Perhaps the Valerie Jarrett connection, and the idea that inside every Persian is an activist yearning to bend with the arc of history towards peace, are both at work.
Perhaps too the idea that ‘colonial’ oppression has generally been a force for ill: American military strength is only really morally justified by bending it towards international institutions and ideals of peace activism.
But, what do I really know?
From afar, I recall thinking our foreign policy was being driven by a rather naive grab-bag of Western secular humanism, activism and Model UN-type inexperience during the Obama years.
The logic led to empowering many who displayed adherence and allegiance to the ideas and the policy vision. Or maybe just more than usual.
We could well end-up having removed much ‘will’ of the international community by removing the economic sanctions in place against Iran; emboldening a deeply corrupt, dishonest regime seeking deliverable nukes, running guns, money and terrorism around the region.
We could make the likelihood of an arms race (in an unstable place where we really don’t want a nuclear arms race) as likely, potentially kicking the inevitable conflicts over deeper issues down the road.
What have we as American citizens gained in terms of security, economic interests and influence?
Adam Garfinkle at the American Interest: ‘The Anti-Cold War:‘ (comments are worth a read).
The Cold War was very dangerous, no doubt about it. We were all lucky to have gotten through it without a global conflagration. The anti-Cold War may be more dangerous still. So how lucky are you feeling?
There are a lot of ideas in the article, some of which may not be founded in bedrock, but which are quite interesting nonetheless.
My two cents (founded in the clay soil found here in my backyard, as I engage in fever dream):
If I’m Putin, I came up in the KGB, and became proficient in the often ruthless and efficient tactics practiced by the KGB up until and after the Soviet collapse. Intel analysis, deflection, corruption-management and misdirection are second-nature. Diplomacy is usually just a game of submission, especially with the former satellites. There are some very hard men around me, and I’m a hard man, too.
My country is wounded, but still has its pride, and I play it up for political gain and to solidify my position and those most loyal to me, making myself very wealthy and powerful in the process.
I’ve got genuine problems: The Baltics joined NATO, and many in Ukraine are trying to do the same. Chechnya is a mess and terrorizing Moscow from time to time. History is still going, oil-prices are down, and birth-rates don’t look so good.
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Two more cents (that makes four) on the progressive/Trump dynamic, and how this might influence foreign policy:
Progressive ideology in America has suddenly lost a lot of influence:
Such ideology is not antithetical to Communism, and usually collectivist, activist, and suspicious of free flows of capital and American business interests coming to the fore in American foreign policy, progressives easily unite against nationalist/conservative/neo-conservative interventionist claims to authority.
One major goal of progressives is to defeat the ‘oppressor,’ and his morally illegitimate claims to rule through use of the American military…sometimes in quite radical fashion.
The greatest leverage can often be had through international institutions, because they are typically the path of least resistance for the ideological/rationalistic goals of Progressivism: A better world is possible if people with shared progressive ideals can gain political power and influence enough to implement goals which claim liberation and radical liberation towards some knowable endpoint.
Progressives often claim the mantle of (S)cience, (P)eace, (R)eason and Enlightenment authority, but given the stuff of human nature, progressive political ideology tends to traffic in:
-Making sacred the ‘-isms’ (environmentalism, racism, sexism etc.and deploying them, when necessary, against all enemies).
-Cultivating shared moral sentiments and solidarity under shared political ideals, and unsurprisingly, often organizing hatred and re-sentiment against any who would oppose progressive goals…identifying such opponents as potentially ‘evil’).
With the election of Trump, a lot of people who share progressive goals have lost a lot of power/influence rather suddenly.
Trump as I see him:
A guy who’s probably harbored political ambitions for a while, and who has spent a majority of his life in the real estate/NYC real estate game. That world seems pretty tough, where knowing the right people, leveraging capital, risk, personal, political and business connections is key. I don’t know if I’d trust doing business with the man (not like I’d ever have the chance).
He’s clearly spent a lot of time on self-promotion and brand management, and seized on the profound populist resentment against D.C. more broadly in speech after speech, especially as it related to immigration. He ran openly against a lot of dominant ‘narratives’ found in the current media landscape (promising to absolve the cloud of racial guilt hanging over many heads), and was openly, refreshingly anti-PC.
A nationalistic, business-minded pragmatist capable of compromise and patience..drastically setting a new course for American interests?
A mildly authoritarian protectionist and absurd showman; a semi-celebrity who really won’t get over his desire for attention and who could really f**k things up?
What to hope for?
What to work towards?
Any thoughts and comments are welcome…as previously posted:
‘An odd moment in the announcement came when Putin mentioned his confirmed children, two adult daughters whom we’ve never really seen, though there were reports in 2010 that one of them was marrying the son of a South Korean admiral.’
A reader passed along a video of Bill Browder, who made a billion, lost much of it, and got a look at Russian politics, money, and power up close. The way he describes it: Corruption all the way to the top.
