If you missed IR scholar John Mueller's appearance on the Daily Show, watch it soon on the Comedy Central website.
Mueller has been writing a great deal about the overblown threat from terrorism -- and he managed not only to plug his current book, but also his next one!
Incidentally, that next book is going to be The Cold War as Farce. Perhaps Nayef Samhat and I will produce The Comedy of Global Politics first.
Incidentally, I've been on a conference panel with Mueller, frequently assigned his writings in my class, and even hosted him in Louisville in a work-related endeavor. Thus, even though I really don't know Mueller personally, it was really cool to see him talking to Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show."
Filed as: John Mueller
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
How cool was that?
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Some Assembly Required
Always be wary of office furniture that comes in a nice compact box and then says "assembly required." This weekend was the weekend to reclaim the basement and reclaim some functional workspace at home. For the past 10 months, i've been using a half-sized card table as a "desk" in the basement. The original plan when we threw out the desk from the old office (donated, actually) and moved the computer downstairs to the then newly finished basement was to have a nice desk / office set up at home where I might get some work done. Well, to make a long story short, it didn't quite work out that way and this weekend we finally got around to buying some office furniture in an attempt to reclaim the basement.
We bought a desk--no hutch--and stand-alone file. We bought on-line and had it delivered.
First, wood furniture--even particle board / pressboard stuff like this-- is rather heavy when all the wood is bundled together. It was a pain just to get it in the house, let alone downstairs. Then, of course, it came in pieces.
Now, I'm not the most handy guy around. I can fix a few things, make minor improvements, but I'm not going to ever build myself a deck. I like to believe I could, but really, I'm not going to. But, having a Ph.D., I like to think I can follow directions that only come in pictures.
The best part of the directions is the recommendation that you not use power tools. Like all homeowning males, I have a cordless drill / screw driver. Craftsman 18 Volt. But, I didn't use it for the assembly of the file cabinet, and so it took a long time. All the screwing gave me a blister, in fact. So, I went with the drill for the desk, and that was a nice thing. Oh, yes, lots of screws. Thankfully, there are pre-drilled holes.
Really, the pre-drilled holes are the lifesavers, because you really can't go wrong. There are only so many screws (at least 5 different kinds) that will fit in each hole, so by process of elmination, you're bound to find the right one sooner or later. Plus, everything will line-up with the pre-drilled holes.
So, saturday I spent my day doing 2 things. I put together my new office furniture and I watched one heck of a football game. It was a remarkable display of total domination of the air-land stadium battlespace by what is clearly the best team in the nation. While I know some of my fellow bloggers here aren't always the biggest fans of college sports, it is fun when your alma matter is winning. The football game took about 3 hours, the furniture took pretty much the rest of the day, including my magical daylight savings time hour (yes, i was up that late). I didn't quite finish, but came pretty darn close.
This morning I did finish, and I the new desk is nice. Finished just in time to shopping for stuff (groceries, target and all that-- though it is very wierd to run into phd students from my department in the parking lot of target...) Its nice looking and actually provides functioning workspace except for one thing-- it comes with a little computer cabinet where my computer box lives, and that's nice, but it has no ventilation, so the thing overheats when you close the door like you're supposed to. So, the door stays open.
Now I just need to put all the piles of paper cluttering the rest of the floor into the file cabinet.
But, i must say its nice to have a real desk again. Maybe I'll start actually getting some work done at home in the near future.
and that was my weekend.
Filed as: desk
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Afghanistan war reconsidered
Rob Farley of LGM has a thoughtful "web exclusive" article up at The American Prospect that everyone here should read. Here's his question:
Does the justification for the invasion of Afghanistan hold up in retrospect, or have our difficulties there belied the wisdom of this war in the same way the disastrous occupation of Iraq has underscored the folly of that one?Again, I urge everyone to read the entire piece.
That does not, however, stop me from offering this spoiler: Rob thinks that the decision to go to war was correct and that progressives were right to support it. Most of the essay elaborates on this sound reasoning.
Thinking back to 2001, I believed there was a reasonable case for toppling the Taliban directly rooted in the September 11 attacks. I did have some doubts about the US trying to fight another war primarily with air power. Remember, it was not a "target-rich environment." Moreover, and this too is related to the tactical decision-making, I was very much concerned that the US was not putting sufficient boots on the ground. Still, like most people, I cheered when Kabul fell and the Taliban was apparently defeated.
That said, note that anyone paying close attention in 2001 knew that the US was screwing up at Tora Bora. Contemporary news accounts reported that 2/3 of the bad guys were fleeing the scene and that US special forces were merely "directing" Afghan fighters and calling in air strikes. It was a dubious way to find the world's most wanted man and destroy his forces.
Additionally, as Rob notes, the Iraq war became much more than a distraction as numerous resources were moved from one theater into the other throughout 2002. Most of the details were not revealed until well into 2003, but anyone paying attention to the global debate could see that it was fracturing the large "war on terror" coalition that the US built quickly during fall 2001.
Major European powers were opposed to attacking Iraq and there was very little enthusiasm among the developing states. Moreover, the European doubts were voiced early and often -- in response to the "axis of evil" speech in January 2002 and to the "Bush Doctrine" speeches and strategy statements trickling out throughout that year.
