Grand Strategy for a Divided America

[a_majoor]

Part 2

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/12/02/2013-the-end-of-history-ends/

Myopia in DC?

Just as China’s cabbage strategy depends on flying just under America’s radar, advancing Chinese claims without triggering the kind of confrontation which the Middle Kingdom cannot (yet) win, so the Central Powers generally prosper best when American diplomacy doesn’t grasp the nature of the game. Fortunately for them, many American analysts and most if not all senior officials in the Obama administration have yet to sense or to interpret the change in the weather.

Three factors keep many Americans inside the government and out from connecting the dots. The first is the habit of supremacy developed in the last generation. From the middle of the 1980s on, the declining Soviet Union and its successor states were no match for the United States. China’s horizons were more limited than they are now. And after the triumph of the First Iraq War demonstrated America’s overwhelming conventional military supremacy in the Middle East, American attention turned to managing specific issues (like terrorism, WMD and the Arab Spring) on the assumption that the United States no longer faced significant geopolitical rivals in the region.

The strategic dimension in the sense of managing intractable relations with actual or potential geopolitical adversaries largely disappeared from American foreign policy debates. Instead, American foreign policy was about “issues” (like non-proliferation, human rights, terrorism, inequality, free trade) and “hard cases” (rogue states like Iraq and North Korea and non-state actors like Al-Qaeda that could cause trouble but were unlikely to affect the global power balance in a serious way). The balance of power in Eurasia, the great question which forced the United States into two world wars and a long cold war, largely disappeared from American policy thought.

The disappearance of geopolitics reinforced a second tendency in American foreign policy that further hampered American ability to perceive and respond to the new challenge. That is the habitual American tendency, fruitlessly bewailed by actors as different at George Kennan and Henry Kissinger, to approach international politics through some combination of moral and legal ideas in an uncomplicated atmosphere of Whig determinism. The default worldview of American intellectuals and officials is that some combination of liberal capitalist economics and liberal political values is carrying the world swiftly and smoothly toward the triumph of Anglo-American values. Americans believed they were living through the end of history long before Francis Fukuyama wrote his book; that free markets and free government will bring the world right is one of the deepest convictions of the American mind. Ask Woodrow Wilson.

Moralists and legalists were both very comfortable in the post Cold War world in which American hegemony seemed to have created a flat, global reality in which moral and legal questions trumped geopolitical ones. In a world without serious geopolitical issues, one can debate policy toward, say, Burma or Egypt based on one’s analysis of whether a given American policy supported ‘transitions to democracy’ in those countries without thinking too much about such depressing realities as the balance of power. Libya could be treated as a humanitarian and a legal issue rather than a strategic one. Similarly, in looking at Iran many people inside and outside the Obama administration see either a challenge to the legal norms of the non-proliferation system or a moral challenge to human rights as understood in much of the world.

This mindset makes possible what would otherwise seem patently absurd: a negotiation over Iran’s nuclear proliferation that proceeds without regard to the destabilizing consequences of Iran’s growing geopolitical reach—and the effect that that reach has on the policies and perceptions of both allies and adversaries around the world.

The “end of history” that many American analysts unconsciously identified with an era of largely effortless and uncontested American global hegemony is an era in which no one has to connect the dots. Because there are few or no serious strategic consequences to anything that happens, every issue can be addressed in isolation and policy can become the progressive application of legal and moral norms grounded in American hegemony to various refractory countries and problem regimes around the world.

In such a world the lawyers and the moralists are free to address each question in isolation; the toe-bone isn’t connected to the foot-bone, and the foot-bone isn’t connected to anything. We can “work to solidify legal norms” without asking whether the whole structure is in danger of coming down; we can indulge our propensity to give human rights lectures without concern for the consequences.  We can push Mubarak to the exit without thinking much about what comes next; we can spend a year trying to support an imaginary transition to democracy in Egypt; we can prevent a hypothetical bloodbath in the strategic dead end of Libya while ignoring a much larger actual bloodbath in strategically vital Syria and it is all about us and our values. If we do something smart and succeed, we feel good about ourselves; if things go badly we feel bad and try to change the subject. But the consequences are abstractions: the strengthening or weakening of international norms, the value of our example, the “legacy” of agreements and achievements an administration leaves behind.

For a full generation we have not had to think too much about whether something done or undone in foreign policy promotes or endangers our vital interests and the security and prosperity of the American people. We have gotten out of the habit of making foreign policy under the gun and as a result we are not as a people very good at understanding what matters and why.

Finally, optimism is so ineradicably grounded in American intellectual culture that even our great power realists are instinctively hopeful. Troubled by the costs and the risks associated with two unsatisfactory foreign wars and longing to redirect resources from the defense budget to domestic priorities, a significant number of foreign policy analysts inside and outside the current administration have developed a theory of benign realism. This theory holds that the United States can safely withdraw from virtually all European and all but a handful of Middle Eastern issues and that as an ‘offshore balancer’ the United States will be able to safeguard its essential interests at low cost.

This view, which seems to guide both the administration and some of the neo-isolationist thinking on the right, assumes that a reasonably benign post-American balance of power is latent in the structure of international life and will emerge if we will just get out of the way. Such a view is not very historical: Britain was an offshore balancer in Europe in the 18th century and was involved in almost continuous wars with France from 1689 to 1815. What is missing from the ‘peaceful withdrawal’ scenarios is an understanding that there are hostile and, from our point of view, destructive powers in the world who will actively seize on any leverage we give them and will seek to use their new power and resources to remake the world in ways we find fundamentally objectionable and unsafe.

Iran, Russia and China won’t, one increasingly suspects, see American withdrawal as a call to moderate their ambitions or revise their revisionist opposition to the current world order. The appetite for power grows as one feeds, and political cultures deeply wedded to the concept of zero-sum outcomes in international affairs are unlikely to be ‘led by our example’ to embrace the idea of ‘win-win’ at just the moment they are intoxicated by the enchanting vision of winning it all as we fade away.

As the End of History Ends, Strategy Must Return

It’s often said that statesmen in office live on intellectual capital, and work with the ideas and perceptions they brought to power. The crush of events gives them little choice. It will, therefore, be difficult for the White House to change direction quickly even as evidence of a wrong turn piles up.
If the Central Powers continue to work together and to make joint progress across Eurasia, however, either this administration or its successor is going to have to take another look at world politics. For the first time since the Cold War, the United States is going to have to adopt a coherent Eurasian strategy that integrates European, Middle Eastern, South Asian and East Asian policy into a comprehensive design. We shall have to think about “issues” like non-proliferation and democracy promotion in a geopolitical context and we shall have to prioritize the repair and defense of alliances in ways that no post Cold War presidents have done.

The sooner we make this shift, the better off we shall be. The Central Powers have been punching above their weight, largely as a result of the absence of a serious counter-policy by the United Staes. But the more time we waste and the more opportunities we squander, the more momentum and power the revisionists gain, and the less effective our alliances become.

Clear thinking and prudent action now can probably reverse the negative geopolitical trends in Eurasia at a low cost. But the longer we wait, the harder and more urgent our task will become.

 

[Edward Campbell]

One thing Mead et al need to remember is that China detests Russia (and Iran) more than it finds the maritime alliance a hindrance.

There is, amongst the Chinese, an ancient prejudice against Russia and Persia - they displaced the Asiatic horsemen from the Northern plains as the archetypal barbarians back about 700 years ago, when the Chinese absorbed the Mongols and Sinified the Mongol empire. Despite all the atrocities the Mongols had visited upon fat, settled, agrarian China over the centuries the acts of the Persians and Russians crossed some sort of moral lines. (See the massacre at Otrar and the subsequent Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia in the early 13th century.)

Right now "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" prevails, more or less; but, for the Chinese, as I see it, the maritime alliance is NOT an enemy, it is an obstacle to Chinese ambitions. The difference is that Russia and Iran cannot be China's friends, due to long held cultural prejudices, but America, and the American led West, can, under the right (for the Chinese) circumstances.

 

[a_majoor]

So perhaps the long term goal for America and the West should be to either bring China on board with the Maritime alliance (which would also satisfy the neo Mackinder American "Grand Strategy" that there shall be no singular hegemon in Eurasia), or as an alternative, sow seeds of distrust and dissent between the "Axis of Weevils" through knocking out the energy card from Russia and Iran through use of shale oil and other unconventional plays and differential diplomacy throughout the world (bolstering India and supporting her regional ambitions and access to African resources, for example).

