Parts to Wholes: the Socionomic Systems Nexus

Historically, without much fanfare, US President's spend approximately 50% of their time and energy on foreign affairs even when things are going well. When Bill Clinton came into office he cut that as close to zero as he could manage and focused on domestic, and eventually, personal issues. Don't believe me ? Well it's rather extensively documented in Halberstam's interesting little book: War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by David Halberstam. But we can't entirely blame Clinton - he was reflecting the consensus of the times that the old ideology wars were over, that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism were triumphant and now all we had to do was put a Lexus under every Olive Tree. Well we've pretty extensively document the deep structural fallacies with that but in case you were wondering 911 was a wake-up call why hiding behind our oceanic moats was impractical and dangerous. And in the last couple of weeks our friends in Moscow have given us another lesson in why they call it Realpolitik, why Furst von Bismarck was brilliant and far-sighted statesman whom we all miss and why at least 50% of the President's time is likely not enough.

Now hindsight is 20/20 and it's not fair to criticize the leadership for doing their best on the facts as they knew them at the time. The critically important thing is to figure out where you're at, where you want to go and can go, and how you propose to get there. That said studying the past still makes sense because history defines the trends and context - after all what were/are the Balkan Wars without millenia old ghosts ? And Russia's invasion of Georgia but the legacy of paranoia built into the Russian DNA by the Mongols and Ivan the Terrible, who is btw still a great historical hero to the Russian people for the stability and order he created.

Dealing with the brave old world of great power politics is now back on the front burner so we thought we'd take a little survey of the news and the issues. And let's not think a cigar and a you-know-what is more important please. Just for the record and to help sort things out here's our little architected list of key policy and strategic issues. You may notice the Foreign Policy is one of the "Big Three" IOHO. As it happens, and strangely enough, while it's critical to our survival we don't consider it the #1 priority. That goes to economics. But not at the exclusion of each other - there must be a balance. With that in mind after the break you'll find some excerpted readings in the FP area that survey what we think are the biggest concerns, in the order of urgency but not necessarily significance, facing the next President.

At this point we should have learned it's not a single-pole world but an evoling multi-polar one where the interests and concerns of the other players have to be considered. They are not just blind ciphers were we can pull a lever and get what we want. And their interests are not our interests. On the other hand the US will continue to be the dominant political and economic power for decades. And as a result we have a greater stake in a stable, orderly and workable international system than any other. At the same time the rising powers have benefited enormously from the system the US created and maintained with its' allies post-WW2. In the next iteration and evolution we need their active participation and contribution balanced against their benefits and interests. Our challenge therefore is to be constructively engaged with the nations of the world in a way that promotes their positive contribution where possible and feasible. And to carry on around them where not. Part and parcel of that constructive engagement is to encourage them to do as well for their own people as they can manage.

Which leads, based on the framework we've sketched and the readings below, to the following assessments and suggestions.

1. Middle East - Iraq is going much better than anticipated but has a ways to go. Obama's reluctance to admit this is disheartening; nor is Afghanistan the central problem of our times. Contrawise hunting down Usama isn't either, Johnboy. Afghanistan is certainly at risk and will take a concerted and integrated effort, like we should have made after Charlie's War and were forced into in Iraq. But it requires nowhere near the resources and does require the NATO so-called allies to actually perform to promise or be replaced. If you want a balanced assessment Gen. Barry McCaffrey's After Action Report is worth your time. If you click and read you can also download. The real problem though is that the kind of Unified Action he's recommending that's really nation-building in disguise is urgently required in Pakistan, which is coming apart at the seams. Replacing Musharrif was all well and good but Pakistani politicians have a decades long history of incompetence and corruption which is on the verge of creating a catastrophe. The Middle East in general and Pakistan in particular become the #1 foreign policy problem.

2. Russia - despite Russia's subterfuge and intransigence in Georgia, which has been building and built over decades going back to the very disdainful way they were treated by Clinton, they are neither military, economically or politically powerful enough to cause us to re-think our overall strategies. We must deal with this, they have destroyed the assumptions of a peaceful new order and returned us to something older, and in the process destroyed the last three decades of European complacency whether they admit it or not, but do not in fact violate our views of how the world system should and could work. They just make themselves untrusted participants who may be in the process of committing socio-economic suicide.

3. China and India - are the most important long-term foreign policy issues we have to face. Fortunately for us the US has pursued adult relationships with them over the last several years, respected their interests while defending our own and encouraged them to be constructive participants in the international system. They are both crossing several key cusp points that will be challenging for us all. The worldwide economic downturn that's emerging will put severe pressure on their domestic systems. At the same time those systems were facing the need to evolve to the next level of capabilities anyway. Finally we need to encourage to continue to be constructively engaged and contributory to the re-architecting of the world system we hope to achieve.

Our ability to accommodate China and India's rise, to adjust the system, to encourage them to contribute and to see the health of that system as in their own long-term best interests will be the central question of early 21rst C international affairs. 

Consider this your blueprint and checklist for evaluating the candidates - in this case how do they respond to the stories we're being told, rather forcefully. Agree or disagree, build your own or not. But don't just take empty slogans or give them a pass. All of the issues we worry about day-to-day required a peaceful and stable world order for easier and cheaper resolution. At the end of the day you really do care. 

Foreign Affairs

Keeping Promises Among Partners In any partnership, the coin of the realm is trust and responsibility - in other words, saying what you mean and doing what you say. In the dramatic rescue on July 2 of 15 hostages, including three Americans, held captive for many years by guerrillas and terrorists, deep in the Colombian jungles, we saw a powerful reminder that the United States has no better partner in South America than the government and people of Colombia. Colombia's leaders, especially President Uribe, had promised us that our three abducted citizens would be treated no differently than the many Colombian men and women who shared their fate. Colombia never wavered in this promise, and never cut any side deals with the guerrillas that could have freed their citizens at the expense of ours. This was not an easy act of solidarity, but Colombia remained true to its word. More than a decade ago, with its country wracked by the worst insurgency in the hemisphere, with its economy contracting, and with its democratic state on the brink of failure, Colombia resolved to turn the tide. Its government and people set out an ambitious plan to secure and expand their country's democratic development, and they asked for our support - political, economic, diplomatic, and military. Starting under President Clinton, expanding under President Bush, and with bipartisan support in Congress all along the way, the United States has fully backed Colombia in meeting its bold promises of success. And the results speak for themselves. With the momentum of more than a decade's worth of shared progress at our backs, with Colombia on the cusp of self-sustained and lasting stability, and with Democrats and Republicans having shown that they can implement a long-term bipartisan strategy to achieve a critical national interest - the success of a democratic Colombia - now is the last time that we should begin going back on our word to Colombia. And yet that is exactly what we risk doing if Congress fails to pass the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Middle  East

America's U-turns in the Middle East  BARACK OBAMA’S presidential-style progress through the Middle East and Europe this week stole many headlines (see article). But that should not be allowed to divert attention from some surprising policy shifts by the man who, last time we checked, was still the actual president of the United States. George Bush has just made at least one-and-a-half U-turns in the Middle East. They have serious merit. If he now makes another turn and a half, he may bequeath whoever succeeds him something unexpected: the beginnings of a decent American policy for this troubled region. Mr Bush’s first U-turn was on Iran.

Breaking up is easy to do ALWAYS incredible, Pakistan’s governing coalition sundered on Monday August 25th when its second biggest component, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) walked out. Nawaz Sharif, the PML(N)’s leader, objected, among other things, to Asif Zardari, who leads the coalition’s main member, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), making himself a candidate for a presidential election due on September 6th. Given a historic rivalry between them, the PPP and PML(N) always looked likely to split. But this is still a blow to a country badly in need of the political stability and co-operation that they had promised. Pakistan is facing an ever-worsening Taliban insurgency and an economy in crisis. Alas, if anyone can stop the rot, it is surely not Mr Zardari. He is among Pakistan’s most discredited politicians, having been accused of extortion and corruption on a huge scale during Ms Bhutto’s two terms in power during the 1990s.

Challenges of the Muslim World: Oil, Testosterone and War Oil and unemployed testosterone don't mix, they collide -- with war the likely result. "Economics and demographics" lack the sizzle of oil and testosterone, which as eye-grabbers are an Oprah-notch below money and sex. But in the grand sense of geo-strategy and the intricate 21st century problems that produce wars, poverty and other forms of sustained misery, economics and demographics are the fire. Anyone looking for instant soundbites won't find them in William Cooper and Piyu Yue's "Challenges of the Muslim World, Present, Future, and Past" (Elsevier, 2008). The book is not a political polemic -- it is penetrating scholarship addressing persistent, fundamental structural issues that defy polemics. It analyzes problems that disregard America's four-year presidential election cycle and utterly defy the power of any theoretical popular two-term president whose party enjoys overwhelming congressional majorities. Caesar divided Gaul into three parts. Cooper and Yue divide the Muslim world's challenges into three categories: oil, testosterone and war. OK, I'm synthesizing. The authors' three are: Consumption, Production and Location of Oil and Natural Gas; Demographic Changes and Social Instability; and History and the Contemporary Scene. The predominantly Muslim Middle East's vast oil reserves mean what happens in these Muslim lands matters and will continue to matter. The authors write, "A peaceful and stable Muslim world is key to stable and growing oil markets." However, demographic change and economic development (or lack of it) impact "world peace and prosperity." We move to sex -- growing populations and the deadly "bifurcation" between the modern and the Muslim world: "The Muslim world seems unable to improve the standard of living for the majority of its populations even with the enormous wealth generated by precious energy resources."

 RUSSIA

TNK-BP: something rotten in the state of Russia With its tail between its legs, Britain's biggest company is being all but chased out of Russia. BP will try to put a brave face on the retreat of Bob Dudley, still nominally chief executive of TNK-BP, to the safety of St James's Square. But it does not look good. When you wish to assert your authority, the best way to conduct business is not by e-mail from an office thousands of miles away. If BP is to avoid a de facto transfer of management authority to Messrs Fridman, Khan, Vekselberg and Blavatnik, the partners in the AAR consortium, it will need to manufacture a settlement and it is likely to prove expensive. The consortium's actions, if not its words, suggest that its motivation in gaining control of TNK-BP is financial, rather than a keen interest in the oil-bearing sedimentary basins of Siberia. The Russian partners have attempted to cut the joint venture's capital investment in favour of higher dividends. It seems that the argument is not about control of the helm, but control of the cash box. BP's problem is that it is struggling to keep control of its investment in a country where the law enforcement system is spinning out of control. Mr Dudley's retreat comes as another foreign investor has exposed evidence of the extraordinary grip that official corruption has taken on Russia. HSBC and Hermitage Capital, the fund-management group run by Bill Browder, have alleged that senior officials in Russia's Interior Ministry stole $230 million from the Russian Treasury in an elaborate scam involving bogus documents and fabricated court cases.

• Investing in Russia? Plan to Lose

Why I had to recognise Georgia’s breakaway regions On Tuesday Russia recognised the independence of the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It was not a step taken lightly, or without full consideration of the consequences. But all possible outcomes had to be weighed against a sober understanding of the situation – the histories of the Abkhaz and Ossetian peoples, their freely expressed desire for independence, the tragic events of the past weeks and inter­national precedents for such a move. Not all of the world’s nations have their own statehood. Many exist happily within boundaries shared with other nations. The Russian Federation is an example of largely harmonious coexistence by many dozens of nations and nationalities. But some nations find it impossible to live under the tutelage of another. Relations between nations living “under one roof” need to be handled with the utmost sensitivity. After the collapse of communism, Russia reconciled itself to the “loss” of 14 former Soviet republics, which became states in their own right, even though some 25m Russians were left stranded in countries no longer their own. Some of those nations were un­able to treat their own minorities with the respect they deserved. Georgia immediately stripped its “autonomous regions” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia of their autonomy.

Tsar Wars Versus Star Wars As the Russo-Georgian War's August gunfire slips into a murky September ceasefire, the Pentagon reports that the Russians "are still not living up to the terms of the ceasefire agreement." So, what does Russia want? The question intentionally echoes, "So what did Stalin want?" -- which historian John Lewis Gaddis asked then answered in his award-winning book "The Cold War: A New History." Gaddis argued Joseph Stalin wanted "security for himself, his regime, his country and his ideology, in precisely that order." These goals would also resonate in an "Old History" of Russia -- call it Tsar Wars, with Ivan the Terrible as the featured personality.

CHINA

Pee Wee, The Goat Show Kismet With China's Yao: Scott Soshnick How does one measure what Yao means to sports and societies? Yes, plural. We know what the NBA says. The league speaks in the language of T-shirts and eyeballs. As any die-hard knows, though, passion for basketball can't be measured solely in television ratings or merchandise sales. You've got to hit the street. In New York, that would mean Harlem's Rucker Park, where the likes of Pee Wee Kirkland and Earl ``The Goat'' Manigault became playground legends. In Oakland, it's Mosswood Park, where Bill Russell and Jason Kidd played before anyone knew their names. ``The street is where you find your toughness, your creativity, your identity,'' said Kidd, the elder statesman of the U.S. basketball team, which two nights ago beat Yao and host China, 101-70, in the opening game of the Beijing Olympics before a standing-room-only crowd that included U.S. President George W. Bush and another billion or so in their living rooms. Yao afterward called the matchup ``a treasure'' in his life, adding, ``I think more people will love to play basketball.'' After years of hearing NBA Commissioner David Stern trumpet Beijing as a burgeoning bastion of basketball, the Olympics provide the perfect opportunity to find if this town has street cred. So it was off to DongDan Park, which those in the know say is the Beijing equivalent of Rucker. ``Children playing is the biggest indicator that something special is happening,'' said last season's WNBA Most Valuable Player, Lauren Jackson, a member of the Australian women's team. These kids can play, all right. Pick-and-rolls. Pick-and- pops. Behind-the-back. Through-the-legs. Up-and-Under. Fade- away. Three-pointers. Reverse layups. It was obvious they were mimicking what they'd seen from their favorite NBA players, who, thanks to Yao, are on Chinese television quite a bit. One park player, 21-year-old Wang Xin, said there were no playgrounds like this in China three years ago. The boom is only starting. China said it plans to put a basketball court in every village.

• China's Lesson From Georgia War: Today's Breakaway Will Bite Back Tomorrow

A Biblical Seven Years China did not build the magnificent $43 billion infrastructure for these games, or put on the unparalleled opening and closing ceremonies, simply by the dumb luck of discovering oil. No, it was the culmination of seven years of national investment, planning, concentrated state power, national mobilization and hard work.Seven years ... Seven years ... Oh, that’s right. China was awarded these Olympic Games on July 13, 2001 — just two months before 9/11. As I sat in my seat at the Bird’s Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones. The difference is starting to show. Just compare arriving at La Guardia’s dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghai’s sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train, which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks, to get to town in a blink. Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country? Yes, if you drive an hour out of Beijing, you meet the vast dirt-poor third world of China. But here’s what’s new: The rich parts of China, the modern parts of Beijing or Shanghai or Dalian, are now more state of the art than rich America. The buildings are architecturally more interesting, the wireless networks more sophisticated, the roads and trains more efficient and nicer. And, I repeat, they did not get all this by discovering oil. They got it by digging inside themselves.

The Real China Threat Obsessed with rankings, Americans are bound to see the Beijing Olympics as a metaphor for a larger and more troubling question. Will China overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy? Well, stop worrying. It almost certainly will. China's economy is now only a fourth the size of the $14 trillion U.S. economy, but given plausible growth rates in both countries, China's output will exceed America's in the 2020s, projects Goldman Sachs. But this is the wrong worry. By itself, a richer China does not make America poorer. Indeed, because there are so many more Chinese than Americans, average Chinese living standards may lag behind ours indefinitely. By Goldman's projections, average American incomes will still be twice Chinese incomes in 2050. The real threat from China lies elsewhere. It is that China will destabilize the world economy. It will distort trade, foster huge financial imbalances and trigger a contentious competition for scarce raw materials. Symptoms of instability have already surfaced, and if they grow worse, everyone -- including the Chinese -- may suffer. The chief sources of global strife have been ideology, nationalism, religion and ethnic conflict. Economics could now join this list, because the balance of power is shifting. The United States was the old order's main architect, and China is a rising power of the new. Their approaches contrast dramatically. Economically dominant after World War II, the United States defined its interests as promoting the prosperity of its allies. The aims were to combat communism and prevent another Great Depression. Countries would make mutual trade concessions. They would not manipulate their currencies to gain advantage. Raw materials would be available at non-discriminatory prices. These norms were mostly honored, though some countries flouted them (Japan manipulated its currency for years). China's political goals differ. High economic growth and job creation aim to raise living standards and absorb the huge rural migration to expanding cities. Economist Donald Straszheim of Roth Capital Partners estimates the urban inflow at about 17 million people annually. As he says, China sees export-led economic growth as a magnet for foreign investment that brings modern technology and management skills. Prosperity is considered essential to maintaining public order and the Communist Party's political monopoly.

INDIA 

India Sounds `Death Knell' for Jobs With Perks: Andy Mukherjee Among the many surviving relics of India's socialist past, the most prominent are the Soviet-style five-year plans that the government still insists on producing. The 11th plan was recently unveiled, when almost 1 1/2 years -- or 30 percent -- of the period it seeks to cover have already lapsed. So much for timeliness. Even the usefulness of the planners' advice to the policy makers is suspect because the latter probably don't even bother to listen carefully to what the former has to say. Take the issue of job creation. Planners are highlighting the need to create decent jobs -- those that come with social security and other benefits. Policy makers are doing exactly the opposite. In its report, the Planning Commission devoted a good deal of attention to what it calls ``informalization'' of employment. Statistics collected by a government-appointed advisory panel show that from 2000 to 2005, the Indian economy added 61 million jobs. Tiny enterprises, employing 10 or fewer workers, accounted for 52 million of these new opportunities. Even the remaining 9 million people hired by larger companies were offered ``informal'' employment with no benefits or social security. These findings perhaps exaggerate the extent of informalization. Based on consumption trends -- such as a 15-fold growth in mobile-phone subscribers in the past five years -- it's hard to believe that the fast-growing Indian economy is only producing poor-quality jobs. Forcing tiny enterprises to create formal employment isn't a pro-labor move. A more honest and effective approach would be to ease the country's labor laws. This will create an incentive for companies to increase the scale of their operations to a point where they can absorb the social-security costs out of the benefits that they derive from being legally aboveboard. For a relic of socialism, the Planning Commission is offering sage advice. Both the quantity and quality of employment need to rise in India. That's the only way to keep inequality under control and raise living standards quickly for all.

Letter from India Anand Giridharadas: In India, idealism falters in the face of power. India was a country of ideas in its youth. At its moment of independence, 61 years ago on Friday, Jawaharlal Nehru declared that its dreams "are for India, but they are also for the world." India championed decolonization, nonalignment and disarmament around the world; it earned a reputation for haranguing philosophical lectures at the United Nations. In the salons of Delhi and Mumbai, an educated class that had come of age as freedom came to India spent long evenings debating the world and their place in it. But in those days India was all ideas and no power. Today the situation is reversed. If one mingles with its affluent, reads its newspapers, observes its politics, roams its campuses, one sees in India what affluence has wrought: a turning inward, a slow-burn privatization of concern. This is globalization's great irony: It gives you influence in the world but then, with its gadgets and gizmos, distracts you from using it. One can understand this turning inward. India has long been a land of external restraints. Families told you whom to marry, what to study, where to work. Bureaucrats told you whether you could get a phone line or start a business. A caste determined the amount of respect you could command. Today millions of Indians, from maidservants to doctors, are revolting against those destinies. They share a new belief in the power of self-contained individuals: a belief that individuals must not slight elders but must no longer depend on them; must not forget their roots but must now stray from them; must not crave a government job like their fathers but must now survive as though the state did not exist. And, in relying ever more on themselves, this group of Indians relies ever less on India.

EUROPE 

Would you pass the Kinnock Test? The British voter never gets it wrong. At every election in the past 80 years the right party has won.  The Kinnock Test is this - do you, on reflection, think it would have been a good idea for the country if Neil Kinnock had been elected Prime Minister in 1992? You see, for all that the Conservatives fell apart in the 1992 parliament, I still think it was clear that a Kinnock government would have been worse. No one needs to tell me how bad things got by 1997, because I was there (I always insist on the retention of that comma). But still I assert with confidence that the voters did the right thing putting the Conservatives back in power. Neil Kinnock was entirely unsuited to being Prime Minister. His endless whirling speeches showed that. As John Major pricelessly commented, as Kinnock didn't know what he was saying, he never knew when he had finished saying it. And alongside this unsuitability was Labour's programme, still only partly modernised and containing a ragtag of unfunded spending promises and threats of greater regulation. Some Blairites understand this. The Kinnock Test is thus an important way of classifying Blairites. A Blairite who thinks Kinnock would have been a good prime minister must believe that Blair's changes were mainly necessary in order to get elected. A Blairite who passes the Kinnock Test accepts that Blair's changes were required in order for Labour to be fit to govern. There is quite a big difference between those two positions. As I pestered my centre left friends, one of them provided a striking response. Not only, he said, did the electorate get it right in 1992, he couldn't think of a single election since universal suffrage in 1928 where the voters had got the election wrong. And you know what? I think my friend has got a point. The proposition is that in every contest in these last 80 years the party that was more fit to govern has been victorious. Sometimes both of the main offerings were weak and unappealing, often the winner wasn't much good, but always the winner was better able to conduct the business of government than was the loser.

