Tiger Tank

And now, it's once again time for America's favorite current events program...

2010-07-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome to 'Roundhead Roundtable', where we think inside the box. I'm your host, Humphrey Burroughs, and joining me this week to fit their round pegs into our square hole are our regular guests, Grover Columbus of the Center for Public Policy in the Private Interest...

"Good to be here, Humphrey"

...Victoria Bassington-Bassington, Senior Scholar at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign Relations...

"Quid est nomine tibi, Humphrey"

...Max Werkover-Thyme, Editor-at-Large of Newspeak Magazine...

"The print media need government support, Humphrey"

...and joining us this week to discuss the latest events surrounding the Gulf oil spill, Jason Sleekit, spokesman for the Members' Institute for Safety and Health in American Petroleum, or MISHAP, an oil industry group.

"As you can see, I'm not the least bit British, Humphrey"

Alright, issue one: this week, Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana struck down the Obama Administration's six month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, calling it "punitive", and stating that it would cause "irreparable" harm to businesses. Gov. Jindal of Louisiana applauded the decision, stating that the moratorium would have amounted to a second man-made disaster, while environmental groups, including Greenfleece and Friend of the Sea, condemned the decision as irresponsible, stating that it places the entire Gulf region at further risk of major environmental damage.

First to you, Grover. Disaster averted, or disaster aggravated?

"Averted, Humphrey. The fact of the matter is that there are 30000 off-shore wells in the Gulf of Mexico, and over the past 40 years there have only been 2 major well blow-outs, including the present leak. Indeed, the long-term effects of the Ixtoc blow-out have proven to be largely non-existent. The very small risk of another accident of this kind compared with the immense continuing requirement for domestic oil production makes the Administration's proposed moratorium not only unnecessary, but foolhardy. My position is unrelated to the fact that a major oil magnate funds my fellowship."

Victoria?

"Aggravated. As was made so painfully clear during Tony Hayward's testimony before Congress last week, no one yet has a complete understanding of the causes of this disaster, and the potential costs of another such catastrophic failure, no matter how purportedly unlikely, more than justify our waiting until all the facts are in. If the oil majors wish to continue exploiting the Gulf, they would do well to pressure BP to be more forthcoming. In the meantime, the precautionary principle must apply. My position is unrelated to the green technology firms for which I regularly consult."

What say you, Max?

"No question, Humphrey. What we're seeing in the Gulf now is an environmental Anschluss, and this Feldman might as well change his name to 'Chamberlain'. If we don't draw a line in the sand now, the tarballs will. We need to look clearly at the real cost of America's oil dependency: millions of dead children. We can power this entire nation with clean, renewable wind power by 2020 if we just reduce the size of the economy by 80%. That's a small price to pay for the future, isn't it? This tragedy has already wiped out 50000 miles of irreplaceable coastal ecosystem. Mark my words: another spill like this will complete the environmental Holocaust, or my name's Godwin."

Mr. Sleekit?

"What absolute poop, Max. Humphrey, this brave man, Judge Feldman, has definitely averted a disaster for America just as bad- frankly, worse- than anything we've seen so far in history. Friends, this is what defines us as a nation: faith, family, friends, deep-sea oil drilling. The brave men and women of the domestic oil industry are working every day to keep this nation up and running, and this Administration needs to recognize that. We need to look at the big picture: a recent MISHAP study has indicated that NOT continuing deep-sea oil exploration for more than 5 weeks will not only devastate members' bottom lines, but could cause the extinction of the rare drilling mud carbuncle. The oil industry won't abide a preventable environmental catastrophe of this sort, which is why blocking this moratorium was vital.

And I hate to say it, Humphrey, but I can't be anything but absolutely 100% honest with your viewers: these so-called environmental groups supporting the drilling ban hate America, and they hate Freedom. Why do you think Judge Feldman has been receiving death threats since he handed down his decision? If we stop drilling in the Gulf, friends, the terrorists win."

And the impact on the market of the Administration's decision to appeal, on a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being the unreliability of iPhone 4 antennas and 7 being the assassination of Jean-Claude Trichet?

"2; a substantial blow if it's overturned, but the Fifth Circuit isn't going to overrule this. I was at Choate with Judge Jones, and she'll keep it on even keel."

"1; it should be overturned, and it will be. A reasonable amount of caution in this case will be no more harmful to the domestic oil industry than it was to the nuclear industry."

"3; these dinosaurs are going to learn their time is through. I, for one, won't miss them. Roll on the Green Revolution! Viva fotovoltaica!"

"7; I advise your viewers to hide their gold in their mattresses and invest in seeds."

Very good; Now turning our attention to...

Today's WaPo Weather Forecast

2009-08-27T11:46:00.001-07:00

Today's Washington Post EXPRESS had a nice cover photo of Teddy. Also, a weather forecast:

As you can see, today it's going to thunderstorm, and tomorrow is Cloudy with a chance of Super Nintendo controllers.

You know you're a grown up when the newspaper's art department starts sneaking in iconic shapes from your childhood.

In Case You Missed It

2009-08-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

The Mayor of Milwaukee is a hero. I totally missed that one.

Unicef finds attitudes toward domestic abuse vary wildly. Former Soviet Union and Latin America don't brook wife beating (maybe the gender-equality elements of Marxism have a lasting effect), while the Arab world, Asia, and Africa are mostly accepting (some notable exceptions). But the study didn't cover the first world at all.

This is an engrossing populist interpretation of US history, particularly the history of race relations. I find it compelling, but whenever someone is that good a speaker I can't help but start sniffing for a fault in the logic. In a context where accuracy matters less, here's the same guy taking a turn as a CNN talking head. I'd like to see him go up against Bill O'Reilly.

Cash for Clunkers gets Traded in

2009-08-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

It looks like Cash for Clunkers (the refreshingly legible name for what's officially the "Car Allowance Rebate System" or CARS -- funny how the media sobriquet overwhelmed the stolid, uncatchyily contrived government acronym) is on its last legs. Dealers are under instructions to stop making deals next week. This also puts to rest my chief concern -- that the program would be so popular it becomes an entitlement. That is of course what happened in Germany, where their rebate program metastasized into a sacred right to government subsidized new cars. If you ask me, auto ownership should not be part of the social contract.

So it's time to do a bit of wrap-up analysis. The Associated Press reported Tuesday on the program's progress. 358,851 vehicles, mostly pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, were traded in (that's worth about $1.6 billion, so the second half of the program's $3 billion hasn't been accounted yet).
The top ten vehicles purchased on a Clunker trade-in:
1. Toyota Corolla
2. Honda Civic
3. Ford Focus
4. Toyota Camry
5. Toyota Prius
6. Hyundai Elantra
7. Ford Escape (front-wheel-drive)
8. Honda Fit
9. Nissan Versa
10. Honda CR-V (four-wheel-drive)

I think this is proof the program had its desired effect: SUVs and Pickups out, compacts in. Yeah, the Escape is biggish, but it gets good mileage. Ditto the CR-V. They say this is augmenting the recession austerity and high gas prices as a means of raising national fuel economy.

Perhaps an unintended side benefit: pulling half a million old light trucks off the road will shift significantly the crash-worthyness of the American vehicle fleet. It's not sufficiently acknowledged that SUVs keep their occupants safe at the expense of others -- sure, you survive, but that high bumper on your Escalade will hit a sedan driver at high in the torso -- and a pedestrian at mid-thigh. Collisions are an applied science, so it's complicated, but basically, a pedestrian hit below the knee will be thrown onto the hood -- and probably survive with minor injury. A pedestrian hit above the knee will be shoved to the ground very hard, and then run over -- lethal. A shift to low-bumper, light-weight vehicles will result in fewer pedestrian deaths, and these new mini-cars are much less lethal to occupants of other vehicles.

I don't know how safe the occupants of of the new vehicles will be. On the one hand, new cars are safer than older ones (better belts and airbags, traction control and ABS, not to mention better seats and safety cages), but on the other hand, they are smaller, and so suffer more in a given collision.

Vehicle size as a safety feature is an example of the Prisoner's dilemma. Everyone is safer (and saves more money) driving small, low cars. But any one person can defect, buy a big, high SUV, and survive by murdering their fellow drivers. Selfishness makes each of us defect, so we all do. The result is everyone paying more to drive bigger cars, which are inherently more dangerous -- more momentum, higher center of gravity, higher bumpers.
First Player
CAR SUV
2nd CAR 2,2 3,0
Player SUV 0,3 1,1

Each player wants to get 3, and so trades 2 for 1. The government subsidy for fuel efficiency (and thus for small cars) changed the utility levels:
First Player
CAR SUV
2nd CAR 4,4 3,0
Player SUV 0,3 1,1
Obviously, these numbers are notional rather than literal (there are other values besides safety and cost, and individuals weigh the hedonic balance differently), but in this example (as in real life), the subsidy has the effect of changing the game -- people prefer SUVs by less than $4500, so that much subsidy moves almost everyone into cars.