If that is not enough, there are even bigger cards to play: imagine providing enough support below the radar to effectively empower the Shia side in the current Islamic civil wars: they will press the Sunnis in Iran, the Russians in the "Near Beyond", and potentially the Chinese in the Xinjiang region.

Certainly using the carrot for China would be the preferred option.

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting definitional look at the idea of Grand Strategy Long article, 2 parts:

Part 1

http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/162886

The Cost of Foreign Intervention
by Abraham D. Sofaer (George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs; member, Task Force on Energy Policy; member, arctic security initiative; and member, foreign policy working group)

What is the future of American grand strategy?

Any grand strategy has essentially two elements: ends and means. As Stephen Krasner explains, a grand strategy envisions "how [the world] ought to be, and specifies a set of policies that can achieve that ordering." John Lewis Gaddis says: “Grand strategy is the calculated relationship of means to large ends.” These elements—ends and means—are intimately related: a state cannot maintain a strategy that seeks ends that are beyond the means it is able and prepared to devote to those ends. Every grand strategy should at some point, therefore, address the feasibility of the ends it proposes.

Grand strategies for the US depend upon a wide array of means, including diplomacy, alliances, economic activity, partnerships, and in particular fiscal capacity and a willingness to support the requisite military infrastructure. Some critics of US strategic objectives assume that the US, though “war weary” and under significant economic pressure, remains the dominant military and economic power with sufficient means to implement a grand strategy with ambitious ends. The problem they have with US grand strategy is its aims.

   
  Photo credit: falco500
Fareed Zakaria concludes, for example, that the problem facing the US is not any lack of power and resources, but its inability to respond effectively to the rising power and influence of the rest of the world. (“The Post-American World.”) This brings to mind Barry R. Posen’s point that the US propensity to seek “more control” in responding to “the negative energies and possibilities engendered by globalization” itself “injects negative energy into global politics as quickly as it finds enemies to vanquish.” (“The Case for Restraint,” The American Interest, Nov/Dec 2007). Francis Fukuyama blames “state weakness” rather than strength for the diminished significance of US conventional military power, but he too reaches the conclusion that US strategies have failed because of the ends they seek, not any lack of means: “even if the United States had significantly larger military forces, it would still be unable to use them effectively to achieve the political goals it sets for itself.”

This essay makes no effort to address criticisms of US strategies based on their quest for ends “that cannot be realized,” as Krasner puts it; indeed, I agree with some of those criticisms. Rather, this essay is focused on means. The US (as Posen and others unhappily predicted) continues to advance strategic plans far more ambitious than Posen and others would prefer to see, so the capacity and willingness of the US to fund a national security infrastructure capable of implementing those plans is an essential consideration in testing their viability. In that regard, clearly both the capacity and willingness of the US to fund its national security infrastructure has diminished.

Strategic thinkers generally agree the US public is “war weary” and reluctant to support foreign interventions, especially those that could prove costly in terms of funds and casualties; and US deficit spending far in excess of historical levels has resulted in mandated across-the-board reductions in defense-related expenditures, which is reducing US military capacities. US government strategic assessments take these realities into account (as do similar proposals by non-government experts), but they nonetheless advocate robust objectives. They do this by presuming or explicitly contending that the robust objectives sought can be achieved, despite the reduction in available resources, by utilizing US advantages in technology and planning to deal effectively with asymmetric threats and other current national security challenges but at reduced costs.

That the US remains committed to robust strategic aims is evident in the Obama Administration’s formal strategic pronouncements and conduct. The 2010 National Security Strategy relies less on preemptive force and unilateral action than the Strategy issued under President George W. Bush (the significance of which is lessened by President Obama’s commitment to using preventive force against Iran and his repeated, unilateral actions in striking Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders). It states explicitly, however, that "there should be no doubt" the US "will continue to underwrite global security—through our commitments to allies, partners and institutions; our focus on defeating Al Qa’ida and its affiliates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and around the globe; and our determination to deter aggression and prevent the proliferation of the world's most dangerous weapons"; and it reserves “the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend our nation and our interests . . .” The Strategy acknowledges that no single nation can guaranty peace alone, but it takes on specific, highly ambitious tasks and does not condition its commitments on the availability of partners. The promise to "renew American leadership" is intended to convey the desire to restore international confidence so as to enhance US influence, not to indicate any intention to stop leading.

To achieve its ambitious objectives the Strategy calls for integrating "all elements of American power" and "updating" national security capacities. This translates into maintaining "our military's conventional superiority [not necessarily its former strength] while enhancing its capacity to defeat asymmetric threats." "We are strengthening our military to . . . excel at counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, stability operations, and meeting increasingly sophisticated security threats, while ensuring our force is ready to address the full range of military operations." Minimizing the need to use force “means credibly underwriting U.S. defense commitments with tailored approaches to deterrence and ensuring the U.S. military continues to have the necessary capabilities across all domains—land, air, sea, space, and cyber.”

Strategic guidance issued by the US Department of Defense in January 2012 reaffirmed US ambitions, and provided greater detail as to how the US government plans to fund the capacities needed to achieve its objectives. “We are shaping a Joint Force for the future,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wrote in releasing the guidance, “that will be smaller and leaner, but will be agile, flexible, ready, and technologically advanced. It will have cutting edge capabilities, exploiting our technological, joint, and networked advantage.” The Joint Force contemplated through 2020 will be tasked with the full range of “Primary Missions” in the 2010 Strategy, but in “this resource-constrained era” the US will “reduce the ‘cost of doing business’” through manpower, overhead and acquisition reforms, “retain and build on key advancements in networked warfare,” and “whenever possible, . . . develop innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches to achieve our security objectives . . .” The plan also expressly provides that, while US forces will be “ready to conduct limited counterinsurgency and other stability operations if required, . . . [they] will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.” While the US will continue to pursue the full range of its traditional missions, including humanitarian intervention in response to natural disasters and mass atrocities, the “overall capacity of U.S. forces . . . will be based on requirements” demanded by a more limited “subset of missions,” specifically countering terrorism and aggression, maintaining an effective nuclear deterrent, and defending the homeland.

A recent Brookings report written by Adm. (ret) Gary Roughead and Kori Schake, "National Defense in a Time of Change,” makes specific recommendations on military spending designed to meet the reductions mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 without damaging US capacities needed to deal with "the threats we are likely to face." While recognizing that the US is "war weary" and that cuts in defense spending are certain, the authors assume that, regardless of size, the US “will continue to be the major security provider in the international order, counted on to use political heft and military force to protect our security and our allies, and to project ideas that are important to us."

 

[a_majoor]

Part 2

http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/162886

To find the means to do these things the report recommends manpower, acquisition reforms, and continued reliance on the "diverse tools" that have helped the US cope with the challenges of Afghanistan, including "increased surveillance and more precise and timely intelligence." We should expect restricted access to countries where threats are developing but be prepared to overcome them by designing forces capable of dealing with them from "offshore" through the ability to utilize "unmanned platforms," as well as by learning to "fight" in cyberspace. They believe that the new threats can be defended against effectively through these measures even in the context of reduced expenditures.

These proposed strategies reflect the consensus among US leaders of both parties that the US should continue to commit to objectives that are robust, albeit with qualifications. They all rely on the premise that the US will be able to accomplish much of what it has traditionally sought to achieve with fewer resources, and despite the public’s war weariness, by (1) obtaining and using better intelligence and controlling cyber space; (2) using methods of physical attack, especially drones and tactical missiles, that avoid or greatly reduce US costs and casualties; (3) limiting the duration and objectives of interventions requiring on-the-ground US forces.

One would think that US strategic planners should be free to rely on modern technologies and other means and practices they believe would reduce the costs of achieving robust ends, rather than being forced to give up attempting to achieve ends they regard as essential to US interests. The trend in current strategic planning for fitting limited means to robust ends have thus far treated such options for reducing the costs of military interventions as both lawful and legitimate. Increasingly, though, legal and ethical arguments are being advanced that seem likely to affect the ability of the US to resort to these options, in addition to questions about their utility, and so may demand more careful consideration of their actual availability.

1. Better Intelligence and Control of Cyber Space. The US unquestionably has superior abilities in the collection and analysis of intelligence. Experience indicates, however, that it is far from clear these abilities will consistently be used in optimal ways. Battlefield intelligence does convey significant advantages to US forces, but cannot as readily be shown as to general collection and analytic abilities. Furthermore, metadata collection and other NSA programs are being challenged as illegal and as ethically inappropriate violations of privacy. Even if these programs prove able to reduce defense costs in significant amounts (beyond their own cost), public resistance to them is increasing within the US and abroad, including among allies, which could eventually be translated into legislative restrictions.

