Do we have too much faith in the US Constitution?

I'll start with what I mean by faith. Faith is believing something to be true or right without adequate evidence. If you have evidence for something, you don't need faith. The US Constitution is a wonderful document. It sets out to create the world's first liberal democracy, seeking to guarantee individual freedoms by anchoring them in the founding document itself and creating a government with divided branches all meant to keep each other in check. It is at once a reflection of human hopes for a better world, an attempt to make those hopes reality, and an implicit acceptance of the fallibility and corruptibility of individuals, especially those in power. It looks to the light, but the very need for it suggests a darkness it was meant to prevent (the darkness of tyranny, authoritarianism, and plain old bad governance).

Judged by the standards it set out, the Constitution is an incredibly successful document. The United States has not become a dictatorship, nor has it ever succumbed to dangerous ideologies like communism or fascism. It has remained flexible, changing as the times required to maintain a functioning society. The Constitution itself has also changed over time as the citizens of the United States sought to improve their democracy, something the Founding Fathers anticipated when the wrote the document and specified ways in which it could be changed.

But perhaps the success of the United States, which derives so heavily from its founding document, has led us to revere the Constitution as if it were an immutable holy text. Ideas (and I am taking no position on whether they are good or not) that might change how members of Congress are elected or would abolish the Electoral College are often rejected as if they were heresy rather than viewed according to their merits. The right to bear arms (which I actually support, by the way) is defended not so much on grounds of reason but because it is seen as an inalienable right given, not by god, but by the Constitution. It's almost as if the Founding Fathers were prophets.

What do you think? Do we view the Constitution as if it were something mere mortals ought not to change? Is this good or bad?

Is America still the world's lone hyperpower?

Recent US failures and infighting give the impression that the US is weaker than it is.

 

 

For a moment after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was talk of the United States as the "last superpower" or even the world's "hyperpower." At the time, it seemed the US was free to shape the world as it wished because there was no longer opposition from another country nearly as powerful as itself. This feeling persisted, Blackhawk Down notwithstanding, until the US seemed unable to finish the job in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sense of decline was then intensified by the financial and economic crises of the late 2000s and the political gridlock that has ensued in the US since 2010. The rise of China, with its growing military and tougher rhetoric, also seemed to suggest that a multipolar world had arrived. If the US can't get what it wants and is continually constrained abroad, can it really be a hyperpower?

The answer is "yes," and here is why. Throughout the world, countries have two choices: ally with a regional power or ally with the United States (or both if that regional power is also a US ally--a sign in and of itself). Countries that have an affinity for (or whose economies are perhaps too closely linked with) the regional power side with that power. If others are worried, they seek closer ties with other worried countries and with the United States as a guarantor of their security and interests. The fact that this occurs in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia shows that the US is seen globally as a power that can provide extra security. There is no other country that currently does this. So while there are regional powers that challenge US authority within one part of the globe, the single solution to regional fears remains the United States. Only when that changes (e.g. China begins to be seen as an alternative to an alliance with the US and this outside of China's backyard) will the world be multipolar.

The failure of the US military to solve political problems was a sign of US hubris, foolishness, and naivete, but it was not a sign of failing US power. Political problems require political solutions. Military force can defeat an enemy or clamp down on violence, but it cannot, in the end, provide a political solution, especially if that solution is supposed to be democracy rather than an iron-fisted dictatorship. This has always been the case. Without an internal readiness and cultural preparedness for democracy, democracy cannot come about. By its very nature (since it exists at the behest of the people), democracy cannot be forced. No amount of power in the world could have changed that. (State building may bring a country to democracy over years or decades, but it is an uncertain and incredibly intensive and expensive endeavor and requires civic education and institution-building--political solutions, in other words.)

Finally, that the US cannot always get what it wants and is constrained by international politics is also not in itself a sign that the US is not a hyperpower because this misunderstands the term. All states are subject to others' influence and demands and are not free to act as they please with complete impunity. States have varying degrees of freedom of action, however, and the US is freer than others due to its power. The US can, when it chooses, act alone militarily anywhere in the world. No other country can do this (except to a certain extent, perhaps, for Russia, which is however much weaker in other respects). When France and the UK got together to support rebels in Libya, their combined power was not enough: They needed US assistance to be effective.

The US is rightly chastened by its foolhardy experiment with neoconservatism and its inflated belief in the ability of the military to solve the world's problems. It has perhaps now swung too far in the opposite direction, but this is probably also temporary. In the end, however, its underlying power and ability to affect the world has only been lightly diminished, and this more by the damage to its reputation caused by the wars in the Middle East, political infighting in Washington, and its own (faulty) acceptance of its loss of power than by any real changes in fundamentals. US power still underwrites the international system and that will continue to be the case for at least another decade or two. Beyond that, anything could happen (even including a continued unipolar world with the US at its head--or not).

What has created high-paying blue-collar jobs, reduced America's trade deficit and greenhouse gas emissions, and cut Americans' energy bills (also further boosting the economy)? FRACKING!

Many of you will have read the title to this post and thought "sacrilege!" Fracking is an emotional topic just about anywhere that it is performed or contemplated. Countries like France and Bulgaria have at least temporarily banned the practice, while Luxembourg has failed to vote to allow it. Even in countries where it is not illegal, like Britain, it is distrusted and moves ahead only slowly.

There is certainly reason to be concerned. Companies that frack can rightly claim that there is no evidence of fracking ever contaminating a drinking water well, but they rely on a few tricks to make that assertion. The first trick is semantic: Contamination from oil or gas extraction can occur in many ways. The hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that cracks open the shale formations to release gas and oil is just one small part of the process and it is true that there is no evidence that this, by itself, has ever caused contamination (nor, as geologists point out, is it likely to). But who cares? The process of bringing it to the surface through supposedly hermetically sealed pipes that run through levels of rock that contain drinking water is an obvious concern. If contamination occurred at that stage, it wouldn't technically be due to fracking, but again... who cares? Finally, there have been confirmed cases of contamination from the ponds used to store waste water from the fracking process until it can be disposed of. Those ponds are often open and can overflow in a rain storm, causing toxic substances to leach into the soil and groundwater. Regulation of the ponds, the seals, and the chemicals used in fracking varies widely and is not based on solid study, all of which should be deeply disturbing to anyone interested in the safety of drinking water and the preservation of the environment or even just their crop fields.

That said, the other side of the debate is also guilty of twisting the facts to suit their own ideological desires. Many environmentalists point to the massive use of water (up to 7 million gallons for a single well) to frack wells. That sounds mind-boggling, but put it into context: "Of the [9,500 million] gallons of water used daily in Pennsylvania, natural gas development consumes 1.9 million gallons a day (mgd); livestock use 62 mgd; mining, 96 mgd; and industry, 770 mgd."¹ In other words, fracking uses just 3% of the water used by agriculture in that state and just 0.2% of the water used by other industries. Granted, in a place plagued by drought (like Texas), this can still make a huge difference, but it is often blown out of proportion. Conventional oil fields also often require water to be pumped into them to maintain pressure and push oil out, so this is not something entirely new to fracking. Another claim is about contamination of drinking water. As noted above, some contamination has occurred from the above-ground pools used to store drilling waste. What's more, it seems gas has occasionally leaked upwards along improperly sealed pipes and into groundwater. The problem is, drinking water wells have more often been contaminated due to naturally-occurring gas deposits than from natural gas drilling. One study found levels of methane in groundwater in fracking areas to be close to background levels published previously by the US Geological Survey (i.e. the methane was there already). Another study notes levels were higher near fracking wells--but I'd point out that you'd also likely drill wells where you'd have more gas to find, so there may be a chicken-and-egg problem here. It should also be pointed out that fracking is not actually new, it's been done since the 1950s with little opposition.

