Armistice 110610

It's a little early to commemorate the eleventh month, eleventh day, eleventh hour but any silence after a final furious cannonade is no less welcome.  Unlike the bombardment that signaled the end of World War One, today's random shots and the floating wisp of gun smoke signal maneuvers for the coming 2012 battle.

No sooner had the polls closed on this year's viscous election campaign than the victors fired their first shots in search of glorious greater victories.  The minority party victors claim they now have a mandate to rewrite history taking the country back to a fundamentalist ideal, continue the war to victory, cut taxes, drive out immigrants and abandon the Bill of Rights.

What the victors chose to ignore is that neither the minority nor the majority party have enough votes to elect their candidates.  Even within the parties is there no consensus for radical platforms.  While their extremists are the loudest and have capture the parties' agendas much of their membership is more reasoned.  The real power however, lies with the largest body of the electorate, independents that are quite and still free of partisan demands of party loyalty.

It was the independents that carried the bi-election.  They didn't vote radical change rather they voted for a hoped for better and more secure future.  When campaign cannons fire salvos of hate and fear the independents drag their feet at blind trust.  Their vote was for change, but changes that improved their conditions.  Improvements that have been to long in arriving, “lets give the other guys a shot.”

A shot is not a mandate, it is an opportunity.  If the victors become hung up on the barbwire of radical ideology they will face disenchanted and hostile independents in another two years.

The two party system has been institutionalized in American elections, but it is not written in stone or the constitution.  What has happen is that the two parties cooperated on one issue, legislation and procedures that make it virtually impossible for any third party to succeed at the polls.

What the silent independent majority must do is fire shots across the bow of both parties.  The independents have the power to demand good candidates that will serve the people not radical party platforms.  Candidates committed to oppose corruption and vested interests and serve the people.  The independents must exercise their power before the parties lock in on candidates and platforms not in the interest of the whole country.

The independent must find spokesmen of reason and compromise in the interest of the country.  Care must taken in choice of leadership for charismatic leaders are often borderline dictators in search of power.

The independents fired a broadside in this election.  It is a step forward but not enough to just vote incumbents out of office.   Independents must also insure that the applicant pool contains the very best candidates for future election.  The founding fathers never envisioned career politicians; rather wider participation by qualified citizens.  They knew that government was too important to trust to politicians.
Independent must bombard candidates and elected officials with the third way of reasoned government.

If the parties continue to fail, then independents must fire a their big gun barrage each election voting the incumbents out of office until they recognize the peoples interests.  

Scorched earth politics 102520

October is a frightening month for most Americans.  Not only is it the month of pagan Halloween rituals, but the streets run red with the more horrifying political blitz leading up to November elections.

Mythology holds that The United States was established as a democracy and continues to serve as the leading democratic model to the world.  In the era of instant communications however, the world is watching the horrific spectacle of democratic scorched earth politics in a land of hypocrisy.

Contrary to popular opinion dirty politics are not an American invention.  Probably the first cavemen resorted to a club to the back of the head in pursuit tribal leadership.  Americans have however, institutionalized “whatever it takes” politics with university courses in campaigning and as a leading export that follows the American sword.  Even the founding fathers resorted to “spin” and dirty politics with pamphleteers.  The pamphlets of the 18th century had limited circulation but great influence, being directed to an oligarchy since most people couldn’t vote.

Democracy is the true expression of the people, all the people the key being an informed public.  The key to current political campaigning, however, is to prevent that same public from ever becoming informed.

The 18th century pamphleteers would envy today's campaigners' access to TV, Internet, face book, twitter, etc.  Information overload without accountability, images and words fly absence of context, truth or reason.  Negative campaigning has become the norm.  Outrageous charge and counter charge alienate the increasingly disinformed public who votes against candidates rather than for a better choice.  Campaigns are so viscous that there is no post election healing.   Radical right and left seize the agenda, victimizing the public and its will to choose between bad, badder and baddest candidates.

