Armageddon and discount rates

A longstanding plan in my circle at Columbia was to take a large number of existing game-theoretic models, apply an infinite discount rate (rendering the value of future gains and losses effectively zero), and submit our findings to Rationality and Society as an article entitled "The Impact of Belief in the End Times on Common Non-Cooperative Games."

So I'm sad to report that anecdotal evidence suggests our findings, had we proceeded with the plan, might have lacked any empirical validity. Tim Burke:

The scene: the supermarket checkout line this afternoon. The woman ahead of me and the clerk are having an animated conversation.

Clerk: “I’ve read the Left Behind books, you know. It makes you think, it really does.”
Woman: “Yes, it’s just like Revelation now.”
Clerk: “Completely.”
Woman: “You know Our Lady of Guadalupe? Well, she’s from Mexico City too. So it makes sense that it would start there.”
Clerk: “Though I thought it wouldn’t be until 2012.”
Woman: “You have to be ready to meet Our Maker anytime. I think this is it, though.”
Clerk: “The Aztec calendar is more accurate than ours, isn’t that true.”

Woman finishes paying, walks away. As I leave the store, she’s looking over her receipt carefully and heads back into the store, looking to question something on the bill. As I head out the door, I look back and she’s energetically showing the receipt to the manager.

But I can't help wondering.

Perhaps the woman was simply hedging her bets? She might, after all, worry about being one of those left behind....

You never miss it until it's gone

Nothing fails like success.

Consider vaccines. It's rather easy to worry about pesudo-scientific links between vaccines an autism, or even the small percentage of real adverse consequences of childhood immunization, when you aren't concerned that your child is going to die of polio, the measles, or whooping cough. But when people stop taking the vaccines, these diseases come back.

We see a similar process in the economic policy front. The prior decades saw significant deregulation of the financial industry because, in part, most policymakers and voters stopped worrying about possibility of massive financial shocks. The regulations simply become barriers to making more money; critics decried them as atavistic. The result: a series of policy changes that arguably helped get us into our current economic mess.

I think something similar may be gathering momentum with respect to the US system of higher education.

For all its faults[1], the system works well enough that we take it for granted. Taylor's much-discussed opinion-editorial provides a good example of this dynamic. It is only because of the many basic things the system does right that someone can worry about its "policy relevance" or its problems of disciplinary "overspecialization"[2].

A recent Chronicle story on the "Underground University" in Minsk drives home just how important all the basic things about higher education, including its role in a well-functioning civil society, really are.

For 10 years now, professors of the Belarusian Collegium have held classes in private apartments and rented offices. The institution, known as the "underground university," is not officially registered. Under the regime of Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the dictator who has been in power for 15 years, professors who teach at the collegium face three years in prison if convicted.

They are the cream of the Belarussian intellectual elite: scholars, writers, critics, journalists. Some of them, including the head of university, Ales Antsipenka, lost the right to teach at state institutions after working in the 1990s for the George Soros Fund, which Mr. Antsipenka directed. In 1997 Belarussian authorities shut down the fund, which had invested in medical, cultural, and educational programs, and seized its $3-million bank account.

"It meant only one thing to us: A frightening time of repression of academics and intellectuals had returned to Belarus," says Mr. Antsipenka.

Those fears were borne out. In the decade following 1997, Belarusian State University expelled students and fired professors for participating in political opposition movements or for expressing views critical of the government. In 2004, after authorities terminated the lease on some rented classrooms, the university had to move out and re-establish its main campus in exile, in neighboring Lithuania.

Other state universities, where faculty members were more compliant, remained open. But academics wishing to teach without government interference had a choice: Either leave the country or stay and teach in the underground.

In 1997 a handful of such academics joined activists and journalists to form the Belarusian Collegium. "We realized we could not officially register, but if we kept a low profile we could still teach students in the underground," Mr. Antsipenka says.

The founders declared in a statement: "We are few now, but once our institute is born, we will multiply." Beginning with four professors, the faculty has grown to 50, who teach about 100 students.

The stated aim of the collegium is "to revive the multicultural Belarussian tradition, to promote the democratic transition of Belarussian society within the European civilization and pan-European integration process." Its classrooms are the only places in Belarus where professors can teach freely in what they consider postcolonial studies of their country.

The collegium runs a three-year postbaccalaureate program, and master's programs in philosophy, literature, journalism, and modern history, recognized by some independent mass-media companies in Belarus.

In addition to the lecture system used in official universities, the collegium's professors have adopted Western practices, like having literature students write essays and holding tutorials in philosophy and journalism. Students are encouraged to express their opinions. Reacting to one television show under discussion, a student told Mr. Zhbankou, "I would have added more irony, more satire."

1. I would argue that many of the most serious problems in American higher education stem from attempts to "reform" it by incorporating all the "best practices" of the private sector.
2. I'm particularly fond of the idea of a multi-year program in "water studies." Because, really, I'm sure that placing a marine biologist with a comparative-literature professor who has written a book on the symbolic uses of the sea in the 19th-century German novel would endlessly benefit both scholars. It would certainly be better than consigning them to departmental gulags filled only with, respectively, other scientists and other comparative-literature scholars.

Neorealists as Critical Theorists: Film Edition

On Monday, neorealist IR scholar and Foreign Policy blogger Stephen M. Walt posted his top ten list of "movies that tells (sic) us something about international relations." He was looking for broad insights, beyond what might be offered in genre war films or spy flicks. He also excluded documentaries and overt propaganda exercises.

Long-time Duck readers may recall that I previously wrote a series of blog posts about an IR film class I taught in fall 2006. Since that semester, I've taught the course another time (and changed a few film selections). I'm also scheduled to teach it during fall 2009. While other Duck bloggers have occasionally posted about film, I have a ready list to assess Walt's choices. For now, I'll ignore Dan Drezner's list. Drezner agreed with only 2 of Walt's suggestions -- and mine -- in his own post on this topic.

In my class, I select a few films that reflect relatively standard IR theory. However, most of the films viewed in the class are fairly critical of these theories and some films offer alternative critical perspectives on IR that are arguably missing from mainstream scholarly debates. After all, I am a critical theorist working on a project entitled "The Comedy of Global Politics."

What else would you expect from me, right?

Here's an interesting tidbit, however: Walt's ranked top 10 list includes 5 films from my class and nearly all offer critical (comedic) readings of IR: #6 "Wag the Dog," #4 "Gandhi" (yes, a comedy by ordinary standards), #3 "The Great Dictator," #2 "Dr. Strangelove," and #1 "Casablanca." Drezner included "Dr. Strangelove" and "Casablanca."

Allow me to reiterate this point for emphasis. When selecting films that say something important about IR, the neorealist Walt picks a number of critical and comedic movies. Perhaps the overlap between Walt's list and my class is not surprising -- I suppose it depends upon whether you buy my argument about "neorealists as critical theorists."

Walt includes some other fine films, but my top 10 list would probably include some different choices: "Twelve O'Clock High," "The Quiet American," "Breaker Morant," "The Whale Rider," and "V for Vendetta." Additionally, I'd have to think long and hard about omitting "Missing" and "Lord of War" from a top 10 list.

Neither Walt nor I have included films with many characters who do not speak English, which is obviously a major shortcoming. However, these choices reflect the discipline's biases as well and thus serve as a critique (or as a jumping off point for a critique). My students are required to watch additional films outside class for a review assignment and their list of choices includes a number of non-English language films.

The flu: context

Though I've previously blogged about the potential serious human security threat of bird flu, I'd like to counter the current media hoopla with a little context (from a CNN report):

There had been no confirmed deaths in the United States related to swine flu as of Tuesday afternoon. But another virus had killed thousands of people since January and is expected to keep killing hundreds of people every week for the rest of the year.