After all that back-and-forth, your conclusion ought to be "mixed bag," and you might thus say "better safe than sorry." I agree with that to a point, but since fracking has been done safely for ages, many of the claims of the dangers are unfounded or confirmed only rarely, and because cases in which contamination occurred have seemingly always resulted from lax safety regimes, on balance I'd say: tighten up the rules, enforce them strictly, and move forward with fracking. Why? Because there's more to this debate than whether groundwater has been contaminated or not (or whether air pollution from it is dangerous, etc. etc.).

As my title suggests, there are massive benefits! By 2020, it is estimated that the American fracking boom will have generated 1.7 million jobs--"far more than the car industry provides." And these are the types of jobs that have been disappearing since the 1960s: They don't require a lot of skill or education, but they can lift those doing them solidly into the middle class. It's a force against the "hollowing out" of the American economy, whereby those in the middle class are either having to find some way to move up the income ladder--or accept sliding down it. Another benefit is to America's trade balance. America has run a trade deficit (importing more than it exports) since the 1970s (with just one exception). If you spend more money than you earn, you have to borrow the difference. The US has done just that for all that time. Its government is in hock to China and Japan, but the private sector has also seen foreign banks lending domestic banks money, which eventually has to be repaid. Many mortgages are held by banks in Germany, for example. This cannot continue forever (and was one big factor in the 2008-9 financial crisis). America either needs to import less or export more. Shale gas and oil found domestically mean the US can import less of both and export more, so the US could even start paying down its debts without having to spend less on other things (it's like a get-out-of-jail-free card).² We should not underestimate this benefit. It could potentially mean lower borrowing costs (cheaper loans to homeowners, businesses, students) coupled with lower energy prices (saving people money) and more (and higher paying) jobs. It's a big deal.

Next, there are the environmental benefits. If fracking can be done safely, its ecological ledger could be on the positive side. Natural gas is cleaner than coal, both in terms of CO² emissions and in terms of other forms of air pollution from coal (like particulates and sulfur oxides). US greenhouse gas emissions have already fallen by 300 million tons since 2000 (without even really trying--we didn't sign up to Kyoto, after all), and the pace looks to be quickening. Some of that is due to the recession, but some is due to natural gas replacing coal for electricity generation. Coupled with the benefits of lower energy bills, less foreign borrowing, more high-paying blue-collar jobs, and less American money going to unsavory regimes throughout the world in exchange for their oil (a point I haven't really made here but one that is highly significant if you're interested in how American foreign policy shapes the world), and fracking, carefully regulated, can be a very, very good thing.

1. McGraw, Seamus. “Is Fracking Safe? The Top 10 Myths About Natural Gas Drilling.” Popular Mechanics, February 2, 2012. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/top-10-myths-about-natural-gas-drilling-6386593#slide-2.
2. I should note here that Americans might continue to borrow just as much abroad because they feel richer and foreigners continue to like investing (lending) in America. It's a complicated equation and is not only under Americans' control.

Is there such a thing as "reverse racism"? Yes, but it's probably not what you had in mind

Can white people be the targets of racism? Some say yes, of course. Others say that even if a black person disliked white people in general, it would make no difference because white people are still privileged, so this is not racism.

In a sense, both views are correct. First off, anyone who takes general beliefs about a group of people, whether based on facts or not, and applies these supposed attributes to someone they do not know, or wrongly imposes this perception on someone they do know, is guilty of prejudice. Period. If the group in question is a racial group, it is racism, but that sub-definition is secondary.

White people and others who are privileged need to be conscious, however, of  institutional racism. This is the second argument from above, and it is also true. The system itself (laws, courts, police, the economy) in any society is always vulnerable to serving primarily the needs of those with the most power. This situation is ameliorated by democracy, but it is not eliminated. And the point above is quite right: If you hate someone, regardless of the reason, but are not in a position of power, that hate is mostly irrelevant (unless you decide to take the last into your own hands, perhaps, but that will not change what happens next). If a person with power, even a person who approves bank accounts or building permits, for example, hates someone, their position gives substance to that hate. What's more, it does this in a way that often make this hatred invisible: There are almost always reasons that can be found for denying a loan application or other request, allowing hate to be disguised, perhaps even to the hater. As far as institutions are concerned, then, white people cannot suffer racism. (Isolated cases would quickly be rectified by other parts of the system like judicial appeal, elections, lobbying, etc.).

As far as "reverse racism" goes, the term is mostly a misnomer. Disliking someone due to their race is racism, regardless of which race each person belongs to--there's nothing "reverse" about it. LIKING someone due to their race could be called reverse racism. This might be a side effect of plain old racism, though, if that like is a byproduct of dislike of other races. I think the best example of reverse racism is probably affirmative action. It is a race-based policy that gives advantages to a group based solely on race in order to counteract the prejudices that group experiences otherwise. I nearly called it a racist policy, but caught myself because, according to my own definition, racism is hate based on race. Since affirmative action is not hate, but advantage for those otherwise disadvantaged, it is not necessarily racist. It is racist if other disadvantaged groups become disadvantaged as a result (a form of institutional hate, you could argue).

Thoughts?

When don't we have to respect others' opinions?

"I'm entitled to my opinion" is something people say when they've started to get offended. The correct response to this may be "sure, sorry," or "yes, you are. Now, as I was saying..." depending on what you're talking about. It should be the former if you find yourself in some stupid argument about taste, like "chocolate ice cream is definitely better than vanilla." If it's about something with objective elements, then fair game, as long as you're concentrating on those. But it's not so easy, right?

Since my readers are mostly liberal, I'll start of with an example in which a liberal shut down a discussion because he viewed it as offensive. There was an article about "new germ theory." The author argued that many diseases we believe are genetic cannot possibly be so because anything that reduces the likelihood that you will reproduce even by 1% will be eliminated from the gene pool within x (I don't remember the number) generations. He thus argued that diseases like MS, heart disease, and many cancers were caused by viruses. (By the way, he did present actual evidence of this, too, so there's something to the line of reasoning). Whether he is right is beside the point, for the crucial part came toward the end, when he mentioned that homosexuality ought to reduce the likelihood of reproduction and therefore ought not to exist. The fact that he does, he reasoned, suggested that it came from somewhere else, perhaps some sort of infection.

The person I mentioned commented in class that he found the article interesting up until that point, but then he stopped reading. He has many gay friends, he said, and this sort of bigoted talk was simply unacceptable. Stepping through the looking glass into bizarroworld, I, the gay man, spoke up to defend the author. Why? His idea was uncomfortable, to be sure. Gays have long fought not to be seen as "sick," and here was a guy trying to throw this back at them again. But the fact that I do not like where this is going does not mean that any such sort of line of investigation should be halted. There was  no suggestion that the author was using this to, say, deprive gays of their rights or lower their status. He was a rebel in the world of disease research and was thus also asking a politically incorrect, but valid, question, "Why is there homosexuality?" while attempting to rule out certain reasons and put forth a more likely explanation, as he saw it. He is not (necessarily) a homophobe for asking any more than someone asking why blacks in America earn less than other racial groups is (necessarily) racist. It's the context (how he says it and why), yes, but also the substance (what he actually says).

Moving on, an opinion like "gun control is bad" is not immune to questioning because it is not a matter of taste. Liking guns may lie at the heart of the opinion, just as a dislike of them may underlie arguments for gun control. If it were about liking guns, there would be nothing more to talk about (like chocolate vs vanilla ice cream). But there IS more to talk about, because being for or against gun control involves loads of other aspects and opinions are built on "facts," many of which may not be true. Getting to these is what a discussion is about. One person may mean "banning guns" when they think gun control, the other may not. Some may be encouraged by statistics that show crime rates falling when bans on carrying handguns are removed (this does happen), while others are more concerned about the increased likelihood of accidents in the home. Still others may conclude that, since America will never be mostly gun free like Britain due to its constitution, it is unclear how most gun control measures, which would in effect restrict gun ownership by law abiding citizens rather than criminals, would really help. NONE of these issues is an opinion. If the two people in a discussion are on the same page with all of these but still have opposing viewpoints, THAT is an opinion, and that may be the end of the story. You may have to agree to disagree because you place value on different things (a matter of preference). In most cases, all the facts are not apparent to all people (or even most of them). Discussion is necessary to bring these to the forefront.

