Violence and political change

I finished all 483 pages of Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order today. What a great book! I highly recommend it if you're interested in human history and political, social, and economic development.

Given the scope of the book and the many millenia it spans, I don't feel up to the task of summarizing it right now. So I'll just share this quote on the role of violence in political change that I found interesting:

The ability of societies to innovate institutionally thus depends on whether they can neutralize existing political stakeholders holding vetoes over reform....

The stability of dysfunctional equilibria suggests one reason why violence has played such an important role in institutional innovation and reform. Violence is classically seen as the problem that politics seeks to solve, but sometimes violence is the only way to displace entrenched stakeholders who are blocking institutional change. The fear of violent death is a stronger emotion that the desire for material gain and is capable of motivating more far-reaching changes in behavior. We already noted ... that economic motives like the desire to put in place a large irrigation system were highly implausible causes of pristine state formation. Incessant tribal warfare or fear of conquest by better-organized groups is, by contrast, a very understandable reason why free and proud tribesmen might agree to live in a centralized state.

Fukuyama cites the disagreement over slavery in the U.S. as a conflict that "could not be solved under the Constitution and necessitated a war that claimed more than six hundred thousand American lives." And as a consequence, the power of the federal government expanded significantly.

He also makes the claim that accountability in political systems is not sufficient to support good governance, arguing that the emergence of modern liberal democracies requires "a relative balance of power between a cohesive state and an equally well-organized society that can defend its interests." While the rarity of that condition explains why the English parliamentary case is unique rather than typical, the increasingly free flow of ideas since the Industrial Revolution has allowed other nations to more readily borrow and adapt such institutions to their own needs. Still, the success of externally imposed nation building is limited by the degree to which a society can be mobilized on its own behalf...

Turning the page: Obama, Iraq, and America

Marc Ambinder has a great annotation of President Obama's Oval Office address on the end of combat operations in Iraq. Worth a read. And worth watching. As a summer of mosque controversies, deepwater disasters, and bleak economic news comes to an end, even I have to admit to a bit of Obama fatigue and political indifference. Watching the president tonight... helped me to turn the page a bit on all of that.

I know tomorrow will offer more of the same as yesterday. But if we remember that ten years ago we all had different outlooks on the world than we now hold, we can hope that after another decade we'll be at a place that feels better than where we stand today.

(Video link)

First 500 days

First Read takes notes of what's happened in Obama's first 500 days of office:

Day 500: With hyperpartisan stories like the Romanoff job offer (dredged back into the news), the kickoff of the Blagojevich trial, and, of course, the continued oil spill, it might go unnoticed by some that today is Barack Obama's 500th day in office (though, some might argue TOMORROW is 500; We’ll let Judge Mark Knoller decide, but we digress). There's always a lot of hype surrounding a president's first 100 days, but Obama has now been in office five times longer than that marker and what a stretch it's been. On a day -- in a presidency -- when small-picture brushfire stories (like Romanoff) are dominating, here's a step back at the big picture and all that's gone on. It could almost read like Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”… Oil spill, Health care, Tea Parties, Financial reform, bailouts for cars and banks, the stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, Toyota, Haiti, L’Aquila, Iran's elections, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Israel flotilla, North Korea sinks South Korean ship, Afghanistan troop increase, underwear bomber, Ft. Hood, Times Square, Predator drones, Nobel Peace Prize, State of the Union/Bobby Jindal, Ted Kennedy. Scott Brown, Michael Steele, Sarah Palin resigns, Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, special elections, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, incumbent fever (Bennett, Specter, et al), Charlie Crist's party switch, Evan Bayh, Sex Scandals: The Appalachian Trail, John Ensign, Eric Massa, Mark Souder, Jim Traficant out of jail, announces independent bid, The Salahis, Carrie Prejean, It’s John Edwards’ baby, Rangel loses his gavel, The Replacements: (Blago/Burris, Gillibrand/Caroline Kennedy, Beau Biden/Iraq/hospitalization, Al Franken sworn in as a senator MONTHS after Election Day, The Gores separate. And, by the way, for a little more context, remember this: JFK, at Day 500, had not yet faced the Cuban Missile Crisis and his attorney general, RFK, had yet to order the integration of Ole Miss. or the University of Alabama.

Quote for this historic day

Listening to Republican Congressmen tonight, as well as conservative callers to C-SPAN, I was dumbstruck by the number of people claiming that Congress was somehow overriding the will of the people and ramming something down America's collective throat. Do they really believe that our government only does things that have more than 50% support in opinion polls? And if they believe that, how can they explain that the Iraq War continued long after the war lost support? It boggles the mind.