I wonder if any American operatives went under deep cover to Dschingis Khan concerts to better understand the German soul and its sentimental ties to Moscow:
‘Hezbollah is fighting against Sunni jihadists in Syria on behalf of the Iranian and Syrian regimes, but that doesn’t mean it has abandoned its war against Israel. If the Syrian regime doesn’t survive, Hezbollah won’t be able to receive high-grade weapon systems from Iran anymore. It already has a formidable missile arsenal and can now—unlike during the 2006 war—inflict significant damage on Tel Aviv and even Jerusalem if it dares’
‘All of this gets to a paradox of the war on terror. It has never been a war on the tactic of terrorism, and it has always been a war against networks of radical Islamists. But in order to wage that war, the U.S. has had to ally with Muslim countries and people, many of whom believe the state should punish apostates, adulterers and blasphemers.’
‘The P5/Iranian nuclear negotiations will not produce a deal, because no deal the Obama Administration can get would pass muster in Congress. The superficial thawing of U.S.-Iranian relations will refreeze; marginal violence in a new U.S.-Iranian shadow war will occur as Iran draws ever closer to breakout capacity. Israel will not strike Iran; the Obama Administration will try to buy time via a selected extension of the interim deal as the sanctions regime continues to fray.’
Full piece here. (Just click on the homepage and re-enter if the link doesn’t work)
‘Iran has not created the weaknesses and failures of the Arab world, but it has set out to deepen and exploit them. Whosoever does not understand this, which may include the aforementioned President, resembles the reality-challenged individual who thinks that one can affect the position of a shadow by doing things to the shadow.’
And what might the Ayatollah be thinking?:
One possibility:
‘In my view, the Supreme Leader’s main concern is domestic control and stability. I think he worries that a deal with the Great Satan might unleash all sorts of fermentation, especially among the young, who would interpret an agreement in very broad social terms. That would threaten the regime, forcing him to decide between co-optive reform, or unleashing the Basij to bash skulls, or oscillations of both. I don’t think he wants to do either if he can help it’
What about an unadventurous foreign policy, but still very risky nonetheless?
‘Writing on Iraq, he suggests that many troubles in the Arab world can be linked to America’s limited understanding of the region, thirst for oil, and need to deal with terrorism. He provides a chilling look at the life of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah, asserting that “the very normalcy of his upbringing and the old hedonism giving way to a sudden need for absolution are much more unsettling than the warning signs and the zeal of a true believer.”
When reality doesn’t line up with political promises, massaging the data to the point of absurdity becomes necessary.
‘The administration counted stand-alone dental plans in order to claim that 7.3 million people had signed up during the first open enrollment period. Without the addition of the dental plans, enrollment would have very slightly missed its target of 7 million enrollees. Moreover, simple arithmetic indicates that it is still counting them in its current claims about enrollment.’
Perhaps even some big data folks and (S)cience driven realists are realizing that when it comes to ideology and politics, technocracy and bureaucracy, the pursuit of truth is often left to bad masters.
Not a Cold War, really, but let’s have some strategy:
If you’re in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, you’re looking at Georgia, Ukraine and you’re own Russian populations, Putin’s actions and you’ve probably been thinking a lot lately.
‘As 2015 approaches, NATO finds itself confronted with the urgent need to address the fundamentals of deterrence and collective defense in general, and to go beyond the important symbols of “persistent rotations.”
Our author reviews Evan Osnos’ book about his 8 years spent living on the ground in China:
‘For its part, the government seems to be making efforts to get a grasp on public opinion, though they stem more from its need to buttress its own chances of survival than from any democratic instinct. Attempts at opinion polling have not gone well, mainly because most Chinese are wary about voicing criticism of the government to a stranger on the phone. Nevertheless, there is the sense that the leaders are aware that the ground is shifting. They just don’t know where it is shifting to—and no one else does, either. There is an obsession with establishing the “central melody” of the current culture, but the tune keeps slipping away.’
As previously posted:
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(Q & A starts at about minute 6:20)
This blog is still trying to better understand China. Troost traveled for months around the country, went with the flow, and wrote about his experiences.
Some takeaways: China’s undergoing rapid, almost seething, sociological, economic, and some political change (we’ll see how that pans out given the old Communist state structure and involvement in the economy). It’s got over a billion people, a huge landmass, and a long history, and can make individuals feel very small indeed.
What’s life like in Beijing for an American editing an English-language Business Magazine?
Interesting quote on author Eveline Chao’s censor:
‘I understood then the mundane nature of all that kept her in place. A job she didn’t like, but worked hard to keep. A system that would never reward her for good work, only punish her for mistakes. And in exchange: Tutors. Traffic. Expensive drumming lessons. They were the same things that kept anyone, anywhere, in place — and it was the very ordinariness of these things that made them intractable.’