In one respect democracy does live through the available electronic media.  Anyone can jump into a ring from his or her living rooms with ever-wilder rhetoric.  Everyone now gets into the act with debates between candidates for dogcatcher campaign in kinder gardens, the cutest puppy wins.   Ridiculous, maybe but the democratic process is fracture and increasingly fragmented by rhetorical demonization.  Demonized is every idea and moral that differs from that of the power seekers.  A political corruption that legitimizes book burnings, racism, criminal activity and disenfranchises the electorate.  An alienation that legitimizes radicals who point to a one-vote victory as a mandate to continue the erosion of freedoms.

Increasingly the electorate sees the process as corrupt, feel frustrated and deceived.  The democratic process is no longer government of the majority but government of competing minorities responding only to increasing extremism.  The moderate majority is left without voice but must pay the bill. “Taxation without representation,” familiar?

A government of the minority is a government of elected evil with corruption becoming endemic.  Secrecy, deception and cover-up are to tools of the corrupt.   Devoid of ethics and integrity, abuse of power becomes the political norm and the rights of man become a historical footnote.  Elected evil is no less evil, more terrifying than the wicked witch of the west, who may even be a candidate.

It maybe time for the overdue Jeffersonian reforms, another horrifying thought.

Frightening 041610

A new Dark Age is dawning, not in the old European world but rather in the United States.  It is ironic that a country spawned by the age of enlightenment should lead the way to darkness.  Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Adams and others read the works of the ancient thinkers and those of (then) more modern writers.  From their readings they penned some of most liberal philosophical ideas of history.

Some of the works they studied had been lost to the Christian book burnings of the Dark Age.  In another irony, copies of ancient text had been saved by Muslim scholars and secretly by a few independently minded monks.  The monks faced church torture, death and excommunication if their private libraries were discovered.

For hundreds of years the western world lived in befuddle darkness without vision or ideas.  When the Crusaders returned from the holy wars they brought with them Islamic seeds that became great western universities.  A renaissance of ideas began to shine.  It was not an even flowering of ideas as church leader resisted change but book burnings began to decline.

Over the centuries there have been outbreaks of book burnings as oligarchs attempted to stem the flow of ideas.  During the 1930s, in NAZI Germany, bonfires of literature became ritual.  Many works met the flames only because some oligarch listed a title.  Rituals became happenings of excited destruction without reason.

In the 40s and 50s there were isolated book burnings in America as local oligarchy attempted to hold back progressive ideas.  American book burnings never became an inferno, as freedom of ideas was deeply ingrained in the culture.

That was then this is now, recently a Florida woman has begun a campaign to place warning labels on book she considers offensive.  She is supported by a Liberty movement and Christian groups.  Labels will lead to censorship and as this becomes accepted these groups will begin to burn a few books and then whole libraries.  Next will be the courts and constitution, which guarantee freedom of expression.  Independent thoughts will be outlawed, and oligarch dictated correct thought will becomes law as in NAZI Germany.

It is interesting how all such movements assume names like “Liberty and Freedom” and don a cloak of religious faith.  There is a real danger that this slow erosion of freedoms will ultimately tip control to a fascist oligarchy.  There are currently political attempts to censor newspapers, television and the internet.  The political ability to censor is the ability to control a nations’ agenda.  The first principle in staging a coup d'etat is to seize the media, the only message must be that of the conspirators.

Read and consider small ideas, while you can, for there are those seeking to curtail the peoples’ right to think.  The light is dimming, it is time to be frightened of the coming darkness.

Pushing pills 040110

In the 18-century you were old at 30, dead by 40 and the state of medical science was leeches.  Broken bones were crudely splinted but, wounds were often an agonizing end.  Medical science from the east had been condemned by the church and forgotten.

Global warfare during the 19th century greatly advanced medical science and treatment. Experiments on the casualties built a curriculum for new generation of Doctors.  By the beginning of the 20th century these doctors understood how little they really knew about medicine.  Even more brutal wars in foreign lands led these doctors to new insights on saving lives.

By the 21st century technological advances in medicine make it possible to keep even the dead, alive.  Medicine has become big business and everyone must pay for all the pumps, ventilators, medication, bedpans and around the clock monitoring that keep the body technically alive.  Insurance companies are all to ready to pull the plug, while hospitals vote to keep the body alive as long as paitents’ money holds out.  Medical personnel stand ready to recycle poor soul’s parts and drug companies invent a more expensive cocktails that promises to raise the dead.   Med-business tabulates the profits, forecasting population growth as greater prospects for share holders.  The bottom line, the rich get taken, the poor are left in the dust while the middle class goes broke paying Band-Aid freight.

