The Submission Drive

Humans have a drive for social and intellectual submission, which is extremely dangerous.

There was a time when psychological "drives" were all the rage. The idea that humans have instincts much as other animals do was just entering the scientific consciousness, so finding and classifying them was an important task- the great work of figuring out the human unconscious, or subconscious. Drives for food, security, sex, dominance, and much else were found. Freud even elaborated a "death drive". But our current political epoch suggests another one- a submission drive.

To an independent minded scholar and skeptic, the behavior on the Republican side of the political spectrum is revolting. Falling all over themselves to fawn over a narcissistic megalomaniac? Check. Thinking nothing of flagrant corruption that makes Warren Harding look like a choir boy? Check. Explaining away gross incompetence and pointless cruelty across the entire policy space from economics to foreign policy? Check. What causes people to join and defend what amount to cults? For that matter, what causes people to join religions?

At one level, submission is eminently rational. Groups are always more powerful than individuals. The American archetype of the loner, the Clint Eastwood or John Wayne character riding alone to mete out justice and bucking the system- that is a fantasy. It is powerful precisely because it is so romantic and unrealistic. It is compensatory psychic food for the hemmed-in and submissive. In reality, the system always wins. Militaries win when they can gather up a bigger army than the other guys. Corporations win when they have bought all their competition and become the biggest on the block. Our social instincts lead us to join groups to gain power. 

But the submission drive seems to go way beyond this, allowing us to swallow alternate realities and even seek domination by others. An interesting form is when whole cultures convert their religion. Many times, such as during the colonial era, during the Christian conquests of Northern Europe, and during the Muslim conquests, the winning power foists its religion on another culture, a culture that grows quite rapidly to accept and adopt it as its own. Was one religion true-er or better than the other? Not at all. The new one is often significantly worse in many dimensions than the old. This is purely a power transaction where those who had submitted themselves to one archetype and narrative of cultural and supernatural power find themselves convinced that social and military coercion is a pretty important form of power too, perhaps signifying a new narrative that they should submit to. But once converted, the same psychic events happen. Leaders are idolized, scriptures are memorized, vestments are accessorized. In return, those who submit seek safety and guidance, buying into a (new) father figure archetype.

Joining a group inserts you into a hierarchy of domination. There are rewards for working your way up the ranks, being able to get others to serve you, having more influence and status. This most obvious in the military, with its obsession with colorful gradations, decorations, and uniforms. But it is true everywhere- in corporations, politics, organized crime, families. Submission is the price of entry, and it seems that to properly submit, one has to take on the a great deal more than just a signed contract. Members of organizations are constantly being tested for their loyalty, their buy-in to the ethics and goals of the organization, and its wider world-view. At IBM, they used to sing the company song. Modern corporate life is a complex compromise where some of the submittee's personal life is allowed to be separated from corporate control, and many boundaries are set by legal regime to prevent the organization from turning into a criminal entity and bar total domination of its employees, customers, business partners. 

However, other organizations are not so limited. Religion and politics are a bit less hemmed-in, and demand sometimes extraordinary kinds of fealty for the rewards on offer. In their variety of styles and cultures, they attract different temperaments of devotee. Overall, one has to say that people more prone to submission and participation in hierarchies tend to go to right-wing political, military, and religious organizations. Contrary to the cultivated image of hard-headedness and independence, conservatives turn out to submit more readily to domination by others. It is notorious that organizing Democrats is like herding cats. Likewise, university faculty tend towards independence and disorganization. Liberal churches are notoriously light on discipline and free with their theology. 

Conversely, Republican and conservative organizations spring up like weeds and have, aside from gobs of funding, remarkable discipline. The MAGA swoon for the current president is just one example of the lengths to which thought patterns can be bent in favor of the dominant leader of the moment. The corollary of greater mental submission by the followers is greater rewards and wider scope of action for the leaders. Making it to the top of such disciplined heap seems to turn psychology on its head, from submission to domination. Napoleon is a case study, working his way up the ranks, literally, to a position of ultimate power. Which promptly went to his head, causing him to veer in a conservative direction, and to wreck half of Europe. Cult leaders have time and again shown how poorly adapted we are to this much-sought after, but rarely successful, psychological transition.

The fascist/authoritarian moment that is glowering around the world has reactivated these extreme domination/submission dynamics, such as between Russia and Ukraine, and within so many far-right movements and the poitical systems they target. Fortunately, there are just fundamental temperamental barriers to the attractiveness of such movements, forcing them to take extra-legal measures if they are truly dedicated to overcome the resistence of the less submissive members of their societies.

