Black Swans Flying Over the Financial Crisis

That the shadow of complexity darkens the prognosis of the current financial crisis is a point to which I have repeatedly alluded. A subset of this general difficulty is the likelihood of a black swan (see Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan) dramatically altering all bets.

A totally unrelated black swan (landing of Martians or the “Big One” sending Los Angeles to the bottom of the Pacific) could occur, but I wish to address black swans about which some productive predictive assessment might be made, i.e., Black Swans provoked by current human behavior. The general theoretical assumption is: to the degree that we, by our actions, choose to push society closer to the edge of chaos, we set ourselves up for a surprise with which we will not be able to cope. More precisely, we do things that 1) raise the likelihood of a surprise and 2) decrease our ability to cope with it.

What actions might increase the likelihood of a black swan?

• Antagonizing opponents might provoke them to do something highly risky out of anger or desperation.
• Greed carried to the extreme of, say, leveraging investments way past a reasonable level of risk, or corruption that, say, hides the fact that required collateral is not being maintained might transform a minor glitch into a real black swan event, e.g., transform the normal diurnal variations in the market into a cascade of failure.

What actions might decrease our ability to cope with a surprise?

• Exhausting all readily available resources supporting a failing system (e.g., bailouts to corrupt or irresponsible financial institutions or to outmoded corporations or other narrowly-defined special interests) might both fail to resolve the financial crisis by evading fundamentals and leave us with a lowered ability to combat a new challenge.
• Committing all military forces to current operations on the assumption that no new enemy will emerge could find us dangerously overcommitted.
• Encouraging people to continue living the lifestyle that got us in trouble in the first place, on the assumption that traditional crisis-management techniques will enable us to get out of the problem we are in, might prove to be dangerously shortsighted.

These are examples of living at the edge of chaos (i.e., maximizing effectiveness of current performance by choosing to perform to the max, spending nothing on redundancy, keeping nothing in reserve). We should not expect our current predicament to be immune to the impact of our previous behavior. To phrase it differently, chickens coming home to roost may attract black swans.

It may be worth noting that the above discussion implicitly treated black swans as negative. That of course need not be the case. Something wonderful might fall in our laps: say, the sudden discovery of a cheap, clean way of generating solar power or the arrival of Martians bearing gifts. I would just make two points: first, no need to try to forecast such a miracle. If it occurs, fine; problem solved. Second, don’t bet your mortgage on it, because we are queering the system by the mistakes in crisis management that we are making, lessening the already small probability of a free lunch.

The general problem is that choosing to live at the edge of chaos (running full speed along the edge of a cliff where the view is great, on the assumption that you will not stumble) is dangerous because if you stumble, the consequences are dire. The specific black swan problem is that even if you do not stumble, something might take you by surprise, and on the edge of the cliff running at top speed, responding effectively will be tricky. The whole problem of how crisis management might be impacted by a surprise that hits us “out of the blue” is a big and neglected issue. These are just a few thoughts to provoke contemplation.

Might we perform crisis management in a way that would reduce the likelihood of a black swan?

Might we perform crisis management in a way that would enhance our ability to deal with one?

From Freedom to Slavery

As rising corruption and the scheming of politicians seeking dictatorial power undermined the Roman Republic in the years before Augustus established the empire, the richest man in that center of world capitalism was Crassus and one of the most virtuous of his opponents the writer and lawyer (!) Cicero.

A profound historical novel, Taylor Caldwell’s A Pillar of Iron (Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY, 1965, pp.437-8), contains the following conversation, taken from actual letters between the two:

“Alexander [said Crassus] had a dream of a united world. I, too, have that dream. One government, one people, one law, under God. Shall it be realized in my lifetime? I do not know. But we should, as men, work ceaselessly toward that goal.”

“Why?” said Marcus [Cicero]. “We should then destroy the infinite variety of humanity. We should destroy the gods of other peoples. We should destroy their way of life, which they have decreed for themselves. Who has the insolence to say our way is better than others?”