Medical care is on the political agenda this year. Debate centers on the cost and who gets the most Band-Aids.  The lines are drawn, insurance companies (vested interest), drug companies (vested interest), Med-businesses (vested interest), medical personnel (vested interest).  Who represents the injured and ill, not the legislature (vested interest) looking for votes in the fall?

In an affluent and civilized society necessary medical care should be available to all without social bankruptcy.  Debate should really consider what is really necessary care for quality of life.  A broken leg, fix them all.  Civilizations destroying contagious plague, cure them all.  How about a butt lift, or social overhaul while you are unconcious, two operations for one anesthesia, with three you get egg rolls.

There is clearly a need for health care reform but who is best able to draft those reforms, the imperial health care industry or an imperial government?  Neither vested interest is capable of objective resolution of conflicting patient interests.  All proposals raise the cost of treatment and fail to cure the malady.  We are back to the age of leeches now sucking bucks from patients’ wallets.

The medical buzz around a hospital is to have a living will for your treatment. Who do you trust as executor, a government bureaucrat or a Med-business bureaucrat or a prospective heir, maybe even a disinterested stranger walking down the hall?  It’s time for serious debate on quality of life care rather than technical possible care.  

Ownership 0031510

The financial bull is in the china shop.  Both the bull and the shop are now owned by China (PRC).  The United States is not the greatest debtor in the world when consider against its GDP but according to government economist it is the greatest debtor in real dollars.

The problem of economics can be linked to the development of computers, now every theorist can crunch their own favored numbers for favored outcomes.   That said, comparing debt/GDP of the United States’ 54% against China’s 18% indicates a disparity between the two.  America is carrying three times the debt of China.  China is also one of the fastest growing economies at 8.7% GDP while America dropped into negative returns in 2009.  The U.S. projections are that in the next five years its the Debt/GDP ratio will grow between 15 and 45 % depending on who’s numbers are used, but the trend is to greater debt.

There is little wonder then that the Bush administration went to China to borrow operating funds (selling bonds).  China already held massive amounts of American debt and in self-interest had to prop up the dollar.  Still faced with a shaky economy the Obama administration has approached the Chinese about devaluing those bonds by financial manipulation.  China strongly opposes the figurative ten cents on the dollar deal, which makes their good faith investment a bad debt.  Did the U.S. government hire two many Lehman Brothers’ bankers?

Already on a fast track it appears that China will pursue its own economic model.  China is building an economic market that may eventually be closed to U.S. participation.  China’s Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledges that China economy is in transition and fragile.  A massive American default could rip the fabric of growth for a period but the cost to America would be greater.

For most of this century China has been out making friends, providing aid and inking resource agreements around the world.   China has oil agreements with Iraq, Sudan, Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile and is building a pipeline across Afghanistan linking to CAS and Iranian oil fields.   America on the other hand finds an increasing number of oil producers are not friendly either on geo-politics and ideology.  The Bush missteps in attempting to take over friendly oilfields further alienated producers.  America’s history of supporting dissent and encouraging ethnic insurrection in foreign lands while suppressing it at home does not encourage world trust.

In two years seven of the nine seats at the center of Chinese power are up for election.  It is the campaign season in Beijing and reversing the American playbook, nothing looks better for a politician than to be tough on the West.  Expect China to assert itself, it will not step lightly on the world stage.  Chinese memories are long and western exploitation is still fresh in living memories.

GOD Gap 030110

Its official there is a “God Gap” in American foreign policy.  According to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, American foreign policy is handicapped by narrow, ill-informed and "uncompromising Western secularism" that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights.

The Council is not alone in its findings a number of previous government studies support their findings.  Senior scholars have long noted that the government has failed to understand the roll of religion in many parts of the world.  In 1998 Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act making religious freedom a U.S. foreign policy priority.  Of course Congress' focus was only on freedom for Christians.  

