The Post-Election World

Americans are slowly being robbed of purpose. Between our ideological successes of the past 50 years and the policy failures of the past 10, we have created a world which we are fundamentally unprepared for.

That's the impression I'm getting, anyway. I picked up The Post-American World and The Return of History, and I liked both, despite their conflicting worldviews. I am inclined to agree with the claim of the former, that economic growth is not zero-sum, and the fear of the latter, that power politics is. Both, in their own ways, make this point - Zakaria in hopes of helping America find a new one, Kagan in deference to the "return of geopolitics".

This, of course, is political suicide. There is wistful speculation about McCain's "realist" tendencies, but ultimately his view of American purpose seems just as influenced by Kagan's earlier works as his latest (quite literally so [oh, the pun]). McCain's issues with the new Russia and stances on Iraq may be guided by some realist political assumptions, but they converge with international perceptions of neoconservatism. In the world's eyes, it is more important for America's next leader to not be a neoconservative than for him to be a realist. Even his less belligerent positions still rely on a sense of American purpose that now seems outdated - specifically, the League of Democracies. Now, Kagan actually proposes this, but I think there are some issues - mainly, I do not think it can reconcile a commitment to objectively democratic values and American interests without being seen as a US-dominated institution.

Using the Freedom House definition of democracy, countries like Mongolia are farther ahead than Turkey or Colombia. Yet it is hard to imagine a successful US policy in Latin America without Colombia, or a successful US policy in the Middle East without Turkey. At the same time, how will the League act effectively when it must consult countries like Argetnina or South Africa (the latter of which does not seem to be much of an ally of democracy in its own neighborhood). Maintaining an organization that is both inclusive of the world's liberal democracies and conducive to independent action and McCain's worldview would require constant application of US pressure - something that will grow less and less feasible with the "rise of the rest."

At the same time, Obama seems to significantly overestimate US power in diplomatic terms. The fundamental point behind Obama's foreign policy strategy is that the US can accomplish more with diplomacy than it can with its military. This is in many ways true. However, it's important to note that the US is and will be far more of a unipolar actor in terms of military power than it will be in economic or soft power in the future. The gap between the West and the "rest" is closing far faster in economic than in military terms, while countries are beginning to look to their fellow developing nations rather than the West thanks to the success of the BRIC bloc. The ideological influences of both candidates often like to point to Roosevelt and Harry Truman - neoconservatives because of their confrontation of totalitarianism, liberals because of their commitment to multilateralism and development. But just as radical Islam nowhere near rivals the power of the Axis or the USSR, so too does US "soft" and "sticky" power in the wake of WWII have little relevance to today.

It is common practice to invoke the Marshall Plan, but it is it really relevant? The Marshall Plan kept countries that were already friendly to us in that state. It shored up pre-existing institutions. Its success would not have been possible without significant structural reforms in many countries (Germany's economic miracle arguably came more from economic policy changes than US aid). It is not at all relevant to what the US is trying to accomplish today, certainly not to American policy in the Middle East. [As a sidebar, another rather irritating cliche is the comparison to some gargantuan program like getting off of fossil fuels to "putting a man on the moon" or "the Manhattan project." Yes, these programs were very ambitious but they did not reform society. The Manhattan project produced research, some nuclear facilities, and bombs. It did not switch the US over to an all-nuclear society, nor an all-nuclear military, within the course of its existence. The 10-year moon goal launched a handful of men to the moon, a few times. It did not reform society. It did not make landing on the moon cheap or easy - note we haven't done it since. The "fossil fuel" effort, on the other hand, would require changes to virtually every aspect of life and cost an enormously larger part of the economy and take much longer than a decade. There is no comparison to what a program to get off of fossil fuels would require.]

Obama also has yet to engage on issues that are specifically relevant to, well, our actual allies. So far, most of what I've seen involves simply conducting US policy in a way less offensive to the rest of the world. This will buy us some goodwill, but it is not building the foundation for some kind of new wonderful multilateral order, or Joffe's Bismarckian "spoke and hub" system. Assuming the US can win back world support by granting countries the concession of not bombing them or someone else without consulting them first takes a lot of hubris, too. Zakaria's first point about a new US policy is making choices - Obama cannot be all things to all people, nor, I suspect, will he be able to simultaneously build up international cooperation and goodwill while following Democratic policies to their full extent in Latin America (trade issues), China (trade, human rights, environment, etc), and the Middle East (Israel, and likely more).

To build a truly successful multilateral system, the next President will have to address genuinely foregin concerns, not just things America does that concern foreign countries. This applies to the claims that McCain's anti-torture positions will dramatically improve US relations, too. As I always seem to get around to saying, the next President will have to be more than Not George W. Bush.

"Future: That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

Random Thoughts

Jon Chait writes a great review of the Shock Doctrine.

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Tyler Cowen's point about Europe becoming more like the US in economic terms seemed like a fairly simple suggestion at the time, and it's an interesting metric by which to evaluate European news... France is liberalizing their labor market by scrapping the legendary 35-hour mandatory work week and leaving it up to union-business negotiation. I am shocked to see such a thing could pass without some sort of disaster to psychologically subjugate the people. Also, Italy is cracking down on illegal immigrants. Actually, this latter part isn't necessarily becoming more like America, because Europe has its own proud tradition of not getting along with foreigners, too.