“The differences you remark upon, Cicero, are superficial. Are we not all men, with the same needs?”

“We are all men,” said Marcus, “but we do not all have the same needs. We Romans have no authority, human or divine, to impose our wills upon others, no matter how noble we pretend they are.”

“Pretend?” said Crassus, arching his brows.

“Pretend,” Marcus repeated.

Crassus thought, Catilina is right. He should be assassinated. He looked at Julius [Caesar] who was following the conversation with a broad smile.

“We can impose our government,” said Marcus, “only with the sword and with war and with the violation of the rights of other men. Let us refrain.”

“You do not understand, Cicero. Under one authority, one law, all land would be cultivated completely for the benefit of the people. All treasure would be utilized, and in fairness.”….

“I believe in law, and the orderly process of law,” said Marcus, trying to hide his revulsion. “I do not believe in force—or lies—in order to make all men live as we might desire them to live. If our way is truly good, then all men will eventually recognize it. If it is evil”—and here Marcus paused—“we can enforce it only by murder.”

Georgia and Historical Precedents

Big fish gobble up small fish, and small fish gobble up tiny fish. If it is OK for Georgia to force South Ossetia to remain part of Georgia, then why does the same principle apply to Russian desires to subjugate Georgia? Either we live by the principle that individuals have the right to choose their allegiance or we live by the principle that might makes right. The solution to the long-festering sore of South Ossetia would have been a U.N.-monitored election to select continued membership in Georgia, independence, or joining Russia.

It is rather obvious that looking the other way while Russia subjugated (or perhaps the word should be “obliterated”) Chechnya back in the 1990s is now coming back to haunt us. What may not be quite so obvious is the connection between this week’s events in the Caucasus and the confrontation between the West and Islam.

History goes through stages. In the midst of one, everyone is consumed by the problems it entails. Historical stages don’t last forever, though. Colonialism, the struggle against fascism, the Cold War…all ended, and so will the Western confrontation with Islam. More to the point, the way each stage develops lays the groundwork for the next stage. The failure of the victors to resolve issues such as German reparations, whether or not to treat the Germans with respect, whether or not to keep the German population prostrate and in poverty, whether or not to honor promises of independence made to populations like the Arabs and the Chinese famously set the stage for the horrors of World War II.

How the world manages the Western confrontation with Islam will also do much to set the stage for the next historical era. If international law and global cooperation as symbolized by the U.N. are discarded and replaced by legitimization of torture, collective punishment, “democratization” at the point of a gun, and preventive war, then the Caucasus today may come to be seen as the symbol of the next historical era.

Precedents are powerful things. Precedents provide permission for acts people wanted but never dared to commit. If preventive war becomes accepted as legitimate behavior, then what is to stop Israel from attacking Iran, India from attacking Pakistan, China from attacking Taiwan, Russia from attacking Ukraine? If collective punishment of the people of Fallujah or Gaza is OK, then why not collective punishment of the people of Georgia or Taiwan, Ukraine…or, indeed, any Western population that terrorists may select as their next target? If “democracy” is defined as elections held at the point of a gun, then why not have “democracy” in Taiwan at the point of Chinese guns or “democracy” in Georgia at the point of Russian guns or “democracy” in Kashmir at the point of Indian guns?

Today’s actions are tomorrow’s precedents. An intelligent species thinks about the long-term impact of its behavior.

Backing into the Future

Is the United States losing its pioneering spirit and backing into the future, with its eye on its glorious past?

From the 1950s through the 1970s, American society seemed to be leading the world into the future –

• new social ideas (peace, not war; racial equality; the environmental movement);
• new technology; the moon landing;
• an expanding openness to new cultures.

The revolutionary socialist ethic that had given the world’s oppressed such hope had long since been tarnished by Soviet corruption. The Cold War was managed with an impressive degree of professionalism, centering around the concept that the more hostility there was, the more urgently the two sides needed to talk to each other. In the end, talking revealed positive-sum solutions to both the Cold War and domestic racism that seemed to open the door to a new and far more humane age.