The last issue actually captured my scholarly attention for quite some time -- and Rob has to some extent overlooked the elephant in the room when discussing Afghanistan. The 2001 war was essentially retaliatory and consistent with longstanding norms about self defense. The Iraq war, in stark contrast, set a reckless precedent for preventive war that is still damaging American foreign policy to this day.
After all, the "Iraq Syndrome" is not merely going to limit domestic and international enthusiasm for potentially dubious wars. It will likely also constrain the American use of force when it might genuinely be necessary. And to the extent that prospective foes can readily see this (think North Korea or Iran), it might embolden them to take undesirable actions that they would not have taken even a few years ago.
Filed as: Afghanistan
Friday, October 27, 2006
Film class -- week 10
Film #10 "Wag the Dog" (1997). We viewed it Tuesday.
Reading for Thursday: Jane Kellett Cramer, "'Just Cause' or Just Politics? U.S. Panama Invasion and Standardizing Qualitative Tests for Diversionary War," 32 Armed Forces & Society, Spring 2006, pp. 178-201.
The students and I are in the midst of watching a number of comedies about global politics in order to consider various critical perspectives. After all, among other virtues, comedies amplify the ridiculous and help one identify hypocrisy.
The biting satirical film "Wag the Dog" was made in 1997, but it resonated powerfully throughout the political year 1998. In January of that latter year, the Drudge Report broke the Monica Lewinsky story -- though President Bill Clinton quite famously and publicly denied the nature of the relationship. In late July, the former White House intern testified to Ken Starr's Grand Jury under immunity. On August 17, President Bill Clinton went before that same panel to give his side of the story. Clinton gave a speech later that night admitting publicly that he had had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.
On August 20, American cruise missiles struck in Afghanistan and Sudan.
By December, impeachment proceedings against Clinton were well under way in the House of Representatives. The impeachment votes were held on December 19.
From December 16 to 19, the US conducted a major air bombardment campaign against Iraq (Operation Desert Fox) because Saddam Hussein was failing to comply with UN Security Council resolutions concerning weapons inspections.
Clinton critics charged that both these uses of force were diversionary. However, the scholar Ryan Hendrickson has developed four propositions for identifying diversionary wars and concludes that these two 1998 cases failed to meet the tests.
After all, missing from the above chronology are a couple of important facts from August. On the 7th, al Qaeda terrorists bombed American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing over 250 people and wounding thousands. The armed US response came less than two weeks later.
Also that month, Iraq terminated its cooperation with UN weapons inspections. The Republican-controlled Congress later passed the Iraq Liberation Act, which Clinton signed on October 31. In November, under US and British pressure, Hussein allowed weapons inspectors to return, but continued to play cat-and-mouse games with them -- perhaps to give Iran the false impression that he had weapons of mass destruction. In any case, Clinton had briefed leaders of Congress about the possibility of armed response three weeks prior to the attacks -- and publicly declared that the US needed to strike before Ramadan.
These events did not merely provide Clinton with a good cover story; rather, they suggest that he was using force in response to the international context.
Cramer, in contrast, concludes that George H.W. Bush did undertake a diversionary war against Panama in 1989. As I've previously noted, Bush the elder certainly used that odd occasion to declare an end to the "Vietnam syndrome."
During class, the students and I discussed Hendrickson's proposition's (as modified by Cramer) in the context of the current Iraq war. I had asked them each to investigate at least two of the propositions vis-à-vis the current war. Given the lengthy public debate and buildup to war, it is very difficult to argue that Iraq was was a diversionary war. Plus, political scientists seldom find evidence for diversionary wars. It was easy to find evidence for a couple of the propositions -- the diplomacy was seemingly cut short, the use of force seemed premature and there was great international criticism of the war.
Finally, we discussed the well-known "rally 'round the flag" effect and wondered if Presidents might be tempted to use force to build support for an otherwise unpopular political agenda -- or perhaps as a means to consolidate political power. These may seem like scenarios from 1984, but sometimes it seems as if these are Orwellian times.
Filed as: IR films
When you ASSUME, you make an....
In my research methods class, I assign David Kang's fantastic article, "International Relations Theory and the Second Korean War." Its a very well written, well argued piece that criticizes IR theorists who have repeatedly been wrong in predicting a second Korean War and then offers a detailed analysis of why the arguments are flawed. One of his key points is that many analysts smuggle in mis-placed assumptions about North Korea that leads them astray time and time again.
Today, we learn via the NY Times and National Security Archive that flawed assumptions have guided US policy toward North Korea for some time now, and it has left us in a bit of a bind. What today's articles reveal, through declassified documents and interviews with former policy-makers, is that the US Government repeatedly made the same flawed assumption time and time again, which has helped to produce failure in our North Korea policy.
The NYT reports:
A team of government and outside experts convened by the Central Intelligence Agency concluded in 1997 that North Korea’s economy was deteriorating so rapidly that the government of Kim Jong-il was likely to collapse within five years, according to declassified documents made public on Thursday.
The panel described the isolated and impoverished country as being on the brink of economic ruin and said that “political implosion stemming from irreversible economic degradation seems the most plausible endgame for North Korea.” The majority among the group argued that the North’s government “cannot remain viable for the long term” and could fall within five years.