Richard Cizik notes that some parts of the world are particularly sensitive to the U.S. government's emphasis on religious freedom and sees it as a form of imperialism.  The current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan began as religious wars of Saintly Christians against Demonic Muslims.  Senior American officers preached that Islam was next to devil worship and invading soldiers desecrated Islamic relics, holy places and insulted religious leaders.  The United States has been slow to adjust to the global role of religion not only in the Middle East but also Latin America, Africa the Far East even to domestic religious turmoil.

Religious warfare is not new.  In 1096ce, 200 years of Catholic Crusading began against Muslims.  Today it is ignored that the Crusaders killed probably more Christians than Muslims.  It is also forgotten that the crusades began because a Roman pope wanted to bring all Christendom under his power and his soldiers wanted only loot.  The eight crusades in the “Holy Land” were followed by brutal crusades across Europe.  Martin Luther put a match to the fuse in 1517 with his (Protestant) thesis leading to French religious wars, and 400 years of Irish warfare that is still on and off.  America was founded with a principle of religious freedom but has been less than free with a history of religious persecution of Indians, Catholics, Jews and any other group not of an accepted Protestant faith.

In the mid 1940s when the issue of Israel and Palestine was being hotly debated at the United Nations, the American ambassador stated he could not understand why the two parties could not sit down as Christian gentlemen and settle their differences.  The Jews and Muslims looked at each other asking how Christians settled disputes and have been killing each other ever since. 

The Council’s report was intended as a call to accept religious differences in foreign affairs.  It is probable however that the religious right will seize on the report as justification of their particular brand of fundamentalism.  The 21st century is in danger of being the century of religious warfare.  A century where all sects invent their own Joan of Arc rallying the fateful to kill for a GOD.

Overloaded 022310

Pundits, executives and politicians have lauded the advent of an information age as the golden advancement of civilization.  Ancient agrarian societies gave way to industrial societies. During the latter half of the 20th century however, advanced industrial societies began to collapse when faced with free market world competition.   Rather than adjust to new dynamics, leaders of developed States heralded the information society where no one worked but all talked, as the savior of their exalted status.

During the Dark Age information was tightly controlled by an oligarchy of clerics and lords.  Information was disseminated from pulpits or shouted out as royal edicts.  This limited information of course supported only the interest of the oligarchy.    There was an information explosion around 1439CE when Gutenberg invented his printing process.   People learned to read priests lost their lock on religion and kings lost their monopoly of governance.  Information advanced ideas; leaders like Martin Luther and Oliver Cromwell led increasingly enlightened populations from the oligarchy’s oppression.

For nearly 500 years the printed word served to free people, the most notable was the 18th-19th century revolutions that freed the west from Old World oppressions.  Small towns had morning and afternoon papers.  Cities had dozens of each with multiple editions and extras that informed.  The printed word advanced science where ideas were shared and built upon.  This information sharing led to inventions of telephones and radio.   Telephones equally served business and gossips and radio provided news and entertainment.  Reality became confused as when Orson Wells broadcast the War of the World and America panicked.  Radio was powerful because it linked the listener’s own imagination to reports. Radio became the ideal instrument for propaganda for people believed what they thought they heard and couldn’t reread its reports. There was still the books and papers for the discussion.

Television sold soap and flipped burgers along with its news and entertainment, blending all into a competing societal misinformation mire.  Now nothing is news unless there are pictures but the pictures don’t go along with the stories and the screen is cluttered with simultaneous advertisements and unrelated notes, charts and crawls.  People who get their news only from TV are less informed than those who received no news.  TV is the toy of politicians, sound bites, photo ops and spin-doctors, dis-information rules. 

Scientific exchange became the Internet now carrying e-chats, twit notes (twitter), personal videos and phones link into a molasses of ignorance.  The hallowed newspapers are closing their doors because increasing numbers of non-readers prefer light shows and entertainment to facts, explanations and reason.  Reason is lost in a stormy sea of contradictions. 

After 600 years the oligarchy of political media masters are again gaining control of the message.  The information age heralds an Orwellian world of an oppressive technological Dark Age.  Obey their message!

