Dialog on Nukes and Other Intresting Issues

Tony snet me a thoughtful email discussing several things.  Thought it deservfed a more public reponse.

You mention seven nations that have admitted nukes (with Israel's denials and PRNK's claims being suspect) but eight nations as a baseline for the Nth Nation Problem; is the 8th South Africa?  Was it not true that they dismantled one or more working weapons before the fall of Apartheid?  (I am asking that sincerely, not rhetorically).  If so, was it not the case that their program was pursued hand-in-hand with Israel?  I thought that that was factual and that it was inconceivable that Israel would participate and not also produce.

I’m counting Israel as a nuclear weapons state, despite fact that it is undeclared.  South Africa did have an active weapons program almost certainly with Israeli help.  And the weapons and program were dismantled when it became clear that the apartheid regime was doomed.  This is the only example of a state abandoning an active weapons program -- Libya did have some kind of development program but apparently was a long way from success when it dismantled its nuclear facility in cooperation with the U.S. and UK.

And at the risk of pedantry, you aren't including the US on the list of nations that haven't used nukes, are you?  Or does the list only start from when there was a plurality?

The atomic bomb was pursued as a bigger and better bomb for the kind of strategic bombing of cities that was carried out in both Germany and Japan.  Only at the end, especially after the successful test in New Mexico did some of the most prominent nuclear scientists in the project raise serious objections to their use.  The scale of destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a shock that led some people to wonder if these weapons were not different in kind.  Serious thinking about how and when to use nuclear weapons began after the USSR developed an atomic weapon in 1949.   It was not until the early 1950s that deterrence theory emerged as a serious subject and the first wave of civilian defense intellectuals began to use game theory and simulations to elaborate increasingly complex scenarios in which I try to decide what to do to deter my opponent when I know that he knows that I know that he knows ... 

As I look back on worst days of the Cold War and back at the week of lectures I used to give on nuclear weapons, it seems to me it is a mark of real progress that we don’t have to worry about how much death and destruction is enough, that we do not live in a world in which we’d have about 10 minutes between the time a Soviet submarine launched missile was detected emerging from the Pacific and the time the war head hit LA.  I remember being puzzled in the earliest days of the nuclear era, when the threat was lumbering bombers, by the formal evacuation plan for Portland.  The idea was that we’d have several hours notice of Soviet bombers coming over the pole and everyone on the east side would get in their cars and escape the city by driving out of town toward Mt. Hood where the Red Cross or somebody would have tents, cots and donuts waiting.  The plan called for all the east-west streets to become eastbound and people would drive side by side, bumper to bumper and 60 miles an hour.  I could see us driving north on 18th Avenue and stopping at Fremont Street but I couldn’t figure out how we were going to get into the stream of cars on Fremont whizzing away to safety.  Would some polite person stop and let us in?  Or was it like church where you waited until the folks in front of you went by and then got out of the pew?  I think I was also worried that they’d run out of donuts.

I have always been quite confused about the political bodies acting within Iran, and it looks like it isn't clear to others either.  Does Clinton's State Department have an official published stance on how they think it works?

I was not as clear as I should have been.  We (both “we” the U.S. intelligence community and “we” students of the Middle East) know a great deal about the Iranian system, in the same we know a great deal about American politics.  But for both the U.S. and Iran, dissecting specific policies and programs is very difficult.  Perhaps ethanol is a helpful example.  Instead of waste material like sugar cane or weeds, we use corn even though it is an inferior source on every dimension except putting money in the pockets of big corn producers.  Are the members of the House and Senate from corn growing states the key players, or is it the influence of giant corporations like ADM and CONAGRA, or the fact that every president began by trudging through Iowa farms before the caucasuses?  If you wanted to change that set of laws and policies, where would you begin, who would you attempt to influence?

Your point about nukes being a deterrent and not an instrument of compliance reminds me of the Vietnam-era personage (I forget who; was it Scowcroft?) who claimed he wanted to nuke Vietnam and put up a parking lot.  I assumed that that explicit sentiment was bandied about by the left because it was so inflammatory and by the right as a realpolitik trial balloon.

Probably thinking of Curtis LeMay who wanted to bomb North Vietnam back into the Stone Age.

My issue with a PRNK, Pakistan, or Iran with nukes is primarily maintenance.  I assume that with a great enough percentage of GDP any nation can get a nuke; fortunately, the higher the percentage the greater reluctance to part with the actual device and all that it entails.  And so the prize would sit, propping up some regional middle-weight on the international heavy-weight stage.  But as it sits it decays and leaks and is a constant health and security threat; how much GDP is set aside and prioritized year-after-year, decade-after-decade, in a turbulent kleptocracy for nuclear arsenal maintenance and safeguards?  Which might be part of the charm; it's one thing to push around Khadaffi and not care too much about who winds up with the keys put fomenting and abetting civil war in a nuclear Iran seems altogether different.

You are right ... and the same is true for Pakistan ... and a lot scarier because a lot more likely.

Lastly, it seemed to me that in Gulf War I, Saudi Arabia relied on the US to local problems like Iraq and by extension Iran.  Now with US exhaustion and withdrawal, we see the Saudi armed forces acting abroad (I have no idea how novel or significant that is but it's the first time I had even heard of Saudi security forces).  Has the baton been tacitly handed to the Saudi's to up their direct involvement in local areas of their immediate interest?  Is the US interested in letting Iran be a Saudi problem?

No.  Saudi military has been a major purchaser of U.S. and European weapons for some time.  The military is very well equipped and well trained, but small compared to Saddam’s Iraq or Iran.  Saudi Arabia could not defend itself against a concerted attack from Iran.  The recent operation in Bahrain to support the government was the first operation outside the country. It was meant to support a friendly monarch against a democracy movement that included significant numbers of the Shi’a minority. 

We will have finished withdrawing combat forces from Iraq by the end of the year and are going to begin winding down Afghanistan next year.  But I don’t think that’s the same thing as withdrawing from the Middle East or abandoning our role as protector in the Persian Gulf. 

How Big a Problem is Iran?

The recent International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s nuclear program has put Tehran back at the top of the list with China as the foreign countries that are seen as the biggest threats to the U.S.  That was certainly an important theme the Republican candidates’ debates on foreign policy. 

How much of a threat is Iran and what should be done about it?

Figuring out how much a threat Iran really poses is complicated by three factors.  One is common to all international threat assessment; the second is associated with closed societies; and the third is unique to Iran.

What is known as the Realist paradigm is one of the major approaches in the academic study of international politics; it is the implicit world view of most journalists, opinion piece authors, and more less casual observers (including many political candidates.)   In brief, the Realist looks at the world and sees an endless struggle for power in an anarchic world where armed might is the ultimate guarantor of security.  “The strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must.”  The Realist warns us to always be alert to threats and ready to respond forcefully.  “If you want peace,” advises the Realist, “prepare for war.”

The Realist answer to the question of who is a threat and what is the nature of that threat is succinct: capabilities imply intentions.  We cannot know the what other countries are really planning on.  They go to great lengths to hide their real intentions.  But we can observe their actions and assess what they might be capable of.  And the prudent observer (remembering that one person’s “prudent” observer is another person’s nervous Nellie) assumes that “they” deliberately developed those capabilities because they mean to use them.

The result is a systematic bias toward overestimating threats and a conflating of what could be possible in a few years with what is being planned or even what is possible now. 

The problem of figuring out what those guys are up to is complicated when those guys operate within an opaque political system.  In the case of Iran, the relationship between President Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Khamenei, the governmental ministries, the armed forces, and the Revolutionary Guards are extremely murky.  If you can’t even figure out which of those guys is making the decision and whether all those guys are on the same page -- or even reading out of the same book -- it gets that much harder.

