tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-110103462024-03-13T17:12:14.784-04:00Foreign Policy WatchDiplomatic strategy, international news, and thoughtful political analysisJeb Kooglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06310943064240164001noreply@blogger.comBlogger1443125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-5230648030263179052011-07-01T09:07:00.003-04:002011-07-01T15:26:10.290-04:00A Couple of Brief Thoughts on DSKWell... <a href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/strauss-kahn-case-falling-apart-over-accuser-credibility/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OTB+%28Outside+The+Beltway+%7C+OTB%29&utm_content=Twitter">damn</a>. There's some news for you.<br /><br />Assuming latest reports are true (and given the twists and turns of this affair, that's an important hedge) it looks as though the DSK case may collapse shortly. Current reporting is sketchy, and it's unclear how much evidence about Monsieur Strauss-Kahn's accuser simply undermines her general credibility as a witness and how much undermines the veracity of her specific story (as an aside, seriously, who doesn't know they're being recorded when talking on prison phones? I was empaneled on a felony trial once and the stupidly-incriminating stuff people say in such circumstances is mind-boggling), but it looks like DSK might not be quite the sociopath he initially appeared to be. Might still be (evidence of a sexual encounter is apparently "unambiguous," the notion of it being consensual still seems a bit off to me, and the accumulated evidence that he treats women terribly in general seems beyond contest), but might not. I only mention this because I <a href="http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/bernard-henri-levy-should-be-ashamed-of.html">wrote</a> at the time that Strauss-Kahn was "entitled to legal presumption of innocence and a public that's willing, within reason, to reserve final judgment." So this is me doing that. If he really didn't rape this woman, well, that's awful and he's owed an apology. Also sucks for the French Left, but therein lies the danger of putting all one's eggs in the same basket.<br /><br />As far as I'm concerned, though, the main point of my post - that Bernard-Henri Levi was being a rape apologist asshat and should have been ashamed of himself - doesn't change one iota. Levi was working off the same public reports as everyone else, and his reaction was to hysterically search for reasons why this was everyone's fault but DSK's. That's an attitude that needs to be challenged, and I remain happy to have joined the chorus of people justly calling him out.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Brief Update:</span> To the question of whether any of these new revelations are actually relevant to the incident in question, rather than just the Jury-friendliness of the accuser, the answer seems to be "sort of." <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/01/nyregion/20110701-Strauss-Kahn-letter.html?ref=nyregion">This</a> is the letter from the DA outlining some of the problems. The fact that she cleaned a couple of rooms after the incident, rather than immediately reporting it as originally claimed, raises some plausibility issues; but again, given that sexual contact is basically uncontested, these should be weighed against the plausibility of a hotel maid walking into a room, seeing a sixty-something paunchy stranger in a towel, and saying to herself, "hey, you know what I'm just dying to do right now?..."<br /><br />In any case, barring more twists it seems likely that DSK will be on his way back to France a free man before too long. I hope at a public level their remains some pressure to explain and account for his behavior. I'm not terribly optimistic. And Bernard-Henri Levi is still a dick.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-67094852328739321462011-06-22T21:37:00.002-04:002011-06-22T22:05:29.550-04:00Jerusalem and Israeli SovereigntyPicking up on a thread of conversation in the comments section from <a href="http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2011/06/wanting-foreign-governments-to-have.html">Matt's last post</a>, I want to briefly address the issue of Israel's capital. Matt correctly noted that it is Tel Aviv. This is not under much debate. Israel, of course, still claims that its capital is Jerusalem. But virtually no other country recognizes this claim. As far as I am aware, every single embassy is located in Tel Aviv -- not in Jerusalem. One commenter, objecting to Matt's reference to Tel Aviv, argues that under international law, each sovereign country has the right to "designate its own capital." Okay, sure. But a country's sovereignty is determined by international recognition and Israel's sovereignty -- according to, well, basically everyone -- is not recognized to include exclusive control over Jerusalem. Instead, the territory is contested, considered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_separatum"><span style="font-style: italic;">corpus separatum</span></a>. So, in other words, a country has the power under international law to name its capital city<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">within its legally recognized borders</span>. But if Jerusalem is not considered to be Israel's exclusive sovereign territory, as it almost universally is not, then it can't claim legitimacy under international law in attempting to establish its capital there.Jeb Kooglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06310943064240164001noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-42166291581756232042011-06-13T11:57:00.005-04:002011-06-13T15:21:06.349-04:00Wanting Foreign Governments to Have Different Preferences is Not a Strategy<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vb1aK-PR3Jk/TfZAMJ5pp6I/AAAAAAAAAps/EFus6GbdaIo/s1600/payoff_matrix.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vb1aK-PR3Jk/TfZAMJ5pp6I/AAAAAAAAAps/EFus6GbdaIo/s320/payoff_matrix.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617748162751604642" border="0" /></a>For those who missed them, check out Andrew Sullivan's <a href="http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/06/netanyahus-trap-for-america.html">piece</a> this morning on the bind into which the eventual UN vote on a Palestinian state has put U.S. foreign policy, as well as Josh Foust's <a href="http://www.registan.net/index.php/2011/06/13/the-war-is-a-scandal/?utm_source=wordtwit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wordtwit">post</a> on the inanity of accepting further Friedman unit extensions to the war in Afghanistan. Stepping back a bit from the specifics of each situation, it's notable just how much crucial American policymaking seems to be based on asking/hoping/praying that foreign governments <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/05/19/201051/how-can-borders-israels-defended-in-the-past-be-indefensible/">realign their policy preferences</a> to better sync with U.S. interests. Not their policies, their preferences.