Political memory 021810

(from a conversation with old curmudgeon friends)

One of the advantages of age is that we are expected to, and now can afford to, voice our contrarian views.  Age also allows us the advantage of learning to live with ourselves, viewing our actions objectively even while we may continue to act subjectively.  We may not have seen it all, but we’ve seen enough to recognize the past when it comes around again.  Maybe memory loss is not such a bad thing.

The natural enemies of governments are the people governed.  This is true whether we consider State governments, political parties, trade unions or corporate management.  Eventually organizations come to view those governed sole purpose is blind support the governors.  My (country, party, union, company), right or wrong, is still mine, is the march to oblivion. 

America was an experiment of change and innovation.  This questioning of the status quo led to advancements for mankind.  Rejection of the past allowed two bicycle mechanics to fly but even they fell victim to the disease of governors when they attempted to obscure the contributions of others to age of flight.  Finally their small kingdom was steam rolled by greater innovations when they failed to adjust.

Economic adjustment is the challenge that governors are failing to face.  One fact is ignored by parties and people.  Governments have no money, make no money, or advance civilization.  States’ wealth picks the pockets and minds of their populations.  States’ populations are their sole resource. When the cry is to throw public money at a perceived crisis or quite the masses with infusions of government largess, it drains that resource. Debt, public or private, is not a bad thing when it is incurred as and investment in the future to be paid for in timely manner.  Debt incurred by deficit spending (planning to spend more than foreseeable income) for non-essential programs without planning for future payment, burdens future generation with declining standards and negative growth.  Someone must pay and the only ones to pay are the people.  When grandchildren are left to address their ancestors’ follies they are forced into a systemic Dark Age that precedes the rise of new orders.

Great powers are not destroyed but rather rot from the inside till they are no longer able to support their own weight. Governments, parties and corporations could stop their rot but will not as long as their focus is organizational self-interest rather than the real requirements of the people that foot the bills.

Those that govern must face the fact that they exist to serve their publics rather than the other way around.  The bills are now due.  Exploitation of the bill payers has carried the world to a crisis of economic warning that can only get worse without responsible governance.  It is sad that irresponsibility continues to rule politics and business.

I may not remember how it came to pass or I may pass before the final melt down but darkness is on the horizon. Before the question of “can we afford it” must be asked “do we really need it, is there a better way?”  Who will light a lamp?

Nuremberg’s shadow O12810

An ongoing investigation of the United Kingdom’s role in the invasion of Iraq has opened a window into the backstage maneuvers of the governments leading up to the war.  A great many documents are now available for inspection and testimony of leading UK politicians are exposing flawed justifications for the attack on a sovereign nation.

International legal scholars have long held that the invasion was not justified under international law and was in fact contrary to international law and the UN charter.  The Bush administration rejected this position and repeatedly attempted to force the UN to sanction its strike on Iraq.  Seeking allies for its intended course of action the administration resorted to a massive dis-information program to cloak illegality in a fog of known false claims. 

The British inquiry has discovered that legal opinions in the UK also concluded that such action was illegal and based on false claims.  Political pressure was brought to bear on both the intelligence and legal establishment to support Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to side with the Bush administration.  Bush and Blair attempted to coerce a justifying resolution from the UN Security Council but failed.

During the Cold War both America and the Soviet Union generated proxy coups to overthrow sovereign governments.  Direct foreign invasions to effect regime changes however have been acknowledge as illegal since WW II.   No matter how odious and onerous a Saddam Hussein may be no state has the unilateral authority to dispose him. This appears an objective of invasion as Gordon Brown (current Prime Minister) states the attacked lacked plans for reconstruction that would allow Iraq to recover.

Whatever the outcome of the inquiry its ramifications will resonate through international affairs.  While America is a founding member of the UN and its world court, America has repeatedly opted out of their jurisdiction.  Using Nuremberg findings over half a century ago member states have generated a body of laws governing interactions between states.  Although a number of cases have appeared before the world court on these laws, there is now precedent for abrogation of those laws.  Eventually the international community will decide on matters of law and justice.

It is unlikely that the UK inquiry or any future American investigation will produce any immediate clarity or implement international reforms.  Ultimately however shredded documents and “lost” computer drives documentation will become available.  The proliferation of copy machines and electronic mail has resulted in most records surviving political efforts to rewrite a politically acceptable history.  A future change in the international power structure may decide that compliance to international law is important to all states and punish past transgressions.