That one? The regular flu...

But even if there are swine-flu deaths outside Mexico -- and medical experts say there very well may be -- the virus would have a long way to go to match the roughly 36,000 deaths that seasonal influenza causes in the United States each year.

"That happens on an annual basis," Dr. Brian Currie said Tuesday. Currie is vice president and medical director at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, New York.

Since January, more than 13,000 people have died of complications from seasonal flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly report on the causes of death in the nation...

Worldwide, the annual death toll from the flu is estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000.

About 90% of flu deaths occur in people aged 65 and up and most have previous conditions that make them weaker and more susceptible to adverse consequences from serious illness.

Obviously, a pandemic situation akin to 1918 would be a global disaster.

We're a very long way from that point and the Obama administration's serious response is designed to prevent precisely such a catastrophe.

It's gone global

Cases in Israel and New Zealand.

Back to clearing the writing and reviewing assignments on my desk....

Guest Post: Peter Henne on Turkey-Armenia

Amongst the headlines on the economic crisis, torture memos and the Obamas’ new dog was an almost-missed article that may prove more interesting. As the Washington Post reported on Thursday, “Turkey and Armenia announced yesterday that they had agreed in principle to normalize relations.” This is significant in light of 20th century relations between Turkey and the Armenians, beginning with the expulsion of Armenians from Turkey during World War I and continued debates over whether or not this counted as genocide, and extending to after the Cold War, when Armenia emerged as an independent country and engaged in a war with ethnically Turkic Azerbaijan. This follows similar developments in another ethnic conflict involving Turkey, with Turkish officials recently ordering that mass graves containing Kurds killed during separatist unrest in the 1990s be exhumed.

While there are many factors at work, it is very likely that this is part of a broader shift in Turkish security policy under the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which came to power in 2002. The party’s electoral victory prompted concerns about the group’s commitment to democratic norms and the possibility it will institute Islamic law. The concerns proved unfounded, however, with the AKP acting as responsible reformists; ironically, the Turkish military—the guardians of secularism—emerged as the greatest threat to democracy in the country, threatening several times to remove the AKP from power. Yet, while the AKP is not a radical force in the mould of the Taliban, their rise to power did change Turkey through the redefinition of Turkish identity and the incorporation of religious influences.

The Turkish political system began to open up in the 1990s, and increasing popular pressure on the state’s actions gradually broke the military’s exclusive hold on security policy. This also undermined the military’s monopoly over what security means, exposing this to popular contestation as well. The AKP’s rise was part of this, advancing a conception of Turkish security that questioned the state’s US ties and was more concerned with global Muslim opinion than its predecessors’. This was not a revolutionary rejection of the West, though, as Turkey continues to view itself as European and the AKP actually criticized the secular parties for not pushing hard enough on gaining accession to the European Union.

Some of this redefinition has gone against US interests. Anti-US sentiment—both within Turkey and around the world—led the AKP to reject cooperation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while anger among AKP leaders and regional publics at the 2008 Israel-Hamas conflict resulted in some tensions between Turkey and Israel, who have long been military partners.

Yet, this has also involved a break with Turkey’s secular nationalist legacy, which could prove positive. While the AKP has advocated an increased role for Islam in Turkish society, it has simultaneously deemphasized the significance of ethnic divisions and attacked ethnic Turkic chauvinism. The party launched major outreach campaigns to the Kurdish population—although Kurdish parties won out over the AKP in 2009 local elections—and has proved more willing to compromise on the Armenian issue, as its identity is not tied as tightly to the founding myths of Turkish nationalism (which include downplaying crimes against the Armenians). Interestingly, the digging up of the Kurdish graves was enabled through the arrest of several security officials who were involved in actions against the Kurds; they were arrested on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the AKP in early 2009.

See also Doug Merrill's analysis.

-- Peter Henne, Doctoral Candidate, Georgetown University Department of Government

Perpetual Hiring Difficulties II: Academageddon

To continue a thread I started some weeks ago: If you're thinking about getting a Ph.D., think again. Its a dysfunctional industry. From today's NY Times op-ed pages, Mark Taylor writes:

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

The Academy is not a healthy industry. Higher Education is doing well, as an increasing number of people are going to college and seeking graduate degrees. Despite this fact, the Academy itself is in trouble. Applied research is doing well, professional schools are doing well, but the Academy as we like to idealize as our home is rapidly going the way of the newspaper.

Future PhD students, do appreciate how you will be used and abused by this system:

The dirty secret of higher education is that without underpaid graduate students to help in laboratories and with teaching, universities couldn’t conduct research or even instruct their growing undergraduate populations. That’s one of the main reasons we still encourage people to enroll in doctoral programs. It is simply cheaper to provide graduate students with modest stipends and adjuncts with as little as $5,000 a course — with no benefits — than it is to hire full-time professors.

In other words, young people enroll in graduate programs, work hard for subsistence pay and assume huge debt burdens, all because of the illusory promise of faculty appointments. But their economical presence, coupled with the intransigence of tenure, ensures that there will always be too many candidates for too few openings.

When Taylor has to pick a field to throw under the bus to demonstrate the poor state of scholarship, he of course turns to Political Science and IR.

Just a few weeks ago, I attended a meeting of political scientists who had gathered to discuss why international relations theory had never considered the role of religion in society. Given the state of the world today, this is a significant oversight. There can be no adequate understanding of the most important issues we face when disciplines are cloistered from one another and operate on their own premises.

Its our field that is again singled out as particularly useless. Now, granted, this isn't all IR scholars, I'm sure that there are many out there doing interesting and valuable work on religion and politics, but the point is these people were marginalized by the field (considered not important enough) such that they weren't invited to the meeting that Taylor attended.

One of Taylor's suggestions I find particularly interesting:

Transform the traditional dissertation. In the arts and humanities, where looming cutbacks will be most devastating, there is no longer a market for books modeled on the medieval dissertation, with more footnotes than text. As financial pressures on university presses continue to mount, publication of dissertations, and with it scholarly certification, is almost impossible. (The average university press print run of a dissertation that has been converted into a book is less than 500, and sales are usually considerably lower.) For many years, I have taught undergraduate courses in which students do not write traditional papers but develop analytic treatments in formats from hypertext and Web sites to films and video games. Graduate students should likewise be encouraged to produce “theses” in alternative formats.

This echos, in part, some of Charli's and my comments on the growth of digital media, Web 2.0 and the benefits of it as a potential outlet for knowledge beyond the traditional journal.

Can you see the day when a blog replaces a journal, or a digital video replaces a university press book? The Duck of Minerva as a ticket to tenure.... The utter absurdity of that statement is perhaps part of the problem.

Again, this isn't to say that no one should get a Ph.D. However, it should serve as a wake-up call both to students and academics. Students: Know what you are getting into and go in with your eyes wide open. Academics: Don't let the academy become the next Detroit Free Press--a dying industry covering a dying industry.

Edward James Olmos at the United Nations

Watch the entire proceedings of the Battlestar Galactica cast's visit to the United Nations here.

The Allah-father

Interesting post this morning over at The Argument on the similarities between the Taliban and organized crime. This idea echoes earlier (and interesting) work by Charles Tilly on the origins of the state. While I think Peters' analysis is interesting and thought provoking, I don't think it means we should ignore the religious aspect of the movement. Understanding the criminal aspects of their enterprise is useful for gaining perspective on their material capabilities and the methods through which they maintain and grow those capabilities. It also allows us to think thoroughly as to how we might cut off and put a strain on those capabilities. But in thinking about their likely actions, we would be limited if we just stuck to criminal/economic rationale and ignored the religious/political goals. I am not suggesting that Peters thinks or suggests we should go completely in this direction, just a general observation on my part.