<br /><br />In the case of Israel, it's been obvious for decades that unconditional American support for Tel Aviv complicates U.S. policy in the rest of the Middle East, and that some kind of deal on Palestinian statehood is a practical means of dulling the contradiction inherent in America's approach to the situation. In order for that to happen, the Israeli government needs to stop caring about colonizing the West Bank and abandon Greater Israel as a national ideology. And to a certain American liberal point of view, this seems like the only rational course for Israelis who care about preserving the Jewish state. Permanent apartheid is immoral and unsustainable, ethnic cleansing is unthinkable, and granting political rights to everyone between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean would end the Zionist dream. By this logic, American and Israeli preferences ought to align fairly well. The problem is, they don't. For better or worse, Israeli governments of recent decades have made it eminently clear that they prefer to exercise continued control over the West Bank and Gaza. This has been as true for governments of the left as it has been for those of the right (though Labor did flirt with a more sensible policy in the late 1990s). It's clear that Israeli and American preferences just don't align, and hoping for that to suddenly change is not a coherent policy.<br /><br />Likewise with Pakistan. America would like Pakistan to stop caring about the threat posed by India, be less concerned with gaining "strategic depth" in Afghanistan, abandon its quixotic fits over the status of Kashmir, and thus be less inclined to openly and tacitly support Islamic militant groups that complicate American policy. From a certain American liberal point of view, Pakistan isn't going to credibly compete with India for much longer anyway, and Kashmir is a nationalist hobbyhorse that the Pakistanis should stop riding. But, obviously, those in Pakistan's government have different preferences and priorities. And hoping for that to change isn't a strategy.<br /><br />Israel and Pakistan are hardly the only examples of this phenomenon, but at the moment they're the most consequential and illustrative. Not everyone sees the world through American eyes, and not everyone agrees with the American assessment of their strategic and political situation. American policymakers ought to try to <span style="font-style: italic;">understand</span> the preferences of foreign governments and then shape their own policy accordingly (either by using carrots and sticks to encourage other states to reprioritize their goals, or by realigning American relationships). Hoping for others to see the light just won't cut it.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-64543198082909793702011-06-07T11:53:00.002-04:002011-06-07T13:17:04.650-04:00Foreign Policy Pinned<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u_IPz2qFmi4/Te5c-FluxMI/AAAAAAAAApk/w1n0N4Q1fbk/s1600/PinHolgaChessPSq.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 285px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u_IPz2qFmi4/Te5c-FluxMI/AAAAAAAAApk/w1n0N4Q1fbk/s320/PinHolgaChessPSq.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615528007099663554" /></a>I'm not a very good chess player. Charitably, I'll assume it's because I haven't spent enough time in front of a chess board to develop the spatial reasoning and analytical skills necessary to "see" the right move in the manner of more experienced players. That said, I couldn't help but think of the game as I read Dan Murphy's <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0606/The-House-of-Saud-strikes-back">op-ed</a> in the CSM about the Saudi response to the Arab Spring.<br /><br />In chess, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(chess)">pin</a> is "a situation brought on by an attacking piece in which a defending piece cannot move without exposing a more valuable defending piece on its other side to capture by the attacking piece." Having a major piece pinned isn't fun. A well-executed pin can dramatically reduce flexibility, cripple offensive capacity and create all kinds of headaches. So it's worth observing that, through deft use of its petroleum reserves, Saudi Arabia has effectively pinned American foreign policy in the Middle East.<br /><br />The American response to the Arab Spring has been, to use Murphy's term, "conflicted," with protests in different countries perceived and treated differently depending on how crucial their stability is to the architecture of American power and prosperity. The Saudis, who have thusfar forestalled serious domestic challenges to their rule, know their own centrality to American concerns in the Gulf. The American economy is highly dependent on Gulf oil. The colossal trade deficit America has run for much of the last decade is closely related to that dependence. America's short-run economic health is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13338754">exceedingly vulnerable</a> to oil price shocks. Unsurprisingly then, American policymakers have labored for decades to ensure that no single power gains sufficient control over Gulf oil to dictate the terms of continued economic prosperity. One can make a very persuasive case that American Middle Eastern policy as a whole has been misguided; that the U.S. overestimated the importance of allied regimes in places like Egypt and Yemen. When it comes to the Gulf, though, the United States really does have an interest in political "stability" that's difficult to just wave away, even for someone like me who'd really like to. If you disagree, recall the kind of crazy electoral outcomes that economic volatility, moving from an already miserable baseline, can produce ("I, Michelle Marie Bachmann, do solemnly swear..."). <br /><br />So we're left with a situation in which our response to the Arab Spring looks, at best, opportunistic and hypocritical - a means of "managing" regional unrest while still keeping our basic faustian bargains in tact rather than forging sustainable relationships with populations undergoing profound political change. Maybe this is all inevitable, but here's the thing: this pin isn't new. Our strategic vulnerability here has been obvious since the Nixon era. We've had three and a half decades to reconfigure our energy economy and render the Saudi pin irrelevant. Instead, we've <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/01/14/205344/oil-dependence-is-a-dangerous-habit/">left it in place</a>, deciding to manage the problem through expensive military engagement and convoluted political maneuvering that's left the U.S. as strategically vulnerable as ever while sapping it of flexibility and moral legitimacy. <br /><br />I suppose I'm not the only one who's bad at chess.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-26502452405036476042011-06-03T16:49:00.002-04:002011-06-03T17:06:49.522-04:00Quick Hit: German Civil War Reenactors<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CXw_S_ER4Qo/TelM4sI1AuI/AAAAAAAAApY/lB7p5-3SUcg/s1600/virginia-civil-war-reenactment.