing their agricultural subsidies, the way the U.S. did with that horrendous "Farm Bill".
Ed Crane and William Niskanen have a op-ed in today's FT. The FT probably published it because they share Crane & Niskanen's obsession with Neoconservative Boogiemen.
In the aftershock of September 11 2001, there is a greater awareness among most Americans of how precious their freedom is. They also realize the need for better government intelligence work to fight terrorism. But they should not let the government usurp basic liberties.
That part's fine. It's certainly something to be deeply concerned about. But they go on:
This is a danger as more and more anti-terrorist laws and rules strait-jacket the nation. There is a congruent danger: the rise of neo-conservatism on the right.
One can almost hear the sinister Darth Vader mood-music in the background as they raise the specter of neoconservative darkness falling across the nation, casting its black cloak over the world.
The movement is using the threat of terrorism to expand government at home and abroad. America must safeguard its freedoms in the fight against terrorism, but protect itself from pernicious policies that erode freedom in the name of liberty.
Look, I'm as appalled at the big government stuff Bush is engaging in as anyone, but to believe this is the result of a neoconservative cabal is to be fooling oneself. This is the result of rather normal (if seedy) political pressures and maneuverings. But if Crane were to recognize that, then he wouldn't have a convenient scapegoat to blame but would have to, oh, I donno: roll up his sleeves and go back to trying to convince the public that the desire to have someone else pay for your stuff is incompatible with a vision of limited government.
Likewise, neoconservatives had little or nothing to do with the Patriot Act. The biggest crime they can be accused of on this front is indifference to it (which is arguably bad enough, but not the same as a sinister conspiracy on their part to rob us of our liberty); I donno about you, but John Ashcroft doesn't spring to mind when I hear the word "neocon". Similarly, these measures were passed (over-quickly) by huge margins on Congress. Were they all neocons? Or just panicky politicians over-reacting to a crisis? You be the judge.
Both liberals and conservatives are turning a blind eye to unnecessary usurpations of power, if not openly calling for them.
Well, that is more accurate an accusation. But it flies in the face of the implication that they try to draw that this is all the result of the machinations of a small band of neoconservatives.
Always a movement of bright intellectual leaders, neo-conservatism has mostly been a movement with a head but no body. One rarely runs into a neo-con on the street.
That may be, but if by that they're saying that our policies since Sept. 11th lack popular support, they're deluding themselves as much as the protesters on the Left are. The problem may be that bad policies have received too much popular acceptance - but, again, if Crane and Niskanen were to recognize that, it would mean having to go back to rolling up their sleeves and waging a difficult campaign of mass persuasion. Much easier to write an article appealing to the prejudices of the European elites who are the FT's readership base.
Going on, I love the part where they quote Max Boot completely out of context (one word, then two words, both separated from the arguments around them) so as to not have to grapple with the arguments he and those like him have made; sort of like the entire piece writ small, where the invocation of "neoconservative" as a word that is taken to be automatically discrediting. One might not like Boot's position, but the Crane & Niskanen op-ed deals with it dishonestly rather than rebutting it with logical, reasoned argument.
Ed Crane and William Niskanen might have valuable things to say on these issues, if they weren't clouded by a "felt need" to resort to the ad hominem and the straw man in making their point. That's a real problem and makes it harder for real concerns to be properly addressed. More on that later (in connection with the "21st Century American Foreign Policy" series of posts). They close with this:
Globalisation has been primarily an American undertaking and it has been good for the world's poor. The country's science, technology and entrepreneurship are healing the sick, cleaning the environment and making the world a better and more enjoyable place in which to live. The US is a great nation with little to apologise for. It has an enemy to defeat. The challenge is not to defeat itself.
That's true, but as for the first part of that paragraph, it represents a fundamental disconnect between the world situation they see as desirable and the rest of their article and positions on many foreign policy matters. It takes us back to the end of this post: to will the ends is to will the means, and the means by which the global situation they praise as moving in a positive direction is not, IMO (and apparently not in their opinion, either, as they recognize the U.S. as a source of this), the result of hydrological history: it takes work and it takes activity to create this.
When he took office, Bush hoped for a foreign policy that was less active, as they point out. But asserting that he was captured by Neocons seems to allow some to avoid addressing whether the situation he was faced with realistically allowed for that which he campaigned on. It also begs the question of responsibility for diplomatic tiffs (we've spent many, many posts over many many months looking into those in detail. This is also a topic I'll turn to at least briefly as the "Foreign Policy" series continues. But in the meantime feel free to plumb the depths of the archives). This "humility" also tends to mean different things to EUropeans (the bulk of the readership of the FT) than I think it meant to Bush or his voters (to them it should mean "deference to them", while to us it meant "less assertively interventionist" - it definitely didn't mean that we would put our interests second and the interests of the EU would trump them, as many now seem to want us to believe).