Today, American society seems to be –

• digging in its heels (commuting in SUVs during wartime; refusing to change lifestyles in response to the impending oil shortage);
• refusing to take responsibility (pretending that terrorism “came out of the blue;” demanding that opponents cave in on the key issues ahead of time as the admission ticket to “negotiations;” rejecting global cooperation from environmental treaties to the abolition of cluster bombs; ignoring breakthrough ideas like a Mideast nuclear-free zone);
• and insisting on acting as though nothing needs to change even as the whole world is moving in a new direction.

American education, the American industrial base, the American technological lead, the status of the dollar, and America as the symbol of good governance are all increasingly falling short in comparison with the rest of the world.

• Global environmental leadership—both the moral leadership via a socio-political commitment to change our lifestyles and financial leadership via the construction of a new industry dedicated to profit-making green solutions–have passed to West Europe.
• The reliability of U.S. government safeguards over the food supply, quality of medicine, air traffic control, and the national park system is declining as decision-makers make short-term budget “savings” and intentionally undermine standards to reward corporate allies.
• The U.S. was persuasively alleged by some a decade ago to have an advantage in terms of knowledge because of its lead in computers combined with the open debate of its democracy, but others are passing the U.S. already in terms of Internet infrastructure.
• More fundamentally, American democracy is being undermined by the rising bias and myopia of American media, the tightening strictures of self-defeating political taboos, the refusal of most politicians to discuss controversial new ideas openly, and rightwing attacks on academic freedom.

As the world’s thinkers increasingly focus on complexity theory to understand the interconnections and evolution of the world, U.S. political leaders seem stuck in a 19th century time warp of “realism”—i.e., a foreign policy based on brute force.

A Martian visiting Earth in 1975 to see where the action was would have headed straight for the U.S. Where would such a visitor go today—Singapore? Shanghai? Berlin? New Delhi? Qatar?

Global Power Evolving

The meaning and nature of power in global affairs is evolving rapidly, and our understanding of how is slipping dangerously behind the changing reality. The result is a rising tendency to use power in ways that turn out to be counterproductive…generating exactly the type of world we do not want.

Simplistically, the traditional and fairly accurate image of power used to be a hierarchical one: start with diplomacy; should that fail, try economic pressure; should that fail, use the military. By “accurate,” I mean very simply that it worked: if you had more military power and used it, generally, you won. The side with the most military power, no coincidentally, generally also had the most economic and diplomatic power.

Today, a much more sophisticated image of power is required in order to apply power effectively. The types of power are more varied. The relationship among the types of power are less predictable and certainly not necessarily hierarchical. Actors possessing one type of power do not necessarily possess the others. Even though military power is increasingly good at destruction, its ability to accomplish anything useful is declining. The categories of actor possessing significant power are multiplying.

One way to sort through this would be maps illustrating who possesses what amount of key types of power. I suspect the results would surprise most people. Judging from the policies of various countries, the results would apparently come as a shock to most decision makers as well. Of course, one really doesn’t ever know how much power any actor actually has or even in principle how to measure it. But mapping actors and their power, using the kind of maps made available by Worldmapper would nonetheless be an informative exercise.

Just imagine a world map of actors with the now critical power to influence the price of grain! Where would you rank Monsanto Corporation, in comparison, say, to the world’s major military powers?

Imagine a map of world actors in terms of the power of their ideas! How many actors would even make the list? And how many of them would be countries? Think of the changes in only the last 20 years – the power of the communist ideal today seems almost laughable. Now we have the power of jihad. And what has happened since 9/11 to the attractiveness of the idea of democracy?

Although technology makes the application of power more efficient, the rising confusion between application and result make the impact of that power less predictable. The impact on Ahmadinejad’s career of the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a case in point. Failure to correct this mismatch is likely to make the world a very unpleasant place.

Attack Iran…Then What?

What plans do the glib and arrogant war party politicians in Washington and Tel Aviv have for dealing with the consequences of the war of aggression against Iran that they keep threatening?