Nearly a decade later, the assessment has not been borne out, and its disclosure is evidence of past American misjudgments about the internal dynamics of North Korea’s closed society. American intelligence agencies still regard North Korea as among the toughest of intelligence targets and have made little progress inserting human spies into the country to steal secrets about the government....
“Conventional wisdom was completely wrong,” said Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who during the late 1990s was the Clinton administration’s coordinator for North Korea policy. “People constantly underestimated the staying power of the North Korean regime.”
The US Government has made this mistake not once, not twice, but now at least 3 times!
The belief that the North Korean economy was collapsing helped shaped White House thinking in 1994 when it promised to deliver light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea by 2003 in exchange for Pyongyang’s halting its covert nuclear weapons program. Senior Clinton administration officials said privately at the time that they did not expect Mr. Kim’s government to be in power by the time the United States had to make good on its pledge.
By early 1997, according to another document released Thursday, the C.I.A. had concluded that North Korea “cannot reverse its economic fortunes without sweeping reform that would take time to produce results that could unleash destabilizing forces.”
The documents disclosed a misjudgment by the C.I.A. that is the mirror image of an earlier one: while it was predicting an imminent North Korean collapse, the agency was still being criticized for failing in the 1980s to anticipate the speed with which the Soviet Union would eventually fall.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently traveled across northeast Asia to build support for a slate of tough economic sanctions intended to punish North Korea for its recent nuclear test.
Publicly, Bush administration officials say that the sanctions can be useful for bringing North Korea back to the negotiating table. Privately however, some officials hold out the hope that the economic squeeze could work to undermine Mr. Kim.
Why do our efforts toward North Korea continually fail? One reason (not the only reason) is that we make promises we never intend to keep because we don't think that North Korea will be around to collect on them. We think that we can outlast them and that with enough pressure, they will be gone and no longer a problem. Who ever though that North Korea would still be around, threatening the world with nuclear weapons, now 12 years after the Agreed Framework?
Some members of the C.I.A.-led team of experts interviewed Thursday said they never suspected in 1997 that North Korea’s neighbors would undertake such a concerted aid effort.
“Maybe I just don’t have a great imagination, but the idea that South Korea and Japan and other countries would come to North Korea’s rescue wasn’t one of the hypotheses that I was entertaining,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a North Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Once again, its the failure of imagination so well documented in the 9-11 Commission report-- who thought that things would play out this way? And yet, when they do, we are caught flat-footed, unprepared and unable to respond.
Perhaps its time to start making policy toward North Korea thinking that they might be around for a while as a nuclear state.
Or, as Luke said to Yoda: "I don't believe it!!"
The Jedi Master: "And that is why you fail."
Filed as: North Korea assume
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Actually, the bad news is very good news
I commented on this point more than three years ago, but since President Bush said something dubious again today, it seemed worth repeating. First, here's what Bush said at his news conference, with the egregious part in red:
Over the past three years I have often addressed the American people to explain developments in Iraq. Some of these developments were encouraging, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the elections in which 12 million Iraqis defied the terrorists and voted for a free future, and the demise of the brutal terrorist Zarqawi. Other developments were not encouraging, such as the bombing of the U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad, the fact that we did not find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and the continued loss of some of America's finest sons and daughters.That's right, the President of the United States thinks that the failure to find WMD in Iraq was bad news.
However, all the best evidence suggest that the failure to find WMD indicates that Saddam Hussein did not possess WMD and did not have significant programs.
This is very good news.
Hussein had no weapons to pass along to terrorists, he had no ability to make a mushroom cloud. He could not threaten the US.
Moreover, the news means that international disarmament efforts, economic sanctions, and weapons inspection can succeed.
That is all very good news and the President still doesn't understand. Let's hope someone learns the lesson before similar mistakes are made in regard to Iran.
Filed as: Iraq
Monday, October 23, 2006
Failure--more than just an option
Last week, we were treated to a stunning admission from the head General in Iraq. What he said was not all that stunning--anyone who has been paying attention could see that things in Iraq were getting bad-- but stunning in that he actually said it. As reported in the WaPo:
A two-month U.S.-Iraqi military operation to stem sectarian bloodshed and insurgent attacks in Baghdad has failed to reduce the violence, which has surged 22 percent in the capital in the last three weeks, much of it in areas where the military has focused its efforts, a senior U.S. military spokesman said Thursday.
The assessment by Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV followed a 43 percent spike in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in the capital since midsummer that has pushed U.S. military fatalities to their highest rates in more than a year.
The operation "has not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence," Caldwell said Thursday at a weekly news briefing. Violence has risen in the areas where the U.S.-Iraqi operation has focused, because of counterattacks, he said.
"We're finding insurgent elements, the extremists, are pushing back hard. They're trying to get back into those areas" where Iraqi and U.S. forces have targeted them, he said. "We're constantly going back in and doing clearing operations."
Its a pretty dire picture. Several months ago, aware that a) they did not have enough forces in country to conduct necessary operations everywhere and b) Baghdad was the lynchpin to the whole country, US forces in Iraq set out to concentrate in and around Baghdad in a effort to Clear, Hold and Build. Clear an area from insurgents, hold the territory, and build it up as a functioning entity, allowing Iraqi forces to take over and run a "clean" bit of space. Repeating the process, the idea was to slowly spread US influence in Baghdad's most troubled neighborhood.