Now I'm absolutely sure that neither Crane nor Niskanen really think that Bush's "humble" foreign policy meant what the EUropeans often assert it should have been, when they throw that back into his face. He didn't mean it the way they insist - Crane and Niskanen aren't anymore interested in seeing Bush push Kyoto through the Senate, ratify the ICC, or "pool" our sovereignty with international institutions. Quite the contrary if the Cato Institute is still what I remember it to be. So all these things that others gripe about (rather conveniently elided over without even passing mention in their FT piece) are really conservative (or Jacksonian, or just plain mainstream American, really) foreign policy positions, which lead us to make certain decisions when our oxen are gored. Again, people can come to different conclusions, but in my opinion it makes more sense to debate the policy options than to mutter darkly about neocons.
This post continues on from where Part I left off.
Warning: This post rambles quite a bit - yah, more than usual, even. I've looked it over and decided that there isn't anything in there that doesn't belong, so I've left it. But you might find it more idiosyncratic (a polite word for "weird") than most of my scribings. I also spent more time on a subject that many would consider a settled matter that doesn't need lengthy arguing - the answer is obvious. I also know that those who don't agree with what I (we?) believe to be the obvious answer (to them the reverse is the obvious answer) aren't likely (for reasons I get to at the end of the post) to be convinced by what I write here. But humor me - at least no one can say I ignored the question, neh? What question, you ask? This question:
The first question may not be whether America should fill the role that the British Empire did, but whether any entity should - whether such an entity is needed or desirable. That entity may not be the U.S., it might not even be a nation or even subset of nations (that's why I say "entity"), but should something fill a certain international role, creating and maintaining a stable (or at least less-unstable-than-otherwise) world order fostering certain conditions (we might disagree over what those conditions should be), encouraging certain developments and discouraging others (again, we might disagree over what developments should be encouraged or discouraged), promoting the spread of certain values deemed positive and containing or rolling back the spread of others deemed negative (again, there might be disagreement over what to be promoted and what should be abhorred, while still believing that some entity or organization or loose affiliation or movement or whatever should do these sorts of things, perhaps just not what is being promoted now or perhaps by different means - those are topics that we'll take up later, though). Is something like that necessary?
The real answer is that such an entity is not, strictly speaking, necessary. But the world will have to live with the consequences of the lack of such; everything is a trade-off. Not only will Americans avoid burdens (or impositions) that they might wish we didn't have to bear - and the rest of the world likewise might be freed of burdens (or impositions) that they don't like, but there will be other consequences as well. What would we, and the world, lose? Lets just list a couple big ones:
The dominant power's currency is the world's reserve currency, upon which commodity prices are based; this doesn't just benefit the hegemon, but is necessary for the smooth functioning of all international trade. By the way, this goes back farther than people might think: before the U.S. Dollar, there was the Pound - but before that the Venetian Gold Ducat which was based on (and replaced circa the 13th Century) the Eastern Roman gold Nomismata (the "Bezant") which was the currency of the Mediterranean world from the late 3rd century when Diocletian replaced the previous Roman currency. While prior to, say, the 16th century, the currency systems were "regionally" dominant at best, these regions could be larger than is often suspected. Moslem Caliphs minted gold to the Byzantine standard, at times even exactly identical (down to bearing the portrait of the reigning Emperor), and the Nomismata was the preferred medium of international exchange as far as Ceylon. There are typically institutions based around that, too: lending institutions, systems of international credit, and the like which are to varying degrees controlled or at least strongly influenced by the power that provides the reserve currency.
Lets say you think the U.S. should be a commercial, trading Republic but should leave everyone be, otherwise - neither imposing its vision of a world order on other countries nor having one imposed on it by anyone else (that's the question here when we're asking whether such an entity is necessary or desirable). Ok, well one of the major things the power does is keep the seas safe for trade. Here's a piece of trivia that people may not know: one of the menaces long thought having passed away with the age of sail, piracy, has enjoyed a resurgence since the end of the Cold War. With the drawing down of the U.S. Navy (and similar reductions in the force sizes of smaller allied fleets), more and more people are hoisting the Jolly Roger (well, not literally. The era when buccaneers were at least colorful knaves did pass away with the age of sail).
Economic prosperity, "good jobs at good wages", whatever you want to call it, depends on safe sea lanes. One of the things that was guaranteed to activate the militant attention of the United States even in the earliest years of the bygone era was just that: declaring someone or something a menace to the freedom of the seas (to American shipping) was tantamount to declaring them an enemy of the Republic.
By the time John Qunicy Adams spoke those oft-quoted words echoing Washington's warning in his Farewell Address, Americans had already seen that one can, like the Hobbits in their Shire, try to remain at peace and avoid the strife in the world around them, wanting to live quiet lives and do their best not to go hunting monsters abroad (which stirs up trouble), but
Cave! Hic Dragones!