In a recent post, I argued that even if total victory over Iran were guaranteed in advance, to launch a “preventive” war, i.e., a war of choice, a war of aggression, against Iran would be a questionable deal for the U.S., certainly entailing some serious costs that the politicians with their smug grins are not anticipating.

So, what about the reality in which nothing is guaranteed? In a word,

Short of total victory, would a U.S. attack on Iran be worthwhile?

Incomplete victory could occur in any number of ways – military victory but political defeat (a soberingly familiar outcome), inconclusive military advantage (also familiar), or a victory so expensive as to feel like defeat. The U.S. has been fighting continuously in Iraq for 17 years, off and on in Somalia for 15 years, and in Afghanistan for 7 years (not counting the war against the Soviet Union). Israel fought in Lebanon for 18 years (1982-2000) and re-invaded in 2006. In Iraq, a vicious secular dictator has been replaced by utter social chaos plus a terror campaign that did not exist there until we invaded. In Somalia, utter social chaos existed when we intervened on a humanitarian mission and remains now that Washington is supporting the overthrow of a government whose independence was viewed with disfavor. In Afghanistan, a vicious regime that befriended bin Laden has been replaced by a civil war. In Lebanon, civil war was supplemented by a national war of liberation, provoking the rise of Hezballah, now the most modern political party in Lebanon and a model for all Moslems trying to organize national anti-Western movements. This record suggests the possibility that an attack on Iran might also have unpleasant long-term consequences that should be considered before it is too late.

Military Victory but Political Defeat:
Unprovoked military attack would be likely to unite and outrage the Iranian population, just as 9/11 united and outraged Americans. As with 9/11, if the Iranian government continued to exist, conservatives would be likely to reap the benefit of the subsequent “rallying around the flag.” Just as after 9/11, foreign policy militancy would most likely overwhelm calls for moderation. The reservoir of goodwill toward the U.S. visible in modern Iranian society would vanish; any calls for compromise would be attacked as “treachery.” An attack on Iran would leave Iran weakened militarily but more unified and committed both to acquiring weapons sufficient to protect it and to getting revenge. Even a solid U.S. military victory would thus leave the world a more dangerous place.

Inconclusive Military Advantage:
Making war on an industry is a strange concept. Iran denies planning to acquire nuclear weapons but brags about its nuclear industry, which has been widely reported to be vast in scope and widely disseminated throughout the country. Moreover, military power today comes in many guises. Aside from the obvious question of the likelihood of total success in destroying Iran’s nuclear industry, the ability of even the U.S. to destroy all forms of Iranian military power is an open question. What about guerrilla warfare in Iraq? What plans may Iran have put in place regionally or globally to respond even after destruction of the homeland? Might nuclear-armed Pakistan or China–concerned about Iranian oil–or Russia–concerned about limitless growth in American power—provide just enough support to enable Iran to keep resisting? How long would Americans tolerate endless, one-sided, unprovoked slaughter by their own government? Might this war, in ways different from but reminiscent of the years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, just drag on?

Victory So Expensive As to Feel Like Defeat:
“No,” the militarists will surely answer, “this will be a truly overwhelming “shock and awe” campaign that will transform one of the world’s great cultures into a desert. Iran will have no surprises for us. Iran will not manage to fire any of the Russian anti-ship missiles it has reputedly purchased at all the U.S. ships now arguably trapped in the Persian Gulf. Iran’s oil wells will sit quietly waiting for pro-American groups to start operating. Saudi oil facilities will come through unharmed; the Saudi Shi’a will remain loyal to Saudi Arabia. American troops and their families in Iraq at the end of that long supply line will continue to receive food and water. Iranian naval mines will prove to be paper tigers. There will be no ships sunk in the Straits of Hormuz, no oil stoppage, no global depression. In contrast to the war in Iraq, Al Qua’ida will find no opportunity to exploit this American adventure. This war may have fallout, but it will have no fog: all will go according to plan. It will not be like Somalia or Lebanon or Iraq or Afghanistan. The war will play so well on TV that far from turning against Washington, the American people will voluntarily, even eagerly trade in democracy for imperialism. Scientific militarism will control every detail.” That would sound good on the campaign trail, if one of the slick war party candidates were honest enough to go into such detail, but where’s the evidence?

