Election 2008

I won't be voting for Barack Obama.

I trend libertarian on political issues. In general, I favor free markets, personal responsibility over government intervention, and issues handled at the proper level of governance. That means there are many things I think the federal government shouldn't touch, but I'm fine with it at the state or local level. I disagree with the Republican Party on abortion, assisted suicide, and gay rights, and have never been pleased at the religious right's involvement in setting positions. I frequently wish that there were more credible options than the Democrats and Republicans, who split my views on economics and foreign policy versus social issues. And I wouldn't have voted for Mike Huckabee, no matter who the Democratic candidate turned out to be. I'd probably have gone third party or write-in, given what I explain below, but I'm never a lock for the Republican Party.

This year, as so frequently in the past, I tend to go by process of elimination. It's a choice trying to find the lesser of two evils, because I've yet to find a candidate for national office that fully reflects my political positions and beliefs. The primary process rewards extremes, but I hunger for a moderate. I'm actually surprised that John McCain is the Republican nominee, because he's the one candidate who had a snowball's chance in hell at overcoming the Democratic advantage in this election.

My calculus in which presidential candidate to vote for is heavily weighted toward foreign and security policy, probably 60 to 70 percent. Add in another 10 to 15 percent for economic principles, and there's not much left over. I could agree with you on all the social issues, and you could agree with me on foreign and economic policy, and we could support different candidates depending on which issues we each think are most important.

There's a lot of noise in every election, issues that I could care less about (immigration) or that aren't really important (fashion). Both sides have acted in ways that make me wince. In multi-criteria decision making, experts recommend narrowing down the criteria to three to five big items that clearly differentiate between options. Thus, I tend to wave off a lot of things that have been big news over the past few months, because I can't be bothered and all they do is confuse the big picture.

There will be links below, if you want expansion of some of the things behind my thoughts. In general, quite a few of them are probably more partisan in tone than I'd wish, but it's been difficult to find objective news coverage this election cycle.

Foreign Policy

I thought about voting for Senator Obama, vaguely, back in the primaries when I was waiting for certainty on the Democratic ticket and all I knew was that he talked a lot about "hope" and "change." Then he said, during the Democratic debates, that he'd meet with Iran and Venezuala and North Korea without preconditions, and I was flabbergasted. Regardless of attempts to soften his position once the wider campaign got underway, that is what Obama said (there is video on YouTube), and he followed it, a bit later, with another position that took me aback (although I can't remember the details now, it could have been something to do with the United Nations, that bastion of inertia and deadlock, or maybe his opposition to keeping troops in Iraq).

Investigating his foreign policy stance more thoroughly, I realized that Obama's worldview is so different from mine that I can't support him. I lived through the Jimmy Carter years (my first memories of the wider world are the Iran hostage crisis), and Obama's positions are eerily similar to that administration. Multilateralism to the detriment of quick action. Diplomatic efforts over any military options. Economic sanctions that only work when they are universally supported or narrowly targeted. I trend hawkish on regions prone to crisis, because over and over and over again history has shown that talking to adversaries only works when they genuinely want to deal. There has to be good faith, and that's not possible when anything but threat is met with contempt. Perhaps Senator Obama's faith in diplomacy would alter once in office and dealing with the realities of the world, but it would be a steep learning curve and I don't want to rely on that when there are so many challenging regions the United States will have to address in the coming years.

Senator Biden's recent comments were mind-boggling only because Obama's running mate articulated my fears in public. Over the next year, likely trouble spots include Iran (nuclear program, support to Hizbollah and Iraqi insurgents), Pakistan (Taliban presence, fragile government, economic crises), North Korea (nuclear program, ballistic missile programs, potential famine), Venezuela (Hugo Chavez' efforts to distract from the failures of socialism with bellicosity), Russia (a bully, resurgent after their Georgian adventures), a rising China, as well as the perpetual lurkers of global pandemics, terrorism, and unforeseen events. During the campaign, Senator Obama has consistently responded to looming crises with comments that fundamentally misunderstood their nature and potential impacts. His preferred foreign policy approaches are not ones I can support.

The Foreign Policy Difference

America second

Biden's record of being wrong of foreign policy

Security Should Be the Deciding Issue

Global View

Charles Krauthammer -- McCain for President

The Economy

The second area where Senator Obama's positions concern me relates to his economic policy. Tax hikes and huge new spending programs? "Spread the wealth," as Obama so memorably answered Joe the Plumber? No. The word socialism has been thrown around a lot lately, and those measures definitely have its stench. Historically, socialism has almost always failed (I believe Scandinavia is the exception to the rule? Homogenous, low population, and oil reserves are the difference, if I’m recalling correctly). The Soviet bloc collapsed utterly, economies in ruins. China's communist party remains in power only because they began a shift to capitalism in the late 1980s. Cuba and North Korea have seen devastation once their Soviet and Chinese patrons withdrew support. And in Western Europe, where socialism never went as far, there was still stifled economic growth, raging unemployment, and economic stagnation.

Today, Venezuela can't keep the lights on, even though they're an exporter of oil, thanks to Chavez's socialist government.

Per the Wall Street Journal:

The sequence is always the same. High-tax, big-spending policies force the economy to lose momentum. Then growth in government spending outstrips revenues. Fiscal and trade deficits soar. Public debt, excessive taxation and unemployment follow. The central bank tries to solve the problem by printing money. International competitiveness is lost and the currency depreciates. The system stagnates.