When it was in its interest America established the precedent that there is no statue of limitations on crimes committed during modern warfare.

NOTE: During his testimony Blair admitted that Saddam’s WMD program and links to al-Qaida were non-existent.   However, he continues to argue that the war was justified because Saddam could not be trusted.  Blair, now serves as peace envoy to the Middle East, stated that Iran now poses a similar danger of WMD and terrorism.  The question is whether Blair has the credibility to drive the UK into another invasion?

Not to smart 011910

With the collapse of the Soviet Union came the end of the cold war.  American neo-conservatives saw this as a great military victory and developed a new international strategy.  This strategy concluded that the United States was so powerful that it could dictate to the world, which had no option but to obey.

The truth however was that the Soviet collapse was not the result of an American military victory but rather the collapse of Soviet central planning economic model.  One that failed to adapt to a new generation of Russians demanding their piece of the pie.

In 2003 political scientist Joseph Nye coined the term “Smart Power” as a counter to advocates of Soft Power and Hard Power.  A country’s soft power includes its culture; values and policies, however it depends on the perceptions of other states that the culture and values are attractive and policies are consistently and legitimate.  Hard power is more easily understood as overwhelming force applied freely.  Smart power requires intuitive analysis of issues and alternative courses, which assist policy makers to align tactics with objectives for more effective strategies.

Bush, ‘the younger’, and his entourage counted regiments concluding that the American strategy should only be applications of hard power.  In the wake of 911 the United States had the opportunity to achieve most of its international objectives through smart power.  Instead the Bush administration unilaterally deployed hard power while demanding other states get on board or become targets.  Oil producers and religions were already on the target list. European and Asian states were insulted, cooperation and support dried up and the administration discovered that it did not have enough regiments for its multiple taskings.   The military became politicized and American foreign policy became a military prisoner, not to smart when seeking international legitimacy and allies.

When an earthquake struck Haiti (011210) America was presented with another opportunity to regain some of the eroded standing.  Here was a purely humanitarian crisis just off the American shore and the United States had experienced crisis teams but instead its military staged an invasion.  The military took over Haiti’s air space and refused landings of other countries’ assistance.  Among them were, international evacuations flights, a complete field hospital “but it was French”, Brazil’s support for it own forces stationed in Haiti. and denied support for third country nationals.  The American Navy had a fleet off shore with medical capabilities but its helicopters were not allowed to pickup casualties.   The Air Force did make a token bomb run on survivors with water and rations in the same manner that failed in Afghanistan.  Not very smart applications of power for a nation facing increasing power competition.

Immense international pressure was brought on military arrogance and the international community finally wrestled control of humanitarian efforts.  The administration is faced with the embarrassment of apologizing to Haitians and insults to others.  It is time to purge the Bush hard-liners from the military and employ some foreign policy smarts.

New kid on the block 011610

The measures of great power have always evolved.  The Romans gained power status by the Roman sword but became a great power by its engineering and legal innovations.  England became a power by naval architecture, becoming great on mercantilism and industrialization.  America rode industrial innovations to power becoming great on its economic stability.  There is a common thread of great powers leveraging past examples to become dominant powers within a single generation.

Great powers aren’t defeated they merely decline in importance to eventual irrelevance.  They decline because they point to their glory and fail to adapt to changing measures of power.  There is a power queue of young and energetic nations on the doorstep of greatness.

China is a leading new kid on the block.  When the American economy melted down China stepped in to take up some of the slack buying more American paper.  This was not altruism; China already held too much American debt to allow that country to free-fall.  When the economy improves expectations are that China will slowly dump American bonds.   China will continue to use its surplus wealth to acquire interest in North American resource suppliers.  In recent years China has been buying interest in resource rich countries either directly or by making national loans in developing countries, with resources serving as collateral.  It now has extensive energy commitments from its western boarder through central Asian the Middle East and across Africa and even drilling right into the Gulf of Mexico.   Oil is not the only resource China is acquiring; Peruvian copper, Congolese cobalt and Canadian aluminum, which now contributes to Chinese industrial growth.