Or will the Iranians’ brand new Russian anti-ship missiles sink a couple aircraft carriers, a Shi’ite revolt force a Vietnam-style flight from Iraq, and attacks on Israel by Lebanese Hezbollah provoke Tel Aviv into another disastrous 1982-style ground war trap? Will the American people kick out the war party and take a turn back toward isolationism? After all, why not, given that the world’s lone superpower now arguably faces both the absence of a credible threat for the first time since the beginning of WWII and a recession caused by mismanagement at home.

The U.S. attacked tiny Afghanistan, a semi-feudal society with no power projection capability, in 2001 and remains bogged down, having facilitated an explosive growth in Afghan heroin exports and provoked destabilization of the bordering region of Pakistan.

The U.S. attacked Iraq, a country whose military and economic capabilities had been severely degraded by a dozen years of U.S. military attack and economic embargo. We remain bogged down there, as well, having destroyed the country’s ability to govern itself, facilitated the rise of Iran as a regional power, and given al Qua’ida a new lease on life.

The U.S. fought two wars against such pathetically weak opponents that Washington decision makers did not consider post-war planning to be necessary. Years later, still with no light at the end of either tunnel, the war party is contemplating a third war, against a vastly larger and more unified opponent that has had years of warning time to conceive of all manner of high tech and asymmetric countermeasures. It would seem that even the most eager imperialist would have to admit that a bit of post-war planning might be in order. (Only a fundamentalist hoping for a final explosion that would end the world and bring to earth a savior to carry the souls of the chosen few to heaven could “rationally” argue against post-war planning.) Post-war planning does not begin with “assuming everything goes according to plan…” Post-war planning begins with evaluating the range of possible outcomes and preparing to deal with each of them.

1. What is the plan to deal with military victory but political defeat?
2. What is the plan to deal with inconclusive military advantage?
3. What is the plan to deal with victory so expensive as to feel like defeat?
4. And finally, what is the plan to deal even with the long-term implications of total victory?

Confused Bush Iraq Policy Destabilizing Iraq, Empowering Iran

Washington is exacerbating Shi’ite factional conflict, fomenting civil war, building up Tehran’s influence, and fighting a war against the poor in Iraq.

The tactics that Washington is pursuing in Iraq appear to be exacerbating several long-term trends that risk destabilizing Iraq even further and may well also undermine U.S. influence. Washington’s militant intervention into intra-Shi’ite factional politics is pouring gasoline on that dispute, fomenting civil war between the two most powerful Shi’ite militias in Iraq by encouraging (or ordering?) Maliki to suppress Moqtada’s Mahdi Army. Washington is simultaneously laying the groundwork for a civil war between Iraqi Shi’a and Sunni by funding the organization of numerous local Sunni military units (e.g., the Awakening groups), which could evolve rapidly into a Sunni militia that would challenge the Shi’a since these units are gaining power without a commensurate move toward satisfaction of Sunni grievances.* Washington is also fighting Iran’s war in Iraq by intervening in Shi’ite factional disputes on the side of the pro-Iranian Badr faction that constitutes Maliki’s main support. And finally, since Moqtada represents the poor urban Shi’ite underclass beyond the reach of government services, Washington is making war on the poor,** a bad foundation indeed for building democracy.

*According to Fadhil Ali, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki justified his reluctance to recruit Sunni fighters to the government forces by indicating that the banned al-Baath Party and al-Qaeda had ordered their members to infiltrate the Awakening groups (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, January 5).

**Badger, in another of his invaluable leaks of Arabic-language reports from the Iraqi media, reports that, according to information from the two main hospitals in Sadr City (i.e., not including wounded or killed who did not make it to those two hospitals), the on-going U.S.-Maliki-al Hakim attack on Sadr City alone has resulted in 300 deaths and 1621 wounded.