And:

Calculating how far society's top earners can be pushed before they stop (or cut back on) producing is difficult. But the incentives are easy to see. Voters who benefit from government programs will push for higher tax rates on higher earners -- at least until those who power the economy and create jobs and wealth stop working, stop investing, or move out of the country.

Given the economic chaos of late, and the definite signs of recession, the last thing America needs is higher taxes acting as a drag on recovery. The causes of the recent crisis can be traced directly back to government interventions in free markets: efforts to increase home ownership among minorities (a noble goal!) led to the creation of the "subprime" mortgage market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored entities, guaranteed the loans and increased moral hazard. The derivatives market bought up packages of third and fourth-degree removed loans and spun them into a fantasy of profit. Home values skyrocketed, encouraging home equity loans and risky mortgage schemes. Rising energy costs over the past year finally burst the bubble, leaving the financial sector paralyzed. Big firms fail. Credit markets freeze. And suddenly, everybody's talking like the Great Depression is around the corner again.

Except that Obama's policies would prolong and worsen the problems. With the collapse of the subprime mortgage market linked to bonus-mongering by the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who later went on to have roles in the Obama campaign, I'm dubious about Obama's ability to manage anything economic. And I'm someone who doesn't think the President, in normal times, has much to do with economic growth or contraction!

The Declaration of Independence's famous "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is paraphrased from British philosopher John Locke's "life, liberty, and property." He theorized that improvement in property, work invested with returns reaped by the owner, brought about economic growth. Rewarding hard work, instead of redistributing wealth, is the way to go. Capitalism is not perfect, by any means, but it's far better than other options that have been tried and failed.

Wall Street Journal, 22 September 2008: Going back decades, but especially in the past 15 or so years, our politicians have promoted housing and easy credit with a variety of subsidies and policies that helped to create and feed the mania. Let us take the roll of political cause and financial effect.

How Government Stoked the Mania: Housing prices would never have risen so high without multiple Washington mistakes

New York Times, 30 September 1999. Read it and weep: In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

Bloomberg News, 22 September 2008. Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it's hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.

Obama's record on the financial sector

Searching for Obama's 95 Percent

Mortgage lending took that "reckless and unsustainable turn" because of regulation

The Economist: Capitalism is at bay, but those who believe in it must fight for it. For all its flaws, it is the best economic system man has invented yet.

Detailed history of government actions leading to the mortgage crisis

Shame, Cubed: The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population. Barack Obama sees that limiting of government not as a lynchpin but rather as a fatal flaw.

Forbes.com: How Capitalism Will Save Us

Gallup, July 2008: When given a choice about how government should address the numerous economic difficulties facing today's consumer, Americans overwhelmingly -- by 84% to 13% -- prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans.

Hope and Change?

The third area where Obama disturbs me is what his past association and record say about how he would govern. Aside from the William Ayers issue (a man who skeeves me out something fierce – he wishes he'd done more than bomb the Pentagon? And cavorts with Hugo Chavez about the joys of socialist education?), there is nothing in Obama's accomplishments to date that indicate the slightest chance that he would actually implement his "change" rhetoric. The Economist review of David Freddoso's book on Obama's political career says:

If Mr Obama really were the miracle-working, aisle-jumping, consensus-seeking new breed of politician his spin-doctors make him out to be, you would expect to see the evidence in these eight years. But there isn’t very much. Instead, as Mr Freddoso rather depressingly finds, Mr Obama spent the whole period without any visible sign of rocking the Democratic boat.

His record is devoid of anything that would give me the slightest bit of proof that he could actually fulfill the promises made in his lofty speeches. His campaign has been negative and divisive at times. For all of John McCain's failings, he at least does have a record of bipartisanship and meaningful reform. He gets things done. Senator Obama introduced next to no legislation in the Senate. He began his career with legal shenanigans to disqualify opposing candidates, and navigated the corrupt Chicago political machine with ease. His campaign has been trying to silence critics using tactics that indicate contempt for principles of free speech. Hope and change and the like aren't possible if you can't even talk to the opposing side.

Barack Obama's Lost Years

The Messianic Style

Evil Under the Sun

Fire in the Night by John M. Murtagh, City Journal 30 April 2008

Inside Obama's ACORN, a group under state and federal investigation for voter registration fraud.

A history of ACORN, for those, like me, who'd never heard of them before.

Media Distortions

The final thing I'd like to note is how disturbing I've found media coverage of this election. It's turned into Bizarro World, with newspapers vehemently denying prior coverage if a subsequent event makes it disadvantageous to Barack Obama while at the same time reporting every rumor on Sarah Palin as if it were truth from on high. There are huge segments of Senator Obama's adult life that have not been scrutinized, or where his narrative has been accepted without question, while the New York Times runs hit pieces on John McCain's wife. I'm used to seeing subtle bias in news reporting – negative poll numbers given prominence for Republicans, positives highlighted for Democrats. What I'm not used to is the blatant double standards applied to candidates for all branches of government in this election. It does a grave disservice to the public, and depresses me almost as much as the lack of knowledge or understanding about bases for conservatism other than social issues.

Camille Paglia on Sarah Palin: Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics.

Palin rumors debunked and more.

On Palin's accomplishments as governor.

Imagine the press coverage if Obama's associates were McCain's.

Judge not?

Going after Joe the Plumber for daring to ask a question

[W]orse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting are the shocking gaps in Obama's life that are not reported at all

Media's Presidential Bias and Decline

Pew Research: Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4.

