Timing Error

I'M GLAD I DON'T WRITE POLITICAL THRILLERS

There's plenty of talk in science fiction writing circles on how difficult it is to write near future fiction; accelerating trends in technology jam up the old predict-o-meter.

Now imagine you write political thrillers: Rob Blagojevich just made you obsolete.

Throw in some sex, a little light murder, and this manuscript is complete: I've been laughing all day.

Actually, you probably couldn't sell the book: too over the top.

Rob has brass balls.

Plenty of people smarter than me will cover the ins and outs. I caught the word while driving to work and even now, many hours later, I'm still laughing like a little girl. Read the complaint: its a great insight into our other economy, the political economy.

REVIEWING A REVIEW: DR. BACEVICH

I'll be honest, I won't read the book: I got burned by Paul Kennedy back in the nineties and tend to give the declinist viewpoint a wide berth. There are only some many reading hours in the day.

The Danger Room review is pretty good, and I wanted to try to address some of what I saw as Mr. Sigger's excellent point about the book:

1. Sigger writes of Bacevich: "First, that the success of presidential administrations depended on their attention on pleasing the American public's desire for goods and cheap energy."

I’m tracking, and the Soviet's failed because they didn't produce enough consumer goods. My main gripe about Paul Kennedy is that he spent more time discussing pig iron production than he did Hitler. True, IR theorists need a personality independent theory, but come on: personalities give great clues. In addition, I'm leery of targeting one aspect of the political economy and giving it too much weight. Dollars to donuts, we will have wars in whenever this "post-oil" era arises. Keep in mind the “era of big oil” is barely less than a hundred years old, and we’ve had plenty of wars before that. Finally, you've got to look at how wars are marketed (and jus ad bellum arguments have a huge amount of marketing pro and con behind them). Structural Realist still take the nationalists, in the sense of a strict Morgenthau construction, view of International Relations. I get the impression SR guys think the world is similar to a mercantilist 18th Century Europe with an expanded chessboard and a few nukes thrown in for variety.  

It is not.

2. Sigger continues: “Bacevich believes that Paul Wolfowitz, in particular, went against decades of reliance on National Security Council directive 68 in advocating a policy of "anticipatory self-defense" that led to an invasion of Iraq in 2003.”

Arguing the ends and outs of preventive versus preemptive wars will give you grey hair. I would recommend War and Decision, however, for a good look at the ins and out of intra-governmental decision making.

3. Sigger writes: “Bacevich is concerned that we've learned the wrong lessons from the Iraq war - that people believe we need to reconfigure the military to fight "small wars," empower generals over civilian defense officials, and reconnect soldiering to citizenship through a draft.”

Other than that bill languishing in Congress, I can’t think of anyone arguing for a national (military) draft, so I’m not sure where Bacevich gets that from. I am a small wars guy, by temperament, but that’s a longer argument than this critique. If you get over to Change.gov, you’ll see there’s not a lot of support for the Big War folks in the incoming Administration. It looks like a recipe for small footprints and global strike. Punitive wars. Keeping SECDEF Gates onboard would go a long way towards ending the argument (some definitions: I see Big Wars as China and above and Small Wars as Iraq and below).

As far as “the generals” go, I think we need to pith that particular meme. Surprisingly little note has been given to the fact the President Bush choose to ignore the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fire Secretary Rumsfeld and Surge: to good effect in light of the declining violence in increased GoI capabilities. I’m a big believer in civilian control of the military; it is one of the factors that make this country exceptional.

4. Sigger concludes: “…within the last ten pages of the book, Bacevich unloads with this statement: "Nuclear weapons are unusable." In two pages, he tries to make a point that nuclear weapons do not play a legitimate role in international politics.”

Except.

And here is where I argue the Structural Realist do not give enough weight to personalities in their models. Not having read the book, I cannot say that Dr. Bacevich is making the argument, but underlying much of what Structural Realist argue for is the Balance of Power: a Concert of Europe on a grand stage. And the proliferation of nukes plays a part in that.

An eminence grise such as Kenneth Waltz has argued for the proliferation of nuclear weapons and so has Mearsheimer of the Israeli Lobby fame.

Look, I think Structural Realist took the wrong lesson from the cold war: namely, that those nuclear weapons led to stabilities between the two superpowers. They are almost dismissive of the bloody edges where we contested and the long term (still feeling it) harm of Soviet (if you need to name them) tyranny. Structuralists are lousy surgeons: they take the fundamentals as they are and attempt to stitch a form of stability over that structure. Nuclear weapons are desired glue towards a more stable world, as I see their views.

I look at that approach as a 3/5ths Compromise: it just kicks the can down the road. And if you have a bunch of loose nukes in that can, well…

Ok, I’m done. I still won’t be reading the book, but thanks to Danger Room for giving me some of the current thought from Dr. Bacevich.  I just firmly believe Structural Realists are not keeping up: unmooring power and influence from the state; accounting for increased information flows and memory retention; and finally recognizing that a lone nut can do more damage today, than say two hundred years ago, would go a long way in modifying their views.

Making structure is not a winning formula: maturing agents is.

JEFFERSON AND ADAMS HAD PRETTY MUCH THE SAME ARGUMENT

io9 posts some future history by Mr. Ken Mondshein. Key statemnt, IMHO:

...his use of technology to transform a patrician, republican system of representative government into a responsive, flexible direct democracy;

One of my pet peeves is the common conflation of democracies and republics. They're very different things, with democracies the predominant form of government in the world. The (neologism alert) trendency is always towards democracy.

It's an old argument, in international relations and political science. Even the use of technology is not new: Aldus Huxley covered that ground long ago.

UPDATE: I like the term memetic engineers. Thanks!

TRANSNISTRIA JAPR: JUST ANOTHER POCKET 'REPUBLIC'

Strange Maps takes a look at the breakaway/breakaway thingamajing of Transnistria:

The self-declared republic’s regime is styled as ’super-presidentialism’ under the leadership of one Oleg Smirnov (4), who managed to obtain 103.6% of the votes in a particular district during the 2001 election.

Life is composed of rules and rubes. But the best line in the post, by far:

Lenin statues still adorn the Transnistrian town centres, and the main ideology seems to be nostalgia.  

That's a line you could apply to pretty much all the (neology alert) Dash-Isms (-ism) that pop up and plague us with depressing frequency. 

Additional thought: I think one likely outcome from our current macrodecision is to see states weakening in the center of the international structure, with a concomitant strengthening of subnational and supranational entities. Man, that's where the fun the fun kicks in.

BUSH DOCTRINE AND THE EMERGING KANTIAN ETHIC

The Bush Doctrine started of as one declaring preventive (not preemptive--lordy, there's a big difference) war as falling within jus ad bellum.

