Cromwell

An Italian statesman famously noted after reunification that, having created Italy, one now had to create Italians.  The same is more or less true of the EU and its relationship to its citizens.  If “ever closer union” is to become more than a pipe dream, the people of Europe need to think of themselves primarily as “Europeans.”

But what exactly binds these very different people together?  After all, they have been fighting wars among themselves for centuries.  Here is the list, with my comments:

1.  In, say, 1950, the first part of the answer would clearly have been Christianity.  Today, not so much, due to the increasing secularization of Europe, and the influx of Muslim immigrants.
2.  A commitment to liberal democracy?  Have you been to Hungary lately?
3.  A common culture and history?  Not really, although the nearly universal use of English as a second language helps to some extent.  With Brexit looming, there’s an amusing paradox for you.

What you are left with is Eurovision, the Ryder Cup, and football (soccer).  That isn’t much to use as a basis for creating an identity.

Maybe Trump can help them out by being so obnoxious that they can’t help but unite against him.  Laugh if you want–it’s not impossible.

You can divide the history of the EU into two phases.  The first phase, the EEC, was essentially just a free trade agreement involving a minority of the countries within Europe.  It had two very clear objectives:  (a) to promote the reconstruction of European economies after the disaster of World War II in order to fend off communism; and (b) to provide a solution to the problem of the overmighty German state.  It was an unqualified success.

Phase two, the EU phase, has been more of a mixed bag.  In this phase, pan-European institutions were both deepened (to involve more common governmental functions), and widened (to encompass far more countries).  The objectives of this were less clear, but included:  (a) to create a soft power counterweight to the US and Russia; (b) to promote additional economic growth through the free movement of people, goods, and services; (c) to promote liberal democratic values; and (d) to provide a mechanism for the resolution of disputes among its members, and thus to avoid future damaging wars.

This phase has been marked by some very notable failures.  The euro brought some economic benefits, but, on the whole, has done more harm than good.   Immigration is a festering sore that continues to threaten to tear the EU apart.  Liberal democracy is a thing of the past in several of the central European countries.  “Ever closer union” is no longer viewed as a desirable end in and of itself by much of the population.

Where is the EU likely to go from here?  I will be discussing that topic throughout the week.

Now, here’s a steel cage match for you.

In the blue corner, we have . . . capitalism!  The creator of unparalleled economic growth, it promises perpetual change, and boasts about creative destruction.  It brings both wealth and endless insecurity.  Value is established, not by some fixed measure of inherent worth, but by how much a willing purchaser is prepared to pay in a free market.  It generates new winners and losers every day.

In the red corner, we have . . . revealed religion!  Here, God has provided the truth to the world, and it is immutable.  If changing facts get in the way of the story, you are required to believe the story, not your eyes.

It sounds like a classic battle between the irresistible force and the immovable object, doesn’t it?

And the winner is . . . capitalism, at least for those of us who don’t accept revealed religion as a source of truth.  For conservative members of the GOP who embrace both, trying to balance them must be an intellectual nightmare.

Here’s a thought experiment for you:  imagine two starkly different hypotheticals for the 2020 campaign.  In #1, Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee, and she is running under the banner of “White Men Suck.”  Her plan is to create a coalition of minorities and white women to sweep away the white patriarchy.  In #2, Bernie Sanders is the nominee, and his slogan is “Vive la Revolution.”  His approach is to bring white and minority working class people together to overthrow Wall Street and the other bastions of capitalism and create the socialist Jerusalem.

On paper, these coalitions could represent a majority of American voters.  How do they work in practice?

Both of them lose, bigly.  Harris loses because minority turnout is predictably low, and white women, sickened by her constant complaints about “white privilege,”  hold their noses and break for Trump.  Sanders loses because a large majority of white working class men simply refuse to stand by their minority comrades and sing Kumbaya.

The point here is that the Democratic Party can’t afford to be just a class-or an identity-based party.  It has to be both, and something more, to win on a national level.

We reconvene to discuss foreign policy.

C:  OK, we’re back, and I’m going to ask some questions about foreign policy.

O:  Shoot.

C:  Let’s start with a country that has been in the news a bit lately–Russia.

