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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
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Well, That Explains It
Jaques Chirac, explaining how France arrives at foreign policy positions:
"Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see anything in return. I'm not sure it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favours systematically."
Unlike Chirac's close personal friend, Saddam Hussein, who lucratively rewards those who support him.
Tony Blair, with typical Anglo-American simplisime, believes countries are allied on the basis of common values and interests, while our more sophisticated and enlightened French betters know it's all about going with the highest bidder.
If you haven't read this piece on StrategyPage, I highly recommend it.
The reporting of military events in StrategyPage often differs from how the mass media describes the same events. That’s because the mass media is under enormous pressure to report startling and "competitive," news. StrategyPage isn’t. Our editors and contributors have a background in history and historical simulation (wargames), and that provides a very different perspective. Our analysis, based on historical trends and past performance, is far more accurate than the dramatic headlines the mass media use to describe the same events.
Longtime readers, if they're still around, might remember the old "Humanities Debates" posts on this site about a year ago (enter "Humanities" into search engine for related posts). Both journalism and history are in the sphere of the humanities.
One thing the StrategyPage article illustrates is that historical knowledge, done properly, is very useful in rationally evaluating the world. Bad journalism is obviously not, but it does show how a study of humanities is valuable, and can be predictive. Bad history will produce bad results, no doubt. Good journalism can produce good results - as can good punditry. Bad science also produces bad outcomes, inaccuracy and other pitfalls. Many of those on the other side of the "science vs humanities" debates may not have taken that into consideration.
That's perhaps because there is one thing the scientific community has consistently done better than the humanities-related community has. That is keep track of track records - what was right, what was wrong, and even who; which methodologies produced more accurate feedback than others, and the practitioners involved. Were they properly applying a methodology, or sloppy? If the latter, have they improved. A scientist can be forgiven for making errors, when those errors are corrected. Scientific reputations aren't based so much on perfection, but this quality. Good scientists recognize and admit their mistakes, make changes needed to correct them, and search for more accurate results. A scientist is respected for admitting error, admitting that the data doesn't support their favored theory, publishing it, and theirby pushing the ball forward (because knowing what isn't the right answer can be valuable in finding the correct one).
It isn't that humanities - a study of history or practice of journalism or punditry - can't be valuable. It's just that very often there are few if any consequences for false outcomes. Thus the same old crowd can make the same old statements about what is going to happen if we do X, and hardly anyone will be so crass as to point out that the last time they made such predictions, the opposite happened. "Keeping score" is considered rude. This means people are still using methodologies that are entirely flawed, recommending solutions that have already been shown to be failures, and making predictions that are generally wrong.
This may be changing some. One of the values of blogging is that it may prove to be a useful tool in "keeping score". Bloggers are mean enough to remind people of the last time Harold Pinter or whomever said thus-and-such, raised the ugly specter of the "Arab Street" or wild claims of millions of deaths in a humanitarian crisis, and the like.
But as StrategyPage shows, proper methodologies can be far more accurate. None of the "Humanities" are the same as pure science, but that does not mean they cannot be useful in evaluating the world. Thus people are able to compare-and-contrast, find people who have used a means of evaluating the world that has proven to be more accurate, and weed out the chaff.
You know, our scientific friends may forget, but this sort of feedback is relatively recent, in historical terms, even for their community. They tend to forget how long it took to develop, the pitfalls along the way, the resistance that paradigm-changing scientific theories faced not just from the blind non-scientific community but within the scientific community itself. A better knowledge of history (ahem) might help them see that there's not quite so much of a stark divide on this as they might want to believe - just that they're several decades ahead of the "humanities" set in applying a means of keeping score without wounding egos. Good historians and good journalists - and good pundits - are adopting the same mindset.
Before the offensive against Fallujah started, the commentary was that letting the enemy control the city showed the limits of U.S. policy & power, implying that our strategy in Iraq was failing. Now many of the same people are saying that by going into Fallujah we are showing the limits of U.S. policy & power, because the irregulars have slipped away to fight another day, hiding in other places where they are harder to get at.
This Catch-22 formula where whatever we do it is a display of failure and powerlessness against an invincible foe is usually followed with useless advice such as perhaps it would have been better to continue to negotiate with the intransigent, or the shrugged-shoulder implication that anything we do is bound to lose.
The Catch-22 critics are wrong, however - sometimes knowingly, having axes of their own to grind. It was obviously a mistake to back off from Fallujah in the first place, giving them a victory on two levels: one, a base from which to operate from, and two the morale-boosting symbol that such a safe haven provided. Sweeping them out of the city does the same thing that removing the Taliban and al-Qaeda from control of Afghanistan - it reverses those two benefits. They no longer have a sanctuary from which to plot and launch their operations from, and have suffered a morale-lowering setback. This in addition to the hundreds plus (perhaps over a thousand) of the enemy who have been eliminated in the operation, and others who have, like cockroaches scurrying away, exposed themselves in less hospitable locales elsewhere, where they have also been eliminated.
It is true that the offensive will not destroy 100% of the irregulars/terrorists who had made Fallujah their base of operation. Many, including most of the leadership, will have escaped to fight another day. But 100% elimination of the enemy in one offensive is not the usual standard in war. This defeat will make it more difficult for them to conduct future operations, recruit and train replacements, and find sanctuaries from which to base themselves. It is a necessary step towards success in Iraq for us, and the commentariat who would transmogrify it, Tet-like, into defeat are not living in the "Reality-Based Community", as much as they might try to tell themselves they are.
They do tend to be the same people who look for the dark lining in every silver cloud when it comes to the war, not just in Iraq but in Afghanistan where similar Catch-22 critiques are made, and on the war in general, which after awhile makes one wonder whether they want us to win or not. Perhaps they're just natural pessimists, but it is an. . .interesting pattern.
Update: Check this out on where terrorists come from.
One other observation: when someone praises Arafat as a statesman, visionary, democratic leader, and the like, you no longer have to wonder who they want to win in the war on terror.