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Weird news lately about Russian involvement in the Western Hemisphere. First a replay of the Cuban missile crisis comes up for some bizarre reason. Then Chavez starts talking about Russian troops in Venezuela to defend it from the Americans. While in today's climate, Russia would never be able to wage an effective war across an ocean, the fact that this is even being discussed or worried about is a good reminder that old-style geopolitics aren't over yet.

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McCain is now running for god of war and victory.

Something longer later. As requested, I toned it down a bit.

Winning Battles, Winning Wars

I think Maliki's endorsement of a 16 month timetable for withdrawal (Obama's Iraq plan, essentially) is great news. Firstly, it reflects the confidence of the Iraqi central government in the country's future - in 2006, you would not have seen this kind of discussion. Secondly, it validates my opinion that electoral pressures do not make for good foreign policies.

Why isn't this an unquestionable win for Obama? Well, because, as I mentioned earlier, in 2006, you would not have seen this kind of discussion between Bush and Maliki or Maliki and anyone else. Obama was wrong when he endorsed rapid withdrawal before the surge. Assuming all these reports are accurate: McCain was right on the surge, Obama was wrong; Now, McCain is wrong on withdrawal, and Obama is right. Ironically, both candidates have, at times, hinted of deviating from their stances. As mentioned earlier, there has long been suspicion that Obama wouldn't stick to 16 months if the "situation on the ground" didn't favor it. And McCain said he would support leaving Iraq if the government requested it.

After all the political "flip-flopping" on Iraq (and on other issues) in recent months, the message I am coming away with is notthat any particular candidate is more correct - though it seems barring a major reversal, Obama is certain to win - but that the next foreign policy is not going to be a drastically significant "improvement" - if you hadn't figured it out already.

One of the McCain staff's early responses to news of Maliki supporting a 16 month withdrawal was that Maliki was speaking out of "domestic political pressures" or something similar. Yet it appears that after examining the long, sordid history of both Obama and McCain, we can take away the same message. Given McCain's admissions and criticisms in the war of 2004, I think it is almost unquestionable that McCain has trapped himself on this issue by refusing to concede anything to the center for fear of angering his party's base.

In the spirit of The Shock Doctrine, I'll make a pretty questionable claim about foreign policy and the democratic system: the American democratic systems impede effective, transformative foreign policies. Ancient emperors didn't have to get elected, nor did William III of England. Bismarck and Metternich were not monarchs, but neither did they inhabit a democratic system. The internationalism of Wilson could not succeed until FDR marginalized the Republican Party and refused to follow the two-term limit tradition. Even the British prime ministers can adjust the times for general elections and have much more flexibility about the lengths of their government. There are obviously some exceptions - Nixon's foreign policy was a pretty big break, and he wasn't in power that long. But for many, his system was not necessarily a good or moral one, and as I've said, the grandest systems rely in large part on their creators, and you need only look to Bismarck to see the consequences of what happens when a system fails. Perhaps, even if we would like a Great Man as President, it is better we have the threat of popular referendum to adulturate their aspirations. After all, for every potential great policy, we have even more failures, with disastrous consequences.

Nevertheless, if John McCain's transition from having all the right policies on Iraq to the farthest right positions on Iraq (barring a pride-swallowing admission that would probably kill his campaign anyway) is something of a tragedy; then that this downfall was made possible by the vindication of his ideas is a suitably dramatic twist. If John McCain does not go back four years and state what he believed (believes, we can only hope), then all he will have left is to say he was right about the surge.

But he should think carefully before attempting to gain credit from past insights made obsolete:

Obama, after all, was right about the war.

Schlock Tactics

DISCLAIMER: I read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine between Thursday and Friday, in the interests of balancing out my reading material. The following post is likely extremely sloppy, but the fact people consider this book a legitimate critique of capitalism amazes me. I decided to take a break from reviewing before I got to some even more ludicrious assertions about China, the UK, and other things.

This is possibly one of the most overrated books since The World Is Flat. As a critique of free market capitalism, it fails by lacking a solid empirical basis or a clear definition of what free market capitalism is. As a critique of American interventionism and neoconservatism, it says nothing that has not been stated better by other authors, and what original things it does say are too inextricably bound up in haphazard analogizing and inconsistent theory to be of much use.

The book suffers from major problems. One of which is its obsession with Milton Friedman. Friedman was indeed an orthodox libertarian - this is exactly why Klein's interpretation of him is incorrect. Klein's analysis presents a "conspiracy" in the truest sense of the word - it seems as if every single person, institution and belief system Klein disagrees with has been boiled into an evil, capitalist, warmongering gruel. The Shock Doctrine does not just oversimplify. When convenient, it does the reverse, obfuscating systems to the point where vastly different beliefs are indistinguishable. It presents us with a clear double standard. She attacks the notion that developmentalism and mixed economies were steps on the path to authoritarian communism. Her critique in that sense is legitimate, in many cases American leaders fell so far into anticommunist paranoia that social democracy and socialism, socialism and Stalinism, became inextricable.