• Much of this is drawn from a classic book, "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War".
• Report card on the courts.
• Waymo is hitting the highway.
• Plastic.

Links Only

Due to the press of other activities, only links this week.

• Wingnut medicine.
• Video of a fault slipping during an earthquake... look in the background.
• The original unitary executive.
• How about some free mid-day electricity?
• More Supreme injustice.
• Jay Bhattacharya is a stooge.

The First Invasion by the US

History pre-peated itself in our 1775 invasion of Canada.

Rick Atkinson's enormous history of the American Revolutionary war is stuffed with fascinating detail. Some may not be entirely documentary in origin, but his color and flair are undeniable. Having but begun this long read, I was struck by an early episode, the invasion of Canada. The colonies had not quite yet declared independence, nor had they resolved the seige of British-occupied Boston. They were undersupplied, short of manpower, and still on shaky ground politically with a large loyalist population. Yet, they got it into their heads to storm Montreal and then Quebec in the middle of winter, 1775 to 1776, expecting to be greeted by adoring natives as liberators. The fact that our 47th president has once again threatened to invade Canada can be taken as evidence that the expedition did not go as expected.

Within the thirteen colonies, the revolution began in a promising landscape. British governors were hated up and down the Atlantic seaboard, many reduced to bobbing offshore on Navy vessels while they begged for reinforcements that might, in their imaginations, turn the population back in their favor. Rebel congresses were formed, including the Continental Congress, which from Lexongton and Concord onwards realized that it was more than a political body- it was also a military body, responsible for fending off British attempts to cow the colonists with superior naval might, well-trained troops, ability to raise mercenaries all over Europe, and reserves of good will with loyalists and Native Americans. 

But the US is nothing if not a land-greedy society, and the Continental Congress cast its eyes northward, imagining that the recently (fifteen years before) captured colony of New France might want to cast its lot with the American rebels rather than its British overlords. However the way they went about this project spoke volumes. Instead of sending diplomats, rabble-rousers, or writers, they sent an army. In all, about three thousand men tramped north to subjugate the province of Quebec. 

Map of the campaign.

A virtually undefended Montreal was successfully besieged, and surrendered in November, 1775. Quebec, to the north, was another matter, however. It was far more stoutly defended, well supplied, and had competent walls and entrenchments. Conversely, the Americans were farther from their bases, camped in miserable conditions in the middle of winter, beset by disease, and could not make headway against even modest resistance. When the first British relief ship sailed into the harbor after breakup on the St Lawrence, the jig was up, and the Americans fled in disarray.

Transport was awful, with a lot of portaging between rivers.

Meanwhile, the American rule over Montreal hardly won the US any friends either. The governor treated the inhabitants like enemies, even closing Catholic churches. Benjamin Franklin was sent North to awe the natives and save the situation in April 1776, but the time for diplomacy was long past. 

Does all this sound familiar? What starts with high hopes and condescension, looking to win hearts and minds with guns, ends up winning nothing at all. The Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.. one wonders whether the invasion of Quebec was ever taught to US military students, or remembered by its politicians.

• 100 years before, same story.
• The Covid vaccine fights cancer!
• Warfare and social growth.
• Voting systems literally owned by Republicans?
• Crypto, crime, corruption.

The Revenge of History

China's cyclical history and the practice of meta-politics.

I have been studying the basics of Chinese history, getting my dynasties straight. And one observation made by everyone is the cyclicity of this history- the way it swings between unity and division, rise and collapse. One might say, however, that the real through-line is that of strong-man rule. Whether during warring states or in a unified empire, there has never been democracy in China. The states may be small or large, but they are always run by the same principle- authoritarianism. Thus the political evolution of China has been more concerned with how to ameliorate authoritarianism, with Confucianism the major (and Taoism and Buddhism the minor) modes of an (aspirational) ethic of rule that is more humane than the legalist school of pure power.

For example, one can ask the question: Why in such an ancient culture with such a lengthy political tradition, could Mao and the communist party turn it all upside down in the 20th century? Clearly it was not quite the revolution that it seemed, bringing not another system, but another emperor to the throne, one of astonishing cruelty, who killed off roughly 1/20 to 1/10 of the population over his career.