A policy of marginalizing the poor by emphasizing the use of force to suppress their representatives, not to mention collective punishment against the poor themselves through both neglecting to provide services and turning Sadr City into a blockaded ghetto, sets up society for a long period of conflict. (For parallels, check out the impact of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which provoked the formation of Hezbollah; the half century-long civil war against the rural poor in Colombia; and of course the endless sad saga of the mistreatment of the population of Gaza.)

An alternative exists: Washington could encourage inclusiveness by working to open the political system as wide as possible.

• First, Washington could try to include the Shi’a poor in the political system by maximizing the central government’s provision of social services to areas such as Sadr City. The new plan to form “sons of Iraq” councils in Sadr City is a gesture in this direction, but clearly playing second fiddle to the Bush Administration’s addiction to violence as the solution of choice to all problems. Empowering the poor would, of course, empower Moqtada, but empowering opponents is what democracy is all about.
• Second, Washington could promote an Iraqi energy policy focused on ensuring that all groups of Iraqis benefit. Such a policy might, of course, entail certain costs for Big Oil.
• Third, Washington could push for the inclusion of the new Sunni groups into the government and army.

Of course, the prospect of the emergence of a truly national Iraqi government might cause some eyebrows to be lifted on the part of Maliki and al-Hakim, who think they have a lock on national power; any neocons who still foresee a lasting U.S. condominium in Iraq; and Tehran, increasingly comfortable as the real power behind the throne.

Admittedly, the Bush Administration has a problem. If it tries to bring everyone into the political system, then Iraqi forces favoring Iraqi control over Iraqi oil resources will no doubt gain influence. So will Iraqi forces favoring Iraqi control over Iraq in general, which might shorten by several decades the lifespan of all those very solidly constructed U.S. military bases. So the Administration has to weigh that against the hornet’s nest of ethnic conflict into which it is now sticking its big, pointed stick. What to do? What to do? After all these years and all that money, should Washington let the bases and the oil slip through its fingers in the name of inclusiveness and democracy? Or, should it suffer through a new wave of ethnic violence that will plague Bush’s last few months in office, the election, and the beginning (if not the middle and end) of the next president’s term in office as well? To some, it may indeed seem tempting to try to force the transformation of Sadr City into one 3,000,000-man-strong strategic hamlet.

Power in Moslem States & Societies

The process of creating a state is long and uncertain. A society that has learned to cope well with its environment may have a state that has been so well developed that it appears to be in equilibrium. A society under stress, in contrast, may have a newly emerging state structure/political process. For the latter case, the traditional state-centric approach of political science will not suffice to understand political processes. In the latter case, the state is in flux, its structure is emerging, and its power may well be significantly less than that of other entities in the society (e.g., militias, clans, tribes, corporations, political parties). When foreign leaders interact with the emerging state under the assumption that a state is a state and states are the organizations with a) power, b) legitimacy, c) decision-making authority, they do so at their own peril.

For the purpose of argument, I will make the following assertion: Iraq is not a state.

This assertion is of course more or less true depending on the exact date. The Iraqi state is in the process of being created. At present it no doubt has more of the attributes of what we normally think of as statehood than it did two or three years ago, but if one simplifies the issue to a “yes or no” question, then at present, it seems still to be more accurate to think of Iraq as a society and nation that lacks a state. Iraq is obviously a society because the population exists and interacts; it is also arguably a nation because most of the population appears to self-identify first of all as Iraqi, though the post-invasion pressures have probably weakened such self-identification. It does not, however, yet appear to have what Westerners usually think of when they refer to a “state.” The ability of al Sadr not only to resist successfully in Basra this week but to persuade soldiers and police to join his forces is the most recent piece of evidence.

To the degree this is true, it raises some serious implications:

• What is the significance of making an agreement with the official Iraqi government?
• Would it be more effective for a country wishing to influence the Iraqi people to make an agreement with the official Iraqi government or with some other entity?
• Is there any single entity in Iraqi that can plausibly claim to represent the population?
  If not, how many entities must be consulted to “make an agreement with Iraq?”