Yet Klein asks us to reject a slippery slope on the left and embrace wholeheartedly one on the right - "neoliberal" market reforms is indistingusihable from "libertarian" free market orthodoxy is indistungishable from "neoconservative" statism and militarism. We find overwhelmingly that this is not the case. Neoconservatism and libertarianism are almost diametrically opposed belief systems. Libertarianism seeks a small government at home and a noninterventionist one abroad. A libertarian would not support "no bid" contracts, nation building, enormous increases in military expenditure, faith based initatives, torture, detention camps, wiretapping, and crony capitalism. Klein, of course, feels no need to qualify or even attempt to explain her categorization of the Cato Institute as "neoconservative" - perhaps because doing so would force her to acknowledge the overwhelming opposition of libertarians, Milton Friemdan included, to foreign intervention and torture, thus undercutting two thirds of her view of the "disaster capitalist" M.O. - invade, liberalize, repress.

Klein's selective misappropriation of Friedman's words and ideas does not end with foreign intervention. Her thesis, and her claim that Milton Friedman is its ideological lynchpin, begins in force with this quote from one of his "most influential [1962] essays:" (Oddly, the correct 1982 introduction citation comes 174 pages in)

“Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.”

The first statement is essentially obvious. Crisis is definitionally linked with change. The second is also true. When governments and societies respond to crisis, they generally come to ideas that have been floating in the undercurrent, unimplemented but nevertheless developed. Theories about the utility of mixed economies existed long before the Great Depression, and theories about a proper, internationalist role for the United States existed before World War II. Free market theories were "lying around" during the economic crisis of the 1970s, as were the ideas of neoconservatives during the crisis of American foregin policy in the wake of Vietnam and Iran. Klein essentially acknowledges this a third of the way through the book. However, Klein refuses to acknowledge the difference between a descriptive and a prescriptive statement. Milton Friedman was making a basic observation about how the world worked, not how it should work. Milton Friedman and other economists did not invite disasters, precisely because of the implications of what ideas were "lying around." As Klein states, Milton Friedman and the Chicago School knew their ideas were deeply unpopular - thus, during a crisis, the ideas likely to be lying around were those of the socialist and left wing variety. The point of the preface was that believers in the free market should popularize their ideas, so economic freedom and the democratic system would not be at cross purposes. It is clear that Friedman prefers gradualism in a democratic system rather than induced crisis. Klein, however, ignores the intent of her ideological enemies' remarks, so long as they contain her favorite catchphrases. One is Friedman's preference for gradual reform over "shock therapy". Friedman, in the letter published on Klein's own website, notes that:

"For a country like the US, where inflation is around 10 per cent a yer, I favor agradual policy of ending it in two or three years. But for Chile, where inflation is raging at 10 to 20 percent a month, I believe gradualism is not feasible. It would involve so painful an operation over so long a period that I fear the patient would not survive."

Indeed, Friedman advocates shock therapy (that he also advocates Pinochet "[p]rovide for the relief of any cases of real hardship" is unsurprisingly omitted from Klein's analysis). Yet he explicitly states this is not the ideal form of treatment. A preference for the gradual implementation of free market reforms and macroeconomic adjustment, of course, helps to undermine Klein's thesis that a "Friedmanite counterrevolution" should consist of the inducement of crises. Nevertheless, Klein spends so much time and effort detailing Friedman's desire to separate the market and the state, she ends up, in her description of "Shock Therapy in the USA," describing a program in which enormous amounts of government spending are used to outsource government functions to corporations as "the pinnacle of the Friedmanite counterrevolution." Klein's vision of "disaster capitalism" and Friedman's views alternates between the (more accurate) laissez-faire doctrine in which industrialists hoping for government support are told to "go to hell" and a "corporatist" doctrine in which Friedmanites are purported to support what Klein herself calls a "vast protectionist racket." Klein is absolutely correct to note that Milton Friedman supported laissez faire even at the expense of industrialists and corporations. Many of the passages of Free to Choose are directed at corporations that benefit from government regulation and trade protections. She is also correct to note that the interactions between the Bush government and contractors often amount to a "mafia" arrangement between the market and state. However, to conflate Friedman's views with those of Bush for convenience is ludicrous. The fact she even uses the term Friedmanite after explicitly stating that "Chile under Pinochet and the Chicago boys was not a capitalist state... but a corporatist one" demands a serious explanation that Klein never delivers. The Shock Doctrine's tenuous linkage between these various forms of systems best summed up as "economic systems Naomi Klein doesn't like" employs fallacies of division and composition - that Friedmanite policies are perceived to favor business makes any pro-business policy automatically Friedmanite. She also presumes that since the Chilean government could only conduct free market reforms by political repression, advocating free market reforms, as Friedman did, is tantamount to promoting political repression. However, a government imposed by an unpopular coup requires political repression in some form merely to exist - any of its reforms, except ones to abolish itself, would require repression. Does Klein propose that third world dictatorships seeking to return to developmentalism and asking advice be rebuffed by technical advisors? (I await her condemnation of mixed-system and Keynesian economists for meeting with the USSR in the interwar years, and that of economists meeting with the vast majority of African and Central Asian countries today.) Even if the Chicago Boys of Chile can be blamed for the coup, foreign economists cannot. Milton Friedman wrote a letter to Pinochet and met with him for barely an hour. Friedman was not the architect of the arrangement that put Chicago economists into Chile - Klein admits that occurred long before Friedman became the dominant thinker at Chicago. The junta picked right wing economists, the economists did not pick the junta.

