Recommended: The Shores of Tripoli: Our Latest Wilsonian War

Walter Russell Mead, a writer who really understands the broadest sweeps of history (he is James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College) has a good article in the March 30 The America Interest website entitled The Shores of Tripoli: Our Latest Wilsonian War. It is well worth reading.

Whatever the overeager advisers around President Obama thought when they convinced him to put our collective American hand into this dogfight, a simple no-fly zone looks like it isn't going to do the job (once again, air power has been oversold to a naive president!), and one wonders how much farther into the fight we will be drawn, and how much more (borrowed) money we will waste before it is all over.  America does indeed have some "Wilsonian" responsibilities to promote moral values in the world (and even at home, one hopes), but that has to be tempered with some common sense and perspective and reality.  I don't see the latter here.

Recommended: Wall Street: Aiding Economic Recovery, or Strangling It?

I have observed before that one of the serious problems with America these days is that so many of our best and brightest are diverted from careers in science and engineering, where they might produce useful innovations and advances, into careers on Wall Street, where they essentially get rich by gambling.  In this regard, the article Wall Street: Aiding Economic Recovery, or Strangling It? from Monday's Time Magazine site is of interest.

Finance has become one of the largest portions of the nation's economic activity, yet in essence it produces nothing of real value, and really is just a large scale, socially-acceptable form of gambling.  That ought to worry us.  It also ought to worry us that this shift toward non-productive financial activity occurred in Britain just before it started it's slide from first-world status.  Are we following the same path?

The government we deserve

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are warily circling around the elephant in the room, the huge deficits that entitlement programs are creating, but neither side wants to take the politically risky step of being the first to propose the cuts that are obviously needed.  President Obama is either abstaining entirely from the debate or holding his fire to be prepared to make political capital of any Republican attempt to modify Social Security or Medicare,  Either way, he certainly isn’t leading the effort to solve the problem.

It would be easy to blame the Washington politicians for failing to do the politically hard but necessary things to bring the Federal budget back to sanity, but in fact the government in Washington is exactly the government we, the American voters, put into office.  So in the end, responsibility for our feckless politicians rests entirely with us.

The real question isn’t whether Washington politicians will find the backbone, the strength of character and the wisdom to do the painful but necessary pruning of Federal programs, but whether we, the American voters, will find the backbone, the strength of character and the wisdom to vote into office politicians who will do what is necessary, even if it means sacrifices in our own paychecks and benefits.

If we Americans continue to demand  that the government fund programs we can’t afford, using borrowed money, then when the inevitable consequences of this stupid policy finally hit us (and hit us they will!), we have no one to blame but our own greed, gullibility, and short-sightedness.  In the end, we the American  voters get the government, and the consequences, we deserve.

Perhaps we should be in the streets too....

I don't know.  As I watch one Arab nation after another take to the streets to oust incompetent kleptocracies, I can't help but wonder if we American's shouldn't be demonstrating in the streets too, to oust a Washington establishment in both parties that appears to have become completely out of touch with reality, and completely in the pockets of wealthy and influential  corporations, lobbyists and individuals.

As time goes on and Congress fiddles ineffectually while the deficit explodes and the president gets us into yet another expensive military action with no end game, I find myself more and more in sympathy with the Tea Party movement. Yes, there are some crazies in it, but I'm beginning to think I might prefer the occasional crazies in the Tea Party movement to the current Washington establishment if that would bring at least some semblance of sanity and reality back to our government.

More down the rabbit hole

At the same time that the Republicans are making a big deal of trying to defund National Public Radio (in 2009 NPR received only 6% of its funding from local and state sources, and no direct funding from the Federal government)  in the name of cutting the Federal budget, it is revealed that General Electric made a profit of $14.2 BILLION in 2010, yet paid no taxes. In fact, GE got a $3.2 BILLION tax benefit from the government, no doubt in part because it filled its tax department with ex-Treasury and ex-IRS people, and ex-Congressional staffers.  GE also paid no tax in 2009.

If anyone doubted that the US government system is highly dysfunctional, and well and truly in the hands of the rich and powerful, this ought to lay that doubt to rest.

By the way, Exxon  (2009 profits $19.42 BILLION) and Bank of America (2009 profits $4 BILLION) also paid no taxes in 2009. And I suspect the list is a good bit longer.