As it turns out, the strategy isn't working. As Caldwell and Casey have admitted, violence and killings in Baghdad are up, not down, and the US can't seem to hold any of the territory it clears. The increase in troop strength is having the opposite of its intended effect--instead of helping clear out insurgents, the additional forces are targets for increased attacks, leading to the significantly higher death rate this past month.
Its become a rather dire situation. As Michael Gordon notes in today's NYT:
But military commanders here see no plausible alternative to their bedrock strategy to clear violence-ridden neighborhoods of militias, insurgents and arms caches, hold them with Iraqi and American security forces, and then try to win over the population with reconstruction projects, underwritten mainly by the Iraqi government. There is no fall-back plan that the generals are holding in their hip pocket. This is it.
Dire indeed. We're on our last major initiative, and its not working. Meanwhile, the Administration refuses to contemplate any strategy changes other than "victory." Over the weekend, the two top Generals in Iraq, Abizaid and Casey, met with Bush and his national security team at the White House, and they didn't discuss any major changes to what is now admittedly failing.
Now part of this might be partisan posturing until the election. If (when?) Democrats take over part of Congress, they could very well force a new Iraq policy on the Administratoin, which, coupled with Baker's Iraq Study Group, could provide Bush the political cover to begin some sort of pull-out from Iraq.
What are our options? Stay the course? Well, the course is not going well. Add more troops? One of the instructive things that the Baghdad approach shows is that at this point in the nascent civil war, more American troops don't help unless or until we're willing to take sides against one of the militias. But, that only works if our Iraqi partners can and are able to consolidate the tactical combat victories we hand them. Pull out? A time-table and phased withdrawal might be the only way to get Maliki to take ownership of the major mess we've made for him.
As Gordon ends his analysis, so will I:
“Part of our problem is that we want this more than they do,” General Thurman said, alluding to the effort to get the Iraqis to put aside sectarian differences and build a unified Iraq. “We need to get people to stop worrying about self and start worrying about Iraq. And that is going to take national unity.”
“Until we get that settled I think we are going to struggle,” he added.
And we're a long, long way from that point.
Filed as: Iraq
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Kevin Tillman's Letter
Pat Tillman’s brother Kevin has published a stirring letter in which he makes his case for a change of leadership on November 7th. A portion is presented below:Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.
Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman
Filed as: Pat Tillman
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Film class -- week 9
Film #9 "The Great Dictator" (1940). We viewed it Tuesday.
Readings for Thursday: J. Michael Waller, "Ridicule as a weapon," White Paper No. 7, Institute of World Politics, January 2006.
This is a terrific Charlie Chaplin film, which satirizes Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler -- and takes on Mussolini and war as well.
Roger Ebert's review of the film accurately describes Chaplin's portrayal of Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania. Chaplin, writes Ebert,
...did not find Hitler at all funny, needless to say, and so although he uses his own comic genius to inspire the movie, the comedy is never neutral. It is jugular, as he creates a Hynkel who is a vain, strutting buffoon, given to egomaniacal rages and ridiculous posturing. Charlie never for a moment allows us to laugh with Hynkel, but only at him, and Hynkel thus becomes the only totally unsympathetic character Chaplin has ever played.Waller's short paper about ridicule is interesting and the class talked about the broad use of ridicule to reduce the authority of powerful figures -- even those who are not dictators. Ridicule, in other words, is a potentially effective means by which to challenge the legitimacy of those who employ power for dubious purposes. It can serve as a non-violent weapon of the weak!
Chaplin also plays
a Jewish barber, who is not named, and much of the film chronicles this character's life. He fought in World War I, spent many years in an institution because of an head injury sustained in the war, and returned to his shop just in time to suffer persecution from Hynkel's stormtroopers.
Indeed, Hynkel's dictatorship makes life quite miserable for the barber and his neighbors and the barber ends up in a concentration camp after exhibiting some willingness to resist the persecution. Many of his neighbors fled to a neighboring country (later invaded by Tomania). Note: the film was made before the Nazis created the death camps and pursued "the final solution" against the Jews.
Late in the film, an unlikely series of events causes Hynkel's followers to believe that the barber is the dictator. This affords Chaplin an opportunity to give a 6 minute speech -- as himself, really.
As I wrote last week, the class is viewing a number of comedies in order to think about meaningful critiques of world politics. Dictators and fascists make for easy targets, of course, but this film also takes on the folly (and fog) of war and contrasts the political machinations occuring in the great hall to the day-to-day life of the ordinary people (who cut hair, wash laundry, etc.)
I highly recommend the film to anyone who has not viewed it and think that it makes a nice introduction to thinking about the comedy of global politics.
Filed as: IR films
Ya Gotta Believe
John Maine got the job done last night and "the igniter" finally got going, hitting a leadoff homerun against Chris Carpenter. It's down to 27 outs. I'll give you three guesses what I'll be doing at 8:19 tonight.
LET'S GO METS!