The abuses of logic are carried further - since the Chicago School taught a few Argentines and was associated with a junta in Chile, it occurs naturally to Klein that Argentina must have been a "Chicago School junta" as well. Yet there is little evidence of Argentina having anywhere near the same economic experience as Chile under its junta. While Jose Martinez de Hoz, Argetine financial minister, did reduce developmentalist trade barriers and deregulate the finance sectors, she fails to note that during the he allowed for massive amounts of inflation and his most infamous economic policy tools were wage and price controls coupled with the a bond and treasury policy that essentially amounted to fraud - he ws hardly a free market acolyte, but an economic nationalist seeking to strengthen Argentina's economy. Klein uses a letter describing torture and "planned misery" as "Chicago School" despite Klein's earlier admissions that a pro-business policy is not automatically a Chicago School policy; simultaneously it is clear Argentina's alternations between crackdowns on anti-business groups, government interventions and mixed deregulation point to crony capitalism or "corporatism" rather than the Chicago School. Of course, these ideas are only separate when they suit Klein's purposes. Klein only bothers to connect Argentina's government with actual "Chicago Boys" two decades later during the Argentine fiscal crisis, long after the terror.

Argentina's true "financial" shock of deregulation and "Chicago Boy" policy comes long after its shocks of intervention and repression. Klein, in the opening of her book, outlines Chile, Iraq, and other countries as examples of a clear pattern - disaster, economic change, and repression to protect it. She also stresses continually that "shock" requires these things occur in concert. No such thing occurs in Argentina, and her example falls apart elsewhere. Where was the torture in New Orleans after Katrina (and no, simply having the presence of security personnel and the National Guard doesn't count as "repression")? What, beyond the school reform, were the free market reforms?

Klein delights in the fact that no multiparty democracy has gone "full-tilt free market." By her own admission, Chile was corporatist, Iraq is a racket, and any reasonable examination of China today demonstrates a country practicing something closer to mercantilism or "state capitalism" rather than laissez-faire. So what society then, has gone "full-tilt free market?" Although Milton Friedman himself supported anti-trust legislation and emissions taxes, he is certainly a laissez-faire economist (though not as much as the Austrians, again something Klein admits). The reality is that the main flaw of Friedman's laissez-faire economics is not that they cannot be implemented in a democracy or without repression, but that they cannot be implemented. The government with the power to implement such laissez-faire reforms over the natural voting interests of people and lobbyists would naturally taint its economic reforms with "corporatism" just as naturally as the government with the power to implement complete socialism over the natural voting interests of people and lobbyists would taint its economic reforms with bureaucratic cronyism. There is nothing wrong with critiquing the practicability of laissez-faire or the brutality of armed corporatism. But the amount of self-contradictions in Klein's work, the twisting of history to fit an "all-encompassing" thesis, and its attempt to refute "neoliberal" reforms by conflating everything that smells of capitalism into an impossible system with no true ideological constituents is absurd. Free market economists widely acknowledge that successful free market reform is better taken in gradual doses rather than extreme "shock therapy"- the Chicago School is not representative of mainstream free market economic thought, nor has it ever been. In focusing her attacks on Friedman, she forfeits a legitimate critique of entirely separate economic systems. So too does she ignore the small triumphs of capitalism in the developing world, slowly liberalizing but rapidly growing. Klein is absolutely correct to state that extreme free market ideals are unpopular, but she is incorrect to assume then that this encourages "laissez-faire" "disaster capitalists" to team up with "corporatists" to try and implement them forcibly. The median economist, as Bryan Caplan and others note, is a centrist Democrat - supportive of a government role and sensible policy changes, but agreed on basic economic principles about the dangers of price controls, excessive regulation, and protectionism - policies that Klein seems to be very supportive of. Many support this book on the basis that the overwhelming praise for Friedman must be balanced out. This is foolish, firstly because Milton Friedman's most basic premise - that in general, economic liberty is a positive thing - is as true as any general claim about the benefit of responsible government. But secondly, much more reasonable and balanced criticisms of Friedman's economic policies come from left-leaning and centrist analysts with peer-reviewed, empirical studies. The deeper the left draws from the gutters to attack Friedman and other systems, the more the left plays into the conservative claim that the ultra-capitalists are in the "true" mainstream, and everyone else is supporting socialism - "unfettered capitalism" emerged after such crusades against its supporters, and it would be wise for the American left not to prime such another swing for the future. You do not need to prove that Milton Friedman and capitalism are the spawn of Satan to critique either.