Recommended: Down the Rabbit Hole

Adam Garfinkle has an interesting and relevant article in the March 22, 20111 online issue of The American Interest.  His article, Down the Rabbit Hole, makes the point that it is almost impossible to discern what the administration's policy or aims are in this Libyan intervention. One would think that now that we are engaged in two -- count them, TWO -- decades-long wars with no apparent exit strategy, and no meaningful foreign policy objectives, the administration might have had the sense not to get involved in a third one. But no, Obama has managed to follow the Bush administration into yet another briar patch, another extraordinarily expensive military adventure (Tomahawk missiles cost just over $1 million apiece, and we fired over 100 of them the first night !!!) with no apparent long-term strategy.

I look at our leadership in Washington with despair!   We face a budget deficit of about $2 TRILLION dollars this year alone, neither Congress nor the President seem to be able to muster the courage to make more than token budget cuts, and yet the administration can blow over $100 million in one night on a quixotic "intervention" in a tribally-based civil war whose cultural dynamics we don't even understand!  This is indeed "going down the rabbit hole".

So here is the fundamental question

In thinking about a coherent strategic foreign policy for America, here is the fundamental question to ask as the Obama administration debates actions: are America's long-term interests better served by supporting (1) an autocratic government that is friendly to American interests and willing to be helpful, like Saudi Arabia (and like Mubarik was in Egypt), or (2) a popularly elected government that is hostile to America and its interests, like Hamas in the West Bank?

There is a popular delusion among both liberals and conservatives that democracy and popular elections inevitably lead to better governments. But in fact, in the absence of of some key institutions and attitudes in a culture, such as the rule of law and property rights and an informed, educated electorate, popular elections frequently just enthrone another autocratic regime.  It is worth remembering that Hitler came to power in an honest popular election, and in a nation that had the sort of institutions and traditions that one generally expects to support a working democracy.  Popular elections do not always produce good governments, and they certainly don't always help America's long-term interests.

So What Is Our Strategic Foreign Policy Plan?

The administration's "on again off again" response this week to the Libyan crisis is a cause for real concern. By now it is pretty clear that President Obama's advisers are badly divided over the whole issue of how to respond to the various Arab popular revolts, and that he is just responding reactively to day-by-day events, not on the basis of a well-thought-out foreign policy strategy.  In Egypt the result of our indecision was that we ended up in a lose-lose situation. The opposition saw that we really weren't all that dedicated to democracy, and the leaders of other authoritarian regimes in the area - regimes that we depend on like the Saudis- learned that the US wasn't a dependable ally. So now neither side trusts us, and in Egypt we may well end up with a Muslim Brotherhood government as authoritarian as the previous one, but hostile to the US.

Frankly I think foreign policy based on vague idealistic principles like "spreading democracy" is dangerously naive, and historically has generally led to bad, even disastrous outcomes.  I would be much happier if I thought the Obama administration was in the hands of experienced and realistic advisers who understood history, appreciated the differences in the cultures of the nations we deal with, and had a clear vision of and strategy for protecting American interests.  I don't see much evidence of that at the moment.  In the case of Libya the most pragmatic adviser Obama has got, Secretary Gates, has been overridden by the starry-eyed liberal interventionists in this administration, and that will probably not lead to a good outcome.

Wisconsin - Another View

The Wisconsin fight over the bill to reduce public sector union power has been played by much of the (mostly liberal) media as a fight between an insensitive Republican governor and hapless union workers, supported by defiant Democratic lawmakers who left the state rather than allow the vote.  The reality is, as always, a good bit more complex than that.  The Weekly Standard has a rather detailed history in a story entitled On Wisconsin: How the Republicans Won the Battle of Madison. It too, of course, has its bias, but at least it gives the story from a different perspective, so is well worth reading.

A No-Fly Zone in Libya?

With the Arab League's request today to the UN to provide a no-fly zone over Libya, the US has moved closer to getting engaged in it's third simultaneous military intervention.  Under the circumstances, it is worth reading the questions George Will listed in his March 8 Washington Post article On Libya, Too Many Questions. I worry that, once again, militarily naive politicians will take us where the professional military knows better than to go.