The recent allegations by Attorney General Holder that the U.S. has foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador is a case in point.  The evidence that the men who were arrested were up to something seems to many observers pretty convincing.  But the evidence of links between the conspirators and anyone in Iran is far more tenuous  and no one can say with certainty which, if any,  elements of the Iranian system were involved or at what level the plot was hatched.

The third source of difficulty in assessing Iran’s dangers to the United States is the heightened sensitivity of our closest allies in the Middle East.  Many Israelis take Ahmadinejad’s holocaust denial and inflammatory rhetoric denying Israel’s right to exist very seriously.  They regard the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran as a direct threat to their lives.  Saudi Arabia is extremely sensitive to threats posed by its Shi’a minority and the relatively impoverished Shi’a majorities in Bahrain and other Gulf States, and sees them as a potential fifth column that Iran can manipulate.  Both countries have publicly and privately (see some of the cables in wikileaks) urged the U.S. to take an even harder stand.  Israel and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia share intelligence with the U.S.; their deep suspicions color U.S. intelligence estimates.

I am not going to try to develop a “real” assessment of Iran.  I am going to try to describe elements of Iranian behavior that work against U.S. interests and what some of our options may be.

Nuclear Weapons.  This is at the top of everyone’s list of problems and is not just an American preoccupation.  Western Europe has been as strongly opposed to Iran’s behavior as the United States. While Russia and China have typically opposed calls for stronger sanctions against Iran, they have made it clear that they oppose any attempt to develop weapons. 

Iran has long had a nuclear program which it claims is strictly for peaceful use and hence legitimate under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.   The program is immensely popular in Iran, where it is seen as a matter of national pride, demonstrating the scientific and technological sophistication of Iranians.  However, in addition to clearly civilian activities, for the past ten years Iran has also pursued technologies that are potentially directly related to weapons.  The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that have led to the attempts to both persuade Iran to stop and to punish them with sanctions have largely involved dual-use technologies.  That is, technologies that could be used for legitimate civilian projects or for the development of nuclear weapons ... and capabilities imply intent, do they not?  The most recent IAEA report goes further.  The November 8 report documents persistent foot dragging and refusal to cooperate in some aspects of the inspections by Iranian officials and discusses aspects of the Iranian nuclear research program that are directly linked to the development of weapons. 

So what?  After all, seven countries (U.S., UK, France, China, Russia, India, and Pakistan) have confirmed their possession of nuclear weapons and no one believes Israel’s official insistence that it does not have nukes.  (If Israel is believed to have them despite their denials, North Korea is the mirror image: their claims to already have them are widely regarded as dubious.)

One fundamental issue surrounding any country’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons is the disastrous consequences of their use.  Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass and indiscriminate destruction.  They kill people and destroy almost everything for miles.  They are only useful as a deterrent.   People who think seriously about proliferation and nuclear weapons often talk about “the Nth Nation Problem.”  So far eight countries have developed nuclear weapons and been prudent enough to avoid using them.  But somewhere out there is the nth nation in the series of nuclear states whose leaders are irrational or delusional or whose internal safeguards are defective and permit an accidental launch of nuclear tipped missile.  Therefore every nation that does develop weapons brings us one step closer to catastrophe. 

The second fundamental issue surrounding any country’s attempts to gain nuclear weapons is that proliferation breeds proliferation.  If Iran developed nuclear weapons, several of its regional neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Egypt would be subject to some internal; pressure to develop their own weapons to deter Iran.  The diversion of a large amount of intellectual and engineering prowess and the diversion of money from human and economic development would be significant.  And it would bring us all closer to that nightmare Nth nation.

There are two specific immediate consequences of an operational Iranian nuclear warhead that worry people.  The first is the threat to Israel.  The nightmarish “existential threat” is that fanatical Iranian leaders would unleash a new Holocaust by raining warheads on Israel.  This specter leads some elements of the Israeli government to push the United States into attacking Iran by threatening to do it themselves.  This fear is echoed by some of Israel’s supporters in the U.S., especially more conservative and hawkish politicians. 

I think these fears are exaggerated.  Some parts of the Iranian leadership, for example Mahmud Ahmadinejad, are very insular, poorly educated and given to extravagant rhetoric.  But that does not make him insane and undeterred by the threat that a nuclear assault on Israel would be met by a larger nuclear counter blow on Iran.  And the diffusion of authority and existence of multiple centers of power in the Iranian system guarantee that no single person could make such a far reaching decision on their own. 

The second consequence of a nuclear Iran that people fear is bullying.  A nuclear armed Iran, the argument goes, will be able to cow and intimidate its neighbors.  I think this, too, is an exaggeration.  I think the conventional wisdom that nuclear weapons are useful only as a deterrent, not a tool of compellance is right.  I have a very hard time thinking of a plausible scenario.  “All right, King of Bahrain and your lackeys, stop oppressing Shi’a Bahrainis or we’ll blow you up!”  But “you” would include the Shi’a citizens of Bahrain. 

Fulminating about the Iranian nuclear threat and beating the drums for the imaginary military option probably has the perverse effect of strengthening the argument in Iran for developing weapons as the ultimate deterrent.  I think one motive driving Iran’s program is fear of attack from the U.S.  Whether Iranians look at the last 60 years of relations with the U.S. or the fate of Qadhafi, they are likely to conclude that the U.S. is a military threat.  The fierier the rhetoric, the louder the calls for muscular action in the Washington or Tel Aviv, the more nuclear weapons seem like a good idea.

What is to be done?  I think we --meaning the United States, Britain, France and Germany who have played the leading roles in trying to deal with Iran’s nuclear program – are doing pretty much everything that can be done.  The strategy has involved attempts at persuasion through negotiations leading to economic and technical support for peaceful nuclear power and economic benefits from removing existing sanctions interspersed with increasingly stringent multilateral sanctions on trade and investment in Iran aimed at directly impeding the organizations and individuals most involved with the weapons program. It is widely believed that there is also a covert dimension, sponsored by the Western powers and/or Israel.  Over the past few years several Iranian scientists associated with the nuclear program have been assassinated by unknown assailants.  About a year ago, in what is described as an act of cyber sabotage, the Stuxnet worm attacked and seriously harmed computers at a key Iranian nuclear site. 

A frustrating difficulty with designing a strategy to counter an Iranian weapons program is figuring out who in Iran is behind it and what they hope to gain.  That makes it much more difficult to come up with promises and inducements that would give Iran the rewards it hoes to get from the program or to devise threats and punishments that might actually lead the proponents to decide it wasn’t worth it. 

The non-existent military option.  As much as tough guy (and gal) Presidential candidates and self-proclaimed foreign policy experts love to talk about it, I do not believe there is a realistic military option for dealing with Iran.  No one who has thought about it thinks an invasion or massive bombing campaign is remotely possible.  Herman Cain has taken some flack for saying bombing Iran was unfeasible because there are lots of mountains in the country.  Problem is not mountains but dispersed and hardened nuclear facilities, Iran’s air defenses, and the real possibility of retaliation.  Although there is some speculation that the alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador was meant to be implemented only as a response to a U.S. or Israeli assault on Iran, the more likely retaliatory moves would come in the Middle East from one or more of the anti-American or anti-Israel groups Iran supports.

Iran as Middle East trouble maker.  When the revolution of 1979 led to the Islamic Republic, the leaders hoped the revolution would sweep the entire Middle East, replacing both traditional monarchs and secular nationalists with devout Muslims inspired by the Shi’a tradition.  The fact that those Sunni doinated regimes were allied with the Great Satan U.S. or the equally satanic atheists in Moscow was a major bonus.  The major tool for exporting the revolution became support for anti-establishment groups.  In some cases this has meant money and arms for groups like Hizballah and Hamas; in others it has been more indirect attempts to support Shi’a minority organizations in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.  The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a double boost for Iran.  Saddam’s regime, secular nationalists who oppressed a Shi’a majority and had launched a war of aggression against Iran, was eliminated and his military machine dismantled.  And the American occupation created a Shi’a dominated political system with many players who had close personal as well as religious and ideological affinities to Iran.  