Via LGF, we get Charles Krauthammer's take. I find this part interesting:

It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

President Bush is a Liberal/Utopian, and it makes sense he would trend in this direction. But the Bush Doctrine, in reality, is a modern reformulation of Kant's Perpetual Peace. Granted, I know Kant is old, dead and white and his critics are legion; but his logic still holds up (as seen in Democratic Peace Theory which is Kantian vice communitarian/cooperative). If you wish to know how our foreign policy, in part, evolves over the next few years, I recommend Kant's Philosophical Sketch:

SECOND DEFINITIVE ARTICLE FOR A PERPETUAL PEACE

 "The Law of Nations Shall be Founded on a Federation of Free States"

FINALLY: SOMEONE SMARTER THAN ME SAYS IT

When I tell people that President bush is a flaming Liberal, they look at me like I have a third eye. But he is; as Sovereign, he mainly acts at the international level and out there, he is a Liberal/Utopian. 

Tom Barnett writes:

Clinton was more conservative (despite all the talk) and Bush was more radical (despite all the talk). I think Obama would end up being surprisingly conservative in leadership style (despite all the hype) and McCain more the radical (despite all the imagery).

The U.S. trends Liberal/Utopian overtime (with a Structural Realist foreign policy establishment and a Liberal defense establishment). I would argue that the world at large trends towards Structural Realism, which accounts for most of the tension between us and the structure-of-the-day. 

Internationally, it is appropriate to refer to Senator McCain as a Liberal/Utopian and to Senator Obama as a Structural Realist. Appropriate and accurate. We get our wires crossed when we shift levels down from the international system to the state; the social/sexual conversation inverts Liberal/Utopian and Structural Realist (now called Conservatism). If you really wanted to be accurate, though, the culture 'warriors' are structural liberal versus structural conservative. Liberalism is less Burning Man and Woodstock and more Halo in practice. Liberalism can be god-awfully lethal, which probably underpins Democratic Peace Theory more so than any kumbaya explanation I've read.

The U.S. still remains a Liberal/Utopian country: that confuses and pisses off our frenemies, but there it is.  At the end of the day, it is our liberal approach towards structure that determines 'sides' in any particular conversation, up to and including war. 

Size and levels shift, but constants remain.

MULTIAGENCY/COMBINED/JOINT TASK FORCE CHICKEN

I think this is the future of U.S engagement in this The World™ thing. Call it the Hardened Soft approach.

My parents used to raise chickens; I earned my pin money through school working the farm. By 5,500 hundred chicks? We used to do 90,000 a grow out.

Seeing pictures of ammonia filled Iraqi chicken houses sure brings back memories. A little rubber tubing and some pumps and these guys can be in business. I don’t know how they keep those birds hydrated: it gets too hot and the chickens pretty much just roll over and die.

Also, check out that guys ITOV: says USDA. Awesome

 

 

Original Citations:

Picture 1: More than 5,500 baby chickens thrive on an Iraqi egg farm in Jedidah al-Shat, Iraq on Aug. 11, 2008, as part of a Provincial Reconstruction Team-led pilot project. Launched in April 2008, the project involves providing seven local farmers chicks on a split-cost basis and teaches them how to properly raise, maintain and manage egg-laying poultry.

(U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Mario A. Quiroga/released) 080811-N-0373Q-015

 

Picture 2: A local Iraqi sheik and Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), Diyala, U.S.D.A. Agricultural Advisor Ryan Brewster, display one of more than 5,500 baby chickens involved in a PRT-led pilot project in Jedidah al-Shat, Iraq on Aug. 11, 2008. Launched in April 2008, the project involves providing more than 5,000 chicks to seven local farmers on a split-cost basis and teaches them how to properly raise, maintain and manage egg-laying poultry.

(U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Mario A. Quiroga/Released)

080811-N-0373Q-027

STRUCTURE AND THE STATE

 The problem with lensing international relations solely through the State Actor is that you can wind up talking to the wrong people.

 The President (Medvedev) is in Moscow; the Sovereign (Putin) is in North Ossetia. Russia is in a state of internal rules violation; always a dangerous precedent. Optimum outcome, in my view, is a micro-regime change that rejoins the Sovereign with the Presidency. Your rule sets can be stupid, but you have to follow them.

 

 BREAK

I am amazed, though, how high stakes negotiations come down thoughts written on blank sheets of paper. Paper beats rocks (when it works)

Sarkozy’s “Russian Peacekeeping forces will implement additional security measures” may just go down in history next to General Schwarzkopf’s “sure you can fly your helicopters” response to the Iraqi’s at the end of GW  I. (.pdf link for memo junkies)

 

RUSSIAN IRREDENTISM: LEBENSRAUM FOR THE NEW CENTURY?

One thought to keep in mind: accepting Russia’s irredentist claims on Georgian territory is a flat out dangerous precedent. Russians are in all the formerly oppressed Soviet satellites. What stops Russia from pressing claims on Latvia (currently the Baltic country with the highest level of ethnic Russians)?

I had Russians at my wedding; they’re fun people and can put you under the table with their drinking. That said, Russia got to rampage around the eastern European peninsula for 70 odd years; they need to be chill out for a century or so and grow a bit.

That said, I am beginning to get heartened by the U.S. response. I’m actually ashamed of my earlier doubts: it takes time for Agent oriented States to generate national power. Structure oriented States usually just scream then leap.

It takes time to move Brigades (or other elements of national power)

Of course, if we had the “over the horizon” “Strike Force” based in “Okinawa” ready to respond to regional crisis, then we would have been there like yesterday, right?

TARGET OF AFFECTION

Georgia cannot defeat Russia. Noted.

The Russian State structure is far too large, but...

Russia, as a State, is compromised of subcultures: the one centered around Mr. Putin is the dominant rule setter.

Georgia cannot defeat Russia, but informationally, they can attempt a decapitation by taking out Mr. Putin: they can target him, most likely through an IO campaign. Do that while the U.S. induces cocomittment cost of doing business rise on the Russian State structure: basically, accelerate the method the Chechnyans used on Yeltsin. Their strategic endstate should be the resignation of Mr. Putin.

Should work, theoretically.

NOTES FROM THE REALM OF ANARCHY: GEORGIA

This is a bit MDMP and a bit international relations; the Georgian state is done. So, what next?

Level shift.

See, I use four levels of analysis: International System, State, Culture and Family (I’m still hammering this out). International System is still the realm of anarchy; no help there which President Saakashvili recognizes: “I want to say with full responsibility, we should save our country ourselves. Nobody else will be able to do it.” Ultimately States must resort to their own means to survive. Below that is the State: Georgia is getting pummeled there and will likely lose their State (barring any fulfillment of implied promises on the part of the ‘West’).

So they’ll shift down to Culture, in the form of a Nation. Sadr over in Iraq did pretty much the same thing after getting pummeled in Basra and Sadr city: "I expect it will be a successful political shift for the Sadr movement and a change from guns to culture." Happens; he could not challenge the State so he moved down one to attempt to achieve his goals. Similar thing for the Georgians; they cannot defend their State, so they abandon, shift down a level and trade space for time. Link.