Tiger Moms

Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011, ISBN 978-1594202841), a book about the unrelenting pressure to excel that some Asian parents put on their children, has ignited a firestorm of debate, at least among the ambitious upper-class parents of the nation.  On the one hand, the pressure and the restrictions some Asian parents put on their children seems inhuman – on the other hand, Asian youngsters are taking away top music and science prizes and coveted college admissions all across the nation.  In this regard, I recommend an article in this month’s The Atlantic, entitled Sympathy for the Tiger Moms.

As the grandparent of two granddaughters who are home schooled because their local schools are simply not equipped to deal with exceptionally bright students, I am well aware of how America’s public school system, America’s teachers, and American textbooks have all  been honed to serve the mediocre middle, at the expense of both the slower and the faster students.  Many progressive elites will bridle at that description, even while they send their own children to expensive private schools to get a better education.  

So Amy Chua’s book ignites in America parents simultaneously an outrage that children ought not to be treated that way, and a nagging worry that we in America have come to expect too little of our children

I tend toward the latter view. Certainly there are children who are slower to learn that normal, but I strongly suspect that most children, given adequate parenting and schooling and attention to their natural passions and interests, have gifts that we would think exceptional.  Both my granddaughters exhibit what we today would think of as exceptional talents, but I would not be surprised to learn that many more children harbored latent talents equal to or greater than these, if only they had been recognized and supported early in their childhood.

As we enter a national debate about our real priorities, fostered by our growing debt problem, education ought to rank high among the things we need to preserve and improve. Unfortunately, the only way governments can see to improved education is to pour more money into it, a strategy that has demonstrably not worked. Clearly something far more fundamental is needed, not only to reform the educational system, but to reform the parenting system in this nation.  So in that sense, the firestorm ignited by Amy Chua’s book is a useful thing.

Recommended: Paul Krugman Gets It Half Right

Worth reading is Walter Russel Mead's March 7 American Interest post: Paul Krugman Gets It Half Right. Paul Krugman is a smart guy, a Nobel Prize winning economist and a Princeton professor, but like many "progressive" intellectuals, he hasn't yet quite come to terms with the hard economic fact that America simply can't afford the progressive programs "progressive" intellectuals think we ought to have.

The Wisconsin battle over union power is just the opening shot in what will no doubt be a decades-long struggle within the intellectual elite to come to terms with hard reality -- we simply can't afford to keep borrowing 40% of each year's Federal budget, and that means painful cuts will have to be made even to cherished programs, even to programs that work and are useful.

One hopes we will soon move out of the current phase of reflexively and hysterically defending every program and begin to think in terms of priorities -- what really is most important for our nation's long-term future.  If we have to eliminate half the programs and half the Federal workforce (about what we realistically need to do), which half is the more important half?  Which initiatives should we defend to the last, and which (nice as they are) need to go? That is the debate we need to get to very soon.

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Recommended: The Gumball Presentation

A friend of mine sent along an interesting video URL which one can watch here. It deals with the claim, which I have heard from naive politicians, that allowing immigrants into the USA helps world poverty. It is of course a production of an organization in favor of reducing immigration into the USA, but that doesn't make their argument any weaker.

In fact, immigration does help the USA, though it doesn't do anything significant to help the rest of the world. Immigration (when we do it right) brings a steady inflow of bright, energetic, "can do" types into the US population, and helps offset the demographic decline in US workers. It probably hurts the poorer nations, because we are siphoning off the very bright, energetic, "can do" types that, if they stayed home, could improve conditions in their home country.

My father, though much of his career, helped establish industrial research institutes in third world nations under World Bank and UN sponsorship. His objective was to initially staff these research institutes with foreigners, and then attract back nationals to replace the foreign scientists, until after five years or so he could leave a research institute entirely staffed by natives. What I found interesting was that even in the poorest, most backward nations he always found plenty of highly qualified, highly trained native scientists and researchers. But of course they were all in Europe or the USA, where they had gone to get their training and then stayed because there were no opportunities in their home countries.

This immigration issue is a complex one. But looking at the demographics, almost all industrialized nations face a catastrophic demographic decline in their working population over the coming decades, and nations which can replenish their pool of workers with immigrants will fare better than those who, for cultural reasons, are resistant to immigration.