Filed as: NY Mets
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
More non-IR blogging
If you haven't guessed by now, I'm kind of a sucker for the Decemberists. I rarely buy music anymore -- money's a bit tight while my wife is in school -- but I still ordered The Crane Wife the day it was released. Any band that produces a video centered around a prep-school model UN (and spoofing so many different genres at once it will make your head spin) and could give us "The Mariner's Revenge" deserves a great deal of academic-geek loyalty.
I posted recently that my opinion of The Crane Wife has gotten better with repeated listening, but I'm still not entirely sold. The three-part title track is beautiful and evocative; despite what some critics say, the placement of "The Crane Wife, Part 3" at the start of the album and "The Crane Wife, Parts 1 & 2" as the penultimate track makes perfect thematic sense.
But I thought Josh Love's review pretty much nailed the problem with the new album:And yet, these upgrades, impressive as they are, essentially are the equivalent of Kevin Smith deciding to throw all his efforts into special effects and costume design. As it is for Smith, the main draw with the Decemberists is the talking, and the talking on The Crane Wife often fails to meet the band’s infamously lofty standards.
The album lacks, overall, the rich narrative world of their previous offerings. It's still a storng album -- better than a "B-", for sure.
Lazily derided for spinning the same silly and perversely arcane seafaring yarns throughout his career, Colin Meloy actually excels most at rendering tragic character sketches, imbuing wasted, shattered lives with grace and feeling no matter how insignificant or seedy they may on the surface appear to be. Think “Eli, the Barrow Boy,” “On the Bus Mall,” and “We Both Go Down Together.” Or “Billy Liar,” “Red Right Ankle,” and “The Chimbley Sweep.” The subjects may superficially seem static and unspectacular, but Meloy grants them a rich inner life and drapes their mundane tales in something heroic and sublime.
The Crane Wife, however, reveals a new and discouraging tendency towards boilerplate stories and lyrics that fail to penetrate. “Yankee Bayonet” features a lovely bridge and is ostensibly tragic, but its narrative, portraying lovers forever parted by the Civil War, is nonetheless unremarkable. Its resolution, with the fallen solider vowing to “come on the breath of the wind,” feels overly sentimental and pat, especially for a songwriter so comfortable with unhappy endings. Similarly, “O Valencia!” and “The Perfect Crime 2,” which treat star-crossed lovers and heists, respectively, offer nothing in the way of interior monologue to give individual resonance to shopworn scenarios (though the latter boasts some nicely Steely Dan-worthy funk while the former actually includes a reference to the existence of cars, a shockingly out-of-place acknowledgment in the Decemberists’ world).
Filed as: The Decemberists
Didn't Huntington say this in 1968?
On Monday, Slate ran a three-part book review by Bill Emmott and Fareed Zakaria in which they discuss Ian Bremmer's new book The J-Curve, which purports to explain the difficulties of political transitions. Now I have not read the book, but this discription of Bremmer's thesis struck me:
Bremmer's argument is that history shows that the most stable countries are often also the most closed: North Korea, Cuba, China under Mao, Soviet Russia. But as countries become more open, they generally become more unstable in the first instance, as existing institutions are challenged and undermined, and the old power holders lose their grip. Only as and if new institutions are built and gain legitimacy, credibility, and power will stability rise again.Any political science graduate student should immediately see the resemblance of this idea to Huntington's famous thesis in Political Order in Changing Societies, a collection of Huntington's lectures on the subject published in 1968. Huntington famously remarked that countries became more unstable as mass mobilization increased at a faster rate than the institutional capacity of the state. This disconnect led to instability. The book rightly focused scholars attention on the problems associated with transitions (the process of political change) rather than end states such as authoritarianism or democracy.
Given that Huntington's book was published almost 40 years ago I am prodded to ask the question, "do we ever learn?". The answer, based on recent American policy, would seemingly be--"no".
Perhaps Dr. Rice and Dr. Wolfowitz should go back and retake their comphrensive exams.
Filed as: Political Transitions
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Film class -- week 8
Last Monday and Tuesday my university had a brief fall break, so I asked students to view on-line the video of Stephen Colbert's monologue from the 2006 annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. It is just over 20 minutes long and is widely available on the internet.
I figured they could do that on their own time since we had only 1 hour for class discussion this week.
Reading for Thursday: "Transcript of Stephen Colbert's monologue at the White House Correspondents Dinner," April 29, 2006.
Additionally, I asked students to do a little research about the historical role of the "court jester," particularly in the Medieval court.
Earlier this term, the class viewed a number of violent war films with plotlines that featured tragic choices and outcomes. Classmembers also read a book review of recent realist books by John Mearsheimer and Richard Ned Lebow who argue separately, and with quite different logics, that realists have a tragic vision of international politics. Dramatic tragedy, by the way, is virtually always set in the Great Hall or on the battlefield -- and concludes unhappily after the protagonist makes a fateful choice.
Obviously, a look at the syllabus reveals that the semester is about to take a "comedic turn." I should probably note that my scholarship is likewise taking this turn.
Why explore a serious --often deadly serious -- topic like global politics through the lens of comedy?
In the coming weeks, the class will view a number of classic black comedies that take on military dictators, war, nuclear deterrence, and global corporations (including media). These films employ satire, parody, irony and sometimes farce to criticize the use or threatened use of violence -- and other common elements of global politics.