Political Calculations

The sensation of this election season has been John McCain's decision to ask Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket. In the days following McCain's announcement, the blogosphere and traditional media went on a rampage, delving into Palin's personal life with unprecedented ferocity and vitriol. They were attempting to prove her unfit for national office.

Aside from distaste at their focus, which might have been more fruitfully deployed against Palin's extreme positions on abortion, gay rights, and creationism in schools (save perhaps that she never made those positions part of her efforts while governing), the feeding frenzy barreled past a huge signal of McCain's priorities for his administration: energy policy.

Palin's reputation is that of a maverick and reformer, complimenting McCain's own. In her short time in office, she took on major oil companies, contrary to the assumption that Republicans are always in the pocket of big business. She brokered a deal between multiple stakeholders, including federal, provincial, and tribal governments and businesses, to build a new gas pipeline from Alaska to the continental United States. Her time as chairman of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission gives her experience in the development and economics of oil fields, and knowledge of petroleum's limitations. Her acceptance speech at the GOP convention presented a sophisticated analysis of the linkages between energy sources and recent foreign policy crisis points.

Apart from pipelines in the Caucuses, the perennial issue of Islamic extremism in the Middle East, and Venezuelan intransigence, high oil prices have driven much of the recent economic slowdown in the United States (the other major factor being, of course, the collapse of credit markets based on risky loans). Pain at the pumps, rising transportation costs, leading to higher food prices – all of it contributes to a perception of recession and a certain level of helplessness.

Ongoing discussions within the military and foreign policy communities have convinced me that dependence on oil – the underpinning of the world economy since Nixon took American currency off the gold standard – dictates American engagement in the Middle East. We are in Iraq, we support Saudi Arabia, because they have petroleum. Our presence there aggravates factionalism and Islamic fundamentalism with tragic results. The events of September 11th, seven years ago tomorrow, showed the consequences.

Petroleum reserves are finite; estimates vary on their duration, but efforts must accelerate a transition to alternate sources of energy, with a side benefit of environmental protection. Wind power, hydroelectric, solar, hydrogen fuel cells, conversion of non-food plants to ethanol – there are many options, but the best one or mix of sources has yet to be determined.

Palin's nomination undoubtedly arose from a calculus of multiple issues. She assuages concerns of the religious right and socially conservative Republicans that McCain is too moderate. She's an outsider to the elites of Washington in a year when public opinion is disgusted with Congress. She has a record of reform against corruption, even against members of her party. She's a woman from a small town who began her political career in the PTA, appealing to middle America and certain other demographics.

But don't discount the fact of her experience with energy issues in McCain's decision. To me, it indicates that he is serious about shifting America away from petroleum. It won't happen next year or the year after that, which explains the enthusiasm for offshore drilling among Republicans. Yet eventually, in the long term, the United States should be in a much better position with regard to energy. And that will increase the flexibility of our foreign policy immensely, allowing us, perhaps, to leave the Middle East to its own devices and move onward to a brighter future.

On Russia and Georgia

"When told that many diplomats in the United States and Europe blame Russia for provoking the conflict and for invading Georgia, Putin said Russia had no choice but to invade Georgia after dozens of its peacekeepers in South Ossetia were killed. He told Chance it was to avert a human calamity." (Putin accuses U.S. of orchestrating Georgia war -- CNN.com)

It's good to know Putin is a liar as well as a thug. The first link is instructive in reviewing the actual situation in Georgia, and the ways that Russia initiated the recent conflict. The latter discusses Russia's current status as an authoritarian regime disguised as a democracy.

Seldom though I agree with the Washington Post's editorial page, this one is right on target: "This is the rhetoric of an isolated, authoritarian government drunk with the euphoria of a perceived victory and nursing the delusion of a restored empire. It is convinced that the West is too weak and divided to respond with more than words. If nothing is done to restrain it, it will never release Georgia -- and it will not stop there."

Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East

Author: Etel Solingen, University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation
Panelists: Doyle McManus, Washington Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times, Gary Samore, Council on Foreign Relations (National Security Council 1995-2001), and an official with the U.S. intelligence community

When: Thursday 24 January 2008
Where: University of California Washington Center, Rhode Island Avenue, Washington DC

Attempting to answer the question: Why have some states opted for nuclear weapons while others have renounced them?

Solingen's remarks:

Conventional wisdom is less applicable than commonly believed. She mentioned Argentina, South Africa, and Brazil as countries that joined the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) in the 1990s after pursuing (and in South Africa's case, obtaining) nuclear weapons, which are said to enhance power, ensure survival, and add caution to international relations. She believes this view overpredicts proliferation, and went on to list empirical anomalies with neorealist theory with regard to nuclear weapons.

• Insecure states do not always go after nuclear weapons


• An external threat isn't a prerequisite for those who do pursue a nuclear capability


• Alliance pressures don't explain the decision to go after or abstain from developing nuclear weapons


• The domestic context of the state is key in alliance success and foreign policy


• Coercion against nuclear-pursuing states does not work to make them abandon their programs


• Overall, neorealism fails to explain too many cases

Her thesis: domestic orientations to the global political economy have important implications for nuclear paths:

• Democracy and openness to international trade provide incentives for economic integration


• There are lower costs for inward-looking regimes to pursue a nuclear capability, as they are suspicious of the international community and focused on domestic growth


• A cooperative regional environment provides for state-level economic growth and makes sanctions more of a threat


• It is necessary to construct a huge nuclear infrastructure complex -- technology, industry, bureaucracy, military -- with funds that would otherwise spur peaceful economic development

Nuclear states are more likely from inward-looking regimes (North Korea vice Japan, Iran vice Jordan), and the protectionism common to the Middle East explains why so many states have had nuclear programs over the past several decades.