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It's all well and good to talk about how the campaign is going, how the candidates need to find their voices, what good men they were revealed to be and so on. But as the last couple of weeks have revealed it's still a serious, challenging and ugly world out there. As it happens both the latest NYT/CBS and WSJ/NBC polls come to similar conclusions: 1) you guys are nice guys but you're in a deadlock because b) you haven't made yourselves clear about what c) the major issues are in ways that are convincing. To quote from the NYT story excerpted after the break:

"Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are heading into their conventions neck and neck in the presidential race, with voters focused overwhelmingly on economic issues but convinced that the candidates are not paying enough attention to their priorities, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Slim majorities said neither candidate had made clear what he would do as president..."

What we'd like to do here - likely in two parts - is use some relatively recent stories and columns combined with various work of ours to summarzie the major policy challenges in Domestic and Foreign Affairs. As we had into the conventions this isn't a bad list. Moreover because it's been sorted and categorized according to the structure we've used before in how things are related and what needs to be concentrated on, in what order but in a balanced fashion, you can go into the upcoming weeks with your own checklist of evaluation criteria. Or at least a way of developing one. 

Here's my own personal model/blueprint of what the major issues are, how they cluseter and what the key relationships are. Starting at the top this is indeed a time for change but the question is what changes ? My suggestion is that the top-level changes required re-recovery of core civic values and virtues that combine self-responsibility with proper public policy (civilized adulthood ?). And that we need to re-think some/many of the governing mechanisms that have subsidized the capturing of the political processes by partisans and special interests. If you won't change the mechanisms you can, as my dad used to say, "wish in one hand and xxx in the other. which'll get full ?"

Strangely enough the concerns, anxieties and attitudes of many seem to mirror that. We then sort the major "line-item" talking points into major clusters - the ones where we need a coherent, comprehensive, workable and realistic set of policy principles because they are critically important. How do we relate to the world and manage those relationships ? What should we do, and can we do about our deteriorating economic situation ? "What do we need to do to arrest, recovery and move forward domestically ? You'll find the readings below grouped into rough correspondence. In addition we've gone back and combed thru a bunch of the prior postings in each areas that took deep dives and listed them as well.

While we're going to pick up Foreign Affairs in a future post and concentrate on Economic and Domestic ones here let's offer up a brief strawman.

Foreign Affairs: while normally this is the single most critical area, and will always be vitally important, the weight may be shifting. In any case Iraq is coming under control though it will need a sustained commitment. Afghanistan is at a similar point that Iraq was a couple of years ago but the most immediately dangerous problem is Pakistan which may be imploding before our eye. Meanwhile Russia's behavior has indicted the hidden presumptions that a "New World Order" of international cooperation was built on. However IOHO they are neither strong enough nor resilient enough to be a serious long-term threat and are containable. The most serious, if not urgent, long-term policy issue is our relationship with China. And then India. With whom we should still be able to re-architect a viable, stable and peaceful world system if we're willing. Despite Russia.

Economy: this is the single most important challenge because it is the bedrock foundation of everything else, the least understood, the most badly explained and the one where both candidates are failing to deliver a clear, comprehensible view. And the one where we're in the most immediate, intermediate and long-term trouble. The good news is that all of the problems are addressable and perhaps fixable, if not in months. In fact they will require sustained effort over years, perhaps decades. The most immediate one of which is the on-coming recession coupled with the need to re-structure the financial system and re-vamp our regulatory framework. Next up is improving the infrastructure of the economy which can also serve as an intermediate term stimulus program that pays for itself in the long-run. In the long-run we need to find new sources of innovation and growth which suggest serious investments in R&D, pilot programs and most especially in Energy and Bio-sciences. Again a place where the return on investment is potentially phenomenal.

Domestic Policy: there are a lot of things that need work from Social Security to Healthcare. Again they are all, without excpetion, addresable and many reasonable proposals have been put forward that would resolve a lot of the difficulties. The single most important one and perhaps the most intractable is Education. Which, demonstratably, is the most critical domestic element of our future prosperity in this changing world, the area where we've known change is needed and where all our own evil demons have gotten in our way the most. But, as they used to say in the Foreign Legion, "March or Die". Or in our case "Adapt or Fall Behind". 

Attitudes & Situation

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are heading into their conventions neck and neck in the presidential race, with voters focused overwhelmingly on economic issues but convinced that the candidates are not paying enough attention to their priorities, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Slim majorities said neither candidate had made clear what he would do as president, suggesting that both need to use their conventions to provide voters with a better sense of their plans for addressing the deteriorating economy, high energy prices, access to health care and national security. Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is still closely associated with the deeply unpopular President Bush. Nearly half of those surveyed said that they expected him to continue the Bush administration’s policies if he were elected president. But voters, by a wide margin, view Mr. McCain as better prepared to be president than Mr. Obama, and as more likely to be an effective commander in chief. Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was trusted more by voters to handle their top concern, the economy. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they were confident that Mr. Obama would make the right decisions on the economy, compared with 54 percent who expressed confidence that Mr. McCain would. When it came to foreign policy, the image was inverted: 66 percent expressed confidence in Mr. McCain to make the right decisions, and 55 percent in Mr. Obama. But the economy — not national security — is shaping up as the far greater concern this year. Four in 10 voters called it their top concern; only 15 percent cited the Iraq war. Taken together, a series of pocketbook issues — including the economy, jobs, gas prices and energy policy — were the leading concerns of more than half of those surveyed. Terrorism and national security, along with the war, were cited as most important by just under a quarter.

Desire for Change Opens Door for Bold Policies Dissatisfaction with the direction of the country is at a historic level, leaving the public desperate for a fundamental change of direction. Voters believe that America could be on the verge of a new chapter in our nation’s history. In a new report commissioned by the Public Interest Projects, Inc., Stanley Greenberg and Andrew Baumann take a different approach to examining the depths of the American voter’s dissatisfaction by putting today’s problems in a historical context, comparing them to three other political eras: the 1930s FDR “New Deal” Era, the late 1970s and early 1980s when Reagan was elected, and the early 1990s of Bill Clinton. Key Findings: 1)When asked to compare the current times, and the types of solutions needed to deal with their problems to the three historical periods, voters’ preferences are striking: By significant margins voters believe Roosevelt’s times and solutions are more analogous to ours than Reagan’s, but that Reagan’s are closer to ours than Clinton’s. These feelings center largely around a desire to restore an American middle class that has declined steadily in recent decades. 2) Voters are looking for dramatic action. Just 35 percent of voters say we can solve America’s problems with minor changes, while nearly two-thirds believe it will take “major changes” to bring about solutions.

• High Anxiety: Americans' Top Financial Fears Revealed A new survey by Yahoo! Finance and Decipher Inc. finds that the vast majority of Americans are suffering from high anxiety about the broader economy and personal financial issues ranging from job insecurity to soaring food and energy prices to consumer debt. Decipher polled 2,000 adults about their financial anxieties earlier this month. Among the findings:The rising cost of living is the No. 1 concern. Consumers are also fearful about the economic downturn and job insecurity. Eighty-eight percent are worried about recession; 38 percent are concerned about being laid off from their jobs. Nearly two-thirds are worried about the stock market decline. onsumer debt is a significant trouble spot. The housing crisis is causing distress. Among homeowners, one-quarter were somewhat or very worried that they may be foreclosed on; 45 percent are concerned that rising property taxes could force them from their homes; and half are anxious because their homes require basic maintenance or repairs they can't afford. More than half are worried about falling home prices and their homes losing value. Consumers are anxious about savings. Some 58 percent are somewhat or very worried because they have nothing saved for retirement and can't afford to save -- the figure was 70 percent among people age 31 to 50. More than one-third are worried because they have nothing saved for college. Four Habits of Financially Peaceful People

Economic Issues

Obama's Emergency Econ Plan Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.” Details are in this six-page policy paper. The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall. “This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said. “Or, if you live in a state where it gets very cold in the winter, it will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills or even to pay down debt Separately, Obama’s plan includes a $50 billion stimulus package that his campaign claims would save more than 1 million jobs. Half of the money would go to state governments, which are facing big budget shortfalls, and half would be used for national infrastructure, including replenishing the Highway Trust Fund, rebuilding roads and bridges, and repairing schools. Obama announced his plan 27 minutes after a Labor Department report showed unemployment hit a four-year high of 5.7 percent in July — the highest rate since March 2004, when it was 5.8 percent. “We need to do more,” Obama said in a statement. “That’s why today I’m announcing a two-part emergency plan to help struggling families make ends meet and get our economy back on track. McCain reacted to the surprisingly dour jobs report with a two-paragraph statement: "Across this country, Americans are hurting and today's job numbers are just the latest reminder of the economic challenges we face. ... Unlike Sen. Obama, I do not believe that raising taxes is the answer to our economic problems. There is no surer way to force jobs overseas than to raise taxes on businesses.”

Washington's ultimate solution Even though they're scurrying around like everyone else in this game, I think the crisis managers at the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury have quietly adopted a technique that has helped us deal with previous financial crises - what I call the "play and pray" approach. They don't teach it in Economics 101, and none of the players dealing with the current meltdown will talk about it on the record. But it's a time-tested strategy - think of the mortgage crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the bank problems in the early 1990s, and the Asian contagion of the late 1990s. The idea: You play for time by keeping things afloat long enough for your prayers to be answered by the markets' turning in the right direction. The theory is that if you give stricken financial institutions like Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) enough time, profits from their basic operations can help them dig out of the capital pit into which they've fallen. A few years of nice profits will help offset the big losses from past blunders, provided the company stays alive long enough. Play-and-pray isn't a particularly fair policy - among other things, it means giant institutions aren't allowed to fail, while smaller ones are left to the tender mercies of the market. But given time and regulatory leeway and some good luck, this policy has a chance of working out if we can get past the hair-raising losses many big financial institutions are currently reporting.The idea of regulating hitherto-unregulated institutions like investment banks in return for having Uncle Sam stand behind them is a good idea. So is giving regulators more power over Fannie and its sibling, Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500). Those are long-term objectives. For now, though, goal No. 1 is to get through this mess. But once things have stabilized a bit, let's cram through tough regulations before memory fades. We didn't do so after the last mortgage crisis abated, and we're paying for that mistake now.

Five Ways to Wreck a Recovery  Perverse monetary policy was the greatest cause of the Great Depression. But five non-monetary missteps were important in making the Depression great, and the same missteps damaged the global economy as well. While many are thinking about the Depression, few seem concerned about replicating these Foolish Five today: · Giving in to protectionism. Today, international trade claims a sizable share of our economy. Bilateral free-trade agreements with Colombia or Panama are good insurance -- cheap steps that might prevent an expensive loss, that of the Western Hemisphere to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Yet again, one party -- the Democrats, this time -- is cavalier. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is blocking passage of these bilateral agreements. And another ambivalent politician -- Sen. Barack Obama -- has sent mixed messages to Canada about just how much he wants to roll back the North American Free Trade Agreement. · Blaming the messenger. Punishing the stock market for the 1929 crash was popular in Washington in the early 1930s. Today, too, a "Blame the Street" mood prevails. Increasing taxes in a downturn. Hoover more than doubled income tax rates, taking the top marginal rate to 63 percent from 25 percent. FDR hiked the top rate to 90 percent. Perhaps worse, Roosevelt's Treasury crafted taxes to punish business, including an undistributed profits tax and an excess profits tax, that ultimately sucked cash from a capital-starved economy. Today, Democrats are planning tax increases that make Bill Clinton's hike look mild. The proposals start with lifting the cap on Social Security payroll taxes -- an effective increase in the top marginal tax rate of 6.2 percent, or for some 12.4 percent, all by itself. Add in the promised repeal of the Bush tax cuts and you have an additional 4.6 percent increase. Effective top rates approach 50 percent. There are also proposed increases for dividends and capital gains. Taken together, these will make the U.S. economy sluggish and more like that of Europe.

Magazine Preview: How Obama Reconciles Dueling Views on Economy In some fundamental ways, the American economy has stopped working. The fact that the economy grows — that it produces more goods and services one year than it did in the previous one — no longer ensures that most families will benefit from its growth. For the first time on record, an economic expansion seems to have ended without family income having risen substantially. Most families are still making less, after accounting for inflation, than they were in 2000. For these workers, roughly the bottom 60 percent of the income ladder, economic growth has become a theoretical concept rather than the wellspring of better medical care, a new car, a nicer house — a better life than their parents had. Americans have still been buying such things, but they have been doing so with debt. A big chunk of that debt will never be repaid, which is the most basic explanation for the financial crisis. Even after the crisis has passed, the larger problem of income stagnation will remain. It’s hardly the economy’s only serious problem either. There is also the slow unraveling of the employer-based health-insurance system and the fact that, come 2011, the baby boomers will start to turn 65, setting off an enormous rise in the government’s Medicare and Social Security obligations. Most of these problems aren’t immediate, which helps explain why they have gone unaddressed for so long. And the United States remains a fabulously prosperous country, relative to almost any other country, at any point in history. Yet Americans seem to realize that something has gone wrong.

Energy  Confusions &  Delusions

 In Search of a Nat'l Energy Policy: Check the Mirror Pogo

The Great Energy Confusion  Forget about a candid national conversation on energy. As John McCain and Barack Obama campaigned last week, that much seemed clear. To lower oil prices (which were already dropping), Obama proposed releasing 10 percent of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is an atrocious idea. The SPR was intended as insurance against a catastrophic loss of oil from wars, embargoes, terrorism or natural disasters. It should not be manipulated cynically for political advantage. Earlier, McCain suggested suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax; that was another bad and expedient idea.No doubt Obama and McCain want to relieve Americans' discomfort at the pump. The trouble is that Americans should feel discomforted. We want a return to cheap, secure oil; we want painless pathways to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. These are fantasies; they should not be indulged. In 2006, coal, oil and natural gas provided 85 percent of U.S. energy. In 2025, regardless of what we do, they will almost certainly remain the leading energy sources. We will still import huge volumes of oil and face global disruptions. And any serious effort to curb oil use and greenhouse gases will require high energy prices -- whether imposed by the market or taxes -- to induce conservation and conversion to nonfossil fuels. Judged by their rhetoric, you might conclude that McCain and Obama differ dramatically on energy. Actually, their agendas overlap substantially. Both advocate a "cap and trade" system to reduce greenhouse gases; that's essentially a tax on fossil fuels, though neither describes it that way (candor grade for both: D). Both hold out, in similar language, the vision of resurgent American technology riding to the rescue.

Oil Prices and Economic Fundamentals Oil was selling for $123 a barrel on May 7, and that's where it closed this week. Sounds like a calm and rational market, except for the fact that just last week it was going for $145. Which price was right, $123, $145, or something else? Before you let anybody give you an answer to that question, try to get them to comment first on the following two facts. (1) According to the Energy Information Administration, China consumed 7.6 million barrels of petroleum each day of 2007, which is 860,000 barrels/day more than in 2005. (2) EIA also reports that the world as a whole produced 84.6 million barrels of oil per day in 2007, which is 30 thousand barrels per day less than 2005. Here's the framework I would propose for answering the question of how much the price of oil should have risen since 2005-- the price of oil needed to go up by whatever it took to persuade places like the U.S., Europe, and Japan to reduce their consumption by the amount that China, the newly industrialized countries, and oil-producing countries were increasing theirs. And how big a price increase would that be, exactly? Somebody who claims to know that would need to have more confidence in their estimate of the price-elasticity of oil demand than I have in mine. But if your answer is that a much smaller price increase than the one we observed would have been sufficient to produce the requisite decline in quantity demanded, that would seem to imply that, since price went up by much more than you believe was needed to reduce demand, the quantity demanded must have fallen by much more than was called for.

A Q&A with MIT Professor Robert Pindyck Q: Is there anything in either candidate's proposal that would be particularly bad for holding down energy costs? A: Most of the proposals are political and they involve subsidies to alternative energy sources. A lot of those subsidies are just ways of providing pork for different groups. Q: It sounds like you are not impressed, to put it bluntly. A: Look, what are going to be needed ultimately is a tax on carbon and a tax on gasoline -- a large one. Another way to have a tax on carbon is to have a cap-and-trade system so you only allow a certain amount of carbon dioxide to be emitted. That will raise the cost of carbon. A gasoline tax would greatly reduce gasoline use. It would create the incentives we need for other energy sources, including conservation. No candidate is willing to get up and say, "We need a to have a high tax on gasoline." In fact, McCain wants to suspend the federal tax on gasoline for the summer and Obama didn't. Nobody is going to say, "We want to make sure we have a tax in place so gasoline prices are always going to be high." That encourages people to drive smaller cars and to conserve and that brings about investments in new technology. When people know that gas prices and fuel prices will stay high because of taxes, it means they have incentive to develop alternative energy supplies. The question is will the candidates, nonetheless, do something when elected. Who knows?

Domestic Discombobulations

 Hidden Issues and Government Reform: the Politics of Special Interests

Inside the Sausage Factory: the 4P's of Political Reality

Little progress made in bridge repairs across US A year after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in a generation brought calls for immediate repairs to other spans, two of every three of the busiest problem bridges in each state — carrying nearly 40 million vehicles a day — have had no work beyond regular maintenance. An Associated Press review of repairs on each state's 20 most-traveled bridges with structural deficiencies found just 12 percent have been fixed. In most states, the most common approach was to plan for repairs later rather than fix problems now.The failure to follow through was not because of lack of effort, officials said. Soaring construction costs, budget shortages, election-year politics, a backlog of bridge projects, competing highway repairs and bureaucracy often held bridge work to only incremental progress.

Fighting corruption is hard going in New Orleans Ask the man assigned to combat corruption and bureaucracy in New Orleans how the fight is going and he will tell you about his telephone problems. "I started last September and they only switched my phone lines on two weeks ago," said Robert Cerasoli, New Orleans' first-ever Inspector General in a recent interview. "Everything has been a battle since, everything has been a fight." Cerasoli was appointed by an independent ethics review board last year to root out graft -- in particular as billions of dollars in government aid have flowed into the city following Hurricane Katrina -- in a city that has a reputation for corruption spanning many decades. Office computers were delivered last month but have not yet been hooked up to a secure network. Cerasoli, a former Inspector General for Massachusetts, said he has only 13 staff instead of the 30 he was promised by city hall."We really must get up to 37, but with the hurdles of civil service, the difficulty with getting people through the background checks, and just finding qualified applicants, the process has been much slower than expected," he said. Cerasoli said either inefficiency or a desire to block his every move has lead to endless problems with the city's bureaucracy. "This is Louisiana," Cerasoli said with a shrug.Father Kevin Wildes, president of Loyola University in New Orleans and head of the ethics review board that appointed Cerasoli, said the obstacles the Inspector General has faced show New Orleans' administration is at worst terribly corrupt and at best woefully inefficient. "Either way, something has to change," he said. Even before Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches in 2005 that devastated New Orleans, the city and Louisiana had earned a reputation as being fertile ground for corruption. "Half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment," Billy Tauzin, who represented a Louisiana district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1980 to 2005, once famously said of his state. "Over the course of many decades Louisiana and New Orleans have earned a reputation as being exceptionally tolerant of corruption," said Jim Letten, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. "This fueled the demise of the local economy as it drove many companies away and kept them away." Since his appointment by President George W. Bush in 2001, Letten has indicted 213 state and local officials and private individuals and, he said, convicted "almost 100 percent."

To Fight Poverty, Tear Down HUD In 1965, when HUD was created, its mission was to spur growth in and around cities. The agency provided mortgage assistance to veterans and first-time homeowners, it built housing for the urban poor, and the Federal Housing Administration spurred suburban expansion by recruiting developers and home buyers to a relatively new, untested market. Since its inception, HUD has had a fairly straightforward recipe: develop good relations with mayors and local real estate leaders, then award grants and underwrite loans that affirm local development priorities. The longtime mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley, was often credited for creating the “city that works,” but it was the support of HUD and the housing administration that helped him eradicate slums, build public housing and create the vast array of working-class neighborhoods that are now Chicago’s signature. But in the last four decades the urban landscape has changed from discrete, independent cities to vast, interdependent regions where people and goods move freely. And for the first time in our nation’s history, poverty is rising faster in suburbs than in urban cores. In this new era, HUD’s each-city-is-a-separate-whole approach is not only too inflexible and short-sighted, it also hinders effective regional growth. By making no effort to ascertain needs and resources on a regional scale, HUD has ended up eliminating poverty in one place while creating distressed, low-income communities in others. If HUD had developed a broader vision, one that tied together inner city and suburb, it could have created policies to help both areas adjust to the modern urban landscape.