Hunger in America

2009-08-20T07:36:00.000-07:00

Home sick today (stomach bug), so I'm watching Hulu. Not that I don't watch hulu ordinarily, but now I have the time to actually watch the commercials. One of these caught my attention: it's the Public Service Announcement about how one in eight Americans "struggles with hunger" -- black and white stills of photogenic people of all demographics, interspersed with everyday items shaped like the numbers one through eight, to convey that hunger could strike anyone, while a bad Springsteen impersonator repeatedly groans "I'll never let go of your hand". Tag line "Who's the 1 in 8 in your life?" You know the ad?

It's for a group called Feeding America. If you visit the website, it comes down to an awareness campaign built around a single government statistic: "in 2007, 36.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households". I don't know about you, but 'food insecure' doesn't evoke a common-sensical definition to me. So I looked up the original report. Read it for yourself.

Turns out the USDA does an annual survey, with 18 questions about food availability. If you answer a certain number of them "Yes", you count as "Food Insecure". Indeed, 11.1% of Americans fit this description.

That's one in NINE, not 1 in 8, but here's the part that I really object to. The "Feeding America" ad, website, and materials all refer to "hunger" as though it were the biological symptom, and to "lack of food" like one in nine Americans have empty bowls and that's it. The government study, and it's questionaire, repeatedly use the key phrase that's missing: going hungry because "there wasn’t enough money." It's not like 1 in 9 Americans can't find a grocery store! There isn't a famine! There's no food shortage; there's a MONEY shortage. Some people just don't have enough MONEY. They're POOR. They're SO POOR they can't afford FOOD.

This is, however an old story. An ad that said, "just a reminder, but about 11% of Americans are broke at some point during a given year. We like to think they could be living next door, but they don't -- you don't know anyone that poor, at least not personally. Please support social welfare spending!" wouldn't tug at the heart strings quite the same as the "hunger Russian Roulette" concept -- it could be you of someone you love who is suddenly struck by hunger, so you should empathize. This appeals to the same instinct that says, since about 5% of the population is gay, any group of 20 or more people must have a gay person in it.

This is what bothers me:

1- The public is too stupid, blasé, or both, to care about the actual facts.
2- There are well intentioned people who think it's okay to distort reality to get through to the dummies.
3- Since there's an ad campaign, someone is willing to bankroll this mendacity. Altruistic mendacity, but still.
4- This is the kind of policy advocacy that leads to government bread wagons. After all, if the public is too dumb to get that poverty has bad effects on the poor, then they probably think "give them food, then they'll have food" is a good policy solution.
5- Someone presumably got PAID to come up with all of this. Someone whose combination of low ethics and bad statistical sense entitles them to be the SUBJECT, not the author, of such a PSA.

Ugh, sigh. Back to throwing up my breakfast. That I bought with MONEY. That I got from the GOVERNMENT (but it's okay, I work for them!).

The Destruction of Detroit

2009-08-13T22:50:00.000-07:00

This is an old story, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. This is a mouse-over photo showing a large Detroit neighborhood in 1963 and again in 2003. This is similar, for a different area. Stark.

The Utterly Dubious "End of America" Series

2009-08-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

In the fine tradition of the edge-of-your-seat, impossible-to-suspend-disbelief action movies that define August, Slate gives us the semi-serious "End of America" series. You can read the articles if you want, or play with the interactive parts, but really you want this: the list of 144 potential catastrophes. Some even refer to the summer-quality films that inspired them, but even those that don't can be traced back to a writers' room at some studio.

In fact, it comes down to the following basic plots, labeled here for an iconic film in that vein:

The Day After Tomorrow: Something we do to Gaea comes back to bite us in the ass.
The Omega Man: Disease kills us all off.
Children of Men: Modernity poisons us, and population shrinks to insignificance.
The Siege: Terrorists decide to harm America. Only this time it works!
Red Dawn: Color-coded foreign powers take over (yellow menace also a concern, as is the green scourge -- the Caliphate of the United States).
Soylent Green: Demographics screw us. Suffers from the "No one goes there, it's too crowded" paradox.
Frankenstein: We bring it upon ourselves through technology.
Deep Impact: Something from OUT THERE comes and gets us, beyond even our power to piss off Mother Earth.
All the Kings Men: American "politics as usual" eventually drives us off the rails.
Wall Street: The Corporatocracy suffers worse hubris even than government.
Left Behind: God, gods, or Quetzalcoatl rapture us.

Authoritarian Rom-Coms

2009-08-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

Bloggers and reader(s):

I, Boss Smiley, The Baron, and friend of the blog Kate State have had a splendid time coming-up with names for romantic comedies with an authoritarian twist. This is what we have. We must be stopped.

BOSS SMILEY

Love, Absolutely
Power Ballads
The Truth About Cats and Despots
500 Days of Solitary Confinement
Ayatollah You So
My Country in Ruins
Sleepless in Guantanamo
Coup de Coeur
In the Arms of a Strongman
Things You Can Tell Just By Keeping Her Under Constant Surveillance

KATE STATE

Runaway Bolsheivik
The Gulag Guru
Little Red Book
About a Basij
Hannah and Her Comrades
KGB and Leopold
Statsi in Love
Nine Months Plan

THE BARON

Junto en la Junta

Death and Marriage

2009-08-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, someone takes the words out of my mouth, and throws in a personal anecdote better than one I could think up. Both of the below links are from Salon, on the more philosophical aspects of our policy debate. What makes a good life? Sharing it with someone you care about, and ending it with dignity, should surely be near the top of that list. Also nachos, but that's just my preference.
Traister on marriage and perseverance.
Moore on death with dignity.

I never got political prisoners on my birthday...

2009-08-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

Not even my sweet sixteen.

That's all I have for today.

The Disposable Culture of Poverty

2009-07-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

It is a cliche to say "They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To." Though sometimes about quantity over quality, this is usually an observation about the ever-shortening endurance of durable goods. "Back in my day," it is supposed, appliances, vehicles, tools, etc. were sturdily constructed, usually of steel, and were meant to last for decades. By comparison, today's equivalents are flimsy plastic-fantastic simulacra of their predecessors. Why does this bargain work out? How is the literal decadence of our material goods not a sign of impending societal doom?

Today's car market illustrates the dynamic. Within the car market, you have both low- and high-quality vehicles -- ones that last forever, and ones that are practically single-use. Call it a Honda versus a Kia. The Honda lasts twelve years instead of six, but costs 20 grand instead of 10K (note this is a conservative case -- Hondas cost maybe 50% more and last more than twice as long). Suppose they have the same overall characteristics -- same gas mileage, same comfort level and space, same safety, even. Why buy the cheapie, when in the end you pay as much (if not more)?

There are three reasons: credit, insurance, and innovation. By paying a lower up front cost, disposability is a form of credit. You pay more in the long run, but you never have to pony up all the cash at once (kind of like a car loan). Also, if your Kia breaks down, you're only out half as much cash (kind of like being insured). And if a new feature comes out, you might not have to wait as long to get a new car with the feature. If you buy a Kia and I buy a Honda, and a feature comes out during the first six years, you're six years ahead; if the new feature is released while I'm driving an 6-plus-year-old Honda and you're on your second Kia, you're not ahead.

Cars are only one example -- imagine something where quality of performance differs hardly at all -- like refrigerators. Of course you can buy a $1000 Krupp from Germany, or you can buy a $100 Haier from China (a Chinese company bought the name so they'd sound German). Both fridges keep things cold. Will the Krupp last 10 times longer? Probably not. But if you have limited credit, and can't afford to buy an extended warranty or to set aside for repairs, you're stuck with the disposable one.

Or you can think of electronics, where innovation risk is hardly a risk at all -- it's a virtual guarantee. Landfills are full of functional-but-obsolete VCRs and Pentium II desktops. Buying generic-brand computers lets you stay closer to state-of-the-art, in exchange for fly-by-night quality. Or you could just go with the XKCD approach.

Of Stimuli and Job Creation; OR, Stop me before I make this a DOMESTIC policy blog

2009-07-27T06:37:00.000-07:00

A recent post on economix(@NYTimes) stuck in my craw. I think I've figured out why. The topic is the famous "Stimulus Package," a porn-star name for a one-time doubling of non-defense discretionary spending (aka "Big Government"). The point is that compared to the extent of "job creation", the price tag seems high. Let me say right off that this is a crap concern, because dollars in the economy are ultimately fungible. That is, if each "job" directly "created" costs a lot of money, that just means that more jobs were created indirectly (or siphoned into Swiss bank accounts, but no one is making that accusation).
But still, to the uninformed observer, it might seem scandalous that so much money is spent per job created. Why do stimulus jobs cost somewhere between a quarter of a million and a million dollars a piece? Because job creation wasn't the only objective. The Recovery Act was also a Reinvestment Act. The projects pursued weren't chosen for job creation alone, or even primarily. Since any broader impacts in the economy get muddied, we're looking just at direct job creation -- people hired by government and under government contract to complete stimulus projects. Employing a desk worker or ditch digger costs only slightly more than wages, but a construction worker's annual cost is far higher: he consumes building materials and fuel, and wears out equipment. For that matter, a car factory probably has expenses in the tens of millions per worker, but if you look at it that way, you're ignoring all the cars that come out at the end.