China's history is certainly a retort to the "End of History" school of thought, which had hoped to find in Western-style democracy the final refuge of humanity. One that all people and nations would recognize and join after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hopes were nurtured that Russia might find its way to democracy, as they were towards China as well, after we did so much to encourage its capitalist development. Neither were requited, and now we ourselves are slipping into the quicksand of authoritarianism. What is going on?

One can view the American founding as a sort of meta-politics, where the best and the brightest got together, not to wage a war for supremacy, but to conceive a system that would allow continuous political development without bloodshed. Make up a few rules, set a few precedents, and we were launched on a political voyage that only descended into civil war once, and otherwise has maintained a responsive and distributed system of political control. Such meta-politics attempts to evade "real" history, which is made up of naked contests for power. One can say that it "gamified" politics by taking it off the plane of warfare, and onto a more benign plane of electoral and civic argument. It has been a shining example of human efforts to rise above our base nature.

But there is a problem, which is that it is still a contest for power, and the more serious the participants, the more tempted they are to change the rules of the game, back to the naked forms of yore. It is only the revulsion of the public against defectors that can confine power to those willing to play by the game's rules. And that revulsion has steadily eroded over the recent decades. I would place the start of this process at Newt Gingrich, who first whipped his caucus into shape with a discipline that eliminated individual conscience, and who sharpened propaganda and flamethrowing into political art. The FOX-based media ecosystem has eviscerated truth and principle as political concepts, not to mention empathy, and now celebrates political criminality as a matter of course. We are at war.

Again, China has never known democracy, so its political culture vacillates merely between more or less benign autocracies. From the astonishingly brutal rule of the Qin, to the cosmopolitan states of the Tang and Song. The "mandate of heaven", which is to say, popular opinion, is important, but is usually expressed through the ability of a revolutionary strong man to gather support. Muslim political culture is similar, having few suggestions about how a ruler should be chosen, but assuming always that there will be a ruler. The overall theme is that, especially by the "realist" school of foreign policy, history and the normal course of events are composed of naked contests for power, won by the most ruthless, shameless, and cruel. The ideas of the enlightenment offered an end to this state of affairs, by making politics about what they should be about- the opinions of the governed- systematically and peacefully. But to do that, the opinions of the governed also need to be enlightened, capable of sanctioning a politician for breaching the rules of the game, even if that politician is on their side. And that is what is so clearly missing today, as we gradually slip back into history.

• A letter from China.
• How do they make it with so many losses? Tax fraud.
• Bill Mitchell on crypto.
• Russia's attitude towards peace.

Party Of The Future

Not the past ... what the Democrats can do to succeed.

The Democratic party has gotten a little lost, perhaps led a bit too well by Joe Biden, who wandered out of a more civilized and decent time. But focusing on personalities would be wrong- there are much deeper currents at work. While it remains hard to believe that billionaires have successfully hijacked the US government on the back of demogogic appeals to the uneducated, resentful, and bigoted, that is pretty much where we are. Those billionaires are dismantling the US government as fast as humanly possible, so it is imperative for the Democratic party to regain its grip on reality, and on a winning coalition.

One of the more remarkable aspects of the new administration is just how retrograde it is. Its obsession with tariffs comes out of economics at least a century out of date. There was the weird fetishization of William McKinley, and of a replay of our colonial interlude from the late 1800's vs Greenland, maybe even Canada. There is the rollback of the regulatory state, the literal gilding of the oval office, and blithe dismissal of the last hundred years of public health advances. Rather than making America great again, it is making America backwards again, waging a bitter war against the universities and any elites not bending the knee. At this rate, we are heading backwards by the week, to perhaps before the Revolution and onwards to the depths of the royal prerogatives of Henry VIII. Who everyone says was a very great king, by the way!

It is fine to complain, (while we still can), but the more important task is to come up with a better message and coalition, so that the US can get back to looking forward, instead of backward. One way to look at the electorate is in very broad thirds- one elite third, rich and business-centric, another elite third, college educated and liberal, and one third working class. 61% of the population have some college, and 45% have a college degree of some sort. The Democratic party has increasingly moved from its base in the working class to this educated portion of the electorate, and we should own up to what is in essence a battle between two elites- the business elite and the educated elite. These have very different ethics, at least at this late phase of capitalism, when business leaders (if we can call the president that) seem just as interested in business models of grift and fraud (subprime loans, lying about fossil fuels, crypto) as those that build the country. 