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CXw_S_ER4Qo/TelM4sI1AuI/AAAAAAAAApY/lB7p5-3SUcg/s320/virginia-civil-war-reenactment.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614102947298607842" /></a>No, I'm not talking about reenacting a German civil war (not sure what that would be - the Thirty Years War maybe?) but about Germans reenacting the American Civil War. Via <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/06/confederate-nostalgia-in-germany/239838/">Coates</a> and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/confederates-on-the-rhine/239724/">Appelbaum</a>, it's apparently <a href="http://www.pri.org/world/germans-love-reenacting-the-american-civil-war4157.html">a thing</a>. Now, in the American context, I'm always a bit ambivalent about Civil War reenacting. I have no problem with the practice per se. You get Revolutionary War reenactors in Massachusetts from time to time, and it seems to be a relatively harmless and fun way of engaging with history. That said, in the context of the Civil War, reenacting is hard to separate from Confederate nostalgia, Lost Cause ideological posturing, and a cultural <i>geist</i> with which I'm... uncomfortable to say the least.<br /><br />The PRI article reports/speculates that reenacting has an appeal in Germany because of the post-WWII discomfort with other types of war fantasy. Again, that's fine as far as it goes. But if war fantasy is culturally <i>verboten</i> because of Germany's legacy of fighting destructive wars in the name of morally outrageous, racist ideologies, it's a bit unsettling that they seem to mostly want to play the Confederates. Just sayin'.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-85205229910561533872011-06-02T11:14:00.003-04:002011-06-02T15:28:10.654-04:00An Immodest Proposal for Better Primaries<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2ovr11sEa0s/TefkRKTtUtI/AAAAAAAAApQ/eh2qEiAUEQ0/s1600/800px-Countyelection.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 228px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2ovr11sEa0s/TefkRKTtUtI/AAAAAAAAApQ/eh2qEiAUEQ0/s320/800px-Countyelection.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613706444016538322" /></a>As long as we're in a period of semi-dormancy here at FPW, allow me to veer off topic and into domestic politics a bit. With the coming of yet another presidential election cycle, we're starting to get a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/business/economy/01leonhardt.html?_r=1&ref=politics">smattering</a> of <a href="http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2011&base_name=should_iowa_and_new_hampshire">commenters</a> <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/02/233104/how-iowa-and-new-hampshire-primaries-undermine-democracy/">pointing out</a> the absurdity of America's primary election system. This kind of critique went into overdrive during the 2008 campaign, when the Clinton-Obama clash let to an unusually long and intense primary season, but it doesn't take an expert in electoral systems to realize that making Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina the main arbiters of presidential viability is strange and perverse. Also, as Gail Collins did yeoman's work <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/opinion/08collins.html">pointing out</a> on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/opinion/03collins.html">several</a> occasions, caucuses are stupid, their aesthetic charm notwithstanding. And the primary season is incomprehensibly long. Especially when one considers that the actual contest is generally decided by Super Tuesday. Except when it isn't. Then it drags on through June. Bottom line: the current system disenfranchises a sizable chunk of the country, under-represents urban areas, creates weird incentives for candidates, and generally doesn't make a lick of sense.<br /><br />Substantially reforming it, obviously, would take considerable political muscle. And were somebody inclined to put organizational resources into reforming our electoral institutions, I'd prefer they focus on more important things, like <a href="http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2009/11/reconceiving-democracy.html">eliminating the Senate</a>. That said, as a thought experiment, it's worth considering what a rational primary system would look like within America's current representative architecture (as an aside, I like Matt Yglesias's <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/06/01/233254/move-the-new-hampshire-primary-to-massachusetts/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+matthewyglesias+%28Matthew+Yglesias%29">idea</a> of moving the New Hampshire primary to Massachusetts, but that's because my ideal form of government would be a global empire with Boston at its epicenter, not because it would be fair). To my mind, it ought to be possible to integrate the advantages of the current primary schedule into a system that mitigates many of its flaws. The short version: start small, get progressively bigger.<br /><br />Imagine that instead of different states' primaries/caucuses being spread out in arbitrary clusters across a five-month period, there were regular primary elections every two weeks, starting with the smallest states and moving to the largest. For argument's sake, break the fifty states up into five groups of ten, with the ten smallest voting first, the next ten voting two weeks later, then the next ten two weeks after that, etc.* The basic structure could be tweaked, but you get the idea. Start with the small states where lesser-known candidates could still engage in retail politics and plausibly compete with their better-funded rivals (this, by the way, is the only legitimate advantage I can discern in the current system), then progressively move to the larger states where money/organization/media coverage matter more and more. Early victories by dark horse entrants would give them a chance to exploit increased funding and media coverage as the race rolls on, but without prematurely crowning a winner after only a few contests. Furthermore, because the largest ten states make up a combined 53.3% of the U.S. population, the overall race probably wouldn't be <i>decided</i> until the final votes, meaning that everyone's vote would matter. Along the way, you'd get a reasonably decent spread of rural and urban states voting at the same time, though the early primaries would skew more rural than the later ones. And the whole thing would be over in two or three months, not five or six, and we could all move on to the general election.<br /><br />Finally, I'm reasonably sure this could be implemented via an inter-state agreement along the lines of the one being considered for a <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2011/05/national_popular_vote029726.php">national popular presidential vote</a>. Heck, it might even be politically possible, since basically every state that isn't Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina would see their electoral influence increase. And we'd end up with a system that gave voters meaningful choice while conferring greater democratic legitimacy on the eventual nominee.