Troubling Advances in Pakistan: Signs of Failure? (updated)

My first semester in graduate school I had the pleasure of attending a talk by General Wesley Clark (Ret.). He gave the talk not soon after the attacks of September 11th and the US offensive in Afghanistan. At the time, Clark was just begining a PR offensive that would eventually position him as a contender for the Democratic nomination in 2004.

During the Q&A I asked him a question about the regional dynamics going forward as a result of the Afghanistan offensive. While not criticizing the move (I was for it), I questioned what the potential fallout could be in terms of domestic politics within Pakistan and interstate dynamics, particularly with regards to Iran and Iraq. On Pakistan, I questioned whether we had a solid strategy for balancing our need for strategic support from the Pakistani government with the potential domestic disaster that might ensue as a result of their 'switching sides' and the longterm instability we would inevitably have to their north. I asked whether we had a plan to ensure domestically stability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan when major military operations in the former ceased. He somewhat chuckled and asked, "You're not talking about nation-building, right?" The line garnered some laughs from the audience and he then went on to basically avoid the question.

I bring up this anecdote because this remains a major issue for US foreign policy--one that I would say has become even more pressing given recent events, such as the ever increasing civil war (as Dan said, let's call it what it is) within Pakistan.

Yesterday, Taliban militants managed to extend their control of areas in Northern Pakistan by taking the district of Buner--a mere 70 miles from the capital of Islamabad. This represents the continuation of a trend whereby the Taliban pushes deeper and deeper into Pakistan, even after a mid-February truce that effectively created a 'safe haven' for the militants in Swat Valley.

At that time, many called the truce a massive misstep, one that would undoubtedly backfire and lead to further aggression by the militants. One major reason was that the Pakistani military would move into a 'reactive' mode--rather than staying on the offensive against the Taliban and trying to both defend and recapture lost territory, the military would simply wait in reserve if the Taliban attempted to make further advances, thereby violating the terms of the truce. Yesterday's events would seem a perfect example of such a violation. The question now is, what's next?

That is unclear. The US has been expanding its covert war against militants in the tribal areas for some time, while at the same time pressuring Pakistan (in particular, the ISI) to sever ties to the Taliban and increase relations with India. Some believe this is a bad idea, or at least isn't very pratical. In either case, it doesn't address the more urgent and strategically relevant issue of whether or not Pakistan is now headed towards a true collapse into failed-state status. The country has long been internally fractured along ethnic, tribal, and religious lines. The state never had full control over its own territory, but the kind of territorial conquest that we are seeing now is, to my (admittedly limited) knowledge, unprecedented since at least the 1990's (note: readers with better background please feel free to weigh in with comments).

Failed states are always dangerous and pose significant problems, both regionally and globally, for other states. Pakistan has the obvious capacity to pose a problem the likes of which we have never seen--as the combination of a nuclear state falling into the hands of religious militants strikes me as uniquely dangerous.

The US approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan post-911 seems to have helped lay the groundwork for the current situation. US military strategy in Afghanistan was both effective and flawed, allowing key militants to escape and regroup (notably in the Afghan-Pakistan border region). Additionally, without a clear plan to sure up domestic stability in Pakistan we essentially moved the problem of religious militants from one geographic location to another--one that will have a far greater impact on security if it goes the way of the failed state.

I am not arguing that we shouldn't have pressured Pakistan into an uneasy alliance with the US post-911. What I am arguing is that by doing so without proper attention being paid to the longterm dynamics we would set in motion, and not adequatley planning to address those dynamics in a constructive way, we may have simply set off a very 'long fuse' that is nearing its end.

Update I

John Robb weighs in with his thoughts on the likelihood of Pakistan becoming a 'hollow state'.

The reaction of Pakistan's authorities has been ineffective to say the least. I'd say this is both a problem of will and one of capabilities.

As some have voiced, we could end up invading the country to secure their nuclear assets if things continue to deteriorate towards state failure...

Update II

Some positive developments, for now.  It appears that a compellent threat from the Pakistani military has worked and the Taliban is retreating from Buner.  But this is far from over, and by the end we are likely to see renewed fighting between the two forces and a further push towards Islamabad.

Update III

Joshua Frost at Registan.net has a great 'sanity check' post with interesting history and perspective, as well as a reading list for those interested in the history of the conflict.


 

Peer reviewing: a call to arms (updated)

I just turned down a request that I review for a journal because, in part, they failed to send me an anonymized copy of the decision letter the last time I reviewed for them. And this despite the journal using an electronic review system that automates the process.

I can think of a number of reasons why all peer-reviewed journals should be required to supply reviewers with copies of their decision letters. In no particular order:

(1) It provides closure to the reviewer.

If I invested--at minimum--a few days in carefully reading an article and writing a review of anywhere from two to six pages, it seems like basic courtesy to let me know what the editors decided to do with the manuscript.

(2) It helps improve the quality of reviews.

I find reading other reviews helpful in assessing my own. Did I miss something important? How much of my opinion was shaped by my prior commitments? Did I otherwise do an adequate job of providing feedback? Was my review helpful to the editors? If I split with the other reviewers, was I able to swing the editors around to my point of view or not?

(3) It helps me with my own work.

About 50-60% of the reviews I do involve papers that intersect in some non-trivial way with my own research and writing (this is how peer-review is supposed to function). This means that I have some interest in gauging how reviewers will react to certain kinds of arguments and warrants for them. Reading the other peer reviews helps with this. And even if the manuscript isn't related to my own areas of research, I find I still learn things about the process that can be quite helpful down the road.

UPDATE: a reader emails me a fourth reason:

(4) It keeps editors honest.

One other important reason why reviewers should see the other reviews: it keeps the editors honest. Some journals never communicates with their reviewers about the fate of manuscripts, and certainly never send around the other reviews because, if they did, then reviewers might more openly question the decision-making of the journal. Don't want to be circulating positive reviews when a manuscript was rejected for other reasons [I've edited the email to eliminate references to a specific journal as an exemplar of these practices].

I think that's right; for some journal editors, the arguments I made above amount bugs, not features, of providing reviewers with decision reports.

Almost all of the major North American journals in political science provide decision letters to reviewers.

The sociology journals I've reviewed for do as well, but, somewhat puzzlingly, send the letters via snail mail.

The European journals are much spottier in this respect. Some (*cough* Millennium *cough*) won't even send these materials--unless requested to do so--when asking for a second-round review!

But, regardless, given the almost universal use of electronic systems for submission and review, there is simply no excuse for not providing anonymized decision letters to peer reviewers.

It seems to me that there's only one way to ensure that journals "do their duty" on this front: refuse to review for them unless they do.

So I'm calling--right here, right now--for reviewers to boycott the holdouts.

Peer-reviewers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but lack of closure!

Routes and Bases: Developments in Central Asia

I've been hearing rumors to the effect that US negotiators have cut a deal with the Kyrgyz government to allow continued use of Manas. But media sources remain silent, except to note that the Russians are sending additional warplanes to their own base in Kyrgyzstan.

Instead, they report on a new US-Tajik agreement to allow transit rights for non-military supplies to Afghanistan. This adds to existing deals with Uzbekistan and Russia.

But, interestingly enough, U.S. Assistant Secretary Of State Richard Boucher made it very clear that Washington does not consider Tajik, Uzbek, and Russian deals true alternatives to Manas.

Because the United States does "a lot of different things through the base on Manas," Boucher said, "it is not just a matter of picking it up [in Kyrgyzstan] and putting it over there [in Tajikistan]."

He also said that the United States has six months to discuss Manas's closure with the Kyrgyz authorities, after which Washington will decide what to do.