Inward-looking states that evolved to international engagement, such as South Africa, Brazil, and Taiwan, have all divested their nuclear programs. Global trade leads to denuclearization as the stakes of condemnation get higher than the benefits of peaceful cooperation. In the cases mentioned, export-led industrialization was beneficial. In the case of autarkic goals, nuclear weapons are still seen as desirable.

Thus, domestic models are crucial to explain nuclear policy. They are filters through which leaders define security and provide a better foundation for non-proliferation aimed policy.

McManus' Remarks

He wondered whether a longing for prestige was a driver toward nuclearization, and made a distinction between prestige and respect. France, for instance, desires a place at the great power table, and equality with the world's leaders. Their nuclear arsenal grants them a say in global affairs that otherwise would likely be denied them.

• Loud coercive efforts and harsh penalties tend to strengthen the nuclear-pursuing regime by distracting the populace from domestic concerns (as can be seen in Iran today)


• Silent coercion, through banks, trade sanctions, or veiled threats, tends to refocus the domestic agenda and can result in election upsets, even in states with restricted democratic institutions. This can change the environment sufficiently to make nuclear weapons seem undesirable.


• Question of norms: to what extent do countries want or need to comply with international norms? Referenced Kissinger, Shultz, et al arguments for total nuclear disarmament as an attempt to change the international landscape.

Samore's Remarks

• Noted that realism/structuralism is a very efficient approach to analysis, but agreed that the domestic situation of a state seeking nuclear weapons is key.


• Policy issues:


• North Korea: commented on their determination. Isolationist yet needy for recognition. Not likely to disarm under current regime, yet authoritarian enough to have no democratic process at all. How should the international community proceed?


• Regime change is the most effective instrument for non-proliferation according to this information, but aftermath of Iraq invasion shows drawbacks of approach.


• Is it possible to manage East Asia away from proliferation? There are countries who hedge with a peaceful nuclear capacity, like Taiwan and South Korea, that still grants them the fissile material necessary for nuclear weapons. Fuel-cycle technology and uranium enrichment is the major stumbling block. If that's solved, what is to keep these countries from reacting to a changed security dilemma with over nuclearization?


• In the Middle East, Iran is driven by status issues. They have complicated internal dynamics. No united coalition to apply international pressure (cf, Russia and China in the UN Security Council). Again, what can the United States do?

U.S. Intelligence Official's Remarks

He detailed the contributions of the book as two-fold: theoretical and practical.

On the theoretical level:

• Looking beyond monocausal explanations of proliferating behavior.


• How much variable integration was discovered? Look at relationship of security to domestic orientation to technical capabilities.


• Pointed out deficiencies of neo-classical realism.


• Wondered about organizational theory's role in the author's explanations.

On the practical level, he felt that this work provided a critique of current policies, and a point of departure for policy makers. If they have a correct understanding of the forces driving nuclearization, there's at least an improved chance of getting their inducements or punishments to change state behavior. He felt the work debunked commonly accepted wisdom and provides a more accurate picture of real life. In the intelligence community, and much of academia, there's a split between functional and regional expertise. He noted that the case studies and analysis show patterns of domestic behavior across regions, demonstrating that they're not unique.

As to current U.S. policy, trade and globalization efforts make sense in this context. It attacks myths of "great power" status accruing to states pursuing nuclearization, pointing out the pariah status of North Korea as an example. In addition, he said that security incentives or guarantees would hold a weaker position under this theory, making American alliances less effective tools of power.

Questions:

These were the big insights from the question and answer session at the end of the session:

• When asked why she didn't examine India or Pakistan as part of her case study, Solingen replied that she wanted to compare like regions, and both Northeast Asia and the Middle East were multipolar, in comparison to the bi-polar subcontinent (I'd quibble with that a bit, and argue that China plays an enormous role in relations between India and Pakistan, but she's right in that it's not a multipolar environment). But even so, India's "peaceful" nuclear explosion in 1974 was at the height of their protectionist era, while they've reduced trade barriers and liberalized their economy now, well after they reached nuclear weapons status.


• Norms were much less explanatory than expected in the Japanese case. More practical considerations ruled their rejection of nuclear weapons, although it was noted that their technical know-how and large civilian nuclear power industry mean it would be only a matter of months if Japan decided to create nuclear weapons.


• Prestige derived from economies is balanced against prestige from nuclear weapons. Democracy vice autarky.


• There has to be a separation between the pre- and post-NPT eras. The UK and France acquired a nuclear capability, while Sweden rejected it in favor of neutrality (a sort of prestige in its own right).


• There can be unintended effects of policy, and it was suggested that one must differentiate between use of nuclear weapons vice acquisition.


• Small numbers of warheads and short timelines ("sprint" breakout capability) dominate proliferation concerns and have a disproportionate impact on world affairs.


• There was a brief discussion of perception and reaction to US government statements that reminded me of strategic communications issues raised by the long war.

Turmoil in Islamabad

In the midst of a political crisis that could spark into civil war, a timely discussion of Pakistan's history as a nuclear power took place at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last Friday.

Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, the authors of Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, an investigation into American-Pakinstani relations and the arms-trading network established by disgraced scientist AQ Khan, presented primarily a chronology of Pakistan's nuclear program and supposed American intelligence and policy failings rather than focusing on the spread of technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. I would have been more interested in the implications of the latter, but found some decent nuggets of insight amid the name-dropping and editorial opinions.