So yes, construction jobs are an inefficient way to get people back to work directly. But the impact on the economy is the same, whether we spend $500 billion building bridges or digging holes and refilling them. In the long run, though, the investments have some return, while digging and refilling holes is a pure waste.

Speaking of which, you know what else would be a waste? A war - or even peacetime defense spending. Some people, both on the political left and right, act like a war would be a boon to our economy. Wars are a convenient pretext for Keynesian fiscal policy. Deficit spending brings unemployed workers back into the economy. Wars also are a convenient way to get civilians to save -- you get them to buy war bonds and force them to ration goods. So when the war ends there's all this pent up demand, and it SEEMS as though we've come out ahead. But that ignores what any child knows -- wars involve killing and maiming people ("a sudden loss of human capital") and using big expensive machines that get blown up in the process ("allocation of capital into non-productive uses with short amortization periods"). Not to mention a huge waste of time. Kind of puts a different spin on World War Two, doesn't it? Imagine the Brits and French had beaten Hitler to the punch and invaded across the Rhine in September 1939. The German Army was nearly all on the eastern front, and the war might have ended by early 1940. Instead of the "Arsenal of Democracy" building bombs and guns, and sending about 20% of our workforce overseas for 3 years, the US could have spent the same dollars on highways, railroads, airports, schools, libraries, parks, hospitals, etc. It could have done so while cutting taxes to zero, and indulged every whim every New Dealer ever dreamed up, and we still couldn't have racked up the same debt. And in the end, we'd have had beautiful infrastructure to make the Interstate Highway System look like wilderness trails. And we'd have had almost half a million more young men to enjoy the prosperity.

Economics has a model for size of an economy: Y=C+I+G+(X-M). National income equals consumption plus investment (real investment, not savings), plus government spending, plus the trade balance. At present, consumption is way down (those who have jobs are saving instead of spending), and so is investment (banks are sitting on capital, so savings and investment are temporarily unequal). Both imports and exports are down, but the trade balance is improving slightly. The traditional monetist way of correcting would be to lower interest rates, encouraging investment. But there's lots of excess savings without investment opportunities, though interest rates are essentially at zero. There's no play left in that lever.

That leaves Keynes' apporach: fiscal intervention. This could be tax cuts: keep Government spending the same, but increase Consumption and Investment by reducing taxes. Unfortunately, people's tastes seem to have shifted toward savings and personal debt reduction, so giving them more cash would add to excess savings rather than spur consumption. So we can either increase the size of government, or let the economy shrink.

Keep in mind, that is an policy option, though a brutal one. In fact, it was the policy option for most of US history -- without a central bank, with a tiny federal government, and laissez faire principles, the Gilded Age had bigger booms and bigger busts than today. I have a feeling the congressional Republicans might favor that option: quote Schumpeter on Creative Distruction, kowtow to Milton Friedman, and take a long summer vacation. That's a bit like a ship trying to ride out a hurricane by cutting anchor and striking the masts. Except that now we have radar, and could just as easily sail around the storm. Dunno, maybe the Congressional Republicans had a "Perfect Storm" movie night, and fell asleep halfway through.

Anticipating Clinton in India

2009-07-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is on her first trip to the India since assuming office, will arrive in New Delhi later today after spending the weekend in Mumbai. She will meet with key political leaders of the country, including Prime Minister Singh, and discuss a host of issues impacting the bilateral relationship.

Her trip to the region gave Islamabad a strategic miss indicating that the Obama administration is keen to ‘de-hyphenate’ – to some extent – its approach toward both countries, and build on the bilateral relationship with India that has developed significantly over the past few decades. Clinton drew sharp criticism from Indian circles for excluding the country from her first trip to Asia. But in reality, with a forthcoming election at the time, a visit to India would have been futile and counter productive had the country seen a change of government.

Beyond the protocols, plethora of public interviews, scilicet, the joint statement that will aim to carefully capture the character of this buoyant relationship, New Delhi is now bracing itself for a new round of cathartic diplomacy. The United States has been increasingly active behind the scenes in bringing India and Pakistan back to the table. Eager to see Pakistan tackle the insurgency on its Western border in a sustained manner, the United States has been quietly prodding India to take bold steps to increase security/intelligence cooperation between the two neighboring countries.

However, Clinton’s visit will focus on maintaining the momentum of historic engagement between India and the United States; work toward smoothening out disagreements on such issues as non-proliferation, climate change, and India’s long-term involvement in Afghanistan, and promote cooperation and bilateral ventures in education, agricultural and infrastructure – all vital to the future of this bilateral relationship.

Non-proliferation, Clinton admitted during a speech on the eve of her trip to the region, is a ‘difficult issue’ area with India. Although the Indo – US civil nuclear deal will see the light of day, with two sites in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh already identified to set up US nuclear reactors, President Obama is ardent on strengthening the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The issue of climate change has created strange bedfellows. India and China were representing the voice of the developed world in unison at the Bonn Conference in Germany a few weeks ago. Traditionally, New Delhi has taken a tough stand against committing to emission caps, and that trend is likely to continue with Jairam Ramesh, the Indian Environment Minister, shutting the door on any such obligations. In the wake of the Copenhagen Summit in December, President Obama is keen to make progress on this front. Rancorous discussions are sure to follow, and it will be wise for the two leaders to flush out a workable plan for the coming months in an area that can witness greater collaboration from both sides.

Although Hillary Clinton did not publicly include Afghanistan in her ‘six pillared strategy’ toward India, the principles underlying India’s involvement in Afghanistan will be addressed. Moving forward, the United States is likely to ask India to continue to ‘lie low’ in an effort to ease Pakistani concerns over India’s growing influence in Kabul. Opportunity and necessity of preventing Afghanistan from becoming fertile ground for terrorists will demand greater cooperation between India and the United States. For now, however, this will be an area of contentious discussion with the United States, as are future course of action with Pakistan and the framework for their bilateral engagement.

Clinton’s visit to India and any measurable progress she makes is likely to be a harbinger for the future course of the bilateral US-India relationship. Contrary to the previous administration, President Obama has sought to express muted optimism on the tenor of the bilateral relationship with India. Generating substance rather than polite handshakes will affirm and encourage further integration and trust between the two ‘strategic partners.’ Although India may not be a short-term priority, long-term international implications – Pakistan, Al-Qaeda, Iran in addition to those discussed – suggest this trip will be crucial for both countries to solidify the groundwork for their future partnership.

The Honda Asimo was just the Beginning...

2009-07-25T19:24:00.001-07:00

This is pretty much your standard journalism on sci/tech: some say x, while some say not-x. But here the question is best summed up as: Which apocalypse will come first, the robot one or the zombie kind?
I think this comes down to your taste in science fiction. Do you trust Isaac Asimov, or do you fear the Wachowski brothers? Do you think frankenfoods are a trojan horse, or did Dustin Hoffman and Renee Russo make you feel all warm and safe? Is SkyNet giving you cold sweats at night, or do you sleep cuddling a stuffed toy in the shape of a MQ-1 Predator Drone (before you laugh, check this out)?
Personally, I think we're going to be fine, we don't have to worry about The Day After or The Day After Tomorrow, or 28 Days Later, or even The Day the Earth Stood Still. It's The Day of the Jackal or Three Days of the Condor that I worry about -- not science but political science. After all, we sent a man to the moon but couldn't win a single 'War on ___' issue. It's not sudden change we should be worried about; as the ancient Greeks knew, it's human nature that is the great tragedy. Or you could just go with the XKCD take on the subject.

European Post-nationalism

2009-07-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

This post got me thinking about Europe's supposed impending (all too literal) balkanization. There are two (maybe two and a half) countervailing forces at work in Europe when it comes to nationality. On the one hand, national self-determination has taken on a level of customization usually reserved for personal hygiene ad copy -- 'Independent Normandy -- strong enough for a Frenchman, but pH balanced for a northern Frenchman'. Ever since the Slovenes got their own country (circa 1991), every group with a cultural heritage dance and a comfort food has been organizing an independence party.