As I've written before, my scholarship often embraces critical theory, and comedy affords the opportunity to critique global politics.A critical international theory is explicitly committed to the agency of human action, emancipation from constraints on human freedom generated by practices of economic and political exclusion, and the questioning of imposed boundaries of political community.
Critical theorists are primarily interested in human security, as opposed, say, to state security, and employ immanent critique in order to identify potential points of political transformation. Like court jesters, critical theorists identify and explore the implications of hypocrisy -- typically as employed by the powerful.
In terms of human agency and security, the film class will view several features that address nonviolent means of solving conflicts, human rights, and gender equity. Technically, these films are comedies in the classic sense of dramatic narrative because they focus on common concerns of ordinary people. Also, these films have happy endings.
I realize this is a brief overview, but we've gone as far as I want to go in this short blog post -- and as far as the class went on Thursday. I'll have more to say as I discuss the films in the next 7 weeks. Oh, and I will have much more to say when I ultimately finish my ISA paper.
Eventually, Nayef Samhat and I intend to turn this into our second coauthored book. The Comedy of Global Politics will hopefully make the case for a "comedic turn" and help make critical theory accessible to a wide range of IR students and scholars.
If anyone reading this is an IR acquisitions editor and is potentially interested in this project, please feel free to drop me a line.
Filed as: IR films
Iraq and North Korea Updates
I posted this on my class blogs, so I might as well reproduce it here. I didn't provide much commentary, but the links are worth your time.
Charles Hanley of the Associated Press reports that reconstruction in Iraq falters as the US prepares to halt its direct efforts. Reuters reports that Britons favor pulling their troops out:Most Britons back the country's army chief who said British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq soon because their presence was making security worse, a poll showed on Sunday.
Violence contines across Iraq. Ken Semple of the New York Times writes that:
Chief of the General Staff Richard Dannatt sparked a media and political storm last week when he criticised post-war planning for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion in a rare interview.
Dannatt told the Daily Mail British troops should pull out "sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems" both in Iraq and for British interests around the globe.
In an ICM telephone poll for the Sunday Express, 74 percent of those questioned agreed with Dannatt. The American military command said today that three American soldiers died on Saturday when a concealed bomb was detonated near their patrol in southern Baghdad, bringing the total of American troop deaths in Iraq this month to at least 52, an extraordinarily high midmonth tally.
A particularly nasty set of revenge killings take place outside of Bhagdad. Debate over the Lancet study of mortaility rates in Iraq continues. Irrespective of your views on the invasion and other issues with the study, the comments (specifically "Mike H's") on Tim Lambert's site demonstrate how a lack of knowledge of statistical methods can lead a smart person to make credible-sounding but wrong-headed arguments.
At the current rate of American military deaths — about 3.5 a day — October is on track to be the third deadliest month of the entire conflict for American forces, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site that tracks war-related casualties.
Violence erupted around Iraq today. In a deadly spate of attacks in the northern city of Kirkuk, six bombs, all apparently coordinated, exploded within a few hours of each other, killing at least 17 people and wounding 73 others, according to police officials. At least three of the blasts were suicide car bombs, the officials said.
The rising American military death toll, which comes in spite of improvements in armor and other defenses, follows a recent decision by the American military to raise the profile of American troops in Baghdad and increase their combat operations.
Lots of stuff going down on the North Korea front. The Security Council backs sanctions.The resolution, drafted by the United States, clears the way for the toughest international action against North Korea since the end of the Korean War. Primarily, it bars the sale or transfer of material that could be used to make nuclear, biological and chemical weapons or ballistic missiles, and it bans international travel and freezes the overseas assets of people associated with the North’s weapons programs.
The US is putting pressure on China to act to change North Korea's policies. Hans Griemel of the Associated Press has a good discussion of the difficulties involved in making the sanctions effective.
In its most debated clause, the resolution authorizes all countries to inspect cargo going in and out of North Korea to detect illicit weapons.
That power was the sticking point in days of what the Russian ambassador called “tense negotiations” with China and Russia that continued up until minutes before the final vote Saturday afternoon. And less than an hour after joining in the Council vote for the resolution, the Chinese ambassador, Wang Guangya, said China would not participate in the inspection regime because it would create “conflict that could have serious implications for the region.”
He said China supported the resolution as a necessary way to respond to Pyongyang’s “flagrant” behavior.
The 15-0 vote came days after North Korea’s claim it had tested a nuclear device, reflecting the immediate global alarm that such a weapon could wind up in the hands of terrorists or other rogue states. Indeed, the resolution’s wording hit most of the tough points the United States and Japan, in particular, had sought.
But China’s refusal to take part in searches, and Russia’s seeming annoyance at the end of the process, immediately raised questions about how effective the resolution’s execution could be. And it raised the prospect, too, that similar action sought by the United States against Iran could face a much tougher battle.
Aid groups, for their part, worry about the humanitarian implications of sanctions."It is a very fragile country and there is a lot of hardship and we are trying to take care of the people," said Jaap Timmer, head of the Pyongyang delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Others report on shifting attitudes in South Korea towards its "Sunshine" policy. Bennett Richardson of the Christian Science Monitor discusses how Japan's quick reaction reflects the tougher stance on military and security issues of its new Prime Minister.
Speaking to AFP by telephone from the North Korean capital Pyongyang before sanctions were imposed, he said measures targeting North Korea could make his job harder.