On that note, I thought this observation from Andrew Samwick was right on target:

I don't think anyone will hold up the bill that will pass as exemplary, but it does reflect elements of health care reform that Democrats campaigned on and won on in 2008. So I have a hard time seeing this as doing violence to the will of the people as it is typically expressed in our electoral system. Elections matter. This is how they matter.

Another conservative take on today's consequences from David Frum; he thinks passage of healthcare reform is a disaster for the Republican Party. And Ross Douthat, also on the right, is somewhat relieved that America will finally get the opportunity to see who is right about this bill: its supporters or its opponents. He is skeptical, but also hopeful.

And looking back on this historic day, it's important to note that Teddy Roosevelt campaigned for president on a platform which included national health insurance back in 1912. Almost 100 years later, we've finally achieved that goal. The New York Times has a timeline here.

Silver rebuts Brooks' Iraq analogy

Nate Silver at 538 rebuts David Brooks' Iraq analogy which I re-posted yesterday. Basically, Silver's point is that in both the Iraq War and healthcare debates, one side was able to successfully rally public opinion with lies and distortions. Rather than simply give up, Democrats need to stay the course but make their case more clearly. And they shouldn't abandon their principles and their 2008 electoral mandate because the GOP has decided to put lies about "death panels" ahead of the public good.

Politics and immediate gratification

Commenting on last night's election and the prospect of fading Democratic fortunes, as well as the Republicans' own failure to cement an enduring majority five years ago, the New York Times suggests that an FDR New Deal-kind of realignment in the American political landscape is unlikely in the 21st century:

On a deeper level, the fading dream of realignment also reflects our attitudes about permanence in a society that judges its digital TVs by their “refresh rates” — that is, the number of times per second that the pixels on the screen rearrange themselves to create a more eye-popping picture than the one that just existed. In an accelerated culture, our loyalties toward just about everything — laundry detergents, celebrities, even churches and spouses — transfer more readily than our grandparents could have imagined. Now we dispose of phone carriers and cash-back credit cards from one month to the next, forever in search of some better deal. Forget the staying power of an institution like Johnny Carson; when Jay Leno starts to feels a little stale, he is shifted to prime time, then shifted back to late night. It was probably never very realistic for modern political thinkers of either party to dream of a 50-year reign. This century’s tectonic realignment is more likely to last 50 months or maybe 50 weeks, depending on how long it takes voters to seek out the latest offer or the newest best deal.

So given the magnitude and complexity of some of our problems--climate change, peak oil, and the growth of entitlement spending, particularly for healthcare--how does Washington develop enduring solutions when political power shifts so quickly?

ALSO IN THE TIMES TODAY, David Brooks draws an interesting analogy in a conversation with Gail Collins about what Democrats should do next given Scott Brown's victory last night:

Let’s say we had a year-long debate in the run-up to the Iraq war. Let’s say at the end of that debate, 33 percent of Americans thought it was a good idea to invade Iraq, 46 percent thought it was a bad idea and the rest weren’t sure. Then let’s say that there were a bunch of elections in places like New Jersey and Virginia in the middle of this debate and George Bush’s party lost them all badly. Let’s say at the end of this debate there was a senate race in Wyoming in which a Democratic candidate made preventing the war a central plank in his campaign. Let’s say Bush went out to Wyoming and told voters they had to support the Republican to save the Iraq invasion. And let’s say the Democrat still went on to win that Wyoming Senate seat by more than 5 percentage points.

Would you have advised George Bush under these circumstances to go ahead and invade Iraq? Would you have advised him to call a special lame duck session of Congress to push through a war resolution before the new senator could be seated? Would you have advised him to invent some legislative trick so he could still have his invasion? Or would you have said, George, I know you really want to invade Iraq. I know you think an invasion will do a lot of good for the world. But the American people are pretty clear about this issue. Maybe you should show a little doubt. Maybe you ought to listen and give this whole thing a second look.

FOR THE OPPOSITE POINT OF VIEW, namely that Democrats should move forward with getting healthcare reform legislation to President Obama's desk, Ezra Klein has a number of good posts today here, here, here, here, and here.

Iran, Islam, and our future

Andrew Sullivan wrote today about the difficulties of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state and the challenges that the West faces as the Muslim world finds its way in the 21st century. Like him, I'm not highly optimistic. And I found some of my own thoughts echoed here:

I write this at the end of a decade that changed my politics. They changed because reality shifted. Globalization, technology and fundamentalism have reordered our post-Cold War world. The advantage lies with the asymmetrical, the nimble, the long tail, the lone actor. There is nothing the modern state can really do to stop this, and if it tries to assume the powers to have a chance, it will cease to resemble anything like the democracy or republic the Founders envisaged. We can panic and construct a Leviathan so powerful and invasive it will in the end destroy our freedoms, or we can hang in, do all we can to defuse ideological and theological tension, construct more effective means of defense and security, and outlast the Islamist wave even through what will be its many outrages and offenses.