On the other hand, the European Union has slowly emerged as the ascendant level of decision making, especially for economic issues. With their economies tied together by a central bank, a single currency, open borders, and a common legal framework, it's hard to see why now is the time to throw off the yoke of Berlin or Rome or Madrid -- you'll still be under the yoke of Strasbourg/Brussels/Luxembourg. This I think is most interesting by comparison to the US -- the EU is roughly where the US was under the Articles of Confederation, but instead of a decisive Constitutional fight that leads to a central government stripping powers from the member states, Europe's constitution flopped. Yet the EU isn't going away; its success furthers too many interests, including some of its opponents. And with post-Cold War malaise, geriatocracy (rule by retirees!), and demilitarization, there's less and less reason to resist that sweet slide into unity... wow, as usual, I've sexualized International Relations.

Moving on then! The third, or properly, 2-and-a-halfth force in play is traditional, drums-and-goose-steps nationalism. This is the main reason why the EU Constitution did so poorly in the plebiscites. To the nationalists who remember the 1930s, it was shades of the Austrian anschluss, an open door to Franco-German, or just plain German domination of Europe. At the opposite end of the political spectrum, the neo-fascists believe deeply in the pseudo-ethnic identities of existing national boundaries -- you see this in France, where even in mainstream politics it's gauche to suggest there are regional differences, that all francaises don't bleed bleu-blanc-rouge. Throw in the anti-corporatist Greens, and you have a half-baked coalition for the existing national structure against either balkanism or Europeanization.

The question now is, how long can the balkanizers and nationalists hold out? The Lefty nationalists have trouble appealing to the younger set, who like easy vacations to Majorca and easy jobs in Stutgart -- which only a united Europe can provide. Rightist ultranationalists (true coincidentally, but all the more so, of the secessionist movements) both appeal to cultural cues that are being steamrolled by the mass media juggernaut. I like that image -- a juggernaut, literally, is a huge parade float (or, at times, mobile fortress) held aloft by scores of burly men, carrying it along. The cutsey markets and folk dancers that make local identity worth fighting for, trampled beneath the feet of a million web-savvy tweens who'd rather get their commerce from swoopo and their culture in wiki form. And a lot of those tweens are going to be of a yellow or brown complexion, and won't draw a personal connection to the land their family live in for the moment. Forgetting leads to apathy, and apathy leads to those with vested interests winning by default. Fortunately, the vested interest agenda - a little less regulation, a little less welfare, ever-shrinking militaries, ever-growing economies - seem aligned with the general interests for the moment. For the moment.

The Other Side of the COIN

2009-07-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

The COIN doctrine that we are attempting to deploy in Afghanistan may be both misguided and doomed to failure, as some have suggested; however, its most popular alternative similarly provides no guarantee of success

“Population-centric” COIN entails flooding population centers with troops as a means of convincing locals that they can be protected from all dangers presented by the ongoing conflict (namely coercive rebels and crossfires) if they cooperate with incumbent forces, meaning providing them with intelligence and refusing to offer insurgents supplies or refuge. The notion is that even rebel sympathizers would be enticed by the promise that war would no longer be a factor in their lives. Beyond this, the doctrine entails directly hiring local proxies (i.e. the SOI) and using nationbuilding efforts to gain the people’s respect and trust.

Afghanistan challenges this model in ways that Iraq simply did not. The country is massive, its populace too large and too dispersed, with few “population-centers” to be found and a largely non-existent infrastructure. Setting aside the issue of funding this effort, achieving the desirable ratio of troops to civilians (1/1,000) would require 660,000 combat troops, 38 times more than we currently have. Furthermore, accountable centralized government remains elusive, depriving PC-COIN of a critical prerequisite for ultimate success.

One alternative to this model that has thus become increasingly popular can be called the “pure counterterrorism” approach. Its supporters would have us abandon our fight against most of the Taliban, which now represents a loose coalition of tribes with varying commitments to radical Islam and one-other, pull most of our forces out of the country, deploy more drones, and focus on the “real enemy:” Al Qaeda, now rooted in Pakistan. To adherents to this school of thought, Afghanistan’s future is irrelevant to our own as long as we can continue to disrupt Al Qaeda’s infrastructure through targeted killing. Insofar as the tribal militants are concerned, the goal is to pay them to attack Al Qaeda havens and punish those harboring jihadists through air campaigns.

Here’s the problem. One goal of population-centrism is gaining intelligence, and without men on the ground vetting and protecting an army of informants, it will prove incredibly difficult to ascertain who is actually cooperating with us. While past strikes in Pakistan have relied on SIGINT (and not human intelligence), this may prove insufficient if terrorists cut their cell phone use. In all likelihood, disloyal proxies would trick us into striking local rivals or communities with no Al Qaeda connections, incurring blowback by creating more terrorists while killing none. This would furthermore result in Afghans doubting our ability to effectively locate jihadists, critically undermining the value of our threat to punish harborers, thereby discouraging tribes from cooperating in the first place. Finally, even outbidding the Taliban for tribal loyalties will prove difficult until we undercut the insurgency’s opium lifeline.

The point is taken that we may want to redefine our objectives and strategy in Afghanistan. However, I’m simply not convinced that we have sound alternatives.

Paying for Medical Care

2009-07-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

This blog has been on a defense/foreign policy jag lately, so let’s shift it back to domestic issues for a bit. The big policy debate right now is medical care finance reform. N.B. not repeat NOT “health care”. Although insurance financing is the topic of discussion, it is too easy to slip into debate over care itself, and embroil the ennobled medical profession. This injects frenzy into what ought to be a sober debate. So let's get on our green eye shades, and look at the numbers.

The debate has been broadly mis-framed. There's a baseline problem: the conservatives act as though what we have is a competitive market for health care. But Government is deeply involved in funding medical care, regardless of the free market rhetoric. Just how deeply is a question that has lingered in my mind long enough. I decided to do the requisite digging. Here's what I found.

Medicaid and SCHIP (Federal side): $209 billion
Medicaid and SCHIP (State side): $320 billion (2007 number)
Medicare: $386 billion
VA system: $20 billion
Tax Deduction of Employer Health Benefits: $155 billion (FY 2009 projection)
Tricare for uniformed personnel and families: $42 billion
Indian Health Service (for Native Americans on Reservations): $4 billion

It is hard to find a number for the cost of insuring government employees, besides the military. This is because their insurance is often through private insurers. But the employer paying for their “employer provided" insurance is the government, which means those costs are borne by the taxpayers. Federal employees number 2.7 million, State employees 3.8 million, and county and local employees 10.9 million. This sums to 17.4 million. If these were average employees (and they receive benefits that are better than average), the cost per family would be $12,600. Since both the employer and the employee side (that is, whether the employer pays the premium directly, or deducts the cost on employees' pay stubs) come out of taxpayer dollars, it's only fair to include all of it in government health expenditures. That's $219 billion.

These programs total to $1,355 billion of last year's $2,400 billion health care expenditure, or 56.5%. Using 2002 data, economists at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimated government spending to be 56.1% of total health care spending. This was before the Medicare prescription drug benefit, before the last seven years of population shift into the Medicare age range, and left out government employee coverage. Included in the AHRQ number but unavailable to me are the tax deduction for private health insurance for the self-employed, subsidy to public hospitals, prison health care, etc. So government spending on health care is probably more like 60 to 70 percent of the industry's ultimate funding. The other 35% basically comes out of charitable institutions, from out of pocket expenses, and from employees salaries.

Why does this matter? $1355 billion is $4377 per capita (and remember that this is a conservative estimate). If government is funding 60% of medical costs, that number is $4700 per capita; 70%, $5500 per capita.

Canadian medical care (the second most expensive in the world) costs $5,170 per capita. My question is, why doesn't Uncle Sam just hire Canada to run our health system? It would cost us the same in taxes, but look at all the benefits:

It keeps the medical system itself private (conservatives love it!).
It gives universal coverage (liberals love it!).
It uses outsourcing (free marketers love it!).
It provides presumption of coverage (no paperwork for patients!).
It excuses employers from covering workers and retirees (industry loves it! Especially GM!).
And, perhaps most importantly:
It ends the ridiculousness of staying in a job/marriage/poverty for the health benefits. Everyone should love this one.

The Bourne Reality, or Get with "The Program"

2009-07-14T07:57:00.001-07:00

So for the past week, we've been treated to a healthy dose of irresponsible speculation about the CIA's "secret program that it hid from Congress," which until yesterday the Washington Post had taken to simply calling, "The Program." Never missing an opportunity to invest in a crackpot theory, the less reputable news sources and blogs immediately resurrected Sy Hersh's crazy theory from this past March that Dick Cheney was running his own CIA-trained assassin squad that reported directly and exclusively to him. I suggested, until details surfaced that the program had "nothing" to do with torture, that we'd secretly been using a more esoteric interrogation method known as "woodchuckboarding." Contributing author and friend of the blog Kate State settled on the notion that we'd begun a targeted killing program aimed at terrorists hiding in stable societies and outside of warzones.