As much as we tried to stay out of the Napoleonic Wars, we ended up getting pulled into them for just the reason mentioned above: people kept messing with our shipping and, arguably more importantly, with the seamen engaged in it. There were lots of other things that accumulated, too (if you're curious about that or doubtful, you can and should go read up on America's foreign policy travails in the run up to the War of 1812). These things tend to do that, as we learned again almost exactly a hundred years later.
Some people may think that we shouldn't get involved in conflicts for commercial reasons - somehow that's unworthy; but then the same people (not just Pat Buchannan, but also folks on the Left) believe that the government should protect jobs. Well? Which is it?
At least in this type of matter, by responding to actual armed threats, the government is doing what governments, including ours under its Constitutional mandate. This is certainly a point where some people will take a different answer than I would, though (but if their answer is "well, someone or something other than the U.S. will or should take care of it" rather than "no one needs to or should", that skips ahead to the next topic, which will be who or what should do this, rather than whether it should be done).
But if you go along with the idea that yes, we have an interest in keeping the seas clear of predators (pirates and the sort of piratical states that would spring up and become rampant if no one bothered), then that takes one down a certain path - you see a larger interest that tends to bring you into matters not just on the high seas, but in land conflicts as well. Lets take one sort of example (and we'll set aside moral or ethical types for the moment and continue with rather basic, amoral ones - avoiding perhaps the path of least resistance and what might be called arguments based on "moral blackmail"). If we have a stake in insuring the sea lanes are open, we surely also have the same interest in insuring the free flow of vital commodities at market prices. Sure, it may be that Europe, Japan, China, and others are more directly dependent upon, say, Middle East crude oil than America is, but as commodity prices are set globally, we'd be affected by anything that threatened that flow, too. To all those folks who chant "no blood for oil" are hardly counting the cost - the human cost - of the logic of their argument (and this goes for the Europeans who gripe at the American bully but have economies that are dependent - highly dependent - upon such flows themselves). Sure, turn off the lights and stop running the cars, plunge the world into a Great Depression or worse and see how many lives that ends up costing. On the other hand, to all those folks who say "let them fight over it, whoever wins can't eat the oil, they'll sell it" - you're counting on the infrastructure not being destroyed and you're also making the error of believing everyone makes the same calculus you do (primarily economic, in this case). Depending on the type of person who wins, they may not: it could be religious fanatic-aesthetics, who aren't interested in maximizing their oil profits. It could even be secular but anti-Western oligarchs who will sell enough (at the jacked up price) to get the money they feel they need (but without feeling they need to maximize their profits and/or aren't economic-minded; maybe they're just rent-seeking, or perhaps they are economic philistines who don't understand the power of market forces like you do. After all, many of the same people who assert that "well, they'll just sell it at market prices themselves" are often the ones who most frequently bemoan the fact that this or that government policy is economically counterproductive or even destructive. But they think that whoever seizes the oil will act as Milton Friedman would act, rather than as, say, Saddam Hussein or the Iranian Mullahs or the Saudi Princes or. . .well, just about all the leaders of all these oil-rich but economically backward places have all acted. I mean, look at the way they've managed their economies. Does that give one any reason to think that if they had the means - a single one (rather than a bunch of squabbling, disagreeable ones) having control over enough of the world's oil reserves to allow them to dictate prices and availability - that their policies with it would make economic sense? You've got to be kidding, right? If the people who lead countries did things the economically rational way that you folks insist would happen here, we wouldn't be spending so much time griping about them, would we? I mean, we don't even have to go so far as third-world dictatorships to find governments imposing economically flawed policies: Harvard MBA types in, say, the U.S. - right in the Oval Office - impose, say, Steel Tariffs. To believe that whomever might achieve a position of dominant control over the vital commodity, oil, would turn out to be Adam Smith in disguise is to be willfully blind. I'm sorry, but you have to be seasoned at self-deception to believe that.) I realize that was a long walk to make that point and as such a digression. Where were we?
Oh, yes: recognizing that if one has an interest in keeping the sea lanes safe for commerce, travel, and communications is something that we have an interest in, then we also have an interest in insuring that commodities, vital commodities at least, are kept flowing at market prices rather than being gobbled up in a way that would threaten that. This then involves one in political entanglements (various diplomatic efforts to undermine cartels and put pressure on folks to insure that things flow reasonably freely - I mean, ok, given that these guys are benighted, as discussed above, things aren't perfect, but there is less bad on the one hand and there is horrible on the other; gas lines, stagflation, and rising unemployment, anyone? Is that the policy prescription for the 21st Century?).
Those are just a couple examples; there really isn't time and room to get into an exhaustive list of all the things we take for granted that allow us to have a reasonably stable (or at least the waves are kept down to a dull roar) international environment largely conducive to the sort of lives we want (or most of us want, or act like we want in the choices we make) that allows each country (or at least the less horrible places) to create home environments and mutually-profitable trading environments. If one wants to see what happens when no one really cares to take up such duties, one can look at the parts of Africa not considered that important to the world as a whole, and the conditions that exist as a result. That's the closest we have left to see what anarchic conditions (on a global scale) might produce (even there the "lab" isn't perfect, because some efforts are made, some of the time, in at least significant parts of the area, especially when it seems to be getting out of hand. But no one does much of anything until it threatens to get out of hand, which means that in large parts of the region it's always near the threshold of getting out of hand). Hardly the poster child for "leave it alone" or libertarian (or Left-Anarchist or whatever you are) foreign policy.