It is possible to question someone's views while still "respecting" them. If I come to the conclusion that fewer guns would reduce deaths and that would be good, while the other person concludes that crooks have guns and she wants to be able to protect herself, while we both know the same information, then it has become a matter of taste and no further discussion is necessary (in an idealized democracy of well-informed citizens, this is where voting would settle the matter).

We do not have to "respect" a person's opinion if it involves disliking black people, or gays, or thinking women should "know their place." You are entitled to that opinion in the sense that no one can stop you from having it and no legal action can be taken against you for having or expressing it unless it manifests itself physically (liking firing a black employee, beating your wife, or inciting violence), but that doesn't mean you have a right for everyone to "respect" your opinion  by not questioning it. In the end, all opinions, ideas, and beliefs are up for debate. Conducting that debate in a respectful manner is the most useful way, in my opinion (being confrontational is unlikely to get the other person to listen and just isn't, well, nice), but debating itself is never disrespectful unless it is truly a matter of taste. Obviously, though, chocolate and vanilla ice cream together is best.

Want to Fight Extremism and Help Moves toward Middle East Peace? A Deal with Iran Might Help.

Photo: The Guardian - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/04/iran-suspend-uranium-enrichment

One of the reasons I have been arguing for action on Syria is because Iran is watching. If we're not willing to stop Syria from using chemical weapons, so the argument goes, Iran will know full well that we are not going to bomb it to stop it from getting a nuclear weapon. Now that our weak commitment to enforcing norms against weapons of mass destruction has become clear, however, it may be time to look for the bright side. In this case, the bright side has to do with the other half of the deterrence equation: the promise.

Most people focus on the threat side of deterrence because deterrence is, roughly, using contingent threats to prevent an adversary from taking a particular undesirable action. The "contingent" part (we will attack only if you do x) is often swiftly forgotten, but deterrence cannot work without it. "You won't like what we'll do to you if you do x" also means "if you DON'T do x, everything will be fine." Similarly, a lot of time is spent worrying about the credibility of threats, but almost no thought is given to the credibility of promises NOT to attack. This is a huge oversight, because if I believe you'll attack me either way, I have a strong incentive to hit you first, or do whatever it was you didn't like, in order to be stronger and appear defiant in the face of your threats.

I suspect so little attention is given to the credibility of promises because of an assumption made by deterrers that they are the good guys and are peace-loving, so of course our promise to be nice is believable, unlike conciliatory promises made by the other side, which, being the enemy, is not to be trusted. I'm not arguing that we should trust Iran. Everything about its nuclear program screams "weapons," despite its assertions to the contrary. What I AM saying is that we should not assume Iran ought to be able to trust us and that any concerns it claims to have are just posturing and nonsense.

Iran has at least two reasons to doubt the US. One is that we have successfully toppled its government once before (after a period of constant meddling my Russia and Britain) in the 1950s. The other is that the US has made no secret of its wish to see regime change in Iran ever since. The past two centuries of Iran's history have served as a lesson never to trust big foreign powers. What may seem to Americans like paranoia or fake worry looks to Iranians like sensible concerns about preventing subversion by foreigners.

The fact that the US obviously does not want to get drawn any further into Middle East conflicts is thus a cause for Iran to relax: The US attempting to topple the Iranian regime seems quite unlikely at the moment. The question is now whether Iran wants the bomb to have greater power over its neighbors (in which case a more conciliatory US stance is unlikely to help) or because it mainly fears the US and its allies (some also in the region), which could be helped by a more peaceful-looking United States.

That question is basically moot, however, because I don't see the US attacking Iran any time soon. The question thus becomes: Now that we have limited our options, what is the path to the best possible outcome? Even if Iran is seeking regional hegemony, as many in Israel believe, getting a bomb may not be the best way to get there, especially if this causes other regional powers like Saudi Arabia to go nuclear as well. The current sanctions on Iran are very painful. They would continue and intensify if Iran got the bomb. This weakens Iran and makes its people unhappy, increasing risks for the regime. If Iran feels safe from US invasion and attacks by Israel, cooperation on several levels could be possible and be a way for Iran to grow stronger. Al Qaeda is one of Iran's biggest enemies, just as it is to the United States. The same goes for other Sunni extremist groups. Given the apparent recent resurgence in Al Qaeda's strength, cooperation with Iran on countering those groups could be useful. At the same time, Shia groups like Hezbollah defer heavily to Iran's leadership. Iran is thus a central player in Middle East politics involving terror groups and other non-state actors and is THE power when it comes to Shia Islam.

Iran's pride would need to be protected in any deal. One possibility would be to leave Iran "stalled" at near break-out capacity for creating a bomb (broadly where it is today). Iran has continually insisted it does not wish to build a bomb, so this would not have to seem a climb-down and would save face. At the same time, Iran would not have a bomb and could perhaps slowly climb down from having one through increased cooperation on a civilian program. This would meet US goals and save US face and credibility. Reducing tension between the West and Iran could also help in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, as Hezbollah defers heavily to Iran and Hamas also listens to it, covering two of Israel's most difficult borders. A removal of tension may make Israel feel secure enough to negotiate.

It's not that far-fetched. Iran doesn't seem that sure on whether it wants to cross that final threshold and obtain a bomb. There's a decent chance it won't build one. The US and its allies should of course stick to the sanctions until concrete progress is made and make clear their commitment to protecting their allies in the region, including against nuclear threats. But if the US seizes such an opportunity, further cooperation would be more probable than at any time since 1979.

America's Reputation, Commitments, and Syrian Chemical Weapons

I used to think war was simply stupid and useless. In an absolute sense, this is true: If everyone everywhere simply refused to participate in war, all of us would be better off, and armies would be unnecessary. But this is about as helpful as noting that we'd all be better off if everyone decided not to commit crimes, thus making police unnecessary. No one would argue the police should be abolished in order to stop crime. Similarly, one country deciding not to participate in wars would not prevent them.

But it's worse than all that because the police analogy is a poor one. In the world as a whole, there is no police force. There isn't one authortiy, subject to checks like judicial review, that enforces laws established through democratic processes. A better analogy might be the American frontier or wild west: a place where each person was responsible for his own safety and vigilante justice was the norm. In such a place, everyone had to be armed to defend himself.

The international system is anarchic like this. If a country gets into trouble, it can't call the police. The only thing it can do is call an alliance partner and hope that partner will be willing and able to help. As the most powerful country in the world, America is an alliance partner to many, like Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and South Korea in Asia-Pacific, or Saudi Arabia and Israel in the Middle East.

It is these alliances that have helped keep the world fairly quiet over the past 60-odd years: Japan could have nuclear weapons and a powerful military, but it does not, because it trusts its alliance with America to keep it safe, even as its next door neighbor China grows more powerful and belligerent each year. The same goes for all the other countries allied to America. American military might dwarfs the rest of the world in part because America is committed to protecting so much of the world and in part because so much of the world trusts American protection and therefore spends less than it otherwise might.

This is not a selfless act: America has much to gain from a world at peace, and much to lose from war, especially with the commitments it has. This stability survives on trust, however, which in return relies on America's reputation. If Japan stopped trusting America's ability or willingness to protect it, as a recent push to change its constitution to allow it to have a "real" military suggests it is already beginning to do, it might build up its military and issue deterrent threats of its own. It might even seek an atomic weapon as a guarantee. All of this would dangerously increase tensions with China and might make other neighbors nervous, too. Trust would begin to breakdown.