Related On This Site: Kissinger says our relations with China are incredibly fragile, and that due to its own past, it may not fit as easily into the Western models of statecraft as some would think: From The Online WSJ: ‘Henry Kissinger on China. Or Not.’
‘What if the deal goes down in flames despite all we do? What if the Iranian regime is incapable of saying “yes” even to a fawning U.S. proposal—what if it, too, is under-institutionalized, vulnerable to the mystical whim of one sick old man? What if Obama smokes out the mullahs and forces them to admit that, yes, they seek nuclear weapons? What then?
How could this be good news? It will be good news because it will finally clarify what the real choices have always been. It will shut up all the half-brained pundits who have been telling us for years that an Iranian nuclear arsenal is deterrable, so why all the fuss? (To his credit, President Obama has been wise enough to reject this notion.)
With so much good news out there from the Middle East, I can barely wait for tomorrow’s headlines. But patience, patience.’
What about an unadventurous foreign policy, but still very risky nonetheless?
‘Don’t discount this sort of impulse. You may not be able to relate to it at all, but it’s real. War is hell–that’s for damn sure–but it’s also an incredible antitode to alienation and boredom.’
‘Fall or survive, Kobani has assumed an importance few could have anticipated, becoming the rallying cry for Syrian and Turkish Kurds as much as Halabja was for their Iraqi brethren. Moreover, Kobani’s plight has once again drawn the whole international community’s attention to the region’s Kurdish question.’
‘If you have to protest that you’re not something, that only goes to show that really, underneath it all, you are that something: for if you were not, you wouldn’t have to proclaim it. After all, a bear doesn’t have to go round proclaiming it’s a bear, that it partakes of ursitude; it just is a bear and everyone knows it.’
I tend to agree with the below, that the ACA will further remove health care decisions from many consumers.
‘One ray of sunshine might be an involuntary heightening of the contradictions: The structure of the Affordable Care Act, by removing health care decisions even further from consumers, all but ensures that costs will escalate even faster. At some point, most employers in America will only be able to afford catastrophic health insurance for their employees. If and when that irony busts onto the scene, perhaps real consumer dynamics will emerge, and perhaps America will stumble backward into a Singapore-style system.’
Many people have been brought onto Medicaid rolls under the ACA, and some onto the exchanges, but many incentives are simply backwards, such as inducing young people in their prime to buy-in with carrots and sticks. Under this law, you, me and everyone (in theory) will eventually be forced to join the government-run exchanges.
I could easily see a massive, health-care bureaucratic complex on the time horizon of a few decades; sprawling, good for the politically and culturally well-connected along with a large swathe of people who have enough money and freedom to access it and who would often have other options available, if necessary. They would be accessing near the top, too, where there would be higher-end facilities and better points of access, and this is also where the choice jobs and opportunities would be on the bureaucratic side, as I envision a generational conveyor belt moving through the suburbs, universities and on down to Washington (a permanent coalition of majority Democrats, if other bureaucracies offer any example). People with enough money always tend to have other options, and there would be winners and losers in this set-up just like any other.
Clearly, many poor and working poor would get more care than they got before, early childhood vaccinations and urgent care, some basic access and routine checkups, but again, in a world of limited resources, they would get promises but not always delivery. There would definitely be more availability for some and lots of brochures and ‘nudges’ that usually don’t work as advertised.
Of course, paying for these folks would be many others who are working poor and non-poor who could very easily be getting the short-end of the stick: Paying for all of this and perhaps getting very little in return and having no other options and virtually no political recourse. Such people would be paying for an immovable bureaucracy and more politicians controlling more of the money supply. They would be paying for more union control through the activists who benefit from the law along with the standard corruption and inefficiencies inherent in such systems. Such folks would sometimes be working against their own interests, disincentivized and unfree.
‘As I have noted before, there is only one type of reform that can make progress in meeting the three goals of a sensible health care system: cost reduction, quality improvements, and public access. That reform requires massive deregulation of the many market impediments that are already in place. Lower the costs, drop the excessive mandates, and thin out administrative costs, and people will flock back to the system voluntarily’
‘Mayor de Blasio’s executive order raising to $13.13 the minimum wage for workers at sites that receive some city subsidies is the topic of a news article in today’s New York Times. Via the American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Perry comes a reminder of a 1987 New York Times editorial that appeared under the headline: “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.” The two articles go well together.’
‘Will the President proceed to Option Worse? We cannot know because he does not yet know. Chances are, however, that if he does, he will do so reluctantly. That suggests that he will wait and temporize as long as possible while Option Bad fails, the result of which will be to produce the worst possible political optic, that of an America that is uncertain, deadly but still timid, uninspired and uninspiring, and above all unable to use its power to achieve its stated aims.
I do not envy our airmen, sailors and soldiers who must and will do their best under such circumstances. My heavy heart goes out to each and every one of them.’