EDUCATION

 Readings(Education): the Single Most Important Domestic Policy Issue

David Brooks: The Biggest Issue Why did the United States become the leading economic power of the 20th century? The best short answer is that a ferocious belief that people have the power to transform their own lives gave Americans an unparalleled commitment to education, hard work and economic freedom. Between 1870 and 1950, the average American’s level of education rose by 0.8 years per decade. In 1890, the average adult had completed about 8 years of schooling. By 1900, the average American had 8.8 years. By 1910, it was 9.6 years, and by 1960, it was nearly 14 years. As Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz describe in their book, “The Race Between Education and Technology,” America’s educational progress was amazingly steady over those decades, and the U.S. opened up a gigantic global lead. Educational levels were rising across the industrialized world, but the U.S. had at least a 35-year advantage on most of Europe. In 1950, no European country enrolled 30 percent of its older teens in full-time secondary school. In the U.S., 70 percent of older teens were in school. America’s edge boosted productivity and growth. But the happy era ended around 1970 when America’s educational progress slowed to a crawl. Between 1975 and 1990, educational attainments stagnated completely. Since then, progress has been modest. America’s lead over its economic rivals has been entirely forfeited, with many nations surging ahead in school attainment. This threatens the country’s long-term prospects. It also widens the gap between rich and poor. Goldin and Katz describe a race between technology and education. The pace of technological change has been surprisingly steady. In periods when educational progress outpaces this change, inequality narrows. The market is flooded with skilled workers, so their wages rise modestly. In periods, like the current one, when educational progress lags behind technological change, inequality widens. The relatively few skilled workers command higher prices, while the many unskilled ones have little bargaining power. America rose because it got more out of its own people than other nations. That stopped in 1970. Now, other issues grab headlines and campaign attention. But this tectonic plate is still relentlessly and menacingly shifting beneath our feet.

Opinion: For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place. Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century, but the acquisition of those skills got conflated with the existing system of colleges, which had evolved the BA for completely different purposes. Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses. The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree. The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. An educational world based on certification tests would be a better place in many ways, but the overarching benefit is that the line between college and noncollege competencies would be blurred. Hardly any jobs would still have the BA as a requirement for a shot at being hired. Opportunities would be wider and fairer, and the stigma of not having a BA would diminish. Most important in an increasingly class-riven America: The demonstration of competency in business administration or European history would, appropriately, take on similarities to the demonstration of competency in cooking or welding. Our obsession with the BA has created a two-tiered entry to adulthood, anointing some for admission to the club and labeling the rest as second-best. Here's the reality: Everyone in every occupation starts as an apprentice. Those who are good enough become journeymen. The best become master craftsmen. This is as true of business executives and history professors as of chefs and welders. Getting rid of the BA and replacing it with evidence of competence -- treating post-secondary education as apprenticeships for everyone -- is one way to help us to recognize that common bond.

A Teachable Moment The city’s disastrously low-performing school system was almost entirely washed away in the flood — many of the buildings were destroyed, the school board was taken over and all the teachers were fired. What is being built in its place is an educational landscape unlike any other, a radical experiment in reform. More than half of the city’s public-school students are now being educated in charter schools, publicly financed but privately run, and most of the rest are enrolled in schools run by an unusually decentralized and rapidly changing school district. From across the country, and in increasing numbers, hundreds of ambitious, idealistic young educators like Hardrick and Sanders have descended on New Orleans, determined to take advantage of the opportunity not just to innovate and reinvent but also to prove to the rest of the country that an entire city of children in the demographic generally considered the hardest to educate — poor African-American kids — can achieve high levels of academic success. Katrina struck at a critical moment in the evolution of the contemporary education-reform movement. President Bush’s education initiative, No Child Left Behind, had shined a light on the underperformance of poor minority students across the country by requiring, for the first time, that a school successfully educate not just its best students but its poor and minority students too in order to be counted as successful. Scattered across the country were a growing number of schools, often intensive charter schools, that seemed to be succeeding with disadvantaged students in a consistent and measurable way. But these schools were isolated examples. No one had figured out how to “scale up” those successes to transform an entire urban school district. Vallas is the detail man; Pastorek is the deep thinker. Since taking the job, Pastorek has immersed himself in theories of education, consulting with scholars from Seattle to Toronto to London. His conclusion, more than a year into his work, is that fixing a public-school system is not at its root a question of curriculum or personnel or even money. It is a question of governance. It is simply impossible, Pastorek has come to believe, for a traditional school system, run from the top down by a central administrator, to educate large numbers of poor children to high levels of achievement. “The command-and-control structure can produce marginal improvements,” he told me when we met last month at a coffeehouse on Magazine Street. “But what’s clear to me is that it can only get you so far. If you create a system where initiative and creativity is valued and rewarded, then you’ll get change from the bottom up. If you create a system where people are told what to do and how to do it, then you will get change from the top down. We’ve been doing top-down for many years in Louisiana. And all we have is islands of excellence amidst a sea of mediocrity and failure.” In New Orleans, One School Begins and Another Ends

Long-term Structural  Challenges

 Unintended Consequences: Blowing Off Our Own Feet

Raise Retirement Age Now, Actuaries Say (WSJ) Actuaries are urging policy makers to raise the retirement age as the first step to shoring up Social Security and keeping younger workers from bearing the brunt of painful tax increases.

In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority Census Bureau projections show that changes in racial distribution are occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago. Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago. The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050. The main reason for the accelerating change is significantly higher birthrates among immigrants. Another factor is the influx of foreigners, rising from about 1.3 million annually today to more than 2 million a year by midcentury, according to projections based on current immigration policies. “No other country has experienced such rapid racial and ethnic change,” said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a research organization in Washington. The latest figures, which are being released on Thursday, are predicated on current and historical trends, which can be thrown awry by several variables, including prospective overhauls of immigration policies and sudden increases in refugees. A decade ago, census demographers estimated that the nation’s population, which topped 300 million in 2006, would not surpass 400 million until sometime after midcentury. Now, they are projecting that the population will top 400 million in 2039 and reach 439 million in 2050. So-called minorities, the Census Bureau projects, will constitute a majority of the nation’s children under 18 by 2023 and of working-age Americans by 2039. For the first time, both the number and the proportion of non-Hispanic whites, who now account for 66 percent of the population, will decline, starting around 2030. By 2050, their share will dip to 46 percent. Higher mortality rates among older native-born white Americans and higher birthrates rates among immigrants and their children are already driving ethnic and racial disparities. Majority Minorities

• Minority America

It Is Time To Embrace Freer Trade with China The timing of the Doha round could not be more significant, as an economic slowdown has given rise to a new wave of protectionist sentiment. Yet it is important for world leaders to resist calls for protectionism and seize the moment to lift trade barriers. Embracing freer trade – with China as an engine of global economic growth – is the best chance to jump-start economies and provide job opportunities in both developed and developing nations.There are two factors sparking these debates. First, in any economic slump fear can easily give rise to protectionist policies on tariffs and quotas. But these restrictions can be destructive and further slow down the economy. Second, unease about China’s rise as an economic power has made people think that business and jobs are all moving to that country, but not many know that trade with China is generating employment opportunities for Europe and the US. If one looks beyond the headlines, there is a growing trend often missed: China’s role in the global market is evolving from being the top manufacturing hub and exporter to becoming a powerful global buyer. This new trend is just beginning and needs the support of world leaders, as it is only through greater economic openness that they can help lift the global economy. Over the past two decades, trade with China has gone through big changes. Bold economic reforms as well as the country’s entry into the World Trade Organisation has allowed China to supply cheaper goods to Europe and the US, and helped western companies to cut costs by moving their production lines to China. Now we are in a new phase, where China is buying more from the global market.

Shooting Ourselves in the Food Images of people rioting in many countries to protest high prices are vivid reminders of the ongoing food crisis. Rising food prices are eroding the real income of people all over the world, undoing some of the last decade's progress in combating poverty. More than 100 million people in developing countries are now at risk of once again falling below the poverty line. Global grain prices have more than doubled since early 2006, with over half the jump in prices occurring this year. Record food and oil prices are coupled for the first time in 35 years, threatening to end the golden period of low inflation that has been enjoyed practically worldwide for the past several years. The specter of stagflation haunts us as the cost of food and oil continue to rise, and we have yet to glimpse any light at the end of the tunnel of the current financial mess. Wrongheaded biofuel policies constitute only one aspect of the complex and expensive web of protectionist agricultural policies practiced by most developed countries that the WTO Doha Round was supposed to fix. The leading trading countries have repeatedly failed to commit to real reform, with short-term political convenience overriding their own national long-term interests. The latest example of this anomaly is the new Farm Bill approved by the U.S. Congress in May. Instead of reducing agricultural subsidies, this bill provides for bigger and more distorting ones. Even more than the 2002 Farm Bill, this one has eroded U.S. credibility and leadership at the WTO trade talks and given the other key players yet another excuse to evade their own responsibility to make the Round successful--responsibility that in the EU's case consists of accepting truly meaningful cuts in all the tariffs it applies to agricultural products.

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After the break you'll find a rather large collection of political readings excerpts that trace out the evolution of the campaign. If you click on the blue title it's a URL in disguise and will take you to the on-line original, presuming it's still available. But just skimming them tells an interesting and powerful story about a hiatus that's moving/moved thru three stages; and into which the readings are organized. First there was continued puzzlement and confusion as to what the candidates stood and stand for. Next was them wrestling with their campaigns, messages, staffs, tactics and key messages in the "lull" prior to the convention when things will really kick off and more people will start paying attention. Third is the most recent period as the answers gell out to these field experiments but unfortunately they aren't going to be what we'd like - at least on this blog. More unfortunately the "wrong" answers are working.

Where's My Gettysburg Speech ?

Strangely enough several of the last posts are actually mutually reinforcing. Some readers may have wondered what the post on stories and values (Stories We Tell Ourselves: Values, Culture and Change) had to do with geo-politics and current affairs. But in fact it's the stories that the candidates tell us that help us understand them, whether or not they will be the best representative of our interests, and good leaders for the broader welfare of the country. At the end of July we put up a post that walked thru this question of voice in some detail and found that neither candidate had found their voices as yet. (Voice, Leadership, Messages, Realities: Living in a Tough World) Voice in the sense of being able to tell us, as the great poets and artists did, how to make sense of things, that capture the essence of complex things and present them in graspable terms, and convince us that there lies a workable approach and a person to trust. If you don't think stories are critically important to changing things we urge you to consult the career of 'ol Abe, who told better stories that cut to the heart of complex issues better than almost anyone else in US history. If you don't believe us read the Gettysburg address - a few short lines that captured the heart of what this country is about, why we are a democracy, needed to be a union and the ultimate value of the ultimate sacrifices. Four huge, complex ideas compressed to their most basic essence. Of course there are some modern leaders who do relatively well - meaningful eloquence is still around. Try this if you don't believe it: MLK: "I Have a Dream".  

Let's hope they find their voices because, as recent events are making clearer by the day, it's an ugly, complex and scary world. The good news is that we've learned this are honest, well-intentioned and principled men who have the best interests of the country at heart. (Welcome to Saddleback: the Candidates, Pastor Rick and Some Real Answers) Though their personalities and approaches are vastly different even though, again strangely, on many issues their policy differences are small when put under a microscope. For example on Energy, Off-shore Drilling, the Environment or - when you parse thru - on Iraq ! Of course there are others where the differences are very pronounced. As best we can tell :). 

So in lieu of a "gettysburg" on the major policy issues what we're getting is what they seem to be able to do instead. Which is a return to old-school politics - though still with more civility than any of the last four elections IOHO. And sadly, sounds bytes, buzzwords, simple-minded explanations, obfustication and (modest) distortion and attack ads are working. Shame on US !! 

Campaign Status

In the readings you'll find URL pointers to several poll analysis articles as well as two publicly available NBC/WSJ polls for July and this month. The story's pretty much the same - it's still open-ended, the picture isn't as clear as it could/should be, but things are beginning to swing in Johnboy's favor more than a little. Peggy Noonan has a very prescient column in which she anticipates this groundshift without being able to pin it down - more kudos to her for taking a shot when she couldn't be crisp. But on those poll results things are indeed begining to really run neck-n-neck. As this chart from Real Clear Politics will make clear. Barry's not finding his voice and Johnboy's finding an alternative. Given that Barry's got a tougher problem being Mr. Nuance he'd better get it in gear.

Electoral Votes

That being said Barry has proven to be one of the best political strategists and tactical operators, as well as a really effective CEO/organizer that we've seen in decades. Which is another way of saying he's putting his money in the right places, the right ways with the right people, tools and messages (as distinct from "Voice"). Put a third way he may be far ahead on Electoral College votes. Your first response will likely be red vs blue state again but there's a couple of things to remember. When you break it down in detail it actually turns out to be urban vs suburb/rural. The next thing to remember is that there's a lot of "battleground states" that could cause big shifts - hence the leaning and toss- up rankings.

Electoral College II

And the third thing to recall is that they don't partition EC votes out based on proportions of votes. This is actually a very....very good thing though it may seem harsh. What it does is force a decision and ensure a clear-cut result. As it happens that's a major factor contributing to the stability of the US election system rather than the swoop, swirl, shifting alliances and shaky ground you end up with in a lot of Parliamentary systems; e.g. France, Italy, Spain, Israel, usw. The Brits seem to be the only folks who've managed to turn a parliamentary system into a stable 2-party one but then they invented it really and have been practicing for a millenia. Anyway enough beating around - if we force (or RCP does) a clear choice based on things right now the results are very....very interesting. 

Uneasiness and Puzzlements

Voter Unease With Obama Lingers  Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them -- Sen. Barack Obama. With the nominations of both parties effectively settled for more than a month, the key question in the contest isn't over any single issue being debated between the Democrats' Sen. Obama or the Republicans' Sen. John McCain. The focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background and experience level of Sen. Obama? The survey's most striking finding: Fully half of all voters say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. Obama would be as they decide how they will vote, while only a quarter say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. McCain would be. The challenge that presents for Sen. Obama is illustrated by a second question. When voters were asked whether they could identify with the background and values of the two candidates, 58% said they could identify with Sen. McCain on that account, while 47% said the same of Sen. Obama. More than four in 10 said the Democratic contender doesn't have values and a background they can identify with. "Obama is going to be the point person in this election," says pollster Peter Hart, a Democrat who conducts the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll along with Republican Neil Newhouse. "Voters want to answer a simple question: Is Barack Obama safe?"

• See the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll (PDF)
• • 'Generation Gap' Widens in the 2008 Electorate
• • Data Drilldown: McCain vs. Obama by Demographics
• • Highs and Lows: See how Bush's approval rating has changed in multiple polls
• •  America's Next VP

Analysis: McCain tries to sow doubts about Obama John McCain wants the presidential campaign to be about Barack Obama — that's why he talks about him so much. To that end, McCain is helping frame a not-so-flattering portrait of Obama for voters. His ads have become increasingly tough; a third of his commercials portray Obama negatively, a new study concluded. Three months before Election Day, McCain's strategy raises this question: Will voters vote for the scold? A new ad launched Wednesday suggests Obama is nothing more than a lightweight celebrity. Images of him speaking to a 200,000-strong crowd in Berlin last week are interspersed with shots of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. An announcer intones: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world. But, is he ready to lead?" No doubt Obama has fame. He fills political venues with people. He breaks fundraising records with a massive donor base. He does not have a name recognition problem. But Obama himself concedes that his challenge is getting voters to see him as president "It's a leap, electing a 46-year-old black guy named Barack Obama," he said Wednesday. But McCain can't compete with Obama on popularity. Instead, he is working on sowing doubts about his opponent: that he's not tested, not ready to lead and too out of touch with the public. McCain camp compares Obama to Spears, Hilton

Candidates' Styles Risk Turning Off Voters Presidential rivals Barack Obama and John McCain both appear to be seizing the roles in which they have been cast: Sen. Obama as front-runner and Sen. McCain as underdog. The approach carries perils for both men. Democratic Sen. Obama, who has taken to openly musing about the likelihood that he will be elected, risks coming off as arrogant and presumptuous. His Republican rival, who proclaims himself to be running behind at every stop and relentlessly attacks his opponent, risks coming off as negative and whiny. Analysts said the danger to Sen. McCain's approach, such as with his new ad, is it can be seen as whining about Sen. Obama's successes rather than promoting Sen. McCain's own. And it remains unclear if it will stoke voter concerns about Sen. Obama or reinforce his front-runner status.

• Will McCain's Negative Ads Backfire?

McCain's True Voice In the dog days of summer, John McCain's political personality has become so fuzzy that even some Republicans are worrying about his viability. But if you want a reminder of why McCain should be a formidable candidate, take another look at his remarkable 1999 autobiography, "Faith of My Fathers." McCain's account is as revealing as Barack Obama's memoir, "Dreams From My Father." Both candidates have written powerful accounts of their formative experiences. Each tale is woven around the universal theme of fathers and sons. Given the psychological torments that often drive politicians, it's a blessing to have two candidates who have examined their lives carefully, and appear to understand their inner demons. But what makes McCain's account of his captivity truly remarkable is not the heroism but the humility. In page after page, he praises men who he insists were braver than he was. Though even the toughest prisoners were broken by torture, he cannot forgive himself for signing his own confession. McCain's triumph, finally, was that he got over Vietnam. He didn't fulminate against anti-war activists. That healing gift is what McCain, at his best, brings to the presidential race -- not the brass marching band of military valor, but the tolerance of someone who has truly suffered. What's crippling the McCain campaign now, I suspect, is that this fiercely independent man is trying to please other people -- especially a Republican leadership that doesn't really trust him. He should give that up and be the person whose voice shines through the pages of his life story.

Obama's Iraq Fumble In a race supposedly dominated by the economy, both Barack Obama and John McCain have spent a lot of time talking about Iraq. Why? Because both men have Iraq problems that are causing difficulties for their campaigns. How each candidate resolves his Iraq problems may determine who voters come to see as best qualified to set American foreign policy. If Mr. McCain wins the argument on Iraq, he will add to his greatest strength -- a perceived fitness to be commander in chief and lead the global war on terror. As the underdog, Mr. McCain needs to convince voters that he is overwhelmingly the better choice on the issue. Mr. Obama needs to win the argument because his greatest weakness is inexperience and a perceived unreadiness to be president. That's dangerous. Voters believe keeping America safe and strong is a president's most important responsibility. Mr. McCain's first Iraq problem is that he favored removing Saddam Hussein when it was popular -- 76% of Americans thought it was worth going to war in April 2003 -- and has maintained his support of the war even as it grew to be unpopular. In January, only 32% of Americans said the war was worth it. Mr. McCain's second Iraq problem is that the success of the surge he advocated has made it easier for voters to believe we can accelerate the drawdown of U.S. troops. This belief makes Mr. Obama's proposal to withdraw in 16 months seem more reasonable. Mr. McCain's position was further complicated recently when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seemed to give a semiendorsement of Mr. Obama's withdrawal plan. Mr. Maliki actually agrees with Mr. McCain that a timetable should be aspirational and based on conditions on the ground, which is why he said U.S. troops should be withdrawn by 2010 "if possible." Some Iraqis are anxious to have American troops leave and some are not -- which is why Mr. Maliki treads a fine line on withdrawal. Unfortunately for Mr. McCain, this only complicates things for his campaign. Mr. Obama's problem is he opposed the policy that created the progress that makes victory in Iraq possible. Mr. Obama's unbending opposition to the surge undermines his fundamental argument that he has better judgment on national security. Mr. McCain needs to use Mr. Obama's retrospective mistake to shape voters' prospective conclusion, convincing them that Mr. Obama's badly flawed judgment on the surge shows he cannot be trusted with major foreign-policy decisions. Mr. Obama also created a problem by canceling a visit to U.S. soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and are now recuperating at Landstuhl hospital in Germany. Most importantly, Mr. Obama missed the opportunity to show he can admit a mistake. He could have said that what he saw on his visit to Iraq convinced him that the surge was right and its success now allows U.S. troops to be safely drawn down. Instead, he insisted he was right to say the surge wouldn't work.

Obama Opens Up Platform to Rank and File as Focus Turns to Economy, Energy The Manassas meeting was one of 1,686 that have taken place in every state and drawn some 20,000 people since mid-July. In contrast to John Kerry's national-security-heavy theme in 2004 -- ``Strong at Home, Respected in the World'' -- the message the party's rank and file is sending this year is that bread-and- butter issues are the top concern. ``It's the economy, energy, and health care, stupid,'' said national platform director Michael Yaki, paraphrasing a line made famous by Bill Clinton strategist James Carville in the 1992 presidential election. A common theme is how to ``renew community, our economy, our approach to energy,'' said Yaki, a former senior aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The platform is also likely to include presumed nominee Barack Obama's goal of governing with greater citizen participation, according to members of the 16-person drafting committee, which meets this weekend in Cleveland to begin putting together the document.

