American Values--what are yours?

What are American Values? We hear a great deal about family values, traditional values, Judeo-Christian values, even liberal values. But we hear hear these from the megaphones of pundits and the ubiquity of mass mailings.

I don't think any of those definitions are (at the very least by themselves) American Values. We're about to enter a primary season where 'values' of one stripe or another will likely start to surface again as candidates on both sides of the isle attempt to rouse their faithful.

Before the rhetoric flies and the TV commercials start, I think it would be good to hear about what you all think are American Values.

Post a comment, or send me an email. I think a collection of views on American values, and an ensuing discussion, might be a richer experience than what we can get from O'Reilly or the McLaughlin group.

Hope to hear from you.

Not a four-letter-word any more

In polite society there are four letter words. We all know them, even if we manage not to use them. Politics, however, has simplified this a bit. Whether in Washington or anywhere else in America, we are now down to a three letter word. Tax.

It may be heresy to say this, but both parties have found something to agree on: taxes are bad. The disagreement is one of degree, not of position. The easiest way to describe the Republican position is, “taxes are bad, especially on those who make the most money because they work the hardest, but necessary to maintain a strong national defense.” The Democratic position is slightly more convoluted, “Taxes are bad, especially on the poor who can least afford to pay. But taxes are also a good way to redistribute wealth.”

While I would like to say that neither of these messages is compelling, the Republicans have shined their “taxes are bad” message into a beacon to draw people like moths to a flame, and have sharpened their rhetoric to use “tax hike” as knife to cut down opposition.

So instead of saying that neither the Republican or Democratic position is compelling, I will say that neither is genuine, and has the interests neither of Americans nor America at its root. Like too much political rhetoric in the past twenty years, our language on taxation has been wielded to build a more successful party, not a more successful America.

For all the rhetoric and position-jockeying on taxes, there are a couple simple things I try to keep in mind when thinking about them.

First, taxes are where cheap talk gives way to real commitment. Nothing happens in the government (or anywhere else, as the charge for wireless internet connections at Starbucks illustrates) for free. A politician can talk up an idea all he or she wants, but until there is an action to put money behind it, it’s just a nice speech.

Second, the collection of what the government commits itself to becomes our social compact. Whether you believe government has a large or small role in society, taxes are the government’s commitment to a people that it will move the country in a given direction. A government’s ability to convince people to surrender their earnings to accomplish something is the government’s badge of legitimacy.

Statements that taxes are ‘bad’ or ‘good’ miss these two points entirely. People are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a business-class airplane seat because they feel there is value in what they are purchasing. This is the direction our national conversation on taxes must move: not whether taxes are good or bad, carte blanche, but whether the government is able to provide something of value to Americans for the taxes collected.

Any politician can demonize taxes—whether because they are too high on the wealthy, the poor, or the middle class—but the rhetoric of negation and using ‘tax’ like a three letter word will not create a stronger, safer, smarter, wealthier America. What America really needs, if we are to continue to be a strong, smart power, are politicians who are willing to recommit to a social compact with America.

An outsider's inside view of North Korea

Jon Wolfsthal, Senior Fellow at CSIS, just published a short piece that does an excellent job painting the picture of the challenges faced by the American inspection teams about to head to North Korea to verify the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear facilities. And Wolfsthal would know better than most, since he spent a fair length of time in North Korea doing dismantlement verification in the 1990s.

Globalization: Not as easy as it used to be

Globalization is getting more complicated. Now we have labor in the U.S. fighting it, and big business in India and China pushing it. The two sides are presented clearly in this piece from Wednesday’s Times (via Reuters). India is having a huge public debate (usually in the form of protests) over whether to allow ‘big box’ retailers to set up shop. Not Walmarts, Targets, and Best Buys—foreign companies are barred from establishing “multibrand” establishments.

There are actually a number of significant issues emerging: is rapid economic modernization worth the price of massive social upheaval? Can we expect a people (not just a few people) to sacrifice their livelihoods in the name of progress? How does a society balance competing demands when one portion of its population desires a risk-opportunity-reward environment against the wishes of a group that prefers security and stablity?