Notes from the Authors' Presentation:

• The stop/start nature of American and European relations with Pakistan have influenced the country greatly, and in fact parallel the evolution of Pakistan's nuclear program.


• After India explodes a "peaceful" nuclear bomb in 1974, the West tried to prevent Pakistan from following suit, but was ineffective.


• Once the Mullahs took power in Tehran, the Carter administration decided Pakistan could act as a potential bulwark to the Iranian threat. Nothing came of this stance, but it indicated the type of thinking that was taking place amid corridors of power.


• The Reagan administration believed that the U.S. could live with a Pakistani nuclear program, so long as it remained secret.


• During the 1980s, Western aid flowed liberally to Pakistan, but after the fall of the Soviet Union and their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the money dried up. In response, Pakistan turned to Iran, and there may have been nuclear trades in the early 1990s.



• (Partial) Chronology of Pakistan's nuclear program:


• 1978: created weapons-grade uranium


• 1986: hot test of Pakistani weapon by China at Lop Nur


• 1988: weaponized bombs for deployment on American-made F-16 fighter jets


• 1998: underground nuclear test in Lahore, in response to India's detonations



• A changing thesis in the Pakistani military (the most professional and reliable institution in the country) held that they must seek more reliable allies, as well as cash, beyond Chinese technological assistance. At one point, Pakistan tried to create a security buffer with Afghanistan and Turkey to counter India. And of course, China's aid is largely caused by their determination to keep India occupied with its north-western borders rather than its north-eastern edges with Tibet. A quote about this period: "Marketing the cash cow of uranium enrichment."



• The AQ Khan network was pitched as a defiance of the West, including a scheme to sell a ready-made bomb to Iraq that ultimately went nowhere. Iran was dissatisfied with the centrifuges Khan provided, rating them as sub-par technology. He held meetings with Syria and the Saudis, both of whom were looking for warheads. Other travel to African nations was related to attempts to decentralize the program, in terms of both storage and labor. Now-unemployed scientists from South Africa's nuclear program were approached by Khan.



• Per Benazir Bhutto, in 1993 she sought a deal with North Korea to obtain No Dong missiles for reverse engineering (the Ghauri MRBM is the No Dong, so Pakistan eventually did add North Korean missiles to their arsenal). She brought blueprints back from a trip to China, an action that had political ramifications that would later be used against her. The tone here was almost opening mocking of Bhutto, which disturbed me.



• When Libya agreed to relinquish its WMD programs and allow for international inspections in December 2003, its nuclear program was determined to have come wholesale from Pakistan.



• The authors attempted to draw links between the September 11th attacks, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and WMD proliferation, but their narrative was confusing and their evidence non-existent (the book might have more convincing proof). They believe that the focus on AQ Khan as a rogue agent outside the control of the Pakistani government was a deliberate choice to deflect suspicion from what might have been deliberate government policy. Much was made of the fact that Khan has never been directly questioned by the West.



• The Waziristan region became a haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban by 2006, as is well known. The authors asserted that despite President Musharraf's promises, there has been no de-radicalization of Pakistan – in fact, Islamist elements have been strengthened in certain areas. Pakistan is still purchasing dual-use components in large quantities, perhaps to sell. They're also poor at tracking their fissile material – as many as 40 drums of HEU might be missing.

Comments, Questions, and Answers:

In general, an extraordinary session, with experts from the U.S. government including a former ambassador to Pakistan challenging the authors' interpretation of events.

• Q: Strangeness of no red flags going up in the 1990s regarding Pakistan's proliferation. Was there some motive on the part of the U.S. government for keeping quiet? A: Not as far as they could determine.



• Comment: Nothing went in and out of Kahuta without ISI (the Pakistani intelligence service) approval. AQ Khan's movements were monitored beginning in 1999 when Musharraf took power, yet proliferation continued well after Khan's "retirement" in 2002. This was not a one man operation.



• Comment: Many holes in the evidence, leading the authors to an interpretation. Proposed that there's another way the story could make sense, closer to Musharraf's claims. Regarding access to Khan: it's not usual to grant third parties open access in nuclear cases (example of the Rosenbergs). Asked the audience to keep an open mind with regard to the two narratives available. AQ Khan was an accomplished liar unless presented with incontrovertible truth contradicting his position.



• Comment: The book assumes that U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction is both omniscient and infallible – not true. There were and are differences of opinion within the intelligence community about Pakistan's nuclear program, including a genuine belief that we didn't know what was going on.



• Comment re: accuracy. Musharraf is linked to bin Laden, yet this is contradicted by the chronology presented in Musharraf's memoir. Gul's (Pakistani general?) account of their nuclear program should not be taken as gospel. Questioned credibility of evidence.



• Q: Is part of the motivation for Pakistan's nuclear program that they are facing East, not West? Have to consider India and role of Kashmir conflict (see above for my point on China and how they've propped Pakistan up to keep India occupied).



• Comment: Uranium trade with North Korea came about in part because Pakistan couldn't pay for the technology they desired on a cash basis.



• There are limits of American influence on Pakistan's policy. How could we shift the country? Must look at role of China, coercive threat to withhold military aid, make clear distinction between Pakistani people and unpopular, illegal government. Why must the equation be Musharraf or Islamists? The two are cooperating, not adversarial.



• Q: Is Pakistan safer because of its nuclear arsenal? There was a deterrent effect in a 2001 crisis with India, but on three other occasions, nuclear weapons have heightened tensions. Not enough is known about the Pakistani or Indian arsenals.