The US may have superior abilities in cyber space, but they are likely to relate to forms of attack that the US could use during armed conflict, or when the identity of the attackers can be reliably determined. The Cyber Command will develop effective defensive and offensive capabilities, but these cannot prevent the major and growing expenditure now required by all sectors of US society to defend against cyber intrusions and attacks from both private and public sources. Cyber-space challenges are in fact likely to increase rather than reduce national security challenges and costs.

2. Reliance on “Offshore” Methods of Intervention. The US has relied in recent years on interventions from outside the borders of target states to avoid putting US military personnel into hostilities. President Clinton's high-altitude bombing of Serbia as part of a NATO operation in order to stop the Serbs from driving Muslims out of Kosovo is an example, as is the offshore destruction by several NATO powers of Colonel Gaddafi’s military assets in Libya. A substantial increase under President Obama in the use of drones to conduct military strikes in foreign countries has enabled the US to disrupt and kill terrorists and Taliban leaders without exposing US forces to physical risk. The US government and other strategic planners believe these types of interventions, and ultimately the use of robots in other contexts, will allow the US to achieve important security objectives at lower fiscal and political cost.

The propriety of using such methods is increasingly being challenged, however. Serbia accused NATO of illegally bombing its civilian infrastructure, arguing that NATO’s planes flew too high to be able to target accurately in their effort to avoid anti-aircraft weapons. The ICTY Prosecutor declined to press charges against NATO, but went so far as to examine most of the individual sorties to determine whether they disproportionately harmed non-combatants. Would the Prosecutor have been as accommodating if the US had acted unilaterally?

The use of drones to kill individuals who are believed to have attacked US targets or to be planning such attacks has been investigated and condemned as violating international law on several grounds. The UN Special Rapporteur has concluded that attacks in Pakistan are illegal without Pakistan’s permission. Others condemn using drones to attack individuals in a foreign state even with its government’s permission on the ground that individuals targeted are being “executed” without due process, and based on claims that the attacks are causing unacceptable levels of collateral damage. As reliance on robotics in the conduct of military operations grows, moreover, opposition based on legal and ethical grounds increases; UN reports and conferences are calling for a moratorium on the use of “lethal autonomous” robots in armed conflict, arguing that such weapons violate the basic principle that warriors, not weapons, must be responsible for complying with the laws of war. A growing literature by both civilian and military analysts challenges the value expected from the “revolution in military affairs” inspired by technological innovations.

3. Limiting the Duration and Aims of On-the-Ground Interventions. Recent US strategic doctrine indicates a major shift in the means that will be available toward the ends of “stability and counterinsurgency operations.” According to the Department of Defense’s 2012 Strategic Guidance, the US does not plan to fund a military capable of undertaking “large-scale, prolonged stability operations,” a limitation presumably applicable to most missions contemplated for the Joint Force, including counter-terrorism and humanitarian actions. Here, again, the strategic planners who crafted this practical limitation on the types of interventions now widely viewed as likely to be both unaffordable and futile, have assumed the US could, when it chooses, intervene to conduct a stability or counterinsurgency operation, and then leave if it becomes either large-scale or prolonged. 

Here, too, however, arguments are being advanced based on various formulations to the effect that every intervention carries with it responsibilities that effectively prevent them from being deliberately limited in cost or time. The most commonly expressed formulation is the idea that, in the words of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, "if you break it you own it." The implication is that, if the US intervened in Iraq, it would "own" at least some of the vast and expensive problems created by such an intervention.

Another way this sort of limitation has been expressed is that the intervening state, much like a “trustee,” "owes" the state and/or population into which it has intervened (even in self-defense) the assistance necessary to enable a legitimately elected government to maintain order and govern effectively. This position, advanced by such writers as Noah Feldman in What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building, is being shaped by scholars into a “law of post-intervention duties” (“Jus Post Bellum”) that goes beyond and is inconsistent with the conservationist principle underlying the existing Law of Occupation based on applicable Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law (IHL). One scholar, K. E. Boon, explains this effort as follows:

[J]us post bellum should be based on the emerging norms of accountability, stewardship, good economic governance, and proportionality. Jus post bellum triggers principles in play in periods after armed conflict, moving away from war (ab bello) towards justice (ad jusitiam) and peace (ad pacem). Jus post bellum expands the traditional binary rules of international law into a tripartite system, which will bring the law into closer conformity with the challenges presented by the peace-making, peace-building, and post-conflict practices of today.

Another scholar, Carsten Stahn, has explained why and how the moral concepts underlying just war theory are changing into legal rules:

Certain adjustments must be made, if the idea of ‘jus post bellum’ is translated from a moral principle into a legal notion. . . . [T]he applicability of principles of post-conflict peace can no longer depend exclusively on moral considerations, such as righteousness of waging war. The concept of a fair and just peace must be framed by reference to certain objective rules and standards that regulate guidelines for peace-making in the interest of people and individuals affected by conflict. . . . [P]eace-making is not strictly aimed at a preservation or return to the legal status quo ante, but must take into account the idea of transforming the institutional and socio-economic conditions of polities under transition. In this sense, peace-making differs from the classical rationale of the law of occupation. The ultimate purpose of fair and just peace-making is to remove the causes of violence. This may require positive transformations of the domestic order of a society. In many cases, a fair and just peace settlement will ideally endeavour to achieve a higher level of human rights protection, accountability and good governance than in the period before the resort to armed force.

These ideas are far from having been established as binding law. While their proponents rely on humanitarian principles such as the concept of the Responsibility to Protect, this doctrine, if accepted, would deter interventions aimed at protecting groups from genocide and other serious violations of humanitarian law.

Conclusion

Efforts to limit the flexibility available to the US to develop a grand strategy based on advanced technologies, relatively inexpensive methods, and selective engagements may ultimately fail, but should be taken seriously. A strong tendency exists that disfavors relatively inexpensive interventions. That requires political and military planners to take into account that grand strategies based on the view that the US will be able to take full advantage of its claimed technological superiority, and limit its interventions as it sees fit, may be mistaken.

To the extent this turns out to be so, military interventions are likely to be more expensive than might be feasible due to legal or ethical limitations. The US remains free to argue that its “inherent” right of self-defense, or to exercise collective self-defense, cannot be limited by legal or ethical arguments that have not been universally accepted. But grand strategists should more carefully consider the potential impact of such arguments to ensure they are making realistic assumptions as to the means required for the objectives sought.

Abraham D. Sofaer, who served as legal adviser to the US Department of State from 1985 to 1990, was appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1994. Sofaer's work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security. His most recent books are Taking on Iran: Strength, Diplomacy, and the Iranian Threat (Hoover Institution Press, 2013) and The Best Defense?: Legitimacy and Preventive Force (Hoover Institution Press, 2010).

His research papers are available at the Hoover Institution Archives.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I have a couple of quibbles with Judge Sofaer's paper, with which, in general, I am in broad agreement:

    1. I am not sure the US intelligence and cyber "powers" are either as advantageous as even Judge Sofsaer thinks or, in the case of intelligence, even effective;

    2. While I agree that direct military intervention in the affairs of another sovereign state does ignite a requirement for jus post bellum I suggest that this is, usually, (leave aside e.g. Grenada and Panama) an international responsibility; and

    3. Technology provides, always, a temporary advantage. But a really powerful country, and the USA is that, can continuously innovate and develop newer and newer technological advantages ~ each has a "best before" date but each does provide a real, useful advantage.

 

[pbi]

So perhaps the long term goal for America and the West should be to either bring China on board with the Maritime alliance ... Certainly using the carrot for China would be the preferred option.

Agreed. The question is, does the necessary diplomatic art and wit still exist in the US (in either party...) or will it get  dissipated by factional slanging: the Bloodthirsty Warmongers screaming at the Gutless Appeasers?

Could China and the US create a new trans-Pacific "Special Relationship"?

I see an all-out war with China as an extremely undesirable option: nobody knows what second and third-order forces it might unleash. Easy enough to start wars: rather a harder thing to end them.

 

[a_majoor]

In several threads I have presented the idea that one of the reasons for partisan deadlock and bickering, and the resultant lack of direction in both foreign and domestic policy is that political parties and the verious institutions that exist in modern societies are no longer relevant to today's international, economic and demographic environments. Current parties and political philosophies struggle to define the problems, much less articulate solutions, and the various bureaucratic organs and institutions are equally hapless in the face of change.