Again, a valid method. Our Iraqi friends did pretty much the same thing moving from a State centered resistance to a Culture centered resistance (remember the FREs? You may not, since they got stomped awhile back and the insurgency vacuum got filled by AQAM and Sadrists) Link. 

Why not surrender? Because the Russians will in time, screw the pooch. It’s in their nature, saith the scorpion. Georgia has the upper and lower Caucuses. They can move their Nation (Army and additional Iconography) into the lower Caucuses and strike north. President Saakashvili can govern the nation from there or in exile (Saddam did not have that option).

The 58^th Army had to drive past the graveyard of Chechneya to get to Georgia. The very same 58^TH that was immolated in Georgia:

The slaughter of the Russian 131st Brigade was a result of this tactic. Russian forces initially met no resistance when they entered the city at noon on 31 December. They drove their vehicles straight to the city center, dismounted, and took up positions inside the train station. Other elements remained parked along a side street as a reserve force. Then the Chechens went to work. The Russian lead and rear vehicles on the side streets were destroyed. The unit was effectively trapped. The tanks couldn't lower their gun tubes far enough to shoot into basements or high enough to reach the tops of buildings, and the Chechens systematically destroyed the column from above and below with RPGs and grenades. At the train station, Chechens from other parts of the city converged on the station and surrounded it. The commander of the Russian unit waited until 2 January for reinforcements, but they never arrived. His unit was decimated.

The Georgians can learn from that:

“The principal Chechen city defense was the "defenseless defense." They decided that it was better not to have strong points, but to remain totally mobile and hard to find.” Link.

At this point the Georgians do not seem inclined to surrender. There is a definite clock ticking for the Russians. The Russians do not do well in mountains or cities; the Russians always come in hard and fast and overextend their logistics (Afghanistan, Chechnya Pristina); the Russian idea of precision is using a sledge hammer to change a light bulb; the Russians will react with atrocities as the conflict is prolonged; the Russian supply line sits astride Chechnya (I’m just saying) and the Russians are as hamfisted as they are unintelligible.

So why different outcomes (Iraq v. Georgia)?  The deep philosophical differences between the U.S. and Russia; our intentions sharply differ; the effects of our invasions differ in net benefits and let’s face it the Russian Soldier may be fine, but their leadership is crap.

One other thing: Turkey? What does Turkey Want?

Just some quick notes, and a bonus map:

 

Thanks to Mr. Fernandez for the inset and jogging my sluggish mind.

UPDATE: Russia abstains, and holds in its two areas. But the precedent is set; as an old boss told me once, we really need to get our 'shi@ toghether'.

PHYSICALLY SICK

From CNN: The Georgian government said it was recalling the army to Tbilisi "to defend the capital." 

Yup, I know. Complex geopolitical reasons, Russian pride, US forces 'tied down', oil, pipeline, etc. 

Noted. 

But so slips Georgia, so slips the Baltics, Poland, Czechs, etc. in time. 

Unless we generate a forceful response across the D.I.M.E. (agnostic which one leads), then Georgia goes under the boot. 

We operate on a 'play now or pay later' basis: inevitably, the U.S. always chooses to pay later.

Thanks guys. 

You know, the U.S. Military has a program called "Training with Industry". Basically military officers go off for a year to learn best practices from the civilian sector. Perhaps our State Department could benefit from a "Training with Infantry" program...they could learn that their actions or inactions have consequences far beyond foggy bottom.

THERE 'THEY' GO AGAIN; SAME OLD SHI@ AGAIN

Well, there goes Russia, cutting through international law like a knife through butter. And like O.J. on a rampage, they will probably get away with the act. 

That said my sympathies and best wishes lie with Georgia. Georgia is a natural ally of the U.S. and I hope the USG realizes that. Besides, the bear who stumbles south can just as easily go north. My wife, the Latvian, also supports Georgia. 

I find it strange how silent the E.U. has been up to this point. I mean, it is not just their normal laborious decision by consensus process; Russia basically owns them, energy wise.

As an aside, two comments on Nathan's wired post (linked above):

1."ostensibly to counter alleged Al Qaeda influence in the Pankisi Gorge" . Well, not quite 'ostensibly'; the whole purpose of GTEP was to counter a perceived threat from AQAM. I happened to be around there at the creation.

2. "Georgia might be tempted to use its newfound military prowess to resolve domestic conflicts by force" Nations have to maintain territorial integrity or they go out of business; Georgia is acting against a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian (Nationalist) Mafia, embedded on its territory.

UPDATE    James Joyner quotes a good point from Mr. Larison, one I think the Russians will attempt to hide behind:

To understand the Russian response, imagine how Americans would respond if Serbia launched an attack into Kosovo while our KFOR troops were still there, and then imagine how much stronger the U.S. response would be if, in the course of the attack to retake the province, our troops took casualties because of that attack. 

Except. Look, the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russians? Well, they showed a tendency not to want to go home. Fast forward to today, they are not in S/O under a UN Mandate; they are basically there on their own hook, sticking it to Georgia. An entirely different situation from Kosovo, or Iraq, for that matter.

Most nations, IMHO, are not big fans of international law: they look at all the crap you get for upholding the law, and ask why bother? Who wants to be as 'hated' as the US?

(Oh yeah. Mr. Joyner,  ignore those theorists, sovereignty starts at the individual ;)

SOFA OR COUCH?

So I saw CNN breathlessly report (Breaking News!!) that the USG and Iraqi Government were close to a Status of Forces Agreement. Did some digging, and it is the usual leeks and whispers of bureaucratic politics. In other words, there is no there, there. Yet.

That said I do so love the semi-neologism of ‘combat troops’. Are they like ‘law enforcement policemen’? I don’t know. The phrase ‘combat troops’ has become the curtain behind which reality occurs. Do they mean ‘combat brigades’?

There are 6 + 2 Brigades, at least in the Army. Three Maneuver, three Enablers in a transformed force, with the M.P.s and Medical community making the +2. I assume everyone is talking about the three Maneuvers coming out; but, well, mission requirements will drive that. Me, I just do not see a bunch of Enablers hanging around long after the Maneuver guys; maybe you do see more MITTs and other type trainers, but keep in mind that’s reordered/re-missioned Maneuver joes. And it is condition based, as they say.

Bottom line, short term end state is strategic overwatch. How that looks by UIC and MOS is unclear; everyone who talks otherwise is just fooling themselves.

PRE-POST UPDATE: About to hit post and I see the UN has extended the mandate. Ignore the editorializing; the UN Mandate, absent a SOFA, provides the legal basis for the US presence in Iraq.

BROKEN ARROW: AN AFTER ACTION REVIEW

Nine U.S. Soldiers were killed in battle; enemy losses are approximately 200 (unclear at this time). The historic ratio, at least since Somalia, has been 1 US Soldier dead for every 10 enemy killed. I don't now why, but that has been my general observation. So, reading the New York Times, what happened?