Face the past

This diametric difference in ethics is why the divisiveness is at such a fever pitch now. But Democrats made a lot of mistakes as well, of which I can mention four. First, immigration. The utter loss of control at the southern border was highly unpopular. It was unfair to everyone who participated in the (highly unfair, and punishing) legal immigration system. It showed scenes of chaos and lawlessness. And it was an economic threat to everyone on the lower end of the economic spectrum- exactly those demographics the Republicans were aiming at. Second, extreme woke. With the best of intentions, liberal elites set up increasingly abstruse and extreme theaters of correctness, demanding oaths of DEI adherence from faculty, celebrating every deviance from tradition- in the political sphere, in children's literature, and the ever-extending letters of the LGBT... etc. community. All this strenuous virtue signaling was highly distracting and estranging from the bedrock of political coalition-building: unity and common sense. Third was foreign policy, principally the disastrous Afghan withdrawal. For all of the Biden administration's competence in policy over a vast gamut, this was handled very poorly. Granted, it was a cake that was baked by the Trump administration's bad deal with the Taliban, and the management on the ground was run by the military, not the White House, but whatever the cause, it looked bad to catastrophic for US standing the world. And fourth is regulatory gridlock, sapping our ability to build anything, driving up housing costs specifically.

Democrats can not just wait out the madness in Washington, and expect to be elected as the default governing party. They have to face up to ways they have strayed from a winning coalition, and think deeply about fixing it and offering a narrative and program that is both responsible and welcoming to most Americans. 

Face the future

The basic problem of US politics is that we have some unpleasant truths to face. The frontier is gone, the climate is rapidly heating up, US international power is declining. We have rapidly switched from a rising, expansive, and optimistic power to a conservative and somewhat crabby power. Our last tango with a new frontier, that of space, ended up cruelly fruitless. Robotic scientific missions have been spectacularly productive, but manned spaceflight has gone from the height of optimism to another rote exercise in great power sclerosis. There is no there there, in terms of any economic, let alone demographic, frontier. And on top of that, the planet we are thus stuck on is becoming increasingly uncomfortable, even hostile. The future is looking a bit constricted, and more so because the rich elites have lost any sense of collective dedication, and devote themselves to screwing everyone else.

Republicans have addressed these issues by lying, denial, and fantasy, powered by their rabid media sphere. Obviously, Democrats have done and will do better. The current administration makes it clearer than ever what the regulatory state is about, and it is about helping people and restraining the powerful. Democrats need to keep beating the drum that financial protection, drug regulation, food inspection, securities fraud investigation.. these are all aimed at keeping the system fair for the regular citizen. They are not "the deep state", they are not very expensive, either. They are hated only by their antagonists- fraudulent businesspeople. More broadly, inequality is culturally corrosive and calls for taxing the rich more, not less. It is insulting to working people that income from capital gains (let alone carried interest) is taxed less than labor. Everything should be taxed the same- investments, labor, estates, changes in trust membership ... everything.

Build the future

At the same time, practicality has to take a front seat. Democrats need to alter course to promise that regulators keep their eye on the ball of efficiency- fulfilling their mission without tying the economy in knots. This applies particularly to building and zoning. The most liberal areas of the country are also the most conservative, in terms of real estate. The dread of "sprawl" has excused total stasis and lack of building, even as immigrants are allowed to flood in. The result is predictable enough. 

Next, the environment. Democrats did the responsible and foresighted thing with climate bills of the Biden administration. And that helped to build up the green transition. Too little, too late, but these were broadly popular, and need to be continued. The problem is that we are still facing a difficult transition, particularly from gas cars, and on a wide spectrum of other harms such as plastics, habitat loss, resource scarcity. Democrats need to take the long view here that sustainability is the ultimate goal. Everyone can see that our current practices are not fundamentally sustainable. Catastrophes ramp up in frequency and intensity. Democrats have to be the truth-tellers here, while pointing out that building green is beneficial across the board.

Lastly, education. Our education system lays the golden eggs, powering the future of better living standards and international competitiveness. It should be easy for Democrats to make the case against the war on education being carried out by the current administration. Yet, some rebalancing is needed. We have neglected the working class end of the system, and should strengthen community colleges to provide more low-cost trades education. It is appalling that the poor are preyed upon by fly-by-night trade schools in a rich country that supposedly has high standards of education and workmanship. 