In any case, in a world where the proliferation of biological, chemical, and nuclear knowledge is essentially a given, saying that whatever happens over there is no one's business but the people who live there (or their Maximum Leader) really isn't an option; after all, again leaving out morality based arguments, it's not like our quality of life (just about however you define it) will be improved in a world with a gradually increasing radiological background count or where strange concoctions have been unleashed and spread (and for those who say "well, you're saying that these people won't make rational decisions in their interest" - see above and see below. People often make rational calculi but arrive at decisions that result in a situation no one wanted (the run up to World War I is the most obvious example of a situation where everyone made a series of decisions based on the information they had and what they felt they needed and everyone arrived in a situation that hardly anyone would have wanted, and certainly at outcomes that none of those involved wanted. I mean, some people might try to say that Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted it, but it's hard to argue he wanted a war that cost him his throne).
There's another point to make here, too, that I've been alluding to throughout. Much of how one arrives at an answer to this question will depend upon their fundamental view of the world, of history, of human nature, and the like. Folks who have what I'll call a "Hydrological" attitude towards history ("that old man river, it just keeps rollin' along"), but what is more commonly called a Hegelian view of history, may look at the current world, the growth and expansion of liberal democratic values, the rule of law, and markets and think that happened naturally and would have happened regardless: it was driven by historical forces. One might then think that the role of Britain and the United States in shaping that - well, they didn't really "shape" it, because it was the inevitable flow of historic forces that created and shaped it - is superfluous and irrelevant. Things are and will go in the right direction and the best thing to do is to do nothing (the idea that Britain and the U.S. acting as they are might be part of that, well - gets looked at about the same way that many environmentalists look at humanity's relationship to nature: the unstated premise that humanity can interfere with nature, but is not part of it). If you think that people, not historical forces, shape the world around us with their decisions and actions, then one might come to a different conclusion. One might conclude that many of the good developments and trends (not just the things we gripe about, but the developments we have come to take for granted) we see in the world around us are in no small part because at the hub of a world order for going on two centuries have been powers - Britain and then the U.S. - that (with increasing depth over that time) have valued certain things and spread them (if imperfectly but generally doing the best they thought they could under the circumstances and both, IMO, showing a capacity to learn from mistakes and thus deepen, over time, the extent to which they embodied and promoted these things), and that this matters a great deal. Different choices and different powers holding different values would have created a quite different world (and a world with no such "hub" would, likewise, have been very different - and would be on into the future if the "hub" disappeared without being replaced, causing the various spokes to spin off in a variety of directions - to strain the metaphor to the point where people are probably wincing a bit, especially if they're in a country that just got compared to a spoke. How come no one really minds being compared to a hub, but people get cranky being compared to a spoke? - oh, don't get me wrong, I would, too. <---- Don't answer that question; I don't need mails explaining why, really).
There are also folks who believe that all you have to do is wish really hard and there will be Whirled Peas - oh, sorry - World Peace. Who believe that if we just understand and care and show our concern and enter a dialogue, then we won't have any enemies (how did Sheryl Crow put it? I wonder if she managed to make the connection between the fact that she lives her life in accordance with the viewpoint she expressed - or at least I give her credit for doing that, not knowing whether she does or not - and yet people, some people at least, are pissed off at her anyhow. So doesn't that sort of disprove that position? I mean, no one's going to send her a pipe bomb or anything - at least I hope not - but it might be interesting to ask her publicist if she's received any death threats and then follow up with what this means about one's ability to not make enemies if one just lives one's life in a certain way. Dittoes for others who have made similar remarks expressing a similar outlook.)
I'm sorry, but this is a world where one can't make everyone happy. We could make the Palestinians happy or we could make the Israelis happy, or we could make them both unhappy, but they want incompatible things and can't be given everything they want. Making India happy with us makes Pakistan less happy with us. Are you ready to embrace Islam so that Osama will not be our enemy? Maybe you are. But then what about the Dali Lama? Didn't you promise to make him happy (and no, Osama isn't into syncretism, so you can't make him happy by offering to believe in both. In fact, that is one thing that's guaranteed to make him most unhappy with you).