Polls Continue to Show an Unstable Presidential Campaign Just when you think you've got the presidential race figured out, something comes along to upend your carefully wrought conclusions. Mainstream media provided lavish coverage of Barack Obama's trip abroad the week of July 21-25 and predicted he would get a bounce in the polls. Some of his supporters believe he has put the election away. Other observers employ the hackneyed and meaningless phrase, "It's his to lose." The poll numbers tell a different and more nuanced story. Obama may have gotten some lasting benefits from the trip. … there are a substantial number of American voters who will be attracted by a candidate who seems to pass what John Kerry in 2004 called a "global test." Still, the basic dynamics of the race haven't changed. Obama appears to have a small lead. But he doesn't come close to maximizing the Democratic vote. And there is some evidence that the balance of enthusiasm has shifted and that young people -- who seemed to turn out and vote for Obama in unusually high numbers in the primaries and caucuses -- are no long so enthusiastic about him. For most of this year, the balance of enthusiasm has been in favor of Democrats and Obama. Turnout in Democratic primaries was about 50 percent higher than in Republican primaries while both parties' nominations were seriously contested; Democrats generally and Obama in particular have raised far more money than Republicans; McCain voters have typically expressed less enthusiasm for their candidate than Obama voters have for theirs. These poll results suggest that something -- the rantings of the Rev. Wright or Obama's skinbacks on issues like Iraq and terrorist surveillance -- has dampened enthusiasm for him, particularly among the young. The hope that his candidacy would benefit from a historically unprecedented turnout of young voters seems more audacious than it did a short time ago.

Wrestling the “Story”

Forging Perceptions The caricatures of the candidates that are emerging are here to stay through Election Day -- and beyond.In a less confrontational universe, Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama could have simply continued to emphasize their respective messages of “experience” and “change.” But pointing out your attributes only goes so far: the flip side is talking about where the other guy falls short. The campaigns’ approaches to this challenge were on full display recently, when the McCain campaign began running an ad that identified Mr. Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world,” and Mr. Obama put up a response that criticized Mr. McCain for practicing “the politics of the past.” Mr. Obama linked the Arizona senator to President Bush, and Mr. McCain compared his opponent to Paris Hilton. Neither association is going to eclipse national security, taxes or energy as the deciding force in the campaign for most voters, but that exchange illustrates what the home stretch of this campaign is going to sound like. Neither candidate is particularly well-suited to this type of politics. Both have earned reputations as representing something different and better than the conventional politicians who populate the landscape. Both diminish themselves and their brands by engaging in this type of conversation. Voters see a discussion between the candidates of policy differences as a legitimate way of providing useful information. But name-calling is another matter, especially for two politicians who’ve built their careers on the idea of rising above politics as usual.Both candidates have learned other lessons from past campaigns as well. Mr. McCain and his advisers watched carefully as Hillary Clinton resurrected her campaign last spring when she took the gloves off and began to confront Mr. Obama more aggressively. The Illinois senator is at his best from the mountaintop, and while Mrs. Clinton’s change of course came too late to bring her the nomination, she demonstrated that the best way to deal with Mr. Obama is to force him back to earth. For their part, Mr. Obama and his team know that Mr. McCain can be goaded into lashing out when he feels he’s being unjustly criticized. Why So Nasty, So Soon?,

Where’s the Landslide? Barack Obama’s ability to stand apart means that people on almost all sides of any issue can see parts of themselves reflected in his eyes. But it does make him hard to place. Why isn’t Barack Obama doing better? Why, after all that has happened, does he have only a slim two- or three-point lead over John McCain, according to an average of the recent polls? Why is he basically tied with his opponent when his party is so far ahead? His age probably has something to do with it. So does his race. But the polls and focus groups suggest that people aren’t dismissive of Obama or hostile to him. Instead, they’re wary and uncertain. And the root of it is probably this: Obama has been a sojourner. He opened his book “Dreams From My Father” with a quotation from Chronicles: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers.”  There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded. He was a popular and charismatic professor, but he rarely took part in faculty conversations or discussions about the future of the institution. He had a supple grasp of legal ideas, but he never committed those ideas to paper by publishing a piece of scholarship. He was in the law school, but not of it. This has been a consistent pattern throughout his odyssey. And so it goes. He is a liberal, but not fully liberal. He has sometimes opposed the Chicago political establishment, but is also part of it. He spoke at a rally against the Iraq war, while distancing himself from many antiwar activists. This ability to stand apart accounts for his fantastic powers of observation, and his skills as a writer and thinker. It means that people on almost all sides of any issue can see parts of themselves reflected in Obama’s eyes. But it does make him hard to place.

Barack The Cable Guy  The Obama model is really quite simple...Barack Obama is the Cable Guy. Whatever it takes to "get 'er done" he's going to do. What Obama is not is an ideologue. In fact Barack Obama may well be the least ideological presidential candidate since Dwight Eisenhower. Obama plays the cards he is dealt. Like any good gambler knows, when the cards change you adjust or you lose. Barack Obama is proving to be a very good gambler. What the Republicans and many in the political chattering class are calling flip flopping by Obama is nothing more than political pragmatics, and Obama is very good at it. In fact, given the array of problems facing the next president, learning to adjust as events warrant will be an essential tool. Obama is only concerned with mastering whatever process is needed to get from here to there, nothing more, nothing less. Obama is not trying to lead America to an era of post partisanship. The whole fixation with post partisanship was ridiculous to begin with. Democracy can not survive without partisanship. What Obama is about is seeking an era where 20th century political polarization will be replaced by a 21st century era of political realism where practical consensus among partisans replaces ideological obstructionism. That is not idealism, it is good politics. To be sure Obama has adhered to 20th century liberalism in his brief political career, but that's what the Democratic Party process demanded to secure the presidential nomination. All those Democratic interest groups who think Obama is the next generation FDR or JFK are in for a rude awakening. This guy isn't about adherence to a liberal agenda long past its political life expectancy and usefulness (and for years it was so very useful). And he certainly isn't a closet adherent to a conservative agenda that has thankfully run its course and is now thoroughly discredited. Barack Obama is about process not ideology. He's Larry the Cable Guy but with a Harvard education and a towering intellect. As Larry is fond of saying "you gotta do what it takes to get 'er done", and Obama will do just that as president. Good for him. Good for the country. It's not complicated, and it should come as no surprise. It is exactly what Barrack Obama has done his entire adult life, but for some reason most people either don't get it, don't believe it, or chose to deny it.

Obama's biggest media problem Democrats' likely presidential nominee needs to lose  reputation of having a thin skin, writes Jon Friedman. I'm starting to worry about Barack Obama. From a journalistic perspective, he seemed like such a refreshing departure from the oft-paranoid media relations practiced by Bill and Hillary Clinton and the two George Bushes. Now I'm not so sure. Too often, Obama and his handlers have overreacted to what we've come to accept as frivolous, basically harmless "coverage" by the celebrity-obsessed mainstream media. Two examples of him getting his back up: Obama made a federal case of the appearance by his daughters on "Access Hollywood" and he was snippy with reporters when he was pressed about his unexpected email friendship with actress Scarlett Johansson. Sure, these are minor events. But if he is going to be anal about the small stuff, it may get ugly if he loses his composure about something important. Obama has staked his claim by offering American voters a fresh voice and a strong sense of optimism about the future. When he was on the way up, he was the favorite son of the media, who heaped almost unprecedented praise on him. Now that he has all but secured the Democratic nomination, Obama has shown little patience for standard media practices, which can range from silly to stupid. The Obama team may still think the "old" rules apply. By old, I'm referring to the kid-gloves treatment the media gave him when he was an up and comer and Hillary Clinton was heavily favored to secure the Democratic nomination. Obama had better toughen up -- fast. The media spotlight -- or is it a glare? -- will only get brighter in the months leading up to Election Day. Expect the incessant charges that Obama is too inexperienced and unprepared to be president and a Pollyanna cockeyed optimist to get more shrill, too. Obama has resented the media for treating him like a presidential candidate -- someone with a personal life, a family and a past. He had better get used to it. The pace is sure to quicken between now and Election Day. And you win, Mr. President-Elect, look out. Things can only get worse. 

What McCain Should Do Next Notwithstanding the hype about Barack Obama, here is where the presidential race stands: John McCain was within an average of 1.9% of his Democratic opponent in last week's daily Gallup tracking poll. It shouldn't be this close. Sen. Obama should be way ahead. It's not that Sen. McCain has made up a lot of ground. Pollster.com shows that the Republican steadily declined from March through June as the Democratic contest dominated the news. Mr. McCain stabilized in July, and then ticked up slightly. But the most important political fact of July is that Mr. Obama has lost altitude. Gallup now projects that 23% of this year's electorate will be swing voters, more than twice the share in 2004. It seems that each candidate is underperforming with his base. Now Mr. McCain needs to find ways to describe an Obama who is running on empty rhetoric. He needs to do to Mr. Obama what Walter Mondale did to Gary "Where's the Beef?" Hart in the 1984 Democratic primaries. Given Mr. Obama's thin résumé and accomplishments, this can be done, with a sustained effort.But to win, Mr. McCain must also make a compelling case for electing John McCain. Voters trust him on terrorism and Iraq and they see him as a patriot who puts country first. But they want to know for what purpose? In the coming weeks, he needs to lay out a bold domestic reform program. He gave a taste on energy, but with a few missteps. Mr. McCain also needs to elevate his arguments. It's not only that he opposes tax increases and Mr. Obama favors them. Mr. McCain must also make the principled case that there should be a limit to what government can take from its citizens.

3 of the Most Critical Weeks of the Election Barack Obama returns to action Saturday after a week's vacation for a joint appearance with John McCain at the Saddleback Church in California. Obama's reappearance on the campaign trail signals the beginning of three of the most critical weeks of the general election. In the modern era, there has never been quite as concentrated a dose of potentially campaign-altering events as the coming three weeks could produce. By the end of that period, Obama and McCain will have announced their vice presidential running mates, staged four-day infomercials for their candidacies and delivered what are likely to be the single most important speeches of the general election. For those who revel in the unpredictability of politics, this calendar is ready-made for enjoyment. The cascading events will heighten the cost of mistakes, affect the post-convention bounce for Obama and perhaps McCain, supercharge the traditional Labor Day opening of the fall campaign and raise the stakes on the two presidential nominees not to misuse their conventions, as John Kerry did four years ago. Normally these events have stretched over six weeks or more and generally have taken place much earlier in the summer. Voters have had time to fully digest each one before the next has occurred. That changed this year because the Democratic and Republican parties decided to hold their conventions back-to-back, and later than ever before. It also changed because, despite much speculation to the contrary, Obama and McCain have waited until just before the conventions to name their vice presidents.

Changes in Latitude, Attitude and Perception

Political Cycles The presidential campaign is shifting, but it's only perceptible up close. You're in a plane and you're flying over the campaign at a level of about 10,000 feet, and you look down and see: Not much has changed. Battle lines fixed, topography the same, troops pretty much where they were. But land the plane, walk around and talk to people, and you realize: This thing is moving. Things are shifting around a bit. That's what I see looking back at the past four weeks. For the first time the idea began to take hold that John McCain can win this thing. You saw the USA Today-Gallup poll this week, with Mr. McCain gaining six points since late June among those Gallup dubbed likely voters. Mr. McCain took the lead, 49% to 45%. Among registered voters, it's still Barack Obama, 47% to 44%. A poll came out saying people are tired of hearing about Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain took the lead in YouTube hits. Small stuff, and there will be a lot of twists and turns before this is over, but there's movement down there beneath the crust of the Earth. Mr. Obama got tagged the past month as something new, not the candidate from Men's Vogue but arrogant, aloof and somehow ethereal. There is no there there. There's a thing that's out there and it's big, and latent, and somehow always taken into account and always ignored, and political professionals always assume they understand it. It has been called many things the past 50 years, "the silent center," "the silent majority," "the coalition," "the base." The idea of it has evolved as its composition has evolved, but the fact that it's big, and relatively silent, and somehow always latent, maintains. And watching that McCain event—vroom vroom—one got the sense it is perhaps beginning to pay attention to the campaign. I see it as the old America, and if and when it reasserts itself, the campaign will shift indeed, and in ways you can even see from 10,000 feet.

• Seven Worrisome Signs for Obama,  Summer School for the Candidates

The Education of McCain When McCain and his team set out to win the presidency in 2008, they hoped to run a campaign with this sort of spirit. McCain would venture forth on the back of his bus, going places other Republicans don’t go, saying things politicians don’t say, offering the country the vision of a different kind of politics — free of circus antics — in which serious people sacrifice for serious things. It hasn’t turned out that way. McCain hasn’t been able to run the campaign he had envisioned. Instead, he and his staff have been given an education by events. McCain started with grand ideas about breaking the mold of modern politics. He and Obama would tour the country together doing joint town meetings. He would pick a postpartisan running mate, like Joe Lieberman. He would make a dramatic promise, like vowing to serve for only one totally nonpolitical term. So far it hasn’t worked. Obama vetoed the town meeting idea. The issue is not closed, but G.O.P. leaders are resisting a cross-party pick like Lieberman. McCain and his advisers have been compelled to adjust to the hostile environment around them. They have been compelled, at least in their telling, to abandon the campaign they had hoped to run. Now they are running a much more conventional race, the kind McCain himself used to ridicule. The man who lampooned the Message of the Week is now relentlessly on message (as observers of his fine performance at Saddleback Church can attest). The man who hopes to inspire a new generation of Americans now attacks Obama daily. It is the only way he can get the networks to pay attention. Some old McCain hands are dismayed. John Weaver, the former staff member who helped run the old McCain operation, argues that this campaign does not do justice to the man. The current advisers say they have no choice. They didn’t choose the circumstances of this race. Their job is to cope with them. And the inescapable fact is: It is working. Everyone said McCain would be down by double digits at this point. He’s nearly even. Everyone said he’d be vastly outspent. That hasn’t happened. A long-shot candidacy now seems entirely plausible. As the McCain’s campaign has become more conventional, his political prospects have soared. Both he and Obama had visions of upending the system. Maybe in office, one of them will still be able to do that. But at least on the campaign trail, the system is winning.

Poll: McCain Closing Gap on Obama McCain has all but closed the gap with Obama. A WSJ/NBC News poll found the race in a statistical dead heat, with 45% favoring Obama and 42% for McCain. The poll underscores how international crises and negative ads have helped McCain, although concern among voters about his age remains. Sen. John McCain has all but closed the gap with Sen. Barack Obama, underscoring how international crises -- and some well-placed negative ads -- have boosted the prospects of the Republican presidential candidate. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll also points to a big challenge for Sen. Obama as his party gathers in Denver next week for its convention: rallying Sen. Hillary Clinton's supporters to his cause. Only half of those who voted for Sen. Clinton in the primaries say they are now supporting Sen. Obama. One in five is supporting Sen. McCain. The Republican has reached out to Clinton supporters by offering steady praise for the former first lady and hinting that he'd be open to a running mate who supports abortion rights. Overall, the poll finds the race a statistical dead heat, with 45% favoring Sen. Obama and 42% Sen. McCain. That three-point Obama advantage is down from six points a month ago, a trend found in other national polls as well. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, meaning the Obama lead could range from zero to six points. The poll has some cautionary notes for Sen. McCain as well. It shows that his supporters are much less enthusiastic than Sen. Obama's, and finds widespread concern among voters about his age. But his performance is impressive given the built-in advantages Democrats enjoy this year, including President George W. Bush's unpopularity and the weak economy. Sen. McCain got off to a slow start after sealing his party's nomination in February. His operation and fund raising have lagged behind Sen. Obama's. In June and July -- the two months since Sen. Obama captured his nomination and the head-to-head race began -- the Democrat has outraised his rival $105 million to $49 million and outspent him $82 million to $59 million. Nonetheless, Sen. McCain has managed to keep the race close. "The poll shows how wrong the Washington conventional wisdom has been on this race," said Steve Schmidt, a senior McCain strategist.

• See WSJ/NBC News poll results (PDF)

Obama: In Need of a Game Changer  Say what you will about Republicans making a muddle of governing, but they sure know how to campaign. The turn of events that John McCain and his team have engineered in recent weeks is one of the most significant events of the campaign and now poses a serious threat of an upset this fall. In just a few short weeks, they have not only thrown Barack Obama on the defensive and made him seem smaller but they have also made McCain seem larger and more commanding. And it has not just been one event but a string of them that they have tied together to propel McCain upward — from the ads (which most of us in the media didn’t like) to the way McCain seized upon the drilling and Russian issues to his winsome performance at Saddleback. The capacity to create issues and momentum practically out of the ether is the sign of a strong campaign. Both McCain and his team are impressing voters. And the results are now showing up in the polls: not only are some key states like Ohio breaking toward McCain but the Reuters/Zogby poll today showed McCain opening up a 5-point national lead — and stunningly, voters said in that survey that he would be better handling the economy than Obama! That is the bread and butter issue for the Democrats, one they should be able to seize upon to capture seats up and down the ticket. Now, a couple of cautions are in order. This race was always going to tighten as Republican voters came home and McCain is benefiting to a considerable degree because that has been happening of late. In all the polls, there also remains a large bloc of voters who are undecided and many of them look like they are potential Obama voters. Campaigns also have a tendency to ebb and flow, so that the latest McCain tide could easily recede, especially if the Democrats put on a thunderous convention or McCain makes a mistake (not hard to envision). And there remains great, great enthusiasm on the Obama side and a general antipathy to the Bush years. So, it is important not to insert lots of caveats. Still, this should be a huge wake-up call to Obama and the Democrats. From my perspective, Obama needs to introduce a game changer — and fast — before public opinion starts to gel around the notion that he is a phenom who deserves great respect but is not seasoned enough and would be too much of a risk in the Oval Office.

Posted by dblwyo at 07:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pastor Rick Warren, of Saddleback Church and the "Purpose Driven Life" has done us all a great service by creating, hosting and running a candid, serious and probing set of interviews with Barry and John-boy. Or given how it played out perhaps we should say, Sen. Obama and McCain. Everyone comported themselves with great dignity, forthrightness, integrity, honesty and spoke well. Despite what you may have heard the reach and range of the questions is such that you really need to watch this for yourself. In aid of that goal after the break you'll find URL pointers to both the CNN online video clips as well as C-SPAN's; and a pointer to a full transcript as well. You'll also find some related readings excerpts associated with their related URLs, if you want to click on through and read the whole thing. We didn't grab everything but did try and grab a representative sample who seem to be reasonably accurate and useful, in our judgment at any rate. Even where we didn't entirely agree with the assessments on either side of the analysis.

Pastor Rick did a superb job and, in our opinion, a serious public service for the nation. You are not likely to hear anything better in this campaign. In fact he set the tone, as well as defined some critical aspirational principles we'd like to see return to the center of our public square.

1. We believe in the separation of Church and State. We do not believe in the seperation of Faith and Politics because Faith is a worldview that should help determine your choices.
2. We need to learn to to disagree without demonizing each other. We need to return Civility to Public Discourse.

 Bottomline you need to watch these - if you're going to vote there is, we think, no better use of your time. Particularly since the general consensus - while not grossly inaccurate - filters out too much, doesn't catch the implications and misses to much of the deeper character because too many of the commentators didn't understand what they were hearing on several levels. You might also want to check out some of the vidclips of Pastor Rich - who agree or not, share his faith or not - is both eloquent, thoughtful and experienced in the ugliness of the real world. His efforts here should change for the better many of the negative impressions bandied about in the MSM and commentariat about Faith-Holders, evangelicals in particular. Beyond that if you have a view of them as simple-minded, monolithic and incurably benighted at least know your opponent better. You might be surprised.

The "consensus" seems to be that John-boy was direct, forceful and impressive. He was certainly better here than in any other venue we've heard him. And that Barry was subtle, nuanced and careful. At a superficial surface level that's probably accurate. But doesn't begin to go far enough, though some of the excerpts provide examples that are fairly accurate. Let me offer up my key impressions.

1. First off these are both impressive people - principled, intelligent, and wanting the best for their country. At the end of the day I ended up liking and admiring them both and would be privileged to have them as friends, colleagues or comrades. On our historical scale solid B players. Bear in mind the list of A players is pretty short, e.g. George, Abe, Teddy and so forth. It's grading on the curve and it's a tough curve. But then it darn well should be, shouldn't it ? 

2. The differences of nuance verses directness that everybody has commented and concluded on misses a fundamental and critical point. John McCain is of a generation and upbringing where clear, even simple, fundamentals were what you acquired, grew up with and developed over your lifetime. Barrack Obama is a child of a different, more complex, more diverse age and upbringing. One perhaps more accurately reflective of the world we must find our way in. Yet neither is right or wrong in and of themselves. In fact you need to be sensitive to complexity but able to decide, act and carry thru on fundamental core principles. Which man bests suits the times is for you to judge, but if you're honest, hard to do because we need a balance of both.