Additionally, Democrats might address the deeper malaise among the young and in the culture at large by calling for national service. Two years for young people spent on serving others would be highly beneficial. Choices could range from military to conservation corps, and medical assistance. The main condition would be that these would be non-specialized, mixed groups so that participants work with people from all walks of life in the US, (or in the Peace Corps), broadening their experience and vision of what it means to be part of this country. Call this a form of civic education, essential to a democratic society.

Democrats have the tools, and need to reach out a bit to form a bigger coalition. The right wingosphere has successfully demonized learning, knowledge, and regulation, and it is all coming home to roost in the current administration. But the regulatory state was built originally not out of a college educated coalition, but a progressive working class movement, revolted by the corruption and inequality of the gilded age. Republicans can't help themselves but serve the rich and powerful. Democrats can re-align with their natural coalition.

• In many cases, going backwards requires lying.
• A brief history of environmental law.
• Wingnuts and lies in Poland.
• Thune and the utter dereliction of congress.
• Trampling all over whatever is left of the constitution.
• Hospice, or tax cuts?
• We are leaving the global stage.
• And carrying water for Russia.
• The next frontier, after zero carbon.
• FDA as a fully captured regulator.
• Another reason why crypto is so great.

Donald Trump is no Andrew Jackson

A few notes about the Jacksonian era.

One common historical touchpoint for our current epoch is the Jacksonian era, when a populist president presided over a significant increase in presidential power, carried into the White House by a ragtag rabble. Andrew Jackson stood against the elite power centers of the time, having been denied the presidency earlier by a shady deal that gave John Quincy Adams the office. Nor did he have much more love for the aristocrats of Virginia. He came from the backwoods of Tennessee, and a long career of fighting Indians as well as the English. Once in office, Jackson cleaned house and installed a patronage system that led to decades of increasing corruption, till the civil service was instituted. He also used the veto power, and made his cabinet secretaries subservient, to an unprecedented degree.

Jackson strengthened the party system and cultivated friendly media in a way that people at the time decried as divisive and dangerous. And, perhaps most strikingly, he oversaw the mass expulsion of Native Americans from the South. Jackson was a slaveowner and had no issue with the white supremacy of his day, whether against African Americans or Native Americans. Ironically, when France decided to not honor a treaty with the US, Jackson spared no effort to defend the nation's honor and rights. But when it came to the many treaties the US had signed with indigenous nations, many expressly meant for perpetuity, they were waved away like so much smoke.

On the other hand, Jackson was a successful general and businessman and won all the major battles of his presidency. And he was successful enough to anoint a successor, Martin van Buren. He was surprisingly eloquent and well-written and had a core set of principles that guided him and the nation. One principle was the importance of the constitution and the union. While previous presidents had thought the veto power should be confined to extreme legislative acts they regarded as unconstitutional, Jackson saw nothing in the constitution against using the veto on a policy basis, to weigh in on substantive issues as a popularly elected co-equal branch of government.

More importantly, he guided the nation through a nullification crisis with South Carolina with a sure hand. Always a hotbed of resistance and secession, South Carolina took particular issue with federal tariffs, which were set quite high to favor domestic industry. Industry generally located in the North. Jackson laid the groundwork for federal military intervention, promoted a tariff reduction, and issued a forceful and closely argued denunciation of "nullification" and secession that, in combination, squelched the movement of southern states against federal supremacy. This put off for a generation the crisis that Lincoln was fated to deal with.

One of Jackson's most interesting fights was against the Second Bank of the United States. Congress had chartered, from the Washington administration onwards, a national bank that was the sole interstate financial institution of the US. It was charged with facilitating the finances of the federal government, and with providing credit for internal improvements crossing state lines. But it was in essence a private bank that had only a fraction of its board appointed by the government and otherwise ran its business on a private basis as a commercial bank. In its opening years, it was generally undersized and not well run, and by the time of the second bank, had caused a couple of recessions due to its mismanagement. 

Finally, by the Jackson administration, it had come under competent management and was both expanding in all directions and doing a reasonable job of controlling the money supply and credit in the US, by limiting expansion of the state banks, (a significant source of opposition). It had, indeed, become the largest single financial institution in the world. But to Jackson, these were hardly points in its favor. He viewed it as a dangerous center of power, as though in our day JP Morgan were the only commercial bank allowed to do nation-wide business, with no competitors. The whole idea of a publicly-run central bank had not yet arisen at this time, and the national bank was more or less modeled on the Bank of England, which was a similar hybrid private entity. Unfortunately, instead of seeking reform of the national bank into a more modern and public-interest institution, Jackson pulled the only levers he had, which were to veto the rechartering of the Second National Bank, and then to follow that up with removing all federal deposits and putting them into state banks, effectively killing it. This had the unfortunate effect of dooming the US to almost a century of financial instability and poorly regulated banking. But on the whole, I am quite sympathetic to Jackson's position in killing the bank. It was a nascent form of anti-monopoly policy, which should have been taken up more systematically later in the century.