"Humanitarian aid should not be dependent on political decisions and so we are hoping that from a moral point of view, any pressure on the government will not impact on ordinary people."
Pyongyang's Stalinist regime has been unable to feed its 23 million people on its own for more than a decade and has been dependent on international aid since the mid-1990s when more than one million starved to death in a famine.
Though conditions have improved in recent years, summer floods, coupled with a series of missile tests in July that triggered a drop in outside donations, have left North Korea once again in a precarious position.
"We are seeing some of the signs that we saw in the mid-1990s," said Erica Kang of the South Korean humanitarian group Good Friends.
"There are more people eating alternative foods, having to forage rather than having grain for their main meal... winter is coming shortly and we are very concerned about that."
The World Food Program's (WFP) representative in Pyongyang, Jean-Pierre De Margerie, told AFP by phone that it was hoping sanctions would not affect the most vulnerable in one of the world's poorest countries.
"We will stay focused on our mandate, which is to assist 1.9 million North Koreans around the country," De Margerie said.
"We hope that whatever political development happens, it won't affect the food security of the most vulnerable people, like children and pregnant women," he said.
Another aid organization, the UN Children's Fund, fears that international sanctions could have a negative impact on the health of North Korea's weakest citizens, its children.
"As part of the UN setup we understand that sanctions have a role to play," said the fund's Pyongyang representative Gopalan Balagopal.
"But if it results in a shortage of assistance flowing into the country it will adversely impact the well-being of children, and we will make the case that there should be a child impact assessment so it is clear that people know what impact sanctions will have on children."
Human Rights Watch agreed any impact on food aid could be lethal.
"As the international community responds to North Korea's nuclear test, it must distinguish between the North Korean government and ordinary citizens," the rights group's deputy Asia director Sophie Richardson said in a statement from London.
"Further restraints on food aid will only make ordinary North Koreans suffer more."
China was by far the biggest aid doner to North Korea last year, supplying 50 percent of the total, according to the WFP, while South Korea was second, contributing 36 percent of the total.
Beijing keeps its donations secret and carries them out directly rather than through the WFP.
Last year North Korea said it wanted to halt food aid from international humanitarian groups such as the WFP, which insist on monitoring food distribution, unlike China and South Korea, which deliver the food without conditions.
However, the regime relented this year amid clear signs that it was still in desperate need of the help.The swift move is a sign of the more assertive stance that Prime Minister leader Shinzo Abe wants to adopt toward Pyongyang, but is also seen as part of a broader tactic to create a united front under US leadership among countries in the region.
Finally, William Broad and David Sanger provide an interesting analysis of nuclear proliferation in the current era.
"The full involvement of the US is indispensable," says Akihiko Tanaka, a professor at Tokyo University. "In addition to an active stance from Japan, it is essential that
South Korea and China show a much more cooperative attitude with the US."
Mr. Abe has tried to build consensus since North Korea's test. In Seoul Monday, he said that his views and those of South Korea were in accord as "the security dynamics in Northeast Asia enter a new phase."
Abe rose to prominence by taking a hard line on issues such as North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and '80s. The threat from the North has boosted his popularity. But Asian neighbors are wary of his views on World War II and his ambitions for Tokyo to play a diplomatic role commensurate with its economic clout.
Speculation has surfaced that Japan may seek nuclear capability. A 2003 poll showed that almost 1 in 5 lawmakers think Japan should consider going nuclear if warranted. Abe has said in the past that Japan has the right to nuclear arms. But Tuesday he said, "We absolutely do not have the option of owning nuclear weapons."
Tokyo's sanctions should be considered mainly symbolic, say analysts. Tokyo imposed a six-month ban on North Korean imports and exports. North Koreans are barred from Japan, as are North Korean registered ships.
Because trade is light, "the effect is likely to be quite limited," says Tatsushi Shikano, of Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting. Exports from Japan to North Korea in 2005 totaled 6.5 billion yen ($58 million). Imports were valued at 14.5 billion yen ($121 million).
Filed as: Iraq and North Korea
Friday, October 13, 2006
Weekend homework
How would readers feel about adding these sets of questions to graduate school comprehensive exams in international relations?
Some powers proudly announce their production of second and third generation nuclear weapons. What do they need these weapons for? Is the development and stockpiling of these deadly weapons designed to promote peace and democracy? Or are these weapons, in fact, instruments of coercion and threat against other peoples and governments?Please ignore the fact that those questions were asked by...Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his address to the UN General Assembly, September 20, 2006.
How long should the people of the world live with the nightmare of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons? To what length can powers producing and possessing these weapons go? How can they be held accountable before the international community? And, are the inhabitants of these countries content with waste resulting from the use of their wealth and resources for the production of destructive arsenals?
Is it not possible to rely on justice, ethics and wisdom instead of on instruments of death? Aren't wisdom and justice more compatible with peace and tranquility than nuclear, chemical and biological weapons?
Ahmadinejad asked many more questions than he answered, but he did offer this diagnosis immediately following the above:
If wisdom, ethics and justice prevail, then oppression and aggression will be uprooted, threats will wither away and no reason will remain for conflict. This is a solid proposition because most global conflicts emanate from injustice, and from the powerful not being content with their own rights and still strive to devour the rights of others.The recently declassified National Intelligence Estimate, "Trends in Global Terrorism" dated April 2006, finds that perceived injustices, feelings of powerlessness and fear of Western domination are fueling the jihadist movement worldwide.