1. The FOB was positioned very close to historic hotspots (Kashmir, Peshawar, NWFTA)

See map.

2. Some commander, at some level, assumed risk. The FOB was not fully constructed (HESCOs make a huge difference). Here's an image inside FOB Some Random; even fully reinforced, they are tiny. But defensible, once fully constructed.

American and Afghan forces started building the makeshift base just last week, and its defenses were not fully in place, one of the senior allied officials said. In some places, troops were using their vehicles as barriers against insurgents.

3. The enemy overran the observation post.

At the lightly fortified observation post nearby, American soldiers came under heavy fire from militants streaming through farmland under cover of darkness. Most of the American casualties took place there, a senior American military official said.

4. The enemy was going for a strategic win. An overrun US base would be like manna from heaven for them. They failed.

It was the first time insurgents had partly breached...

Translation: they died in the wire.

5. Airpower played a dual role: 

He said some local people might have joined the militants since a group of civilians were killed in American airstrikes on July 4 in the same area. “This made the people angry,” he said. “It was the same area. The airstrikes happened maybe one kilometer away from the base.”

Airpower is tactically wonderful but strategically imprecise.

American ground commanders immediately called in artillery and airstrikes from a B-1 bomber, as well as A-10 and F-15E attack planes. Apache helicopter gunships and a remotely piloted Predator aircraft fired Hellfire missiles at the insurgents, military officials said.

Errata:

a. June 2005 casualty spike? The tits up known as OP Red Wings.

b. I keep hearing we need to shift forces to Afghanistan. There are approximately 17,000 non-US NATO Soldiers in Iraq; the bulk of whom will not/can not fight. The Afghanistan 'Surge' (I hate that word) of US Troops is designed to fill the gap the bulk of those non-US NATO Troops currently occupy. 

c. The enemies rear areas are in an ungoverned frontier area. Just wanted to point that out.

GOOEY GEOPOLITICAL GOODNESS

Strangemaps looks at China: Airstrip III and some of the complexities the Chinese face from terrain. I wrote in response to one of my professors questions that the main threat to China was it being broken up and sold for spare parts on the nationalist market. I'm not sure how he took that.

Bottom line, the landscape of China ain't so flat and outside the heartland, hic sunt leonus:

Its size and its penchand for autarkism dictate China’s three main geopolitical objectives:

• maintain unity of the Han heartland;
• maintain control over the non-Han buffer zone;
• deflect foreign encroachment on the Chinese coast.  

MY BOY MUQTADA: LET'S SEE HOW THIS GOES

Muqtada al Sadr, after defeating the combined armadas of the Americans, Iraqis and Great Kahn in a do or die battle over the planet Zebulon IV, got his as@ unceremoniously stomped back here in reality (specifically Basra and Sadr City).

So, from Iran, he's disbanding JAM and relying on the Special Groups (Iran Associated Militias) as a sort of Imperial Guard. JAM turned jelly will focus on the 'cultural' front.

Makes sense.

Look, I recognize four levels of analysis: the International System, the State, the Culture and the Family. You attack a level based on your perceived ability to win; it's similar to three dimensional chess they play on Star Trek. After getting rolled by the irresistible momentum of State sovereignty, Sadr (and his handlers) decided to shift levels downward.

Sadr announced his intent several months ago to level shift from attacking the State to launching an offensive against Culture. So now Sadr is operating, primarily, at the level of Culture (with harassing fire directed at the State level). He'll have to attack the Culture's Rule Set and detach the the population from the overlying State; that takes awhile, but it's a valid long term strategy (think Hezbollah).

The Iranians know how the game is played; one day, so will we.

THE SOFT SCIENCE CASE FOR SPACE

I keep noodling around about structures, agents and globalization. Sure, we're globalizing, or congealing, what have you. Some good and bad in all that.

What's unique is that for the first time, this wave of globalization has the opportunity to pull together the entire upper level of structure: the international system.  As we move towards a one size fits most uber culture, we loose out on fault tolerance. No more undiscovered countries.

So we have to make some: space. Structure outputs the discontents, and they have to go somewhere. Space adds a level of blessed anarchy above the international system (and don't bring up population: numbers are meaningless against ability and intent).

Currently the two serious spacefaring combines are the US and the EU (cash)/Russian (know how)/China (nationalism). In the short term (fifty years) the US will show a preference for moving bodies while the EU/Russians will want to move bots; that may change as they see the US achieve a comparative advantage. SEN McCain favors landing a man on Mars (or woman) while SEN Obama would prefer to slow down and build kindergarten schools, or something. 

These are all philosophical divides, and they're older and more influential than any current arguments.

Do we hide and caves and fear the night or do we grab a spear and go out and slay our demons. 

The past was a combination of both; I think the future will also be a combination of both.

Check back in fifty years and let me know if I'm right or wrong.

CHINA SYNDROME

Get your dose of reality over at the futurist:

A genuine superpower does not merely have military and political influence, but also must be at the top of the economic, scientific, and cultural pyramids.  Thus, the Soviet Union was only a partial superpower, and the most recent genuine superpower before the United States was the British Empire. 

The US has been about to be overcome since I was born and I suspect that will continue long after I gone.

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW: WINDFALL PROFITS

Suppose you have a product traded between X, the world producer, Y, the importer and Z, the consumer.

In a time of shortage (for whatever reason) X becomes a price setter, while Y and Z become the price takers. In order for Y to realize windfall profits, then the government, G, would have to impose tariffs or quotas on the movement of goods from X to Y. Y could then sell product above world prevailing prices to Z; in effect, windfall profits for an importer Y lies in tariffs/quotas that raise prices above world prices.

In the absence of quotas and tariffs, then windfall profits fall to X, world producer, and is represented by the cost inputs it takes to manufacture/dig up the product and what they can sell it on the world market.

I learn something new everyday.

CARLOS MENCIA MADE THIS SAME POINT...

...a few years back:

"But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy’s buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours? . . . That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11.”

---Dr. Fadl 

The New Yorker story A Rebellion Within makes for great reading. Discusses the breakdown of the intellectual underpinnings of Jihadism, Qaedaism, Radical Extremism, Agitating Agitators or whatever the hell this week's title is for a very old, predictable and transient phenomena.

Me, I'll just be happy to watch this iteration die; that way I can catch a breath, walk about for awhile, and wait for the phenomena to rise again in another ten, twenty odd years.

THE SIXTY QUADRILLION-BILLION DOLLAR WAR

Charlie Stross asks what we (the global "we", kemo sabe...) could have spent the money the US used to invade, stabilize and restore (ongoing) the sovereignty of Iraq. 

On the high side, he uses the figure of six trillion in indirect cost (the report he links is highly debatable). That's out of an estimated 60 trillion dollars the U.S. has thrown off in the past five or so years.

The real fun, though, begins in the comments.

(speaking of GDP, wow...the E.U.'s got bank, at least according to wiki.)