So, Jackson was very much of his time, not a visionary who could prepare the government for the vast growth in population, social institutions, and technology that were coming. But at the same time, he was not trying to drag the US backwards in time either. He did not cruelly run rampant through federal agencies, or foster international trade wars in search of a happier dream time of mediocre jobs and pay. The economic crisis that happened during his administration was not a tantrum he threw, but rather was caused by the national bank, as it consciously fostered a recession by withdrawing credit in an attempt to turn the people against Jackson. An attempt that failed because everyone knew what was going on, and which indeed showed the kind of power that Jackson was fighting against. Andrew Jackson did not view the federal government as an extortion racket or a throne from which bootlickers could be alternately fawned over and kicked in the teeth. He was thus, despite a few parallels, quite unlike the current occupant.

I am taking most of this material from an enjoyable biography by Jon Meacham. It is based mostly on correspondence, thus is quite chatty and focused on Jackson's domestic affairs. It is, conversely, frustratingly weak on the larger historical and policy issues of his day, particularly when it comes to the bank fight, which was so important for the country's future. 

• Remember the fantastic negotiations with Kim Jong Un? These are going about as well.
• Worst way possible.
• Love-bombing, Tump-style.
• A problem of meaning. And relationships.
• Whither the model train industry?

Making America Great: First Quarter Report Card

Are we great yet? I give some grades.

Enhancing the rule of law, and adhering to the constitution: F

This administration is characterized by contempt. A juvenile contempt for its enemies, and thorough contempt for the law, separation of powers, and the constitution. In asserting its royal prerogative to eviscerate legislatively created agencies, it is taking more power from congress, as if congress weren't sufficiently neutered and ineffective already. We are watching a replay of the transition of Rome from a republic to a monarchy, though in much more ham-fisted fashion, as its senate was sidelined. So far, the Republicans in congress do not see the danger, as they cheer on the mayhem. But it will come for them more directly in due time, maybe in Trump's third term, as he grooms Eric to be next in line.

Economic growth: F

The markets have given their verdict, which is thumbs down. The trade war this administration has started, in royal fashion, is bad for us and bad for everyone else. Even putting aside the short-term insanity, the long-term implications are lower living standards and lower growth. To take one example, what is going to happen if people in the US are effectively confined to buying US-built cars? We will be going back to the 60's and 70's, when cars were poorly built, and the captive market meant that US car makers did not have to innovate. We should focus on strategic industries, to preserve base-line capacity to build things, but otherwise let foreign trade work its economic magic.

Peace on earth: F

The new administration is siding with aggressors all over the world now, especially Russia and Israel. China is the only exception, though its support for Taiwan is quite a bit more tepid than that of the last administration. Siding with aggressors is a recipe for more war. More broadly, the US has lost its moral high ground, such as it was, and is losing friends at a rapid clip. I mean, how can one alienate Canada? That really takes some serious stupidity. Trump was angling for a Nobel Peace Prize, by ending the Ukraine war. But predictably, Putin plays him for the fool he is, and keeps on doing what he wants to. The instability and madness of the current administration is another factor all by itself, leading to international instability and higher risk for war, not to mention driving countries around the world into the arms of the truly stable genius... China.

Education and innovation: F

Of all the things that make our country great, it is education that has the greatest long-term implications. That is where the human capital comes from, and the technological innovation. We can grant that Republicans rely on less educated voters, so logic dictates that they make voters less educated. And that is what this administration has been doing with determination, eviscerating the department of education, cancelling and slashing funding for research, and ultimately promoting the destruction of public schools, through vouchers and other long-standing hobbyhorses of the right. This may make a country more amenable to royal rule, but is unlikely to make the US anything other than a diminished and declining power with lower living standards, less attractive to foreign students and foreign investment. China will shortly be the leading nation in high-level scholarly research.