Silly Music Post

I was on The National's website and I saw the banner at the top of the page - I thought it was kind of interesting. Given Alligator came out in 2005, I suspect the song wasn't originally about him - or even the elections, but who knows? Well, actually, I don't think anyone would describe Obama as the "Great White Hope," though "new blue blood" would be a suitably snarky way for idiots with blogs to label a young, "elitist" Democrat. Before I lose my license for misappropriating lyrics, I would actually like to note that "I won't fuck us over" is, looking back on my previous posts, the campaign slogan for my preferred 2008 Presidential campaign.

Inspirational, I know.

The song in question.

Surviving Diplomacy

Though Iraq is getting most of the attention from Presidential candidates these days, I'm not afraid to once again drag out the other "talked-to-death" foreign policy issue: Iran. Given it's not the primary concern of many voters, it is unlikely that either candidate will be elected for their stance on Iran. Assuming nobody bombs it between now and January, it is unlikely it will garner enormous amounts of public attention during election and post-election season either.

However, for Obama moreso than McCain, it's going to the subject of significant scrutiny when he starts his actual diplomatic efforts. Because Obama has drawn such a stark contrast between his position and that of McCain and the past three decades of American policy, if he follows through on what he's said (and he may not, of course), then he will be under far more pressure than McCain would be. Most Americans are not expecting a breakthrough with Iran, and given the mystery behind Iran's nuclear program, might not even be sure what a breakthrough would be. If elected, I do not think many Americans will be expecting McCain to make a diplomatic one - though it would disproportionately benefit his candidacy if he did.

For Obama, or indeed, any "dovish" candidate (this could well apply to Democrat 2012 or 2016, too!), the issue is going to be getting re-elected after all this. If Obama does get "soft" on Iran, it could potentially be an election-killer if it doesn't go very well. Obama can sit down with Iran and even begin a normalization of ties with them, but, if he doesn't want to turn his Iran policy into a major negative, he'll have to keep in mind the following:

• Iran has regional interests that anger Americans which go beyond their nuclear program. For example, no matter what we do, we are not going to get Iran to keep its hands off of Iraq. It makes no diplomatic sense for the Iranians, and it would be very hard for American President to overcome this. Thusly, "solving" the Iranian nuclear issue and warming ties will likely not stop Iranian support for Hezbollah or the Shiite militias in Iraq. Americans (most likely conservative analysts and military personnel) may become very vocal about these issues not being addressed. The US President could have his staff walk away from the negotiating table, claim success on the nuclear question, and still have Hezbollah fighting in Lebanon and the Badr Brigade's Revolutionary Guard pensioned troops clashing with the government or US troops.
• Negotiations that go well do not mean negotiations that work. In North Korea and Iraq, negotiations and inspection compliance do not necessarily answer the nuclear question. If Obama is perceived as being too soft or giving in too much and does not definitively solve the nuclear issue, he had better hope no evidence of mischief appears between the time of negotiations and the 2012 elections.
• Big-mouthed Iranian Presidents. Despite the lack of definitive proof for an Iranian nuclear weapons program, belligerent statements by Iranian politicians, about Israel or otherwise, are still enough to catch media attention and anger Americans. Since Iranian politicians also have to pander to conservatives, do not count on negotiations toning this down to an insignificant amount. Israel will still be there, and it is incredibly unlikely Obama will be able to do much to warm Iranian-Israeli relations.

This is not to suggest that I think negotiations with Iran are an inherently bad thing - I just think the political risks are greater for a liberal than a conservative, and that still applies for Obama. I do not think the Middle East is "primed" for a breakthrough. The Arab press is widely skeptical about Obama, and it would not surprise me if the Iranian press were as well. Negotiating with Iran will still require diplomatic finesse rather than good intentions, and moving beyond the nuclear program to Iran's regional role to address concerns in Iraq and Lebanon will take even more. Americans should not put so much stock in diplomacy simply because it's not what we've been doing the last eight years (as I've said in so many more words earlier, the system is still going to be broken when Bush leaves), but because in many cases it does the least possible harm. I would prefer a Presidency that Obama has promised in the primaries to the one that McCain jokes about, but I have low expectations of what these negotiations will actually accomplish. Likely, Obama will stick to his clarification that he'll reserve such negotiations to times when we can definitively identify we can achieve something useful. Which, of course, does not escape the subjectivity required to identify when those times are.

Random thoughts on '08 and econ policy

John McCain's 300 Economist statement is already turning into a fiasco. In all likelihood, most of these guys just signed on not because they think McCain's plan is that great (it would continue budget deficit spending, supports a silly gas tax cut concept, etc), but because they think it is better than the alternative (see next paragraph). The interesting thing about McCain's plan is that it makes more sense if you think we're going to be in a worse place economically in 2009 than we are right now. It avoids the things you generally want to avoid doing to exacerbate a recession - raising taxes, enacting protectionist legislation, trying to balance the budget - but that doesn't necessarily make it the best economic policy. If we are in a solid enough economic position that we can raise taxes to close the budget deficit, and the budget deficit is manageable enough to allow for new spending for domestic programs, then Obama's policy would be preferable.