In addition to products, China is exporting engineering expertise and its own formula for economic development.  Leveraging its growing economic strength China is forming partnership deals in developing countries that advances native technology while cementing friendships and markets for Chinese products.  China is also expanding its market research in Asia and producing products surrounding countries want.  Countering American “Buy America” clauses in stimulus packages, China now has 56 free trade agreements with Asian countries making a powerful trading bloc.  In the past Asian market was the West, increasingly intertwined Asian industry is now producing for Asian markets. Companies in countries left out of these trade pacts (the west) could face competitive disadvantages when trying to tap into fast-growing Asian markets.

China, once a victim great power exploitation has learned its lessons well.  Instead of colonial extortion from developing countries China seeks cooperative agreements that mutually aid development as its economy expands, producing another stable world currency.  The western concept of “win, win” situation is we can’t lose; for Asians “win, win” means everyone wins.  The United States can’t fight this trend but it can adapt to new players and cooperative agreements.  The failure to change with the times is the trapdoor to darkness and time is short.

All volunteers 011410

There is an ancient military axiom so old that its origins are lost in pre-history.  The axiom was reinforced during the conscriptions of the military built ups of World War Two when millions of veterans carved the axiom in stone for future generations, “NEVER VOLUNTEER.”

Despite this, back in the good old days of conscripted soldiers there were always plenty of volunteers for cushy jobs, who found themselves peeling potatoes or moving earth with a shovel.  Draftees also volunteered in the thousands for the most dangerous assignments, serving with great distinction and often sacrificing themselves for their flags.

The American military has now been an all-volunteer service for almost 40 years.  The administration had every reason to expect a rush of officer volunteers to become regional experts on Afghanistan when it began to revise the war strategy.  The idea was to establish a corps of 912 from the four armed services to bolster the war effort with specialist who would consider the environment and cultures of Afghanistan and Pakistan for a prolonged conflict.  In almost six months the call for volunteers has only persuaded  172 to sign up.  Of these the Joint Chiefs complained that the services are not providing their “best and brightest.”  The militaries’ spin doctors have produced a number of excuses for the low turnout.  But General McChrystal is quoted as saying that the military must be willing to break traditional career models, meaning breaking the system that has evolved in recent years.

Following the Vietnam debacle the militaries’ “upward mobile” began to transition from “do or die” assignments to those with career political advantages.  During the Rumsfeld era, politically correct team players received preferential promotions for supporting loud fictions.  Soldiers learned the value of spin and equivocation as well as the danger of assignments to losing or dead-end programs.   Their idea of self-interest is to get their ticket punched without sticking around long enough to be linked to negative outcomes.

It appears that after nine years the upward mobile have identified Afghanistan as a career negative.  For nine years the Rumsfeld socialized military stated that it does not need to consult Afghans because they will do as they are told.  The new strategy of asking the Afghans about Afghanistan appears to be military rocket science.  The career minded may well be right Afghanistan is a career killer because it is to little to late.  The administration wants to end the war in the shortest possible time while the polmil wants to keep it going as long as possible.  After all it is the only war they have going.

While the Afghans have long memories of military missteps, the military have an even longer memory of the perils of volunteering.  In the end the military will again volunteer soldiers without influence to fill the positions while the polmil’s “best and brightest” finagle plum assignments out of the line of responsibility and fire.

###

Thus far, the Army has provided 69 volunteers of the 363 positions it has been assigned to fill; the Navy 30 of 183 jobs; the Air Force 45 of 225 positions; the Marines 19 of 63 slots, according to a Pentagon tally.

Evolutions 010610

Ignoring the religious controversies over Darwin’s evolution theories, historical evolution exists.  Historical evolution is alive in the minds of a few remaining centenarians who saw the birth of the 20th century but the full evolution of the 20th century has millions of living witnesses.

One major engine of 20th century evolution was war.  The century suffered from three world wars (one, two and cold) and innumerable border conflicts, ethnic battles and very uncivil wars.  World Wars One and Two unleashed technical innovations that changed how people interact.  They also unleashed the aspirations of the world’s ignored and oppressed people.  The peoples’ evolution was movements to nationalism and freedom from colonial masters.  At the end of World War One all the great nationalist leaders of the century were alive and campaigning for justice. 