There are basic economic questions as well: if a big-box retailer can sell the same number of goods (at a lower price) while employing only two million people, and traditional retailers need 40 million to sell the same quantity, which is better for the economy? Tipping towards a big-box makes sense in a labor-scarce country like the U.S., but does the same make sense for a labor-abundant place like India or China? And it gets even more complicated when market-segments are considered. Wages for “knowledge workers” in both India and the U.S. (and all over the world) are going up, as the demand for their services outpaces the rate at which they are produced. Conversely, earnings for low-skill positions are flat or falling, as international competition combined with mechanization are eliminating positions across the globe. Said another way, can a labor-abundant India afford to give up millions of jobs, only to increase profit?

How should policy makers frame their thinking in this kind of environment? How does a society position itself to best weather the shocks, and capitalize on the opportunities of this type of economy?

A few places are getting it absolutely right: Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai. These small city-states have the advantage of being small and knowing anything they achieve will be precarious: so they are constantly struggling to achieve. It makes them less ideological and more pragmatic than many other—larger—countries. They invested in education, shipping, and low-tech manufacturing 30 years ago. Now they are transitioning to high-tech, investments, banking, and other spin-offs of their small, highly educated populations. Of course, not everyone in Singapore, Hong Kong, or Dubai is highly educated. But the places are small enough—with enough central government control—that they can be highly selective about immigration, and they can fund education very well to encourage their own citizens to be well-educated.

Large countries—like China, U.S., India, or even Germany or Canada, have a more complicated problem because of a large, diverse population, spread across large areas, and (relatively) loose central control. The solutions that work for San Diego, might create disaster in San Antonio. The economy in Minneapolis looks nothing like the economy in Mobile.

My guess is that getting the U.S. (or India or China) to serve both parts of its population—the risk-taking, and the security-seeking—is going to take a bit of a two-step. Both Washington (or Beijing or New Delhi) ceding control to local levels for education and employment policy, but also a greater central-effort on job-training, unemployment benefits, health care and emergency-retirement.

I’m no expert though, and welcome thoughts, if you're willing to share.

What power?

Fred Hiatt at the Washington Post has sparked quite an exchange today in Post Global, with his piece arguing that the U.S. should let China know it has a choice: a friendly regime in Burma, or a successful Olympics next year. This precipitated a detailed response in opposition from James Fallows, The Atlantic’s correspondent in China.

Both men provide compelling arguments, but this discussion raises a broader question about American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War: if we are unwilling to speak with our adversaries, and we are unwilling to coerce our friends, what power does the United States have left?

Burma update, before the weekend

Following up on the post earlier this week about Myanmar/Burma’s unfolding saga, I should offer a quick update. Especially since for North America, Friday afternoon is on us, and the weekend’s distractions may soon begin.

President Bush and the U.S. administration did, indeed, back words with actions this week by ratcheting up sanctions against the military regime. There are some doubts about what impact the increased sanctions will have, but in fairness, I don’t think there is much the U.S. can do directly to influence the regime.

Instead of exploring the minutiae of the debate about whether sanctions are helpful or problematic, I’d like to highlight a few Burmese bloggers, brought to global attention by Richard Ehrlich of the San Francisco Chronicle (at least that is where I found out).

All the blogs he shares have at least a couple things in common: they are run anonymously, they are apparently run by people in Burma, and there is clearly a state of turmoil in what they are posting.

One, by an author claiming to be a woman is written in staccato snippets—posted all at once, but time-stamped and covering events over the course of a day.

Another is clearly more politically focused, with a photo collage on the front page including the caption “Stop Dictatorship Now!” Further down the page is an explanation/apology, “sorry i am closing down Cbox for a while for having miss used, and writing bad words. Thank you”. Most interesting are the photos posted to the site, and the link to a Picasa album of the processions of monks from Monday.

Lastly, there is a blog clearly maintained by a foreigner. It was mostly dormant for the previous 9 months (sounds familiar...) but was resumed shortly after the oil and gas price-hikes at the end of August. It gives a very lucid description of what has been happening, and puts it in a fairly clear context. I don’t know enough about Burma to know if it is accurate. It hasn’t been updated since last weekend.