Speculation continued as more details started trickling-in. First, the Program was revealed to have been counterterrorism-related. Then, we discovered that it was "used" sporadically and ad hoc, if at all, and never fully gotten off the ground. Next, we discovered that it didn't involve interrogation, and then that it didn't involve surveillance. Finally, we found out that Dick Cheney had asked the CIA explicitly not to tell Congress about the Program. This possible scandal was quickly turning into a tiresome game of twenty questions, where one could be increasingly certain that the truth, were it to be eventually revealed, would actually create more questions than answers.

Then yesterday, after more speculation involving piranhas and laser beams, all was revealed.

Well, as it turns out, it was a targeted killing program. As usual, Kate was right. Furthermore, the reason that this program came as a surprise - given that, you know, the CIA's been raining death from above down on AfPak for years, now - is that this program aimed at killing terrorists "from two feet away, and not two thousand." That's right, we're talking up-close-and-personal, paramilitary, covert, cloak-and-dagger, Munich/Bourne Identity/La Femme Nikita/Leon the Professional assassina-whackings.

So... what?

Well, first, Congress is up in arms that even the Gang of Eight weren't told about the program, as they perhaps should have been under the rules of the National Security Act of '47 that established the CIA and its mandate. Secondly, some have made the claim - entirely wrong in my view - that these kinds of "assassinations" are forbidden under Ford's Executive Order 11905 and Reagan's Executive Order 12333, both written in the wake of scandalous revelations regarding CIA assassination plots of the 1960s and 1970s. What's wrong with this claim is that Al Qaeda members are considered military targets and have been since the signing of the AUMF, regardless of whether or not the terrorists in question were "battlefield" militants; furthermore, former President Bush also signed a secret order sanctioning targeted killings of Al Qaeda operatives in 2001. Thirdly, revelations that the CIA had been either planning or partaking in killings in stable states, including allies, would greatly strain diplomatic relations (in particular the already-frayed Atlantic counterterrorism partnership). Targeted killing "on the battlefield" is one thing - in other words, if the Program in question were simply a successor to the failed Phoenix program in Vietnam, the question wouldn't be so much whether the Program was legal or ethical but simply rather it was effective and stood the risk of generating blowback. Killings in states we have not formally invaded (Syria/Pakistan/France) are far more politically complicated.

Finally, although Panetta pulled the plug on the program immediately before bringing it to Congress, in all likelihood, if it seems practical, it will likely be resurrected, its political consequences thereby amplified. Panetta made the smart move that he had to given the scrutiny and pressure that his Agency is currently under, crossing his "T"s to avoid criticism so soon after Pelosi-gate (or "Water-Board-Speaker-Gate", or just "Water-gate, pt. III"), but as Missouri's own Kit Bond (R) has noted, "this is exactly what the Agency should be doing, and if it isn't, we'd be asking why it isn't."

Before wrapping-up this overlong, rambling post, one more aspect of the Program kinda irritates me, and I feel the need to talk about it. On the subject of why the program never got off of the ground, the New York Times has reported today that, and I quote, "creating and training the [assassination] teams proved difficult." Proved difficult? "I want to kill these terrorists, but logistics are too hard! Wahh, wahh!" It's exactly things like this that make the Israelis and the Russians think that we're featherweights. The Russians have one man smuggle nuclear waste from Siberia to a London teahouse to poison a single dissident and then disappear without a trace, while the CIA spins its wheels in Langely for nearly a decade. Since movies were reportedly a good deal of the intellectual inspiration for the Program, may I suggest a clip from a classic.

Eulogy

2009-07-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

There are many legitimate criticisms to have of Robert McNamara; I personally cannot excuse his inability to adapt or take advice from contemporaries who had a nuanced understanding of counterinsurgency and the keys to victory, in particular Robert Komer of the State Department. However, these are insufficient for many of those kicking dust on his grave. Instead, critics have tended to focus on his silence following his resignation as Secretary of Defense, which they call McNamara’s greatest sin. Their logic is that, since it is now well-known that McNamara believed that we could not "win" militarily as early as 1966, his refusal to denounce the war after his 1968 resignation was morally inexcusable and even treacherous, a misjudgment rooted in either misplaced loyalty to his President or a cowardice to admit his own failures.

To this claim, I offer a simple counterpoint, one that has been lost in the recent debate but one that McNamara himself repeatedly reasserted. While he thought that America could not defeat the guerillas, McNamara hoped that America would be able to negotiate a peace with the North Vietnamese that would not see the complete communist takeover of South Vietnam or the consolidation of a communist "front" against the West. What many seem to have forgotten was that McNamara never questioned (until it was long over) the underlying pretext of the U.S. invervention - that the spread of communism in Southeast Asia was anathema to American national security - only America's ability to secure its "optimal" outcome in the War through the application of force. In turn, he feared that voicing his uncertainty would so embolden the enemy that it would consequently refuse to negotiate, thereby encouraging an unacceptable outcome that he thought could still be avoided. In short, McNamara thought we were losing the right war, but that we could bluff our way to a draw.

Now, this reasoning was still fatally flawed, as McNamara would also later admit, as it was built on the false premises that a communist Vietnam would actively try to contain Western influence in an alliance with China and the Soviets, that other Asian states would fall to this bloc like dominoes, and thus that America had to win in Vietnam. All wrong. However, it makes his public silence from 1966-1972 horribly misguided, not dishonorable. And while the above notion could still have been a self-serving rationalization on McNamara's part, I, for one, am shocked that so few commentators have even engaged this argument.

Announcing to the world that you cannot win a war changes fundamentally how your enemies will deal with you; such information is often better kept to oneself. Had the Vietcong admitted that they had been almost-annihilated in the Tet Offensive, would the American public have still lost its will to fight or been emboldened? The simple fact remains that asymmetries of information and misunderstandings between adversaries can be one's key to victory. With that, I'll leave you with this enlightening anecdote, in remembrance of Robert McNamara.

"The Program"

2009-07-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

So DCIA Panetta has admitted that the CIA has misled Intelligence and Oversight Committees since 2001 by not informing it about a particular, highly-classified program, but he will not say what this program entailed, nor will the Congressmen on the Intelligence Committees nor former Bush Administration officials. Currently, in spite of informed Republicans' claims that the program was "no big deal," it remains highly-classified, and the Democrats are calling for blood and a Truth Commission, so big deal or not, it is still a "deal." Currently, the Washington Post has taken to simply calling it, "the program." Currently, I'm thinking it's something different from what we've heard before. Something weird. Something Jane Mayer just plain didn't find out about. I'm calling it. Woodchuckboarding.

Items To Do

2009-07-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

Fellow Travelers:

Eventually, we may get around to covering the following topics of recent interest:

Robert McNamara

Military Commissions

Happy Independence Day!

2009-07-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

I hope all our readers are having a fun and safe 4th of July. And I hope that in between the barbeque ribs and fireworks, we all take a moment to appreciate the generations that have gone before, the men and women who through their blood, sweat, and dedication have built these United States up into the greatest nation the world has ever known, prosperous even in recession, idealistic even in scandal, generous even in wartime.

And let us always bear in mind the values upon which this nation was founded: subsidiarity, the dispersion of powers, the inherent freedom which all men derive from our Creator. Our forefathers rose in open revolt against a bloated central executive which imposed high taxes and intolerable regulations upon them, which strove to deny them their rights as free men, and which claimed untrammeled authority to dictate to them how they should conduct their business and disburse their funds.

The brave men who this day declared Independence from the greatest empire in the world understood that government is at best a great chained beast, striving to break forth and trample or devour its citizens. The duty of a free people is to remain ever vigilant, to restrain the beast: "A Republic, if you can keep it." Today, take a moment to reflect on this, and on the warning of de Tocqueville: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

Tango in Tegucigalpa

2009-06-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

Well, the Boss asked me for some quick thoughts on the Honduras situation, and particularly our Dear Leader's reaction thereto.

Well, my reaction to Mr. Obama's reaction was that:
a.) He shouldn't interfere in the internal politics of other nations;
b.) By doing so on the heels of his (in my view, appropriate) reluctance to support the Iranian protests, he makes himself look an almighty waffler;
c.) When he declares Zelaya's ouster was 'not legal', I reply, "Why, Mr. Obama! I had no idea that a knowledge of Honduran constitutional law exceeding that of the Honduran Supreme Court was among your many remarkable gifts" (great Andy McCarthy quote on this: "On the issue of what is legal in Honduras, as between Hugo Chávez and the Honduran Supreme Court, our president has decided to go with Chávez");
d.) That, from my very limited reading on the subject (and I most DEFINITELY know nothing about the Honduran Constitution), the Honduran state is set up in the came manner as Turkey, in that the Army is the defender of the constitution, and therefore while SCOTUS could never order the US military to remove POTUS, in this case the Honduran military was actually fulfilling its constitutional duty to prevent the dismantling of the Republic á la Chávez, Morales, and the rest of the current crop of Sudamerican Strongmen; and
e.) IF the President must interfere, and you know how I feel about that, it's remarkably ill-advised (to say the least) to have been reluctant to support protesters struggling for freedom against a tyrannical regime one week, and the VERY NEXT WEEK condemn the lawful institutions of a functioning pluralistic democracy from acting to protect their republic from a man who by all accounts was baked in the same mold as Chávez.