Of course, that's also questionable. If the economy does get worse, doing things like raising capital gains taxes will be a doubly bad idea (first because capital gains taxes are perhaps the one form of taxation that has significant "supply-side" effects) because discouraging capital formation is the opposite of what the US should be doing when it is concerned about bank panics. The other problem is that, as has been pointed out months ago, most economic calculations of the future budget deficit include the Bush tax cuts being phased out. It's still pretty big.

The best case I think you can make for McCain's economic policy is that there will most likely be a strong Democratic Congress no matter what happens in November, which means that he won't be able to extend the Bush tax cuts, pass additional tax cuts, or any domestic spending programs that only Republicans like. He would also likely veto many domestic spending programs, whereas Obama would be under pressure to pass whatever Congress put in front of him.

As far as budget hawks are concerned, I think the current Democratic pretensions of being the real fiscally sensible party are deeper grounded in one-upsmanship than an overriding interest in fiscal restraint. This is not the DLC's party anymore. Obama infamously said he would increase capital gains taxes even if it decreased revenue. The Democrats have made universal healthcare a key campaign issue, and additionally are proposing major federal investment in infrastructure. The one area where Obama will be able to make headway is in spending on Iraq, but probably only after 2010. Even then, there will still be major aid obligations and an escalated effort in Afghanistan to pay for. This is not going to be the next Clinton administration, fiscally (nor would it have been if the other Clinton was going to win).

Ultimately, I'm going to base my economic preference on this - "who will do the least harm?" Both candidates have flawed policies, depending on the economic situation they will face in office. If the economy avoids a recession and improves, it will be largely due to the Federal Reserve and the private sector. I do not think either candidate will be able to easily implement the most fiscally favorable elements of their platforms. McCain will not be able to get away with a corporate tax cut or free trade agreements. Obama will find it very difficult to close the budget deficit by an economically significant amount (which would be an amount that prevents crowding out or inflation). In any case, we'll just have to see what happens. Discussing the full range of possibilities of what the economy could be like leads to a number of potentially contradictory stances. But, as Keynes said, when the facts change, so should our opinions.

Of course, much of economy is out of the President's hands - so we should vote primarily on what the President is most likely to influence... Which is foreign policy.

Really, How'd it Get This Way?

Why can't America mind its own business? I posed the question earlier and touched on it briefly. But it's a question intruiguing enough to answer, and it comes from an opinion common enough to rile me. Since World War II, every American policy has been built around an interventionist approach to foreign affairs - even the most Wilsonian and internationalist of policies lead us into conflicts - from Korea to Kosovo, good intentions lead to the use of American power abroad. Why can't we be like every other nation?

There are several flaws to this argument, and even then it takes valances - the purely isolationist and the multilateralist being most prominent. These posts often reek of the strawman fallacy, but I assure you I have heard these arguments made.

The first is that, quite simply, America is not like every other nation. We are still one fifth of the world's economy. This is not to say that economic might paves the way for diplomatic right, but it is a figure you should keep in mind. America is still a bull in a china shop. Even when it lies down to sleep, it is still going to knock something over. Other countries expect things of the most powerful countries, especially when they are the only one that can deploy power anywhere in the world. Even with the rise of China, you are not going to see comparable military power. American aircraft will still patrol the Taiwan Strait and American carriers will still linger in the East China Sea. But I will bet money that you will not live to see Chinese CVNs at a permanent base in Hispanola or 30,000 PLA troops in Guatemala. India is even less prepared for a role as a military superpower. Russia virtually ended naval construction and its strategic air capabilities are unlikely to return to Cold War capabilities (Even Russia's traditional strong point, missile technology is on the wane - reporting botched Topol tests is a taboo subject in Putin's Russia). The EU might be least prepared of all potential superpowers - Europe includes powers, but it is not a power itself. The EU, internally, is a remarkable institution. But it is less than the sum of its parts beyond its own borders. (One could, of course, argue that we don't need any superpower lording over anyone, but this would be to assume there are no genuinely international problems or concerns that require a forceful resolution. History shows rather well that there are, and such an attitude generally results in the triumph of the nastiest superpowers.)

Even if we do have a role to play, then who will help us do it? This is the multilateralist form of the argument. Who wants to do what we do? If Europe is on the rise and will some day act as a unified power beyond its own borders, then it is the most logical ideological heir to America's role. So too, people would argue, it could also be America's successor in practical terms - after all, KFOR was representative of NATO, ISAF's non-American component is largely European, etc. But do they want to?

The answer, overwhelmingly, is no. Britain is a telling example. Iraq? Britain's been there, and it bought the T-shirt. Afghanistan? Also not a positive experience. But it's not just Britain: Europe is tired of anything that smells of empire. Want to see multilateral, institution-based, trans-Atlantic cooperation? French socialists are trying to avoid entering the NATO unified command structure precisely so they don't have to contribute or defer their national interest to others. When the choice comes down to spending more on the military so half of it doesn't walk away so they can fight wars of choice or maintaining a massive amount of morally unquestionable entitlement programs, which way do you think a democratic European country will swing? There are willing Eastern European countries, to be sure - the ones who remember American favors and Soviet boots, but Western Europe is sensibly enough more concerned about angering its petroleum supplier than getting more Ukranians in ISAF.