This would be appeasement if strong military action were an effective alternative and could defeat the enemy. But if we have learned anything these past few years, it is that the mightiest military in the world cannot stop a lone fanatic eager to kill himself in order to kill countless others in a religious mission. Even if we were to transform Afghanistan, a Yemen would soon emerge. Even now after spending trillions on Iraq, we cannot stop al Qaeda returning when we leave to exploit sectarian divides.

What we need is sobriety, stoicism, vigilance and a determined defense of our values and the rule of law. We cannot save our civilization by junking it, by pre-emptive wars and torture and near-dictatorial executive power. And we cannot save it by politicizing every attack, thereby magnifying the power of one tiny terrorist with burnt balls to create havoc and division in the free world.

Our new mode of war

Michael Ventura at the Austin Chronicle has a keen sense of observation when it comes to America at war. In 2004 he wrote that "war is how civilizations make love," and his argument seemed sound to me. ("Lessons of Guernica")

In his December 4th column Ventura describes the changes in how we fight as a nation. No longer waging total war, we now seem to mire ourselves in endless conflicts:

In World War II the phrase often employed was "total war." Every walk of life participated in combat. Every citizen sacrificed for the effort. We paid for that war with higher taxes and war bonds. The objective was clear: "unconditional victory."

Now we have two mutually supporting strategies or models of war – and this has been true since at least the onset of the Vietnam conflict.

The primary, announced model is medical, as in surgery or therapy: We'll go in, heal the patient's ailment, fix what needs fixing, and leave. When we leave, everything is supposed to be better. Whatever the rhetoric, in reality victory is defined therapeutically – not winning, but solving a problem.

The underlying model, however, is very different: addiction. No matter what, and no matter the cost, we'll keep on doing what hasn't worked until it does. That is the very definition of addiction, with addiction's financial rule: If we don't have the money (and we don't), we'll beg, borrow, and become debt slaves until what can't be done is done.

They say everything goes faster now, and that's largely true of everything but war. With these co-enabling models of therapeutic and addictive war, war continues in a kind of slow motion. The objective is vague. It's often hard to tell who the enemy really is. The front line is everywhere and nowhere. We suffer far fewer casualties (partly because medical attention is better and more immediate), but war goes on and on and on.

Global Guerrillas explores this idea of limited war more fully in a post from 2006.

And on that note...

Ezra Klein is pretty damned good, too:

• One: Thoughts about the fact that neither the American people nor Congress are willing to actually pay for their wars.
• Two: The truth about political reporting. (And some evidence in support of his assertion here.)
• Three and Four: The limits of the modern presidency, and a House less powerful than the founders envisioned.

Moral dilemma for our times: drone warfare

I've been worried about the moral and practical implications of relying on robots rather than soldiers for three years now (an old post here). Roger Cohen is on the same wavelength in his latest New York Times op-ed piece, and Jane Mayer has a recent article in The New Yorker which I'm reading now.

From Cohen's op-ed:

When the United States went into Iraq in 2003, it had a handful of pilotless planes, or drones; it now has over 7,000. The invasion force had no unmanned ground vehicles; the U.S. armed forces now employ more than 12,000....

But as [Jane] Mayer notes, “The embrace of the Predator program has occurred with remarkably little public discussion, given that it represents a radically new and geographically unbounded use of state-sanctioned lethal force.”

These are targeted international killings, no less real, and indeed more insidious, for their video-game aspect. The thing about robotic warfare is you can watch people get vaporized on a screen in Langley, Virginia, and then drive home for dinner with the kids. The very phrase “go to war” becomes hard to distinguish from going to work. That’s a conflation fraught with ethical danger. The barriers to war get lowered.

President Obama has apparently ordered as many Predator drone strike in his nine months in office as George W. Bush did in his last three years as president. That's not the kind of change I voted for.

UPDATE

I finished the Mayer article. An excerpt:

Peter W. Singer, the author of “Wired for War,” a recent book about the robotics revolution in modern combat, argues that the drone technology is worryingly “seductive,” because it creates the perception that war can be “costless.” Cut off from the realities of the bombings in Pakistan, Americans have been insulated from the human toll, as well as from the political and the moral consequences. Nearly all the victims have remained faceless, and the damage caused by the bombings has remained unseen. In contrast to Gaza, where the targeted killing of Hamas fighters by the Israeli military has been extensively documented—making clear that the collateral damage, and the loss of civilian life, can be severe—Pakistan’s tribal areas have become largely forbidden territory for media organizations. As a result, no videos of a drone attack in progress have been released, and only a few photographs of the immediate aftermath of a Predator strike have been published....