O:  I’ve heard something about that.

C:  I did a post about what Putin wants.  What do you think he wants?

O:  Three things.  First and foremost, to stay in power.  Second, to dominate his near abroad, and to recreate the Russian Empire to the maximum extent possible.  Third, respect for Russia as a world power, and an equal partner of the US.

C:  With that in mind, why do you think the “reset” failed?

O:  You need to keep in mind that we didn’t really have great expectations for the reset–we just wanted to get his cooperation on a few things that mattered.  And it did work, to some extent;  it would have been impossible to get the Iran sanctions without his help.

That said, I think it was mostly Ukraine and the Arab Spring that made things go south.  Rightly or wrongly, and I would say mostly wrongly, he blamed us for bringing more instability into the world, just as we had with Iraq and the color revolutions.  Ukraine in particular hit too close to home.  He thought he had to do something, and he did.

C:  Do you think you were forceful enough in your response to Crimea and Ukraine?

O:  In retrospect, yes.  He knew, and we knew, and everyone knew, the United States wasn’t going to war with Russia to save Ukraine.  He wanted it more than we did.  We made him pay a big price without escalating to the point of making everything much worse.  I have no regrets about that.

C:  What about Libya?

O:  I do have regrets about Libya.  There were some good reasons to get involved there, but I shouldn’t have let myself get talked into it without asking more questions.  I had too much faith in our allies’ ability and willingness to fix military and political problems without our involvement.  I don’t know that I would have done anything differently, but I certainly would have asked more questions before we acted.

C:  Do you have anything to say about Benghazi?

O:  Hillary responded to all of that very clearly.  I don’t have anything to add to what she said.

C:  Are the Libyan people, and the world as a whole, better off today without Qaddafi?

O:  It’s appalling to have to say this, but I would have to say no.  Sometimes revolutions just make everything worse.

C:  How do you think that story ends?

O:  The story never really ends.  I honestly don’t know.

C:  Let’s talk about China.  I suspect most people would say the “pivot to Asia” was too little, too late.  Would you agree?

O:  Yes and no.  We didn’t get to it until late in my administration due to other pressing problems.  But the keystone to it was the TPP, which was more of a geopolitical thing than a free trade agreement.  It would have worked to both restrain China and encourage the Chinese government to behave more responsibly.  Unfortunately, Trump has torn it up.  The other parties have implemented it without us, and still want us to join.  Maybe we will when Trump is gone.

C:  Do you think you were forceful enough in your response to the fill islands?

O:  The fill islands aren’t as big a deal as they are made out to be.  They’re sitting ducks in wartime.  We made our point by not recognizing Chinese sovereignty over them, but they weren’t important enough to risk war.

C:  Is dealing with China the great foreign policy conundrum of the 21st century?

O:   Without a doubt, yes.

C:  In the long run, can a horrible war be avoided?

O:  If the issue is handled properly, yes. The best way is to create a rules-based system that has the support of the Chinese.  Will that happen?  I don’t know.

C:  Let’s move to the Middle East.

O:  It had to happen sooner or later.

C:  How would you grade yourself on Iraq and IS?

O:  It was a mixed bag.  I reject the criticism that we should have kept troops in Iraq, and that we could have somehow used our troops as leverage against the bad decisions and corruption of the Maliki government.  We wanted to stay in Iraq, but the government would only permit us to remain under terms that would have been completely unacceptable to anyone, Trump included, so we made a virtue of necessity and left.  And anyone who thinks that the mere presence of a few thousand American troops would have forced Maliki to be nicer to the Sunnis and less corrupt doesn’t know anything about him.

I think the criticism that we didn’t recognize the IS threat early enough is valid.  That said, we put together an approach to win the war, and it worked.  I’m proud of that.

C:  On a related note, I suspect a lot of people would say that you never really appreciated the fear that Americans had of IS.  You kept telling us that deaths from furniture exceeded deaths from terrorism.  Do you have any regrets about that?

O:  Some.  The message I was trying to send was that in countries like Israel and the UK that are accustomed to dealing with terrorism, the people just get on with it.  You have to do what you can to get rid of it, but there are so many things you can’t control, so just treat it as a very small part of your life and move on.  Americans weren’t ready for that message.  I guess I didn’t find the right way to say it.  I do regret that.