There are, I think, real reasons to be concerned about stability in the Middle East.  There are also real reasons to support the emergence of more democratic regimes.  Iran does not play a positive role on either dimension.  Iranian influence and support goes to anti-regime actors in Lebanon, Jordan, and the Gulf States.  And many of the forces Iran favors are not committed to democratic political development.  There are good reasons for the United States to use the tools of diplomacy and statecraft to counter Iran. 

But perspective matters. The alarmist fears of a “Shi’a Crescent” running through the Middle East are over blown.  That really scary bogeyman who goes bump in the night is not an Iranian dominated Iraq. Overestimating threats is as dangerous as underestimating them.

 “All politics is local” is a trite but true aphorism.  Hizballah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, pro-Iranian factions in Baghdad are supported, not controlled, by Tehran.  They will act in what they think is their own interest.  If that coincides with something Iran desires, well and good.  And if it doesn’t, Iran may make it more difficult, but at the end of the day they will go their own way.

In my view, Iran is a problem, not a looming threat.  And if this understates Iran’s influence or ability to attack our interests, it may at least serve as a counterweight to the strident analyses that err in the opposite direction.

Libya's Morning After the Night Before

“Gadhafi is dead and now the hard part begins” ... we hear that same refrain every time a dictator is deposed and there is an opening for democracy.  We’ve heard it so often that it has become a cliche.  But it is still profoundly true.  Winning -- a war, an election, a rebellion  – isn’t everything.  When the euphoria wears off, when it really is the morning after the night before, there is a chance to move in new directions, one of which is “democracy.”

Most of us, most of the time, take it for granted that we know what democracy is (perhaps along the lines of the Supreme Court justice who wrote that he could not define pornography but he knew it when he saw it).  Some of us -- meaning pundits, commentators and you and me -- sometimes seem to assume that creating a democracy is pretty straightforward: write a constitution, set up some elections, create a free press ... and away you go. 

And some of us portray democracy as a delicate flower, thriving only under rare and exotic conditions. The right kind of culture, a developed capitalist economy, wise and saintly leaders, and the absence of internal conflicts are commonly cited as both causes of democracy and reasons why some countries have failed to develop democratic systems.  At an extreme, this becomes the pessimistic “you can’t export democracy” and “some people just aren’t ready for it” positions.

At least since the time of Aristotle political scientists have been studying democratic regimes.  And we have learned some things that are relevant to political development.  At the same time, there is a big difference between studying politics and doing it. 

What we know

I don’t intend this as a comprehensive overview of theories of democracy, but a highlighting of some major points.  There are real and serious debates about the relative importance of the various factors and the causal relationship that I am going to ignore, perhaps at my own peril. 

*Democracy is NOT either/or but a process.

*Culture (meaning political values and beliefs) matters.

*Institutions matter

*Leaders matter

*Dynamics

*Results matter

Quick reminder -- to myself if no one else -- that political systems have multiple causes ... there is no magic bullet that always and everywhere causes democracy.  The multiple factors that are causally related to democratic development interact with each other in what can be a virtuous circle, or when things go wrong, a vicious death spiral.

The Democratic Process

Even though we routinely talk about democracies and non-democracies, or (heaven help us) “true” democracy, it makes more sense to see democracy as a continuum.  Is the United States a democracy?  Was the United States of 1911 a democracy? (I’ll bet your first reaction was “yes” but it was quickly replaced with “depends on what you mean” or “well, kinda” or some other more nuanced response, especially when you thought about 100 years ago.)  It is much easier to answer the question, “Was the United States of 1911 more democratic than many other countries?” or “Is the United States more Democratic today than we were 100 years ago?”  The question to be asked in 2021 about Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, South Sudan and other countries undergoing great changes right now, is not “are they democratic?” but “are they more democratic than they were?”  

One useful way to think about democracy is to focus on results and suggest that democracy is a system which provides everyone with an equal ability to influence the key decisions that affect their lives.  Then we can ask what aspects of a society contribute to making that happen.

Culture. 

Leaving aside the slipperiness and ambiguity of this term (that’s a rant for another day), we know two things. 

1) If culture means some broad, national or societal set of values and relationships, it seems to have little to do with democracy.  A century ago Max Weber’s notion that it was the Protestant work ethic that explained why some European countries were democratic and the burden of Catholicism that explained why others weren’t. But dominant religion is no longer associated with democracy.  Not that long ago some folks were convinced that democracy was impossible in Latin America as long as machismo dominated the culture.  There has been lots of regime change in Latin America, but far less movement toward gender equality.  There were some quite plausible explanations for why Confucian cultures weren’t likely to become democracies; the success of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have now inspired a few articles on why Confucian cultures are so supportive of democracy.

2) If culture is defined more narrowly and carefully as political culture, it does seem to matter.  Beliefs and values about how authority is gained, how rulers deal with the ruled, about the legitimacy of opposition and about the stakes of politics, among others, do matter.  In the early stages of developing democracy, political culture among elites matters far more than among followers. For example, the establishment and preservation of democracy in India owes a great deal to the values and attitudes of the relatively small political class rather than the values and attitudes of the hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens.

Institutions.

Democracy is closely related to  institutions: free and fair elections, effective legislatures, an independent judiciary, free press, limitations on government, and others.  Institutions work by shaping behavior, making some things easier to do and others more difficult.  The rules and roles embedded in a functioning legislature, for example, make it easier for diverse interests to be represented and accommodated; they make it more difficult to initiate rapid and tightly focused policy changes.

Several decades ago, when the European empires were breaking up and dozens of countries in Africa and Asia were becoming independent, there was a naive belief in England that if you set folks up with a parliamentary system like the United Kingdom’s (the so-called Whitehall system) you’d get democracies, even if there had been little development of a democratic political culture.  The mixed histories of former colonies show that the “right” institutions by themselves do not guarantee democracy but jettisoning those institutions makes it far more difficult to avoid repressive dictatorships.

European parliamentary institutions are far more common around the world than the American system of sharply separated executives and legislatures.  But the basic strategies are similar: use the legislature to provide some restraint on the executive; use rules for representation to balance the needs and desires of majorities and minorities; use elections to move people in and out of office.  Democratic institutions invite conflict and division; an effective opposition is an important indicator of healthy democracy.   This can be a difficult path for countries that have just had a successful struggle for independence or rebellion against an oppressive regime where unity and shared dedication have been key to success. 

An important trend in thinking about democracy has been the idea of “social capital.”  People who work together in private voluntary organizations (service clubs, social groups, neighborhood organizations for example) learn important lessons about trusting others and working comparatively.  And these lessons spill over into the public sphere.  Collectively, these groups constitute the institutions of  “civil society.”  Most elements of civil society are not political but the existence of a social space in institutions outside government control contributes indirectly to greater democracy.  Without such institutions, it is far more difficult for people to learn the give and take, tolerance of diversity, and skills at persuading people to go along with you that democracy requires.

Leaders

Leaders matter most in developing democracy in the initial stages.  As the dust settles from the rebellion or independence struggle, the first generation of leaders are the ones who set the tone and precedents.  If they are committed to democracy (along with all their other goals) then they are far more likely to think about good institutional design and far more likely to reflect the kinds of values that make democracy possible.  The continuing impact of Nelson Mandela on South Africa’s development is profound.  His successors have not been noted for their deep personal commitment to democratic values, but Mandela effectively institutionalized democratic values by force of example and personal prestige. 

Almost everyone who comes to power after a coup or revolution promises democracy, just as soon as the conditions are ripe.  More often than not, the new authoritarian ruler finds that the conditions are never quite right, the people have not yet learned how to be democratic.  Mustafa Kemal of Turkey is a major exception.  He held largely unchecked power for 15 years, but left behind institutions and changed attitudes that have let Turkey develop into a functioning democracy.