Another view may be that most people are actually pretty ok, but there are always some who are, well, not (usually, very often indeed, the people who are more than willing to believe that all Osama and the like need are a hug, some understanding, and some signs that we care, are more than willing to believe that George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Rush Limbaugh are unredeemable haters who cannot be dialogued with, only opposed. No group hugs for them! At least that shows that even they believe that some people cannot be reached through "dialogue" and some disagreements cannot be accommodated through mutual consensus and "finding common ground". Even they know that sometimes one "just [has] to win, then"). Not only are there some who are not ok, but there's also sort of a mushy middle of people who might be inclined to be just fine but if they see others engaging in crappy behavior (especially if they're getting away with it) will be tempted to go along with it (any of us had the "good fortune" to be in an "open classroom" preschool run by teachers who didn't believe in rules - rules stifle creativity, you know - or punishment - except perhaps of the "it takes two to fight so you're both equally guilty, now I want you both to think about what you've done" sort - will have a intrinsic, innate understanding of this dynamic, and no one will ever be able to convince us it isn't a real force in the world. Sorry).
What I have been getting at in the last few paragraphs is that whether one thinks such an entity is needed or desirable ultimately comes down to your basic view of the world and human nature, and if you have certain premises, you're going to reach a different conclusion than I might. But I staked out the best arguments I could within the context of this post (who knows, we might, someday, come back to some of these other issues).
My essential position is that the world may have been able to get by without some sort of hegemonic authority, back in the good ol' days. I mean, it wasn't too pretty in eras where such authorities had broken down (those are your "Dark{er} Ages" or eras of Warlords/"Warring States", or the "Interregnums" in Egyptian history which the Egyptians looked back on without fondness, and whatnot). Which is why such authorities were almost invariably invented, at least on regional scales; people talk about how oppressive the Mediaeval Church was in the High Middle Ages, how benighted an institution it was. But there was a reason why, after several centuries of international chaos following the breakdown of the Western half of the Roman Empire, the warlords of the era increasingly turned to the one authority they could mutually agree upon for arbitration - Clerical authorities and ultimately the Bishop of Rome. They may have seethed at it, they often bucked it when they thought they could get away with it, but it was better than nothing. We might think of the situation of the hegemonic authority, likewise. As I mentioned in Part I, America's attitude towards Britain in the first century plus of its existence was like this, too: a mixture of resentment, envy, and also cooperation and dependency, until we got to the point where we overtook them.
But, as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, the world may have survived in the absence of a hegemonic authority (though not prospered) back in the old days, but in an era where nuclear weapons proliferate and other nasty weapons are being conceived all the time, it's not clear that the world would survive (well, it's actually pretty hard to destroy the world, or even all life on the world. But one could massively depopulate the world and destroy civilization for all intents and purposes) without one now. No, these things don't really take care of themselves.
I spent rather longer than I expected to rambling on about why I think that some sort of hegemonic authority is a vital good (it's amazing that so many people have to have these things explained. It's unfortunate that I'm betting not many of those who should consider these things won't be reading this blog). Now, that authority isn't of necessity the United States, nor, some may argue, any one power. It could, for example, be the "international community". Who or what should fill that role and how is a very important topic. How important?
So important, we'll take it up next time.
Update: Here's a FT Editorial that takes up one of the myriad, often-overlooked, problems:
The most egregious example of currency manipulation is that of China, which has accumulated more than $100bn in international reserves since the beginning of 2001. Its international reserves now stand at $320bn, which can leave little doubt that the renminbi is grossly undervalued. However, China is not the only culprit. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also routinely engage in foreign exchange intervention to a lesser or greater degree in order to prevent their currencies from appreciating and to maintain the competitiveness of their exports. . .
By contrast, countries such as China, South Korea and Taiwan, which all have satisfactory growth rates, would enjoy a free ride. By keeping their currencies artificially cheap, they would maintain their high export-led growth rates despite the global downturn. However, they would do so at the expense of jobs in their main trade partners. . .
The International Monetary Fund does have explicit provisions against currency manipulation. Indeed, Article 4 of its Articles of Agreement obliges member countries "to avoid manipulating exchange rates or the international monetary system in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other members".
Since 1979, the IMF has also had a separate surveillance procedure whereby its managing director can institute ad hoc consultations for countries suspected of manipulating their exchange rates for competitive advantage. However, there have been only two such consultations on currency manipulation - one for Sweden in 1982 and one for South Korea in 1987 - and each conveyed only mild criticism.
While a blind eye could be turned to currency manipulation in the buoyant years of the 1990s, there should be little tolerance for free-riding in today's more difficult global environment. Each country should be required to bear its fair share of the adjustment in the US's external accounts.
Given the IMF's poor record of combating currency manipulation, it falls to the US, with its European and Canadian partners, to take a lead in exerting pressure on Asia's currency manipulators. This could be done first through bilateral or multilateral consultations with China, South Korea and Taiwan. If those prove fruitless, more direct pressure may be applied through the trade remedies envisaged under the World Trade Organisation agreement. One way or another, the free riders must be made to pay their share.
It is a play about those political universals: national pride and the damage done to a politician's soul by pursuing it. Henry is ambitious, as a politician needs to be. He must abandon those who can no longer serve him. He must not balk at acts which would horrify a private citizen. He must become steely in a way that other human beings must not be.