On what may happen next: the U.S. has little influence in Burma, and has admitted as much. President Bush's statement seems directed at the largest country in the region, China, as much as our closest ally in the region, Thailand. Both have significant interactions with Burma--though it is unclear that either has great leverage. And neither has the same interest. A piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, by Michael Green and Derek Mitchell lays out the history, the current challenges, and a possible way forward.

By all accounts, the current protests in Burma began because of price-hikes, and concerns over acute economic conditions. This rapidly expanded into a broader political demonstration. Burma is not the only country with energy-related economic concerns, or political conditions that may change considerably with a small spark. With the world highly interconnected (see yesterday's post), it may be worthwhile to consider how to ensure global progress is not subject to major ups-and-downs caused by volatility in a relatively small number of places.

The coming age of thirst

If there was ever a need for the reminder of just how interconnected the world is, there is a piece in today’s New York Times (yes, I’m very happy Times Select is defunct) that helps bring it home.

China is consuming its freshwater at runaway speeds. In the words of Fred Pearce, “If northern China were a separate country, it would be one of the most water-stressed in the world.”

China’s industry consumes 3-10 times the water of comparable industry in the developed world, according the Times article. China’s farmers are siphoning water out of the ground to sustain crop-growth in semi-arid parts of the country. The easy answer would, of course be to stop farming in dry areas, and to ratchet up standards on manufacturing to use water more efficiently (see what a Coke-WWF partnership is striving towards, here).

If the solutions were easy, there wouldn’t be much need for a discussion.

Here is my guess at some of the problems China is facing in solving this challenge:

1. Modern, developed-country standards for manufacturing are more expensive, are probably less labor-intensive, and probably require a more sophisticated maintenance system than current operations. So to make this work would be to actually reduce the number of jobs available, and to increase the product cost (because in Northern China, labor is still cheaper than capital). To be environmentally responsible, then, might mean putting industry out of business.
2. Maintaining a near-self sufficient farming base gives China two things: first, a huge job-cushion. If a person can’t find a job, but has food (because he or she is a farmer), there isn’t the same kind of urgency as there would be if there were no farmers; and second, it gives an abundant supply of low-cost food for China.

A significant change in either of these policies exposes China to great uncertainty about the future, and likely unrest of some form or another. And all of this is independent of China’s challenges with providing its people (and economy) enough electricity to satisfy increasing demands from an increasingly affluent populace. Currently, most of that growing demand is slated to be satisfied by newly built coal-powered generation plants.

To this point, the problems have all been China-related. The connections to the world are numerous. Some overt, and others more subtle. Starting at the above the waterline issues, and plunging quickly:

Global food prices. If China changes its policies about domestic water use for farming, it could greatly impact the global supply of grains like corn, rice, and soybeans. This would be great for other farmers around the world who would receive higher prices for their crops. But it would be bad for global consumers—especially poor urban consumers—who have to spend relatively high portions of income on staple foods.

Global trade. European and U.S. trade imbalances with China would likely decrease, as our farmers would be able to sell their crops to China. If China’s industry was using more water-efficient processes, the per-unit cost would likely increase as well. This means that the American consumer would likely buy less (or the factories would leave China all-together). On the surface these two seem beneficial, but the ripple effects would likely trend negatively. Job-loss in rural northern China would require the government to spend more of its money on social-welfare, job retraining, or educational programs. And since we’re talking about programs for a few hundred million people, these would be significant expenses. There may also be programs to support grain-purchase subsidies, to keep the prices low for the urban poor. This means the Chinese will have less money to pump back into the U.S. economy in the form of buying our government debt. This leads to downward pressure on the dollar, which leads to an increasing interest rates and fears of inflation.

To be clear: China is going to do what is in China’s interest, not in the U.S. interest. But if the U.S. wants China to deal effectively with the water problem it is facing (which is, incidentally, the same water-problem the U.S. faces, by the way), we will have to find a way to work with China to use less water, grow or buy the same amount of grain, and do them both without significantly disrupting their current pace of economic growth.

New plan

The blog has been on life-support for almost a year now. Rather than mothballing it, I thought I'd make a couple of changes and take another run at it. The biggest change is that I'm moving out from behind the curtain. It's just me posting, so no real purpose in veiling my identity. It'll still be the same topics and format though. If anyone is still reading, I'm always interested in comments.