<br />_____________<br />*Yes, I realize there are other entities that also vote in primaries, including my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_DC">once and future home</a>. This is a thought experiment. Just go with it.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-51643123602382286432011-06-02T08:25:00.002-04:002011-06-02T08:29:53.179-04:00HousekeepingAs a quick note, we're currently doing the legwork of getting the new site up and running. It will be amazing and stupendous and surpass everything you ever thought FPW could be. But it also means that time we would usually spend blogging is now being spent revamping the site. So posting will continue to be sporadic at best for a week or so.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-57153304947230202242011-05-25T10:22:00.002-04:002011-05-25T10:34:15.359-04:00Quick Hit: Maybe I Was Too CynicalBack in January, in response to some of the initial unrest in Tunisia, I <a href="http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/prosecuting-leaders.html">wrote</a> that formal prosecutions of Middle Eastern autocrats struck me as unlikely. Reasoning from recent international and domestic precedents, the necessarily incomplete nature of most revolutions, the complicity of key state institutions in pre-revolutionary regimes, and the self-preservation instinct among nations' elites, I guessed that we wouldn't see much in the way of formal legal proceedings. Show trials/assassinations maybe, but not legal action. Well, the Egyptians have exposed me as too cynical. Not only is Mubarak <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/middleeast/25egypt.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=mubarak&st=cse&gwh=C23F8A43DC7E1D8AC9DB7AFD5D51A61D">being prosecuted</a>, but he's being prosecuted by the very people he put into office. Rule of law and all that. Nice when the world offers up a pleasant surprise for a change.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-86447379281881985742011-05-24T10:48:00.003-04:002011-05-24T13:13:54.768-04:00Stuxnet as an Act of War?Eric Martin has a <a href="http://progressiverealist.org/blogpost/was-stuxnet-worm-act-war-united-states-against-iran">quick piece</a> over at the Progressive Realist arguing that, by the standards of America's own cyber doctrine, the Stuxnet attack on Iran's Natanz facility was an act of war. While the internationally-accepted legal definition of "acts of war" <a href="http://www.iwar.org.uk/law/resources/iwlaw/Ellis_B_W_01.pdf">remains murky</a>, Martin seems basically correct here. This was a premeditated attack against a piece of physical Iranian infrastructure. If the shoe were on the other foot, I'd certainly think a military response from the United States would be worth considering. It's also worth reiterating, though, that states commit "acts of war" against each other all the time, usually without leading to open armed conflict. Much of what states' intelligence apparatuses do on a regular basis constitute acts of war. During the 1950s the U.S. regularly violated Soviet airspace with U2 spy planes. During the 1980s the CIA used a logic bomb to sabotage a Soviet gas pipeline (though admittedly the Soviets were stealing the technology in the first place). American submarines violate the territorial waters of other nations for espionage purposes. Heck, the American Congress openly debates giving money to insurgent groups that have the express intent of overthrowing internationally recognized regimes. I'm reasonably sure any of the above scenarios could plausibly be labeled acts of war. Never mind the Bin Laden raid.<br /><br />None of this implies that such behavior should be taken lightly. Certainly American leaders should be careful about the international norms they <a href="http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/quick-hit-assassination.html">unwittingly establish</a>. And Martin's got a point that "perhaps government officials should be more circumspect and less glib about implying official involvement." Still, this seems to be one of those areas where sovereignty inevitably bends to the realities of power. Stuxnet may have been an act of war, but it's one with a long pedigree.<div><br /></div><div><b>Update</b>: For a more thorough exposition of some of the issues with conventional retaliation to a cyber attack, check out Jason Healey's <a href="http://bit.ly/iDeh1d">latest at New Atlanticist</a>.</div>Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-39371183950234334092011-05-21T10:34:00.003-04:002011-05-21T10:44:50.335-04:00Poor Thought Process Mr. HuntsmanI'm still not entirely sure what path John Huntsman sees to the Republican nomination. After spending two years as the Obama-appointed ambassador to China, he'll have to be pretty radioactive to most of the Republican base. That said, politics is strange, so why not? The <i>Times</i> has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/us/politics/21huntsman.html?hp">short piece</a> this morning profiling his initial run through New Hampshire. Huntsman does indeed project as an "adult," which is nice, and he's clearly aware that the deficit is going to be the issue to flog this election cycle. Still, this seems fairly bassackwards:<br /><blockquote>He rarely mentioned Mr. Obama’s name — and issued a call for civility — but he offered criticism of the president’s decision to intervene in Libya, saying that future military engagements should be carefully weighed based on their financial cost.<br /><br />"It’s an affordability issue," Mr. Huntsman said. "With all of our deployments and all of our engagements abroad, we need to ask a fundamental question: Can we afford to do this? That should be driven by the second point, which is whether or not it’s in our national security interest."</blockquote>No. Wrong. The <i>first</i> question you ask is whether a war is in our national security interest. Cost falls somewhere in that calculation, but myopic focus on cost is a terrible way to make foreign policy. Also, for what it's worth, the Libya war hasn't appeared to be much of a financial drain, especially since we're sensibly allowing other NATO members to do some real heavy lifting. There's plenty to criticize about Libya, but cost is pretty far down the list.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-61401859734413003302011-05-19T11:13:00.003-04:002011-05-19T17:19:32.781-04:00Identity Matters: Thoughts on Quebec Nationalism<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mw85dBt3RwE/TdWJV9eZurI/AAAAAAAAApA/11cMXyTNGhg/s1600/250px-Flag_of_Quebec.svg.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 167px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mw85dBt3RwE/TdWJV9eZurI/AAAAAAAAApA/11cMXyTNGhg/s320/250px-Flag_of_Quebec.svg.