Health and Safety, Pro-worker Policy: F

Here as well, the administration has spoken loudly through its actions and appointments. Putting an anti-science vaccine denier in charge of HHS, and slashing personnel throughout the health agencies, and OSHA, and immediately kneecapping the labor relations board. Medicaid is slated to lose a trillion dollars, in favor of tax cuts for the rich. It all says that business and the rich are the true constituency of this administration, not people, let alone workers. Workers, indeed, are the evident enemy. How different this is from the campaign rhetoric! But that is how grifters work. And they will be gone before the real costs sink in.

Safeguarding democracy: F

Honestly, is this even a subject?

Culture and style: F

White Potus. Also, the Zelensky meeting. 

Drain the swamp: F

The inauguration set the tone, as Trump introduced an eponymous meme-coin, which his friends and insiders stocked up on before the public offering, in a naked pump and dump, even if the dump part of the operation has been delayed. Much bigger, however, is the tariff-palooza, which has the world "kissing my ass". No possibility of corruption there! If there were a lower grade than F, it would be awarded here.

Clear and elevated rhetoric: F

Again, the Zelensky meeting. I recently watched a documentary series on John F. Kennedy, which demonstrated that one needn't go back to the 19th century to encounter well-written, coherent, and civil political discourse in America. While admitting that the Biden administration was hardly a high point of forceful communication, at least it was civil- domestically and to our friends and partners abroad. Trump and his toadies compete for juvenile putdowns, unthinking meanness, and large helpings of lies. When actual policy is needed, elliptical "the weave" expressions clear the field of coherent thought, to make room for more chaos and cons.

OK, other than in these areas, things are going great. If your metric is owning the libs, destroying the government, giving away the store to the rich and to Russia, and having people line up to kiss the president's ass, then everything is going very well. 

It is important to understand that, generally speaking, the government exists to protect people from each other, especially protect the little people. The rich can take care of themselves, at least until things get really bad. It is the little people who need the Bill of Rights, the consumer protection bureau, the SEC, the FDA, the VA, OSHA, and all the other regulatory agencies that keep the rapacious wolves of capitalism on their leashes. Everyone benefits from civil service protections, transparency, rules, and law. But the little people benefit the most, because they are beset the worst in the capitalist system. All men are created equal, but not really. The insanity of giving up our government to the people with the most money is truly astounding, and we are seeing the fruits daily.

• Gary Kasparov gives some advice.
• Law, schmaw.
• The three-toed sloth posits AI is not intelligent, but another cultural technology, maybe a regurgitation machine. Or a feral card catalog. But does it help us think better?
• The barriers to knowing thyself.
• Making China great again.
• Gosh, if RFK wanted to get to the bottom of autism, did he attend this talk downstairs?

Realism in Foreign Policy

Idealism or realism? This is not just a left-right issue, but a deeper issue of values in foreign policy.

Think tanks on both the right and the left tout foreign policy realism, impatient with the demands that the post-war era have placed on the US as the unique, exceptional (and rich) leader of the free and democratic world. Whether from a cost perspective or a peace perspective, backing off from our world-wide commitments and ideals is attractive to many. The current administration has dramatically taken up their banner, reversing US policy, dropping Ukraine, allying with Russia, and ending idealism, generosity and empathy as a elements of foreign policy. What was firmly planted after World War 2 and flowered under John F. Kennedy has now been buried. So, are we great yet?

Where idealism in foreign policy takes up moral crusades, like human rights, women's rights, and global equity, even climate change, realism sticks to power and assumes anarchy, not order, as the natural state of international affairs. Realists sell themselves as hard-headed, unsentimental, and into the bargain, less likely to get us mixed up in wars. The most recent US wars, after all, from Vietnam to Iraq, were all crusades to foster democracy, in one form or other. Better to wash our hands of it all, care less about saving the people of the world, and more about bullying our neighbors to get what we want.

These are not really exclusive approaches, but rather shades of emphasis. The raw power of military and economic kinds is central to both, even if soft power is more of a focus for the idealists. But if you think about it more deeply, even these distinctions fade away, and both approaches end up being idealistic, just differing in the ideals they vaunt. The current administration clearly has its ideals- of Putin, Victor Orban, and authoritarianism ascendant world-wide. Its lack of empathy is not realism, it is a crabbed idealism- that of the rich and powerful lording it over the masses, both domestically and internationally.  

International power is composed of many things. But mostly, it is made up of relationships multiplied by technological capabilities. Two people can always overpower one person, and the same is true internationally. Bigger countries can field bigger armies. Bigger countries can field more researchers and manufacturers to arm those people with better weapons. Alliances between countries can make even more menacing combinations. 