• Comment: Reactive nature of American policy, and the power of inertia even in the face of tumultuous events.

Events remain tumultuous, of course, with Musharraf's crackdown on the legal system and opposition political parties marking his increasing unpopularity. He's been ineffective at tamping down Islamist activity, perhaps by design. Moderate forces are the ones protesting. Hopefully, this crisis will have a positive outcome, but Pakistan's nuclear weapons add to the danger.



Audio of the discussion is available at http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_events/task,view/id,1419/

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Until I can get some thoughts written up, hello.

Issues in Intelligence

A superlative exploration of the challenges faced by the United States intelligence community, by the New York Times (registration required, check www.bugmenot.com for usernames and passwords).

Compartmentalization of information, technical tools that are pitifully behind the state of the art, an inability to recognize the importance of open source information – all of those flaws were ones I recognized in a previous job that touched upon the intelligence world. The proposed solutions – Intelink wikis, blogs, enabling Google-like search prioritization via link counts – sound like valid solutions. The greatest impediment to such improvements is cultural; the security bureaucracy surrounding official U.S. government secrets is moribund, hide-bound, and recalcitrant. They exist to ensure nothing will slip from their control, and the idea of doing so deliberately is more terrifying than words can convey, no matter the benefits such openness would accrue to national security. The article understated this issue with one sentence near the end: For all the complaints about hardware, the challenges are only in part about technology. They are also about political will and institutional culture — and whether the spy agencies can be persuaded to change.

The way to attack that challenge is to replace the series of Executive Orders that underlie secrecy rules with legislation centralizing everything from standards about levels of classification to granting security clearances. The biggest failure of the Intelligence Reform Act was that they didn't address this issue. Perhaps retirement and personnel attrition will begin to change the attitudes of the security bureaucracy, but in over a decade of professional experience, I haven't seen an inch of progress.


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Post-Election Thoughts

Although I usually find myself disinterested or actively put off by Congressional politics, the aftermath of last week's election has been fascinating. I was hoping that Republicans could maintain control over the Senate, although that hope didn't allow me to vote for Virginia's Republican candidate for Senator, the embarrassing George Allen, who self-destructed in the last months of the campaign. I also felt I couldn't vote for eventual victor Jim Webb, so for the first time, I went Independent Green. Why must Virginia field such unappealing candidates? Back when Oliver North battled Chuck Robb, I was grateful that Marshall Coleman ran as an independent candidate and provided a choice I could endorse. With Webb's victory, the Senate went to the Democrats and a reorganization of party leadership began.

Senator Trent Lott's resurrection as Minority Whip was analyzed by some as an indication that the Republican party is serious about getting business done with the Democratic majority. Lott's remarks four years ago endorsing segregation were appalling, yet every politician has skeletons in their closet. And the mood of the country could shift towards Republicans if the Democrats are seen as obstructionist or unable to accomplish their few campaign promises. Lott's skills in developing compromise solutions to tough issues and building consensus support could be invaluable in the coming term, so long as he truly regrets the message behind his blunder, not just its results.

The more fascinating story was in the House of Representatives, with Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi's unsuccessful quest to elevate Rep. John Murtha to the post of Majority Leader. Murtha's reputation is as besmirched as they come – pork barrel spending, cozy ties to lobbyists and industry, and a damning 1980 video where Murtha half-heartedly rejects Abscam bribes yet leaves the window open for future graft ("I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period. After we've done some business, well, then I might change my mind. ... I'm going to tell you this. If anybody can do it – I'm not B.S.-ing you fellows – I can get it done my way. There's no question about it."). Given that many of the electorate expressed dissatisfaction with the ethics of the previous Republican-led Congress, and that the Democrats beat the reform drum as one of their main campaign planks, Pelosi's conduct appears inexplicable and harmful to her future efforts.

Murtha famously called for a withdrawal from Iraq before other members of his party took up the anti-war cause, so it's possible that Pelosi felt his position on that contentious issue would outweigh his sketchy reputation. However, her efforts to tie plum committee positions to support for Murtha has alienated her fellow Democratic Representatives and bodes poorly for her leadership style.

My questions at this point involve the reactions of the Democratic faithful – are they paying attention to this scintillating drama? How do they weigh the relative importance of Iraq versus corruption with regard to Murtha? And now that Murtha's been defeated by Steny Hoyer of Maryland, will Pelosi be damaged by the fallout? If the faithful decide she's compromised, or the vast swathe of moderate American voters is taken aback, the Presidential and Congressional elections in 2008 could prove this shift in power to be an anomaly.

As a moderate myself, I'm hoping that Congress is able to compromise on domestic issues and that newly nominated Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is able to capitalize on his time with the Iraq Study Group will allow him to adjust U.S. defense policy in a way that stabilizes the volatile situation in the Persian Gulf.

And as ever, I'm wishing that both political parties could be better than they are.

Any way you slice it, the next two years will be momentous ones for American domestic politics and foreign policy.

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No Peace Dividend

I'd been skeptical of the conclusions drawn in this report ("The Human Security Report 2005"), which were publicized at the end of 2005. For one thing, the excerpts I read didn't seem to take certain types of violence into account - terrorism, insurrection, etc. For another, the methodology described seemed less than rigorous. Fred Kaplan has delved into these issues in an article on Slate. It's good reading, and elaborates on the perils of trying to draw conclusions from incomplete or narrow sets of data.