Critics have suggested that unmanned systems, by sparing these combatants from danger and sacrifice, are creating what Sir Brian Burridge, a former British Air Chief Marshal in Iraq, has called “a virtueless war,” requiring neither courage nor heroism.... Meanwhile, some social critics, such as Mary Dudziak, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, argue that the Predator strategy has a larger political cost. As she puts it, “Drones are a technological step that further isolates the American people from military action, undermining political checks on . . . endless war.”

The article is worth a read considering the number of strikes and hundreds of people who are dying... they're not all terrorists, folks. What kind of people are we to simply turn a blind eye to a war being waged remotely in our names?

Also in the Mayer article, a quote from former Army Ranger Andrew Exum:

There’s something important about putting your own sons and daughters at risk when you choose to wage war as a nation. We risk losing that flesh-and-blood investment if we go too far down this road.

Ticking time bomb in the White House: selling the Iraq War

Frank Rich paints an ugly picture... President Bush and VP Cheney approved of the use of torture in their efforts to sell Congress and the American people on invading Iraq:

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.

Read his full column here.

Pakistan... are we too late?

With Obama we finally seem to have a president who understands the risk that a failed state in Pakistan would represent. But after reading this article, I'm worried that Bush may have wasted too much time in Iraq and that it may be too late for Pakistan:

Some analysts here [Islamabad] and in Washington are already putting forward apocalyptic timetables for the country. “We are running out of time to help Pakistan change its present course toward increasing economic and political instability, and even ultimate failure,” said a recent report by a task force of the Atlantic Council that was led by former Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. The report, released in February, gave the Pakistani government 6 to 12 months before things went from bad to dangerous.

A specialist in guerrilla warfare, David Kilcullen, who advised Gen. David H. Petraeus when General Petraeus was the American commander in Iraq, offered a more dire assessment. Pakistan could be facing internal collapse within six months, he said.

General Petraeus, in Congressional testimony last week, called the insurgency one that could “take down” the country, which is home to Qaeda militants and has nuclear arms.

Cheney supports Obama's plan to exit Iraq

On CNN's State of the Union today, former VP Dick Cheney told Jon King that he thinks Obama's plan to remove most U.S. troops by August, 2010, will be succesful. He also approves of the Presiden'ts decision to leave around 50,000 troops as a force after that date until a complete exit in 2011. And he thought Obama has done a good job of balancing his campaign promise to withdraw from Iraq with listening to commanders on the ground.

You'd never know any of that from reading CNN's story on the interview, though, which focuses on Cheney's belief that Obama is wrong for ending the torturing of detainees.

The realist-in-chief

President Obama discusses Afghanistan and the worldwide economic downturn in this wide-ranging interview with the New York Times.

With respect to Afghanistan, Obama suggests he's willing to seek common ground with moderates in the Taliban in order to help end the conflict there, a strategy similar to the one that led to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29570313/

Get out your reading glasses

If you've got some time on your hands, here's a 140-page summary of Obama's proposed budget.

Obama's plan to get us out of Iraq

Some highlights from his speech today at Camp Lejeune where he announced plans for withdrawing 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by mid-2010...

Words for the people of Iraq:

Now, before I go any further, I want to take a moment to speak directly to the people of Iraq.

You are a great nation, rooted in the cradle of civilization. You are joined together by enduring accomplishments, and a history that connects you as surely as the two rivers carved into your land. In years past, you have persevered through tyranny and terror; through personal insecurity and sectarian violence. And instead of giving in to the forces of disunion, you stepped back from a descent into civil war, and showed a proud resilience that deserves respect.

Our nations have known difficult times together. But ours is a bond forged by shared bloodshed, and countless friendships among our people. We Americans have offered our most precious resource – our young men and women – to work with you to rebuild what was destroyed by despotism; to root out our common enemies; and to seek peace and prosperity for our children and grandchildren, and for yours.

There are those who will try to prevent that future for Iraq – who will insist that Iraq’s differences cannot be reconciled without more killing. They represent the forces that destroy nations and lead only to despair, and they will test our will in the months and years to come. America, too, has known these forces. We endured the pain of Civil War, and bitter divisions of region and race. But hostility and hatred are no match for justice; they offer no pathway to peace; and they must not stand between the people of Iraq and a future of reconciliation and hope.