I'm actually amazed by how the left-commentariat either hasn't properly examined the situation, or has some rather more alarming tendencies than a trusting fellow such as myself is keen to attribute to them. Truly, I find it remarkable that what has occurred in Honduras is being referred to as coup. I suppose it might be in the strictly technical sense of the term, since the military participated in Zeyala's ouster, but they were acting, as I said, in their capacity as defenders of the Honduran constitution.

Imagine, if you will, the President of a small, Central American republic. This President, inspired by neighbors to his south, began taking steps to curtail the independence of his nation's media. He then began agitating for a Constitutional convention to radically expand presidential powers and remove term limits which would prevent him from wielding perpetual power. The Supreme Court of his nation rules that a ballot initiative to make such changes is illegal. The President ignores the ruling and orders the military to make preparations for the referendum. When the nation's Army Chief of Staff refuses do to so, as it is against the law, the President dismisses him from service. Both the Supreme Court and the Congress of the nation rule this dismissal to be illegal.

By this point, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Attorney General have all decided that the proposed referendum is unconstitutional. The President's own party, alarmed by his growing dictatorial tendencies, has turned against him. The Congress seeks means to remove him as President. Finally, the army, acting on orders from the Supreme Court of this nation, fulfills its obligations under the nation's Constitution and removes this dangerous man from office - and our leader denounces them?

The independent judiciary in Honduras put out a warrant for Zelaya's arrest, indicting him for "violation of the constitution, drug trafficking, of protecting organized crime, and diverting multimillions in resources." On the constitutional charge, he is obviously guilty, and no less than Honduras' Foreign Secretary, of Zelaya's own Liberal Party, has confirmed the former president's complicity with the drug trade to the press. The independent attorney general (unlike in the United States, the Honduran Attorney General is independent of the Presidency - think Ken Starr) says that Zelaya will get 20 years in prison if he ever returns. The Honduran Congress has replaced him with an interim President from his own party who has vowed to serve only until the scheduled election this autumn. This is the situation in Honduras - and our leader denounces them?

In light of the facts, Mr. Obama's contrasting words - and more importantly actions ("threatening to halt [Honduras'] $200 million in U.S. aid, immigration accords and a free-trade treaty if it doesn't put the criminal Zelaya back into office") - this week and last are beyond such moderate descriptions as "ill-advised". I feel deeply uncomfortable with the fact that the charitable view here is that our Maximum Leader is wildly inconsistent from week to week in his approach to foreign affairs, while the cynical view is that when in doubt, he tends to side with the forces of illiberalism, wherever they are found.

The American Alarm Clock

2009-06-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

You can't understand one critical reason for optimism in Iraq in the wake of yesterday’s events unless you understand what the pullout from the cities means in the context of the past three years.

General David Petraeus gave the U.S. war effort in Iraq three miracles qualifying him for military beatification. First, he employed the counterinsurgency strategy that he and a number of notable scholars designed and published in the U.S. Counterinsurgency Field Manual of 2006. Second, he decided to put the Sunni tribes on the payroll with instructions to annihilate Al Qaeda's Iraqi franchise. Thirdly, less importantly, but still critically, he advocated for the influx of troops to hold the gains generated by his first two strategic choices. This third step, the influx itself, is now commonly referred to as the "Surge."

What has been lost in the backlash against the mainstream media's admittedly-inaccurate hyping of the "Surge" as the turning point in Iraq is an appreciation for the fact that it was the Petraeus COIN doctrine - what he did with the troops that he had, long before he was given as many as he wanted - that facilitated the gains that we saw in 2006 and thereafter, including the enlistment of many Sons of Iraq (who are increasingly receiving primary credit for the turnaround). The simple fact is that many Sunni insurgents came-around in 2006-2007 because not only had the Shiites and AQI become existential threats to their communities, or because Americans offered them salaries, but because the U.S. had fundamentally changed how it engaged the general Sunni populace.

And the cornerstone of this new engagement - massive deployment into the cities and away from the bases, protecting and winning-over the population - ended on June 30th. So why is that reason for optimism? Wouldn't the pullout from the cities and the abandonment of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq be followed by immediate chaos?

Chaos is possible, but if it occurs, its source will likely not be Iraq’s Sunni population, and for one simple reason: the Sunni communities are no longer under the visible blanket of U.S. military protection, which disincentivizes them from returning to insurgency. As happy as many may be that we have left their cities, the fact remains that it was both our doctrine and our financing of the militias that dissuaded the Shiites from perpetuating the ethnic cleansings and allowed the militiamen to purge themselves of the Al Qaeda menace. I am not suggesting that we have made the Sunnis feel dependent on U.S. protection; however, the familiar vulnerability they now face in a tense, Shiite-dominated Iraq makes our pullback a wakeup call for them to remain peaceful.

Now one sees how a proper understanding of the U.S. role in Iraq since 2006 leads us to sunnier predictions for the next several months. This "anti-Surge," as it has been called, sends the message to the Sunnis that they are on their own, and our army spent three years ensuring that the Sunnis would feel uncomfortable with that prospect.

This is just too wonderful for words

2009-06-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman once again warms the cockles of my heart. Oh, if only the Administration were as upfront with the American people as he! As it is, he's either a giant of intellectual honesty, or else that tin ear must get REALLY hot this time of year.

I can boil down this blog post for you: "Well of COURSE we'll need to start trade wars with the BRIC nations. If we don't throw up carbon tariffs, those pesky consumers will try to buy products manufactured at reasonable cost! That would RUIN EVERYTHING!"

A Question Regarding Discussions

2009-06-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

Say, Boss, recognizing that one of the goals of this group blog is to foster discussion of issues, not merely isolated postings, how shall we structure conversations? Are we going to respond to and discuss each others postings in the comment section of the original post, a la the Telegraph blogs, or create new blog posts with the title 'Re: {Original Post}' and have a multi-post dialog, like they do at the Corner?

Also, I'm really looking forward to Mlles. Dark Matter Lark and Kate State's inaugural postings. When will they be joining us? I feel like we won't be able to get down to the really substantial ad hominem attacks until we hit the proper density of posters. The fact that this blog purports to discuss politics and as yet has not even a single reference to Hitler is simply unacceptable.

And one more thing...

2009-06-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

Spot on post from Stephen Spruiell at the Corner highlighting another alarming aspect of the Cap and Trade legislation I failed to raise: the trade penalties it enacts against non-carbon rationing states:

The only alternative ... is wishful thinking, as if China is going to see the wisdom in our approach and follow our lead. Congress isn't going to buy that, and rightly so. You can add "potential trade war" to the growing list of costs associated with this bill.

Also, here's a fascinating post over at 'Watt's Up With That?' that points out that the much-ballyhooed warming trend in United States Historical Climatology Network's 20th century measurements suspiciously matches almost precisely the statistical corrections applied to the raw measurement data by NOAA (be sure to check out figures 3 and 4!).

Cap’n Trade – Sailing our economy toward the rocks

2009-06-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

Much ink has been spilled over the past few weeks regarding Messrs. Waxman and Markey’s American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, but when one is confronted with such a truly awful piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that managed to be opposed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Greenpeace AT THE SAME TIME, one feels obligated to add one’s own brief précis of why we are doomed, doomed.

I would not be terribly surprised to learn that our esteemed readers, if any, were only vaguely aware of the Waxman-Markey comprehensive energy bill, which squeaked through the House on Friday backed by a commanding majority of seven. After observing the floor vote on C-SPAN and despairing of my inexpert efforts with my congressional voodoo dolls (just you wait ‘til I finish the Learning Annex course, Ms. Bono Mack), I flipped over to CNN hoping to get the talking heads’ reaction to the historic vote – and instead was updated that internationally renowned and much-beloved pop-music megastar and weirdo Michael Jackson, according to the latest report from the coroner, was indeed still dead. So perhaps the spectacle of Mr. Jackson’s latest bold career move and Gov. Sanford’s efforts to track down Nazi war criminals in Argentina have drawn the public’s attention away from Waxman-Markey, in the same way that a passing squirrel might prevent a dog from noticing the cement truck hurtling toward it.