In case the commenters completely missed the backstory here and, therefore, how it's likely to play out among different voter groups depending on what they're sensitive too. 

3. The initial questions were on character, specifically tell me about a major choice you had, a moral failure of yours and a touch, morally challenging decision. And who would be your go-to counselors. Barry's answers were of a thoughtful, civilized person. His advisers - his wife, grandmother and so forth. John-boy's were Gen. Petraeus, Meg Whitman and John Lewis, a great, black civil rights leader who almost died from it.

The most telling differences probably lay in the "tell us a tough choice". Frankly Barry's escapes me - some personal trivia. John-boy's was to stay in prison and continue to be tortured. Asked to answer the equivalent question on a tough leadership decision Barry answered, "when John and I worked together on campaign finance reform". McCain's was when I bucked the most respected Republican president of the time, Ronald Reagan, on his Lebanon decision because he was wrong; and even though it could have destroyed my career which was just starting.

Barry's a nice guy but John's beliefs come from having lived thru the fire and paid full ferry toll for them.

4. On the other hand John-boy's stump speech tirade that fundamental Islamic radicalism is the major crisis of our time was out of place and, after several thousand words of analysis, and much research, beyond plain wrong. It's merely one of many, not the most important though perhaps the most immediate. China and the BRICs, Russia's primitive revanchism, and a serious economic downturn are in fact more serious, urgent and consequential.

5. Speaking of which not much was said directly to the economics issues though it was dealt with in passing via taxes and "who's rich". Barry's answer was a policy wonks while John-boy's was wishy-washy, ill-thought and ill-expressed. In the larger scheme neither candidate has come up with comprehensive, workable or sensible economic policy proposals. This will be the single most important issue after January and neither seems to have a grasp.

6. As a final note, pro or con, all the commenters seem to feel that John-boy was in a home-court audience while Barry was dealing with a potentially unfriendly crowd. Perhaps - and while John caterred to their core interests he wasn't very expressive or insightful on matters of faith. That may be the private person. Barry on the other hand did get several rounds of heartfelt applause - these are not Oral Robert's "Moral Majority". More back to the "Social Gospel" of Christians doing good. And that should NOT be under-estimated. MUCH more importantly Barry displayed a comfortable familiarity with Scripture and a more than surface reading. He'd clearly read, understood, internalized and was acting on Scripture. And these people would recognize that. Yet another major point that no talking head or commentariat appartchik got.

 Bottomline - well to tell the truth I'm still not sure. As an old rock climber we used to have an interesting test. Would you let this guy hold the other end of the rope if you were on lead ? Understanding that the guy on lead had a many feet freefall if he slipped and your life depended on the guy on the safety rope being willing to take some serious pain to arrest you. John-boy would without a doubt. Barry...well I'm not sure.

On the other hand John-boy might damm well get you climbing directly up some damm face you had not business being on or didn't even need to climb. With Barry you could sit down and work thru the alternatives, pick the right climb, avoide it altogether and maybe go shoot some hoops and have a brew. 

Video Clip Sources

CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/17/forum/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

C-SPAN

Obama - rtsp://video1.c-span.org/archive/c08/c08_081608_obama.rm

McCain - rtsp://video1.c-span.org/archive/c08/c08_081608_mccain.rm

Full Transcript of Faith Forum

Background vidclips on Rick Warren

TED Talks: Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, reflects on his own crisis of purpose in the wake of his book's wild success. He explains his belief that God's intention is for each of us to use our talents and influence to do good.

Charlie Rose Interview: A conversation with pastor Rick Warren, author of the book "A Purpose Driven Life", about religion in modern life, particularly Christianity. He also discusses his missionary and relief work with an emphasis on the global AIDS epidemic.

Appearance at Harvard’s Kennedy School: Election 2004: A New Spiritual Awakening?

Readings

Saddleback: The Contrast  A fascinating night that gave us a peek at the fundamental contrast between these candidates. They both were very good, but in entirely different ways. Obama was relaxed, reflective, polished, and conversational—truer to the spirit of the event. McCain was energetic and forceful, but relied more on his favorite lines—treating it more like one of his townhall meetings (he had the advantage of an overwhelmingly friendly crowd). Obama was every bit the impressive, likable young man. McCain was the elder statesman telling his best stories. Obama was fluid and comfortable talking about his faith. McCain said the bare minimum about it. But the starkest contrast came as soon as McCain started his half of the forum. Asked the three people he would listen to as president, McCain said right off the bat Gen. Petraeus (Obama had led with his wife and grandmother). It was an immediate signal that this is a man who is concerned first and foremost with matters of war and peace—just as you expect from someone who wants to be president of the United States. Asked when he had bucked his party at risk to his self-interest, McCain rolled off his greatest hits, and went all the back to differing with Reagan on Lebanon (a reminder of how long he has been immersed in national-security issues). It made Obama's answer about promoting an ethics law with McCain seem incredibly weak in comparison. Then, McCain's answer about the toughest decision he had ever made—refusing early release in Vietnam—was riveting and moving.

Not a Preview of Fall Debates I only saw the tail end of Barack Obama's half of the great Saddleback Church semi-debate tonight, but I caught most of the highlights afterward and I saw all of John McCain's performance. The CNN talking heads all thought the big difference between the two was that McCain came across as direct and forceful while Obama came across as thoughtful and nuanced, but that's not quite how it struck me. For better or worse, Obama seems to have chosen to treat this event as sort of an intimate evening with Rick Warren — that just happened to be nationally televised. McCain, by contrast, treated it as a straight campaign event: he had his stump speech talking points ready, and he was eager to cram as many of them into his 50 minutes as possible.

McCain as Good as Obama Was Bad I don't want to get to overheated about what occurred tonight, but I do think McCain had a clear and decisive victory over Obama. It all comes down to something that Phil Bredesen, the Democratic governor of Tennessee recently said about Obama: “Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.” By that standard, McCain did extremely well and Obama did very poorly. McCain's answers were direct, confident and, most importantly, serious. When asked about what leaders he would consult as president, he first suggested Gen. Petraeus, architect of the surge, who he correctly praised as one of America's all-time great military leaders. By way of contrast, Obama suggested he would seek out the advice of a typical white person, er, his grandmother and his wife Michelle, who's still trying to decide whether she's proud of her country.

McCain Tonight I don’t know how to say this more clearly: If John McCain can perform during the three debates the way he is performing tonight with Rick Warren, he will win this election. The contrast between him and Barack Obama (who answered the same questions an hour before him) has really been quite startling. In every case, McCain has answered substantively, directly, and with a surpassing command of detail. Obama talked around most issues; perhaps most oddly, he said Clarence Thomas was the one Supreme Court justice he would not have selected because he hadn’t had enough experience (Thomas had been on the federal bench for a year and a half before he was nominated, which is about as long as Obama was in the Senate before he began seriously considering a run for the presidency). Once again, as was true in his debates with Hillary Clinton, Obama has a problem when matters get down to specifics and his rival is better prepared and more comfortable with them than he is.

McCain's Back in the Saddleback Quick first impressions: Obama spent more time trying to impress Warren (or to put another away) not offend Warren while McCain seemingly ignored Warren and decided he was talking to folks watching on TV. The McCain way of handling this forum is usually the winning way. Obama may have had more authentic moments but McCain was impressively on message. This was a mistake Obama made a few times during the primary season. On one hand, it can make a moderator feel good when their subject actually tries to answer every question and take into account their opinions on a particular topic. And Obama's supporters will email me tonight and say this is what they love about him. And yet, this reminded me of the many comparisons we made between Obama and Hillary Clinton. She was much more effective at answering questions in 90 seconds and always staying on message while Obama too easily allowed himself to get knocked off his talking points. Remember, Obama doesn't need to win over his supporters, he needs folks who are just now tuning in.

McCain's Depth & Experience Stood Out It’s fair to say that in the hours before John McCain appeared with Barack Obama at the “Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency,” here at Pastor Rick Warren’s famed southern California mega-church, there were at least a few McCain insiders who were a bit nervous about their candidate’s prospects. Obama can be remarkably polished in this sort of situation. Unlike other Democrats, he’s not afraid to hang out with evangelicals. McCain, on the other hand, can at times be cranky and take pleasure in irritating his base. Could he come out ahead in this one? Team McCain needn’t have worried. This was not your usual political TV show. Warren — Pastor Rick, around here — asked big questions, about big subjects; he wasn’t concerned about what appeared on the front page of that morning’s Washington Post. And his simple, direct, big questions brought out something we don’t usually see in a presidential face-off; in this forum, as opposed to a read-the-prompter speech, or even a debate focused on the issues of the moment, the candidates were forced to call on everything they had — the things they have done and learned throughout their lives. And the fact is, John McCain has lived a much bigger life than Barack Obama. That’s not a slam at Obama; McCain has lived a much bigger life than most people. But it still made Obama look small in comparison. McCain was the clear winner of the night. The contrast was striking throughout each man’s one-hour time on stage. When Warren asked Obama, “What’s the most gut-wrenching decision you’ve ever had to make?” Obama answered that opposing the war in Iraq was “as tough a decision that I’ve had to make, not only because there were political consequences but also because Saddam Hussein was a bad person and there was no doubt he meant America ill.” But Obama was a state senator in Illinois when Congress authorized the president to use force in Iraq. He didn’t have to make a decision on the war. That fact was a recurring issue in the Democratic primaries, when candidates Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd, and John Edwards argued that they, as senators, had to make a choice Obama didn’t have to make. And now he says it’s his toughest call. When McCain got the question, he was able to tell an old story with a sense of gravity and poignancy that he seldom shows in public. He described his time as a prisoner of war, when he was offered a chance for early release because his father was a top naval officer. “I was in rather bad physical shape,” McCain told Warren, but “we had a code of conduct that said you only leave by order of capture.” So McCain refused to go. He made the telling even more forceful when he added that, “in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m very happy I didn’t know the war was going to last for another three years or so.” In one moment, he showed a sense of pride and a hint of regret, too; he came across as a man who did the right thing but not without the temptation to take an easy out. In any event, the message was very clear: John McCain has had to make bigger, more momentous decisions in his life than has Barack Obama.

McCain's Clarity vs. Obama's Nuance When I was little, I had a recurrent dream that there was a terrible earthquake. My father, his body a horse with wings, swooped down from the sky, kneeled so I could jump on his back and flew away just as the earth cracked open beneath me. It was my most comforting dream. I want to live in that world again. I want to live in John McCain's world. My father was a military man. My parents were friends of McCain's parents and lived in the same apartment building. My father's closest friend was Barry Goldwater, McCain's mentor. Those were the days when men were men, when the differences between good and evil were clear, when they knew where they stood on every issue, when life was less complicated, when there was an air of insouciance, no matter how difficult the issues. I want to live in a world where Gen. David Petraeus and Meg Whitman, former chief executive of eBay, are the wisest people I know, where offshore drilling will help ease our energy crisis, where a guy stays in a Vietnamese prison camp even when told he could get out, and has great stories to tell. I want to live in a world where I was absolutely certain that life begins at conception, where a man is a maverick and stands up against his Senate colleagues when he disagrees with them, where the only thing to do with evil is defeat it, where a guy will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell to capture him. Obama came first, and he handled himself well in front of an audience that clearly disagrees with him on many issues. He also managed to put to rest the notion that he is a Muslim, which 12 percent of Americans still believe he is. He talked directly to Rick Warren as though they were having a real conversation, whereas McCain played to the audience, rarely looking at Warren. He was low-key, thoughtful and nuanced.

That kind of nuance is hard to understand sometimes -- it's unclear, complicated. Obama's world can be scarier. It's multicultural. It's realistic (yes, there is evil on the streets of this country as well as in other places, and a lot of evil has been perpetrated in the name of good). It's honest. When does life begin? Only the antiabortionists are clear on that. For the majority of Americans (who are pro-choice), it is "above my pay grade," in Obama's words, where there is no hard and fast line to draw on what's worth dying for, and where people of all faiths have to be respected. I would rather live in McCain's world than Obama's. But I believe that we live in Obama's world.

Posted by dblwyo at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday's post (Marching thru Georgia: the World Just Changed and We Can't Get Off) on the war in Georgia laid out a first round of assessments and evaluations. Now let's add some further reflections for your consideration as well as try to put this, at least conceptually, in a larger context. After the break you'll find an even larger collection of readings grouped into Media reporting/analysis, assesments and diagnosis and strategic consequences. Interestingly this worldwide collection of what could be considered the more thoughtful folks tends to converge on our prior arguments. Which is not to say that if we were just collecting stories and commentaries that a much wider spectrum wouldn't be possible - there's quite a bit of "they had it coming" and "the running dog US lackies should have expected this" or "this is all a vast CIA conspiracy" stuff out there. Since those struck us as ill-founded, distorted and un-constructive they aren't, by-n-large, shown. A partial exception is made of Mihail Gorbachev's Wash Post editorial which parrots the party line to a T; and should see the revocation of his Nobel IOHO.

Hot UPDATEs:

US, allies contemplating action against Russia The United States on Sunday accused Russia of stalling its military pullback in Georgia, but the Bush administration is not rushing to repudiate Moscow for its actions. The White House is struggling to figure out the best way to penalize Russia. It doesn't want to deeply damage existing cooperation on many fronts or discourage Moscow from further integrating itself into global economic and political institutions. At the same time, U.S. officials say Russia can't be allowed to get away with invading its neighbor.

• Rice, Gates Say Russia's Role in WTO, G8 at Stake in Pullout From Georgia

Round Two Strategic Assessments

1. Following on - this has immediate benefits for control of energy resources, Central Asia and playing power games with Europe. At least a decade's worth of ripple consequences. But it doesn't do them as much good as developing their oil, bringing in foreign investment, diversifying their economy, building road, schools, etc. etc. On balance they've made a very bad choice but a traditional one.

2. In the long-run they've destroyed themselvs. Population is declining, productivity is down, they've made themselves potential pariahs though the Europeans will wiffle and are no longer as critically important, the Chinese will hold their noses and watch their backs and much of the rest of the world will applaud as the political cartoons (some) illusrated. Including some of our own more benighted and misguided citizens. In the long-run as few will do as little business as they can manage, which will cut them off from the resources required for the future they could have had. Actually a very sad thing to see.

 

3. The biggest danger they create is systemic. Everybody games the system to their own advantage, whether it's the Chinese, the Brazilians, the Indians, the Europeans, or whomever. Nonetheless what all we've spent nearly three decades benefiting from and supporting one way or another, is the architecture of the world system that the US created and supported. And were looking forward to, admittedly difficult, evolution into a new one with greater roles for various players. But nonetheless the emergence of a major adaptation to the rising powers. Now that's in serious question. And Russia's role and reliability even more so.

 

4. Russia's returning to the old way of doing things makes that more difficult and indicts the fundamental assumptions that the prognostication and policies were built on. Begger thy neighbor instead of let's grow the pie and then compete for who gets what piece. If Russia's example is not managed and contained we could end up aborting the international framework that underpins the growing worldwide prosperity we've seen over the last two decades. Collectively we cannot afford to let that happen.

Or, beyond that, why would they think the other major emerging players who's survival depends on continued economic growth in a stable and predictable international system tolerate the Russians breaking this for only their own advantage ? Now that's an interesting question indeed !

Mainstream Coverage and Analysis

For RFE/RL's full coverage of the conflict in Georgia's breakway region of South Ossetia: Crisis in George Full Coverage

Did Russia Plan Its War In Georgia? Less than one month before Russia's armed forces entered Georgia on August 8, they held massive military training exercises in the North Caucasus involving 8,000 servicemen and 700 pieces of military hardware. At center stage in those maneuvers -- which took place in the second half of July, not far from Georgia's border -- was Russia's 58th Army, the very unit that would later play a key role in the incursion. Those exercises are just one link in a chain of incidents suggesting that Russia's military action in Georgia was planned months in advance, awaiting only an appropriate pretext to act. Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer says the aim, from the start, was to overthrow Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his pro-Western government. "This was prepared long ago," Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military analyst tells RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service, adding that according to his information, a decision to go to war was made back in April. "A decision was made for the war to start in August. The war would have happened regardless of what the Georgians did. Whether they responded to the provocations or not, there would have been an invasion of Georgia," Felgenhauer says. "The goal was to destroy Georgia's central government, defeat the Georgian army, and prevent Georgia from joining NATO."

• 'Brilliant And Brutal Display' Of Chess, Is Russia Morphing Into Another USSR? - 'The Globe and Mail'

Russian headache looms for next US President The next US president, be it Barack Obama or John McCain, is already on a collision course with Russia, as prospects for a great power diplomatic chill are deepened by the war in Georgia. The next US president, be it Barack Obama or John McCain, is already on a collision course with Russia, as prospects for a great power diplomatic chill are deepened by the war in Georgia. Republican McCain and Democrat Obama have bickered sharply over the crisis, both seeking to showcase leadership skills and foreign policy flair. McCain has publicly feuded with Russia for months, and took the sharpest initial line in support of US ally Georgia, while Obama's position hardened against Moscow as the crisis evolved. New US-Russian rifts will pile another foreign policy headache onto the packed agenda awaiting the new president in January, including Iraq, deteriorating security in Afghanistan and the Iranian nuclear crisis. "Whoever the next President is, he will have significant difficulties to deal with in the US-Russia relationship," said Justin Logan, a foreign policy analyst with the Cato Institute. Both McCain and Obama have faulted what they see as creeping authoritarianism in Russia, under former president, now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whom President George W. Bush famously tried to mould into a soul mate. McCain has made his mistrust of Russia crystal clear and forcefully condemned Moscow after its troops entered Georgia in response to a Georgian offensive on August 7 to retake the breakaway South Ossetia province. Obama's senior foreign policy analyst Susan Rice is now hinting that the Democrat may also be mulling a complete rethink of US-Russia ties.

·          John McCain’s long war on Russia While virtually every other world leader called for calm in Georgia last Thursday morning, John McCain did something he’s done many times during his career in public life: He condemned Russia.

Europe's (dis)unity over russia This week President Bush promised to "rally the free world in the defense of a free Georgia." But will America's European allies fall in line? Troubling divisions on the continent show just how difficult it may be to present a united front against an overly aggressive Russia. Moscow's invasion of Georgia one week ago, including its bombings, naval presence, and tank incursions in democratic Georgia proper; and its shaky cease-fire and dawdling over a withdrawal – all this presents the greatest test of US-European unity relating to Russia since the cold war. For the sake of democratic and economic freedom in Europe and beyond, and for the integrity of international organizations that support such freedoms, the West must stand together. And yet, European leaders can't agree on how to respond to Russia's calculated crush. The division breaks along familiar lines. Several "new" member states in the European Union, as well as Britain, are arguing for a tough stance against Moscow (though realistically and wisely, no one wants a military one). "Old" influential members such as Germany and France express restraint. Indeed, Russia's got Europe over an oil barrel. Europe gets a quarter of its oil and half its natural gas from Russia, which does not shrink to cut off supplies to get what it wants. Europe's attempt to gain some energy independence via pipelines in Georgia is now at risk. (See story, page 1.) But the passage of a few days has shown that Russia, by putting Caspian oil in jeopardy, is not a reliable energy partner, and by invading a sovereign country, is not abiding by international norms. What may have at first looked like an understandable reaction to a Georgian miscalculation has gone far beyond that. The US is slowly recognizing this. Before she left for France and Georgia this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Moscow risks its standing in global clubs which require responsible behavior. She didn't spell it out, but ideas to force Russia out of Georgia include suspending Russia from the G-8 and the NATO-Russia Council, barring its entry to the World Trade Organization, and boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia. Not given much consideration yet is Europe's economic leverage over Moscow. The Russian elite sends its cash to Europe and travels there, too. Europe is not without leverage, but it is without will. It will take strong US leadership to get its allies to fly in formation.

Georgia-Russia conflict shows EU's energy vulnerability Russia's invasion of Georgian territory last week, in addition to reasserting Moscow's military strength, has complicated Europe's effort to diversify its oil and gas supplies away from the growing dominance of Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom. In the post-Soviet era, and particularly since 9/11, Central Asia has become a central focus for Western countries looking for more secure energy sources. But this week's offensive, during which British Petroleum shut down an oil pipeline and temporarily stopped pumping gas through Georgia, has called into question plans for a Eurasian corridor free from Russian interference. "The Caspian region is wondering what this means for the future," says Giorgi Vashakmadze, an energy executive in Georgia. "Russia is showing it controls this corridor." The Russo-Georgian conflict is the latest in a series of setbacks for Europe's planned Nabucco pipeline – its best hope of weaning itself off Gazprom, which set off alarm bells by cutting crucial gas supplies to the continent in the winters of 2006 and 2008. Hype surrounding Nabucco has grown more measured in recent months over concerns about the extent of available gas reserves. Barring the construction of a pipeline under the Caspian Sea, the only way for Europe to get gas from the region is to tap pipelines that originate in either Russia or Iran, as Nabucco may have to do. Europe's demand for gas is expected to rise more than 50 percent by 2025, according to the US Deparment of Energy.