Leaders by themselves cannot cause democracy; but the wrong leader at the wrong time can kill it at birth.

Dynamics

Listing factors and discussing them one by one risks losing sight of a critical point: democracy develops over time and the causal factors interact with each other.  Leaders with democratic values try to create institutions that reinforce and support those values.  Democratic institutions can not only reinforce democratic political culture; they can prevent leaders or popular movements from subverting democracy. 

An important term of art in thinking about democracy is a “consolidated democracy,” a system that has passed the most crucial early test: an election that transfers power from one ruling elite to another.   For example, 1998 was a pivotal year in South Korea: the third set of national elections elected a president who was a long time opponent of the military dictatorship and its immediate successor regime. The old regime accepted the elections results.  The notion of consolidation is a nice reminder of democracy as a process, a series of developments over time rather than a single dramatic event after which everyone can go home. 

Results Matter

More democratic regimes are held to higher standards by their citizens.  Democracy has many attributes that make it appealing to people around the world.  For many an important factor is the association of democracy with prosperity and material well being.  That means the regimes claiming to be democratic are under more pressure than others to meet basic needs for physical security, clean water, electricity, food security and housing.  It means greater pressure to foster a growing economy that provides jobs. 

Beyond Science

We know a lot about democracy and a lot about what contributes to democratic development and what doesn’t.  There is a great deal of expertise in the United Nations, in the U.S. and other governments, and in universities around the world. But in Libya, or any other concrete situation, people are not starting from scratch and are not free to map out a comprehensive plan to develop democracy.  The challenge is to apply what is known in the midst of a specific situation, with some circumstances dictated by the past, and diverse goals and interests among both the leadership and the citizens.  You have to play the hand you are dealt. This is the realm of the art of policies, of statecraft.  Development of an increasingly democratic system is not foreordained, nor is it doomed from the start.  It is up to the people on the ground and, as Machiavelli pointed out, a heavy dose of luck.

Libya Today

The success of the new Libyan leadership in keeping their pledge to move toward democracy is going to receive a great deal of  scrutiny in the U.S. and around the world.  Libya will be watched more closely and judged more quickly than, for example, its neighbors Tunisia and Egypt. The prominent role of NATO in supporting the end of the Gadhafi regime and the expectation that Europe and the UN will keep playing a vital role in the transition will keep Libyan development in the spotlight.  In the United States, there is the added dimension of partisan politics.  The Obama administration is eager to claim credit for every sign in progress in Libya; the administration’s critics are equally eager to pounce on any shortcomings. 

Libya faces much greater challenges than the two most prominent triumphs of the Arab Spring, Egypt and Tunisia. 

Political culture. Libya does not have even the rudiments of a democratic political culture that promotes cooperation and a broadly national perspective on policy making.  It will be quite difficult for the new leadership to tolerate opposition within its ranks or to avoid making decisions that are only about rewarding friends and punishing enemies.

Institutions. Gadhafi abolished the few political institutions that existed when he seized power.  In their place he built a system of highly personalized, centralized control. In both Egypt and Tunisia there are potentially democratic institutions such as parliaments and experience with elections, albeit rigged and distorted elections.  And there are formal governmental structures and bureaucracies at the local and provincial level, that actually allowed for some citizen involvement.  The Egyptian and Tunisian regimes were repressive and controlling, but they did not even try for the almost total control that Gadhafi’s regime attempted.  The new governors of Libya will have to start scratch.

Leaders. The rebellion against Gadhafi started rather suddenly and unexpectedly in Benghazi.  As it spread a group of leaders emerged, but it has been marked as much by infighting and instability as anything else.  Some of the prominent members of the National Transitional Council are known quantities, others have vaulted overnight from obscurity.  If they cannot quickly learn to act together and reach agreement on immediate issues, we can expect confusion and chaos and nostalgia for the strong man who could get things done.

Dynamics.  Perhaps Libya’s biggest asset in the near future is the availability of advice and support for building a new government from the UN, Europe and the US.  Foreign advisors and experts can nudge people in the right direction and the promise of aid can encourage good behavior.  But the defects in the political culture and fragility of any new institutions will remain very high hurdles for political development. 

Side note on oil  Libya has great potential oil wealth.  It will require substantial technical assistance and new investment to compensate for the years of neglect under Gadhafi and the damage done to facilities during the recent fighting.  Oil wealth is not the magic panacea that cures all the problems of the country.  In fact, countries with economies dependent on oil are more likely to suffer from the “resource curse.” (Oil is a capital intensive rather than labor intensive industry.  That means it does not create a large number of jobs.  Great oil wealth leads to spending on consumption, such as subsidized education, housing, or fuel rather than investment in job creating industries.  Countries reliant on oil are almost always plagued by high levels of corruption.)

Results. The first challenge facing Libya’s new leaders is physical security.  The national army is gone, the police force is gone.  The rebel armies, by most accounts, are a coalition of locally based militias with a relatively weak national command.  If the rebel forces cannot quickly be reorganized into a cohesive force with top down command and control, then ordinary Libyans will be at the mercy of whomever in the neighborhood has guns.  In addition to the grievances everyone has against Gadhafi, there are local grievances against those who were favored by Gadhafi, or collaborated with the regime.  If the people with guns are not controlled, Libyan could become the scene of score settling bloodshed.

For a long time the most central part of being Libyan has been how you survived under the Gadhafi system.  The exhilaration of victory and sense that this is a shared experience that cuts across traditional regions or communal relationships could be the start of a new Libyan national identity.  But the thrill of victory wears off very quickly and the routine challenges of every day life take over.  Unless the new leadership can build on the current good feelings and maintain a sense of unity, Libyan politics could degenerate into regionalism and factionalism.

Thumbs up, thumbs down.

Libya is not going to blossom into a recognizable democratic system overnight, or even over the next decade.  If the standard is perfection, Libya will be judged a failure.  It is easy to say that the standard should be “good enough, all things considered.”  Each of us is going to have decide whether what is emerging in Libya is good enough.

The Coptic Protest Turns Violent

Last Sunday’s violent confrontation between Egypt’s military and protesters that left dozens of people dead and as many as 300 injured threatens to become a major crisis in Egypt’s political evolution.  The military’s carefully crafted image as the most authentic national institution, above politics and ideology, was reinforced when the army took a hands off approach to last spring’s demonstrations and then took control of the country to guide it to democracy.  Despite some serious criticism about the pace of reform, centering on the continuation of Mubarak-era emergency laws and some of the provisions for parliamentary and presidential elections, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has retained widespread legitimacy and approval.  That is now threatened by what appears to many Egyptians as the violent suppression of a legitimate protest march.

What stands out to many observers is the centrality of the Copts in the original protest.  I suspect that many people, hearing that a “Coptic Christian” protest turned bloody did a double take.  Christians in Egypt?  Isn’t it Muslim like the rest of the Arab Middle East? 

The answer is yes and no.  Yes, Egypt is a Muslim country in the sense that around 90 percent of the people are Muslim, but no, Egypt is officially a secular republic and non-Muslims play a significant role in Egyptian life.  The arrival of Islam in the 7th Century resulted in widespread conversions and a profound transformation of local cultures, but it also left space for religious minorities.  The Copts of Egypt are a good example.

At the time of the arrival of conquering Arab armies and Islam, Egypt was a Christian country, part of the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Orthodox world.  The great schism between Rome and Constantinople had occurred some 200 years earlier.