Likewise, if Saudi Arabia did not trust American security guarantees, it would likely likely beef up its own military power out of fear of Iran, encouraging others in the Middle East to follow suit out of fear of Saudi power. Lack of trust in America's ability and/or willingness to protect its allies would lead to destabilizing chain reactions.

This brings me to Syria. President Obama swore that the use of chemical weapons would not be tolerated. Had he said nothing, perhaps America could argue it had "no dog in this fight," but he made a very public promise, so America's reputation is at stake and with it, all the stability-enhancing alliances I mentioned above.

Few would doubt America's commitment to protecting itself if directly threatened, but its commitment to its allies is less certain. Obama has promised to prevent Iran from getting a bomb using whatever means necessary. The hope is that this threat alone will be enough to force Iran to back down. But the efficacy of that threat relies on America's reputation. If America is unwilling to attack Syria when it has made a highly public commitment to doing so, its claim to be able and willing to stop Iran from getting the bomb looks ridiculous.

Furthermore, once America is no longer seen as an important ally, its influence will shrink, reducing its ability to impact other world events in a way favorable to it, including drives for democracy and free trade. The result would be a less stable world with a diminished America lashed to the helm, steering an increasingly uncontrolled course. This is why limited action on Syria is needed. Not to end the war, topple the regime, or alleviate the humanitarian crisis there, but, believe it or not, for even bigger reasons that impact the entire world, rather than just one tragically war-torn part of it.

Edward Snowden: Hero or Criminal?

I deliberately chose a bad title for this post because I think it gets to the heart of the matter while missing the point. Hero or criminal? Are the terms mutually exclusive? Of course not. And it's not just that "one man's hero is another man's criminal." To me, Snowden is both.

What is a hero? Someone who takes great risks to do something they believe is right in order to help others. Critically, I think others have to appreciate this in order for the act to be heroic. The Oklahoma City Bomber may well have thought he was doing the country a favor by blowing up a building and killing loads of people. I think nearly everyone can agree we don't need that kind of "help." So the term is subjective, but does have clear elements. Notice there is nothing about "the law" in the definition.

We all know what a criminal is: someone who breaks the law. We might even expand the definition to include social norms that aren't laws (many consider bank chiefs criminals, even though it seems we can't pin any actual offenses on them). Note that breaking the law is not subjective, nor do we generally allow for "good reasons." (For example, a woman who murders her husband because he abused her, while perhaps gaining some sympathy, is still a murderer and will rightly go to prison.)

Snowden? Is he a hero? He definitely took a risk to do something he believed was right. Is he self-righteous? Perhaps, but many heroes probably are, so I don't think that matters. The big question here is: Do the people he thinks he's helping appreciate the help? I think the answer is "yes." Apparently, Americans are fairly divided (despite the blog title, which suggests Americans are heavily opposed) on the issue of NSA data collection and there are a lot of Snowden supporters out there, to be sure. Also, I suspect that even many people who approve of the NSA's activities are secretly also happy that they know more about them now.

I personally knew of the NSA's metadata collection long before Snowden leaked it. It was public information. The extent to which the NSA was doing it was not clear, however, nor was some of the information about monitoring of emails, websites, and social media. I am against this level of surveillance, but I also am not aware that the US Government has broken any laws or done anything necessarily unconstitutional. The laws just allow too much.

I'm happy the information Snowden released has come to light. I'm also clear that his releasing it, especially his hacking into areas he was not legally granted access, was illegal. He is a criminal, but his flight around the world definitely has a strongly heroic vibe, which is why he as a person (the hero being pursued by the long arm of a global super power) has perhaps more potential to damage the US's reputation than the coming to light of US surveillance activities.

America Should Support Democracy... Right?

Obama has good reasons for going against America's principles in favor of cynical pragmatism. That doesn't mean it's the right decision.

The situation in Egypt provides a great example of the ethical conundrums that await any leader when dealing with foreign policy. What just happened in Egypt can only reasonably be called a military coup. US law requires the US to cut off aid to any country in which a democratically elected leader is overthrown by undemocratic means. In Egypt, the military issued an ultimatum--a military giving order to an elected government (the opposite of how things ought to work). When the government didn't fulfill the military's demands, it seized the president and appointed a caretaker government of its choosing. It also shut down media outlets sympathetic to the elected government, trampling on an essential ingredient for a successful democracy: a free press. Legally, then, the case for cutting off the US's annual aid of $1.3 billion to the Egyptian military is pretty clear-cut. So far, Obama has shied away from declaring that the coup was, in fact, a coup, in order to keep his options open.

Beyond the legality of US aid to the Egyptian military, moreover, there are also myriad moral issues at stake. How can the US honestly claim to support democracy when it only does so if it likes the regime that was overthrown? Not cutting off aid makes the US look like a complete hypocrite and undermines its moral authority when trying to push for democracy elsewhere. This is particularly true in the Middle East, where Islam-inspired political parties may now conclude that democracy won't work and that the only way to get to power is to seize power and shut down all opposition. The Middle East's experiment with democracy could be over before it starts.

So why hasn't the US cut off aid? This is where it gets complicated. It started paying aid to Egypt in 1979 as part of its support of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Egypt agreed to sign the treaty and demilitarize the Sinai Peninsula, thereby fulfilling Israel's security needs. This was the right thing to do, as it supported peace, even though it was aid to the military of a dictatorship. It also helped shift Egypt out of the Soviet orbit during the Cold War. Over the years since, the US military has fostered close ties to its counterpart in Egypt. This is the strongest connection between the US and Egypt. During last year's uprising that brought down Mubarak, the US is said to have used the good relationship between the two countries' militaries to encourage, and to push for, democratic elections in Egypt. All good stuff, then.

The reasons for not cutting the aid are all related to this. Egypt has all the leverage with the aid. The aid is related to Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. It it's cut, Egypt might retaliate by abrogating the treaty. This doesn't necessarily mean war with Israel or even re-militarization of Sinai, but it could be the first step in rising instability between the two of them. The aid lies at the root of the cooperation between the militaries of the US and Egypt, and that cooperation is the greatest source of influence between the two. Canceling the aid would thus most likely end the cooperation and thus the US's last source of influence in Egypt. That would mean the US would have less ability to encourage a return to democracy or peace with Israel. This is why it's so tricky to stay involved and to stay "morally" clean in this case.

There are no easy answers, but I think I have to side with John McCain on this one: Suspend aid. Suspend, not terminate. It should be known that aid will be restored as soon as free and fair elections have been held and providing Egypt sticks to the peace treaty with Israel. When aid is restored, back payments should also be made, so Egypt suffers no loss in the long term.

It's a risky strategy, admittedly. Egypt has enough difficulties at home that it would make no sense to start problems with Israel. This oft-cited fact is little comfort, however. It is precisely during times of great internal turmoil that rulers do unexpected, illogical, and dangerous things. After all, what better way to unite the Egyptian people behind the government than by ditching an unpopular treaty with Israel and possibly making aggressive noises towards it? Israel can definitely defend itself, but an escalation of that kind would still be dangerous for Israel, Egypt, and the whole region. If Obama seems indecisive about whether to stick to America's principles or go with cynical pragmatism, this is why.

Conspiracyphilia and Vigilantism: Dangerous American Obsessions

I noticed two related features of American society when I was last home: a love of conspiracy theories and an approval of vigilante justice. I was appalled to see a "documentary" on the History (or Discovery?) Channel in which there were two explanations put forward for the loss of a squadron of air force planes: 1. The leader got cocky and led his partners astray, as evidenced by the strange things he said, confusion, and disagreement about what to do heard on the radio; or 2. That crystals from the lost city of Atlantis screwed up their navigation instruments and possibly inverted the horizon in order to lead the men astray. There was no conclusion and both stories were represented as equally plausible. This is despite the fact that such crystals have never been found nor is there any real evidence for anything like this. The fact that the second version sounds absurd should demand evidence (though it should not rule it out outright), but this was not given. No doubt most viewers are not fooled... but some may be. The two "theories" are NOT equally plausible to anyone with any sense.