And, since I work in a sector that does international affairs research and writing, I should add one thing: these are my views. Only my views. Comments are not. Hopefully that will keep things interesting.

John

The stirrings of a democracy

President Bush has promoted his “Democracy Agenda” as a cornerstone of our foreign policy. Inevitably, Iraq has taken center-stage on that in the past several years. As Saturday’s Washington Post points out, there is an opportunity for the U.S. to bring greater attention to a movement that is actively pursuing real democratic reform in a country that is long overdue for it: Myanmar.

Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar is a country that has had a military junta for the past 19 years. It came to power by crushing a democratic movement spurred on by students and Buddhist monks and nuns. Most people in my generation know of Myanmar only through the movie “Beyond Rangoon”.

Myanmar has certainly moved beyond Rangoon. Since taking power, the junta has kept dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi detained under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years. More than that, though, their fear of the United States has caused the junta to build a new capital in the jungle about 200 miles north of Rangoon.

Myanmar allows limited interaction with other countries, and has an ongoing row with Thailand over the number of ‘displaced people’ who keep exiting Myanmar for Thailand. This limited interaction has changed to moderate attention in the past month.

On August 19, the junta raised the price of energy—for some forms, up to 500%--overnight. For comparison, if gasoline prices in the U.S. increased 500% overnight, we’d be paying $13.35 for a gallon of gas tomorrow. In a country where the average income is $1,800 per year and 70% of the people are farmers, that is nothing to sneeze at.

Following this price increase, people throughout Myanmar took to the streets to demand change. At first the protests were a relatively small affair. But they have grown steadily in the intervening month. Yesterday nearly 20,000 monks, nuns, and average citizens were reported to have marched through the streets. Some of the onlookers even shouting support for Suu Kyi.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made a statement supportive of the Burmese people over the weekend, and said Bush was likely to say something soon. Attention for the most recent stirrings of democracy in Burma would be welcome, but action even more so.

Victory!

I am declaring victory in my one-man battle against Time Select. I discovered today (though it must have happened a few days ago) that the New York Times has discontinued it's strange and incomprehensible policy of trying to force online readers to pay extravagant amounts of money for today's news: Times Select is defunct. Let's hope it stays that way. And, just in case you want to find out yourself, the New York Times can be found at: www.nytimes.com. They have great international reporting. I especially like their Asia-correspondants.

Overheard in Washington

OK, so it wasn't overheard so much as received in an email, but it's both true and funny. I've played ultimate frisbee the past year-plus on a team. One of the players was quoted in a story in the Washington Post today on a fairly complicated, though significant, issue. My girlfriend, who also plays on the team, writes:

"What a classic Washingtonian moment. Reading the Post, and the expert quoted is on my freaking ultimate Frisbee team."

Who says DC isn't a small town?

What I've Learned

At the risk of angering the publishers at the Washington Post, I'm reprinting, in its entirety (with a link to the site) Kofi Annan's Op-Ed that was published in today's post. The timing, with a new Congress preparing to start, couldn't be more appropriate. Hopefully someone will listen.

What I've Learned

By Kofi A. Annan
Monday, December 11, 2006; A19

Nearly 50 years ago, when I arrived in Minnesota as a student fresh from Africa, I had much to learn -- starting with the fact that there is nothing wimpish about wearing earmuffs when it is 15 degrees below zero. All my life since has been a learning experience. Now I want to pass on five lessons I have learned during 10 years as secretary general of the United Nations that I believe the community of nations needs to learn as it confronts the challenges of the 21st century.

First, in today's world we are all responsible for each other's security. Against such threats as nuclear proliferation, climate change, global pandemics or terrorists operating from safe havens in failed states, no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. Only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves. This responsibility includes our shared responsibility to protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. That was accepted by all nations at last year's U.N. summit. But when we look at the murder, rape and starvation still being inflicted on the people of Darfur, we realize that such doctrines remain pure rhetoric unless those with the power to intervene effectively -- by exerting political, economic or, in the last resort, military muscle -- are prepared to take the lead. It also includes a responsibility to future generations to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us. Every day that we do nothing, or too little, to prevent climate change imposes higher costs on our children.