A Path to Peace in the Caucasus (Gorbachev)The roots of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia's separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy. This turned out to be a time bomb for Georgia's territorial integrity. Each time successive Georgian leaders tried to impose their will by force -- both in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, where the issues of autonomy are similar -- it only made the situation worse. New wounds aggravated old injuries.Nevertheless, it was still possible to find a political solution. For some time, relative calm was maintained in South Ossetia. The peacekeeping force composed of Russians, Georgians and Ossetians fulfilled its mission, and ordinary Ossetians and Georgians, who live close to each other, found at least some common ground.Through all these years, Russia has continued to recognize Georgia's territorial integrity. Clearly, the only way to solve the South Ossetian problem on that basis is through peaceful means. Indeed, in a civilized world, there is no other way.The Georgian leadership flouted this key principle. What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenseless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity. Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a "blitzkrieg" in South Ossetia. In other words, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position.

The Americans Arrive in Georgia AMERICA'S George Bush delivered a stark warning to Russia this week that led Russia to begin to pull back its forces in Georgia. Mr Bush sent his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to Georgia and told his defence secretary, Robert Gates, to organise a humanitarian-aid operation. The first American military aircraft landed at Tbilisi airport on Thursday August 14th. This conflict is about more than the two separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or displacing Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s hot-headed president. It is about Russia, resurgent and nationalistic, pushing its way back into the Caucasus and chasing others out, and reversing the losses Russia feels it has suffered since the end of the cold war. The fact that Georgia is backed by the West made it a particularly appealing target. In fighting Georgia, Russia fought a proxy war with the West—especially with America (which had upgraded the Georgian army). All this was a payback for the humiliation that Russia suffered in the 1990s, and its answer to NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999 and to America’s invasion of Iraq.With the smoke of battle still in the air, it is impossible to say who actually started it. But, given the scale and promptness of Russia’s response, the script must have been written in Moscow. The rattling of sabres has been heard in both capitals for months, if not years. Russia imposed sanctions on Georgia and rounded up Georgians in Moscow. In revenge for the recognition of Kosovo’s independence earlier this year, Mr Putin established legal ties with the governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia was prepared for the war not only militarily, but also ideologically. Its campaign was crude but effective. While its forces were dropping bombs on Georgia, the Kremlin bombarded its own population with an astonishing propaganda campaign. One Russian deputy reflected the mood: “Today, it is quite obvious who the parties in the conflict are. They are the US, UK, Israel who participated in training the Georgian army, Ukraine who supplied it with weapons. We are facing a situation where there is a NATO aggression against us.” In blue jeans and a sports jacket, Mr Putin, cast as the hero of the war, flew to the Russian side of the Caucasus mountain range to hear hair-raising stories from refugees that ranged from burning young girls alive to stabbing babies and running tanks over old women and children. These stories were whipped up into anti-Georgian and anti-Western hysteria. What Russia was doing, it seemed, was no different from what the West had done in its “humanitarian” interventions. There was one difference, however. Russia was dealing with a crisis that it had deliberately created. Its biggest justification for military intervention was that it was formally protecting its own citizens. Soon after Mr Putin’s arrival in the Kremlin in 2000, Russia started to hand out passports to Abkhaz and South Ossetians, while also claiming the role of a neutral peacekeeper in the region. When the fighting broke out between Georgia and South Ossetia, Russia, which had killed tens of thousands of its own citizens in Chechnya, argued that it had to defend its nationals. The biggest victims of this war are civilians in South Ossetia and Georgia. Militarily, Mr Putin has won. But all Russia has got from its victory so far is a ruined reputation, broken ties with Georgia, control over separatist enclaves (which it had anyway) and fear from other former Soviet republics.

For Russian Armor, Even With Rice in Georgia, Cease-Fire Is Not a Red Light The highway heading west from Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, has been one of the country’s main development projects under President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose government has been fond of calling it the “Sukhumi Highway.” The nickname is a reference to the capital of the separatist enclave of Abkhazia, which Mr. Saakashvili had hoped to wrest from Russian influence and bring under Georgian control. On Friday, the road flowed the opposite way. Russian armor used it to travel nearly to the edge of the Georgian capital, in defiance of a cease-fire agreement. The unexpected military advance demonstrated anew the powerlessness of Georgia’s security forces, which had no influence over the move even as it coincided with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s meeting with Mr. Saakashvili. As that meeting was occurring, a Russian armored infantry company rumbled to life in Gori, the city in central Georgia that Russia has occupied in the days since the cease-fire was declared. It was a column of armored personnel carriers. Its soldiers said they were members of the 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment and had been deployed from Chechnya. It drove unchallenged, stopping here, about 25 miles from the Tbilisi line. The soldiers then blocked Georgia’s main highway, on which traffic has essentially ceased. It was the closest the Russian Army had moved to Tbilisi, and appeared to be a symbolic military rebuke to President Bush, who has demanded that the Russians withdraw.

Assessments 

Europe Wins a Gold Medal for Defeatism The initial reaction is almost always self-blame and an expression of sympathetic explanation for the aggressor's actions. In the Russian case this week, the conventional wisdom is that Moscow was provoked by the hot-headed President Saakashvili of Georgia. It was really all his fault, we are told. What's more, the argument goes, the US and Europe had already laid the moral framework for Russia's invasion by our own acts of aggression in the past decade. Vladimir Putin was simply following the example of illegal intervention by the US and its allies in Kosovo and Iraq.It ought not to be necessary to point out the differences between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Mr Saakashvili's Georgia, but for those blinded by moral relativism, here goes - Georgia did not invade its neighbours or use chemical weapons on their people. Georgia did not torture and murder hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Georgia did not defy international demands for a decade and ignore 18 UN Security Council resolutions to come clean about its weapons programmes. And unlike Iraq under Saddam, Georgia is led by a democratically elected president who has pushed this once dank backwater of the Soviet Union, birthplace of Stalin and Beria, towards liberal democracy and international engagement. But we can make life very uncomfortable for Mr Putin. Russia is not the Soviet Union. Its recent (relative) prosperity depends on its continuing integration into the global economy. It sets great store by the recognition that it gains from a seat at the high table with the great powers in the G8. It wants to elevate that status farther by joining the World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Punitive measures will hurt us too, of course: Russia could cause trouble over Iran and holds an alarmingly large quantity of US official debt. It could play havoc with the West's energy supplies. The Europeans don't much like the idea of any of this. So this week they demonstrated the same sort of resolve that they showed in the Balkans in the early 1990s, when they stood by as genocide unfolded on their own continent. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, in his capacity as head pro tempore of the EU, came back from a trip to Moscow and Tbilisi, waving a piece of paper and acclaiming peace in our time.

News Analysis: As Russian Tanks Roll, Europe Reassesses The Russian tanks rumbling across parts of Georgia are forcing a fundamental reassessment of strategic interests across Europe in a way not considered since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the subsequent collapse of Communism. For nearly two decades, European capitals in concert with Washington have encouraged liberalization in lands once firmly under the Soviet aegis. Now, they find themselves asking a question barely posed in all those years: How far will or can Russia go, and what should the response be? The answer will play out not just in the European Union, but also along its new eastern frontier, in once obscure places like Moldova and Azerbaijan. “The reality is that international relations are changing,” said Pawel Swieboda, director of demosEUROPA, an independent research organization based in Warsaw. “For the first time since 1991, Russia has used military force against a sovereign state in the post-Soviet area. The world will not be the same. A new phenomenon is unfolding in front or our eyes: a re-emerging power that is willing to use force to guarantee its interests. The West does not know how to respond.” At stake 20 years ago was whether the Kremlin, then under Mikhail Gorbachev, would intervene militarily to stop the collapse of Communism. But Mr. Gorbachev chose to cut Eastern Europe free as he focused — in vain — on preventing the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

No Cold War, but Big Chill Over Georgia “The cold war is over,” President Bush declared Friday, but a new era of enmity between the United States and Russia has emerged nevertheless. It may not be as tense as the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union, for now, but it could become as strained. Russia’s military offensive into Georgia has shattered, perhaps irrevocably, the strategy of three successive presidential administrations to coax Russia into alliance with the West and integration into its institutions. From Russia’s point of view, those efforts were never truly sincere or respectful of its own legitimate political and security interests. Those interests, it is now clear, are at odds with those of Europe and the United States. As much as Mr. Bush has argued that the old characterizations of the cold war are no longer germane, he drew a new line at the White House on Friday morning between countries free and not free, and bluntly put Russia on the other side of it. While the United States and Russia will continue to negotiate out of necessity, as the old superpowers did, cooperation and collaboration — however limited in the past few years — now appear even more remote over such issues as Iran’s nuclear program. The Russian offensive — the first outside its territory since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 — has crystallized a realignment already taking place in Central and Eastern Europe, where the new members of NATO and the European Union have warned of the threat posed by a resurgent Russia. And it is already forcing a reassessment of American strategy toward Russia, as Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said on Thursday.

Vladimir Putin makes Robert Maxwell look small-fry One of the curious trends of recent years has been the Western business community’s enduring love affair with the unlovely Russia. With every passing week, it becomes clearer that this is a country run by and for people little different from gangsters. The tanks rolling into Georgia have reminded us that they are gangsters with keys to a big arsenal. The largest Western companies, Shell and BP included, have been bullied, intimidated and forced into concessions by the Kremlin and its cronies. This week a Moscow court joined in the harassment, targeting the head of BP’s troubled joint venture in Russia. This is a country that defaulted on its overseas debts less than ten years ago; a country that, after its journey from feudalism to kleptocracy via totalitarian communism, has little truck with Western-style capitalism; a country alive with corruption and not averse, it has been suggested, to the occasional state-sponsored murder. Hardly the ideal recipient of Western capital, you might think. But Western companies have rushed to throw money at Russia, both in direct and indirect investment. But the idea that Russia can be seen as just another economy, and its businesses assessed purely in terms of dry p/e ratios, is folly. Western investors are mistaken if they think that Vladimir Putin would hesitate to expropriate their assets if it suited him.

Strategic Consequences 

Weakness Behind Putin's Belligerence Yet the precise casus belli has been rendered irrelevant by the manner and scale of Moscow’s response. If there were ever any doubts about Mr Putin’s plan to re-establish hegemony over the former Soviet space, they were dispelled by the ferocity of Russia’s assault. Mr Putin and his colleagues go through the motions of denying it but the self-evident aim is to annex Georgia to Russia’s sphere of influence. Mr Saakashvili has never accorded Mr Putin the respect the Russian leader assumes is his due. A government in Tbilisi paying homage to Moscow would assure it monopoly control of Caspian oil and gas. The message for Mr Putin’s apologists in Europe – why does Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi always spring so readily to mind? – could not be clearer. Mr Putin’s worldview has no place for the post-modern approach to international relations of his western neighbours. Europe stands for a global order based on co-operative norms and rules. Moscow prefers the use of force. Appeasement invites only further contempt. Much has been said during the past few days of the striking parallels with the behaviour of the great powers during the 19th century. But there are plenty of unappealing echoes too of some of the more dismal moments of the 20th century. Many in the west seem to think there is nothing to be done. Authoritarianism is back in fashion and Russia’s return as a great power is one of the ineluctable geopolitical trends of the 21st century. The west must adjust to the reality, ceding the ground that Mr Putin seeks. This analysis misses one of the paradoxes of Russia’s power. The riches and political leverage provided by gas and oil have restored Russia’s economic and geopolitical standing. Yet, for the medium and long term, almost all the other indicators point to a future of relative decline. Low fertility and high mortality rates hold the prospect of a fast-shrinking population in a country where vast tracts of territory are already empty. Demographers estimate that the present Russian population of about 140m will fall by about 10m within a decade or so. By 2020 Moscow will struggle to find sufficient recruits to maintain its conscript army. Demographic decline is mirrored by crumbling health and education systems and by decaying civil infrastructure. Corruption is rife. The present political leadership is better described as a kleptocracy than an autocracy. Vast amounts of Russia’s wealth are being siphoned off in bank accounts abroad rather than reinvested at home. The price of Mr Putin’s aggressive nationalism has been to starve the oil and gas industry of foreign technology and investment. In spite of the emergence of a Russian middle class, there are few signs that the petro windfall is being used to broaden and deepen Russian prosperity.

Paul Krugman: The Great Illusion So far, the international economic consequences of the war in the Caucasus have been fairly minor, despite Georgia’s role as a major corridor for oil shipments. But as I was reading the latest bad news, I found myself wondering whether this war is an omen — a sign that the second great age of globalization may share the fate of the first. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, here’s what you need to know: our grandfathers lived in a world of largely self-sufficient, inward-looking national economies — but our great-great grandfathers lived, as we do, in a world of large-scale international trade and investment, a world destroyed by nationalism. Writing in 1919, the great British economist John Maynard Keynes described the world economy as it was on the eve of World War I. “The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth ... he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world.” And Keynes’s Londoner “regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement ... The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion ... appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which was nearly complete in practice.” But then came three decades of war, revolution, political instability, depression and more war. By the end of World War II, the world was fragmented economically as well as politically. And it took a couple of generations to put it back together. So, can things fall apart again? Yes, they can. Consider how things have played out in the current food crisis. For years we were told that self-sufficiency was an outmoded concept, and that it was safe to rely on world markets for food supplies. But when the prices of wheat, rice and corn soared, Keynes’s “projects and politics” of “restrictions and exclusion” made a comeback: many governments rushed to protect domestic consumers by banning or limiting exports, leaving food-importing countries in dire straits. And now comes “militarism and imperialism.” By itself, as I said, the war in Georgia isn’t that big a deal economically. But it does mark the end of the Pax Americana — the era in which the United States more or less maintained a monopoly on the use of military force. And that raises some real questions about the future of globalization. Most obviously, Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, especially natural gas, now looks very dangerous — more dangerous, arguably, than its dependence on Middle Eastern oil. After all, Russia has already used gas as a weapon: in 2006, it cut off supplies to Ukraine amid a dispute over prices. And if Russia is willing and able to use force to assert control over its self-declared sphere of influence, won’t others do the same? Just think about the global economic disruption that would follow if China — which is about to surpass the United States as the world’s largest manufacturing nation — were to forcibly assert its claim to Taiwan.

Responding to an aggressive Russia  This brutal and efficient move (see article) was a victory for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president-turned-prime-minister, not just over Georgia but also over the West, which has been trying to prise away countries on Russia’s western borders and turn them democratic, market-oriented and friendly. Now that Russia has shown what can happen to those that distance themselves from it, doing so will be harder in future. This new Russian imperialism is bad news for all its neighbours. Mr Saakashvili is an impetuous nationalist who has lately tarnished his democratic credentials. His venture into South Ossetia was foolish and possibly criminal. But, unlike Mr Putin, he has led his country in a broadly democratic direction, curbed corruption and presided over rapid economic growth that has not relied, as Russia’s mostly does, on high oil and gas prices. America’s George Bush was right, if rather slow, to declare on August 11th that it was unacceptable in the 21st century for Russia to have invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and to threaten a democratically elected government. Yet the hard truth, for Georgians and others, is that pleas for military backing from the West in any confrontation with Russia are unlikely to be heeded. That does not mean the West should do nothing in response to Russia’s aggression against Georgia. On the contrary, it still has influence over the Russians, who remain surprisingly sensitive about their international image. That is why Western leaders must make quite clear their outrage over the invasion and continued bombing of Georgia. Few have done that so far; the Italians and Germans in particular have been shamefully silent. Above all, the West must make plain to Mr Putin that Russia’s invasion of Georgia means an end to business as usual, even if it continues to work with him on issues such as Iran. America has already cancelled some military exercises with Russia. America and the Europeans should ensure that Russia is not let into more international clubs, such as the Paris-based OECD or the World Trade Organisation. Now would also be an appropriate time to strengthen the rich-country G7, which excludes Russia, at the expense of the G8, which includes it.

Some Things Change, Some Stay The Same In fact, each of these perspectives captures something important, even while ignoring other things that may prove equally significant. Because of what Russia has done in Georgia, the future is not going to be just like the past, but regardless of what has taken place and continues to take place in that Caucasus republic, the future is not going to be entirely different either. Any accurate assessment must reflect both the anger and emotions that inform the first set of predictions and the sometimes bloodless and values-free realpolitik that defines the second. This combination of change and continuity is very much on display in three concentric circles around Georgia: first, in the former Soviet republics of which Georgia is a part; second, in the Russian Federation itself; and third, in Russia's place in the broader international system -- particularly its relations with Europe and the United States. If the first victim of this war like of all wars was the truth, the second victim was Russia's unquestioned dominance over the post-Soviet space. Not only has Georgia announced it is leaving the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an action Ukraine is likely to take as well. Russia's actions have horrified the Baltic countries, which have joined with Poland in taking some of the most effective actions to call attention to Russia's misbehavior. The Georgia incursion even prompted Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to back away from Moscow and explore the possibilities of new contacts with Western governments. Consequently, even if the CIS survives -- and it is likely to in some form or another -- it will not be the institution it was, because Moscow has demonstrated something that many in the region have not wanted to face: the Kremlin does not believe the rules that apply to others apply to itself. Consequently, some, if not all, of the CIS countries will take measures, calling them "a balanced foreign policy" or whatever, to defend themselves as best they can from Russian pressure. The second circle in which the Georgian events are changing some things while leaving others in place is inside the Russian Federation. On the one hand, the events in Georgia are contributing to a further destabilization of the North Caucasus and thus creating another security challenge for Moscow, one that almost certainly will prove far more intractable and threatening than even NATO membership for Georgia could possibly mean. Russian actions in Georgia -- which violate the international rules of the game every bit as much as did the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 -- have generated new suspicions in Europe about the Russian bear, which they have never embraced but have wanted to cooperate with both because of energy supplies and to gain greater independence from the United States. And these same actions have particularly infuriated Americans first and foremost because the United States under the last three presidents was so committed to integrating postcommunist Russia into the international system that Americans were willing to ignore some obvious continuities in Moscow's behavior. Russians must recognize that they have violated international law in Georgia and that their own interests at home and abroad require that they back down. The non-Russians need to insist -- and the Russians (and the West) need to recognize -- that the CIS was only a divorce court and that all of them need to find a place in the sun that includes the others but is not dominated by any one power. And finally, the Europeans and the Americans need to recognize that hoping for changes in Russia's approach to the world is admirable but that these won't happen if the West continues to defer to Russia's insistence that the rules that apply to others do not apply to it.

Is Russia morphing into another USSR? It's not only the South Ossetians who are back in the USSR this morning. Other Georgians; countries in Russia's "near abroad" from the Caucasus to the Baltic; "national minorities" such as the Chechens; the West; and even Russians themselves now have to deal with a country and political leadership that bear an eerie similarity to Soviet models. They are authoritarian, militaristic, greedy and not overly concerned about where their borders end. How lucky we should all feel about this is another matter. In recent years, the Russian state has been credibly accused of murdering an exile in London; expropriated foreign investments on behalf of an energy company controlled by itself; cut off energy supplies to states as a means of political intimidation; assisted secessionist rebels in neighbouring states in order to keep their newly independent governments off-balance; and in the past few days - no more Mr. Nice Guy - invaded and bombed the sovereign state of Georgia. Sometimes, these actions have worn a thin disguise of tax law enforcement or "peacekeeping." "Democracy" has been a similar camouflage for an authoritarian system in which power and wealth increasingly gather in the hands of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other siloviki (or former intelligence bureaucrats). But although the siloviki know how to seize property, they have no idea how to create wealth. They generally mismanage what they seize - and so eventually need to seize more. This parasitic system has been exported profitably to the "secessionist" regions of Georgia, which the Kremlin claims to be protecting. Almost all the senior officials in the South Ossetian "government" are former KGB officials from various Russian provinces. The longer term is another matter. If Russia is morphing into another USSR, then the West will have to defend the post-Cold War international structure and the independence of post-communist nations against Mr. Putin's neo-imperialism. Any outright conquest of Georgia would lead to a new Cold War and Western economic sanctions. It would also pose risks for Russia locally, since the entire Caucasus is unstable and the Russian army increasingly reliant on Chechens and other national minorities for recruits. The combination could be catastrophic for Moscow - remember Afghanistan. Even lesser Russian actions invite serious political responses. Thus the Central Europeans angered by the Georgia crisis might immediately accept the missile defence system opposed by Mr. Putin. His attack on Georgia would then be seen to have backfired drastically. Wider economic sanctions should probably be held in reserve. They are more powerful as a threat than as a reality. So the West could warn that if Russia reacted violently to its political measures, they would impose economic sanctions, beginning with expulsion from the G8. Given Russia's overdependence on energy, its fast-declining population and its need for Western capital and markets, it cannot treat such threats lightly. Of course, Russia has an economic sanction of its own - cutting off its energy supplies to leave Europe sitting in the dark. But if that's in the cards, maybe we should know it sooner rather than too late?