On Monday I presented Alex Cooley's and my working paper on the structural dynamics of the US basing network at the Mortara Center for International Studies. My new--and extremely impressive--colleague, Matt Kroenig, suggested that we might be wrong about the advantages of "heavy footprint" bases over "light footprint" ones because the latter allow the US greater exit options: if the US loses on base it isn't that big a deal, because it can always shift to another one in the region.

What I said in response bears repeating here: that's great in theory, but in practice we're vulnerable to the kinds of cascading effects we've seen in Central Asia. With K2 gone [for analysis before Karimov kiccked us out, see here], and Manas in jeopardy, the US has been unable to develop equivalent assets to substitute for those bases.

On the other hand, the rumors I hear suggest that any new deal on Manas won't be particularly unfavorable to the US.

We'll see how this continues to unfold.

Can recession cause regime change?

Joshua Kurlantzick recently argued that the global economic downturn might spell doom for a number of autocratic governments around the world. Most, he argues, have staked their legitimacy on economic performance. Dramaticaly reduced world demand for consumer goods and energy threatens states like China, Russia, and Venezuela (and perhaps also Iran and other OPEC states):

Modern autocracies are very different from those of the past. Rather than ruling by strict ideology, ruthless internal police, and tight control of information, authoritarian regimes like Beijing and Moscow have remained in power primarily by making an implicit bargain with their most critical middle-class citizens -- you might not have freedom, but you will have money. As long as the broad middle class, which is where the most dangerous dissent would take hold, is gaining ground economically, the regime is safe.

So while in the West, leaders worry that the global economy faces a second Great Depression, such an economic crisis poses a major threat to some of the world's most resilient autocracies. A strong economy was their only backstop. Now, starved of the growth that keeps them in power and unable to repress their people as old-fashioned dictators did, these autocracies may have nothing left to fall back on.

He concluded with even stronger language:

The Great Depression fed dangerous new autocratic ideologies like fascism and communism; a second Great Depression could destroy them. While the economic crisis will cause untold human suffering in these and other countries, it is quite possible that, on the other side of it, we will see the end of that distinctive phenomenon of the late 1990s and early 21st century: the growth autocracy. And that, at least, would bring some light to a financial dark age.

That sounds almost hopeful, doesn't it?

However, at least for China, James Fallows rejects this analysis in the April Atlantic:

Why do I think the Chinese have good reasons for hope?

One answer lies in the realm of straight economics. Some of the lost demand is sure to be picked up within China itself, thanks to a stimulus plan that, at some 4 trillion RMB (about $600 billion), is proportionately much larger than the one proposed by the Obama administration, because the Chinese economy is so much smaller than America’s.

Fallows then proceeds to explain the superior position of Chinese banks -- they can (and will) lend money to prime the economy. Other sectors of the economy also have lots of tools and resources, he argues.

Fallows continues by rejecting the sociology and politics undergirding Kurlantzick's thesis:

Beyond straight economics, the “China is over” hypothesis seems to miss important cultural and political realities. Its unspoken premise is that average Chinese people just barely tolerate the social bargain the government now offers—limited freedom, potentially unlimited wealth. So if the regime ever falls short on its material promises, the deal will be off and people will rebel.

This does not square with what I have seen. I have often wondered why so many people in different roles and regions in China seem vivid. The answer has to be more than contrast with my own blandness. I think it is because being in China today is like being in Western Europe in the 1950s. No one’s family story is dull or uneventful. People doing routine jobs have been through great hardships and dramatic swings of fate.

He then regales readers with stories of ordinary peoples' prior reactions to the Cultural revolution, natural disasters, and other serious hardships in China. The people will tolerate the economic downturn and the government will survive. Indeed, the final section of his article explains how the recent downturn actually creates new opportunities for future Chinese successes.

He concludes with an interesting thought: is the U.S. similarly taking advantage of opportunities presented by the current downturn?


FYI: Over at my personal blog, I've posted (and critiqued) a couple of other pieces on the potential "upside of the downturn." And like Fallows, I worry that some opportunities will be lost. For instance, though reduced energy consumption means less greenhouse gas emissions globally, it might also mean less government spending on alternative energy and attention directed away from environmental problems.

Cyber Developments: National Security Edition

The Wall Street Journal reported today that hackers have breached classified data on the United States' Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program (the F-35). (For those without a subscription, here is the Reuters story). The scale and nature of information the hackers were able to obtain appears quite significant--however, the most sensitive data did not reside on servers connected to the web, which is good news.

The default suspect is, of course, China (why you say? see here). However, given the value of the data for both potential adversaries and, frankly, countries that are not in some way privey to this program (for an overview of international participants and potential buyers, see here), there should be no shortgage of potential suspects. I'd like to float a specific one: North Korea

North Korea has both the motive and, potentially, the means for carrying out such an attack.

Motive

The DPRK has both a security and financial motive for stealing information regarding the JSF program. Security wise, the US is an obvious adversary. It isn't beyond reason that the JSF could, at some point, be used against them in some sort of defensive or preventive strike. Devising ways to counter the advanced aircraft would certainly be useful. Financially speaking, it is no secret that the DPRK is a major arms trader and has no qualms about doing business with regmies that are hostile to the United States and its allies. One can imagine a healthy market for such intelligence.

Means

It's all well and good to have motive, but could the DPRK actually pull it off? Possibly. The North Koreans have already launched cyber attacks against South Korea and, interestingly enough, hacked into the US Department of Defense. While information on the regime is always foggy, it appears that this is an area of relative strength for the North and one where they are investing for the future (for a summary of capabilities, see here).

Admittedly, this is all conjecture on my part. Regardless of the identity of the perpetrator, this event does raise some interesting questions about Cyber security and assymetric warfare.

I'm shocked, shocked to find insurgents in this region

It would be funny, except that it isn't.

Taleban militants operating in Pakistan's Swat region who agreed a peace deal with the government have expanded operations into nearby Buner.

Dozens of militants have been streaming into bordering Buner to take over mosques and government offices.

Buner is part of the Malakand region, which has just seen the implementation of Sharia law under the peace deal.

But the Taleban have mainly operated in Swat, where they fought the army from August 2007 until this year's deal.

Under the deal the Taleban were expected to disarm.

If anyone with expertise on Pakistan is reading this, I have a question for you: the BBC map creates the strong impression that the Taleban is engaged in salami tactics ultimately aimed at Islamabad.

Does that match the actual on-the-ground geography?

Iraq: The Undead and the Dead

For some time, the media has been losing interest in America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Portland at the International Affairs symposium I previously mentioned, Washington Post journalist Thomas Ricks named a handful of news agencies covering Iraq -- and then claimed that no others remained in-country. He named his own paper, the New York Times, CNN, and McClatchey. He may have mentioned one or two more that I've forgotten, and he may have overlooked an outlet or two, but Iraq is clearly not receiving all that much coverage in the American media.

The blogosphere has largely followed suit and I'm as guilty as anyone. From September 2003, I'd estimate that three-fourths of my posts during my first two years of blogging dealt with the Iraq war and/or the wider "war on terrorism." These days, the wars are more remote from the political debate -- and I'm certainly not blogging about them very often.

This means that government statements about the U.S. wars are likely not scrutinized as closely as they should be. In my recent sojourn at Lewis & Clark, for example, I heard a claim about Iraq that I simply didn't believe -- but could not contest at the time. A U.S. military officer told a group of students that PTSD was not a major problem for the troops and that the military was certainly taking care of its soldiers' mental health.

So I came home and did a little searching on the internet.

Last year about this time RAND released a very troubling study about the lasting effects of these wars:

Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

In addition, researchers found about 19 percent of returning service members report that they experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed, with 7 percent reporting both a probable brain injury and current PTSD or major depression.