But the truth is, Europeans know issues like a potential Iraqi collapse, a crisis in the Taiwan Straits, and war in the Korean peninsula are real issues - they'd just rather have someone else dump half their discretionary spending into the military and hundreds of thousands of soldiers into permanent overseas bases. International security is a public good, and public goods are free rider problems. The UN will not likely be the "government" that resolves such problems when they appear on a national scale. Giving the US, UK, France, Russia and China vetoes alone is problematic enough, proposals to make the council more representative by giving the same to Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, and an Islamic Player to be Named Later is not going to help. So the superpower among great powers often does the work of others. To go back to Afghanistan's long history of interventions...

"On another hand, it's absolutely clear that Nato countries, and Great Britain among them, they are doing our job," he adds.

"Now western countries are doing our job and support tremendously Russian security."

There's the Catch-22 of American foreign policy. When our actions serve the interests of all international players, we will bear the brunt of the costs. When they do not, there will be fewer to help with whatever ones we do not.

But what about the 1990s? Or, to put it in a partisan manner, what about the Clinton administration? Our unipolarity then was also unquestioned, but we now nostalgically look back upon it as an era of hope for multilateral policy and the international rule of law. Well, part of that is justified. And much of it is a kneejerk reaction to the misguided policies of George W. Bush. But it is important to remember that while Bush's interest in nation-building came after 9/11, the neoconservatism of his advisors was already there. PNAC's letter petitioning Clinton to depose Saddam went out in 1998. Its famed "Rebuilding America's Defenses" came out in 1997.

Let's review:

• The Battle of Mogadishu, 1993 - You've seen the movie, maybe even read the book, but the American withdrawal here was emblamatic of much of what neoconservatives thought was wrong about American foreign policy.
• The Rwandan genocide, 1994 - The US decides to "do what everyone else is doing," which, in a collective action problem, is absolutely nothing. Using force to protect human rights starts looking like a good idea again.
  
• Operation Deliberate Force, Bosnia, 1995 - NATO bombs the Balkans to the peace table. Russia prevents the UN from doing anything constructive.
• 3rd Taiwan Straits Crisis, 1995-1996 - China launches missiles over Taiwan, Chinese generals imply they would use nuclear arms against American cities if the US intervened. These war fears persist well into the beginning of Bush's first term... And then 9/11 happens. This is why PNAC is writing letters about rebuilding America's defenses.
  
• Operation Desert Fox, Iraq, 1998 - Iraq refuses to comply with inspectors. America bombs Iraq, and Clinton signs the Iraq Liberation Act that supports anti-Saddam militias. The aforementioned PNAC letter to go further comes here.
• Operation Infinite Reach, Afghanistan, Sudan, 1998 - In response to the African embassy bombings, the US bombs a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and other targets in Afghanistan. Russia and the Muslims are angry, but the US is still riding enough goodwill from the attacks on its embassies that Europe gives it the general OK.
  
• Operation Allied Force, Kosovo, 1999 - Similar story, slightly different location. The phrase "humanitarian bombing" is used intentionally by NATO spokespersons. KFOR - Western troops - are on the ground. Criticisms include the questionable use of UN resolutions as a justification, undermining of the international system, the unnecessary escalation of conflict due to a misreading of the target nation's actions, and committing the US to nation-building. Only this time, it's conservatives saying the latter rather than liberals.

Obviously, these events were not as blatantly unilateral as Bush's. Iraq was the first in a line of major military operations (1st, 2nd Balkans interventions, Afghanistan) to be without the backing of a multilateral institution. But I think the issue is not how we lost the goodwill America enjoyed in the 1990s, because by 1999 we were on our way to losing it (to extrapolate a counterfactual history, if we continued our interventionist projects into the 2000s without 9/11, a lot of the world, and NATO, would likely still be somewhat mad with us. Another counterfactual: if 9/11 occurred under a Clinton administration, how much less would we really overreact?). The issue is how we lost the world's goodwill after 9/11. Gitmo and the Green Zone explain most of that. I do not intend to assert or imply Clinton was as nearly as disastrous for foreign policy as Bush was.

Yet the system was broken before Bush came into power. Bin Laden escalated the war on terror, and when we escalated we found out we didn't know how to fight. Yes, George W. Bush was not the optimal in his conduct, to put it lightly. (Neither is he necessarily the worst - remember that we have yet to invade Syria, Iran and Pakistan as the doomsayers predicted. John McCain could have been President in 2001, too.) But the blowback we are reaping now is not all from Bush. Ossetia and Abkhazia are once again on the brink of war. Russia wraps up its support for these Georgian breakaway regions in a tu quoques argument based around NATO support for Kosovo. It would also be foolish to discuss Putin's hawkish tendencies without noting the US-lead effort to incorporate former Soviet puppets in 1999, or to discuss European skepticism (and Russian paranoia) about American hawkishness without remembering in 1999 when fellow NATO commanders refused to follow Wesley Clark's orders to start World War III.