There were liberal movements emerging around the world seeking a promised “Self Determination.”  To win allies the great powers promised much liberalization but on victory their interests quickly embraced conservatism.  The liberals wanted change; the conservative wanted the status quo. Each movement was ripped by internal struggles with their “Ultras.”  Ultra liberals demanded ever more and more radical change, while the ultra conservatives sought a return to the glory of supposed idealize pasts that never really existed.  Liberals and conservatives can negotiate, the ultra movements will never agree.  The seeds were sown for the century’s conflicts as old ultra conservatives sought to return the world to 19th century colonial empires. 

Afghanistan again ejected the British and Iraq rejected them in 27 gaining independence in 32.  From the Pacific to the Atlantic the liberal have-nots struggled with the conservative haves.  Into this mix World War Two was rocket science, linking the darkest reaches of the planet with a network of ideas, while leaving piles of technology and weapons.  The conservatives were bankrupt both in money and ideas while the liberals marched to new drums.  The 19th century was dead and the 20th had evolved.  Long suppressed nationalist wars erupted, and the conservative Cold War antagonists chose up sides fighting very hot proxy campaigns.  Evolution of ideas is not pretty nor do all accept change.  Faith also evolved but is resented by the conservative faithful.

The ultra liberal ideas of the 20th century, which brought nationalism and freedom, have proven too much to fast for faithful ultra conservatives.  They seek to reverse evolution returning to a simpler era where ideas can’t challenge their values.  Religious fundamentalists romanticize a view of centuries’ pasts but the genie is out of the bottle.  The past was not as idealized as imagined and a trip back is one of certain disappointment.

Rather than engage in ideological warfare, liberals and conservatives must engage in meaningful evolutionary dialogue of cooperation leading to peace.  Failure to do so in today’s already integrated world will lead to brutal sectarian warfare spawning a global Dark Age.   

New Year 010110

Another decade has passed into history with pundits promising a bright future for the New Year. The reality however is that the past’s unexploded time bombs are one year closer to detonation.

The polar caps are melting, the seas are rising and the earth is becoming hotter. Politicians called a conference, posed for pictures and declared “satisfactory” results. While the seas are deeper they are being fished to barren extinction, farmlands are becoming deserts and forests are turning into urban developments. Energy demands as well as costs are rising as fossil fuel reserves decline. Waste and pollution blankets the globe as people migrate from the land to urban mega centers that demand more resources and produce more pollution. Resources are being depleted at an alarming rate and clean water in those urban centers is in danger of rationing.

Politicians return home, reassuring their publics that a solution is in hand and action will be taken. They then turn problems over to technocrats and return to electioneering. The technocrats have heard it all before, so it is business as usual. They begin to update an action plan for the next administration. Some honestly don’t believe a crisis, any crisis, is a crisis. Others think the situation is unavoidable so why exhaust themselves pursuing placebo proclamations. They believe in their exceptionalism and any crisis will only impact those of lessor worth. The reality is they lack the capacity to adapt and are paralyzed by self-doubts, falling back on collective irresponsibility of anonymous no action.

Most of tomorrow’s explosions are the result of bombs planted by innovations and development of the 19th and 20th century. During that era developed states made many wasteful environmental missteps in their rush to greatness. People fueled the need to grow and grow quickly. Today the populations of great states are aging out of power competition as young populations begin to reach for their own golden power ring.

Conservative estimates are that by mid-century the world population will be over nine billion people. That number hides a growing imbalance of declining population in developed nations and explosive growth in developing states. Across Africa, Asia and Latin America the under 20 year olds form 25 to 45 percent of present populations. These young people are just entering their child bearing and creative years. The old decaying powers serve as a model for their needs and desires as they “want it now” not considering that this attitude planted the seeds of their own future destruction.

Developing states would do well to study the models of the past as a precaution against unplanned development. The great powers of the 21st century will be those that devise innovative ways to do more with less while satisfying the desires of accelerating demands. Innovation must not only solve development challenges but also defuse the environmental bombs left by the great powers of the past.