Another example is continued skepticism about the moon landings. Read this for more details on the facts. Here's a quick summary of the most compelling stuff: Signals from the Apollo missions were received all over earth and triangulated by various scientists. One documentary I watched interviewed German scientists who did this. Triangulation allowed them to find out exactly where the craft was in three dimensions and follow its course. It is not possible to fake this. Another great one is some sort of radio array they set up on the moon which can be seen from earth. Setting up is a complex task that back then could only be done by humans. The technology required to send robots to the moon to set it up and do everything else required to pull off the hoax would have been more formidable than actually going there in person (which is what really happened). There's much more, but I won't get into it here. Suffice it to say that I was skeptical of the moon landing until I compared the conspiracy theories with the evidence and found the evidence to be overwhelming. The 9/11 conspiracy theories follow a similar pattern.

The second alarming trend is a desire for vigilante justice (going out and bringing "justice" to someone yourself). My own father went on a rant at one point about how the courts had let some guy off who had murdered two people. He said someone should just go and kill the murderer. Vigilante justice is also a common theme in American movies (where the hero "takes the law into his own hands"). My father, or anyone else not involved in the trial, is significantly less well-informed than the judges and jury at the trial. The idea that someone should be found guilty in the press "because everyone knows he did it" and then executed by some vigilante is frightening. It is also undemocratic, unlawful, and sure to cause more injustice than it fights, as innocent people get killed and emotions rather than reason determine punishments. This is mob rule and it is what exists in a completely barbaric society. Luckily, the fact that you'd be punished yourself for doing it, or perhaps some deeply held norms against it, have so far prevented vigilantism from getting out of control. These two ideas combined are dangerous, however.

America was founded on anti-establishment ideals. We are supposed to question those in power. This is undoubtedly a good thing to question authority. But it is bad when questioning is replace with an assumption that authority is incorrect as soon as one person claims it is, no matter how dubious the claims.

America also has self-reliance as a core ideal. This is also a good thing and is liberating for those who succeed in it. It can also be bad when it leads to an unwillingness to accept the outcomes of a democratic system, including its judiciary.

The result of these two ideas is, for one, a damaging gullibility. Most of the people who believe various conspiracies do so with no further research and no investigation of the other side of the (usually fake) debate. Meanwhile, anti-establishment sentiment, so integral to American culture, leads to an assumption that any large organization (the federal government being the largest of all) is bad until proven otherwise, while smaller organizations and individuals are good until proven otherwise.  

Again, true skepticism would be a good thing. But this is a fake skepticism composed of gullibility about random claims from smaller groups assumed to be innocent victims and an insurmountable skepticism towards larger organizations assumed to be bad. The result is a lot of people all too willing to believe utter nonsense and to justify this by the fact that big, visible organizations are corrupt and have done bad things (while the bad things and corruption of smaller, less visible organizations is ignored or not seen). When strong positive feelings about self-reliance are combined with a natural predisposition toward believing anything someone says that is bad about the government, for example, the solution may seem logical: Take the law into your own hands, question the government's legitimacy, and withdraw from political participation along normal lines (like calling your senator or voting). This perpetuates the cycle by leading to further disengagement and ignorance of the facts.

Mercifully, vigilante justice has not been very common, but it may be only a matter of time. The reason there is due process for criminals and that certain types of evidence, or evidence obtained in certain ways, is excluded in courts is precisely because the judiciary must check executive power. Otherwise, it would be too easy for the police to jail anyone they wanted to (or that they were ordered to). The whole idea behind innocent until proven guilty is that it is better, on the whole, to let a guilty person go free than to lock up (or execute!) an innocent. One highly public case (per year or perhaps even more often) of a man assumed guilty going free is therefore not, by itself, evidence that the courts are not working, and certainly not that they are corrupt. Quite the opposite: If accused people were always convicted, that would be a sign of a corrupt court system!

The shock people expressed about the NSA spying “scandal” highlighted for me how people generally fail to inform themselves about the actions of their government. The extent of information gathering was a surprise, but the fact that it was going on was not—for anyone paying attention. Conspiracy theories contribute to this problem by clouding up debates with nonsense. If people were a bit less gullible and spent less time debating nonsensical conspiracy theories (by “sharing” items without further reading on Facebook, for example), people might be more aware of the real scandals going on around them and be more involved in shaping the government and the world they live in for the better. This is not a gossipy reality TV show. This is just “plain” reality, which is full of real scandals and excitement—again: for anyone paying attention.

What is terrorism?

The murder of a British soldier was terrorism. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, viewed as a whole, are not. The Western coalition may have used acts of terror in specific incidents in those wars, however.

The brutal murder of a British soldier in broad daylight in London a few weeks ago has sent shock waves through the United Kingdom and the world. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, was quick to call the sickening attack a "terrorist incident," while the Times (London) called it "the first terrorist murder in mainland Britain since 2005." At the same time, a writer for the Guardian (also London) questioned whether this could be called an act of terrorism or not and, if it was, how we could then not call the Western coalition's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan terrorism.

It's a fair question, though a reading of the Guardian article is likely to make many people angry (I found his quoting of Michael Moore particularly unfortunate). The reason for that is that the term terrorism has negative connotations in itself. The assumption is that it is an unacceptable form of violence (as opposed to the more "honorable" form of meeting your enemy on the battlefield or defending yourself in your own home, for example). Defining terrorism is extremely difficult. Trust me. If you don't want to, I suggest you read Richard English's Terrorism: How to Respond or Smith and Neumann's The Strategy of Terrorism: How It Works and Why It Fails.

I'll sum up a difficult topic with the best answer I can muster (though one that is not immune to further debate, as I agree with English that coming up with a perfect definition of terrorism probably isn't possible). Terrorism is the use or threat of violence against mainly symbolic targets for political ends (this is a paraphrase of Smith and Neumann's definition). Notice the absence of a definition of targets as "civilian." This is because of the difficulty of defining who is a civilian and the questionable logic behind that restriction. (Why wouldn't a politically-motivated attack on a bunch of unsuspecting soldiers at a base in America be considered terrorism, for example? Is a terrorist attack with mixed victims only terrorism for those among them who are civilians? There are many more issues as well.) A further issue is that it contributes to the normative connotation terrorism brings with it (i.e. it is wrong), which will ALWAYS be subjective, making terrorism impossible to define. If terrorism is always considered "wrong" or "illegitimate," the tendency will be for the side that disliked the attack to call it terrorism and for the side supporting the attack to view it as something else more "honorable."

All violence is scary, which is why I left out the "causing terror" part of the definition, which is still important (after all, it forms the root of the word!). The most important aspect left is the target type. When is a target "mostly symbolic"? When striking it serves little or no "strategic" purpose. The WTC attack is a good example: the US could not be brought down by that one attack, and there would have been better targets for strategic purposes (power stations, airports, military bases, arms contractors, etc.). The main point for the Twin Towers was their powerful symbolism.

So how about the London attack?

• It was certainly an act of violence
• It was for political reasons (the perpetrators were quoted as saying " The only reason we've done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day. ... You people will never be safe, remove your Government, they don't care about you."
• The target was not strategically significant, but was highly symbolic: a British soldier wearing a "Help for Heroes" shirt.

Put together, these points mean that we are very justified in labeling this a terrorist attack using a strategic definition.