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608539921332157106" /></a>I don't have many regrets from my undergraduate days. Would've been nice to go skiing a bit more often. Kind of wish I'd spent some time in Quebec City. And the fact that I couldn't pen a decent response in the <i>McGill Daily</i> to <a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/jewish-like-me-by-jesse-rosenfeld">this piece</a> of vapid intellectual masturbation still sticks in my craw. All told, though, a very satisfying experience. That said, the fact that I made it through seven semesters studying IR and Comparative Politics without once taking a course with <a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/politicalscience/faculty/saideman/">Stephen Saideman</a> is just inexcusable. Luckily for both my sense of nostalgia and future intellectual development, he has a <a href="http://saideman.blogspot.com/">blog</a>. Read it. It's quite good.<br /><br />Today he points out a <a href="http://saideman.blogspot.com/2011/05/yoda-on-nationalism.html">few instances</a> of Quebec nationalist political practice that move into pretty nasty territory. The initial salvo was evidently fired by a (presumably non-sovereigntist) group protesting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language">Bill 101</a>. The <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-inUICT1JdiQ/TdUAfUiYH_I/AAAAAAAAAsA/-7Q9Ms5IfVs/s1600/si-anti-b101-220.jpg">organizing poster</a> referred to Pauline Marois (head of the sovereigntist Parti Quebecois, not to be confused with the Bloc Quebecois that just got eviscerated in national elections) as "Kebekistan's White Mugabe," shows a picture of a noose, and just for good measure says "Hang Pauline Marois for humanity's sake!" Some people <i>really </i>don't like looking at French websites. In response, a representative from the Michigan-militia-esque Patriotic Militia of Quebec allegedly threatened one of the protest organizers with death. In other words, everyone involved is comporting themselves with dignity and class.<br /><br />As Saideman notes, this is noteworthy precisely because, apart from a few unpleasant incidents in the 1960s, the movement for Quebec sovereignty has been remarkably free of violence. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLQ">FLQ</a> was pretty tepid as far as violent revolutionary groups go (not to discount the very real suffering caused by some of their tactics), and as passionate as some Quebecois remain over the issue of sovereignty, the overall movement seems to have steadily lost momentum since its mid-nineties apex. To me, this raises a few thoughts and questions. First, the trajectory of Quebec nationalist politics would seem (at least superficially) to support the idea that sub-state national movements are essentially reactive responses to modern state building, wherein the construction of robust state apparatuses threatens to rob a minority group of its own means of cultural reproduction, and sovereignty is demanded as a remedy. What makes the Quebec case so interesting is how pliable the Canadian state was willing to be to placate nationalist demands (hence Bill 101 and its sundry accompaniments). This strategy appears to have paid off in cooling the intensity of sovereigntist demands.<br /><br />The second, somewhat more worrying question is whether there might be an uptick in Quebec nationalist violence (or at least violent, confrontational rhetoric) in the coming decades, as it becomes clear to the remaining hardcore sovereigntist population that their demands won't be realized through Parliament or the ballot box. Those being left behind by history are seldom quiet about it. More food for thought.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-91978605340121613842011-05-18T14:15:00.003-04:002011-05-18T16:11:04.230-04:00Readings on Civil-Military Relations<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7MdlUCib-Q/TdQneTIJwXI/AAAAAAAAAo4/Yb5PXlxdCu0/s1600/taylor.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 194px; height: 259px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7MdlUCib-Q/TdQneTIJwXI/AAAAAAAAAo4/Yb5PXlxdCu0/s320/taylor.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608150837467136370" /></a>If anyone has been missing <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/">Disunion</a>, the <i>New York Times</i>' ongoing series chronicling the breakup of the Union on the eve of the Civil War, they should stop missing it. It's a fantastic reminder that the road from <i>Dredd Scott</i> to Bull Run was more complicated than "Lincoln's elected - lock and load!" (though come to think of it that's a remarkably accurate account of some quarters' response to a more recent presidential contest). In any case, today's <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/a-legacy-of-insubordination/">installment</a> addresses the state of civil-military relations in the decades leading up to the war, noting that, owing partly to the Founding Fathers' distaste for a professional standing army, the American military of the early nineteenth century was, well, less professional. Its commanders were overtly politicized, willing to play fast and loose with mandates from civilian officials, and not especially respectful of what most Americans would now recognize as the proper limits to military authority.<br /><br />It's an interesting piece to read in conjunction with Jonathan Stevenson's <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/05/0083401">piece</a> (paywall) from May's <i>Harpers</i> worrying that the military has slowly expanded its portfolio to include America's overall strategic posture, traditionally the province of civilians. <a href="http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2010/10/our-ongoing-civil-military-crisis-the-milburn-edition.html">Michael Cohen</a> and <a href="http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/29/richard_kohn_fires_a_warning_flare_about_a_joint_force_quarterly_article">Richard Kohn</a>'s responses to Andrew Milburn's JFQ <a href="http://www.ndu.edu/press/breaking-ranks.html">Article</a> "Breaking Ranks: Dissent and the Military Professional" are also worth a look. I don't agree with everything Cohen and Kohn write. In particular, I think Cohen's concerns about a military coup are overblown, even over the long term. All evidence is that the American military continues to inculcate an ethic of Constitutional constraint and civilian control. Stevenson's concerns about a <i>coup d'esprit</i> seem closer to the mark.<br /><br />The overall point one gleans from these accounts, though, is that civil-military relations are never static, and are driven by a complex interaction of norms, institutional strength and political circumstance. The comparatively unprofessional military of the early nineteenth century wasn't the cancer on the Republic that it might otherwise have been because the U.S. at the time wasn't an especially militarized society (though certainly one interested in conquest). Armies were raised on a situational basis, and there were limits to the military's institutional clout in Washington, its economic weight, and thus its overall political power. Today, we have a highly professional military, but one kept permanently in place, robustly funded, globally deployed, and usually fighting. And it's been that way for six decades. And probably will be for several more. In this context, I'd be surprised if the political neutrality of the military <i>didn't</i> begin to degrade, just as a matter of institutional math.