Of course the larger problem while new models and institutions evolve is that the people who benefit from the old models are digging in and are willing to fight to the last taxpayer to protect the power and perques that the current system offers them. WRM offers an analysis of the curreent situation and the post progressive model that will emerge (hopefully sooner than later):

http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/12/16/productivity-up-future-uncertain/

The End of Peak Blue
Productivity Up, Future Uncertain

Productivity increases are almost always a good thing, but this time, rising productivity hasn’t translated into more jobs or higher wages. This has happened before, but it wasn’t easy. Can we transition again?

Unemployment is high, wages are stagnant, inequality is higher than its been in years, yet America is as productive as ever. Total productivity—essentially measured by how much a worker can produce in one hour—has risen substantially over the past quarter, growing faster than it has since 2009, according to a new Labor Department report.

This is both good news and a sign of the trouble we are in. Basically, it is always good when productivity goes up. Rising productivity means that capitalism is working: some combination of technology, management and competitive drive is enabling Americans to get more done—more widgets made, more meals cooked, more diseases cured—in less time. If absolute poverty is going to be defeated, if more people are going to be freed from repetitive, meaningless work, if humanity is going to have more time for art and culture because it spends less time in drudgery and toil, productivity must continue to rise.

But in times like ours, the link between productivity and wages looks broken. Back in Peak Blue, when the post-WWII model of mass production and mass consumption was working at its best, rising productivity translated very quickly into rising wages for most workers. Unions used those productivity figures to bargain for raises, and competitive pressures in a tight labor market forced employers to offer rising wages along with the trend in rising productivity. There was a close connection between the productivity level and the wage level.

That isn’t true today, and it hasn’t been true for the last thirty years. Lots of factors are at work, but the core issue has been the decline in manufacturing jobs. While the US is more productive than ever in manufacturing, fewer people have jobs in the field than in 1973. Add that shift to the mass entry of women into the workforce, throw in high levels of immigration (legal and illegal), and it is not surprising that wages have stagnated even though productivity has grown. And there’s another factor; productivity in some service sector jobs is harder to raise than in manufacturing. It is harder to increase the number of bedpans per hour that a hospital worker can change than to increase the number of widgets per hour a manufacturing worker can process.

So does that mean that the link between capitalism and rising living standards has broken down for good? There are lots of people who seem to think so, but history suggests they are wrong. The early Industrial Revolution, for example, was another period when productivity was rising fast but wages and living standards for many people were stagnant or falling. (They didn’t keep the same kind of statistics then that we do today, so direct comparisons are impossible, but the overall picture seems pretty clear.) In those days, agriculture was shedding jobs as British landlords shifted from renting small plots at low rents to subsistence farmers to more profitable but less labor intensive methods of agriculture like raising sheep. The combination of peasants flocking to the cities and skilled workers losing their jobs to new automated techniques meant that more people were looking for fewer jobs. Living standards for many workers fell sharply, and Britain was convulsed by waves of social unrest.

Making things worse, huge new fortunes were made both by the landlords getting rid of ‘excess’ peasants and the factory owners hiring workers (including children) for pennies. It was not a happy time, and many people looking at England in that era, including Karl Marx, believed that a social revolution was inevitable.

In the end, the industrial revolution made pretty much everyone better off in most ways (though arguably jobs in steel factories and coal mines were neither as healthy nor as fulfilling as the traditional jobs on the land).

The information revolution seems to be following a very similar pattern. Old jobs are disappearing faster than new ones can be created, and rising inequality combined with stagnant living standards is making people rightly unhappy. Irritating fortunes are being made while millions of people struggle. Yet the underlying productivity of society as a whole is going up.

Instead of fighting a process that offers us and the rest of suffering humanity its best hope of better living in the medium to long term (and people should never forget that an information economy is going to be better for the environment than an industrial one), we should be thinking about how to manage the change as best we can, and how to accelerate the creation of new jobs in new fields as the old ones fade away. The key to restoring the link between productivity and wages so that the rising tide lifts more boats is to increase the demand for labor. As that happens, wages will rise, competitive pressures to attract good employees will rise, and workers everywhere will have more bargaining power when they negotiate with employers, whether through unions or as individuals.

Enabling more self employment, promoting small business formation and development, lightening the tax and regulatory burden on job creation and shifting some of the government’s research focus and capacity from research into agricultural and manufacturing based fields toward research that benefits the rise of a job-rich information economy are all things that we can and should be doing. They don’t even have to cost much money.

Rebuilding society in the aftermath of a broken social model is a big job, and creating an advanced information society will require even more social, economic, ideological and cultural change and development than it took to get from the Dickensian world of the early industrial revolution to the advanced industrial democracies of the age of Peak Blue. That’s the job that the Millennials face; they are one of the special generations in human history that must build a new world. It’s a high fate and in some ways a hard one, but it also gives a full scope to their powers of creativity and originality.

One thing which Mead does not touch on is the demographic bust will actually make things better for our children: there will be fewer people to do what jobs that do exist, so the demand for labour and thus wages will rise in the post 2020 period. The potential downside is the legions of retired boomers will be selling their assets, cashing RRSPs and otherwise flooding the economy with cash, leading to an inflationary period (while also depressing the prices of houses and financial assets like stocks). This will be a rocky period to navigate.

 

[pbi]

One thing which Mead does not touch on is the demographic bust will actually make things better for our children: there will be fewer people to do what jobs that do exist, so the demand for labour and thus wages will rise in the post 2020 period.

This makes me wonder about something.

The "age wave" or "boomer wave", or whatever you want to call that alleged tsunami of old people that is supposed to trash our economy/social system/healthcare: what does it look like if it's depicted graphically?

Is it a single "wave" or "spike" that, once it has passed, reveals low water behind it? Or, is it the leading edge of a dense mass that extend far back out into the sea?

My guess is that its the former, and that once the wave has passed, a whole bunch of things will change.

For one, there will be a glut of retirement homes/extended care facilities going on the market. And sales of yellow pants with blue belts, or black knee socks matched with white shorts, will almost certainly decline. Denny's will probably go out of business, too.

 

[Jed]

This makes me wonder about something.

The "age wave" or "boomer wave", or whatever you want to call that alleged tsunami of old people that is supposed to trash our economy/social system/healthcare: what does it look like if it's depicted graphically?

Is it a single "wave" or "spike" that, once it has passed, reveals low water behind it? Or, is it the leading edge of a dense mass that extend far back out into the sea?

My guess is that its the former, and that once the wave has passed, a whole bunch of things will change.

For one, there will be a glut of retirement homes/extended care facilities going on the market. And sales of yellow pants with blue belts, or black knee socks matched with white shorts, will almost certainly decline. Denny's will probably go out of business, too.

And complaints about the government, full time, will probably go down too.  8)

 

[pbi]

And complaints about the government, full time, will probably go down too.  8)

In Canada?

Never!!

 

[Jed]

In Canada?

Never!!

Pity

 

[a_majoor]

Leaving the important issue of dress aside for the moment 

The demographic wave looks a bit like a turnip, with a broad bulge in the middle but tapering down to Gen X and the Millennials. This is a boon for them since the job market will be wide open and demand for workers will be high. The will also have low house prices, since there will be a glut of properties on the market as the boomers try to sell their assets for cash to live.

The down side of this is the various "stores of value" that people have relied on for generations will have crashed as well. Stocks and other investments will also be on the market as boomers cash in RRSP's and other savings vehicles; the stock market and various other financial markets will be flat at best, or heavily depressed at worst as sellers outnumber buyers by a large margin. Huge amounts of cash will be in circulation, leading to a high inflation environment (and if steps are not taken right now to soak up the vast oversupply of cash QE and other Keynesian voodo has pumped into the economy, then we may be looking at hyper inflation of the sort Argentina has suffered on and off over the years).

I have not figures out the ways and means to deal with that (which probably explains why I work where I do), but knowing and articulating the problem is a good step to look for solutions.

 

[a_majoor]

A very thought provokig piece. Are we really in the situation suggested here? While it is certainly not "August 1914" (or 2014, for that matter), are the alignments of the various nations and really similar to the interlocking pieces of the two great alliances of pre Great War Europe? And the stressors between the nations are much different today in my mind; rather than mercantilist competition to get all the gold in a zero sum game we are facing a massive global deleveraging crisis, and external threats eminating from different "civilizations" in the Huntington sense of the word.

I have only just started "The War that Ended PEace" (early Christmas gift  :christmas happy, so I don't know all the arguments Margaret MacMillan will bring to bear. I will agree that the US, the Anglosphere and indeed the various nations and groupings around the planet will have to "relearn" geopolitics, and the future will be quite different from what people looking at linear extrapolations will expect.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2013/12/20/world-war-three/

[/quote]
World War Three?