How about the Guardian author's other question: Are the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan terrorism? Viewed as a whole, they are not. They are military operations in which targets are selected primarily for their strategic value in weakening the other side. Because terrorism is a tactic, however, that means that individual acts can be terrorism even if it cannot be said that the entire war in Iraq or Afghanistan is. The author mentions "Shock and Awe," the attack on Baghdad during the Second Iraq War. This was indeed meant to impress the Iraqi public and encourage them to help overthrow their leaders. It was a form of propaganda (often cited as an important secondary aspect of terrorism). Nevertheless, the operation's targets were not, I believe, primarily symbolic, so while there are some grounds for labeling this some sort of act of terror, I do not believe, on balance, that this was the case. Other incidents during the war, however, may very well fall under a label of terrorism by this definition. Each attack would have to be evaluated on its own.

A New Landed Class?

In the bad old days in Western societies, a land-owning elite controlled everything. There was no way for those less privileged to gain enough money to buy land. Early capitalism began to change this with the emergence of a "middle class," one that grew wealthy from trade, production, finance, etc., sometimes in "free cities," rather than through land ownership. This shift away from agriculture freed people from servitude to the land and the lords that owned it. A slow decline set in among the aristocracy.

Or did it? There is a new land-owning class that has become good at keeping itself up and preventing others from joining its ranks

When we look at modern-day New York, London, or San Francisco, we see playgrounds for the rich. Housing is so pricey in these desirable places that few "normal" people can afford to live there. It doesn't stop in those world cities, either. Housing prices throughout much of England are so ridiculously high that even families with slightly above-average incomes find it difficult to buy a home. In many of the wealthier, liberal areas of the US and the UK, at the very least, housing costs an arm and a leg.

Why?

The free-market answer is: "Because more people want to live there than there is housing for them to live in, so housing goes to those who are willing and able to pay a premium for it."

So far, so good, but it doesn't really answer the question. Lots of people are moving into Houston, Texas, but housing there is still affordable. The reason is not so much on the demand side (people wanting to move in) as it is on the supply side (there aren't enough homes). The main culprit? Zoning (UK: planning) rules. Minimum lot sizes in the countryside, maximum building heights in the cities, land usage restrictions, and historical designations all serve to restrict the space available to newcomers.

There are good reasons for many of these rules, from ensuring ample ground water and septic capacity to protecting historic buildings that are worth saving. But as Edward Glaeser, in particular, has argued (check out his book Triumph of the City), many of these rules and protections seem to be excessive. They also cause hidden harm: the rise in property prices is a nice thing for those who own property, but the mechanism by which this happens is unclear to many, meaning few protest against zoning rules because of the high housing costs they create.

The real reason for the heavy-handed implementation of well-meaning rules on who-can-build-what-where, I would argue, is that they benefit a new land-owning class. It not as conspiratorial as it might sound. Here's how it works: Once people in an area have purchased housing, they no longer have an interest in affordable housing, since they are no longer looking to buy. In fact, the more expensive housing gets, the richer they feel (and this is regardless of whether they're still paying off a mortgage). If housing prices rise elsewhere and they might eventually want to move, no matter, as long as their housing rises in price at least as fast.

One way to make sure of this is to keep a place attractive to newcomers. This, on its own, is a good thing. Another way, though, is to restrict the overall amount of housing available so that only wealthier residents can move in. The two "ways" go hand-in-hand, actually: One way to keep things nice is to keep them rural. Once wealthier people move in and land values rise, tax revenues for the town rise, meaning more money to spend on better schools, nice parks, etc., making the place more attractive and raising housing prices further. This is a "virtuous cycle" for those who already own housing. It is not so virtuous for those who don't as they become "priced out" of the market.

Things can be kept "nice" without restricting building, however. This is particularly true in cities, where the argument for keeping low densities is weaker. It's important to have public green spaces like parks. But this is actually all the more reason why built-up areas should house as many people as efficiently possible: higher density in built-up areas means fewer people elsewhere. The result? Less sprawl and better conservation of nature and rural character elsewhere. A further result is that more people can afford to live where they'd like to (like Manhattan) and closer to work, meaning less commuting, traffic congestion, and air pollution, as well as less wasted time, meaning more free time and higher productivity. All this would save workers, consumers, and employers money, which would mean increased economic output per hour worked and dollar spent, and thus a higher standard of living for all.

These are massive benefits, but they are dispersed and difficult to see. That is why, so far, the new landed classes (they have "captured" the political system in rich areas as they form the bulk of an area's voters) have succeeded in giving themselves goodies at the expense of the real estate-less. It's time for some serious thought and sensible changes.

Syria: Prepare for Intervention

I have argued against US intervention in Syria since the beginning of the conflict, although not here in this blog. Unfortunately, things have now changed and I am being forced to rethink.

Reports have been coming in lately that the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons in Syria. Starting last August, President Barack Obama has stated that the use of chemical weapons, or their transfer to terrorist groups, would “change the equation” for Barack Obama and be a "grave mistake” for the Syrian regime. At the time the president first made these statements, the Syrian regime replied to them with its own deterrent demand, saying that it would never use chemical weapons unless Syria were invaded from the outside. Until now, that status quo seemed to be holding. Regardless of all the discussion over where the “red lines” actually lie, President Obama needs to give signs that the United States is actually serious about its threat not to allow the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Promises are important. This is because following through on past promises allows a person, state, or government to build a reputation for credibility. This, in turn, allows it to avoid, in this case, military action, and the death and destruction that come with it, in the future by simply being able to threaten action rather than constantly having to carry through with it.

The importance of promises can be overstated, however. There is evidence that, during the Cold War, the United States worried too much about its credibility and that this led it to act in an overly aggressive manner, leading to unnecessary escalation. Evidence from Soviet archives that opened up in the 1990s indicates that the Soviets actually rarely questioned US resolve when it came to core US interests (the safety of US territory, for example).

Some promises are important, however. When it comes to US interests in far-off places that are not vital to the US economy and do not host US bases, for example, the will of the United States to intervene is indeed questionable. Furthermore, this particular promise is also especially important. The US is interested in using deterrence in areas far away from its core areas of interest. The most important and salient example of this in current politics is Iran's pursuit of a nuclear bomb. The US has warned several countries against getting a bomb in the past, and yet states like Pakistan and North Korea have obtained nuclear weapons without suffering any US military intervention to stop them. Barack Obama would like Iran to think that this time is different. If the US is unwilling to stand up to a regime terrorizing its citizens with chemical weapons, however, this makes Barack Obama’s alleged commitment to stopping Iran from getting the bomb appear more questionable.

The promise is also important in a narrower way. There is an overriding moral interest in condemning the use of chemical weapons, preventing their use over time, and thus establishing self-maintaining norms against their use. The less the use of chemical, biological, nuclear, and other destructive weapons is permitted, the greater the taboo against their use becomes. As one of the few states in the world with the ability to attempt to enforce such global norms, there is a strong moral argument for the US to act.

So what must be done? The first step is publicly to prepare to intervene. Barack Obama should begin working on plans for military action in Syria, possibly shifting resources towards the eastern Mediterranean in preparation. This will send the right message to the Syrian regime. In the meantime, the US administration should continue to gather evidence that chemical weapons have been used by the Syrian regime, but it must be satisfied with clear and convincing evidence rather than evidence that goes "beyond a reasonable doubt,” as this may not be forthcoming. In addition, Obama should inform the rebel leadership that intervention will come only if it agrees to an international tribunal for war crimes, helping to set up institutions and the rule of law afterwards. All this must be more than posturing, however. If this does not bring peace, or at least the cessation of the use of chemical weapons (I leave it to the US Government to decide on these goals, though once intervention has begun, the goal must be an end to the conflict and this should be publicly stated) the US should impose a no-fly zone, while continuing to issue warnings of escalation coupled with a way out for the regime, perhaps in the form of an amnesty for those who abandon it. Such an amnesty must now exclude Assad, however, for he has crossed the line and mustn't be let off.

Failure to surrender plus attacks on US planes will mean greater military involvement, at first with targeted bombings of regime military targets where possible (missile launchers are often located in heavily populated areas). The next step would be to increase the bombing, warning residents by dropping leaflets to evacuate areas targeted for attacks. All this should give the rebels the upper hand. If this fails to turn the tide, a ground operation, preferably with the support of other countries like Turkey, would then be necessary (Britain and France have also encouraged action and should be included).