"COME LEONIDAS, LET US REASON TOGETHER": TALKING TO THE 'ENEMY'

So, Senators Obama and McCain walk into a bar…no wait, Senators Obama and McCain recently engaged in a dust up about talking to Iran, bad guys du jour (and they are. The mullahs suck). It is the whole “let us talk to the enemy” business.

Rephrased, the question is simple: ontology (world view), to merge or not to merge, to merge and how to merge? That is the question.  I’ve had to do some reading on Informational Ethics (don’t ask) and came across the work of Luciano Floridi; he’s basically a one man band in the field. But I like him; he uses ‘environ (shape) ment(mind)’ in the way it is supposed to be used…not as a stand in for trees, grass and other such errata. In his paper “Global Information Ethics: The Importance of Being Environmentally Earnest” (link to .pdf), he makes a most excellent point:

Agents can talk to each others only if they can partake to some degree in a shared ontology anchored to a common reality to which they can all refer.

Which is true.  The problem comes when mixing the peanut butter of your ontology with the chocolate of someone else’s ontology.  Floridi offers a solution when he argues for a base ontology:

The approach to be pursued seems rather to be along the lines of what IE proposes: respect for and tolerance towards diversity and pluralism and identification of a minimal common ontology, which does not try to be platform independent (i.e. absolute), but cross-platform (i.e. portable).

Which is what Obama, an Ontocentrist, earnestly believes is possible. McCain does not, at least not without some fundamental changes in the other guys OS. For Senator Obama to be right, there has to be a shared, minimum ontology with the Mullahs. Unfortunately, instead of enforcing the minimal ontology, as things stand, we default to a sort of cheap relativism in reaching towards, or making up, a shared ontology (with the result that a minimum standard of human rights/freedom being harder to reach when you keep reaching blindly in the dark for your shared ontology). McCain believes a shared ontology can be tried, but that it will not likely work absent the OS change.

Of course, Senators Obama and McCain are merely stand-ins for the basic philosophical differences/preferences we have.

Basically, people are binary; we fall into one or two categories (and yes there are always tertiary categories but those are stressed outliers).  Below, you see the two broad categories around which we organize our politics: the two basic ontologies into which you can objectively shoehorn all the adjectives (race, religion, sex, ethnicity…the boring stuff). While there are some crossovers, in the main, folks are going to either prefer agent promotion or structure promotion.

.

Agent promotion has a downside of anarchy and an upside of agent mobility and fault tolerance. Structure promotion has an upside of order and a downside of agent immobility and fault intolerance. Obviously, the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. Both are ongoing traditions within Dar al Liberalism. 

Problem comes in when you trend towards too much structure promotion; you just set yourself up for a huge crash and burn. Structuralist recognize this; it’s why they tend to be ontologically imperialist (though Floridi would probably be aghast to hear me say that). Structuralism sheds ontological imperialism (colonialism, imperialism, communism, Nazism, jihadism, etc) like nobodies business. Basically, any structuralism has to expand; you cannot have someone out there making a lie of the necessity of your little reality (see East versus West Berlin). Also, structures tend to stave off collapse (and sustain local reality) through expansion: expansion equals more coin, more coin equals a longer lease on life. That is why Iran is regionally expansionist (coin, influence, local power) and Jihad (hard and soft) is globally expansionist. Both Persian and Arab ontologies are, at root, imperialist. But in the end, both are fault intolerant structures that will collapse; either over time or with a shove. 

Now, Senator Obama is more or less ontocentric. He’s reaching for that shared ontology Floridi talks about. Unfortunately, because oncentrism is reductive, it lacks the emotional appeal of ontoimperialists philosophies; which is why it gets rolled, time and time again.

Ontocentrism brings with it another factor: disdain for agent promoting ontologies. This is because, by necessity, ontocentrism must tend towards a structural solution. Ontocentrism seeks to devalue other ontologies and requires power (structure) in order to do so; ontocentrism and ontoimperialism are top driven models. To that extent, IMHO, ontocentrism and ontoimperialism are twinned: both initiate rootkit attacks on hostile ontologies. For the ontocentrist, that’s pretty much all; for the ontoimperialists, it’s generally ‘the other’.  Though motives differ, the effects are the same.

Back to Floridi; he is correct when he writes: 

Not only do we live in a world that is moving towards a common informational ontology, we also experience our environment and talk and make sense of our experiences in increasingly informational ways.

So the question is now designing the root OS or minimal shared ontologies. Look at the below illustration. In the end, agent promotion and structure promotion have some irreconcilable differences. Individualism versus collectivism cannot be reconciled (note, for example, how attacks on ‘white privilege’ are, at heart, attacks on individualism). As thing stands, the trend is towards a structural OS preference; mainly because structuralism, directorial or dictatorial, is easy.

Now I keep harping on macrodecisions, because that is what we are in; and it is important to realize that macrodecisions require compromise between powers before moving on to coalitioning. The compromise will occur between the two basic ontologies (above) and the results will be what we live with for the next X Number of years. We will approach a shared global ontology as Floridi predicts; the question then becomes, of the two broad philosophies, which one dominates: agent promotion or structure promotion?

In the end, the cynic in me bets on structure promotion. Again, it is the easiest. But structure, at all levels of analysis, leads to structuralism: a fault intolerant collapse that’s just best to avoid. We’ve never had a structure at the level of the international system; merely blessed anarchy. 

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

 

MICRONATIONS

I love the whole idea:

For instance, Lovely’s Minister of Defense is Wallace’s friend Jon Bond, who was once a security guard at Tesco.

A nation in every pot, by god!!

GREAT WAR OF CHINA DELAYED

SecDef Gates to DoD: um, fight this war(s) first. He's also starting to get some good advisers in and around him.

Nice.

ARMED CRIMINAL ENTERPRISES

It's what we call them in the biz. Foreign Policy has a nice roundup of the worst (surprisingly, they leave off quite a few masquerading as nation states):

Their darkest dealings often go unreported and unnoticed. But from Nairobi to São Paulo, many urban gangs are becoming more sophisticated, more brutal, and more powerful than ever.

via BB.

When you hear about these ACEs, make sure you keep Max Manwaring's piece handy: Street Gangs.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PODCASTS

Some pretty good ones out there:

UCLA Burkle Center

Global Voices

Council on Foreign Relations

Berkley Open University (neat course on American cyberculture)

UCTV Conversations with History

Rounding out with free foreign language podcasts from Open Culture.

If you stumble on this lists and know of more, shoot me an email or drop it in the comments.

KTHANXBAI.

ROLES AND MISSIONS

Dry topic, but important:

The one issue Congress told the Pentagon to study is whether there are unnecessary duplications of capabilities among and between the four services and other arms of the Pentagon. In addition, the officials told reporters that unmanned aircraft systems, intra-theater lift, cyber war, irregular warfare, Pentagon governance issues, and DoD's roles and missions in the interagency world.