Islam in Egypt, as elsewhere, was spread from the top down, as the religion of a conquering force.  Some people converted to Islam because of its values and spiritual appeal.  Others because it was expedient.  The Quran makes a clear distinction between “People of the Book” and pagans.  The People of the Book are Jews and Christians to whom God sent prophets, beginning with Abraham and ending with Jesus Christ.  The fact the Jews and Christians worship one God, Allah, even if they don’t know His proper name, and their religions are based on the teachings of God’s prophets,  even if they misunderstand and misrepresent them, means that they can be tolerated within a community dominated by Islam. 

Thus significant Jewish and Christian communities persisted in the Middle East, most often in cities.  As long as they paid extra taxes and did not challenge the dominance of Islam and Muslims, Christians and Jews could govern themselves and run their domestic affairs as they saw fit.

Because Jews and Christians were second class citizens and because they were not bound by Islamic law, they tended to specialize in occupations that were forbidden to devout Muslims, like banking and money lending, or were nasty and smelly, like tanning hides.  Banking and money lending became a significant source of wealth for some Jews and Christians.  The Quran forbids usury which was traditionally interpreted as any interest charges on loans.  But if non-Muslim, lower status people wanted to risk going to hell by meeting the obvious need for banking and finance, that was their look out. 

Side note: traditional Christian teaching in Europe equated charging interest with usury and condemned it.  Think Shylock in the Merchant of Venice.  As capitalism emerged after the Renaissance, the teaching was modified to damn “excessive” interest so good Christians could get in on the action.

In general Jewish and Christian communities in the Middle East fared far better than Jewish communities in Europe.  There was nothing remotely like the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 15th Century.  In fact, most of the Jews expelled from Iberia quickly resettled in North Africa and the Middle East.  There was nothing like the Inquisition and forced conversion, and there were no wide spread pogroms or virulent anti-Semitism.  But Christians and Jews always had much lower social status, were always heavily taxed and barred from many occupations and were always acutely aware that they were a tolerated minority, not full members of the larger community.  And they could always be scapegoated in times of stress and turmoil.

When Europe began to impinge heavily on the Middle East in the early 19th Century, it affected the status of religious minorities, especially Christian communities.  Christians were seen as more reliable and “more like us” than Muslims and were preferred in the colonial civil service and wealthy Christian families were more eager to send their sons to the Sorbonne or Oxford to be educated.  This cut both ways.  It led to the economic and social advancement of some families.  Some of the prominent figures in various nationalist movements in the early to mid 20th Century were Christians.  Copts were especially prominent in Egyptian intellectual and political life.  The Coptic Christian Butros Butros-Ghali capped his career in Egyptian government by serving as foreign minister before becoming UN Secretary General.  But the apparent pro-Copt bias of the British led to resentment against them and the perception that they weren’t really loyal Egyptians.  This was especially noticeable in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Egypt was struggling for real independence form Britain.

Egypt has seen growing influence from groups who want a more socially conservative, explicitly Islamic society.  As a more Westernized, non-Muslim minority, Copts have often been targets of harassment and vandalism. Coptic communities have looked to state authorities to protect them and under the old regime the security forces were generally ready to help by suppressing radical Muslim groups. The fact that Copts are seen in some quarters as sympathetic to the old regime makes them more vulnerable now that Egypt is in the midst of political and economic insecurity.

The Sunday march began as a protest against the desecration of a church in Aswan province and the failure of the local authorities to do anything about it.  Everyone agrees on that; then it gets murky.  Many sources agree that the marchers were joined by other Egyptians who are concerned about broader principles of democracy and freedom as well as supporting the rights of Copts as Egyptian citizens. And joined by some who are unhappy with the military regime in general.  The marchers were apparently set upon by “thugs” armed with clubs and iron bars and, by some accounts, guns.  The security forces either did nothing initially or actively aided the attackers.  Everyone agrees that shots were fired; at first the military blamed the marchers claiming that 13 soldiers were dead.  (That claim has largely disappeared in the last couple of days.)  Hospital authorities state that several of the dead were crushed by vehicles; the army denies that they ran over anyone with tanks or armored personnel carriers.  The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has announced an investigation. 

I think much rides on this investigation.  I am pretty sure most politically active Egyptians have already made up their minds about what really happened and will accept the findings of a military run investigation only if it fits with their preconceived narrative of a shocking military assault on innocent civilian demonstrators.  Anything that looks like a cover up or whitewash will be met with open skepticism and could lead to renewed demonstrations.  It is important to keep in mind that for the Egyptian military, stability is the supreme value.  Preserving the system that puts the military front and center as the symbol of nationals unity and patriotism and has made the senior officers wealthy and privileged is the first priority. Mubarak was pushed out because he and his behavior had become a source of instability.  Democratic reforms were embraced by the senior military officers because they seemed to offer the best chance at restoring stable government and avoiding a real revolution.  If demonstrations, especially violent demonstrations like the attack on the Israeli embassy and Sunday’s march, begin to break out in Egypt, the military may decide that military dictatorship is the only option.

The Palestinians at the UN ... Does It Matter

The Palestinian Authority has applied to the UN Security Council for admission to the United Nations as a full member.   The application will be sent to a committee of the Council and if it is supported at that level and brought up for a vote, the United States will veto.  Action will shift to the General Assembly and the Palestinians will most likely seek upgraded observer status, perhaps as a “non-member state.” 

This is the culmination of a process that began shortly after the latest attempt by the United States to broker peace talks blew up last winter in a dispute over a freeze on settlements in the West Bank.  It is not a seismic shift in the landscape of Middle East conflict nor is it “... a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing ...”  It is a significant moment with consequences.

There are so many dimensions to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and the issues cut so deeply into people’s sense of themselves and their existence, that it is impossible to discuss it without implicitly taking stands and introducing bias.  There is no clinically detached language, no omniscient observer prospect.  All I can claim is a serious attempt to avoid unreflective partisanship.

[If only it were that simple ... I once read an article analyzing the conflict over “Jerusalem” which argued that you could remove that intensely emotional issue from the equation by renaming the city.  The author did not offer any suggestions.]

The United Nations arena.

Since the application for recognition is being considered right now, let’s start with trying to disentangle several ideas.

1) What does it mean to be a “sovereign, independent, equal nation-state”

Maybe the noted international legal scholar Frank Zappa said it best, “You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons but at the very least you need a beer.”  Professor Zappa’s more formal colleagues would cite three conditions: defined territory, population, and a functioning government.  Ultimately each of those is a political criterion, decided upon by other nation-states.  The real criterion is: you’re a nation-state if enough other nation-states say you are.  And in the 21st century the members of the United Nations are the ones who decide who’s in and who’s not.

All states are equal at the UN but some are more equal than others.  It’s one state, one vote in the General Assembly (yup, the 1.3 billion citizens of China have the same formal status as the approximately 10,000 citizens of Tuvalu.)  But when one of the five permanent members of the Security Council votes “no,” that’s the end of that.

Regardless of the quality of your beer, you cannot be a full member of the UN until the Security Council says so.  But the General Assembly grants several different levels of observer status with different rights of participation in conferences and debates.  Right now the Palestine Liberation Organization is an official observer at the General Assembly and can participate in debates and discussions but not vote.  The Assembly, unencumbered by the veto and with an overwhelming majority of members sympathetic to the Palestinians, could easily decide to grant the Palestinian  Authority upgraded status as a non-member state.  This would matter for two primary reasons.  First of all, it is the Palestine Liberation Organization that has been recognized since the 1970s as the entity that is the observer.  The PLO is the umbrella organization formed to represent all the groups involved in the Palestinian resistance.  The largest group in the PLO has always been al Fatah, which was created and led by Yassir Arafat.  Changing the identity of the observer to the Palestinian Authority means it is a governing body not just a political party that is represented at the UN.  And that leads to the second crucial dimension -- “governing body” implies there is something to be governed, meaning a nation-state.  For everyone in Palestine, Israel, and the rest of the world who believes that a two state solution is the only viable option, this is a progressive step.  It will make it more difficult to maintain that the status quo is tenable.