With any luck, the above steps will not all be necessary. We must accept that they may be, however. There is much at stake in keeping to this promise and so it must be done. Allowing chemical weapons to be used offensively once again with impunity sends the wrong message to the world. And allowing aggressive regimes to cross red lines set by the US without suffering any consequences also sends the wrong message to the US’s adversaries and allies alike. There are many countries in the world that have refrained from building their militaries because of their faith in the US’s ability and willingness to protect them from external aggression. If those countries were to lose that faith, the world would become a much more unstable and dangerous place.

North Korea: Keeping the Peace

Deterring the wretched regime requires clear, tough, automatic, and non-negotiable sticks, but also clear, automatic, and somewhat negotiable carrots. Most of all, however, it needs a promise not to act against the regime as long as it does not endanger anyone else.

You might be forgiven for thinking the North Korean regime was stark-raving mad. After all, why does it keep acting so belligerently when things could be so much better for North Korea? No one can be entirely sure, but fear of losing control of the country it's kept so well under its thumb for decades is one strong possibility. The regime clearly doesn't care much about the survival or lot of its people, so this suggests it cares mostly about itself.

This is why there need to be clear, automatic, and non-negotiable sanctions levied against it for nasty behavior. The problem is, though, there's not much more that can be done to the country without using force. This, perhaps, is the reason for the rush to nukes and missiles, and it's perhaps the regime's biggest fear.

That, in turn, is why there must be clear rewards. It is impossible to take more away, so positive reinforcement looks more promising. In addition, giving rewards creates a stake in keeping them--there would be something to take away later.

North Korea has made use of this before, making promises in exchange for aid, only to renege on those promises as soon as the aid was received. This is why any rewards given ought to affect the regime directly and ought to be designed so as they can be taken away automatically. Strategists are not stupid, and this has already been tried and will be again. But it almost doesn't matter: The door should always be left open, with it up to North Korea whether it wishes to walk through or to leave again. This can allow North Korea to trust the US over time.

A final ingredient is a promise--the FINAL promise: Not to invade or otherwise attempt to effect regime change in North Korea as long as it does not attack the South, Japan, Taiwan, China, or US bases or the mainland, etc. If fear of losing control is the big driving factor, which I am guessing it is, this is an important ingredient. All this gives North Korea the security to decide to come around. It can also quietly climb down from its war horse, saving face. The US, China, and all those who wish the North to remain peaceful are strong and credible enough to make "concessions" from that strength. If Kim Jong-Un thinks the US wishes to topple him regardless of what he does, he will have no incentive to be moderate. This is the missing piece of the puzzle. It should be put in place. John Kerry's professed willingness to talk to North Korea directly is thus to be applauded, if done right.

(Cold) War with China Inevitable?

There is much debate in the world of political science about whether war with China, cold or otherwise, is inevitable. Must we fear the future?

Will China's rise be peaceful? Should the US and the world seek to accommodate China, or "contain" it, as was its policy against the Soviet Union? Is some sort of confrontation inevitable? If some sort of conflict is inevitable, then the only choice the rest of the world (lead by the US as its largest power) has is whether, to what extent, and how it can shape the type of conflict that emerges. Can it just be a situation of occasional "tensions," must and can we rely on our old Cold War friend deterrence to prevent WWIII, or is WWIII even inevitable?

 The idea that war may loom because there is a shift in what is called the global "balance of power" stems from an analysis of previous shifts among powers in Europe. A prime example is WWI. In the 19th century, the UK was the world's predominant power, particularly at sea. It used this power to "balance" threats, which then all originated on the European continent. It did this by shifting alliances so that no one power or group of powers could threaten it. There was a consensus among leaders at the time that an overall balance could prevent war by ensuring that no one leader saw a big advantage in waging it. They actively rebalanced in order to keep this. This is part of the reason why the UK, France, and, to some extent, Russia constantly divided and redivided the world among themselves (the UK and Russia for a while kept Afghanistan as a neutral buffer, for example).

It seems this worked until Germany rose in power and built up its navy. The Kaiser foolishly abandoned previous efforts to prevent France and Russia from formally allying against him. When they did so, Germany saw itself surrounded. Balance meant that the powers were indeed pretty well matched, so the war dragged on for years until the US helped to put an end to it. A similar thing happened in WWII, adding a rising Japan to the mix. Between the two world wars, there was no predominant power able to keep the peace. Many blame America for not taking on that role, a lesson it learned in WWII and thereafter, when it decided not to return to isolation but instead to actively manage world affairs in a bid to maintain relative peace and stability.

The big challenge, as the West saw it, after WWII was the increasing power and influence of the USSR. With both the US and USSR armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, a special type of deterrence thinking was devised. It was known as "Mutual Assured Destruction" (MAD). The idea was that if one side attacked the other, there was no way to be certain of destroying all the latter's nukes. Both sides promised to retaliate with nuclear weapons if this happened, so neither could gain by using nukes for offensive purposes. In addition, it was thought that nukes would prevent conventional wars between the two sides, too, since neither would wish to risk escalation that might make one side or the other desperate enough to move to nuclear responses. War between the US and USSR did not happen, though a number of "proxy" wars did (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, as well as seeking influence by propping up each side's own dictators throughout the world).

 All this assumes that war would have broken out between the US and the USSR had it not been for deterrence. Not everyone agrees with this. There are a few reasons: The countries were far apart, vast, and had no direct territorial disputes. The first two features meant that it was difficult for either to mount a conventional attack on the other and even harder for one to overcome the other. Geography favored defense and the status quo, so the US and USSR had little to gain from attacking each other and thus nothing to fear. Nuclear weapons, of course, changed this. A few nuclear weapons could wipe out either country, bringing the prospect of successful offense nearer and giving both countries something to fear again. MAD provided the answer by removing any prospect for either party to attain victory by using nukes first.

On the face of it, then, neither side had anything to gain from attacking the other and virtually everything to lose, so there ought to have been little tension. But there was. The same scholars, like Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, who made the above points, also argued that deterrence was to blame for tension. By assuming that small commitments would tell opponents something about big commitments, both sides took tough stances, fearing that to give ground anywhere, even where few interests were at stake, would risk giving ground everywhere. The problem was that both sides often saw themselves as the defenders of these commitments, and thus wished to stand firm against the irrational "attackers" on the other side. This led to tough stances, tough talk, and escalations (like the Cuban Missile Crisis). Nuclear deterrence thus solved the problem of nuclear weapons, but using deterrence logic for every decision at every level caused unnecessary tensions and may have prolonged the Cold War.

So what about China? Is China more like Germany in the early 20th century or more like the USSR in the mid 20th century? On most counts, it is more like the latter. The US and China are vast, far apart, have no common claims to territory, no interest in a war that would inevitably be catastrophic, and both have nuclear weapons. The real question then becomes "Is the US doomed to wage a 'cold' war against China?" There are promising signs. China and the US trade with each other, whereas the US and USSR did not. This means there's more to lose by fighting and more to gain by cooperating. It also means there are many contacts between the countries. This was also the case between European countries before WWI, however, and wasn't sufficient to prevent a war that nobody wanted then, either.

The big risk now is Taiwan. China desires its formal incorporation into China as soon as possible. Taiwan resists this. The US has agreed that Taiwan is a part of China, but the two countries made an agreement not to alter the status quo unilaterally. This means the US is theoretically obligated to fight for Taiwan should China decide to incorporate it by force. The risk is not so much that either side would choose a course that would bring such a confrontation, but that they might blunder towards it through a series of more minor events. US allies in the region are already asking the US for reassurances. Reassuring its allies in the region looks to China a lot like an attempt to contain and deter it--something aggressive. This has potential to slowly escalate into gridlock between the two countries.