C:  I have argued that your mistake in Syria was in setting the red line, not in refusing to enforce it.  Do you agree?

O:  Basically, yes.  To the extent that I gave any real thought to the red line, I figured that Assad would just respect it, and I would never have to act.  That was a mistake.  But rejecting the advice of the blob and refusing to launch some sort of pinprick attack was one of the best things I did.  Has Trump enhanced American credibility with his pinprick attacks?  I don’t think so.

C:  I suspect you view the now defunct Iran deal as one of your great accomplishments.  Do you agree?

O:  Absolutely.  First of all, it was really hard work getting everyone, including the Russians and Chinese, to support the sanctions.  Then we had to reach an agreement that would work for everyone.  We did.  Trump and Israel are enjoying the benefits of it, even though they won’t acknowledge that.

C:  It appeared to the world that you were tilting away from our traditional support of Saudi Arabia towards a more transactional relationship with both Iran and the Saudis.  Do you agree?

O:  America’s support of Saudi Arabia has always been based on interests, not shared values.  Once the Saudis stopped being the swing oil producer, we had more freedom to be transactional.  That was a good thing, particularly since the current Saudi government has become increasingly aggressive in its foreign policy.  I had no desire to make America the tip of the Saudi spear.  They resented that.

I know there is a lot of hostility, based on history, between Iran and the US.  In the long run, I would hope the two countries would get over it and move on.  The nuclear deal wasn’t premised on that, but it accommodated it.

C:  We’ll conclude with a few questions about Trump.  Some people have argued that there is a basic continuity between your foreign policy and his.  Do you agree with that?

O:  God, no.  In the long run, I believe the best protection for America is not just its economy and armed forces, but a fair rules-based international system.  The trick is to get the other major powers to buy into that.  I think we were making progress with that with the TPP, but Trump blew it up.  His bottom line is that he only believes in power, not rules.  That’s fine as long as you’re the uncontested world leader.  If you ever reach the point when you’re not, there will be no one out there to help you.

C:  Both you and Trump were willing to ignore the advice of the blob and talk to unfriendly world leaders.  Would you say that is a basic similarity?

O:  Yes and no.  I’m not in any way critical of his willingness to talk to Kim, or even to the Iranian leadership.  I do have a problem with his lack of preparation and his belief that he’s so smart and charming, he can make difficult problems go away.  Diplomacy doesn’t work that way.

C:  Do you think we’re headed for war with either North Korea or Iran?

O:  With North Korea, no.  Trump’s heart doesn’t seem to be in it.  With Iran, yes.  MBS and Netanyahu are determined to push us into war, and economic sanctions aren’t going to force the regime to change its behavior, so where else can he go?

C:  Thank you for your time.

 

Some things are really complicated, but this isn’t:

People who misuse their overriding social, legal, and/or economic power to abuse others–boys, girls, animals, whatever–are scum.

People who cover up those actions and thus enable future crimes are complicit in them.

That’s it.  It’s not about gay priests, or clerical celibacy, or anything like that;  it’s about power, and the abuse of it.

If you’re unfortunate enough to live in an area in which a favored group of people has too much clout of one kind or another to be questioned, this sort of thing is going to happen.  It is only when society morphs into something different and more open–in this case and in Ireland, it became more secular–that justice of a kind becomes possible.  And so, paradoxically, the loss of prestige on the part of the Catholic establishment may be a positive development both for the health of the Church itself and the society around it in the long run.

Matthew Yglesias has an interesting article on Vox entitled “Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan to Save Capitalism.”  It is well worth your time.

The gist of the article is that Warren is pushing a piece of proposed legislation that attempts to make large corporations more responsive to the needs of their workers and the community, not just their shareholders.  The bill would require corporations with revenues exceeding $1 billion to apply for and receive new federal charters.  In order to get a charter, the corporations would have to agree to limit share buybacks, CEO compensation, and self-interested political activity, and boards of directors would have to include a minimum number of representatives from labor and the public.