Many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider "minimally adequate" for their illnesses.

Those numbers, by a relatively conservative source, suggest that PTSD is a substantial problem and that the military may not be addressing the problem all that effectively. The study's co-leader, Terri Tanielian, called this "a major health crisis."

Indeed, the wider political implications are also clear. Part of the reason the war is off the front pages is that Americans now believe Iraq is going "somewhat well." Many of my students certainly believe that Iraq is substantially more stable post-surge and that fewer American troops are dying in the conflict. "All is well." Right?

The U.S. death toll in Iraq is "only" about 4300, but many more soldiers and family members may be dying or otherwise suffering significant harm as a result of the trauma of war long after the soldiers leave the war zone.

Slowly, for instance, some suicide data is trickling into the public sphere. ABC News, May 2008:

During interrogation by [House Veterans] committee members, [Dr. Ira] Katz [a VA mental health officer] was asked why he questioned a CBS claim that 6,200 veterans had committed suicide in 2005.

Then, three days later, he wrote in an e-mail that there were about 18 suicides a day, or about 6,570 per year, among America's veterans.

Does 18 suicides per day sound normal?

The active-duty suicide rate is much lower, but the military's top brass is clearly worried:

"We must find ways to relieve some of this stress," said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee.

"I think it is the cumulative effect of deployments from 12 to 15 months," he said, adding that the longer deployments are scheduled to continue until June.

He cited long deployments, lengthy separations from family and the perceived stigma associated with seeking help as factors contributing to the suicides.

Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, vice chief of naval operations, said suicides are the third leading cause of death in the Navy.

"We must eliminate the perceived stigma, shame and dishonor of asking for help," he said.

Data also suggest that returning veterans are committing significant acts of violence against their family members.

I fear that these war-related issues are receiving even less attention than the ongoing wars.

Revenge of the Geeks

(A blog response to "The Academy Strikes Back" by Dan Drezner.)



Also, see here and here.

Piracy and International Law

Before heading over to the YouTube Conference keynote, I tuned in for a few hours Thursday morning to the Harvard University Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum's latest live webcast. (Recording can be accessed here.)Thursday morning's discussion: the status of pirates and piracy in international law.

I didn't catch the whole thing because I had to run to an 11:00 meeting, but key points of discussion included:

1) Practical concerns such as the implications of listing pirates as terror groups (because then no ransom can be paid), the risks of using lethal force, etc.

2) The human rights of pirates

3) Policy options (including rerouting shipping around the Cape of Good Hope) and countermeasures (including PSCs on merchant ships)

and of most interest to me:

4) The legal status of pirates (defined not in humanitarian law but in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea) and

5) How to reconcile universal jurisdiction and national sovereignty

As a crime of universal jurisdiction, all countries may capture pirates (if they fit a rather limited definition) on the high seas and prosecute - but, this does not hold true in a country's territorial waters because of sovereingty issues (the patchwork of domestic jurisdictions / national laws of littoral states complicates a coordinated response to the problem.

I'm not trained in law (maybe I need to be in order to understand developments in this area), but a question left in my mind after the discussion is this: Why are the UNCLOS provisions being so strictly adhered to in what clearly remains a failed state situation? Legal analysts and policymakers seem hell bent on upholding Somali "sovereignty." But what sovereignty? Beginning with SCR's authorization of UNOSOM in 1991, the UNSC set a precedent of ignoring the requirement of state consent for operations needed for international peace and security in cases (also Somalia at the time) in which no functioning state is present to give consent.

Of course, even if it were recognized that countries besides Somalia have a right (and responsibility) to deal with piracy within Somali territorial waters, that does not solve the wider problem of how to restructure maritime law to deal with piracy as a global problem. The four United Nations Security Council Resolutions to date deal only with the situation in the Gulf of Aden; but many of the issues raised in that area apply broadly, so a patchwork approach really won't do.

YouTube and Politics Part 3

A brilliant aspect of the conference I just attended was the the fact that presenters were required to create YouTube versions of their research. Some of the videos I liked best are here.







A radical idea: what if conference presenters at venues like ISA prepared 3-5 minute videos instead of giving 15-minute presentations. Panelists would appear but not speak until time to field questions. Each video would run, a discussant would present concise remarks for another 7 minutes, and questions would begin. Panel slots could perhaps be shortened somewhat. Imagine how much time this would leave for discussion and networking, perhaps even (!) for lunch.

YouTube Politics Part 2

Max Harper, who piloted the concept of the Blueprint for Change videos for President Obama's 2008 campaign, provided a point-by-point playbook today for how the Obama campaign used Web 2.0 to win the election.

At first, I found myself wondering how he could speak so candidly about it. But then again, Harper and everyone in the room understood one key feature of the political revolution he was describing: that because of the dynamic relationship between information technology and politics, every single thing he told us about campaign strategy and Web 2.0 would be out of date anyway by 2012.

Numbers

Over at Donald's place, I predicted that the total turnout for the "tax protests" would be about the size of a single large Obama rally. Based on the numbers we've seen, that sounds about right.

Puts things in perspective.

I also noted that the AP story contains the following:

Organizers said the movement developed organically through online social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and through exposure on Fox News.

All of the main guys handling the organization for this on Facebook were, from what I can tell, employees at conservative anti-tax foundations.

Just saying.

Significant developments on the WMD front

I would be negligent if I did not call attention to three important developments on the nuclear proliferation front.

First, the Ukrainian government claims to have arrested three of its citizens--including one local politician--who were trying to sell radioactive material.

The metal cylinder supposedly contained eight pounds of plutonium 239, a highly dangerous radioactive material that could be used in a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. The price: $10 million, sought by three Ukrainian men, officials said Tuesday.

The men did not make a sale, the officials said, but were arrested in an undercover operation in Ukraine last week that was conducted by the Ukrainian Security Service. Still, while the plot was foiled, it underscored longstanding concerns that unsecured radioactive material in the former Soviet Union might fall into the wrong hands.

Marina Ostapenko, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Security Service, said it had turned out that the radioactive material was not plutonium 239. A preliminary analysis indicated that the material was most likely americium, a much more common and less potent radioactive material, Ms. Ostapenko said in a telephone interview from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

She said americium could be deployed in a dirty bomb but not in a nuclear weapon.

An americum-based dirty bomb is actually a nothing to sneeze at:

Americium (Alpha Emitter)

If a typical americium source used in oil well surveying were blown up with one pound of TNT, people in a region roughly ten times the area of the initial bomb blast would require medical supervision and monitoring, as depicted in Figure 4. An area thirty times the size of the first area (a swath one kilometer long and covering twenty city blocks) would have to be evacuated within half an hour. After the initial passage of the cloud, most of the radioactive materials would settle to the ground. Of these materials, some would be forced back up into the air and inhaled, thus posing a long-term health hazard, as illustrated by Figure 5. A ten-block area contaminated in this way would have a cancer death probability of one-in-a-thousand. A region two kilometers long and covering sixty city blocks would be contaminated in excess of EPA safety guidelines. If the buildings in this area had to be demolished and rebuilt, the cost would exceed fifty billion dollars.

This episode underscores the continuing threat posed by "nuclear leakage," particularly from the former Soviet Union. In many respects, leakage presents the most likely scenario for terrorist acquisition of WMD. Obama talked a great deal about strengthening various cooperative programs the US has in place to reduce leakage--programs that suffered from benign neglect under the Bush Administration--and it won't be a moment too soon.

Second, the situation on the Korean peninsula seems to be headed from bad to worse. The conventional wisdom still holds that this is yet another of Pyongyang's tirades in its eternal quest to extract greater concessions from the world. But the North Koreans have gone further than usual this time, and so experts are starting to worry that this is a more serious confrontation that those we've seen in the recent past.