That our heavily Democratic Congress barely managed to stuff through this act via frantic whipping and open vote buying on the house floor at the last possible moment before the July 4 recess is perhaps the first indication of what a truly remarkable bill this is. However, they admirably made every possible effort to follow Mr. Obama’s campaign pledges regarding open government and making important pieces of legislation available for review by the public for a week before votes, but darn, wouldn’t you know it, they fell a little short. That is, if you were patient and didn’t hit the refresh button too often, last week you might have gotten through the 1200 +/- 115 page bill by, say, 3:08 am on Friday morning, little expecting that a 300 page leadership amendment would drop on top of the pile at 3:09. However, if you were persistent and had a red marker handy, you could no doubt have easily understood the import of hundreds of pages of such revisions as (actual quote) :

REQUIREMENT – Section 1110 of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (12 U.S.C. 3339) is amended –
A.) In paragraph (1), by striking “and” at the end;
B.) By redesignating paragraph (2) as paragraph (3); …

and so on in time for the floor vote that afternoon. However, our esteemed legislators did find themselves in interesting territory, inasmuch as they were on the floor voting on a bill which at that time didn’t, technically, in the strictest sense of the word, exist. But hey, we need to hand it to this Congress for meeting and surpassing the pioneering efforts in legislative engineering that brought us such universally beloved (and universally-unread) hits as TARP I and the PATRIOT Act.

But enough ~~TARPing~~ carping about the way it was passed. Why is a carbon dioxide cap and trade program a bad idea in general and at this moment in particular? This post is getting overlong, but here are some of the lowlights, which I hope to unpack further in future postings:

-Any carbon emission mitigation scheme which fails to include the major manufacturing bases of the BRIC nations is doomed to fail, and indeed will only encourage American industry to move to India, China, and other nations - not only throwing thousands more Americans out of work at a time of already high and rising unemployment, but removing a still greater component of our manufacturing capacity out from under the pollution control, safety and oversight measures this nation provides.

-The ubiquitous claim of “green-collar” jobs off-setting these major losses is simply untrue. Heritage estimates NET job losses of 1.1 million by 2012 under the cap and trade regime, and Spain, one the ‘leaders’ in green energy which Congressional Democrats are so desperate to ‘catch up’ to, has, according to this study from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, permanently lost 2.2 jobs in the rest of its economy for every green job its massive system of renewable energy subsidies, mandates, and participation the European cap and trade scheme has created.

-The similar cap-and-trade scheme in Europe has had a remarkable and detrimental effect on ordinary citizens, and most notably the working classes of those nations. Despite the recent and dramatic fall in oil and gas prices on the world market, thanks to cap and trade and ill-considered renewable energy initiatives focusing on impracticable solutions such as wind power, in the United Kingdom electricity prices have doubled in five years, and are expected to increase a further fourfold between now and 2020. That’s right: energy prices have been doubling every five years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This is an intolerable burden to households and demonstrates the awful truth that no tax regime is more regressive than an energy tax. And let us make no mistake - cap and trade is an energy tax. Its very PURPOSE is to effect energy price rises, and these price rises will inevitably be passed on to the consumer, punishing the poor and slowing our economy still further in the midst of an historic recession.

-At the same time that consumers are being punished and unconnected manufacturing firms are relocating overseas, the massive allocation of carbon emission credits to corporations - which are then able to SELL what they were GIVEN - creates an entirely new route for massive corporate welfare hand-outs to companies with the best lobbyists.

-Lastly, I would point out that no major innovation in technology, be it in energy production or another field of endeavor, has been brought about by taxing and penalizing that which went before. Unbelievable as it may seem to the congressional leaders of today, automobiles weren’t made popular by levying a tax on horse droppings (although I’m sure that some in Congress would prefer that we all still took the buggy out each Sunday to the General Store in town). Our economy depends on the availability of affordable energy, and effective R&D efforts depend on a robust economy. I know this from firsthand experience, both as an engineer working in industry, and now through my research as a doctoral student at Caltech. Let us be blunt: windmills are not the answer to our energy problems. It will take bold new initiatives in nuclear plant construction, research into novel processes and efficiency gains on currently extant energy sources to create a sustainable base of energy production for our economy. More and better research and development efforts are vital, and a growing and vibrant economy is vital to such efforts. Waxman-Markey will ensure that that is precisely what we do not have, both now and for years to come.

EDIT: Of course, any holistic view of this bill ultimately needs to take on the form of a cost/benefit analysis. I've highlighted many costs, but what benefit will we receive by incurring them? In short, what will are we buying with our $2 x 10^12? I'll tell you: according to the bill's proponents, this bold and immediate action will lead to a world that is, by 2050, 0.05 °C less than it would be if we did nothing. Yes, dear reader. One half. Of one tenth. Of one degree Celcius. Worth it?

'Allo, 'allo.

2009-06-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it's good to be here. I shall endeavour to compose posts and proffer insights with the goal of neither blinding our readers nor driving them insane.

The Fight Promoters

2009-06-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

The recent bombing spree across Iraq – particularly in Baghdad – is tragic. Tom Ricks suggests that the sky is falling; I, for one, am not panicking just yet.

First, it almost goes without saying that the bombings, overwhelmingly targeting Shiite communities, are not a sign that Iraqi Sunnis are definitely returning to insurgency against the government. That’s just not what we’re witnessing, tactically. What we are seeing are terror attacks orchestrated by Al Qaeda in Iraq, a dying foreign jihadi organization whose indigenous support base largely eroded after the Sunni-Shiite civil war of 2006, which they were instrumental in starting.

Second, while Al Qaeda certainly intended for their new campaign to lead us to postpone our withdrawal from Iraqi cities, overtaxing Iraqi patience and provoking a new insurgency against our troops, that plan has obviously failed. Even had it succeeded, this new insurrection would likely have excluded the Sunnis – the worse relations soured between Sunnis and now-more-powerful Shia, the more likely Sunnis would have (by and large) invited American protection, yet another lesson of 2006.

Of course, that brings us to the danger that these attacks actually do represent – a repeat of the 2006 ethnic civil war. Unfortunately for AQI, a strategy like theirs – which is based on provoking a war between Iraqi Sunni and Shiite communities, allowing jiahdists to ascend to political leadership within the Sunni populace – backfires when both communities realize the extent to which they’re being manipulated by an exogenous force. This “realization” (in an event we now call ‘the Awakening’) saw the Sunnis turn against Al Qaeda in 2006, which in turn convinced the Shiites not to perpetuate the civil war.

Neither group should be duped into playing-into Al Qaeda’s endgame, now, for the second time in three years. I am hoping, to paraphrase a line from Jim’s favorite song, “they won’t get fooled, again.” However, an overly-optimistic reading of Iraq’s future has never helped the American policymakers, before; therefore, let us cautiously reflect on this prospect some more. If AQI’s plan has already backfired, once, how could it work this time? The question is whether or not the Shiites can actually come to believe that the Sunni militias are somehow complicit in this Al Qaeda resurgence.

Unfortunately, there is no current polling data to indicate whether the Shiites will bite. Even more unfortunately, events of earlier this year suggest that they just might. The Shiite-dominated government’s round-ups of Sunni Awakening leaders earlier this year, on the grounds that they were political spoilers still allied with Al Qaeda, heightened tensions on both sides, as has the Iraqi government’s consistent foot-dragging on paying and rehabilitating the militiamen. Reports that some Sunni leaders have consequently turned to terror to coerce the government into offering them more ample concessions have been no less ominous. This may not provide a casus belli for an ethnic cleansing, but admittedly, it may spark a new small war.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the recent uptick in violence, however tragic, is not in itself a sign of Iraqi security unraveling. It is only a potential catalyst for the possible unraveling of Iraq sometime in the future, a “Hail Mary” play from a desperate militant group trying to retake the initiative the only way it knows how. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is pushing Iraq towards the slippery slope into chaos, but Iraq is not on it, yet.

It's not an "option" in Afgahnistan when it's our only choice

2009-06-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

The Choice

The question is how to win in Afghanistan. The problem is discerning what winning means, and on what front. As everyone knows, we're chasing two military goals in one country. The first is destroying Al Qaeda and denying them a foothold in Afghanistan. The other is crushing the Taliban and centralizing the country around moderates or even Karzai himself. Let's pretend for the moment that our first priority is counterinsurgency. Fine. We "have" to pacify Afghanistan.

The Twist

The key to victory in COIN this is knowing one's enemy, and dispelling misconceptions. And the biggest misconception around is that religion or nationalism are the primary factors getting in our way; that they are the driving mechanisms of this conflict and make eroding the Taliban's will to fight entirely impossible. The problem is that while religion may identify what drives the core of the Taliban, and nationalism may explain some Afghani discontent with the U.S. presence, neither describes what drives most of the Taliban's constituent tribes, factions, or individual guerillas to fight.

Throughout Afghan history, the most dominant concern of Afghan tribes has been patronage. Even in times of war, people's loyalties have been entirely determined by how much revenue, goods and/or services their leaders could distribute to those who pledged loyalty to them. Consequently, Afghan leaders and rulers have routinely and openly played the proxies for empires for centuries, and sought the support of outside benefactors without fear of losing face for it. The idea that serving foreign interests in exchange for gold or security would in itself make an Afghan leader into an "illegitimate puppet" is almost foreign to the Afghan people. While this flies in the face of what most westerners intuitive expect from an autonomy-loving, religious, and tribal population, this is proven fact. In fact, the ability to find and exploit outside sources of revenue (in other words, "sell out") is seen as indicative of a wise and savvy tribal leader.