Second, we are also responsible for each other's welfare. Without a measure of solidarity, no society can be truly stable. It is not realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from globalization while billions of others are left in, or thrown into, abject poverty. We have to give all our fellow human beings at least a chance to share in our prosperity.

Third, both security and prosperity depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law. Throughout history human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learned from each other. But if our communities are to live in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity and the need for our human dignity and rights to be protected by law.

That is vital for development, too. Both foreigners and a country's own citizens are more likely to invest when their basic rights are protected and they know they will be fairly treated under the law. Policies that genuinely favor development are more likely to be adopted if the people most in need of development can make their voice heard. States need to play by the rules toward each other, as well. No community suffers from too much rule of law; many suffer from too little -- and the international community is among them.

My fourth lesson, therefore, is that governments must be accountable for their actions, in the international as well as the domestic arena. Every state owes some account to other states on which its actions have a decisive impact. As things stand, poor and weak states are easily held to account, because they need foreign aid. But large and powerful states, whose actions have the greatest impact on others, can be constrained only by their own people.

That gives the people and institutions of powerful states a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests. And today they need to take into account also what we call "non-state actors." States can no longer -- if they ever could -- confront global challenges alone. Increasingly, they need help from the myriad types of association in which people come together voluntarily, to profit or to think about, and change, the world.

How can states hold each other to account? Only through multilateral institutions. So my final lesson is that those institutions must be organized in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.

Developing countries should have a stronger voice in international financial institutions, whose decisions can mean life or death for their people. New permanent or long-term members should be added to the U.N. Security Council, whose current membership reflects the reality of 1945, not of today.

No less important, all the Security Council's members must accept the responsibility that comes with their privilege. The council is not a stage for acting out national interests. It is the management committee of our fledgling global security system.

More than ever, Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system. Experience has shown, time and again, that the system works poorly when the United States remains aloof but it functions much better when there is farsighted U.S. leadership.

That gives American leaders of today and tomorrow a great responsibility. The American people must see that they live up to it.

The writer, secretary general of the United Nations, will leave office Dec. 31. This article is based on an address he will give today at the Truman Presidential Museum & Library in Independence, Mo.

Incomes, Inequality, and the World Bank

The Post has a story about a World Bank report that came out recently, describing the broad-spectrum failings of poverty alleviation programs.  In short, according to the report, 60% of countries receiving poverty-alleviation loans from the Bank have remained stagnant, or actually lost ground in the "war on poverty".

 

My favorite, exerpted quote, though is this:

"For a sustained reduction in poverty over a period of time, it really pays to worry about both growth and distribution," said Vinod Thomas, director-general of the Independent Evaluation Group. "It has been a mistaken notion that you can grow first and worry about the distribution later."

As China-watchers (and Chinese themselves) can speak on, one of the main concerns for the CCP right now is growing income inequality (and the social unrest that is coming along with it).

 

There are two big challenges that I see on this right now.  First, finding a plan for any given country that will allow it to effectively redistribute wealth/income while not creating a 'welfare state'; and Second, how to convince those who are accumulating the wealth and earning the income that it's actually a good idea for them to surrender some of that wealth.

 

My guess is that the first person who figures out a highly effective way to do this is going to earn a Nobel Prize.

 

 

The Anxiety Kingdom

There is a story in today's Post that, in microcosm, describes China's growing economic problem: Unemployable college graduates. Not because they lack the skills to get decent jobs (the jobs their parents assume college will open the doors for them to get), but because China's economic and regulatory environment make it too hard for the business to start to provide an opportunity to the young people with energy and creativity.

Like so many things, there's a catch. China can't afford to simply free up the restraints on their economic and business sytems. Why? Because it will tear apart the economy from too much economic growth. It's currently caught between a rock and a hard place, both of it's own making: it needs as many college graduates as possible to provide upward mobility for a population enormously in need of hope; but at the same time it has to slow (to a modest 8 or 9%)the economic growth so that the economy doesn't destabilize the whole country.

I'm a bit worried that we're going to have more of this kind of news before we hear less.