The wounds of Afghanistan, Iraq, and America's looming confrontation with the reality of its own unpreparedness for a "global war on terrorism" were open, we've just spent the last 8 years worsening them. Modern advocates of multilateralism argue that while the US was a unipolar power in the 1990s, it was not unlimited in its capabilities or grossly irresponsible in its actions; and thus aggressive, unilateral policy cannot be used as the baseline for its 21st century actions. I agree, and I add: while multilateral systems in the 1990s were certainly more effective, they were limited in their capabilities and appeared increasingly irresponsible to those whose interests they did not serve. The problems inherent in these multilateral systems that lead, in part, to our rejection of them, still exist, because they are entrenched in these organizations themselves.

America cannot and will not act like just another country, or a nicely fitting cog in a multilateral regime because the system it inhabits will not permit such a policy. The abdication of international responsibility, to borrow a phrase from Therese Delpech, applies not only to America's conduct in the beginning of the 21st century but also to the reluctance of its presumptive allies in sacrificing their own limited self-interest and the actions of its rivals. The multilateral system will not live up to the expectations American internationalists are today setting for it as long as all the major players refuse to cooperate, whether that means the US, Europe, NATO as a whole, or Russia or China. But it is also worth noting that these international systems are more effective when they have a clear leader to guide them, as is the case when NATO acts. To the extent that the world becomes more multipolar, this too will be more difficult.

The "orderly" systems that are able to govern great powers are often, historically, self-defeating in the long run and thus require the work of a great diplomat to create and sustain them. When that diplomat is gone, the system breaks down. Metternich's system collapsed when there was no Metternich to defend it from Bismarck. Bismarck's realpolitik and "great wheel" failed when he was no longer around to keep it from imploding on itself. Wilson's system of internationalism was perhaps more disconnected with the reality in Europe than the previously mentioned ones, but it is unquestionable that the lack of his direct presence in the League of Nations and the lack of a suitable successor contributed to its failure. For our century, we have no adequate international order or system guarantee its stability, and we will likely need a great diplomat to build one. Unfortunately, "not being George W. Bush" is not a sufficient qualification. This system is too compromised, I fear, for anything less than brilliance and luck to fix it.

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That was a lot longer than I intended.

Just War Theory

Americans have no great love for realism, so it shouldn't be surprising many today advocate the use of 'just war' principles. One of the problems, though, is that just as one can dismiss traditional realism for being outdated, so too can one dismiss just war principles on similar grounds. I think this is actually of greater consequence for just war theory, mainly because just war is primarily a prescriptive theory based on moral standards.

Legitimate authority - Someone should probably inform non-state actors, like terrorist groups, that they are not allowed to wage war. This is an obvious enough claim, but it has serious implications for many other just war standards.

Probability of success - The US cannot claim to wage just wars unless it has a clearly defined standard of victory. The probability of winning a 'War on Terror' is essentially zero. What are the standards of victory in Afghanistan? In the next intervention to prevent terrorism? Retaliation is not a legitimate goal in and of itself.

Proportionality - Starting any conflict against forces within a stable state that requires occupation, nation building, or the deployment of ground troops without the permission and aid of the local government is extremely vulnerable to the proportionality test. Civilian casualties are often going to be larger than enemy military casualties. Paradoxically, though, ending these wars once they've been started and mismanaged also fails the proportionality test, as power vacuums often claim more civilian lives than those of occupying Western soldiers.

Distinction - See legitimate authority.

Military necessity - Given the problems of distinction, are Americans really willing to sacrifice larger numbers of their own soldiers to minimize civilian deaths when the distinction between civilians and combatants isn't readily apparent?

Just cause for termination - Difficult, because the reasons we started the Iraq War and other conflicts will be very different from the reasons we will choose to stop them.

Public declaration and authority - Just war termination requires a legitimate authority to accept the peace terms. Given the lack of legitimate authority in declaring modern anti-terrorist wars, there will likely not be a legitimate authority to accept our terms.

Even Obama has tried to shake the perception that he would hesitate to use force "when necessary" (remember the Pakistan issue?). Really, there are very few American politicians who would actually pursue non-interventionism, and the vast majority of the rest still would prefer, in the American tradition, to have a foreign policy guided by strong moral underpinnings. The theoretical challenge of the 21st century "War on Terror" will be developing a moral framework that practically applies.

Reality is a hassle

And so the move to the center continues...

It's good news, though. Americans want a President who understands the situation on the ground and reacts according to facts rather than gut feelings or ideological prejudices... Right?

No matter how you slice it, America is going to have combat troops in Iraq for quite some time, assuming the central government works out some sort of security agreement - and maybe even if it doesn't. Iraq is too important to turn into a talking point either way. Our gains in the surge are fragile, which means we need to leave in a far more sensible manner than we entered the country. Given Iran's current interests in the country, Turkey's incursion, and Saudi Arabia's pledges to intervene in the absence of US troops, we have a taste of what could come in Iraq. If the situation on the ground necessitates an American presence, then that's probably what should happen.

Besides, even if Obama did stick to his 16 month pledge, it's not hard to skirt - what are combat troops, exactly? Do we keep advisors? A force to protect the embassy? A rapid reaction force in case the country destabilizes? Special forces units to assist the Iraqi government in counterterrorist operations? These troops could be stationed in Iraq and still be under threat of IED attacks or assassinations without it strictly being "combat" as the administration wishes to choose it.