It’s an interesting idea.  My questions about it are as follows:

1. Is it conceptually sound?
2. Is it politically feasible?
3. How well would it work, in practice?

My responses are as follows:

1.  Yes, the bill is conceptually sound.  It is true, as Warren asserts, that:  (a) the creation of a corporate entity is a legal privilege that can be conditioned by the government in the public interest; (b) corporations have been afforded new constitutional rights, including rights under the First Amendment,  without accepting any countervailing responsibilities in the recent past; (c) the proposal looks a lot like a model that works in Germany; and (d) the move towards a shareholder value form of governance over the last fifty years has coincided with an increase in corporate profits, and a loss of power and income for labor.
2. There is nothing about this bill that is “socialist,” but it would be portrayed as such in hysterical terms by the GOP.  Getting it through Congress would require a blue wave election, which in turn would mean complete failure on the part of the Trump administration.
3.  I’m skeptical about how well the bill would actually work in practice.  Measures to control corporations are typically gamed successfully by management, and putting the burden of enforcement on dissident left-wing shareholders isn’t necessarily going to succeed.

On the whole, I prefer direct and transparent measures which redistribute wealth and power to this kind of indirect interference with the market, but I am willing to keep an open mind on the subject.  Make your case, Ms. Warren.  I’m listening.

Iran and Turkey are hardly natural allies.  Iran is Shiite; Turkey is Sunni.  Their predecessors, the Ottoman and Persian Empires, were neighbors who fought countless border wars (the boundaries of the current state of Iraq were a result).  Finally, Iran was determined to keep Assad in power in Syria, while the Turks wanted to see the back of him.  Historically, there isn’t much reason for cooperation there.

Until now.  Today, they share the same large and deadly adversary–America.  In addition to providing each other with diplomatic support, the Turks can and will help the Iranians bust the new sanctions.  The two of them can also collaborate to make the lives of the Kurds and their American friends miserable in Syria.  It’s going to happen, and we need to prepare for it.

The Turks have been difficult friends even under much better circumstances.  Much of the blame for the current circumstances falls on them.  Trump is making things worse, however, with his blundering, swaggering “diplomacy,” and we are going to pay a price for it in the near future.

It sucks to watch your heroes die.

It hurts to see them go.

There is no point in asking why.

There’s no response, you know.

 

The world will go on after us.

It did OK before.

So mourn the dead because you must.

Prepare for many more.

In the very unlikely event that you don’t know why she was called the “Queen of Soul,” just watch the YouTube video of her 2015 Kennedy Center Honors program performance.  It will tell you everything you need to know.

I write today to warn everyone that dark days lie ahead for those of us who are over, say, fifty.  While far too many of the great sixties artists died young, most of them (somehow!) didn’t;  McCartney, Dylan, Jagger, Richards, Townshend, Daltrey, Stevie, and Smokey are still with us.  That isn’t going to last much longer, and the world will be infinitely poorer for it.  Get ready, and enjoy them while you still can.

The resistance needs a snappy slogan to compete with MAGA.  Here are some ideas:

1. Stop the Madness!
2. Make America Good Again!

If anyone has any other ideas, please send them to me by next Wednesday.  The winning slogan will be recognized at that time.

Andrew Sullivan had a lengthy, but interesting, article about Jeremy Corbyn in the NYM last week.  He clearly views the improbable rise of Corbyn as a threat to the well-being of the UK and a cautionary tale for the Democrats.  Is he right?

The similarities between Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are way too obvious to ignore.  That said, I think Sullivan’s concerns are overblown, for the following reasons:

1.  While Corbyn won the Labour Party leadership contest, Sanders lost to Clinton in 2016.
2.  Surveys taken during the campaign showed that a large number of Sanders voters were actually more conservative than Clinton, and were voting for him solely because they weren’t with her.
3.  The UK, for all of its changes, is still far more class-conscious than the US.  The Democrats are more of an identity-driven party, which makes old-style leftism more difficult.
4.  Corbyn clearly detests America.  No American politician is going to get elected with that message.
5.  Corbyn is a genuine 1970s socialist.  Socialism actually had a following in the UK back then, so you can view him as sort of an “everything old is new again” phenomenon.  For a variety of reasons I have discussed previously, socialism never had a large following in this country, and probably never will.