Everyone back to their corners and start over: Sea, Ground and Aerospace (quit cybering for dollars).

IRAN: IT IS WHAT IT IS

Information Dissemination (via Instapundit) has a good roundup of preparations for war against Iran; preparations basically hiding in plain site:

I'm not big on conspiracy theories, not my style, but the coincidences of naval power availability and how obvious this has been unfolding for 8 months now is simply something observers like us can't ignore. We believe Stratfor is soon going to get an opportunity to test their theory, all signs point towards a time in the very near future where both nations will approach the edge of war. Lets hope Stratfor is correct in their analysis, and it is in that moment negotiations prevail.

Couple of things to add:

1. Looks like Sadr will be defeated in detail, probably by early summer and JAM Special Groups will lose its Iraqi "face".

2. Al Qaeda never really got of the ground in Mosul, and now, potentially, their leader of the day may have been captured. Not related to Iran (directly); but an important factor.

3. Hezbollah may have kicked over an ant hill in Lebanon. The state may reassert itself, there.

Iran is being rolled up on the ground; the loss of JAM SG and Hezbollah proxies will put them on the defensive.

As for negotiations? Well, I think that path, unfortunately, is dead. As I wrote in Probably, Definitely the release of the NIE about Iran's nuclear program (owing to our own bureaucratic politics and infighting) fatally damaged a diplomatic solution (I mean, come on, the french basically said "WTF, over" when the NIE was released).

If Hans Morgenthau was alive today, he'd probably remind us that you need both the carrot and the stick.

Too much reliance on carrot, and inevitably you will resort to stick.

It is what it is.

THE POLITICS OF IRONMAN

(The post someone has to be dumb enough to write/minor spoilers ahead)

I caught Ironman over the weekend. excellent movie and a must see: funny with plenty of eye candy. Robert Downey Jr. nailed the part of Tony Stark (Robert has returned from the dead so many times I ceased to be amazed). Realistic revision of the "War on Terror" without directly ringing any of the narrative bells (Iraq War Wrong). Those American stamped bags of USAID rice that dude dies on in the beginning? All over the place (be proud, American taxpayer, over the amount of food you just give away).

Oh, and Leslie Bibb was way hotter than Gwyneth Paltrow.

So, what did I hate? The Air Force. God I (metaphorically) hate the Air Force. Bunch of tossers. First off, what is Tony Stark doing driving around the Hindu Kush mountains with a bunch of Air force security in an unarmored M998 HUMMER. Meat wagon. Next, a four star Air force general is just hanging around Afghanistan? Gimme a break; you can barely squeeze a one star Air Lord into Afghanistan. The theatre is that small. Then there's this business of Lt Col Rhodes (not Col Rhodes as he was constantly referred to in the movie). So this guy directs air battles over Afghanistan with his pretty little F-22s (there is no air threat in Afghanistan, see, because we have F-22s. Sine qua non) all the while in driving distance of Tony Stark's Malibu mansion? Neat job if you can get it. There's even a part where Lt. Col Rhodes, trying to figure out what Iron Man asks "could it be the Air Force, the Navy or the Marines" (I paraphrase).

Throughout the movie I kept asking where is the Army?

Then it hit me: Ironman is the Army.

Some definitions. America is a liberal entrepot. Within Dar al Liberalism, we frame thing in terms of two competing thoughts: progressivism and conservatism. Those two strains actually deal with rate of change within Dar al Liberalism (conservatives slow/progressives fast). But you need another axis. While conservatism/progressivism describe the rate of change, Realist and Liberal/Utopian (to crib international relations theory) describe the amount of structure. Realist prefer more structure; Liberal/Utopians prefer less. So, when you take those two axis, you can template people against them and determine their actual political preferences. You can be a conservative liberal/utopian or a progressive realist, for example.

But the key variable is how you view structure; not the rate of change you desire.

I've made the point before in "Pulling up the drawbridge": the Army trends liberal/utopian while the Air Force trends realist. Realists love their gadgets; liberal/utopians tend to make due what what they have. Again, structural preferences. In warfighting terms, the Army prefers a knife fight while the Air Force prefers a sniper shot (decapitation strikes and shock and awe).

The Army represents the "down and dirty" of American political thought while the Air Force is the "quick and easy" aspect of American political thought (more toys, boys, and we'll be home before dinner). All this occurs with Dar al Liberalism; and you can find aspects of these two strains of thought within all political, social and cultural contexts. The Air Force and Army are merely the war fighting outputs of each school of thought. You can see this divide everywhere: the Artillery/Infantry divide within the Army, the Bomber/Fighter Jock divide in the Air Force and the Carrier/Sub divide in the Nay. It truly pains me to say this, but if you want a perfect fusion of realist and liberal/utopian thought and war fighting capabilities, you have to look at the United States Marine Corp (minus Logistics).

Ironman starts out with plenty of gadget p0rn. The Jericho Rocket for instance (please, we've got that; hook some cluster bombs to an MLRS, or even...). Tony Stark specializes in death at a distance. He's a cynical, playboy, realist, hanging around with Air Force gadget geeks. The Damascus conversion plot point turns him into a liberal/utopian: personally involved and more willing to put his life on the line.

So, the movie begins with everyone a happy little realists and ends with Tony Stark as the lone liberal/utopian: the Army. Even towards the end, you have the realist attempting to to reassert control (strucutre), but the lousy little liberal/utopian in Tony Stark escapes.

Tony Stark is the Ironman; and the Ironman is the Army.

(now get cracking, DARPA)

WHEN YOUR NEIGHBORS A NUT...

...then make a wall your new neighbor . Good posts and pictures from the Long War Journal about the recovery of the lower one third of Sadr City from the JAM Special Groups and other hanger ons.

As you'll recall, Sadrist were eliminated in Basra; they are being mopped up in Sadr City (lot more structure so the approach is a lot more surgical). Building the wall keeps the JAM and their cute little Iranian rockets away from the IZ (and allows for rule set reestablishment in the lower third of Sadr City. Revolutions are an illusion; rule set establishment/disestablishment is what occurs).

I'm constantly amazed how walls have gone up as rule sets have collapsed (West Bank, Saudi Arabia and I think there's one in Europe).

It's our old castle building instinct taking over: invest in concrete.

AFTER THE NATION STATE?

Awesome map of European regions.

There's a strain of thought that blames the nation state for violence: it is the monopoly provider. But I think violence is what it is; absent the nation state, you get a sort of hyper regionalization (we used to call it the dark ages) with varying rule sets. By strengthening the upper structure and weakening the middle, I see this as a logical outcome.

GOVERNMENT GOOD: ASK OG

The website government is good. Wordily trying to push back the vast Right Wing Conspiracy (Lousy Republicans!!!) to eliminate all good in the world.

I recently had a great conversation with a decent fellow: lawyer, Soldier and Public Service Commissioner and Democrat (Lousy Democrats!!!). Largely, it was about light bulbs.