The months of maneuvering leading up to the Security Council and General Assembly votes and the increased status and legitimacy for the Palestinian Authority will have consequences for all the major players in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All politics is local

The major immediate impacts of this week’s activity will play out in the internal politics of the Palestinians, Israelis, and the United States.  The most important longer term international impacts will be on the United States.

The Palestinians.

The territory of  Palestine is physically divided into two geographic and political regions: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  The West Bank (of the Jordan River) has some relatively fertile farmland and grazing areas and some relatively developed urban areas.  The Gaza Strip contains one very large, poor city and desert.  It is one of the poorest areas in the world.  Since the end of the Six Day War in 1967 the two areas have been physically separated by Israeli controlled territory.  But until 2007 there was a set of functioning government institutions (The Palestinian Authority) that united both sections. Since Hamas took control of Gaza and expelled both military and civilian representatives of the Palestinian Authority in 2007 the political divide has been as sharp as the physical separation.  The Palestinian Authority (PA), headquartered in Ramallah, shares effective control of the West Bank with the Israel Defense Forces.  One major difference between Hamas and the PA is public position on Israel.  The PA has been willing, even eager, to negotiate; Hamas has disavowed any contact with what they scornfully refer to as “The Zionist Entity.”  The failure of the U.S. sponsored talks, plus growing tensions between Palestinian villagers and Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley, have weakened the authority and credibility of the PA and allowed Hamas to build political support outside its base in the Gaza Strip.  If Hamas became the major force in both the West Bank and Gaza, it would end any hope of negotiations or other strategies for a Palestinian state and would pit the religiously conservative leadership of Hamas against the far more secular and modern majority of West Bank citizens.

The PA government in Ramallah has portrayed the entire UN saga as a triumph.  The official line is that for the first time Palestinians are controlling the initiative and forging a bold new path to the future.  The PA is organizing laudatory demonstrations (which both Israel and the PA fear will get out of hand and turn into real mass protests) to underscore the message that it can deliver the goods.  The great hope is that this diplomatic success, coupled with the real improvements in governance and delivery of services that have taken place in the past two years, will cut deeply into support for Hamas and forestall the kind of mass based expressions of discontent that have been the hallmark of the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere.

Israel

Public opinion surveys in Israel have been very consistent for a long time.  The hypothetical “average Israeli” believes 1) some kind of negotiated settlement that gives the Palestinians their own entity is a good thing; and 2) there is no one with whom Israel can negotiate right now because the Palestinian Authority does not control the Gaza Strip and Hamas as seen as a terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel.  The show at the UN will reinforce that perception, especially because the official line from the government of Israel that this “unilateral action” is contrary to the need for direct negotiations. 

In the short run a General Assembly vote to upgrade the Palestinian’s status will probably increase approval of the Netanyahu government’s hard line.  The UN is seen by many Israelis as hopelessly biased against Israel.  Many Israelis, inside and outside the government, are deeply ambivalent about the popular movements that have toppled Arab regimes, especially Egypt.  Mubarak may have been a dictator and oppressor, but he was a reliable Israeli ally, helping the effort to tame and control Hamas and stifling any public opposition to Israel.  The current interim regime is far less cooperative in the blockade of Gaza and the recent assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo is taken as a frightening example of the wide spread animosity that could be expressed by a democratically elected regime. 

The Netanyahu government is actually quite weak and not wildly popular in Israel.  In the last elections for the Knesset, no party got a majority of the seats so there had to be a coalition government.  Netanyahu’s Likud (the major conservative party) got fewer seats than Kadima (a centrist party.)  But Netanyahu put together a coalition of small parties that included a very hard line nationalist party largely representing immigrants from Russia and two extremely conservative religious parties to get a very slender majority. 

A telling example of both how hard line some parties are and how weak Netanyahu is came a year ago.  On the very day that Prime Minister Netanyahu met with President Obama to promote the new round of peace talks, the Foreign Minister gave a speech in which he said the talks were useless and bound to fail.  Not only does this reflect his and his party’s distaste for negotiations, but it also shows that Netanyahu cannot insist that members of his own cabinet support an official government position.

There were public demonstrations against the government’s economic policies this summer.  The tremendous influence of the 300,000 or so settlers living in the West Bank and the conservative religious establishment on policy are resented by many Israelis.  But the “rally ‘round the flag” effect of increased support for the government in the face of negative events abroad is likely to kick in.  There is a great fear in Israel of being isolated and friendless in the world.  The inability of the U.S. to control the outcome in the UN plus the growing role of Europe (which is seen as pro-Palestinian) will reinforce that fear.  Even those in Israel who have been sharply critical of Netanyahu for picking a fight with President Obama and blame Netanyahu for the deterioration of the US-Israeli relationship are likely to show more support.

The United States

Support for Israel is coming to play an unprecedented role in American partisan politics.  American Jews have long been concerned about Israel for obvious reasons.  But this has never translated into a monolithic, unthinking, automatic approval of whatever the current government does.  Increasingly conservative, evangelical Christians have become strong partisans of Israel.  Readers of the Book of Revelations know that restoration of Israel is a precursor to Armageddon and the end times and Second Coming.  And that has translated into a knee-jerk, uncritical support for Israel.  The position of some evangelicals that Islam is evil and satanic reinforces the bias.

Prime Minister Netanyahu was warmly applauded when he addressed a joint session of Congress, even when he directly repudiated the positions of the United States government. Seemingly obscure and quite conventional statements of U.S. policy, such as the status of the 1967 borders as a starting point for negotiations, have been met with sharp criticism and damned as “selling out” Israel. 

The idea that “politics’ stops at the water’s edge” and foreign policy is the particular domain of bipartisan warmth and fuzziness has always been more fantasy than fact.  But it is very rare for a hot button foreign policy issue to become so embedded in rigidly partisan politics.

Many observers think Republican strategists see portraying anything less than complete agreement with the Netanyahu government as the same thing as being anti-Israel as the wedge issue that will split a significant portion of the Jewish vote away from its customary home in the Democratic party. The conventional wisdom is that the Republican candidate won the recent special election in New York city because he appealed directly to conservative older Jewish voters by blaming Obama for all the difficulties with the Netanyahu government and for not backing Israel completely.   Conservative Republicans have already begun to try to use the issue, sometimes in bizarre ways.  For example, over 40 Republican members of the House of Representatives issued a call for Israel to annex the West Bank and make it part of Israel.  (Why do I think that is bizarre?  It would essentially make Jews a minority in the expanded Israel.)

The White House is going to try to spin the UN actions as anything other than a major defeat for the United States.  That will be a major challenge because the U.S. has worked very hard for months to avoid a Palestinian application for full membership that we would have to veto. 

I think this week has very significant international implications.   The Palestinian application for full membership will be interpreted as sign that the Palestinians no longer regard the U.S. as an honest (albeit strongly biased) broker in potential peace talks.  The U.S. is widely perceived to have failed to exert any influence over Israel when it could not get even a very temporary freeze on settlement activity.  The assumption the U.S. is the indispensable player in peace talks because of its influence on Israel has been shattered.  And now the U.S. seems unable to influence either the Palestinians or the overwhelming majority of UN members.

While I think this is significant as another symptom of the evolution of an international system in which the United States is not as dominant as we have been (a topic for another entry), I do not think it affects the prospects for an enduring agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, which look as distant today as they did twenty years ago. 

The Troubled Euro Zone

For most of us, Europe is a nice place to visit but we wouldn’t want to live there.  And we pay little attention to European politics and even less, except when we’re trying to exchange dollars into euros, to European economics.   We may be aware that something has been going on this summer -- rowdy demonstrations in Athens and Madrid, riots in London, gyrations in stock markets that mirror the turmoil on Wall Street -- but it’s all been pretty peripheral. 