Particularly in war, he must calculate costs, in lives and grief, which ordinary people could not dream of calculating. He must become cold. He must lose his humanity. In service of honour, he must act like a monster. He must promise to ravish the daughters of Harfleur and bomb the streets of Dresden. Only then can he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day".
Check out the whole review.
By the way, Part II of "America's 21st Century Foreign Policy" will have to wait till tommorrow. Didn't have an opportunity to write it up last night.
We sometimes here from our British friends about the long and shameful support that many Americans gave to terrorists - IRA terrorists - and Americans who supported the IRA should be shamed and hopefully reflect on their activities.
But not all Americans who involved themselves with the IRA were scum. Here's one of the good guys.
This also shows that terrorist groups, contrary to the conventional wisdom among too many in our intelligence services, can be infiltrated. We should do more to recruit people to infiltrate al-Queda and other terrorist organizations.
When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day.
No word on any plans he might have to call out the National Guard or the Army to make sure the Court's decisons aren't enforced.
A few observations:
We don't have to speculate about what the media and public reaction would have been if a Republican candidate were to say the same thing, before, say, a conservative group, do we? He would be hounded from the race - rightly so. This is a case, one of many, where they don't mind how something is done as long as it's "their side" not "the other side" doing it.
When Democrats talk about "restoring our Democracy", this is the kind of thing they want: Rule By Decree, as long as it's by their guy. (Don't tell me I'm wrong - show me. React to this the same way you would if the shoe were on the other foot. Everything else is just popping smoke as far as I'm concerned).
When the Democrats speak of "uniting us", this is what they mean: pandering on the basis of race. Sort of Orwellian of them, but we won't get into that right at the moment.
Gephardt was (yah, I said "was") one of the more serious candidates. Now he's shown that he's not above pandering to the extremists who control the nominating process.
I like to think that if Paul Tsongas (D - MA) were still alive, he'd give Gephardt a "Pander Bear". But, who knows? I never thought Gephardt would go this far, so if Paul had lived, it may be that he'd have ended up following these people over the cliff too.
But I like to think otherwise.
Update: Then there's this way of "uniting" Americans. Wonderful stuff coming out of the Left these days, neh?
Additional: The face of the Democratic Party. Hey, at least Byrd is consistant: he was for Massive Resistance before Gephardt was.
The Prime Minister says a "federal superstate" has been explicitly ruled out by the European Convention.
If by that you mean that the phrase "federal superstate" does not appear in the draft Constitution, and neither do the words "federal" and "superstate" appear separately, then that's true. Otherwise, federal is as federal does.
Reporting back to the Commons, [Blair] said: "Issues to do with taxation, foreign policy, defence policy and our own British borders will remain the prerogative of our national Government and Parliament.
On taxation, that's right (in a narrow sense). On the others, well, I have to wonder what that EU Foreign Minister is for then and that stuff about:
The Union's [power] in matters of common foreign and security policy shall cover all areas of foreign policy and all questions relating to the Union's security. "Member-States shall actively and unreservedly support the Union's common foreign policy and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity and shall comply with all the acts adopted by the Union in this area. They shall refrain from action contrary to the Union's interests or likely to impair it's effectiveness.
Perhaps Blair and I have been reading different drafts. I've been reading this one.
"The Convention sets out clearly what Europe is for, its aims and objectives.
Clearly? Did he say "clearly"?
Yep, we're definately reading different draft Constitutions. Perhaps he got a copy of the Articles of Confederation by mistake. I do think that IDS, whatever his other faults may be, saw the same draft I did:
Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith accused the Prime Minister of "completely understating the all-embracing nature" of the constitution.
He warned it would "fundamentally change the way every country in Europe is governed" and again demanded a British referendum on the proposed changes.
Yah, the one IDS is referring to sounds more like the one I read. Someone must have slipped Tony a bowdlerized version.
I blame Chirac. Musta been Chirac, trying to embarrass him.
Regarding Quidditch, Quentin Stephens writes, via e-mail:
I cannot disagree with you more about your article on Harry Potter. In particular your analysis of Quiddich is entirely wrong. You clearly have not read the books. The players other than the Seeker play important roles and scoring with the Quaffle is significant. You state that scoring with the Quaffle is about as common as scoring in soccer: a quick check of the books will disprove this. You also indicate that 15-nil is uncommon: apparently not so in Quiddich (qv Book 4), and not so in rugby (even after normalising). This is illustrated most clearly at the start of Book 4 but also in Book 2. You also ignore the role of the Beaters whose task is to both aim the bludger at the opposing players - including the Seeker - to put them off and defend their own players.
I did mention I hadn't read the books; I was evaluating the movie and my reaction to it. Based upon that, the game stands as called. If there's a problem with that, blame the people who adapted the book for the movie.
I'll also add, though, that I have read the rules (which are posted on more than a few websites), and upon reading them, they are flawed.