Conflicts in Africa and the Middle East have not gone away, although Latin America has certainly gotten more stable since the end of the Soviet Union. Even there, though, there are rivalries and competing interests that make military action a possibility today. The Balkans are more stable than they were in the early and mid-1990s. Asia has not seen war for a while, but North Korea's precarious economic situation and the multitudes squabbling over possession of the Spratly Islands could change that at any time.

I've been pondering writing about Iran's nuclear ambitions in the context of their larger ballistic missile and WMD programs. Watch this space.

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On Iraq

I'd been mulling over thoughts about the situation in Iraq, but then a friend linked to this piece by Joseph Lieberman and now I don't have to.

Our Troops Must Stay: America can't abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.


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Sixteen Years

Sixteen years tomorrow. I can still recall sitting at the foot of my parents bed, watching their TV and sobbing at the sight of East and West Berliners celebrating together, a glorious scrum that didn’t care about anything other than being able to touch their sundered countrymen. I was sixteen then, and now another lifetime has passed yet the emotions can be felt again at a mere reminder. Over forty years of separation, the grand experiment of communism demonstrated to be an absolute failure. When given the choice, the citizens who were supposed to be equal, supposed to be the owners of industry and agriculture, decided that the messiness and the abundance of capitalism was a far better way to live. Democratic capitalism: the combination of representative government and free-market economics, based on the primacy of the individual over the group. Not that capitalism is without fault, but that it is superior to any other system that humans have imagined. Self-interest drives the betterment of individuals, spurs them to achieve great things, amass fortunes, spend money to fuel the cycle again and again. Consumerism, yes. But wouldn’t you rather have overwhelming choice than none?

It was a victory of ideas. Timothy Garton Ash writes about ruling elites in The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague:

Yet none of this would have stopped them if they had still been convinced of their right to rule. The third, and perhaps ultimately decisive factor [in the overthrow of communism] is that characteristic of revolutionary situations described by Alexis de Tocqueville more than a century ago: the ruling elite’s loss of belief in its own right to rule. A few kids went on the streets and threw a few words. The police beat them. The kids said: You have no right to beat us! And the rulers, the high and mighty, replied, in effect: Yes, we have no right to beat you. We have no right to preserve our rule by force. The end no longer justifies the means!

In fact the ruling elites, and their armed servants, distinguished themselves by their comprehensive unreadiness to stand up in any way for the things in which they had so long claimed to believe, and their almost indecent haste to embrace the things they had so long denounced as ‘capitalism’ and ‘bourgeois democracy’.

Ideas have power. Ideas drive change, perception, life as we know it. Without a framework with which to view the world, stimuli would overwhelm us in a chaotic rush of sensation. Concepts. Paradigms. Models. They can be false, they can be proved misguided and wrong, and yet their power persists with some. Francis Fukuyama wrote soon after the fall of communism that it heralded the “end of history” since liberal democracy was the only viable system of government. Sadly, the events of September 11, 2001 proved him wrong – Islamic fundamentalism has raised the banner of challenge to all Western civilization.

Yet it seems right to pause for a moment and remember the giddy joy of November 9, 1989, even if Ash describes it as a resumption of normal life:

Everyone has seen the joyful celebration in West Berlin, the vast crowds stopping the traffic on the Kurfurstendamm, Sekt corks popping, strangers tearfully embracing—the greatest street-party in the world. Yes, it was like that. But it was not only like that. Most of the estimated two million East Germans who flooded into West Berlin over the weekend simply walked the streets in quiet family groups, often with toddlers in pushchairs. They queued up at a bank to collect the 100 Deutschmarks ‘greeting money’ … offered to visiting East Germans by the West German Government, and they went, very cautiously, shopping. Generally they bought one or two small items, perhaps some fresh fruit, a Western newspaper, and toys for the children. Then, clasping their carrier-bags, they walked quietly back through the Wall, through the grey, deserted streets of East Berlin, home.

It is very difficult to describe the quality of this experience because what they actually did was so stunningly ordinary. … Berliners walked the streets of Berlin. What could be more normal? And yet, what could be more fantastic! ‘Twenty-eight years and ninety-one days,’ says one man in his late thirties strolling back up Friedrichstrasse. Twenty-eight years and ninety-one days since the building of the Wall. On that day, in August 1961, his parents had wanted to go to a late-night Western in a West Berlin cinema, but their eleven year old son had been too tired. In the early hours they woke to the sound of tanks. He had never been to West Berlin from that day to this. A taxi-driver asks me, with a sly smile: ‘How much is the ferry to England?’ The day before yesterday his question would have been unthinkable.

… Everyone looks the same as they make their way home—except for the tell-tale Western carrier-bag. But everyone is inwardly changed, changed utterly. ‘Now people are standing up straight,’ says a hotel porter. ‘They are speaking their minds. Even work is more fun. I think the sick will get up from their hospital beds.’ And it was in East rather than West Berlin that this weekend had the magic, pentecostal quality which I last experienced in Poland in autumn 1980. Ordinary men and women find their voice and their courage--Lebensmut, as the porter puts it. These are moments when you feel that somewhere an angel has opened his wings.

The point about Poland in 1980 is well taken. When I was at George Washington University, studying for my M.A., I had the privilege of speaking with a former CIA official. He spoke off the record about investments the United States government to fight communism throughout the 1980s. Millions spent on arms for the Contras in Nicaragua, or for the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Yet the best investment, he said, was spending $100,000 to buy printing presses for Solidarity. Printing presses, that classic means of spreading ideas. It took a decade for those ideas to percolate, and required new leadership in the Soviet Union that would not send in tanks at the first sign of discontent, but how vast a change was wrought by logic and thinking?