Are we re-living the lead-up to World War One? Margaret MacMillan—author of the excellent Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World and more recently of The War That Ended Peace—has penned the latest Brookings Essay on the similarities between our time and the years leading up to the First World War. The piece describes these similarities—including widespread belief in the peaceful powers of globalization mixed with ineffective leaders, geopolitical grappling, rising nationalism, and instability in smaller countries that are “clients” of larger powers—and argues that a another war of global proportions could be possible if we don’t learn the lessons of 1914.

It may take a moment of real danger to force the major powers of this new world order to come together in coalitions able and willing to act. Action, if it does come, may be too little and too late, and the price we all pay for that delay may well be high. Instead of muddling along from one crisis to another, now is the time to think again about those dreadful lessons of a century ago in the hope that our leaders, with our encouragement, will think about how they can work together to build a stable international order.

This piece dovetails nicely with one of WRM’s latest essays, “The End of History Ends,” in which he argues that the US needs to realize the time for responding to discrete “issues” is over. Geopolitics is back, and we need to re-learn how to think strategically about engaging whole nations in a global power struggle. War isn’t likely to break out tomorrow, but the US’ role in keeping international peace and stability is more crucial than ever. Wishing it was different is no substitute for a considered grand strategy.
[/quote]

 

[Edward Campbell]

The American Enterprise Institute, a classically liberal, which is to say right of centre, think tank has published a chart which shows why it is dangerous to think that America is "down and out." In fact it is neither ~ not down and certainly not out.

What America did, starting over 200 years ago, was to unlock and unleash capital. (Now, it did a lot of other things, too, like depriving the native Americans (First nations) of their property and rights, and so on, but that really is secondary.) Capital remains "locked" in many parts of the world, including in illiberal Europe (think France, Italy, Spain, etc) and in conservative China. Where capital has been unlocked (Australia, Britain, Canada, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Singapore, to name just 10) we find, generally, peace, prosperity and freedom. Where it remains locked, usually because governments will not allow people to use or, sometimes, even own their land and homes as e.g. collateral for loans, (most Africa, some of Asia, almost all of the Islamic Crescent and most of Latin America) we find wars, poverty and dictatorships.

I appreciate that I'm oversimplifying, but not by too much. Socialism, in all its guises, and statism (think of France and Québec) are the main ways that retarded states "lock" capital away from the people and condemn them to wars, poverty, etc.

 

[a_majoor]

AS noted, while America seems self absorbed and not believing that they are contesting ideology with anyone, the rest of the world does not see things the same way. Perhaps if the US State department divested itself from "Smart Diplomacytm and went back to observing the world as it really is and impacts on American and Western interests, things might be different:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-china-and-russia-bring-back-cold-war-tactics/2013/12/25/f65939d6-6bef-11e3-aecc-85cb037b7236_story.html

China and Russie bring back Cold War tactics

By Anne Applebaum, Published: December 25 E-mail the writer
“Is this a new Cold War?”

Every time I say anything to anyone anywhere about Russia nowadays, that’s what I’m asked. And there is a clear answer: No. This is not a new Cold War. Neither the United States nor Europe is locked in a deadly, apocalyptic competition with Russia, China or anyone else. We are not fighting proxy wars. The world has not been divided into two Orwellian halves, democrats vs. communists.

But although we are not fighting a new Cold War, the tactics of the old Cold War are now, at the dawn of 2014, suddenly being deployed in a manner not seen since the early 1980s. We in the United States may not believe that we are engaged in an ideological struggle with anybody, but other people are engaged in an ideological struggle with us. We in the United States may not believe that there is any real threat to our longtime alliance structures in Europe and Asia, but other people think those alliances are vulnerable and have set out to undermine them.

Sometimes these gestures are quite open. China’s recent, unilateral declaration of a new air defense zone in the East China Sea was a clear attempt to warn its neighbors that its navy is preparing to compete with the U.S. fleet. The Chinese naval ship that recently cut in front of a U.S. destroyer, forcing it to change course, sent a similar message. Neither of these incidents signals the start of a cold, hot or any other kind of war. But they do mean that China intends to chip away at the status quo, to undermine the faith of U.S. allies — Japan, South Korea, the Philippines — in American power and force them to think twice, at the very least, about their old economic, military and trade agreements.

Over the past year, Russia has been playing the same kind of games with NATO: no open threats, just hints. Last spring, the Russian air force staged a mock attack on Sweden, came perilously close to Swedish air space and buzzed Gotland Island. The Swedish air force failed to react — it was after midnight on Good Friday — though eventually two Danish planes scrambled to follow the Russian planes back across the Baltic. Russian officials have also made veiled (and not so veiled) threats to Finland, selectively boycotted industries in the Baltic states and dropped hints that Russia intends to put, or might already have put, longer-range missiles on its Western border — missiles designed to hit Germany.

I repeat: Russia does not intend to start a war. Russia, rather, intends in the short term to undermine regional confidence in NATO, in U.S. military guarantees, in West European solidarity. In the longer term, Russia wants Scandinavia, the Baltic states and eventually all of Europe to accept Russian policies in other spheres.

Russia and China do not coordinate these actions, and there isn’t much love lost between them, either. But the elites of both of these countries do have one thing in common: They dislike the institutions of liberal democracy as practiced in Europe, the United States, Japan and elsewhere, and they are determined to prevent them from spreading to Moscow or Beijing. These same elites believe that Western media, Western ideas and especially Western capitalism — as opposed to state capitalism — pose a threat to their personal domination of their economies. They want the world to remain safe for their particular form of authoritarian oligarchy, and they are increasingly prepared to pay a high price for it.

Last week, the Russian president effectively bought the goodwill of the Ukrainian president, offering him some $15 billion to prop up his budget in exchange for not signing a free-trade agreement with the European Union. That agreement would eventually have made Ukraine better governed, more prosperous — and less accessible to corrupt Russian businesses. China has also made clear that Western journalists who write about Chinese corruption are no longer welcome in the country. Good Sino-American relations are important to Beijing, but not as important as blocking Western investigative reporters who might pose a threat to China’s ruling families.

It would be silly to take any one of these incidents too seriously. But it would be equally silly to ignore them. We spent the 1990s enjoying the fruits of post-Cold War prosperity, the early 2000s fighting the war on terrorism. We are intellectually, economically and militarily unprepared to contemplate Great Power conflict, let alone engage in the hard work of renewing alliances and sharpening strategy. But History is back, whether we want it to be or not. Happy New Year.

 

[a_majoor]

This could also go in "The Education Bubble" or "US Economy" threads as well, but it is complimentary to Edward Campbell's post just upthread regarding the unleashing of Capital and the growth of wealthy, peaceful societies because of that. Even though the current education system is quite dreadful (Ronald Reagan quipped that if the US education system had been devised by a foreign power, it would be considered an act of war), it seems that the impact of free markets and the "real world" still has the ability to get the best out of people:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/americas-market-sector-develops-skills-our-education-system-leaves-untapped/article/2541266

America's market sector develops skills our education system leaves untapped
BY MICHAEL BARONE | DECEMBER 27, 2013 AT 5:33 PM
TOPICS: BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL EDUCATION

The education sector needs to be opened up to more competition, Michael Barone writes.

In a post-Christmas blog post my indefatigable American Enterprise Institute colleague Jim Pethokoukis points to a study that shows that no economy in the world rewards smart, skilled workers more than the United States. the study, by economists Eric Hanushek, Guido Schwerdt, Simon Wiederhold and Ludger Woessmann, and published by the National Bureau for Economic Research, quantifies the return on numeracy skills for the U.S. at 28 percent, significantly ahead of Ireland, Germany, Spain and the U.K., which range between 21 percent and 23 percent. Korea, Canada, Poland and Japan hover below 20 percent.

Pethokoukis argues that the higher returns come in “economies with more open, private-sector-based labor markets.” He goes on to ask, “Wouldn’t this seem to argue that higher U.S. inequality — based on pre-tax, pre-transfer market incomes — reflects 21st century market forces rewarding ability rather than some sort of breakdown in social norms.”

To this (seemingly rhetorical) question I would answer "yes," and would go on to say that it tends to confirm the thesis of my 2004 book Hard America, Soft America. In it, I contrasted Hard America -- the parts of American society in which there is competition and accountability, and Soft America, the parts of American society in which there isn't. K-12 education, in my view, is part of Soft America; the competitive market economy is part of Hard America.