I do want to take this opportunity to say that this isn't meant as a cut on the whole Potter thing, though; the characters were all good, even the ones that were "types" were interesting. The story was lively and had enough surprises to be interesting and unique. But, the things I mentioned are the things I found annoying and that got to me. They are, in the great scheme of the story, small things, really. But the movie would have been a heck of a lot more enjoyable for me if some of the things Quentin mentioned had been a factor (it wouldn't have needed to take a lot of time, really. I do not actually ask for much).
I do completely stand behind everything I said in re. comparison with "Midichlorians" and I note that Quentin did not try to contradict that (makes me curious if Rowling is one of the people who thinks Britain should be a "classless society" - and how this division of her world into contemptible muggles and talented magi fits that. But I digress - it's actually a very common disconnect/inconsistency among those who claim a longing for a classless society and simultaneously believe in a elect "Vanguard" of the more enlightened which they will, naturally of course, belong to; but this isn't meant as a political theory dissection of the Potter universe). I thought I was being really generous to a movie that tried so very hard to lose my goodwill right at the beginning in overcoming that (which was for me possible once Harry arrived at the train station and I just decided to put out of mind everything that had occurred before that point; the movie really begins there, anyhow). Then they had to go and lose my goodwill again with this dumb game.
John writes, also via e-mail:
Can you say means testing? I have no love for the Socialists Democrats on general principles but how come they're not running this one up the highest flagpole they can find? To me it's time and past time that those who can afford to pay for their own should do so.
The Veteran's Administration has been rationing health care to their
target audience by means testing for years so it's not a concept totally foreign
to the government.
Well, that was in Bush's original proposal but Democratic criticism convinced him to essentially take it out. Why?
For many, especially Democrats, the brilliance of these programs is that they're "universal", rather than based on need. The supporters of this view can give you chapter and verse about why they need to be universal, but in the end it boils down to "maintaining (or gaining) popular support for the programs" - or, to put it bluntly, buying your vote with your own money.
See, for Democrats who otherwise complain when people who make a lot of money (the 50% of the people who pay over 95% of all income taxes - a proportion that will actually go up, not down, after Bush's tax cuts are fully enacted) are allowed to keep it and spend it as they choose (in the immortal words of W. J. Clinton in a moment of candor “Yeah, we could give you a tax cut but how do we know you would spend it right?") is an outrageous giveaway, but government-administered transfers to the same people is politically shrewd and is the basis of sound policy-making. You only give tax cuts to people who don't pay income taxes, but spending on programs is for everyone.
(Democratic office holders and their hangers-on are also far less opposed to giveaways to big business than one might have been led to believe. Witness, for example, Tom and Linda Daschle's giveaway to Boeing - the latest Joint Daschle Gift of tax money to aerospace-related industry - at the expense of the military budget, leasing planes at a higher cost than they could be bought at, thus leaving less available for vital programs. The list could really go on and on, so next time a Democratic politician starts talking about protecting "the people from the powerful" and their intention to reign in big business, remember also all the spending programs they've proposed and enacted and refused to see done away with that take money from the people and give it to big business. Take the Farm Bill - and that's a good example because the Republicans and Bush are far from having clean hands here, either; their hands are almost as dirty as that of the Democrats. But lets be real, it was really Democratic pressure that Bush and the Republicans decided not to fight that pushed that turkey through - and the Republicans were, yes, also happy to add in their own layer once they had made that decision, so do not think I'm letting them off the hook. The vast majority of the money in that Farm Bill, roughly 80%, will end up going not to "America's struggling family farms" but to large agribusinesses and to well-known sharecroppers like Ted Turner). The point is that giving the same industries a tax cut equal to, or even less than, the amount given in the form of a program would have been anathema, on ideological grounds. See, the issue is really control, not the money: a tax cut, you have control (and might spend it on the wrong things). The same given to you or to a corporation in the form of a doled-out program, the government has control (and, of course, they know best and never spend it on the wrong things, right?)
I'm still unhappy with Bush over the Farm Bill and the Steel Tariffs thing, though. Oh, and don't get me started on the Political Speech Regulation Act of 2002 again. . .
So we're usually fairly good at focusing on specific issues and discussing them thoroughly. That's certainly valuable, but it's also good to step back and look at the big picture. Muddling through can be very successful, but it's got its problems. One of which is that even while making choices that seem good at the time end up taking you somewhere no one really wanted to go (the run up to the Great War, World War I, is often cited as a classic example of this, and I bring that up as it is also mentioned in the post I'm going to frame this one around).
This is going to be the start of a few posts thinking about the sort of broad foreign policy we might want to have, rather than focusing on specific issues. Maybe it will launch (or re-launch) a discussion. To begin, I'm going to start with a brief look back.