<br /><br />Again, the concern here isn't that some latter-day Caesar will cross the Rubicon and topple the Republic. Neither such malice nor such drama are necessary. The concern is that a defense establishment acting as a de-facto fourth branch of government will achieve practical control over the basic structure of American foreign policy, relegating to civilian authorities only its most superficial and theatrical elements. Food for thought.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-40602751925800195862011-05-18T10:38:00.003-04:002011-05-18T10:44:02.715-04:00Quick Hit: Stay Classy Gainesville TimesI must say, if I were the editor of a local news organization and some wingnut wrote me a letter advocating ethnic cleansing in the United States, I'd probably decline to publish said letter. The good people at the Gainesville Times evidently have <a href="http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/225/article/50387/">different standards</a>.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-87785774942380708692011-05-17T10:45:00.002-04:002011-05-17T11:37:45.997-04:00Bernard-Henri Levy Should be Ashamed of Himself<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uBKxqUJZ2fI/TdKV1HUD8mI/AAAAAAAAAow/gDQt1bMnYlw/s1600/levi.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 148px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uBKxqUJZ2fI/TdKV1HUD8mI/AAAAAAAAAow/gDQt1bMnYlw/s320/levi.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607709225758487138" /></a>Look, I get that when someone you know/admire/respect comes under public fire, there's a natural instinct to take their side, to look for exculpatory evidence, to give credence to conspiratorial imaginings and to look for someone else to blame. I saw plenty of this during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and (less forgivably) during the more recent dustups over Roman Polanski and Julian Assange. There's a bit of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoeless_Joe_Jackson#Black_Sox_scandal">say it ain't so Joe</a>" in all of us, no doubt magnified when the political consequences of a scandal have measurable effects on the lives of millions of actual people. It's part of being human and imperfect and having connections and affinities with other people who are human and imperfect.<br /><br />So I've attempted to read Bernard-Henri Levy's <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-16/bernard-henri-lvy-the-dominique-strauss-kahn-i-know/">reaction</a> to the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn with a measure of charity and understanding. Mr. Levy makes that exceedingly difficult. He engages in damn near every victim-blaming, rape apologist trope that he can find. Presumption of innocence! What was this woman doing cleaning a hotel room <i>by herself</i>? The American justice system is barbaric! They were allowed to <i>take his picture</i> looking like that; the poor man. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has indeed been "thrown to the dogs." Think of his wife and <i>her</i> exposure to the "slime of a public opinion drunk on salacious gossip and driven by who knows what obscure vengeance." And this other woman who "pretends to have been the victim of the same kind of attempted rape" is clearly just piling on the lies. Most of all, he's a good man. He just wouldn't <i>do </i>this! It's simply "absurd."<br /><br />I'm sorry, but no. Mr. Strauss-Kahn is entitled to legal presumption of innocence and a public that's willing, within reason, to reserve final judgment. False accusations of sexual assault do happen. Ask anyone who plays Lacrosse for Duke. Mr. Strauss-Kahn, though, has been credibly accused of a very serious crime. The fact that he's a big deal in France (and in the U.S. for that matter) doesn't entitle him to sexually assault people without consequence. It doesn't entitle him to be spared the indignities of a perp walk like any other criminal (and for what it's worth, as Matt Yglesias points out on twitter, accused criminals actually have more robust rights in the United States than they do in France). Commentators are free to lament the political consequences of the situation. They're free to request that people reserve judgment. They're free to point out that, in other aspects of his life, Mr. Strauss-Kahn maybe isn't such a bad guy.<br /><br />They ought not, though, diminish the severity of the crime of which he's accused. They ought not search for some reason why maybe it's the victim's fault. They ought not dismiss previous accusations as outright lies without reason. They ought not hold up Mr. Strauss-Kahn's wife as a trophy to demonstrate that, really, they care about women. They ought not reach for conspiracies or try to deflect blame or unreasonably defame law enforcement for doing their jobs. They ought not, in other words, join the still-too-large, still-too-loud chorus of people who reflexively diminish the horrific realities of sexual assault in the name of protecting its perpetrators. Mr. Levy counted himself among that chorus today, and he ought to be ashamed.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-53201302071227989272011-05-13T12:58:00.002-04:002011-05-13T13:04:42.049-04:00Housekeeping: Blogger is AwfulBlogger, it would seem, senses that FP Watch will soon be moving to a hosting service and content management system that doesn't suck at life. Out of spite, it <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20062428-93.html">decided to shut down</a> for more than a day and take the last couple of posts with it. Apologies to anyone following broken links in the meantime . Believe me, you're not half as annoyed about the interruption as we are.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-58328468389534073272011-05-12T11:45:00.000-04:002011-05-13T16:26:47.749-04:00Quick Hit: Abuminah on PADICOI don't share Ali Abuminah's reflexive skepticism toward the very concept of a Palestinian state, nor do I generally share his perspective on the evils of "neoliberal" economics (I hate the imprecision of that term in particular). I'm also willing to grant that state-building means concentrating capital and, historically speaking, that tends to be an elite-driven process, not a democratic one. That said, his <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/pa-and-privatization-palestine">criticisms</a> of the Palestinian Development and Investment Company, and the lack of transparency, potential for cronyism, and inherent conflicts of interest therein, are worth a read.