Third, fears about Pakistan's fate continue to mount. I suppose this isn't really a "development," but a way of saying that the prospects for the non-implosion of nuclear-armed state haven't exactly improved of late, despite Islamabad's strong denial of its own fragility.

This has been the latest installment in our occasional "we're all doomed" series.

YouTube and Politics

As some of you may recall, I began my blogging career on the Duck by commenting on the political impact and appropriation of YouTube. Back then it was citizens using YouTube to ask questions of the Presidential candidates. Now President Obama is doing with YouTube what FDR did with radio.

Good thing my colleagues up here in the Pioneer Valley have organized a conference on the way YouTube is impacting US politics, so that I don't have to divert attention from my real research agenda to follow up on the kinds of questions I asked in that long-ago post. The "YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States" conference kicks off tomorrow at University of Massaschusetts-Amherst, and I urge you to check it out.

Reasons why I'm excited about this event, though I'm not an Americanist:

1) The 2008 Presidential campaign was historic not just because of the outcome, but because of the process: the breadth of re-engagement by both American voters and global civil society, largely through the netroots. Speakers include Max Harper, who ran Obama's Change.gov media campaign last year; and the Communications Director for the House Judiciary Committee. I'm bound to learn a lot about how IT is reshaping political culture.

2) Political scientists are paying much too little attention to Web 2.0 - not just YouTube but also other technologies that are revolutionizing the relationship between producers and users of information. This interdisciplinary crowd seeks to actively and rigorously study the politics of this transformation in the US context. How might IR scholars follow suit?

3) The conference is an organizational marvel, actively integrating Web 2.0 into the activities in novel ways. Like requiring presenters to create YouTube video versions of their research, which will be broadcast during the reception; and allowing audience members to post feedback and commentary directly onto the web-versions of the slides using Diigo (boy, ISA could take some pointers from these folks).

4) Also, the presentations will also be webcast live using Panopto for those not able to attend, which means we could discuss some of it here. Check out the program and online papers (each of which comes with its own YouTube video) and consider tuning in to some of this over the later part of the week.

Theory and Policy

Joe Nye has an op-ed in Monday’s Washington Post decrying the gap between theory and policy in political science. You should read it, in part because its the most press our discipline is likely to get this year, which almost proves his point. I am largely sympathetic to his view, and I lament the fact that our profession, which professes to understand how the world works, has seemingly so little to offer in terms of useful insight to those who might benefit from it. One would think, given all our collective study of foreign policies and state interactions, we might have something helpful that would construct better foreign policies and better state interactions. I recognize that, per Weber, politics and academics are two different vocations, but that doesn't preclude the study of one from assisting in the practice of the other.

That said, I want to take issues with two of Nye’s points.

First, Nye says: “Yet too often scholars teach theory and methods that are relevant to other academics but not to the majority of the students sitting in the classroom before them.” While I want to agree with Nye here, I refrain because to do so, I will end up denigrating the IR theories I don’t like. Now, there are plenty of IR theories out there not to like, but one of the marks of a good theory is that it has some larger lesson for its adherents. All theories have this, when well taught. What bothers me about Nye’s assertion is that it can too easily be read as a back-door critique of all theories “post”—the typical slam against post-positivist, post-structural, and thicker construstivist theories is that they are too “impenetrable” and need to be more relevant to the real world. Now, as a card-carrying constructivist, I think that my approach to the analysis of world politics has plenty to offer policy makers, students, and other academics. There is a barrier to entry, though, in that you have to learn some terminology and a few foundational concepts from basic social theory. It’s the same way with a lot of the quantitative and formal theory. That stuff is not my cup of tea, but the good versions of it do hold powerful lessons for policymakers and academics alike. Don’t denigrate the theory for being difficult, sophisticated, or challenging. Denigrate a theory for being useless, offering empty ideas and unsupported conclusions.

The lack of theory speaking to policy is the Academy’s own fault. Nye is correct in identifying the most significant mechanism for change: “Departments should give greater weight to real-world relevance and impact in hiring and promoting young scholars.” Graduate Students and Junior faculty are driven by what they are told they will need for hiring and tenure. That is academic oriented work. The oft-repeated advice is wait until after tenure to dabble in policy. Unfortunately, this is not something that Joe Nye, scholar / practitioner can remedy. Rather, it takes Dean Joe Nye to offer a job to a policy-relevant, young scholars and provide tenure to that scholar for a portfolio of policy-relevant work.

Second, I do want to disagree with Nye on one major point. While much of the academy is at fault for marginalizing itself, policymakers deserve some share of the blame. In particular, I think that policy makers need to promote a greater appreciation for theory and method that the academy brings to its work and preparing its analysis. What passes for analysis, reasoning, and research in many government briefings is anecdotal analysis, poorly deployed historical analogies, and assertions. Policymakers should perhaps expect more rigor in their analytical work. Far too many line-officers in key national security agencies lack the methodological training to produce solid analysis. There is a culture to drafting cables and writing reports, but that culture doesn’t include some of the basics I teach in my undergraduate research methods class. A better appreciation of theory and method, and demanding that in new hires might help policy makers receive the better advice they seek.

Moreover, the policy world similarly needs to reward the type of work Nye seeks from academics. Nye calls for more regional expertise, and yet, the government policy making structure is designed to mute regional expertise. Foreign Service officers are expected to be generalists, regularly rotated in and out of assignments. Foreign Area Officers in the military are rarely (never?) promoted to flag rank. Making a career as a regional expert in the government service is not rewarded. There is substantial regional expertise, but all too often, policymakers are reluctant to tap into it, let alone create the institutional incentives to promote those individuals to positions of senior authority. While some areas of federal service have a highly educated workforce, replete with Ph.D.’s, there is rampant anti-intellectualism, particularly in the military, that dissuades the deployment of more sophisticated, academic arguments based on theoretical insights, researched conclusions, and sound methodological investigation. Read Tom Ricks’ account of the Army War College essentially blackballing authors who disagree with them.

Theory and Policy exist on a two way street. Theory informs policy, policy decisions and implementation form the material that we scholars study to generate our theories. For academics to be policy relevant, they must, as Nye suggests, emerge from self-imposed isolation. But policymakers need to meet them half way and be willing and able to listen.

Déjà vu all over again

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issues a report warning that the current economic and political climate bears some resemblance to the early 1990s and, therefore, the government should be concerned about an increasing threat from right-wing extremists, including the possibility of domestic terrorism.

Someone leaks the report.

The right-wing blogsphere collapses in a paroxysm of rage and paranoia. "Look!" various notables shout, "The Obama Administration is LAYING THE GROUNDWORK TO COME AFTER US." Michelle Malkin, unaware of the obvious irony, writes:

In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.

Now, better (and more popular) bloggers than I have said most of what needs to be said about teh stupid involved here.

But it isn't just teh stupid. In fact, these reactions actually enhance the report's credibility.

Why? Those of us old enough to remember the Clinton administration have seen this playbook before.

The fringes of the mainstream right-wing movement accuse the President of seeking to destroy America, i.e., to institute a statist and collectivist regime: "The government is coming to take your guns!" "The liberals are out to pervert the rule of law!" "Marxism!" "Socialism!" "Radicalism!" They proffer dark conspiracies about the President's rise to power and the activities of his close associates. And so on and so forth.

But when someone actually takes their claims seriously and does something like, I dunno, blow up a Federal Building, they play all innocent.

Am I being unfair? Yes. The militia movement had far deeper roots. Their view of the world was more extreme. Bad things would have happened no matter what.