One of the main conclusions from analysis of Cold War deterrence is that all commitments are not linked. In other words, China could be accommodated on certain issues without concluding the US is weak, giving it an opportunity to challenge it. It is also important to note this time that China is larger than the US in population and will soon have a larger economy. That means that, over time, the US is unlikely to be able to keep up with Chinese military spending should the latter decide to challenge it. The US is overextended throughout the world and very close to China's own shores. A new Cold War might end differently. The US and the world would do well to prevent one from reoccurring.

Why America is everywhere

When cynicism is used as an excuse not to believe anything anyone says who disagrees with you, it is destructive.

This post has been a long time coming. It's been brewing because of things I've heard people say or write lately. They run along a similar vein to things I actually grew up believing, namely that the United States' involvement in world affairs was because it wished to do business everywhere, secure its oil supplies, and dominate the rest of the world in a "neo-imperial" sort of way. It's a common view in many places in the world on the left, and within the US in the northeast at least (and I assume elsewhere). It is based on Marxist economic and political theory. It is also wrong.

Marxist theory attempts to explain political phenomena with economics, which is a bit like trying to explain what people like to do in their leisure time according to what job they have: The amount of money they make and the free time they have may have some influence, but it won't explain the core reason of why they like what they like. Politics and economics influence each other, but it is not possible to explain one wholly based on the other. But let's put that aside for a moment and pretend you can anyway (and don't worry, I will move away from theory to reality later, I always do).

Karl Marx believed capitalism led to imperialism. He looked at countries like Great Britain, the world's largest colonial (and capitalist) power at the time to draw this conclusion. Capitalism, as he noted, was very good at dividing labor and churning out more and more "stuff" per worker, getting ever more efficient. He reasoned that this expansion in production produced a surplus that the low-wage workers of a country could not consume. In order to keep selling their stuff and keep their businesses running and the cash flowing, capitalists would constantly have to expand their markets and find new consumers. This is a sort of Ponzi scheme, because when there were no new consumers, everything would come crashing down. Marx reasoned that capitalism would eventually destroy itself once it had developed the entire world and there were no more untapped markets. All the cash would build up on top among the rich, there would be no one left to buy goods, and everything would collapse with mass unemployment.

Sound familiar? It also sounds pretty plausible. After all, British colonialism often did begin with business forays abroad, like the East India Company's adventures in South Asia. The trouble is, Marx did not look back far enough and his theory also became a hostage to fortune as things later happened that his theory did not anticipate. On the first point, he ignored the fact that imperialism had existed for a very long time, long before capitalism emerged. That needn't be the death of the theory, of course: maybe capitalism always leads to imperialism, but imperialism can exist without capitalism. Fair enough, but then new things happened in the 20th century. One of them was that rich countries like the United States sometimes ran trade deficits! They bought the world's goods, rather than selling them to the world. The other thing that happened is that some big surplus countries, like Germany, were not imperial powers after WWII. Marx's economic insights were keen and many of them still apply today (though his theory has been twisted over time), but his political assertions were dead wrong. Things just did not happen the way he said they did. The main reason is that his two assumptions were wrong: Developed countries did not always run surpluses and, even if they did, they did not necessarily become imperialist. What to do with surpluses, if they arose, was a political decision not an inevitable economic one.

Some people refused to give up, however, and decided to modify the theory instead. OK, the West might not LOOK like an empire, but it was, through "trade dependency." The West was using its marketing and military power to suppress the development of poor countries and take advantage of cheap goods, which could also explain their imports of all those goods. Basically, then, if a country was rich and powerful, it was imperialist, even if it didn't look it according to old definitions. This sort of circular thinking is not terribly logical, but again it seemed to fit the times, as South America, Africa, and Asia failed to develop. But then Asia began to develop rapidly (think Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and, later, China), while Africa and South America did not. The difference was in their own policies. It wasn't that the West "let" certain countries develop and not others. Theory wrong again.

"Who cares about the theory if the shoe fits?" you might ask. "Look at the US's dominant presence throughout the world and its massive military spending! Look at 'aid for trade' and other initiatives pushed by the US," and on and on. All right, let's drop the theory and look at that, then. Why is the US military everywhere if not out of a desire to dominate the world?

Let's not pretend that people in powerful positions don't enjoy their power. I am not going to argue that the US is an altruistic but misunderstood gentle giant, a grandfatherly figure to a troubled world. The US has indeed abused its dominance, just as Britain and others before it. But it is overly cynical (and historically inaccurate) to suppose that the US and other powers have sinister, greedy motives for everything they do.

There was a relatively long period of peace enforced by Great Britain during the 19th century and up until WWI. Britain did not balance (joining alliances of weaker partners to keep stronger ones from dominating) against all wars, but it did do so in situations where it thought one power winning might pose a threat to it. It also dominated the seas with its powerful navy. WWI changed all this, leaving Britain severely weakened. The country with the greatest potential power was the one with the largest economy: the United States. The US, however, chose to return to its policy of not getting involved after WWI and left the Europeans to their own devices. Over time, Germany recovered and came to be more powerful than any of the other European countries. The United States could have prevented WWII, but it chose not to. It's management of the world economy (the responsibility for which it also refused to take on) was pretty bad, too, particularly its misguided protectionist trade policies that put high tariffs on imports, triggering retaliation and causing world trade to collapse, deepening the Great Depression. But I digress. In the end, WWII  broke out, America did not help till much later, and all of Europe and much of Asia suffered.

America eventually got involved because it came to see risks in a world with powerful German and Japanese empires. There was, of course, also much to dislike in the Germans and Japanese and the atrocities they committed. Surely it was better to prevent them from conquering everyone than to try to deal with them after the war was finished? The US needed a final push to decide to do this: Pearl Harbor. Once attacked, the country could not stand idly by.

After WWII, Europe lay in ruins. Lessons had been learned from WWI. One of these was that people whose lives are destroyed may turn toward extremist ideologies if these promise improvement (as Hitler promised the Germans). Even more important, policy makers learned that, without someone enforcing order, countries could easily begin fighting again, feeling insecure when peering over the border at their neighbor's capabilities (see the "Security Dilemma"). The Soviet Union was a rising power on the eastern edge of Europe and it became apparent that, should its armies, which occupied Eastern Europe after the war, decide to move into Western Europe, no country there could stop them. The US's allies pleaded for the US to stay and protect them. It did, and provided them aid to rebuild their economies and become stronger.

Eventually, the US became locked in what it saw as a battle with an empire with expansionist motives, the Soviet Union, which wished to dominate the world via the spread of communism. There is much to criticize about US policy during the Cold War. It meddled in a lot of countries' affairs and propped up pro-Western dictators while ignoring human rights violations, for example. The Vietnam War was unnecessary and is now usually viewed, rightly, as a costly mistake in terms of lives lost and money spent. The US did these things out of fear bordering on (or perhaps solidly into) paranoia.

However, countries under the US's protective umbrella did not bother worrying about their neighbors attacking. They could instead turn to building their economies, which partly explains why Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan did so well in the second half of the 20th century. South America has had bad policies for a long time. Chile, Brazil, and others are now improving. America didn't help the situation by propping up anti-communist thugs, but it did this because of fear of that the countries there might fall, one by one, to communism and the USSR--NOT so that it could "hold South America back." This is not an excuse for what was sometimes bad behavior on the part of the American government and business there, but it is an explanation.

If you think it's all about oil, by the way, please read my post on the war in Libya.

Americans like to see government and big business conspiracies everywhere. They are right to be suspicious, but I think we need to remember that believing in conspiracies ascribes to governments and business leaders near-divine powers that they clearly do not possess (look how much they screw up). Cynicism is good as long as it steers against naivete and is realistic. When it is instead used as an excuse not to believe anything anyone says who disagrees with you, it is destructive and a block to understanding.