When Americans emerge from Soft America at age 18 (or at age 22 or so, when they emerge from college, which Geoffrey Collier's piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal says is pretty Soft too), they don't measure up well next to similarly aged people in many other advanced countries. But when they get into Hard America, where skills and smarts are well rewarded, they shoot ahead.

We don’t want every part of our society to be Hard, I argued in the book; kindergartners shouldn’t be subjected to Marine Corps boot training. But we would do well to Harden some parts of Soft America — like our K-12 schools and, it seems, our colleges and universities as well.

 

[a_majoor]

This seems like a good place to put this opinion piece. My own prediction for a confident new century would be that the Internet and associated technologies like 3D printing, crypto currency and other "bypass tools" that allow ordinary people to become empowered and evade or bypass the current "Gatekeeper institutionss" finally achieve the critical mass to realize the development of the new social institutions needed to create a Post Progressive society. Since the Progressive project is collapsing due to fiscal, legal and moral bankruptcy, a means of doing a controlled drawdown and rebuilding of society on new principles is needed:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-31/what-if-the-21st-century-begins-in-2014-.html

What If the 21st Century Begins in 2014?
By David Brin  Dec 31, 2013 6:00 PM ET 

As if you didn’t already have enough to be nervous about, here’s something creepy to ponder as the new year opens.

This what-if isn’t technological, social, political or even science-fictional. Rather, it’s a bit of wholly unscientific, superstitious pattern-recognition. The last two centuries (and possibly more) didn’t “start” at their official point, the turning of a calendar from 00 to 01. That wasn’t when they began in essence, nor when they first bent the arc of history.

No. Each century effectively began in its 14th year.

Think about it. The first decade of the 20th century was filled with hope and a kind of can-do optimism that was never seen again -- not after the horrific events of 1914 shattered any vision that a new and better age would arrive without pain. Yet until almost the start of World War I, 19th-century progress seemed unstoppable and ever-accelerating.

Consider the world of 1913, when regular middle-class folks in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and so on were acquiring unexpected wonders: clothes-washing machines, gas stoves, gas and then electric lighting, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, vaccinations, telephones, radios, motor cars. Stepping outside you would see and hear human beings flying through the sky -- with a looming confidence that soon you would get a chance to join them.

Science was pouring forth what seemed unalloyed goodness. New dyes and industrial textile methods doubled a working family’s access to fresh and beautiful clothes. Cheap iron bedsteads kept cheap spring mattresses clean, making sleep both healthier and far more comfortable. Nations were banning child labor and providing free schooling. Astronomers discovered what galaxies were. Physicists were pushing their pure and harmless science to fantastic frontiers. And the Haber-Bosch process brought cheap fertilizers that tripled crops, as chemistry proved itself to be everybody’s friend.

Think our era is similarly fast-changing? Just compare the kitchen of today with a kitchen of 1950. Sure, everything nowadays is shinier, smarter. Still, a person from 1950 could use our apparatus with fluid familiarity. But the drudgery-saddled housewife of 1880 would blink in bedazzlement at what her daughter used in 1913. Life itself was changing at a pace never-before seen, and mostly for the better.

Yes, all of those techno-advances continued after World War I. Social changes such as women getting the vote were harbingers of more to come. But after 1914, the naivete was gone. People realized that the 20th century would be one of harsh struggle accompanying every step of advancement. And along the way to hard-won better times, the age would spiral downward first, into the deepest pit that humanity ever knew, before our parents (or grandparents) clawed their way out of the nadir of 1944 -- the focal year of a century that truly began in 1914.

All right, that’s just one data point. Is there another? Well, look at 1814, the beginning of the Congress of Vienna and the so-called Concert of Europe that made possible the continent’s longest extended period of overall peace, as the great powers turned from fighting bloody wars to perfecting their colonial empires. Those two years -- 1814 and 1914 –- each marked a dramatic shift in tone and theme (in the West, that is), so much so that they represented the real beginnings of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Suppose the pattern holds -- and remember this is just a thought experiment -- what might it mean about the true 21st century? What theme will typify or represent its arc?

First, let’s dismiss one parochial notion -- that the terrorist attacks of September 2001 were the major break point between centuries. Nonsense. We were engaged in the same struggle before and after. The U.S. shrugged off more damage during any month of World War II. Indeed, nothing could be more “twen-cen” or 20th century than the overwrought focus that some (not all) Americans apply to Sept. 11. Much of the world assigns no particular relevance to that date.

Oh, we are still in the 20th. Consider the pervading doom and gloom we see around us, right now. Post-apocalyptic tales and dystopias fill our fiction, films and politics, especially the Young Adult genre where today’s teens seem terminally allergic to stories containing hope. How very ’60s. And ’70s. And so on.

There was a similar sense of apocalypse in 1813 Europe, but at least there were good reasons, after decades of ferocious struggle that seemed poised to last forever. What excuse do we have, in a time when per capita violence has been plummeting for decades? When the fraction of kids -- worldwide -- who are well-fed and in school is higher than ever? Sure, the planet faces dire problems. But the things keeping us from addressing pollution, oppression, climate change and all of that are political inanities. The War on Science that has hobbled innovation, for example, can be won if we do one thing -- tell the gloomcasters of both left and right to get out of our way and let us get back to problem-solving.

Indeed, the only real obstruction we seem to face is a dullard-sickness of attitude, dismally ignoring every staggering accomplishment since 1945. Hence the question: Is it possible that a new theme for our 21st century requires only that we snap out of our present funk?

If only. That would truly be the Dawning of an Age of Aquarius, forecast by hippies long before the old 20th was anywhere near done with us, but arriving at last. You shake your heads, but it could happen.

We can still choose our own fate. Next year, we might decide to cheer up and rediscover the can-do optimism that was crushed by the czar and kaiser and a small group of insipid, inbred aristocrats, exactly 100 years ago. We could choose to become problem-solvers, in part, because (let’s imagine) someone in 2014 discovers a simple, cheap and safe IQ-boosting pill. Or politicians decide to get over their self-serving snits and resume the adult craft of negotiation. Or some cable news owner decides to rediscover citizenship. Or some brave director releases an inspiring film that astounds people with an unexpected idea called hope.

Or else go ahead and wallow in the obvious notion that 2014 will see a violent ruction of its own. A phase transition into a century whose theme we’ll all regret. Or we’ll see a continuing retreat from confident civilization, a turning away from the Enlightenment Dream, relapsing into fearful obeisance to a leader, or New Lords, or some simplistic ideal.

That, too, could take place. In which case, please don’t give me any prediction points. All I did was spot a pattern. I don’t want respect from a people who would allow something like that to happen.

(David Brin is a scientist, futurist and author whose novels include “The Postman,” “Earth” and, most recently, “Existence.” His nonfiction book about the information age, “The Transparent Society,” won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association.)

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Al Jazeera is a contrarian opinion about America's leadership in the world:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/new-american-idol-should-us-rule-world-201411852842910837.html

The new American Idol: Should the US rule the world?
A new article makes the case for the US as the world's de facto government.

Richard Falk

Last updated: 18 Jan 2014

It might not have seemed necessary in the 21st century to ask or answer such a ridiculous question. After all, European colonialism, in the last half of the prior century, collapsed politically, morally, and even legally. Its pretensions were thoroughly exposed and totally discredited. As well, the Soviet empire fell apart.

And yet there are those who muster the temerity to insist that - even now - it is the US' global governing authority that enables the degree of security and prosperity in the world today. Not surprisingly, the proponents of this conception of world order as dependent on US military, economic, diplomatic, and ideological capabilities are themselves American. It is even less surprising that the most articulate celebrants of this new variant of a self-serving and totalising imperial approach to security and prosperity are situated either in US academic institutions or in its principal media outlets.

I consider Michael Mandelbaum to be the most unabashed and articulate advocate of this American "global domination project" that he felicitously calls "the world's de facto government". He champions this role for his country in book after book. Recently Mandelbaum has restated his argument in a short essay, "Can America Keep Its Global Role?" that appears in the January 2014 issue of Current History. His thesis is straightforward: "[The US] provides to the whole world, not only its allies, many of the services that governments furnish to the countries they govern." Or more simply, "...the US stands alone as the world's de facto government."

Unappreciative masses?

It is crucial to take note of the claim that, unlike past empires and hegemonic states, the US alone has undertaken a systemic or structural role, and is not to be understood as serving only those states that are allied by friendship, values, and binding arrangements. In this respect this novel form of world government, although administered from its statist headquarters in Washington, claims to be meta-political, and should be appreciated by all as promoting the betterment of humanity. It is a cause of some wonderment, then, to account for polling results from around the world that indicate, time and again, that the US is viewed as the most dangerous country from the perspectives of peace and justice.  It would seem from the Mandelbaum worldview that "They just don't know how lucky they are!"