Posted by dblwyo at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stop the world, I want to got off. Where's Tom Friedman, his Lexus and his Olive tree, when you need them ? Crushed under the treads of a Russian tank likely. At least let Eddie Arnold do the sound track ("Make the World Go Away"). Presuming, since you're reading this, that you haven't missed the minor detail of Russia's making an unprovoked attack, disguised as a peace-keeping mission and ethnic-cleansing stopper, you might want to stop and reflect that your world just changed. Well actually not. And on a 1-10 scale we're about a 3 and those poor folk in George about a 20. We though we'd summarize a bit of the news and wrap it in some context in case your MSM headlines didn't help anymore than they typically do. When we finish sorting things thru a bit we suspect the cartoon not only won't be funny but it'll ring as an all too accurate assessment of the brilliant geo-political maneuver it is. As well as the triumph of amor prope (hurt self-image) and testosterone.

1. First off this was presented as the a quick response by the noble Russian defense forces to stop the mighty Georgian army from proceeding with ethnic cleansing of the ethnic Russians of North Ossetia. To understand what a crock that is you need to look at the map AND understand that you don't mount a multi-divisional attack thru tough mountainous terrain without months of preparation. Nor couple it with multiple coordinated airstrikes and a major amphibious assault with more of the same.  Clicking on the map should talk to an interactive version where you can watch all this play out.

2. Second you need to know that this has been bubbling away for years, if not decades. We're pretty sure we wouldn't have attacked into Ossetia if we were president of Georgie but then again Russian "peacekeepers" have been sitting there, and in Abkhazia, for a very long time. Mostly to encourage the pursuit of separatist leanings and support "banditry" into Georgia (smuggling, attacks,etc. etc.). Though we will also admit that, looking at the map, we'd have let North Ossetia - on the wrong side of terrible terrain, go a long time ago.

3. There is no evidence, let alone credible evidence of any attempt at "ethnic cleansing" on the part of the Georgians. 

4. This has been presented, as we said, by the Russians as a noble enterprise. It actually fits the working definition of a massive disinformation, or "Maskirovka" campaign worthy of any of the better attempts of the KGB. In the starting perspectives section of the excerpts you'll find some background therein as well as two Charlie Rose interviews. The second, with Russia's UN ambassador, is a finer example of the art than even Ahmandenejad's appearance. But much more dangerous.

5. The general European reaction is truly worthy of the folks who let real ethnic cleansing go on in the Balkans for years while they dithered, having emasculated their military forces. But again more dangerous on several levels.

• It brings a new level of "old" Russian/Soviet/Czarist discipline back to those countries in what is referred to as the "near-abroad"; the countries immediately bordering Russia they spent centuries conquering once upon a time and effectively have started in again on.
• BtW - after the "cease-fire(s)" Russia kept attacking thruout much of Georgia and it's not clear how much has been destroyed; or even if any country will be left.
  
• It completely isolates the new nations of Central Asia from Western Europe, and effectively the rest of the world.

6. It also brings all the potential energy resources of Eastern Europe under Russian control or direct influence. And thereby finishes isolating Europe from any major energy sources that are not imported under the political control of potentially hostile powers. Need we mention how much at the mercy of the Russians this puts them now ?

7. It changes the world system back to the old one we were all hoping was gone forever. The one of zero-sum games, lack of international institutions and realpolitik. All on the Russian historical theory that there are no win-win solutions. Which they are in the process of re-proving as an effective principle of statecraft - to their own long-run detriment, given how badly they need trade, investment, technology and other Western resources.

8. It changes the balances of power in Central Asia and the Middle East.

9. And it makes it more likely that Russia will support and encourage intransigence on the part of folks like Iran. In a worst case scenario it even makes it more likely that Iran will get the window of opportunity to pursue its' own aggressive export of terror and the continued development of nuclear weapons. It at least makes it easier - if for no other reason than any chance at sanctions just went out the window.

10. Finally, for now, it makes (or should) Russia a pariah state who should be expelled from the G8, now have no chance at membership in the WTO, makes investment in Russian operations and companies one of the riskiest on the planet (not that they weren't already headed that way) and, given what's likely to happen on the Security Council henceforth, makes that august debating society even less useful and productive.

And that's all this week - what will serendipity, hurt feelings, domestic nationalism and out-of-control testosterone bring us tomorrow...or next week or next year. Strangely, considering the level of potential damages, nobody seems to be reacting very much to this. Aside from some well-meaning hang-wringing in the European chanceleries. 

Perspectives

A discussion about the escalating conflict between Georgia and Russia with Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Stephen Sestanovich of the Council of Foreign Relations .

An update on the conflict between Georgia and Russia with Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative (Ambassador) of the Russian Federation.

Interactive Map (WSJ), Complete coverage (WSJ)

Worldwide Political Cartoons

Information Warfare: The Big Lie Returns February 14, 2008: Russia is recycling the Vietnam era Information War campaign, that convinced a lot of people that the CIA was using the war as a means to export heroin from Myanmar (when it was called Burma, and was the major source of that drug). Now the Russians are telling anyone who will listen, that the CIA is transporting most of the Afghan heroin out of Afghanistan aboard U.S. Air Force transports. Back in the 1960s, some of the Burmese drug lords exported their heroin through Vietnam, and bribed whoever they could to move the stuff. Since then, China and Burma shut down the heroin gangs along their mutual border, and production moved to Pakistan, where it was tolerated for a while, then chased across the border to Afghanistan in the 1990s. The Russians pushed the story that it was the CIA that set up the heroin trade in Pakistan, as a way to get the drug to Soviet soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. The target wasn't the Russian soldiers, but the larger Russian population. Today, there are millions of Russian heroin addicts, and Russian gangsters move tons of it through Russia into Western Europe.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maskirovka
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Lie

Mainstream Coverage and Analysis

War in the Caucasus Georgian mistakes, and Russian imperialism. "War has started," Vladimir Putin said yesterday as Georgian and Russian forces fought over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. War is certainly what the two countries have seemed to want for some time, and the chances of avoiding a drawn-out conflict now are slim. It's unclear at this stage which side is more at fault for the current fighting. Georgia says it moved on the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali yesterday after rebels there broke a cease-fire. But President Mikheil Saakashvili has long pledged to retake South Ossetia and another separatist area, Abkhazia, and may have underestimated Moscow's reaction. Within hours, Russian tanks crossed the border to bolster Russian "peacekeepers" who have been stirring up trouble in the two regions. Georgia says Russian airplanes bombed Tskhinvali, reversing some Georgian army gains there, as well as air fields in nonseparatist areas. The Georgian air force claims to have shot down at least five Russian planes. The biggest question now is whether Moscow will simply try to restore the previous status quo in South Ossetia -- with Russia and the rebels controlling most of the territory -- or go further and crush Georgia while deposing Mr. Saakashvili. Russian state TV yesterday reported that Georgian soldiers had killed at least 10 Russian troops and were "finishing off" wounded Russians, a worrisome sign that the Kremlin is trying to inflame public opinion ahead of a major operation. The markets clearly think this is more than a blip; the benchmark Russian stock index shed 6.5% to hit its lowest level since November 2006.

Conflict Not All Russia's Fault Russia has massively overreacted to the situation in Georgia. It has hit targets across Georgia, well beyond South Ossetia, and has killed both Georgian military personnel as well as civilians. The international community is right to condemn this illegal attack on an independent country and United Nations member. But this is not a repeat of the Soviet Union's aggressive behavior of the last century. So far at least, Russia's aims have been clear: to oust Georgian forces from the territory of South Ossetia, one of two secessionist enclaves in Georgia, and to chasten a Saakashvili government that Russia perceives as hot-headed and unpredictable. Regardless of the conflict's origins, the West must continue to act diplomatically to push Georgia and Russia back to the pre-attacks status quo. The United States should make it clear that Saakashvili has seriously miscalculated the meaning of his partnership with Washington, and that Georgia and Russia must step back before they do irreparable damage to their relations with the US, NATO, and the European Union. The attack on South Ossetia, along with Russia's inexcusable reaction, have pushed both sides down the road toward all-out war – a war that could ignite a host of other territorial and ethnic disputes in the Caucasus as a whole.

• Wounded Pride Ignites an Accidental War, Wounded Pride Ignites an Accidental War
• Crisis in South Ossetia, Red Alert Intelligence Guidance: The Crisis in Georgia (Free Access)
• RUSSIA: Why Georgia Lost The War

Russian Offensive in Georgia Imperils U.S. Strategic Aims on Iran, Energy Russia's military campaign in Georgia may threaten the U.S. strategic aims of preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb and securing Central Asian energy supplies for Europe. The Russian-Georgian fighting ``will imperil U.S.-Russian diplomacy no matter what,'' said Cliff Kupchan of New York-based Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. The U.S. and European reactions will make Russia ``more obstinate at the Security Council,'' where President George W. Bush seeks to impose tougher United Nations sanctions on the Iranian government, he said. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today ordered a halt to the five-day offensive, saying Russia had achieved its goals and punished the Georgian ``aggressor.'' Georgia's role in a U.S.-backed energy corridor to Europe for oil and natural gas from former Soviet areas of Central Asia, a route that skirts Russia, may be in doubt. That strategy counted on Russia respecting Georgia's sovereignty.

Bush returned from the Olympic Games in China and expressed concerns that Russian forces may be engaged in an effort ``to depose Georgia's duly elected government.'' Beyond being a democratic ally, Georgia is a link in a U.S.- backed southern energy corridor that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is a major part of that route and runs about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. Robert Johnson, a specialist in energy at the Eurasia Group, said Georgia's reputation as a viable, alternative route for transporting oil and gas from Turkmenistan and elsewhere has been ``compromised'' because of the conflict.

Russian Assault in Georgia Threatens New Cold War: Matthew Lynn Russia is threatening a new Cold War by dispatching troops to the independent state of Georgia. The trouble is, there isn't much reason to think it will do better this time around than it did in its Cold War with the U.S. and the West last century. We will all be poorer if there is more tension between Russia and the rest of the world. And Russia will suffer most of all. The main facts of the conflict are clear enough. Russia sent its soldiers into the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia after Georgian soldiers started an offensive. According to Medvedev, Georgia was starting ``genocide'' there. Russian troops went in to protect ethnic Russians. Russia may be aggrieved that Georgia is part of the U.S.- backed ``southern energy corridor'' that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia. It wants to use oil as a way of re-asserting its great-power status. That, surely, is a mistake of historical proportions. It should be using its oil wealth to rebuild its infrastructure and education system, creating a modern economy, one that can still prosper after we have all switched to running our cars on nuclear-powered and wind-generated electricity. It doesn't matter to Russia whether Georgia shares in the region's oil wealth any more than it mattered to Britain that the Norwegians also controlled a lot of the oil in the North Sea. What matters is using the oil money to build your own economy. Russia lost the last Cold War and will lose this one as well, if tensions continue. It doesn't have the money or the manpower, and without guns, steel and bodies, all wars, whether cold or hot, are eventually lost. Russia will postpone its integration into the developed world by a generation or more -- and both sides will be the poorer for that. Russia May Turn Focus to Pro-U.S. Ukraine After Army Offensive in Georgia

Russia occupies Georgia, world pressure mounts Russian troops and armor deployed around three Georgian towns on Thursday, as international pressure mounted on Moscow over its continuing occupation of parts of Georgia. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "extremely concerned" about the humanitarian situation in Georgia and called for a halt to lawlessness. In the key Georgian town of Gori, west of the capital Tbilisi, correspondents saw signs of looting which locals blamed on militias from the neighboring province of South Ossetia, where the conflict erupted a week ago. Russian armed forces have occupied parts of Georgia since repelling a Georgian attack last week on the tiny pro-Russian separatist territory of South Ossetia, which threw off Tbilisi's control in the 1990s. Shops had been smashed up in Gori and there were very few parked cars. "They were stealing cars and breaking into shops," Vasily, 72, said. "They spoke Ossetian."The Russians have pledged to stop looting but men wearing an assortment of camouflaged uniforms stole cars from journalists and from the United Nations on Thursday and a hidden sniper shot at a female Georgian television correspondent, grazing her arm. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russia was behind a "deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing." "I can prove it with the international organizations already bringing testimony to what I'm saying," he said in English at a briefing for foreign media. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the architect of a two-day old ceasefire, said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit Tbilisi on Friday to secure Georgia's signature to a peace deal which would "consolidate" the halt to fighting. "If tomorrow Mr Saakashvili signs the document that we have negotiated with (Russian President) Mr Medvedev, then the withdrawal of Russian troops can begin," Sarkozy said. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "We can forget about talks on Georgia's territorial integrity because it's impossible to force South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree that they can be returned into Georgia's fold by force." In a sharp warning, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington's relationship with Russia could be "adversely affected for years to come" unless the Kremlin rethought its "aggressive posture" in Georgia, a close U.S. ally. "This is going to be a defining crisis in the United States-Russian relationship. The danger is that neither side feels it can back down," said Michael Cox, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. "We may only be at the beginning of this crisis rather than at the end of it." Reuters Comprehensive Coverage

• Russia: Georgia can 'forget' regaining provinces

Russia's big Caucasus win In less than a week of military operations sparked by Georgia's assault on its breakaway province of South Ossetia, Moscow is emerging as the immediate winner. A still-stunned West is looking for ways to censure Russia for its "disproportionate" incursion into Georgia that has reshaped the strategic game in the Caucasus and beyond to Russia's great advantage. "If the Russians stop hostilities now, they will have redrawn the whole strategic situation in the Caucasus, to the detriment of the Americans," says Francois Heisbourg, special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. "No one will invest in Georgia, in oil pipelines, in new ventures [there] now.... The game is over. In the new version of the Great Game, the Russians can cash in." The scope of the "victory" is substantial: Moscow controls territory and leverage, has incapacitated the Georgian military, denied Tblisi its much-hoped-for NATO status, and put the Georgian leader it despises – Mikheil Saakashvili – into a tough position. It has issued a symbolic warning to Ukraine's westward leanings, asserted clout in oil and gas pipeline futures, denied Georgia the possibility of reclaiming breakaway provinces Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and affirmed a deeply Russian set of hard-line political values regarding the disputed front lines of the old cold war. Moreover, by agreeing to halt its military on Tuesday, working with French mediator Nicolas Sarkozy, and only "recommending" that Mr. Saakashvili step down, Moscow is arguing it has reasonably protected its interests and not overthrown a sovereign state. Moscow also appears to be slam-dunking the cease-fire details. The truce, which Saakashvili blamed Russia for breaking Wednesday, contains a "nonuse of force" clause that forbids Georgia to take action inside South Ossetia, a terrific concession. Nor are international peacekeepers coming soon; Russia gained an "additional security role" that formalizes its peacekeeping role in South Ossetia despite US calls for a more independent force in the region. Russia is pushing for international talks on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which could lead to eventual backing of referendums that would allow those republics to formally separate from Georgia.

• Timeline: Troubled Neighbors

Evidence in Georgia Belies Russia's Claims of 'Genocide' Russia's claims that thousands of civilians were killed during a "genocide" in South Ossetia don't appear to be backed up with evidence. Russia's assertions that it was provoked into war by "genocide" in South Ossetia and that it is observing a cease-fire in Georgia came under new challenge Thursday, as the U.S. stepped up diplomatic pressure on Moscow. Washington agreed to base missile interceptors on Polish soil, in a new sign of how Russia's invasion of Georgia is redrawing the geopolitical map. On the ground in South Ossetia -- the contested region where fighting broke out last week between Georgia and Russia -- there was little evidence that Georgian attacks killed thousands of civilians, as Russia has said. Doctors said they had treated a few hundred people and one cited a confirmed death toll in the dozens. Russia and Georgia agreed to a cease-fire Tuesday, and Russia has said it is keeping the peace in places such as Gori, the Georgian city where Russian tanks have taken up positions. That was belied by an incident inside Gori Thursday morning: A man seized the sport-utility vehicle of three United Nations officials at gunpoint, in full view of Russian troops who did nothing. "Georgian cities remain...subject to hostile and aggressive behavior," said Georgia's ambassador to the U.N., Irakli Alasania. "Looting...and murder have become customary." Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said his nation is a victim of a "disinformation campaign of spectacular proportions." He said Russian troops "have never occupied Gori."

Russia: Poland risks attack because of US missiles A top Russian general said Friday that Poland's agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn is the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations. Poland and the United States on Thursday signed a deal for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the United States says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. Moscow, however, feels it is aimed at Russia's missile force. "Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent," Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying. He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them." Nogovitsyn that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax. At a news conference earlier Friday, Nogovitsyn had reiterated Russia's frequently stated warning that placing missile-defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic would bring an unspecified military response. But his subsequent reported statement substantially stepped up a war of words.

Military and Strategic Assessments

RUSSIA GOES ROGUE . . . AND AMERICA WIMPS OUT Let's be clear: For all that US commentators and diplomats are still chattering about Russia's "response" to Georgia's actions, the Kremlin spent months planning and preparing this operation. Any soldier above the grade of private can tell you that there's absolutely no way Moscow could've launched this huge ground, air and sea offensive in an instantaneous "response" to alleged Georgian actions. As I pointed out Saturday, even to get one armored brigade over the Caucasus Mountains required extensive preparations. Since then, Russia has sent in the equivalent of almost two divisions - not only in South Ossetia, the scene of the original fighting, but also in separatist Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast. The Russians also managed to arrange the instant appearance of a squadron of warships to blockade Georgia. And they launched hundreds of air strikes against preplanned targets. Every one of these things required careful preparations. In the words of one US officer, "Just to line up the airlift sorties would've taken weeks."

• Fight in Georgia Exposed Weak Points in Kremlin's Aging Army The Kremlin's campaign in Georgia shows that Russia's military has improved from its dilapidated state in the 1990s, but analysts said the aging equipment and tactics also underscored how much more work Moscow faces in its quest to turn its army into a world-class fighting force.

Raids Suggest Russia Targeted Energy Pipelines  A neat row of large craters in a field in southern Georgia strongly suggests that Russia dropped bombs near oil and gas pipelines bringing fuel to the West. Georgian officials say Russian warplanes dropped bombs in an early Saturday raid close to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which pumps some 850,000 barrels of crude a day -- or 1% of total global oil demand -- from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean. The bombs narrowly missed the line, but one exploded just 10 feet away from it. If the Georgian claims are correct, it isn't clear whether Russia intended to score a direct hit or merely give the West a scare about the security of its energy supply. Zurab Janjgava, general director of Georgian Oil & Gas Corp., said he believes Russia wanted to blow up the pipeline. "These were pinpointed attacks," he said in an interview. Russia has categorically denied attempting to bomb pipelines on Georgian soil. Georgian officials were unable to furnish definitive proof the craters were caused by Russian bombs.But the physical evidence of a recent air attack, witnessed by a reporter, is compelling. The line of craters left by the alleged Russian attacks runs through the middle of a hilly, mostly uninhabited plain some 15 miles south of Tbilisi, near the town of Rustavi. The area lacks military or even human targets. The only sign of civilization is a small farm surrounded by haystacks and grazing herds of cows and sheep. The 45 craters -- each some 60 feet across -- scar the hillside like footprints left by a giant. Close by lies the BTC pipeline, operated by British oil company BP PLC and buried at a depth of nearly six feet. It is identified only by small markers spaced out at one-kilometer (0.62-mile) intervals along the pipeline's route. Mr. Janjgava said another raid Tuesday appeared to have been aimed at a second pipeline, known as Baku-Supsa, which brings Azerbaijan oil from the Caspian Sea to a terminal in Georgia's Black Sea town of Supsa. The craters are concentrated in an area close to where BTC and the Baku-Supsa line intersect, near BTC's 15-mile marker. There were no other reported Russian attacks for many miles around. The raids suggest Russia wasn't only aiming to humiliate its neighbor militarily but also to damage its reputation as an energy corridor.

The Russo-Georgia War's Dire Diplomatic Aftermath To no one's surprise, the  Russians drove back a Georgian attempt to regain control of South Ossetia. There were several hundred military and civilian casualties. The fighting apparently began when some South Ossetia militiamen fired across the border at Georgian troops. This escalated to a Georgian invasion, and a Russian reinforcement of its peacekeepers, and the expulsion of the Georgian troops. All in the space of a week. Since the early 1990s, Russia and Georgia have argued over who should control South Ossetia, a Georgian province on the Russian border. Just to the north of South Ossetia, is the Russian territory of North Ossetia. The Soviets often split ethnic groups between two provinces (or "Autonomous Republics") to make it more difficult for the people to unite in opposition to the Soviet Union. This, among many similar measures, worked. Since the Russians moved in their peacekeepers in the early 1990s, they have issued Russian passports to the South Ossetians and, in effect, annexed the region. So Russia offered its services as mediator and peacekeeper in the early 1990s, and peace was restored. The UN agreed all this, and a reluctant Georgia went along. But after that, the Russians refused to leave, or encourage the Abkhazians and Ossetians to work out a deal to become part of Georgia once more. Abkhazians and Ossetians wanted to be independent, and declared themselves so. No one else recognized this. In 2004, Georgia began cracking down on the smuggling and other criminal activity that was keeping the economy in South Ossetia going. This led to more and more gunfire along the border between Georgia and South Ossetia. Two years ago, Georgia began a major expansion of its armed forces. Russian politicians have been playing the nationalism card, catering to widespread feelings that the Soviet Union should be restored. Most Russians never cared for the communist dictatorship, but they did like being a superpower.  The Russians also feel that those fourteen nations that split off when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, left Russia surrounded by a lot of unstable and vulnerable nations. This sounds paternalistic and paranoid to Westerners, but not to Russians. And the Russians are willing to use force to back up these attitudes, as the Georgians just discovered. Russia still has nukes, and some Cold War attitudes that make for a potentially very dangerous situation.