America's Foreign Policy Heritage
Many people have described a bygone era. Maybe it ended in 1947, with the Truman Doctrine. Perhaps it ended on December 7th, 1941. Others set it at 1914. In any event, this bygone era was one where America was a commercial trading republic (or agrarian republic), which was "the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all" but "the champion and vindicator only of her own" in the words of John Quincy Adams. Adams also said, expounding on reasons to avoid, as Washington advised, "foreign entanglements", that if America were to do so
she would involve herself, beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
While that is a bit hyperbolic (we can manage to avoid getting involved in all such wars, but of course at the price of having "you want us to intervene in X, but why not Y, Z, P, D, and Q as well, huh?" thrown in our face), it cannot be called inapt.
Over the past two and a half years (in some cases, over the past decade) various people have made the point that this, and the policies that went with it, represented the real America (or, to put it another way, is America's True Pattern), and that we should strive to cleave to those policies. One such person was Colby Cosh in a post so memorable I went looking for it when I was pondering what became this post. Follow the link and read the post; I used it not because it's a easy one to grapple with, but because it's one of the better pithy summaries of this position, from someone clearly sympathetic with America, Americans, and America's position in the world (it might be easy to go after one of the numerous hacks who, well lets just say they don't seem so sympathetic, or those who think that the main source of the world's problems aren't ruthlessly brutal dictatorships, but America's opposition to them. Building a post around something like that might be more fun, but would be less fair to this argument). Cosh clearly is more thoughtful than that and that makes his arguments all the more compelling, especially since even many of us who believe that we now have a responsibility to "go abroad in search of monsters to destroy" (at least in some cases) would prefer it if we could return to that era. We just think that it would not be an improvement, at least under the current circumstances.
Colby Cosh recognizes that it may not be possible for today's America to return to that bygone era. But he chides us to "come forth and trample the memory of the Father of Your Country visibly--the antiwar zealots, after all, are not shy in their willingness to burn the flag, and you owe it to yourselves to outface them in honesty". Well, ok then.
Lets look at two things then before we go on in further posts. First, the degree to which our image of the bygone era of the real America is true, and also the degree to which - to the extent it was true - it was dependent on, well, something that a Canadian should know of, from the history of Canada during the period of our bygone era, and what Canada was a part of.
George Washington certainly knew whereof he spoke when he warned us to avoid "foreign entanglements". After all, he had won the Battle of Yorktown with the intervention of a Franco-Dutch battle fleet, brought to our shores through the use of deft diplomacy taking advantages of the entangling alliances and counter-alliances of European politics. So he knew its usefulness, but also its limits. Why would George Washington advise his successors to avoid such entanglements when using them had been vital to the success of his revolt against the Imperium of the Commonwealth (Canada is still a member of the British Commonwealth and still has its monarch as his Head of State)?
There was nothing to be gained from such entanglements in an era where the British fleet was so strong that, were we to get involved in the shifting alliances that characterized European politics of the era, we could only lose, not gain. Britain's fleet could shell our shores, occupy cities (they held New York until the end of the war), and no continental power would really be able to give us anything out of such an alliance that would be of real value. Also, we could be aloof because - well, I'll get back to that.
In any case, we should immediately recognize that Washington's admonishment was more prudential than a categorical imperative. He clearly recognized that there had been exceptions, and thus there could be again. Or he wouldn't have had the help he did at Yorktown. It is also often forgotten that America had a fairly active foreign policy in that era (America's Ambassadors were positions taken by men of the highest caliber America had - Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson served as Ambassadors), and it is no accident that America's Secretary of State was (and has remained) the most senior cabinet position. Diplomacy was neither something Americans ignored nor something they could afford to ignore.
We were also extremely good at taking full advantage of the entanglements that beset Our European Friends, even while (to the extent it was possible) remanent outside them. Who was the biggest winner of the Napoleonic Wars? Arguably, it was America (which took the opportunity, under President Jefferson, to acquire huge. . .tracts of land. . .from Napoleon for a song. We didn't even have to marry some shrew and get involved in dynastic struggles, either. But note that try and stay out though we might, America couldn't - even in this era - keep pricks from doing things that demanded some sort of response. We almost went to war with France, and we did end up going to war with Britain (indeed, at several times during the 19th Century, America and Britain almost came to blows. These episodes are remembered on CBC in the form of a history of unprovoked American threats to invade and conquer an innocent Canada).
America was trading, or trying to, with China by the end of the 18th Century; it thus entangled us in conflicts with other European powers, because we wanted what eventually came to be called an "Open Door" to trade there (and in other places as well), while European powers were interested in carving out the usual colonial spheres.
Yes, America has intervened militarily in the affairs of foreign countries, such as our '99 intervention in Haiti. (Wait, I thought that was in 1994? No, wrong century. Ok, 1899 then, after the Spanish American War? Um, no: I'm talking the intervention in 1799 and 1800). Our Marine Corps hymn is a song that is recognizable around the world. America sent military force against Tripoli in 1986. It wasn't exactly new for America to send forces against the shores of Tripoli - America's most "isolationist" President, Thomas Jefferson, did in 1801.
Indeed, the True Pattern of America, an aspect of the "Real America" that non-Americans find so troubling, eme