As I write this, there are pervasive worries that Greece will default on its debt, that other European economies will tank, that the euro is destined for the scrap heap and the grand scheme for European integration represented by the European Union will falter.

There are three big points that I think are worth commenting on.

1) The problems that have prompted austerity programs in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and the UK are to some extent very much like the problems afflicting the U.S. economy, since they revolve around short term deficits and long term debt.  And to a significant extent they are quite different because of the size and nature of the U.S. economy.  You can understand some of the underlying dynamics of the problems in Europe by thinking about the U.S. economy.  But you need to avoid the facile comparisons that equate our short and long term issues with the smaller and weaker European economies.

2) The fact that these countries are members of the European Union and the euro zone adds a dramatically different dimension to national economic issues.

3) The so called “Neo-liberal Washington Consensus” continues to dominate international economics.

1)  The roots of the European Crisis 

The collapse of the financial system that began with the bursting of the housing bubble in the United States in 2008 spread rapidly to the rest of the advanced capitalist economies in Western Europe.  The same lousy mortgages that were bundled, “securitized” and sold to U.S. investment banks and insured by folks like AIG were sold to European banks as well, with drastic effects on the ability of businesses and governments to borrow money when those mortgages turned out to be worthless.

Many governments run deficits – spend more money than they raise in taxes in a given year.  Mainstream economists generally agree that some deficit spending is actually a good idea if 1) it is being used for long term investments, like infrastructure, that increase economic growth (which increase tax revenues over time and – at least in theory – pays for itself); 2) it is being used “counter cyclically” – to stimulate demand during a recession or depression (and the other side of the coin is that governments cut spending and/or raise taxes when times are good to prevent inflation.) But if the deficit is for current consumption, that is to pay benefits or wages or for other programs, then it is generally regarded as a bad thing.    

Governments borrow money 1) directly from international banks and 2) on a larger scale by selling bonds that pay interest over a number of years.  The “collateral” for government loans is future tax revenues.  In the imaginary perfect world, a government would use the borrowed money to expand economic activity and its taxes and end up with enough extra money in the long run to pay back the loan or pay off the bonds.  In the short run, the borrowed money would improve the economy enough to let the government pay the annual interest on the loan or bonds, what economists call debt service.  Things go rapidly downhill when the economy does not grow fast enough and the government has to make debt service payments by borrowing more money.  At some point banks and investors stop making loans or buying bonds (or they start charging such high interest that the government can’t afford it.) 

This is very over simplified but, I hope, not such a cartoonish sketch that it is misleading.  Any discussion of deficits and debt is complicated by the recent brouhaha in Congress over the debt ceiling that obliterated the difference between short term and long term effects of spending and borrowing.  In Europe, as in the United States, annual budget deficits and the national debt are are different phenomena.

Greece (along with Portugal, Spain and Ireland) is in deep trouble right now because the government has consistently run deficits to pay for current programs and benefits and the underlying economy is weak.  Greece is a small country with – by European standards – a relatively low standard of living.  That means there is not a huge domestic market and exports become far more important than they are in the U.S.  But Greece does not have a large export market ... it is not a major agricultural producer, it is not a hot bed of high tech industry, it is not a manufacturer of machinery, etc.  Thus the long term prospects for sustained economic growth in Greece at rates that will let the government pay the current bills and keep long term debt at manageable levels are bleak when the global economy itself is faltering.

The Greek situation is quite different from the stronger European economies like Germany and France.  The United Kingdom is different from both the weaker economies like Greece or Portugal and the situation in France and Germany.  The UK does have a pretty strong economy that has been battered by the global financial crisis.  The austerity budget the government adopted last spring that slashed a lot of spending aimed at the poor and working class had, I think, as much to do with the Tory’s ideology as it did with presumptively dispassionate economic analysis.

The United States is distinctly different from both the weaker and the healthier Western European economies.  The U.S. differs from the smaller and weaker economies because our deficit issues are not driven by a fundamentally weak economy but by decisions on financing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, tax policy, and the impact of the 2008 financial meltdown.  Our big problems are short term, not long term.  And the U.S. differs from Germany and France both  because of the sheer size and diversity of our economy and because of the role of the dollar as the world’s premier reserve currency. 

 But, as the cliche goes, I digress.

2) The Euro zone

From its formal inception in the Treaty of Rome in 1956, the European Union has reflected two very different visions.  One the one hand, the goal has been to create a political, social and economic unit that would transcend and render irrelevant the component nation-states.  The nationalism blamed for the bloodshed of the 19th and 20th centuries would be replaced by a pan-European identity.  On the other hand, the vision has been a much narrower focus on economic cooperation between nations and the goal the elimination of barriers to trade, not some larger transcendent “New Europe.” 

One vision leads to an emphasis on creating new institutions and fostering a common identity ... hence the European Parliament, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Council, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.  The other vision leads to an emphasis on the rights of nation-states and the limitations of “European” decisions compared to national decisions. 

Every major development on the path from the common market of 1956 to the Europe of today has generated skepticism from those who see traditional nation-states as the reality of politics.  The vision of a new Europe has been pronounced as dead or near dead time and time again.  So called Euro skepticism is especially pronounced in the United Kingdom.   The acronym PIGS, for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, complete with the negative connotations, works only in English. 

An important feature of European development, supported by both those who seek a new Europe and those who seek to improve cooperation among existing states, is the common currency, the euro.  The initial major impact of the new money was to make business in Europe far more efficient.  Heineken no longer had to translate its costs and profit margin from Dutch guilders to German marks to French francs to Italian lira, Portugese escudos, etc.  Heineken buys its raw materials in euros, pays its workers in euros and sells the beer in euros. 

The euro zone has not abolished national economies and differences in productivity and costs of doing business, including taxes and some government policies.  The only way a huge economic unit like the euro zone, composed of a number of somewhat distinctive smaller units, can survive is if there is relative uniformity in wages, hours, working conditions and other costs of doing business, including taxes and inflation.  The European Central Bank was created to encourage states to coordinate their economic policies.  When the global financial crisis hit and some vulnerable states were in bad shape, the ECB expanded its responsibilities and launched a series of plans to stabilize government finances and international bond markets.

In effect, the strong European economies tried to share some of their strength with the weaker links.  That exposed Germany and France in particular to pressures on their own economies and what is seen by critics as spending their taxpayers’ money on bailing out other governments. Good old timey nationalism has resurfaced, too, with critics wondering why hardworking, thrifty northern Europeans have to come to the aid of feckless Mediterranean types. 

Decision making in Europe is complicated and even experts in European politics have a hard time explaining exactly how the Commission and the Parliament and the Council interact.  The European Central Bank Board of Governor is composed of members from the central banks of member states and they reflect different perspectives on risk and inflation.  The result, in the eyes of many critics, is that the steps the ECB and the political leadership of the European Union have taken to deal with the problems of the past year and half, have been too little and too late and too confused. 

If Greece is unable to make the interest payments on its outstanding debt, then the bondholders will have to change their balance sheets.  And if international banks suddenly have less capital than they thought (because the Greek bonds are now worth less) then they will have to cut back on loans to businesses and to other governments.  This will further retard already sluggish recoveries.  If a default in Greece or elsewhere results in the collapse of the euro and a return to national currencies, that will not only make the short and long term economic problems in Europe worse, but it will disrupt the global economic system. This will have real, tangible effects on Americans.  For better or for worse, our well being is tied to people and events far beyond our borders.