I don't blame the Limbaughs and American Spectators of the world for Oklahoma City. They were just trying to make money, win some elections, and depose the President--either de facto or de jure--in a constitutional coup.

But they were part of the climate that fed right-wing violent extremism in the 1990s. Much worse, they were mainstream vectors for ideas self-evidently poisonous to the body politic.

The fact that they would swing so quickly back into action, particularly after eight years of excoriating the Left for, well, basically the same behavior, is upsetting. It is not, sadly, surprising.

In sum, if they wanted to condemn the DHS report, it might have been better to do so in a way that wasn't constitutive of the environment its authors worry about.

UPDATE: Dave Niewert makes the same point, but with far fewer caveats.

There Be Game-Changes Afoot

OK, in between wrapping up my tenure statement draft and taking my daughter to the orthodontist, finally a moment for some Monday pirate blogging. As Peter notes, the big news story since Sunday was the rescue of Captain Richard Philips off the coast of Somalia: as I implied earlier, the capture of American hostages was bound to be a game-changer in the region and globally.

A few thoughts:

1) First, irrespective of any further US leadership on the issue now that our man is safe, there's the copycat factor. The US' precedent could be repeated by any vessels in the region, but whether this will solve the problem or make it worse is unclear. The pirates themselves are "vowing to retaliate." Yeah, right. Pirate spokesmen seem to be claiming that their unbroken record of not mistreating captives might be coming to an end, but if their policy is to immediately kill captives whose countries approach the vessels, seems like that will put a damper on negotiations for ransom? One could imagine calling the pirates' bluff but only through coordinated and systematic games of chicken. I think this could work in the long term: emerging naval technologies are going to make it easier, not harder, to pick off pirates in situations like this, and the US could consider sharing the technology with regional forces willing to help it police shipping lanes. Nonetheless, this approach, even if effective in the long-term, would certainly come at the expense of hostages' lives in the short-term. I predict the exhiliration will quickly wear off and the issue of extrajudicial killing of pirates become a hot legal topic at the UN Security Council in short order - a good thing. High time we resolved this one.

2) One idea floating in the public discourse is a strategy of prevention, rather than retribution: arming merchant vessels. But there are many good reasons not to go this route, particularly in cases of supertankers filled with flammable liquid. But I wonder why non-lethal weapons such as long range acoustic devices are not being routinely deployed on such vessels. They've had success at repelling pirate attacks on cruise ships, why not merchant ships as well? Perhaps a global strategy of subsidizing the acquisition of such systems by commercial shippers would be less costly than an all out war against piracy on the high seas, or the kind of sanctions regime it would take to force countries and companies to stop making ransom payments.

3) On the other hand, the Obama Administration appears to be developing a more comprehensive preventive strategy: to go after pirate bases on land while resolving Somalia's failed state status once and for all. A noble idea, but don't expect it to be very politically popular, or to bear fruit overnight.

4) There is an opportunity here to solidify a security regime drawing in a number of regional maritime powers including Iran. Securitizing piracy in the Gulf of Aden could create a focal point for diplomacy between the US/EU and Iran. Roger Cohen has more. On the other hand, as John Boonstra points out, there is also an opportunity to muck up through a blustery unilateralism this emerging security community. Will Obama seize, squander or squelch this range of possibilities?

UPDATE: At Fox News, Paul Wagensell answers my question about sonic weapons: they're not as effective as one might hope due to the availability of easy countermeasures. He lists a variety of other anti-piracy weapons that might, however.

Who will buy the movie rights?

The dramatic conclusion of the Maersk Alabama Pirate encounter is now a wrap, and this screams for a movie. My only question is who will buy the rights to Capt. Phillip's story? NBC? Lifetime? I happen to think its bigger than a made-for-tv production, worthy of like Michael Bay or John Woo. Staring Bruce Willis as Captain Richard Phillips, Mark Wahlberg as first officer Shane Murphy, Keifer Sutherland as Special Operations commander Jack Bauer, and of course Johnny Depp as a Pirate.

Updated: It looks like SPIKE has made the first move, green-lighting the docu-series "Pirate Hunters: USN."
H/T to the Roguish Commonwealth crew for this treasure!

One "Meta" note here, though...

The incredible level of detail we're getting on how the Navy SEALS carried out the rescue isn't by accident. Its not that reporters are unearthing special sources revealing juicy morsels of information. Rather senior officials want us to know 3 things (as in image building enterprise going on here):

1--This was in fact a dramatic rescue and the technical expertise of the SEALS to make those 3 shots involves quite a lot of skill. To fire from a moving platform (bobbing up and down on the high seas) and hit a target on another platform, also bobbing about, but not in the same way, is certainly not easy.

2--The Navy, and Administration in general, feel vindicated for how they handled things, slowly and deliberately. Buying time through attempts at negotiations did work. They managed to get 1 pirate off the lifeboat and into US control, they managed to get a tow-line attached, and they had the entire plan all ready to go.

3--Obama was a decisive, effective commander in chief. He was briefed, and he issued a standing order to use force (twice) at the discretion of the on-the-scene Captain. He made a key, life and death decision, he trusted his commanders.

Cambodia's Curse

This quarter I'm serving as a guest author on a series of roundtables published on University of Denver's Human Rights and Human Welfare website. The first of these is online this week, a panel discussion of Joel Brinkley's Foreign Affairs piece in this issue, "Cambodia's Curse." My opening paragraph:

"Joel Brinkley has written a heartbreaking piece in Foreign Affairs about Cambodian society thirty-five years after Pol Pot. We are presented with anecdote after anecdote about historical trauma, corruption, and poverty. It’s a depressing picture, and an important country case to have on the US’ foreign policy radar screen. But I find three problems with Brinkley’s treatment of Cambodia."

Read what they are here. Check out the complete roundtable here.

Symposium Report

I just returned from the 47th Annual International Affairs Symposium at Lewis and Clark College in Portland. Events were organized as debates -- the students developed the topics and invited academics and people from the policy world to participate. My debate was on this topic: "Jumping the Gun? The Legitimacy of Preemptive War."

The application of offensive war as a defensive measure raises debate over the legality and legitimacy of such campaigns. While purely defensive warfare is often accepted as legitimate, there is broad disagreement over the line between aggression and self defense. If a state perceives a security threat, does it have to right to launch a preventive attack?

My talk was on "The Illegitimacy of Preventive War," with a great deal of attention on the necessity requirement of a just war. Given great uncertainties about threats -- and a history of both threat inflation and intelligence failure -- how can states ascertain the hostile future intentions of other states? The risk of false positives would be too great.

In the 1950s, a large number of defense and foreign policy analysts argued that the US should launch preventive war against the Soviet Union. After all, war was inevitable and the US was in a better position then than it was likely to be later...

The most-discussed presentation of the Symposium was Jeremy Rabkin's broadside against non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He began by accusing NGOs of being spineless for refusing to operate in risky countries and for cooperating too much with dubious governments.

Then, he essentially accused NGOs of being evil (and he wasn't talking about NGOs as "new colonialists").

Rabkin flippantly claimed that these transnational NGOs (and their donors) are primarily interested in taking up anti-American causes.

Oh and he accused NGOs of failing to report ongoing genocides they witnessed first-hand (Cambodia, Darfur) -- for fear they'd lose access to the states in question.

Needless to say, most other panelists and Lewis and Clark students and faculty were left shaking their heads.

In any case, I really enjoyed the event and wish to thank the organizers and student hosts for inviting me to participate.

Scribbles in My Notebook...

I have a mental queue of about 3 or 5 post that I've been meaning to get up in the past couple of days, but the demands of a new baby in the house are leaving me sleep deprived and somehow unable to find time to construct the posts I want to write (go figure...). So, in lieu of that, a couple of scribbles from my mental notebook that merit your attention and our discussion.