Bottom line, government can be a force for good. But, my belief is that government should tend to do less, vice tending to do more. Government, with its near monopoly on force, balances the system of our American Republic (note: we are not a democracy. Do you know how unstable those things are?).

At it's best, government, especially on the federal level, balances and corrects localized rule set disruptions (think the Civil Rights Movement). At it's worst, government continues to accrue rule sets that eventually become burdensome and contradictory. Ultimately, the growth of government leads to the collapse of government as it crowds out competitors and achieves an absolute monopoly on force.

If you like science fiction, and you should, remember how Frank Herbert described the Empire: "The Emperor and his Sardauker on one side and the Great Houses of the Landsraad on the other"? It's like that in America: Washington and Military on one side, and the Local (State, Community, National Guard, Militias, Private Citizens, Churches, Civic Groups, Advocacy Groups) on the other.

We are balancing a system; but we keep trying to reach for an endstate.

THE ROCK RISES

So General Petraeus gets kicked upstairs to CENTCOM and General "Odi" Odierno has his dwell time slashed to return as MNF-I Commander. I imagine that's pretty good; both of them have the one essential characteristic of any successful military leader:

They win.

SPEAKING OF ESCAPE VALVES

(ED NOTE: Wrote this a couple of days ago, but booking it for posterity)

“From a base in Basra, Senior British Military Representative Lieutenant Colonel Michael Shearer told TIME that the Iraqi operation is aimed at quelling criminal activity, and that the city has never been under the "control" of militant groups.”

Shut up.

If I hear one more time about the British/Northern Ireland model, I am going to hurl. The British (politically) surrendered and declared it a peace.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

Duh.

The government moves. A nation state has got to do two things:

1. Defend itself
2. Reproduce.

Right now, violence is a commodity in Iraq. Any yahoo with a track suit and an AK-47 can get in on the business. The barriers to entry are that low. The central government has got to become the monopoly provider of violence or they fail. Gidgets launching 107mm’s from the back of pickup trucks is, shall we say, unsustainable.

Most all the rest is window dressing.

JAM/SG/Iran LLC has had a going concern on violence in Basra and Sadr City. As a result, they’ve been able to extract rents form the port and oil lines; the rents help them expand their influence.

Outcomes:

COA 1 (unlikely): JAM/SG/Iran LLC prevails.

COA 2 (moderate likelihood): Maliki prevails; high cost.

COA 3 (unknown): The Sardaukars Coalition Forces intervene on behalf of their levies and end the JAM/SG/Iran LLC product line.

Should the cease-fire collapse entirely, those gains could be in serious jeopardy, making it far more difficult to begin bringing substantial numbers of American troops home.

Concerns about US troop withdrawal timelines: parochial and unworthy.

Navel gazing Green Zone reportage: amusing.

That’s my two and a half cents.

Whatever happens down there, it will be fascinating.

NEXT UP: PX PRIVILEGES

Iraqi Army moving to M-16s.

THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT DEPENDENCY OF KOSOVO

Kosovo, a protectorate of the EU/UN, is declaring 'independence'. Fascinating to watch a nation state, albeit a rump one like Serbia, dismembered. Man, there's going to be a ton of unintended consequences from this, within the next decade or so.

Don't get me wrong, the Serbs were dicks, last decade or so; it is the process of supra/transnational instruments making decisions over sovereign states that fascinates me. Plenty of precendents being set here.

That said, last time I was in Kosovo, they were dead broke. I don't think much has changed.

Welcome the newly Dependent Kosovo Thingy.

LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC

France's new First Lady, Carla Bruni:

France's new Foreign Policy

Like Sarkozy, Kouchner speaks of returning France to the heart of Europe and Europe to the heart of the Western alliance; but on Iraq he hasn’t made much headway among his fellow foreign ministers, or even his own colleagues. “They believe that I am an unguided missile,” he fumed. “They believe that I’m a foolish guy. ‘Why is this stupid Kouchner going to Iraq? We don’t care about Iraq!’ They are stupid. They don’t know that the core of the danger is there, in between Iraq and Iran, in between Lebanon and Syria. This is the common enemy, not only for Americans but for all democracies. And the common enemy is extremism.”

METO

n. 1. Middle East Treaty Organization

In remarks to the traveling press, delivered from the Third Army operation command center here, Bush said that negotiations were about to begin on a long-term strategic partnership with the Iraqi government modeled on the accords the United States has with Kuwait and many other countries.

Newsweek

1. I’ve been saying this since about three minutes past forever.
2. The Brigades never come home from Iraq (think Europe)
3. Remaining in Iraq has always been the Liberal (Unit Promoting) option; the United States is a Liberal foedus.
4. Beneath the noise, some sort of alliance has been building.
5. Still doesn’t settle the macrodecision on the brand of global integration; that is largely an argument between Players at the level of the International System.
6. Key Decision Point: will integration be unit promoting or will it be structure promoting?

Of Democratic Kings and Boutique Microstates

The coronation of Bhutto the Younger, through bloodline, and the micro state of Transnistria are linked to broader trends, in my mind. The structuralization of units.

While we are so battle focused on the Arab Middle East, there is so much more of interest and long term impact going on in the world.

The old labels are dead. Rebrand me some new labels.

Robb’s Odd

Government Inc. or Privatopia. Look forward to seeing how he develops this.

1. Brand Government has departed from its core business.
2. Structures are neither omnipotent nor omniscient.
3. When you depart from core businesses, your traditional products (Security, territorial integrity, public health) suffers.
4. Witness this bed bug business in New York. But hey, public smoking is down.

Resilience

Good to see Rudy thinking along these lines; specifically how to bolster Merka’s inherent resilience.

1. Structures are not resilient. Units are.
2. The approach should be towards Unit resilience. Thus Unit promotion.
3. Two series I’ve watched recently: Heroes and Jericho. Both deal with cataclysmic or near cataclysmic events.
4. I see this as evidence of the play element of society war gaming scenarios. Hunziger would be proud.

Sovereign Wealth Funds

Basically, neo-mercantilism. See this over at dinocrat.

In short, Nations are getting back into the field as corporate investors. China's an outlier (she generates wealth) and the ones that fascinate me are the resource extracting nations.

Already, their populations are superfluous to the the wealth creation process. At what point do they become a burden (by demanding more of the pie)?

With rumors of Putin's 40 billion dollar wealth, unfounded or not (live by 'perceptions/die by perceptions'), at what point does "the wealth of nations" become unmoored from the nations?

International Theory Class Over

Last paper submitted. Finished with a good grade. Next up, "International Political Economy".

Liberalism is a disease

And I hope to spread it :)

Look, here's my worldview in a nutshell: the domestic disputes we have in Dar al America are just that, domestic disagreements over how, not what.

Some background. I used to link to Brussels Journal. Figured it was a good way to keep up with Europe. Boy was I right. Unfortunately. There's been a little back and forth between LGF and BJ for quite awhile; largely over BJ's association with tribalist in good suits: Vlamm BangBang or some such and their strong racist overtones.