Global warming and economics

Global Warming To Cost Up To 20% of Global GDP

In college and in grad school, I had ongoing debates with my roommates and friends about the need to quantify, in dollar terms, the costs of global warming, if we wanted the businesses and governments around the world to start taking it seriously. If there isn't a dollar value attached to it, it doesn't affect their bottom line, and they don't have to worry about it.

Sir Nicholas Stern has just done this, in a 700 page report he prepared under a commission from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, in the UK. In his report he presents the costs of global warming at between 5-20% of annual global GDP over the next century plus. If this were an average loss to everyone on the planet, it would mean the average american would earn 8,000 less a year, just because of global warming.

It's a long report, the executive summary is even 27 pages. The middle of the summary is pretty interesting. I'd suggest starting to read at page 10 or so.

Bitter Partisanship

If you thought bitter partisanship was constrained to the Western Hemisphere (where outside the U.S., Mexico is also bitterly--and evenly--divided) there is news from Eastern Europe showing how we are not alone in our "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude. At least we haven't resorted to tear gas, rubber bullets, or fire hoses yet, as is happening in Budapest now.

Today is the 50th anniversary of their 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union. So maybe, in a bittersweet sense, it is fitting.

North Korean Situation

News From the Frontier
This is a good story from the Monterey Herald about the situation in one spot along the Chinese-North Korean border. It does a good job of giving a glimmer of what is and what could happen, depending on how the situation unfolds.

Take a look, here.

From the Security Council
The AP also has a good recap of the Security Council resolution, including additional restrictions imposed by individual countries: U.S., Japan, and potentially Australia.

The Security Council voted Saturday to impose the following sanctions on North Korea, in response to its claim that it has conducted a nuclear test:

_ an embargo on major weapons hardware such as tanks, warships, combat aircraft and missiles.

_ the freezing of the assets of people or businesses connected to weapons programs.

_ a travel ban for anyone involved in weapons program.

_ a ban on the sale of luxury goods to North Korea.

_ a ban on the importing of materials that could be used in unconventional weapons or ballistic missiles.

_ a call for inspections of all cargo leaving and arriving in North Korea to prevent any illegal trafficking in unconventional weapons or ballistic missiles.

In addition to the U.N. resolution, the United States maintains its own sanctions on North Korea, including:

_ a ban on U.S. defense exports and sales to the country.

_ a ban on U.S. aid, including a halt in food deliveries through the World Food Program, though not all food assistance has been banned.

_ several financial restrictions that oppose support for North Korea from international financial institutions and restrict business with banks that the U.S. alleges have helped the regime counterfeit and launder money.

_ strict limits on the amount of trade between the two countries.

Japan has imposed the following additional measures and is considering several more:

_ a ban on the entry of North Korean ships to its ports.

_ a trade embargo.

_ a continued ban on the Mangyongbong-92 ferry's entry into Japanese waters. Japan has restricted the movement of the ferry, which once served a major conduit for trade, since July when North Korea test-fired seven missiles into the waters between the two countries.

Australia is considering the following additional sanctions:

_ a ban on the entry of North Korean ships to its ports.

Shot heard 'round the world

Thanks to everyone who has called, written, or text messaged to let me know that, about 24 hours ago, North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon. For those who don't know me, I've spent the last year and a half procrastinating finishing a master's paper on North Korea. I'm just about finished (presented oral arguments a couple of weeks ago) and have been held up from making final corrections as life has intervened a bit.

While it is quite likely that Kim Jong Il, the "Dear Leader" of the DPRK is misguided, I think it very unlikely that he and his advisors have abandoned reason. Quite the contrary. It seems more likely that the North Korean leadership is playing a game of Chinese-style self-interested real politik. Here's why:

1. South Korea's President Roh has based his foreign policy on improving relations with North Korea. He is most likely to go for reconcilliation rather than conflict.
2. Japan has a new Prime Minister--quite publically a 'hawk' when it comes to North Korea--so North Korea doesn't lose anything by incurring his wrath. Especially since Japan still doesn't have offensive military capabilities.
3. The U.S. is too bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq to mount a serious, sustained military action against the DPRK. Further, with the U.S. still holding war-time command authority on the Korean Peninsula, the South Korean forces (though fairly capable themselves) are effectively held to defensive actions without a more robust U.S. presence to use as an offensive force.
4. This may be the most significant, though the least certain: North Korea has wagered that China's drive for internal stability and economic growth (especially presently, during the once every 5-year plenary session of the National People's Congress) will outweigh China's desire to put resources into maintaining the previous status quo along it's periphery.