People younger than I have no conception of life during the Cold War. They hear tales of massive defense arsenals, of spies lurking in the shadows, and can’t understand why. I was born almost a decade after the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I can’t claim to have experienced the scariest times when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. Yet the 1980s were fraught with their own fears and Eastern Europe had been ground under the Soviet heel three times when they tried to rebel before (Hungary 1956 – the Soviets. Czechoslovakia 1968 – Warsaw Pact. Poland 1980 – martial law). Communism fall? I might believe in it as a matter of faith, but then it happened, a miracle of the highest order.

The years since have had challenges of their own. Integrating formerly command economies into a system where private industry rules supreme. The hardship of depressions, of incipient absolutism in some cases. Yet by 2000 three former members of the Warsaw Pact had joined NATO. Other countries had been accepted for membership in the European Union. One day in 1993 I browsed through the fine china section at a department store. I saw some beautiful goblets and picked them up to find the price. And there was a sticker saying “made in Poland” – the first time I’d seen anything from the former Warsaw Pact offered for sale.

The world has changed. We should remember how much.

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September 11th and Iraq

An article in today’s Washington Post (Antiwar Activists Decry Media's Role in Promoting Pentagon Event), covers objections to news media support for a Department of Defense event “to remember the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and to support the troops in Iraq.” The article contained a quote from an anti-war activist: “Because they're promoting a lie, that the war in Iraq had anything to do with September 11."

Did Iraq’s leadership, did Saddam Hussein, meet with Osama bin Laden and help plan the September 11th attacks? No. However, Saddam’s hostile regime was directly responsible for the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, one of al Qaeda’s spurs to action. Iraq also continued to rouse Iran’s defensive impulses, causing further build-up of weapons in the region. And Iraq did flout United Nations sanctions to cooperate with weapons inspection teams, as well as international norms prohibiting assassination of national leaders. Iraq was a problem that was not going away prior to September 11th. Instead, leading nations around the world were allowing Iraq to slide back into civilized society, through their inaction over Iraq’s continued and escalating defiance of post-Gulf War rules.

After September 11th, the Bush administration decided to unseat the Taliban in Afghanistan – a worthy cause for reasons other than disrupting al Qaeda operations. Since the Taliban took power in the mid-1990s, they had systematically laid waste to human rights, especially with regard to women, and irreplaceable cultural artifacts. They were barbarians, and it is to the world’s shame that inertia allowed their rule to continue as long as it did. But Afghanistan is only one piece of the Middle East puzzle, a larger problem that involves numerous countries, authoritarian regimes, religious influences, economic stagnation, and the need to educate and employ a restless populace. For years, America was content to support the Saudi monarchy so long as oil continued to flow. That the house of Saud needed to hand over their mosques to Sunni fundamentalists to make the deal palatable was none of our concern. Until two towers collapsed, a wing of the Pentagon crumbled, and a plane’s wreckage burned in a Pennsylvania field.

Of course oil is the basis of American interests in the region. Were it not for oil, the fuel that drives the world economy, the Middle East would hold our attention as much as sub-Saharan Africa, which is to say not much at all. But a geological roll of the dice gifted the area with vital resources, and as preeminent nation in the world, the United States must ensure continued access to oil. To do that, a broader American strategy was put into place, one that could address both the growth of Islamic dissidents, the pool where al Qaeda finds recruits, and also the delicate political-military balance of the region.

Looking at the region after the fall of the Taliban, the next major nexus point was obviously Iraq. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait in 1990, had used chemical weapons on minority Kurds in the late 1980s, had invaded Iran early in the decade, leading to years of warfare and attrition. Negotiations had proven fruitless due to lack Iraqi cooperation – there was no information to indicate that the regime wanted to change internally, and their past history of evading arms control restrictions and creating illegal networks to funnel weapons into the country meant that any proclamation about disarmament was eyed with skepticism.

Given the horrid way the Ba’athist regime treated the Iraqi population, I cannot regret that they were overthrown. That insurgents and malcontents from the former elites proceeded to institute guerilla war was not unexpected, and better planning could certainly have minimized some of the post-invasion bombings and other disturbances. But now that the U.S. is involved in the country, sponsor of a new democratic government, we cannot afford to pull out before stability is achieved. Were we to do so, then the Osama bin Laden’s and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s of the world would sweep in and create another Taliban-era Afghanistan, a place where religious fundamentalists could plot their next attack on the degenerate West.

The war in Iraq definitely had something to do with September 11 – those attacks were America’s wake up call that the status quo in the Middle East could not be permitted to continue.

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Karl Rove

Honestly? I agree with his recent statements on democratic behavior after the attacks of September 11th. I remember thinking, that horrible day, how glad I was that Al Gore wasn't President, based on Clinton's ineffectiveness where attacks on the United States was concerned. And as the year progressed, I became even more convinced that George W. Bush's policy was correct. Had Gore been President, the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan, and al-Qa'ida would live within their borders to attack Western interests with impunity.

Which is not to say that the Bush administrations policies haven't been problematic at times. But I cannot support those who feel that peace at all costs is a valid course of action.

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Conspiracy Theories

I don't believe in them, most of the time.

http://www.slate.com/id/2121212/

Conspiracy Theories

If you liked The Da Vinci Code, you'll love the Downing Street Memo.
By Christopher Hitchens

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