So, maybe the US and Iran can find some things to talk about before it is too late...
Filed as: IR questions
One down, three to go
If I am the Cardinals I stop pitching to Carlos Beltran in the playoffs:
Over the last 8 postseason games in which he has faced the Cardinals, Beltran is batting .357 with 5 HRs, 7 RBI, and 12 RS in 8 games--that's just sick.
LET'S GO METS!
Filed as: NY Mets
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Random pop-culture notes
• The Crane Wife is, as my friends predicted, growing on me. The prog-rock turn worked much better in The Tain, and I don't think I'll ever find the Decemberists' fourth LP superior to their prior three, but there's still a lot to like about their first major-label offering.
• Jonah Goldberg's the worst kind of sci-fi geek: one who doesn't know a whole lot about the genre . I actually agree with him about Dean Stockwell's line in the premiere of Battlestar Galactica, but he's wrong about everything else. The writers of BSG understand the fragility of goodness in the face of difficult circumstances and that even good people will make immoral choices. It is hard to find a more consistent theme in the show.
Indeed, the notion that one person's terrorist may be another's freedom fighter isn't sophomoric: it is a verifiable fact.
The question is whether we should ever approve of terrorism, a queston BSG poses but, so far, hasn't answered. Now that's the mark of good science-fiction: to present us with "inconvenient" circumstances that challenge us to rethink or affirm our preexisting beliefs.
• Why is The New Republic intent on proving that blogs don't threaten the press, but that they do threaten the pundit class?
That's all.
Filed as: Decemberists, Battlestar Galactica, and The New Republic
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
The ho-hum catastrophe?
Yesterday, October 10, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked a number of questions about the apparent North Korean nuclear test. Here's my favorite:
Q ...when you have a President who draws a red line three years ago and says, we will not tolerate nuclear weapons, and now you have a country that just tested a nuclear weapon -- you don't think it's fair to ask for some accountability as to what happened, or that there were mistakes made?Snow made many remarkable comments at that press conference, including this series about US leverage:
MR. SNOW: David, the accountability lies in North Korea, not in Washington.
So rather than having something going wrong, what you really have is the emergence of a process now in which the people who have the most leverage over the North Koreans -- and let's face it, the Chinese, the South Koreans, the Japanese, they all have more direct leverage over the North Koreans than we do -- the people who have the greatest ability to influence behavior are now fully invested as equal partners in a process to deal with the government of North Korea.In addition to the remarkable words Snow voiced, notice what he didn't say?
...What is new is that you do have, I think, a much more effective mechanism, or at least a more promising mechanism for dealing with them, because the people who have direct leverage, the people who can turn the spigots economically and politically, are now fully engaged and invested in this.
...Point of fact is, if we're going to deal one-on-one, we'd be playing a weaker hand, and the President is not going to play a weaker hand...Let me emphasize again, we do not have extensive ties of trade or anything else with North Korea. We have less leverage than these guys do.
Snow ignored military power as a lever! In fact, the entire press conference was surreal, as the Press Secretary virtually refused to take very seriously either the danger of a North Korean bomb or the ability of the US to do anything about it.
Remember, as a point of contrast, President Bush's bold claims about Libya abandoning its weapons programs? From a speech on July 12, 2004, when the President inspected Libyan nuclear parts stored at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge National Laboratory:
Libya is dismantling its weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile programs. This progress came about through quiet diplomacy between America, Britain and the Libyan government. This progress was set in motion, however, by policies declared in public to all the world. The United States, Great Britain, and many other nations are determined to expose the threats of terrorism and proliferation -- and to oppose those threats with all our power. (Applause.) We have sent this message in the strongest diplomatic terms, and we have acted where action was required.Moreover, Bush credited the Libyan surrender to the lesson of the Iraq invasion. And he bragged that it was American leadership -- not deference to other states -- that caused Libya to give up its plans to proliferate:
Every potential adversary now knows that terrorism and proliferation carry serious consequences, and that the wise course is to abandon those pursuits.
America is leading a broad coalition of nations to disrupt proliferation. We're working with the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other international organizations to take action in our common security. The global threat of terrorism requires a global response. To be effective, that global response requires leadership -- and America will lead.Remember the way the 2002 National Security Strategy phrased this? "The United States possesses unprecedented— and unequaled—strength and influence in the world."
This was another interesting and bold declaration from that pre-Iraq war NSS:
Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination. The United States will not allow these efforts to succeed....History will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act. In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and security is the path of action....That statement, by the way, was in a cover letter signed by George W. Bush. He had placed North Korea firmly in an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq in his January 2002 State of the Union address.
Throughout history, freedom has been threatened by war and terror; it has been challenged by the clashing wills of powerful states and the evil designs of tyrants; and it has been tested by widespread poverty and disease. Today, humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to further freedom’s triumph over all these foes. The United States welcomes our responsibility to lead in this great mission.
Allow me to return to that speech:
North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.Don't you love history
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror....States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
...all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.
We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.