This last piece, though a gamble by North Korea, if correct, could allow North Korea to dramatically shift the terms of battle in their favor. And whether intentional or not, they would be using precisely the same tactic the West did against the USSR during the Cold War. The U.S. knew the Red Army was signficantly larger than our own forces, and would be able to reach deeply into Western Europe before we could mount a serious resistance or counter attack. So the U.S. used our forward stationed troops as "trip wires". If the Soviets began a major assault on Western Europe, word would quickly get back to Washington, and we'd fire nuclear weapons against the Soviets. (It's not ironic the concept for the ultimate shape of this conflict was "MAD".)

At present, though, it seems to be a general consensus that the North Koreans are unable to mount nuclear weapons on a missile for delivery at any distance (with accuracy). Their last (and first) long range missile test blew up just above the launch pad. This means that the only conceivable targets (in a traditional, nuclear combat scenario) are South Korea, or China. We can fairly well rule out China, if for no other reason, that the Chinese, if attacked, would have no mercy--and the North Koreans know this. This leaves South Korea as the main target.

The impact of using this type of weapon against Seoul, or another major population center in South Korea would be devastating. Likely, tens of millions of people would die within a few days or weeks. South Korea would be devestated--not just physically, but psychologically and emotionally as well. Remember, it is a very (geographically) small country. The resulting retaliation South Korea--and it's newfound allies around the world--would wreak upon North Korea preclude this option as well unless as a completely desperate act.

So if you were Kim Jong Il and had these nuclear weapons, and wanted to get something, what would you do? My guess is that he will try to blackmail China, S. Korea, Japan, and the U.S. into either buying the weapons, or more likely, leave open the idea that the material might somehow be sold to other parties interested in acuiring nuclear material.

But this still leaves the question--which I have yet to come up with a plausible answer for--of what is it that North Korea is seeking in it's game of real politik? If you have ideas, please send them my way.

A uniquely American crisis

The U.S. is facing a crisis. It has to do with Iraq, but our involvement in Iraq is only a symptom of the broader problem. This thought is still forming, and remains a bit rough around the edges, but I want to through it out because it's been so long since my last post.

The U.S. military has become so effective, so powerful, so efficient at it's job: defeating identified enemies, that it has far outpaced not only our enemies and adversaries ability to fight back, but it has outpaced even our own ability to prepare for the aftermath.

What am I talking about? The men and women in our armed forces can, on very short notice, be nearly anywhere in the world, engaging in successful operations against nearly any traditional enemy we could face. The problem this creates--and where the crisis comes in--is that the rest of our government is not, and I believe should not be, in a position to deal with the consequences of such rapid victories.

Put in a concrete situation, the U.S. force in Iraq was 1. enormously effective at eliminating the Iraqi threat; and 2. Woefully prepared to handle the post-conflict element of operations in Iraq. Recent publications from George Packer's "Assassin's Gate" and Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" suggest that much of this has been caused by the administration's unwillingness to face the realities caused by America's actions.

If true, this attitude would clearly be a major contributing factor to the problem. It, alone, is not sufficient, however. Planning an attack, or a campaign, against a target or a country is a complex undertaking. It requires an understanding of the force being faced, it's strengths and weaknesses, the terrain, and myriad other items. But it is fairly transferrable from one place to another: tanks are always tanks; guns are always guns. Achieving victory, then, is something that takes a great deal of effort--but is something that our military is eminently well suited to do.

Achieving peace, prosperity, and ultimately political success, is something our military has not trained for, and is not presently equipped to do. Unfortunately, neither are any of our other federal departments or agencies. Creating a stable, productive, and peaceful country where there was a despotic autocracy requires a very differents set of skills and knowledge--and a country (or even provincial-level) expertise that our soldiers do not have the luxury to afford. On V-E and V-J day in world war two, the U.S. Generals in charge had spent the entirety of those wars facing the adversaries. They had at their disposal staffs with extensive knowledge of the countries and cultures in play--not just the relevant military information, but extensive information about history, culture, society, and in-country networks that existed or were believed to exist. And they had several years of working with these people to develop a clear sense of what would be needed not only to win the war, but, to use a cliche, "to win the peace."