Geo-Political Consequences

The Russo-Georgia War's Dire Diplomatic Aftermath Nonetheless, a complex and dire diplomatic and political aftermath is upon us. The aggressive, ultra-nationalist Russia has clearly emerged. James Dunnigan of StrategyPage.com argues a military-minded Russia never really went away, it just submerged in post-Cold War poverty. Dunnigan employs a quip, "The empire struggles back" (think Star Wars' "The Empire Strikes Back"), to describe Russian policy in its "near abroad" border regions over the last 15 years. With oil prices high, Russia can spend money on warfare. The Russo-Georgia War classifies as a limited strike sending the message that Russia intends to frustrate --at least in the short term -- the post-Cold War expansion of Western Europe. Poland and Romania are in NATO, in part because they both fear an expansionist Russia, but Russian nationalists see the "West rolling East" into their sphere of influence. Securing Russia's borders and protecting the interests of ethnic Russians are traditional Russian concerns. Ethnic Russian communities in Georgia and Moldova's separatist statelet, Transdniestr, are Kremlin causes celebre. Now these concerns and the wounded ethno-nationalist pride that undergirds them may seem benighted and backward to international elites who proclaim global citizenship and advocate a diplomacy based on motivational oratory, but they energize a substantial number of people in a still quite powerful nation-state. International leaders must deal with the attitude and its militant expression. The nation of Georgia definitely must. In the Kremlin's view, military control of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and part of Georgia proper are post-conflict diplomatic bargaining chips. Russia has other chips. To influence European political, economic or military action, Russia has three convincing tools: nuclear weapons; a veto in the U.N. Security Council; and abundant natural gas shipped to Europe via pipelines. Moscow may invoke its interpretation of The Kosovo Precedent. Here's a thumbnail sketch: After Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, separatism resulting from international action to protect an ethnic minority has an imprimatur. If protecting Kosovar Albanians elicits a NATO invasion, and in the case of South Ossetia, Russian peacekeepers operating under international aegis were already on the ground and involved in the conflict, what is the gripe? Here's the gripe: Georgia isn't Slobodan Milosevic's thuggish Serbia; it is a democratic state "working its way West" politically and economically. Democracies are qualitatively different from dictatorships. But then Russians roll their eyes and point to Kosovar Serbs in northern Kosovo "unilaterally coerced" into a state -- independent Kosovo. Russia claims "the Kosovo precedent" affects 200 regions or territories in nations around the world. Moscow's insists that Kosovo established a "separatist precedent" for spinning statelets from sovereign nations. South Ossetia may prove to be "the Moscow interpretation" of Kosovo on terms favorable to Russia, invoked where Russian military power can enforce it and diplomatic maneuvering support it.

Welcome Back to the Great Game  Moscow's thin pretense of protecting an ethnic group provided just enough cover for Georgia's timorous friends in the West to ignore increasing Russian provocations over the past few years. Moscow, it now seems, intends to "protect" large numbers of Georgians too -- by occupying and killing them if that's what it takes -- and prevent them from building their own history and pursuing their democratic destiny, as it has for almost two centuries. As we worry about another Russian imperialist adventure in Georgia, we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture either: To wit, Moscow has always had a clear strategic use for the Caucasus, one that concerns the U.S. today more than ever. Having overestimated the power of the Soviet Union in its last years, we have consistently underestimated the ambitions of Russia since. Already, a great deal has been said about the implications of Russia's invasion for Ukraine, the Baltic States and Europe generally. But few have noticed the direct strategic threat of Moscow's action to U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Kremlin is not about to reignite the Cold War for the love of a few thousand Ossetians or even for its animosity toward five million Georgians. This is calculated strategic maneuvering. And make no mistake, it's about countering U.S. power at its furthest stretch with Moscow's power very close to home. Besides their own pipeline, Georgia and Azerbaijan offer a fragile strategic conduit between the West and the "stans" of Central Asia -- including Afghanistan -- an area that the Soviets once controlled in toto. We should remember that an isolated Central Asia means an isolated Afghanistan. Look at the countries surrounding Afghanistan -- all former Soviet colonies, then Iran, then Pakistan. The natural resources of Central Asia, from Turkmenistan's natural gas to Kazakhstan's abundant oil, cannot reach the West free of Russia and Iran except through that narrow conduit in the Caucasus. In Iraq too, the Kremlin's projection of power down through Georgia will soon be felt. Take another look at the map. If Russia is allowed to extend its reach southwards, as in Soviet times, down the Caucasus to Iran's borders, Moscow can support Iran in any showdown with the West. Iran, thus emboldened, will likely attempt to reassert itself in Iraq, Syria and, via Hezbollah, in Lebanon.

Vladimir Putin's mastery checkmates the West Russia has been biding its time, but its victory in Georgia has been brutal - and brilliant. The cartoon images have shown Russia as an angry bear, stretching out a claw to maul Georgia. Russia is certainly angry, and, like a beast provoked, has bared its teeth. But it is the wrong stereotype. What the world has seen last week is a brilliant and brutal display of Russia's national game, chess. And Moscow has just declared checkmate. Chess is a slow game. One has to be ready to ignore provocations, lose a few pawns and turn the hubris of others into their own entrapment. For years there has been rising resentment within Russia. Some of this is inevitable: the loss of empire, a burning sense of grievance and the fear that in the 1990s, amid domestic chaos and economic collapse, Russia's views no longer mattered. A generalised resentment, similar to the sour undercurrents of Weimar Germany, began to focus on specific issues: the nonchalance of the Clinton Administration about Russian sensitivities, especially over the Balkans and in opening Nato's door to former Warsaw Pact members; the neo-conservative agenda of the early Bush years that saw no role for Russia in its global agenda; and Washington's ingratitude after 9/11 for vital Kremlin support over terrorism, Afghanistan and intelligence on extremism. More infuriating was Western encouragement of “freedom” in the former Soviet satellite states that gave carte blanche to forces long hostile to Russia. In the Baltic states, Soviet occupation could be portrayed as worse than the Nazis. EU commissioners from new member states could target Russian policies. Populists in Eastern Europe could ride to power on anti-Russian rhetoric emboldened by Western applause for their fluency in English. Nowhere was such taunting more wounding than in Ukraine and Georgia, two countries long part of the Russian Empire, whose history, religion and culture were so intertwined with Russia's. Moscow tried, disastrously, to check Western, and particularly American, influence in Ukraine. The clumsy meddling led to the Orange Revolution. Georgia was a different matter. Relations were always mercurial, but Eduard Shevardnadze, the wily former Soviet Foreign Minister, knew how to keep atavistic animosities in check. Not so his brash successor, Mikheil Saakashvili. From then on, hubris was Tbilisi's undoing. It was not simply the dismissive rhetoric, the open door to US advisers or the economic illiteracy in forgetting dependence on Russian energy and remittance from across the border; it was the determined attempt to make Georgia a US regional ally and outpost of US influence. Big powers do not like other big powers poaching. This may not be moral or fair but it is reality, and one that underpins the Security Council veto.

Posted by dblwyo at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In case you didn't happen to notice Randy Pausch, the compsci professor from Carnegie who's literal last lecture became a worldwide phenomenon, finally succumbed to his pancreatic cancer. A sad thing ? Well, yes. In many ways. But Randy lived a full and fruitful life and even without the fame and the impact of his lecture made contributions that few of us are given to make. Also this last week plus Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian novelist who impacted the lives of millions, also passed on. A long time ago watching the film of Ivan Denisovitch with my college classmates in S.Cal. they were immensely puzzled by the squeaking noises made when the prisoners walked on the snow. You see when it's very cold and very dry snow squeaks. But you have to have lived there, or someplace similar, to know how cold that really means it was and feel it in your bones. Yet Solzhenitsyn's stories helped tell the story of the Gulags, first to the Russian people - which brought him exile, and then to the world. Both of these gentlemen told us stories in the best sense - myths that cut to the heart of things and helped us understand the world, how it worked and our places in it. Things that we need to know even when they're ugly, sometimes ugly beyond my experience or grasping. Randy's words of wisdom helped many people and to hear them again here's a little YouTube playlist: Randy Pausch  Playlist. There's quite a few but his Carnegie lecture is short and to the point while the ABC Memorial Special is the one I'd recommend really listening thru. Hopefully they're all in order.

But with all due respect to Randy the mad Russian poet changed the lives of millions who suffered, as he did, thru one of the most evil tyrannies in human history. Literally - look up the casualty estimates on Wikipedia. Or think about the fact that never before in human history had a government distorted and destroyed the most fundamental human relationships between family, friends, colleagues and fellow citizens. Stalin destroyed the most fundamental glue that holds us in a society, makes us human and is rooted in our fundamental biology and evolutionary history. But he wasn't able to eliminate it or keep it from coming back. I rather like the political cartoonist's tributes to Solzhenitsyn.

The Storyteller

 Unfortunately Stalin's inventiveness didn't go unoticed around the world and many clever and imitative people were able to add to our Medieval legacies, natural biological tendencies and combine it with Stalin's lessons to create their own solutions. Yet just as Czesław Miłosz was able to find the poetry and stories to help Eastern Europe rise above those degradations others are doing the same today. Let me introduce you to Chris Abani, courtsey of the TED Talks (an unparlleled resource for exploring all sorts of things). the Nigerian author, activist, UCSC professor and torture survivor.

This is what TED had to say about his first talk:

"In this deeply personal talk, Nigerian writer Chris Abani says that “what we know about how to be who we are” comes from stories. He searches for the heart of Africa through its poems and narrative, including his own."

But the one you should really listen to is his second. If the first makes the point we're shooting for here, that stories (myths, values, beliefs) are what make us truly human this second tells you what the struggle to be human in a nightmare is like. Take a moment (actually about 20 mins to watch Chris). Maybe longer if you really listen to his story. We'll still be here. The thing, once it truly sinks in about what you're hearing, is how he takes us beyond to the best we can be. The Roman Stoic philosopher was an advisor to Emporer's, a great man, rich and influential and one of the great thinkers of Classical times. What lends special credability to his wors, for me, is that his last and greatest work was written in prison just before he was executed. Chris speaks to us from the "Heart of Darkness" and finds a path to humanity out of it. Based on the stories we tell and the redemptive powers of human nature.

Values, Culture and Stories

Not to get all abstract on you, especially after getting down in the "mud, blood and beer" with the real realities nonetheless I do want to come to a larger point, or return to it, in a sense. And pardon the graphic but it gets back to something we think is central. The ground we stand on, our values and culture, is what makes our lives livable, worthwhile and survivable even. And it is the glue that holds our society together. At the end of the day each individual must find the stories the wrestle with each of these dimensions that help them find their ground. And society must achieve the same goals collectively. Or not with the penalties we now know all too well. We've previously dove into the role of religion and believes and their historical evolution and that can be some interesting background if you like: Faith, Hope and Enchantment: Why Religion Matters...More.

The questions might be put this way, but feel free to put them whatever best suites you.

1. How do we cope and manage with violence ? Modern man forgets that violence is the foundation of our society and endemic in our history. And only in modern times and in the West has there been anything like a brief interlude, preceeded by the most horrific and destructive wars and governments in human history.

2. How do we reconcile Faith and Knowledge, or Science and Religion ? This is a newer question that is the fruits really of the Rennaissance and has led to a continous 500-year struggle. One that strangely enough seems to be more vituperatie with intellectual denials recently than organized religion's denials. A large topic but one that is essential for our future and we've extensively discussed (Science vs or plus Religion: From Disingenuous to New Frontiers).

3. How do we find and express the best that is in us ? Another large question but the arts serve a dual purpose of entertainment to help relieve the stresses of the day. And make no mistake - one only has to watch the Kennedy Honors to understand that entertainment can require everything a gifted performer has. But "High Art" at it's best holds up a mirror to help us see what we've not seen - truthful, ugly, beautifully. At its' better than best it helps us find deeper truths and experience things beyond mere words.

4. How do we train our minds and our selves to truly use our knowledge, mental capabilities, etc. to think about the world ? What is the best way to think ? To learn to think and apply it ? And how do we move from being animals who's minds are rationalizing engines to enable our more primitive selfs to pursue the game and instead elevate our decision-making processes ?

One way or another you and your society answer those questions. Often accumulatively and unconsciously over a period of time, at least until the ground shifts and shows how unstable it is. But it is stories that helped you find your ground in the first place. And may help you find new ground when you need to.

Society, Values, Culture

Solzhenitsyn broke taboos, shook Soviet empire (AP) When Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" appeared in the thick monthly literary magazine Novy Mir back in November of 1962, taboos were shattered. Buried secrets were unearthed. And the Soviet Union was shaken to its foundations. Solzhenitsyn's short novel described a single day in the life of a carpenter caught up in the Soviet Union's secret network of slave labor camps, where starvation, bitter cold and punishing work regimes were the rule and, it has been said, the average life expectancy was one winter. The author was working as a provincial math teacher, and his greatest work, "The Gulag Archipelago," was still to come. But "One Day" was to shock the U.S.S.R. and the world.Some of the crimes of the dictator Josef Stalin were exposed and denounced following a secret speech by Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, as part of his short-lived campaign to reform the brutal Soviet system. But Solzhenitsyn's novel, based on the seven years he spent as a prisoner, was the first real expose of the gulag — a word derived from the Russian "Glavnoe Upravelenie Lagerei," or Main Camp Administration. Solzhenitsyn, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature but was exiled from his homeland because of his work, died of heart failure Sunday at age 89, his son, Stepan Solzhenitsyn, told The Associated Press on Monday. The gulag was, Solzhenitsyn wrote, the "human meat grinder" for processing what Stalin sneered at as "wreckers," vermin and "enemies of the people" who allegedly sabotaged Soviet progress to the workers' paradise. The grim process started, typically, with a knock on the door late at night, an arrest on charges of trivial or imaginary crimes, condemnation by a secret tribunal, transportation by unheated rail car and finally incarceration in the camps. The prisoners formed a secret army of slave laborers who built railroads, worked in mines and cleared forests in some of the world's most inhospitable terrain. In the end, by the most authoritative estimate, the gulag systematically ground down some 29 million souls.

U.S. professor of inspirational "last lecture" dies Randy Pausch, a university professor whose "last lecture" celebrating life in the face of terminal cancer became a book which made him a best-selling sensation, died on Friday at age 47. The computer science professor was best known for his "last lecture," entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," which he gave in September 2007 just weeks after learning he was suffering from terminal cancer. Footage of the poignant and inspirational lecture became a hit on the Internet, viewed by millions of people. A book based on the talk, "The Last Lecture," was translated into 30 languages and became an international bestseller, Carnegie Mellon, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said on its Web site. In the lecture, Pausch spoke about the dreams he had achieved, such as writing a World Book Encyclopedia entry and experiencing zero gravity. But he said he learned more from the dreams he had not achieved, such as his desire to be a professional football player. He said he delivered the lecture as a guide for his three young children. "I'm attempting to put myself in a bottle that will one day wash up on the beach for my children," the university quoted him as saying. In the field of computer science, Pausch created an educational software tool known as "Alice," which lets students create three-dimensional computer animations. Professor Aimed 'Last Lecture' At His Children ... and Inspired Millions , A collection of Randy Pausch videos

Debate over black personal responsibility grows growing ranks of black U.S. grandparents raising grandchildren because their own children can't -- or won't. The Miami woman's story illustrates a debate about whether black American parents take enough responsibility for raising their children that has spilled into the U.S. presidential campaign through comments by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and Democratic candidate Barack Obama.It also sheds light on how complex factors including home foreclosures, lack of health insurance and high incarceration rates combine to put pressure on many inner-city families. Few hard figures exist for grandparents raising grandchildren but 59 percent of black households with children have just one parent, according to U.S. census data in 2006. That's about double the figure in the overall population. Obama, who could be the first U.S. black president, drew fire from Jackson this month by urging black parents to play a more constructive role in their children's lives. The debate over personal responsibility in the black community has rumbled for decades. Sociologists cite a number of causes for higher rates of black single parenthood stretching back to the forced break-up of many black families during slavery.

Yale hosts high-level Christian-Muslim dialogue Senior Christian and Muslim scholars and leaders are meeting in the United States this week seeking common ground in their different faiths to foster better understanding between Islam and the West. Hosted by Yale University Divinity School, the conference is the first public dialogue launched by Muslim intellectuals in the Common Word group that appealed to Christian leaders last year for discussions among theologians to promote peace. Most U.S. participants are Protestant theologians and church leaders, including some prominent evangelicals, but some Catholics and Jews also are taking part. The Muslims, both Sunnis and Shi'ites, hail from around the world. Their conference comes just more than a week after King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, home of Islam's strict Wahhabi sect, hosted an unprecedented meeting of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists in Madrid and pledged to pursue interfaith dialogue.

The bride wore dart launchers at Comic-Con wedding The bride and groom grasped one another's dart launcher-clad wrists and stared into each other's starry eyes. Fifty armor-clad guests, including several "Jedis" and a white caped "Elvis" in a rhinestone-studded ammo belt, stood reverently at attention. A couple of superheroes showed up late. What better place to hold a "Star Wars" themed wedding than a green patch of grass just outside the famed Comic-Con convention where thousands of fans have congregated this week to revel in all manner of superhero and sci-fi lore? Friday's wedding ceremony, based on the language, costume and lore of a fictional Mandalorian race in the "Star Wars" movies, was the brain child of Tenille Kuhlman, 30, and Thomas Kuhlman, 39, avid fans who decided that the convention was a perfect place to gather far-flung members of their close-knit "Star Wars" fan club to celebrate their special day. The couple met online two years ago, said Tenille Kuhlman, who said she was at first was hesitant to embrace the Mandalorian lifestyle. "When I met him I knew what every Joe Blow knows about 'Star Wars.' It just sort of turned into life for us."

Known and unknown unknowns  The world’s largest machine is about to open for business. It will, however, only scratch the surface of the universe. The physics of the small requires big machines: the LHC is a ring with a circumference of 27km (17 miles). The machine itself cost SFr5 billion—and that did not include the cost of the tunnel housing it, since that had been built for an earlier device that smashed electrons (and their antimatter equivalents), rather than protons. The four particle-detection experiments, lodged in caverns spaced around the ring, accounted for the other SFr5 billion. But what is being looked at is, in a sense, not small at all. It is actually the entire universe—or, rather, its fundamental constituents. That is important because, when the universe is viewed through a telescope, most of it seems to be missing. Visible matter makes up a mere 4% of it. Another 22% is referred to as dark matter. This can be detected from its gravitational effects, but is otherwise invisible. The remaining 74% of the universe is known as dark energy. Its existence is inferred from an effect that looks like the opposite of gravity: it is pushing the universe apart. These observations, along with the likely existence of neutralinos, mean that dark matter looks like a known unknown. There is a plausible theory of what it might be, and a reasonable chance of testing that theory to see if it is right. Dark energy, however, is an unknown unknown.

Knight in shining armour  Private space tourism is just the beginning. Often, however, the most interesting thing about a new technology is not what it is designed to do, but what it can do that was not in the original specification. And, according to Virgin Galactic’s president, Will Whitehorn, the possibilities there are growing by the day. A variety of large objects other than SpaceShipTwo could be slung under the wing of White Knight Two. One application being explored is flying replacement engines for Boeing 747s around the world. White Knight Two could also launch small satellites into space at a cost of less than $2m each. And it would be a good way of taking pilotless reconnaissance drones to otherwise inaccessible places and then launching them. In the past two months Mr Whitehorn has, he says, been approached by 14 large organisations interested in using White Knight Two or buying a plane just like it. Purchasing one outright would cost $35m-40m. Alan Stern, until recently the associate administrator of science programmes at NASA, America’s space agency, reckons the combination of White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo could also revolutionise the study of atmospheric physics. Routine flights into the upper atmosphere by White Knight Two on its own would offer opportunities for regular experimental work at high altitude. That would make it possible to study the heart of the ozone layer. But the combined craft would also allow access to the “ignorosphere”, a frustrating region 50-80km above the Earth’s surface that is too high for conventional aircraft and too low for satellites.

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