What makes Mandelbaum so cocky about the beneficence of the US' global role? It is essentially the conviction that it is US military power underwriting the established order that avoids wars and protects countries against aggressive behaviour by states with revisionist foreign policy goals. More concretely, Europe can rest easy because of the US military presence, while Russia as well, can be assured that Germany will not again seek to conquer its territory as it tried to do twice in the last century. Similarly in the East Asian setting, China is deterred from imposing its will regionally to resolve island and territorial disputes, while at the same time being reassured that Japan will not again unleash an attack upon the Chinese mainland.

There is some plausibility to such speculation, but it seems more like the dividend of alliance relationship in a historical setting when recourse to war as a solvent for international conflicts seems more and more dysfunctional. And it doesn't pretend to work with a rogue ally such as Israel, which seems willing to attack Iran whether or not the White House signals approval.

The complementary claim about providing a template for global economic prosperity is also misleading at best, and likely flawed. The US presides over a neoliberal world order that has achieved economic growth but at the price of persisting mass poverty, gross and widening inequalities, unsustainable consumerism, cyclical instability, and a rate of greenhouse gas emissions that imperils the human future.

Beyond this, the US' role is praised for using its capabilities "to counteract the most dangerous trend in twenty-first century security affairs: the spread of nuclear weapons to countries and non-state actors that do not have them and would threaten the international order if they did". What is not mentioned by Mandelbaum, and suggests strongly the absence of anything resembling "world government" is the inability of existing global policy mechanisms, whether under US or other auspices, to solve pressing collective goods problems.

I would mention several: poverty, nuclear weaponry, fair trade, and climate change. Neither imperial guidance nor the actions of state-centric policymaking initiatives have been able to serve the human or global interest. This would demand, at the very least, nuclear disarmament, enforceable restraints on carbon emissions, and the end of agricultural subsidies in North America and Europe.

Myopic vision of the world

Mandelbaum, and similar outlooks that conflate national and global interests, seem blind to the tensions between what is good for the US and its friends and what is good for the world and its peoples. And no more serious blindness, or is it merely acute myopia, exists than does the Mandlebaum contention that the greatest danger from nuclear weapons arises from those political actors that do not possess them rather than from those that have used such weaponry in the past, and continue to deploy nuclear weapons in contexts of strategic concern. One can only wonder about the absence of the word "drone" in Mandelbaum's account of why the world should be grateful for the way the US globally projects its power!

There are additional difficulties with Mandelbaum's global vision, including a glaring internal contradiction. He praises the US for exerting a pro-democracy influence throughout the world. While this praise is partially deserved, it, however, fails to note either the inconsistencies in its application or the complete failure to consider the consent of the peoples and other governments in relation to US de facto world government.

I doubt that there would be many supporters of the Mandelbaum prescriptions for governing the world in Moscow and Beijing despite the benefits that are supposedly bestowed upon Russia and China. Somehow, the politics of self-determination and procedural democracy are fine for state/society relations, but when it comes to governing the world democracy, it is quite okay to base the system on global authoritarianism.

In depicting the future, Mandelbaum calls our attention to three scenarios that bear on his thesis. In what he calls "the most favourable of these", those that have most to gain, namely, Europe and Japan would assist the US, and lighten the burdens of world government. Such a prospect is really thinly disguised alliance-oriented, although in a presumably less conflictual global setting. He does not view this future as the most likely one. The least favourable would be a challenge from China that would induce a return to balance of power world order in which countervailing alliances would produce a security system that resembled international relations during the Cold War.

Status quo

Mandelbaum, nonetheless, assumes that the Chinese are too wily to opt for such a risky future. What he views, as most likely, is a continuation of the present arrangements without great help from allies or much hindrance from adversaries. The unknown, that he does acknowledge, is whether the American public will continue to finance such a system of world government given its setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as growing domestic pressures to cut public spending and reduce taxes in response to the burdens of a rapidly ageing population.

It is well to appreciate that this new discourse of imperial duty and prerogative is framed as a matter of global scope. This is genuinely new. Yet it is quite old. Throughout the evolution of modernity, the West has always cast itself in the role of being the saviour of the whole of humanity. In the colonial era this gift to humanity was described as the "white man's burden" or proclaimed to be the "civilising mission" of the West. As those living in the global south are well aware, this lofty language provided the rationale a variety of forms of violent exploitation of the non-West. For Mandelbaum is offering the world a new rationale for Western dominance under the heading of "de facto world government". It purports to be a service institution for the world. It is nowhere acknowledged that a disproportionate amount of the violence, militarism, and appropriation of resources and wealth emanates from the US.

If persuaded by Mandelbaum's argument, the peoples of the world and their leaders should be grateful that the US is shouldering the responsibilities of governing the world. I would expect that the more likely emotion of non-American readers is to be dismissive, and to wonder how such arrogance can withstand the facts that this pretence of US guardianship of global interests has so little positive to show for itself in recent decades.

Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Prof Falk offers, I think, the liberal-left view of America as the shambling, uncoordinated, even unthinking giant.

I am, philosophically more inclined towards Prof Mendelbaum's views which have, as the economic crisis deepened, been "moderating," as seen in his recent books, The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era and That Used to be Us, illustrate.

Despite what Prof Falk suggests, America does act, in many respects, as a mix of global "government agencies." It does so for its own purposes, of course, but they are, very often, quite unselfish purposes ... but Prof Falk would not agree with the last bit.

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting discussion on Secretary Gates new book, and the sorts of positions and ideals that drove him while serving:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2014/01/08/a-different-kind-of-public-servant/

A Different Kind of Public Servant

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ new memoir provides an inside look at foreign policy in the Bush and Obama eras, but it is far more than a set of partisan talking points.

Dueling reviews in the New York Times and Washington Post and lots of competing snippets on Twitter are trying to spin the new memoir by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates into a set of political talking points. That’s understandable, but it’s not the best way to understand what Gates is getting at. This is a complicated book by a complicated man, and trying to condense its message to pro- or anti-Obama talking points won’t get readers all that far.

So far as I can make out, Gates’s views about the two Administrations in which he served are fairly straightforward. He thinks that George W. Bush, under the influence of Cheney and Rumsfeld, made some significant blunders in his first term, but found his feet in the second and grew in office. He thinks that Barack Obama made some good decisions in the early years of his first term, but gradually came under the influence of some less than adequate advisors (Biden and various members of the White House staff) as his Administration went on. On top of that, he thinks that too many Pentagon bureaucrats are time-serving weasels who would rather fight petty bureaucratic games than save soldiers’ lives, and he thinks that elected officials in general and members of the legislative branch in particular are often contemptibly selfish, lazy, parochial and short-sighted.

While disagreeing at the time with friends and associates like Brent Scowcroft, who opposed the Iraq War in public at a time that Gates, then out of government, supported it, Gates nevertheless belongs to the tradition of moderate Republican realism that Scowcroft represents. These people rarely run for public office and often find career politicians distasteful, but they believe, deeply, in public service, and are mostly found in appointive offices in the executive branch. Though the breed shows a tendency to degenerate over time, by and large they cling more closely to the personal and ethical standards of earlier WASP generations influenced by high New England ethics in a way that our current political culture does its best to escape.

In Gates’s view, he was able to work with both Bush and Obama because at the time they appointed him both men were committed for the most part to the kind of foreign policy he supports. In Special Providence, I called this strain of thinking Hamiltonianism and American Realism. It is less zero-sum than the continental realism that sees history condemned to endless and amoral struggle between powers, but it does not embrace liberal ideas about the perfectibility of human nature or the imminent dawn of universal goodwill. It is frank in valuing the importance of American state power, but also understands and respects the need for that power to be exercised as far as possible in some kind of cooperation with others. Without swallowing liberal Kool-Aid about the chances for some kind of world government, this school of thought values international institutions and respects the tissue of diplomacy and custom as ways, though imperfect, of advancing distinctive American interests. It would not be trammeled by those institutions on vital matters or bamboozled by their pretensions, but neither would it flaunt its contempt for them.