After it was announced that the Medicare Trust Fund would become insolvent around 2026, and the Social Security Trust fund a few years after that, it became impossible for the parties to kick the can down the road any longer.  That was of great value to the Democrats, as the GOP was unable to play its cynical and hypocritical game of attacking them for past Medicare cuts, while quietly supporting privatization and massive cuts of their own, during the 2024 campaign.  Largely as a result, the Democrats won the election, but their majority was too small to get reforms through Congress without some GOP support.

Seeing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, the Democrats proposed a carbon tax to make up the deficit in the two entitlement programs.  The GOP was split; the CLs, of course, demanded benefit cuts, while the other factions wanted to keep the current benefit levels in place, but without raising any taxes.  When it was all said and done, the two parties compromised in the usual way;  benefit levels were maintained simply through payments from general revenues, without raising taxes.  The deficit increased substantially once again, interest rates went up, and the economy suffered as a result.

Afghanistan is often analogized to Vietnam, and with good reason.  The analogy isn’t perfect;  the American public is more indifferent than hostile to the war, since Afghanistan was the platform for an attack on us, we haven’t suffered major losses there, and it didn’t result in the reinstitution of the draft.  However, the objective in both countries was to create enough space to permit a successful transition from American to local control of the war.  In Vietnam, it failed completely;  in Afghanistan, after 17 years, it has become clear that it will never succeed.

The questions, then, are as follows:

1. What is a realistic objective for the war?
2. Is the war worth the effort?
3. Are there viable alternatives to the longstanding pattern of surging and retreating?

My analysis is as follows:

1. The only real American strategic interest in Afghanistan is in preventing the country from becoming a platform for terrorist attacks in the US and Europe.  Promoting liberal democratic values and limiting the cultivation of opium there are certainly worthy goals, but we are probably doomed to failure in the end, given the local culture and economy.
2.  Afghanistan is not unique when it comes to providing a platform for terrorists.  There is no longer any obvious reason to throw a disproportionate number of resources at it as opposed to, say, Yemen or parts of Africa.
3.  The alternatives to the current surge and retreat approach are:  (a) escalate the war to include parts of Pakistan; (b) treat Afghanistan in the same way as Yemen or Africa (i.e., withdraw virtually all of our combat forces and fight terrorists, with or without the cooperation of the government, with drones and special forces); or (c) use South Korea as the model, rather than Vietnam, and accept openly that we will be there to maintain a stalemate indefinitely.
4.  Since Pakistan has nuclear weapons, (a) is not a viable approach.  There is no obvious reason why (b) can’t work as long as our objective is as limited as I have suggested in #1.  (C) has worked in South Korea, and can work in Afghanistan as long as the American public is willing to accept the costs of propping up the government and maintaining a stalemate. (C) is also the best alternative if you believe that a negotiated settlement with the Taliban is a reasonable possibility.
5. Either (b) or (c) would be more realistic, and have a better chance of success, than the current approach.  I prefer (b) because I don’t believe there is a sufficient justification for treating Afghanistan differently than the other terrorist hot spots, and the record doesn’t show much of a basis for believing that the Taliban and their Pakistani friends are much interested in a deal.

Sunday’s NYT Magazine contained a lengthy article about the Afghan War that was largely written from the perspective of a single soldier who became increasingly disillusioned with our government’s tactics over time.  The author of the article clearly believes that the war has been a failure.  Is that true?

Yes and no.  Yes, we have been unable to destroy the Taliban; that will not be possible as long as they have the support of the Pakistani military and we lack the will to turn the war into a far larger and more dangerous regional conflict.  Even worse, it has become increasingly clear after seventeen years that the Afghan military and government will not be able to do the job by themselves for the foreseeable future.  On the other hand, we have been able to keep enough pressure on the Taliban to prevent any international terrorist events along the lines of 9/11, and to maintain control over a large portion of the country.   That’s a draw, and a draw is not the same as a defeat, even if we haven’t been able to accomplish our more ambitious objectives.

Is the war worth it, and are there other plausible alternatives?  More on that tomorrow.