Since World War II, our military has in both real and relative terms become a force unrivaled. Our experience in Vietnam gave us the "Powell Doctrine" of using "overwhelming force" to defeat an enemy. These two together, have left the U.S. in a position where our political leadership, and our military commanders no longer have the time to gain sufficient knowledge about a place, or establish networks of people who have this information, to create and put in place (much less execute) a plan that will allow the U.S. to succeed after the military operation has been successful.

This is not just a problem, it is a crisis. Unless we can bring our ability to win peace in line with our ability to fight wars, the United States will have more situations like Iraq in our future, not less. We will identify threats to our safety. We will neutralize them. And, perversely, we will be less secure after the threat is gone then we were when the threat was there.

Peacekeeping? Not a recipe for success

The concept of peacekeeping troops seems to have gained great ascendancy, and suffered appropriate ignominy in the short span of my life.  It came about as a response to the collapse of Somalia into what, euphemistically, was called a civil war but in reality was a number of uber-thugs and warlords fighting for control of territory in a country where the government had been stripped of all practical power.  Peacekeeping as an idea suffered a setback in the U.S. when American troops were captured and their bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu after they had been killed.

 

In spite of this, the practice was attempted again only a few years later in the Balkans as a response to the “ethnic cleansing” going on as another state dissolved into chaos; this time Yugoslavia.  UN peacekeepers became synonymous with incompetence as the rules of engagement they operated under frequently stopped them from using the weapons they possessed even in self-defense.  Most notably, a squadron was captured by a local militia/army unit using captured UN uniforms.

 

Some would have us believe that right now the world is spinning into chaos.  North Korea is rattling it’s worn and rusty saber; the U.S. military is pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan attempting to perpetrate a democracy on local populations that seem unwilling or incapable of standing up on their own.  Perhaps most significantly in many the minds of many Americans, Israel is once again at war with its neighbors.

 

This last piece is the one I’d like to talk about, as regards peacekeepers, though the ideas can be applied to the other situations as well.

 

In today’s Washington Post, columnist Harold Meyerson writes from the safety of not needing to make decisions that,

“Real border security is going to require the kind of force that didn't exist as World War I loomed. With the Lebanese army no match for Hezbollah, a genuine international army such as that proposed by Kofi Annan and Tony Blair (and bigger and more assertive than the Boy Scout troops that the United Nations periodically deploys) is needed to restore the peace.”

 

Regardless of how much “bigger” or how much more “assertive” a force in the Middle East would be than it’s predecessor Peacekeeping cousins, it would be doomed to fail without a couple of simple preconditions:

1. That the countries contributing troops be prepared to lose a large number of young men (and women, depending on the country) in uniform;
2. That the countries be willing to put these troops on the ground in a region that has been suffering violence regularly for the past 40 years;
3. That the countries be willing to engage the Israeli Defense Force, Hamas, and Hezbollah equally for likely violations of the terms of truce that the peacekeeping force would itself have to establish—with or without consent from the hostile parties
4. That the contributing countries would be willing (and their troops able) to enforce marshal law over large, urban populations, where underground paramilitary activity (Hamas and Hezbollah) have become accustomed to operating in this capacity for decades.
5. Certainly not least significant, that the countries contributing troops to this exercise would have to be willing to see images on Al Jazeera, the BBC and CNN of their troops firing missiles into schools and hospitals, killing women and children, because terrorists/insurgents would use these facilities for refuge, or because the troops mistakenly thought so.

 

All of these would happen because this would not be a peacekeeping mission, but a peace-forcing or peace-creating one.  It would involve inserting an additional hostile force between two (actually 3) forces already engaged in combat.  It would happen because war is ugly, destructive, ends lives, and makes the lives of those involved the worse for its experience.

 

My opinion: good luck getting a “peacekeeping” force that is either effective designed to succeed through a single government on Earth, much less through the recalcitrant UN Security Council.