3) The Neo-Liberal Consensus

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury are located within walking distance of each other in Washington, D.C. The number of economists working in those institutions or researching developmental economics in major research universities is quite small and many of them move back and forth between academic life and policy making at the IMF, World Bank or Treasury.    By the mid-1980s the professional economists had come to share a conventional wisdom about what Third World countries should do to spur economic development and came to apply that prescription to more developed countries as well.  The details and specific policy applications of this “Washington Consensus” differ to some extent, but all three global institutions accept the principles that governments in economic trouble should 1) open up their national economies to the globalized capitalist market system; 2) reduce the government’s role in the economy by privatizing the widest possible range of government activities; 3) slash government spending, especially on non-productive immediate consumption including the “safety net” programs.  The fact that the consensus is based on an updated version of the market capitalism first described by Adam Smith makes it “Neo-Liberal.” “Neo” because it is updated and revised, “liberal” in the 19th Century use of the term which is about 180 degrees from 21st Century progressive (since we don’t say “liberal” anymore) thought.

Like all prescriptions, this package is based on both empirical analysis and political values.  I think it is fair to say this approach is skewed in favor of the values and interests of the well off.  If governments have to sell bonds to investors, it is no surprise that the interests and preferences of those investors, be they rich individuals or managers of huge investment portfolios, cast long shadows over policy making.   It is no surprise that the prescriptions for Thailand, Kenya, Greece and the United States all involve immediate hardship for the poor and working class. 

I don’t mean to end this with a sneaky manipulation where you are supposed to think “Oh how fair, to punish the poor for the sins of the rich!”  The conventional wisdom argues that some short term distress may be the only guarantee of long term good times.  The political (moral) question is how much distress is justified.

A hundred years ago this all seemed simpler.  Nicaragua defaulted on its debt and the U.S. Marines went in and collected the taxes for several years until the debt was paid off.   The events of the past three years, initiated by the collapse of the housing market in the United States, have underscored the growing importance of a global economy.  The short term question is whether Greece and the rest of Europe can survive the current crisis.  The long term question is whether countries can act together to increase the benefits of the new economy and shield everyday people from the potential harms.








   

Libya Is Not Deja Vu All Over Again

The story of regime change Libya provides an interesting contrast with Iraq.  At the risk of pushing the comparison too far, it seems as if the U.S. and NATO consciously set out to do the opposite of what had been done in Iraq.

Specifically:

The war in Iraq was an American war.  The “coalition of the willing” really wasn’t.  The British did send some soldiers and a few other American allies sent token forces, but almost all the roughly 600,000 soldiers and contractors were American.  The fact that this was a unilateral American an adventure cost us a great deal in terms of international influence and leadership, not to mention the impact on the budget.  (This was also a stark contrast to the first Gulf War that expelled Saddam’s army from Kuwait. The first President Bush did put together an international coalition.)

In contrast, the faces of the fighters on the ground are Libyan. Contrast the pictures from Tripoli of Libyans celebrating with the iconic shot of the American tank toppling the statue of Saddam in Baghdad.   The NATO air strikes in Libya over the past five months have mattered but they are not the central story.  The handful of western operatives on the ground have been nearly invisible. We have to assume that the intelligence services of several NATO countries were involved in getting arms into the rebels’ hands but that rates no more than a footnote in the drama.   The NATO intervention itself was clearly collective operation, with France and Britain leading the way.  Ironically that has led to criticism in the United States that Obama did too much by committing any U.S. forces without Congressional approval and that he did too little, by “leading from behind” and not using all the available aircraft.  (That unfortunate phrase may be a symptom of how rapidly events moved and the U.S. policy evolved -- no one had second or third thoughts about how badly it would play.)

Operation Iraqi Freedom relied on American military might.  It started with the “shock and awe” of the air assault and ended with almost 250,000 American troops on the ground.  More importantly, the overall strategy in Iraq was conceived of in military terms.  Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were the chief architects, not Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice.  The State Department and CIA were relegated to the sidelines as the central decisions were being made.   Little attention was given to post conflict issues.

In contrast, the Libyan operation seems to have been strongly focused on what happens after Gadhafi fell.  For example, the military authorities running the occupation of Iraq almost immediately disbanded the army and police forces.  And shortly after that, as part of the “de-Baathification” effort, essentially gutted all institutions.  But even as Tripoli was under siege, the U.S. government and others were urging the Libyan rebels to maintain the few governing institutors Gadhafi had allowed to exist. 

Side note: an interesting similarity between the two cases is the fact that the professional military was not very enthusiastic about either one.  The objections were operational and in the Iraq case revolved around fears that we were not committing a large enough force.  In the Libyan case, the concerns were not using adequate force and the inherent ambiguity in the mission.  (Senator John McCain does not make things up, he frequently gives speaks for the military professionals who are constrained from speaking out.)

The U.S. was deeply involved in the organization of a new government for Iraq.  The Vice President’s office, the Department of Defense, the CIA and the State Department all had their favorites among the exile community and did what they could to give them prominent roles.  The interim constitution created by the Coalition Provisional Authority (i.e. the U.S. occupation) designed a political system based explicitly on ethnic and religious distinctions.  That is hardly the sole cause of Iraq’s current problems but it made it nearly impossible for those politicians who sought to bridge the Shi’a-Sunni divide and the Arab-Kurd differences. 

NATO and the U.S. have been scrupulous about keeping their distance from the internal workings of the National Transition Council in Libya, even though everyone has their friends among the Libyan expatriate community.  The leadership has evolved largely as the result of internal Libyan politics, not the maneuvering of outside patrons. That means we know less about the key players than we did in Iraq in 2005 and that outside actors have less control over the decisions the NTC will take.  But it also means the NTC does not have the albatross of foreign intervention around its neck.

A final contrast has hurt the Obama administration.  The invasion of Iraq came after a prolonged campaign to justify it to the public.  It was a war of choice. A variety of rationales was advanced: Weapons of Mass Destruction, complicity in 9/11, Saddam as uniquely evil, democratizing the Middle East, protecting Israel, enforcing UN Security Council resolutions.  At times it almost seemed like a political campaign with a message of the week and something for everybody.   

The Libyan intervention was unexpected and unplanned. The Obama administration was treating the Libyan uprising as it had treated other moments in the Arab Spring, making sympathetic noises but keeping its distance.   (This, like all policies, was supported by different people for quite different reasons: avoiding the risk of having the protestors tarnished as American agents, preserving relationships and ties with incumbent regime elements, a preference for stability and the devil you know.)  In general the administration was all for regime change but not via direct U.S. intervention.

I think the fears of a massacre of civilians in Benghazi created a sense of crisis and a rather hurried decision to cooperate with the French and British who were strong advocates of intervention.  There was no time to lay the domestic political groundwork, no time to float various rationales to see which ones worked, no time to develop public opinion. Gadhafi the wacky goofball dictator made a far less scary villain than Saddam Hussein.  The long term regime change strategy was swamped by the short term humanitarian intervention.  The careful distinction between use of force to protect people and reliance on political means to support regime change is too fine a point to maintain when cruise missiles are streaking overhead and fighter planes are bombing tank columns. 

The invasion of Iraq was followed by an insurgency, a near civil war, de facto separation of the Kurdish region, a large number of refugees, and an inability to resolve the most basic issues facing the country. Certainly U.S. policy was not the sole cause of all that, but it was an important contributor. 

Libya faces greater challenges now than Iraq did in 2003 after the invasion.  Clearly the United States, NATO and/or any other international actor are not going to step in to try to guide (or manipulate) Libya’s development.  The Obama administration is hoping that a combination of humanitarian and technical aid plus coaxing and encouragement from the sidelines will be enough to help Libya avoid the doom and gloom outcomes that some analysts fear. 

The long term implications for American politics are not clear.  The Obama people will certainly claim this as vindication for their strategy.  Rightly or wrongly, the administration will be blamed by its critics if things in Libya go badly ... with widespread bloodshed and retaliation, for example, or the emergence of a nationalist, anti-Western regime.   But I am not sure this episode will make some great new departure in U.S. foreign policy, as some people have suggested. It is more likely to recede quickly into the background, much as the Clinton administration’s air war in Kosovo has been largely forgotten.  Hmm ... there may be some deja vu here after all.