Bush’s deviations from this approach were concentrated in his first term, when his response to 9/11, and especially his concerns about Iraq, led him into both policies and rhetoric that many old school Republicans deplored. But with experience, and with the break-up of the Cheney-Rumsfeld alliance that drove a lot of first term Bush foreign policy, Bush moved closer to what Gates would consider the mainstream of American thinking. In helping Bush deal with the legacy of his first term, principally a war in Iraq that was going poorly, Gates felt he was taking on an important and valuable mission at a time of great public need, and that, whatever problems might have existed in the first term, President Bush was trying to get himself and the country out of the ditch in his second. Gates was able to offer President Bush full support in that task and he had the satisfaction of seeing the President follow his counsel more often than not.

Given all this, it is not surprising that Gates downplays any critique of first term Bush policy and centers his mild and respectful criticism of it on secondary figures—the king’s advisors, not the king. Left unstated is the obvious point that kings choose their counselors and choose which ones to heed.

Gates was able to accept an appointment from President Obama and offer loyal service to him for two reasons. First, Gates’s tradition of public service values putting patriotism ahead of partisanship in that quaint, old fashioned way, especially in time of great need and, above all, in war. With the country still involved in two wars, and with Gates as the man on the job in the Defense Department better placed than anyone else in the country to manage our behemoth of a Pentagon at war, Gates felt that President-elect Obama’s request that he serve was one he could not ignore.

Second, in his conversations with President Obama, Gates came to believe that, whether through conviction or expediency, President Obama was committed by and large to a Hamiltonian approach to America’s foreign engagements. He would robustly defend the country’s vital interests and on the whole stick to a middle course between the Scylla of rugged Jacksonian unilateralism and the Charybdis of Wilsonion unicorn hunts. Over time, his confidence in President Obama’s commitment to this approach appears to have waned. Perhaps more accurately, he came to feel that it was expediency rather than conviction that made Obama a Hamiltonian, and that as the political situation changed, the President began to move away from what Gates sees as the vital center of American foreign policy.

Again, being a gentleman, Gates does not rail at the President like a fishwife or a blogger. Scheming, micro-managing, disingenuous, over-reaching and strategically incompetent White House staff members are the enemy, rather than the President who appointed them and, over time, heeded their counsel. An imperial Vice President without wisdom or judgment darkened counsel. Over time, the atmosphere became less and less congenial to Gates. In their face-to-face meetings the President makes commitments; the staff breaks those commitments and the President doesn’t respond.In their face-to-face meetings the President makes commitments; the staff breaks those commitments and the President doesn’t respond.

Gates’s harshest observation of both Secretary Clinton (whom in general he seems to have found quite congenial and who sided with him on most policy issues) and President Obama is that at times they confessed, or by their actions revealed, that their decisions and public positions on matters of national security were shaped by political rather than policy considerations. In particular, Gates reports both the Secretary and the President as having said that their public opposition to the surge in Iraq (a deeply unpopular policy, one must not forget, that Secretary Gates supported and helped to push through despite the cynical opposition of tub thumping politicians) was motivated by concern for their political fortunes.

Beyond that, Gates’s dawning suspicion that President Obama chose his Afghanistan surge (a position, again, that Gates backed, including President Obama’s controversial decision to issue a time limit on the surge’s duration) for political rather than policy reasons, and that he either never believed it would work or soon lost confidence in it, was a bitter blow. For someone from Gates’s world of high public service, and entrusted as he was with responsibility for the well-being of the troops sent into harm’s way on presidential orders, the suspicion that President Obama was sending troops to Afghanistan for political rather than policy reasons must have felt like a profound betrayal. Gates does not say much about his feelings about the President, but he is surprisingly candid about his intense feelings for the young men and women sent in harm’s way by a President who, apparently, didn’t think their sacrifices would achieve the military task to which they were assigned. Over time, that feeling became more intense, as Gates came to believe that the man ultimately responsible for their orders didn’t believe in the orders he gave.

The anger and sense of betrayal seem to have driven Gates both to write his memoir and to release it when the President and his former colleagues are still in office. It is not something George Marshall would have done.

Gates’s dedication to ideals of loyalty, public service, and non-partisan pursuit of the national interest speak for themselves, and if modern Americans in some ways have moved far from their ancestral values, the indictment of President Obama’s war policy in this book will resonate among many.

Yet those judgments need to be hedged. Machiavelli lives. Politicians must sometimes make decisions that Puritans deplore. That is not only true in international affairs, where Gates himself would well understand the need for occasional deviations from the straight and narrow in the Game of Thrones, but in domestic politics as well. Machiavelli spent as much time advising his Prince how to seize and hold power at home as he did advising him on dealing with powers abroad, and someone trying to make a political as opposed to a policy career in the service of the United States has to read the whole book. Machiavelli wrote a manual for the Prince, not for the Public Servant, and all of us must decide whom we want to be in this life. Yes, in a perfect world no President would send troops on a political mission, but politics and war cannot be separated. Sometimes, Private Ryan needs to be saved (or lost) for the greater good. Abraham Lincoln never lost sight of the political character of the war he was fighting; Clausewitz would say that no political leader ever should.

Of course, this can led to some very dangerous ideas. Assuming that Secretary Gates is right about President Obama and the Afghan surge (and he is making inferences, not reprinting memos), it is still possible to construct a defense. Suppose some President believed that a war was unwinnable but that public opinion wasn’t ready yet for the war to be lost. Fearful that a premature retreat would lead to a defeat at the polls and that this would put people in office who would make the international situation worse and lose even more U.S. lives to no purpose, a President could do something as mean and low as knowingly sending young people to die on a lost mission with the public interest at heart. A person could oppose a winning surge from the “bad party’s President” to advance his political career and then turn around and order a losing surge to protect his career without crossing a moral Rubicon—if said person believed that the value to the nation of installing and keeping him in the White House was astronomically high.

It may be that it was not so much what he saw as the moral tackiness and cheap opportunism of the White House that led Gates both to leave Washington and do something so uncharacteristic as to write a quick memoir. Gates may have come to feel that this President sincerely believes that the glorious omelette of his incumbency is well worth the loss of a few miscellaneous eggs. We may be reading a protest against grandiosity and messianism rather than one against hucksterism. The two are often not all that far apart.

Gates’s harshest criticisms are of Congress and of the petty bureaucracy of the Pentagon. In both cases he sees parochial interests triumphing over national security considerations and even the well-being of our forces in the field. Here again he taps into a very deep well of American sentiment. Contempt for Congress, though recently plumbing new depths, has been one of our favored national pastimes for more than two hundred years.

But however accurate Gates is in his portrayals of some politicians and some transactions, is this really the last word? Electoral politics, including the ancient and venerable science of barreling pork, is as crucial to the functioning of the American system of government as petty bureaucratic interests and routine are necessary to the functioning of any institution. Aesthetically, one cannot help but share Gates’s distaste for the sausage-making process; thinking politically, as long as Plato’s philosopher kings remain in occultation it is hard to see the country’s business, or even the Pentagon’s, being transacted in any other way.

Gates’s indictment of contemporary Washington (and both parties in his view contribute to the malaise) is weakest when he seems to be protesting against the natural and necessary conditions of democratic governance in a mass society. His indictment gains force, however, when he points to ways in which the short-termism and selfishness of retail politics and personal advancement has overwhelmed the pursuit of a larger national interest. It is one thing when a President sinks to indecorous political maneuvering for the sake of a larger project. If giving Congressman Blowhard a dam in his district will secure his support for the Marshall Plan, so be it. But what if the ends of policy are subordinated to the means? What if the goal of American foreign policy is to keep the President in power? What if the President makes a major foreign policy decision involving the lives of American forces in order to hold onto the power to give Congressman Blowhard and all his colleagues more dams?

In the end, it was what Gates saw as a drift toward strategic incoherence that seems to have made release from government service feel like such a relief. This is more than a matter of disagreement with the White House’s evolving policies on defense spending and the Afghan War. It is more than what seems to have been his shock and horror over what he (and many others) see as a profoundly misguided intervention in Libya. He was as appalled by sequestration and its impact on the country’s military strength and the well-being of those in the armed forces as he was by political opportunism on both sides of Congress. Millennial Washington looked to Gates very much like the city portrayed in Mark Leibovich’s This Town, and as the man charged with sending young people off to die in wars calculated to advance Washington careers, Robert Gates came to the point where he could not go on.

Despite his share of canny political skills and administrative ability, Secretary Gates was ultimately a fish out of water in Washington. He was a Hamiltonian and a moderate Republican in a time of populism. He was uncomfortable in a city of narcissistic strivers. He was a strategist in a roomful of opportunists. The disappointments of the first George W. Bush term created a space for Gates in the President’s second; the uncertainties of President Obama’s first term created a space for him there. One can’t help but wish the Secretary well in private life; he did his duty as he saw it, and his country cannot ask for more.