I'm fascinated by this comment that Charles Johnson fished out:

"..but I see liberalism - as a variant of socialism - as the most serious threat...I do not see myself as the beginning and end of everything, as individual that is, but as part of the circle of life. I find this to be an honourable position."

There is an entire worldview, one not easily reconcilable with liberalism, in that point of view (aside from the error of conflating socialism with liberalism). Europe will likely convulse again, in a way that's hard to predict. Simply my humble P.O.V.

These differences in worldview, while philosophical, have real world impacts. And it does come down to how you view yourself: simply are we means or are we ends.

As for me, better a peasant in the Kingdom of Ends, than a Lord in the Land of Means.

Notes from school

Have to write a peer review of a fellow student; we both came at Democratic Peace Theory from different angles. Thought it would be a good idea to pull up my notecards:

Quick IR Observation

Enjoyed listening to Tom Farer on Conversations with History (link to popup; link to source page). He discussed "Elements of a Liberal Grand Strategy."

Couple of critiques:

1. I listened through my iPod while on a treadmill. Not recommended; Mr. Farer's a bit of a low talker.

2. I think he pulled a bit of bait and switch, mixing his (domestically liberal) views with (internationally defined) liberal views.

Way I see it:

social democrat liberals--> realists-->communitarians.

laissez faire liberals-->liberal/utopian-->cosmopolitan.

I think is has to do with how you view structure.

Mr. Farer is definitely in the realist/neorealist camp.

I was going to double down and do IPE and International Law next term; but I think I better just stick with IPE. Both subjects make my head hurt.

Probably Definitely: A Step Closer To War

Unfortunate, but there it is.

“To be frank, we are more skeptical,” a senior official close to the[IAEA] agency said. “We don’t buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran.”
NYT, 2007

Look at the release of the NIE (link to .pdf). Now read this article in the WSJ. Then look at this piece in Opinion Journal BoTW.

There are two broad outlooks in US Foreign Policy, “hard (gun tooting death-beasts)” and “soft (peace loving hippies)”. Those approaches are blending, but aren’t there yet. The end product, in my estimation, are what some are calling “Smart Power (gun totting hippies)” and resemble something close to what Thomas P.M. Barnett advocates (drive security, then liberal economics, and then liberal governments [type agnostic] will out). AFRICOM is your proof of concept vehicle.

But as a smart man once paraphrased, you go to war with the politics you have, not the politics you want.

Power and Liberalism: Hard and Soft

Hard Power aligns with laissez-faire liberalism (internally) and liberal internationalism/imperialism (externally). The Hard Power advocates look at the Unit (state/individual) as the best level of analysis/influence. Hard liberals view peace as an outcome.

Soft Power aligns with social democratic liberalism (internally) and realism/neorealism (externally). The Soft Power advocates look at the Structure (state/individual) as the best level of analysis/influence. Soft Liberals view peace as a process.

You can trace all the chicken little-isms of the past few years (jihadis in tanks rolling down Main Street versus the decline and fall of the American Empire) to the current debate between Hard and Soft Liberalism. Really, it comes down to that.

Right now, there’s a debate going on; the subject is Iran and its nuclear program. Iran is in violation of international obligations, and has been for some time. There is a debate as to whether Iran is developing or able to develop nuclear weapons. Since about 2004 (despite selective amnesia) there has been a broad multilateral diplomatic (Soft Liberalism) effort to constrain Iran. Despite the NIE, there still remain many unknowns. Hard liberal advocates are beginning to make the case that those efforts extend beyond diplomacy and become coercive (the continuum ranges from strong sanctions to war).
This argument is taking place to satisfy the jus ad bellum requirement. It began this past summer.

In my view, the proper balance, especially for a benign hegemon, is Soft Power with a component of Hard Power (my view of Smart Power). Unfortunately, I believe what we often see practiced is Soft Power unmoored from any form of coercion. As a result, Hard Power alone becomes the default solution available to decision makers when Soft Power (without coercion) fails. Sometimes this is called war.

My critique is that Soft Power advocates have become so wedded to processes that they’ve become means and not ends oriented. By minimizing, publicly and loudly, Hard Power, they naturally usher in its use. (As an aside, don’t think Hard Power advocates prefer war; if you do, then you are, where’s my French Dictionary, outside your fucking minds. No one prefers war.)

Bureaucratic Politics

“Truman had unwittingly…..released the forces of bureaupolitical conflict, pitting factions within departments who favored radically different policy approaches against each other to produce a joint report for the president.”

I hope you read those two articles above. They began to confirm what was already a gut feeling. The NIE is a salvo in the jus ad bellum debate over Iran. The Soft Power advocates are attempting to preemptively constrain the Hard Power advocates. It has little to do with Iran, per se, and more to do with power and influence within the government, outside organizations, elites and mass perceptions. There are real stakes here within the hegemon.

The NIE will have major unintended consequences: it will unconstrain Iran and undermine Soft Power efforts currently extant. Hard Power will become the default position.

Just like in the Iraq debate, I predict the liberals will trump the realists, because, no matter the tactical victories, the hazily perceived strategic goals must still be met by decision makers on the international stage. When the Soft Power approach hits a dead end, decision makers will default to Hard Power.

Conclusion

I know, a little theory can be dangerous in the hands of a professional ranter, but three pogs to one, we go to war.

Eventually, you know, we’ll get to Smart Power, but it’s going to take years to get there, IMHO. The snow melts in the Antarctic; it just takes time to see the changes. The politics you have, and all that.

Unfortunate, but there it is.

Just In Time Education

Finished up a study last week of Graham Allison's take on three decision models: Rational Actor, Organizational Process and Bureaucratic Politics.

Then up pops this on the NY Times: U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

A bit of Bureaucratic Politics (actor gains influence by releasing information) describing Iran in terms of the rational actor model: “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

Interesting addition to the debate.

2008's gonna suck.

Up For Air

Finished my assignment, turned in the paper. The verdict? Writing is easy. Its writing well that's hard.

Next assignment:

Observe the Video Interview with Thomas P.M. Barnett, “The Pentagon’s New Map”

HYPERLINK "http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2394135666520306690&q=Conversations+with+History" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2394135666520306690&q=Conversations+with+History

Go to the following site to see an image of the map from Barnett’s “The Pentagon’s New Map”

HYPERLINK "http://www.federalreview.com/uploaded_images/pentagons_new_map-767771.jpg" http://www.federalreview.com/uploaded_images/pentagons_new_map-767771.jpg

2. Post a well written essay in the “Discussion Board” on the following question.

According to Thomas P.M. Barnett, what effect is globalization having on military power and the U.S. military? Briefly summarize his theory and the evidence he presents to support it. Next, objectively evaluate his theory. To what extent do you agree or disagree with him? Explain your views.

I don't think I'll be plagiarizing Noah Schactman.

(got to keep a sense of humor)