If Iraq has a state, then other actors will assume that it makes sense to support efforts by that government to impose itself by force. If, in contrast, Iraq is viewed as a society struggling to create a state but one that currently does not have a state, then logic suggests a totally different approach – working for consensus among all the major power centers. This is of course a vastly more difficult approach and one that cedes power to Iraqi society. An outside power may well be able to exert significant influence over a single institution, particularly if that institution is modeled after Western states. It is far less likely to be able to do so vis-à-vis half a dozen highly heterogeneous groups.

This situation is one of the common patterns seen throughout Moslem societies contributing to the rise of an Islamic political fault line:

• In the case of Iraq, the lack of a modern state structure might mean negotiating with a Sunni party with its own militia and organs of local government, a Shi’ite party that controls the official government, a separate and competing Shi’ite party with its own militia and organs of local government, and a Kurdish autonomous government.
• In the case of Lebanon, it might mean negotiating with multiple Christian and Sunni groups, as well as with Hezbollah.
• In Palestine, it might mean negotiating with Fatah, Hamas, and perhaps even other groups.
• In Somalia, it might mean negotiating with both the recognized but weak “government” and with the Islamic Courts Union.

But a short time later, it might also mean including some new group because to say that the state remains immature and ill-formed is another way of saying that power centers in society are in an unusually rapid state of flux. Moreover, to the degree that other states focus on interacting only with an immature and unrepresentative state to the exclusion of significant non-state power centers in society, they may well provoke still more instability.

For any who wish to deal effectively with such societies, it is critical to make the correct assumption—either that, in practical terms, those societies do or do not have an institution that effectively constitutes a “state.” To classify all non-state actors in a society that lacks a modern state structure as illegitimate and define them as enemies is simply illogical.

Washington Empowering Hamas

I asserted only yesterday that Bush’s approach to the Islamic world was “not working.” Today brings new evidence to support that contention:

Israel Defense Forces attacks in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip have boosted the popularity of the Islamist group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh among Palestinians in that territory and in the West Bank, according to a poll released Monday.

This seems to present two choices: support democracy in Palestine with the rising probability of a second Hamas electoral victory or continue trying to destroy Hamas, which will presumably continue to enhance Hamas’ prestige.

Recognizing Kosovo Independence: Dangerous Precedent

For an analysis of the implications for global stability of the recent Kosovo declaration of independence, see this five-minute video by Stephen Zunes on the important independent source of global affairs developments Real News:

Well, this is a very dangerous precedent, because if it’s ignoring the UN
Security Council resolution, makes it an irreversible fact, what is the point of
UN Security Council resolutions? That it is back to the old-fashioned kind of
power politics. My interpretation of 1244 is that it does not include
independence as an option within that same work. And indeed it seemed to make a
lot more sense for Kosovo to enjoy the status of the Iraqi Kurds or the
Taiwanese, who even for those of us who believe that morally they have a right
to independence, recognize that they essentially had that already, and by making
a formal declaration as such and having this kind of recognition by foreign
powers can destabilize the region and create a very dangerous precedent, which
would very likely cause far more problems than a compromise, a solution might
have done.

It is of course difficult to determine whether the short-term implications of failing completely to satisfy the aspirations for independence of a particular group outweigh the long-term implications doing so. If decision makers make a sincere attempt to weigh short-term against long-term implications and explain their thinking, then they have at least minimally done their jobs. In the case of Kosovo, it would not have been hard to anticipate how the precedent of declaaration of total independence despite the unclear wording of the relevant U.N. resolution might be used by other oppressed groups aspiring to attain freedom.

One of the keys to foreseeing the future is thinking about how the long-term implications of behavior may differ from the short-term implications; another is thinking about how the implications for the group involved may differ from the implications for other groups that may take some event as a precedent. To fail to consider such complications in advance is to throw away valuable tools for the protection of our security.

Further Reading…

* Opportunities for Blowback