So to the Iraqi people, let me be clear about America’s intentions. The United States pursues no claim on your territory or your resources. We respect your sovereignty and the tremendous sacrifices you have made for your country. We seek a full transition to Iraqi responsibility for the security of your country. And going forward, we can build a lasting relationship founded upon mutual interests and mutual respect as Iraq takes its rightful place in the community of nations.

And to U.S. troops:

Finally, I want to be very clear that my strategy for ending the war in Iraq does not end with military plans or diplomatic agendas – it endures through our commitment to uphold our sacred trust with every man and woman who has served in Iraq.

You make up a fraction of the American population, but in an age when so many people and institutions have acted irresponsibly, you did the opposite – you volunteered to bear the heaviest burden. And for you and for your families, the war does not end when you come home. It lives on in memories of your fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who gave their lives. It endures in the wound that is slow to heal, the disability that isn’t going away, the dream that wakes you at night, or the stiffening in your spine when a car backfires down the street.

You and your families have done your duty – now a grateful nation must do ours. That is why I am increasing the number of soldiers and Marines, so that we lessen the burden on those who are serving. And that is why I have committed to expanding our system of veterans health care to serve more patients, and to provide better care in more places. We will continue building new wounded warrior facilities across America, and invest in new ways of identifying and treating the signature wounds of this war: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury, as well as other combat injuries.

We also know that service does not end with the person wearing the uniform. In her visits with military families across the country, my wife Michelle has learned firsthand about the unique burden that your families endure every day. I want you to know this: military families are a top priority for Michelle and me, and they will be a top priority for my administration. We’ll raise military pay, and continue providing quality child-care, job-training for spouses, and expanded counseling and outreach to families that have known the separation and stress of war. We will also heed the lesson of history – that those who fight in battle can form the backbone of our middle class – by implementing a 21st century GI Bill to help our veterans live their dreams.

(Video link)

Paul Krugman on Obama's budget

Krugman gives Obama's budget a thumbs up for its priorities and clarity:

Many will ask whether Mr. Obama can actually pull off the deficit reduction he promises. Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can.

Right now the deficit is huge thanks to temporary factors (at least we hope they’re temporary): a severe economic slump is depressing revenues and large sums have to be allocated both to fiscal stimulus and to financial rescues.

But if and when the crisis passes, the budget picture should improve dramatically. Bear in mind that from 2005 to 2007, that is, in the three years before the crisis, the federal deficit averaged only $243 billion a year. Now, during those years, revenues were inflated, to some degree, by the housing bubble. But it’s also true that we were spending more than $100 billion a year in Iraq.

So if Mr. Obama gets us out of Iraq (without bogging us down in an equally expensive Afghan quagmire) and manages to engineer a solid economic recovery — two big ifs, to be sure — getting the deficit down to around $500 billion by 2013 shouldn’t be at all difficult.

But won’t the deficit be swollen by interest on the debt run-up over the next few years? Not as much as you might think. Interest rates on long-term government debt are less than 4 percent, so even a trillion dollars of additional debt adds less than $40 billion a year to future deficits. And those interest costs are fully reflected in the budget documents.

John McCain approves...

Of Obama's plan to bring home from Iraq 100,000 troops over the next 19 months:

The reaction to the Iraq drawdown plan indicated an emerging consensus in the United States that it is time to begin getting out. While some leading Congressional Democrats grumbled about the size of the residual force, the drawdown largely won support across party lines, including from leading Republicans like Senator John McCain of Arizona, who lost year’s election to Mr. Obama after a fierce debate over Iraq.

Speaking on the Senate floor on Friday before the president’s speech, Mr. McCain credited the opportunity to pull troops out to the surge that Mr. Bush ordered two years ago with his support. But he cautioned that Iraq remains fragile, urging Mr. Obama to remain flexible and listen to military commanders.

“With these factors in mind, I believe the president’s withdrawal plan is a reasonable one,” Mr. McCain said. “Given the gains in Iraq and the requirements to send additional troops to Afghanistan, together with the significant number of troops that will remain in Iraq and the president’s willingness to reassess based on conditions on the ground, I am cautiously optimistic that the plan as laid out by the president can lead to success.”

Getting in the wayback machine

One year ago, Obama responded to Bush's State of the Union address:

(Video link)

Funny, he sounds more stern than I remember. But he also is sounds a whole lot like the guy who now occupies the Oval Office. So far, we have the president that Obama promised to be.

Suicides skyrocketing in the military

The military is reporting that they have 24 possible suicides in the month of January under investigation. That's more deaths than the numbers of soldiers killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Bring 'em home from Iraq.