--SecDef Gates unveiled his defense budget. This could be one the most significant policy undertakings of the Obama administration and lead to some real, meaningful reforms with profound consequences on both domestic and international politics. This issue is being covered quite well elsewhere, so I will only give a couple of quick points that I hope you keep in mind.

Stop talking about this as budget cuts. Its not. It still represents an overall increase in US defense spending. Rather, its a reallocation of funds and priorities, away from some things and toward other things.

This shows how backasswards defense policy is. The vehicle for a major reorientation of defense policy is the budget. Not a policy document, not a strategic review, but procurement. Procurement and budgets drive defense policy more than 'policy' does, in that going to war with the military you have, not the one you want is the product of weapons requirements from 20 years ago. The F-22, the fighter jet at the center of all this, originated with a set of requirements in the late 1980's during the cold war. Sure, they've updated and reaffirmed a new set of requirements to keep the plane alive. But, current AF strategy and policy discussions surrounding this plane are still captive to budget cycles from a decade ago.

I like the go-for-broke strategy that Gates is employing, as it makes it more likely, I think, to overcome Congressional opposition to any weapons system cuts. He's shown with his comments that he's ready to take on the defense spending as jobs argument head on.

Check out this story on how closely the US is studying Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah and how that discussion is serving as a proxy for the larger debate on the future shape of the US military.

--Obama was in Europe, had a major NATO summit, and called for nuclear disarmament. Foolish critics called him naive. Reagan also wanted disarmament, he offered to give up all our nuclear weapons if the Soviets would do the same. Obama's going to try again to get the CTBT ratified. I think these are important steps. Proliferation is one of those global, multilateral problems that no one country can address alone. Reaching any nuclear deal ultimately runs into the fundamental bargain of the NPT that leaves some states nuclear and others not. That bargain requires the nuclear states to work towards disarmament. Obama's call for nuclear arms reduction gives him major cred in seeking further arms control agreements with new and potential nuclear powers, as he can now claim with some credibility that he is interested in matching the disarmament that he is asking others to undertake.

--North Korea launched a missile / satellite that failed miserably, crashing down in the Pacific Ocean. The interesting question, I think, is how this impacts their credibility--they continually threaten war, testing, and proliferation, but then continually fail when they try to make good. And yet, within the DPRK, this is a reaffirmation of North Korean resistance and US surrender. To the rest of the world, well, I don't think it helps North Korea make any friends.

Obama invoked the UNSC, which was nice, but (predictably?), no one could agree on anything. Russia and China were not happy with the test, but it seems there's a difference between not liking the test and allowing the SC to sanction a state for violation of a resolution. We shall see how much more fun this makes Stephen Bosworth's job.

--Pirates take a US cargo ship. Charli has that covered, but as I mentioned to a couple of students we're working with on a Pirate project this summer, Now things might start to get interesting. Which is to say, we'll see if the US changes its tune at all when US interests / persons / items are at risk.

--Opening day for baseball, lets go Cleveland!!!

Well, well, well.

From the AP:

"Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, hundreds of miles from the nearest U.S. military vessel in some of the most dangerous waters in the world.

It was the sixth ship seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.

In a statement, the company confirmed that the U.S.-flagged vessel has 20 U.S. nationals onboard.

It is not clear whether the pirates knew they were hijacking a ship with American crew members."

Now we'll see what develops.

No such thing as a little bit nuked?

Rob Farley argues, contra Ed Morrissey, against deploying a partially effective>ballistic missile defense (BMD) system:

Ed, let me explain something to you, slowly and carefully. Missile defense, at least when conceived as a response to the threat of nuclear attack on the United States, needs to be "complete and perfect." Otherwise it's useless. There are virtually no foreign policy goals that a President will consider worthwhile if there's a 5% risk that the destruction of American cities will result. 80% doesn't cut it; 95% doesn't, and probably not even 99%. This is not a new objection to missile defense; analysts have understood that defense against nuclear armed ballistic missiles needs to be 100% for quite some time, which is why so many intelligent people have rejected the possibility that a missile defense shield could provide useful protection for the United States. Now, it's fair to say that the same logic does not apply to conventional ballistic missile attacks on either cities or military targets; in those cases, an 85% effective missile shield is useful. But for preventing Minneapolis from disappearing under a nuclear mushroom cloud, not so much.

Rob's wrong. There are a number of arguments in favor of a less-than-perfect BMD system.

• Accidental Launch. If a small number of nuclear missiles launch as a result of malfunction or malfeasance, then I can imagine wanting a partially effective defense system. A small number of incoming nukes present the "best case" scenario for such a system providing adequate protection--we wouldn't be dealing with an enormous number of warheads and decoys. And even one less hit might amount to millions of fewer casualties.

• Ensuring First-Strike Dominance. Why do the Russians and Chinese dislike BMD despite the likelihood that they would be able to get enough missiles through to make war very difficult for the US to contemplate? Because they worry about a US preventive or preemptive strike. While a partially effective system would almost certainly be useless against a Russian first strike, it might prove sufficient to deal with whatever the Russians had left after a US counterforce strike. While Russia and China might be able to take effective countermeasures, such as further enhancing the survivability of their arsenals and deploying more missiles, consider a "new" nuclear power, like Iran, Pakistan, or India. The US already enjoys overwhelming nuclear superiority against such states, so even a mediocre BMD system might be just enough of a safety net to allow the US to contemplate a first strike in the event of a crisis or conventional hostilities.

• Enhancing Force Projection. Even if the US isn't contemplating a first strike against a new nuclear power, US policymakers would certainly prefer to minimize the ability of such states to deter US coercive diplomacy, or even US intervention, by threatening to use nuclear weapons against the US homeland or against US troops. Even if a new nuclear power could make a reasonable bet that a few of their warheads might get through a BMD or THAAD system, the combination of a such systems and US retaliatory capability might reduce the credibility of their threat to cross the nuclear threshold.

Some even make a more cynical argument: given that a country like Iran knows that, in return for the loss of a division or a city, the US could turn it to glass, it follows that they cannot make a credible nuclear threat against the US. But such a threat might be enough to preclude the public from supporting, for instance, a US intervention in the Middle East. In this case, a President might find it useful to invoke the protection of a BMD system--even knowing it probably wouldn't stop everything--in order to reassure key constituencies and "allow" the threat of US nuclear retaliation to prevent a conventional war from escalating.

Of course, deploying a BMD system isn't costless. It might trigger a nuclear arms race with the Chinese and the Russians, enhance crisis instability and the risks of preemptive strikes, and so forth. Even if we accept these arguments in favor of a partially effective system, therefore, we could--and probably should--oppose its deployment.

But I still think Rob's wrong to conclude that "it's nonsense all the way down."

Wanted: Catchy Book Title

In an effort to keep up with Dan, I'm happy to report that Columbia University Press has just agreed to publish my book Constructing Rights and Wrongs: How the Human Rights Movement Forgot Bosnia's Children Born of War.

I'm less happy about the fact that they are demanding I change the title. OK, anything with "Constructing" in it is probably too jargony to attract a wide audience. But my goal is to keep reference to my very interesting case study (children of war rape) in the subtitle, and have the main title refer to the wider theoretical contribution of the book, which is about how the process of constructing atrocity narratives regarding certain populations can frame the rights of other populations off the agenda altogether. Hence, "Constructing Wrongs and Rights."

Well, now I'm in the market for ideas: a catchier, pithier title that still communicates this and engages constructivist literature on human rights advocacy.

"Wrongs and Rights?" "Blaming and Framing?" :)

Help! Whomever comes up with an idea that gets used shall receive a free copy.