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-11105983842040462412011-05-11T13:47:00.001-04:002011-05-13T12:58:23.641-04:00Does the U.S. Need a Peer Competitor?Because of Blogger is bad at basically everything, this post was inexplicably deleted. I have no desire to rewrite it, but you can find it over at the <a href="http://progressiverealist.org/blogpost/does-u-s-need-peer-competitor">Progressive Realist</a>.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-64857939099458469402011-05-10T14:00:00.004-04:002011-05-10T14:41:36.007-04:00Sometimes you Can't Revert to Neutral Principles<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--YyuH1RiU7g/TcmGvZzrF_I/AAAAAAAAAog/wcx8l69GXYM/s1600/CUNYlogo06.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--YyuH1RiU7g/TcmGvZzrF_I/AAAAAAAAAog/wcx8l69GXYM/s320/CUNYlogo06.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605159360178886642" /></a>Stanley Fish had a <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/the-kushner-flap-much-ado-about-nothing/">piece</a> yesterday addressing the <a href="http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/yeah-its-question-thats-offensive.html">CUNY-Kushner controversy</a>. As seems to be his wont, Fish argues that, contrary to some claims, CUNY's denial of an honorary degree to Kushner doesn't violate academic freedom or the spirit of open intellectual inquiry or any other duty of the University or its board, and that the balance of the controversy has been "beside the point." I actually agree with a large amount of what Fish writes in the piece, but in his never-ending quest to perfectly circumscribe and separate professional, social and political duty and discourse, Fish misses something important; namely, that sometimes circumstances allow for no other course but to <i>actually take a position on the issue at hand</i>. <br /><br />To get at what I mean, I'll spell out a few areas in which Fish's analysis is right on. First, "academic freedom" is not really relevant to the debate. Kushner's not CUNY faculty, and nobody's contemplating firing him from anywhere because of anything he's written or published in an academic context. Second, the CUNY board is perfectly within its rights (indeed, I'd argue, within its duties) to take into account the totality of Kushner's public statements and persona before bestowing upon him an honor that is entirely the university's privilege to grant. It's the specific nature of and reasoning behind the decision it made that now has CUNY looking, in Prof. Fish's words, "small-minded, biased and stupid." Finally, the issue has very little to do with free speech as a larger principle. I doubt even the most ardent free speech absolutists would argue that nobody should ever face any negative social or economic consequences for making public statements about controversial issues. <br /><br />Here, though, is where I part company with Professor Fish. CUNY, along with a host of other academic and cultural institutions, <i>does</i> play a role in setting the proper boundaries of public discourse. By denying Mr. Kushner an honorary degree because of Kushner's political statements, CUNY has implicitly declared those statements to be beyond the bounds of acceptability. There's nothing wrong with doing that in principle. If someone were to propose giving David Duke an honorary degree because, in some parallel universe, he'd made contributions to theoretical physics or something, I would hope that honor would be denied because Duke's public activism around race is beyond the plane of moral acceptability. No self-respecting institution ought to associate itself with the man. And it's precisely through such actions that the moral arc of the universe bends. Ideas move from being commonplace to controversial to repellent when there are social costs imposed for expressing them. <br /><br />The problem here isn't that CUNY did or didn't step outside its mandate. The problem is that its board made a poor decision about specific statements made on a specific issue. That's not to say that granting Kushner the degree would have given his ideas the University's seal of approval. It is entirely reasonable to disagree with someone while recognizing that their ideas fall within the bounds of reasonable discourse. Put bluntly, discomfort with Zionism is reasonable. It's not always correct, at least not in my view, but it's reasonable. For an institution like CUNY to implicitly declare otherwise does violence to healthy public debate. Making such declarations falls entirely within the social role that major universities play. CUNY ought to play that role better, and Stanley Fish ought not pretend that it's all no big deal.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-83166581965185285872011-05-10T08:32:00.002-04:002011-05-10T08:36:45.970-04:00HousekeepingA couple of notes. First off, the new site, bigger and better and upgraded in every way, will be up soon. Really. We promise. Meanwhile, I've surrendered the last vestiges of my soul to the digital world and am now on Twitter. Those inclined can follow me <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/MattEckel">@MattEckel</a>. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-17837634927182852092011-05-06T09:55:00.002-04:002011-05-06T10:10:16.858-04:00Yeah, it's the Question that's OffensiveSome readers have no doubt heard about the dustup caused when CUNY <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/nyregion/cuny-blocks-honor-for-tony-kushner.html?_r=1&ref=arts">declined</a> to give a planned honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner based on the objections of board member Jeffrey Weisenfeld. Mr. Weisenfeld evidently objected to some of Kushner's comments about Israeli policy, none of which (or at least none that I've run across) step outside the bounds of reasonable debate. Here's <a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/05/on_tony_kushner">Walt</a> on the issue, and here's <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/give-tony-kushner-his-award-dammit/238412/">Jeffrey Goldberg</a>. Well, Jim Dwyer has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/nyregion/opponent-of-honor-for-tony-kushner-criticizes-palestinians.html?scp=1&sq=Wiesenfeld&st=cse">brief interview</a> with Weisenfeld in this morning's <i>New York Times.</i> I'll let the text speak for itself:<br /><blockquote>I tried to ask a question about the damage done by a short, one-sided discussion of vigorously debated aspects of Middle East politics, like the survival of Israel and the rights of the Palestinians, and which side was more callous toward human life, and who was most protective of it.<br /><br />But Mr. Wiesenfeld interrupted and said the question was offensive because “the comparison sets up a moral equivalence.”<br /><br />Equivalence between what and what? “Between the Palestinians and Israelis,” he said. “People who worship death for their children are not human.”<br /><br />Did he mean the Palestinians were not human? “They have developed a culture which is unprecedented in human history,” he said.