Religion and nationalism have only driven Afghans to revolt when foreign troops have physically stepped onto Afghani soil, in support of a local leader or in an attempt to replace him. That does it, but that's all that does it. But even that has exceptions (i.e., Karzai did not lose support just or even primarily because U.S. forces were inside of the country, but because of his postwar failures and our own negligence).

The Point

Religion today is more important than it has ever been, before. Fine. Islamic fundamentalism "matters." After all, the Taliban exist. However, most of those who side with the Taliban side with them for the same reasons as any traditional Afghan alliance: security and revenue. They are, for lack of a better or more culturally-appropriate word, "mercenaries," willing to side with the winning side because it is the winning side. They accept Taliban ideology as a necessary evil, while the war's central dynamics are control and survival. Taliban recruitment, in turn, is not completely ideological.

This is why Obama is saying, "let's negotiate with moderates in the Taliban." Because, in fact, it is very plausible that (as Biden keeps trying to convince us) 70% of the Taliban are, in fact, not ideologues. "Taliban" today is just a name of a coalition, and in itself is hardly even descriptive, just like the arbitrary titles of similar prior combinations: Durrani, Ghilzai, Abdali, Kattal.

This dilution of the Taliban was kicked into overdrive by the narcotics game. Like all rebel groups that start-off ideological and then find themselves awash with cash, the Taliban, like the Columbian FARC or Peru's Sendero Luminoso, have fallen prey to the rebels' "Dutch Disease." They have found the opportunity to literally buy loyalty completely irresistible. By offering security to traffickers, they got themselves a serious (but fickle) militia. By swinging this militia, they coerced a dozen other tribes into becoming a Taliban army and with this army they retook broader territory, eventually clearing Helmand to become their central narcotics "hub." But this army, purchased instead of home-grown with the loving care of an indoctrinating parent, is not loyal to their sharia and will defect as soon a a better deal comes along - as soon as there's another strong contender to authority with which to bandwagon that will take them in and give them the things that they want.

The Catch

The problem, unfortunately, is that a patronage-based society only bends for whatever force can provide it with revenue flows, and the highest payouts come from the druglords. They know the U.S. will never entirely let them do business their way. They have their hands on the faucet of the country's cashflow, which would give them leverage in any other civil war on Earth but in Afghanistan especially gives them incalculable power. The motto of the 101st Airborne in 2004 Iraq (under Petraeus, before he took over) was, "Money is our Ammunition." By this measure, the Taliban has an armory.

Which takes us back to square one. We can't buy-off the mercearies. Not all of them, not enough of them. Not without making the same kinds of deals that got the CIA investigated back in the early '90s. In other words, unless we start sponsoring drug cartels, we can't buy-off this insurgency, although as an academic matter it could have worked if we actually had the gumption to do it.

So that leaves us with only one option in terms of "negotiating with the Taliban:" instead of winning-over Taliban moderates, we'll have to win-over hardliners. Which means letting the ideologues of the Taliban rule the country however they see fit, as long as they pinky-swear that they'll never ever help out Al Qaeda ever again. Which means declaring defeat in the counterinsurgency for the sake of counterterrorism. Good luck. For the life of me, I'm trying to think of a better answer.

The Only Option?

If the Obama policy of negotiation (as explain above) seems unacceptable, then perhaps this means that we are left with the same "hearts-and-minds" counterinsurgency playbook that we picked-up from the British 50 years ago and applied to Iraq, with some major modifications to accommodate our lack of resources.

We'll have to pick at least three population-centers far from the Pakistani border (Kabul/Herat/Kondoz), herd as many people as we can into them, surround them with troops (to make them impenetrable to the Taliban), and turn them into shangri la. We not only have to provide just "basic services" to the people inside, but rather build those places up so well that the rest of the Afghans see this progress as fundamental to their future. The hope is that the tribes will start lining-up to defect just to receive entry into our oases. Meanwhile, anyone outside of these protected cities will no longer be a priority, and we'll go back to conducting "search-and-destroy" attacks against whatever Taliban strongholds we're able to find with only gradual efforts to expand our zones of control. COIN theorists call this the "oil spot strategy", meant to invoke inky blots on a map (our zones) spreading gradually outward and eventually consuming the paper.

To some extent, this strategy would fail to "provide security" for most of the Afghani people, at least in the short run, which is highly problematic. Until they turn on the rebels and lay out the carpet for us, anyone outside of our "New Life Villages" would be pretty screwed. It is a big gamble to think that the Taliban would not simply tighten control even further, or would run out of resources and begin to cannibalize itself. The strategy has worked before, but it gets really ugly. Of course, more basically, even if it wins the war against the Taliban this strategy will give Al Qaeda a foothold anywhere that it likes, given that they just have to hide wherever the people aren't around.

Which leaves me at a loss for ideas. All of which I am certain is that any of the above would see our incumbent President get crucified four years from now:

"Barack Obama: Bailing-Out Afghan Druglords while Ford Declares Bankruptcy"

"Barack Obama: Giving Radical Islam another Chance in Afghanistan"

"Barack Obama: Americans Lose Their Houses, while Al Qaeda Gets their Caves Back"

On Providing Security

2009-06-13T14:47:00.001-07:00

The question: what is the most fundamental rule of effective counterinsurgency?

The answer most commonly cited in the COIN literature coming out of the Iraq War (most notably the "COIN Manual," as well as the prior published works of most of its authors) is "providing security for the indigenous population." In truth, both are probably the best expressions for it. It gets to the heart of the matter: you're isolating the people from a determined and coercive rebel group, promising them an end to all violence and fear if they'll side with you, provide you with intelligence, not raise up arms, fight the rebels, and help you to clear-out their towns. You are, in fact, providing security. This is certainly the best way to characterize the Petraeus doctrine, as well as other so-called "hearts and minds" COIN campaigns. The way that we've done this in Iraq, just as the British did in Malaya, is by flooding towns with troops and ordering them to police the streets. (This is setting-aside how we turned the Sunni tribes to our side in Al-Anbar and elsewhere).

However, the expression "provide security" can be basically misleading. The problem is the words, themselves, and what they imply. To say that you are "providing security" is to paint a very black-and-white picture of a war, one in which you are the benevolent actor, the rebels are invariably coercive and violent towards the people, and the people themselves have already picked your side and desire your protection. It's very cops-and-robbers, with you, the incumbent, as the cop, the insurgency as the mafia and the population as some shopkeep being extorted into silence, awaiting your salvation.

When you start to look at history, and look at how these wars have traditionally been won by the "incumbents" (the counterinsurgent), you start to see a very different picture of "what it takes" to win. Very often, cities, regions, and entire countries have been pacified by incumbents determined to break an entire people's will to fight. Rape, torture, starvation, bombardment, forced-resettlement and other forms of brutality and collective punishment have routinely been the effective weapons of counterinsurgency campaigns. Furthermore, very often, "the people" have seen "the rebels" as "the good guys," determined to repel an oppressive empire. The Phillippines, South Africa, Kenya, Guatamala, My Tho province in Vietnam, Boumerdes in Algeria, and present-day Chechnya (if you believe that the Russians have "won" that war, which I do). These prominent examples toss the suggested duality of the expression "providing security" on its head.

It must be noted that, throughout the case studies cited above, the fundamentals of effective COIN have remained the same: the incumbent floods an area with troops, isolates a people from the rebels, and then promises this people that all violence in their communities - caused by the rebels, by your forces, or by crossfires between the two - will end if they unequivocally side with the incumbent to exterminate the insurgents. No harm will come to them if they side with the side in control.

However, the expression "providing security" thus becomes a perverse euphemism: you're not just offering the people protection from a brutal insurgency which the people themselves may want to win; you're offering them protection from you and from your own wrath. It's COIN the way of the Melian Dialogue. Instead of playing the dutiful cop, you're offering people security in the same way that the mafia offers protection - at the point of a gun, offering no other options and toying with people's basic instinct to survive. In half of the case studies cited above, insurgent and incumbent forces became tactically indistinguishable, equally relying on something that some would call "terrorism."

For this reason, I believe that the true cornerstone of COIN is something more basic than "providing security," and thus deserves a more basic name. To answer the question with which we began: the most fundamental rule of effective counterinsurgency is physically controlling population centers - their borders, their streets, and the movements of their inhabitants. In one word, the centerpiece of COIN is control.

In Iraq, over the past four years, we have attempted to gain such control over the entire country. And, where we have asserted this control, the U.S. has decided to "provide the Iraqis with security." The question is how can we do the same in Afghanistan, as our brilliant CENTCOM commander now insists that we are and that we must.