</blockquote>"Dehumanization" usually refers to a subtle process by which people's humanity is implicitly degraded and erased. Nothing subtle here though.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-60178323868318050032011-05-05T10:55:00.002-04:002011-05-05T10:57:07.279-04:00Quick Hit: Othering the President AbroadNoam Sheizaf <a href="http://www.promisedlandblog.com/?p=3888">notes</a> that elements of the Israeli media have picked up on a long-standing American conservative tactic to rhetorically delegitimize President Obama.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-51673565383475758482011-05-03T18:59:00.002-04:002011-05-03T19:33:52.731-04:00Alma Mater, er, Canadian Election News<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HuwTGsaPjG4/TcCQrQQG1VI/AAAAAAAAAoY/MSQKBYrRJME/s1600/Mcgilllogo.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 306px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HuwTGsaPjG4/TcCQrQQG1VI/AAAAAAAAAoY/MSQKBYrRJME/s320/Mcgilllogo.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5602637009220195666" /></a>So, in addition to royal nuptuals and dead terrorists, the big news of the past few days has been the Canadian election. The most significant part of this story is that my alma mater, McGill, <a href="http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2011/05/four-mcgill-students-elected-to-parliament/">won</a>. <br /><br />The second takeaway is that Steven Harper's Conservatives now have a Parliamentary majority, which no party has held in Canada for seven years. This has some Canadians going a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/canada-stephen-harper-american-politics">bit ballistic</a>, as though Pat Buchanan's twin was suddenly granted sole imperium over all provinces and territories. Much as I've never been a fan of Harper, my guess is that the actual results will be considerably milder than some of the worst progressive predictions. That, for what it's worth, is pretty much what Harper is <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/tories-wont-make-radical-change-with-majority-harper-vows/article2008409/">saying</a> as well. <br /><br />The third takeaway, for anyone who still needs to be convinced of this, is that single-member district plurality voting is a really terrible, outdated way of aggregating electoral preferences. The Conservatives picked up a fairly significant parliamentary majority with just shy of 40% of the total vote. The two parties to Harper's left - the Liberals and the New Democrats - grabbed most of the rest, with the NDP surging in Quebec and basically eliminating the Bloc Quebecois from Federal contention, at least for now. Because plurality rules, though, plenty of seats went to the Conservatives in ridings where the median voter's ideological profile is more liberal/leftist. This wouldn't have happened if all Canadian voters displayed <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/04/tactical-voting-dilemmas-highlight-the-case-for-good-polling-and-election-analytics/">perfect riding-by-riding strategic rationality</a>, but that's not a reasonable thing to expect of any populace, so democratic reformers ought to look seriously at implementing some other kind of system. I haven't thought hard enough about this to suggest what that ought to be (I'm also not Canadian, and Lord knows here in the 'States we have our own absurd electoral architecture that's groaning for burial), but at first blush some kind of proportional representation system aggregated by province, or perhaps some kind of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method">Condorcet method</a> within ridings, would seem appropriate. <br /><br />But back to what's important. Go McGill!Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-59497287524355605622011-05-03T13:43:00.004-04:002011-05-03T14:10:46.493-04:00Will Bin Laden's Death Erase the "Weak Democrats" Stereotype? Don't Bet on itPeter Beinart is <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-03/osama-bin-laden-killing-erases-democrats-and-obamas-weakness-stereotype/?cid=hp:mainpromo2#">brimming with confidence</a> that the killing of Osama Bin Laden "has greater potential to change the Democratic Party’s reputation on national security than any single event since Vietnam," arguing that Obama's decision to strike Bin Laden's compound "erases the enduring stereotype of Democrats as weak politicians who won't use force."<br /><br />Count me skeptical. <br /><br />As Beinart himself points out, the key pillars of this narrative are largely baseless in any case. Democratic Presidents since Vietnam (or, actually, since the Red Scare of the 1950s, when the "Democrats are soft on national security" trope first reared its head) have not been especially reluctant to use force, nor have they been notably more or less successful than their Republican counterparts in deploying it (Iran under Carter and Somalia under Clinton were indeed SNAFUS, but Clinton's interventions in Haiti and Balkans ended reasonably well for the U.S., and I struggle to think of a military debacle that could top Bush's invasion of Iraq). The stereotype of Democrats as "weak" isn't rooted in empirical reality. It's rooted in post-Vietnam conservative identity politics, and is accepted as axiomatic. Because Democrats stand for the dilution of the value system on which American strength rests, they're "weak" by definition. When they employ force, it's either for "humanitarian" reasons unworthy of our fighting men and women, or it's unduly hobbled and constrained by half-baked liberal notions of multilateralism and respect for international institutions. Either way, Democrats are wusses.<br /><br />That this narrative doesn't mesh well with reality isn't relevant. It's unifying, powerful, and can explain away variation without demanding that its adherents reexamine their core beliefs and prejudices. Bin Laden's killing might - <i>might</i> - briefly reduce this narrative's rhetorical power outside of conservative circles, but I wouldn't count on it being eclipsed. It's burrowed far too deeply into America's political consciousness.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-60418877044124355352011-05-02T11:23:00.002-04:002011-05-02T11:28:17.062-04:00Response FailI'm sure Hamas's public reaction to Bin Laden's death is being driven primarily by domestic considerations, particularly given the flak it's taken from some quarters for cutting a deal with Fatah, but if the group was hoping to gain tacit American acceptance of said deal, <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/idINIndia-56711220110502">this</a> is a really terrible way of doing so.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11010346.post-20072465700932036462011-04-28T10:18:00.002-04:002011-04-28T10:20:39.799-04:00Quick Hit: The Political Economy of the EmpireIf any unreformed Star Wars geeks out there haven't seen this yet, well, <a href="http://www.overthinkingit.com/2011/04/25/star-wars-death-star-economics/">they should</a>.Matt Eckelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01521606439967262492noreply@blogger.com0