It is, at base, social relationships that create power, and this is where realism really falls down. If one's ideal is transactional and bullying, worshipping power and taking a small-minded and greedy approach to international affairs, (that is to say, a zero-sum approach), then one will find that the few friends one has are fair-weather friends of convenience. Alliances between such partners frequently fall apart and re-arrange, creating the extremely dangerous environment conducive to major wars. Relationships are fungible and disposable. Europe had a long balance-of-power phase in the 1800's after the Napoleonic wars, until it collapsed in the 1900's in cataclysmic world wars, thanks in both cases to unstable alliance structures, not to mention authoritarian manias. The post-World War 2 era, the one we are witnessing the collapse of right now, was founded on something much more stable- true friendship and shared ideals of democracy. 

One can reply that helping the weak defend themselves against the strong is a sure recipe for entanglement in a lot of wars. Our involvement (up to now) in Ukraine is a case in point. We encouraged Ukraine to pursue a democratic path, thwarting Russia's clear and stated interests. And then we got dragged into this cataclysmic war. Why not side with the strong against the weak, instead? Wouldn't that make for a more stable world? Well, at some point we may be the weak one, not the strong one. What then? In the ever-shifting constellation of international alliances in a transactional, "realistic" world, there is no telling what tomorrow may bring, since values are not anchored in natural friendship or sympathy, but in naked interests, which are subject to rapid adjustment and negotiation. The disastrous Ribbentrop-Molotov pact comes to mind, as an example of such "realistic" foreign policy.

That is not a good world to live in, even if it has represented most of history. Realists may be right that their view is the mafia-like baseline of international relations, devoid of any human values and run on a power basis. Well, we can do better, both morally and objectively. That is what the last eighty years of international relations were all about. They were about setting up an international system where big countries at least tried to cloak their leadership in common interests, progress, and values. Where there was order, of some basic sort, which led to prosperity and security. And the Soviets bought into it as well, trying desperately to sell their adventures as standing for some kind of progressive, pro-worker ideology. Which lasted all the way to the end of the cold war, till its contradictions had grown too glaring. The US-led system has had its contradictions and hypocrisies as well, but the latest leap into the authoritarian camp is hardly fore-ordained or natural to our traditions.

Now, it looks like Winter is Coming. If the US forcibly devolves the international system into a value-less scramble for power, no one can rely on, or be satisfied with, stable friendships, so the system will be in greater flux, as powers test each other. When friendships are devalued, what is left but competition, such as trade wars, causing general destruction, and eventually desperate measures to regain relative power. 

• The policy is plain.
• Social insecurity.
• Nothing strategic about it.
• Wells on the pandemic. For me, the remarkable memory is how little we collectively knew about the simplest things- masks, aerosols, surfaces. That was inexcusable.

Impeachment is Inevitable

Whether congress wants to or not, it will be forced to defend its role in government.

Looking out over the incredible destruction the new president has already wrought at home and abroad, it is hard to see this continuing for a full four-year term. There is a honeymoon now, and a shock campaign. There is delirium in hard-right circles that their fondest dreams of rampant chaos in the bureaucracy, with racism and fascism ascendant, are coming true. But there will come a time when the costs begin to appear, the appetite for dysfunction will wane, and the tide turns. Congress has small Republican margins, and it won't take many members to face up to our rapidly expanding constitutional crisis.

Maybe I am spinning a fantasy here, but one thing seems certain. The current president is constitutionally (pardon the expression) unable to follow directions. His oath of office was barely out of his mouth before he started violating the constitution and running roughshod over the explicit authorizations and appropriations of Congress. Not to mention direct assertions that the constitution doesn't mean what it plainly says, about birthright citizenship. This is not going to stop, and the only way our system of government is going to survive is that the other branches, specifically congress, use their powerful tools to reset the balance.

Article 2

Harder to judge are the attitudes of the congresspeople who are on the spot. The Republicans have largely rolled over in approving the first, abysmal slate of cabinet nominees. Again, there is a honeymoon of sorts. Party discipline is particularly strong on the conservative side, and the president has eagerly used his tools of intimidation and hatred to obtain obedience. So it is hard to say when they will crack. But as the functions of government degrade, the country is laughed at and reviled around the world, the economic damage accumulates, and constituents line up to complain, the equation will change. And anyhow, they would merely be elevating the vice president, who is hardly an opponent of their ideological aims, and is part of the Senate community (however disliked on both sides). So impeachment becomes a much less imposing action than it might otherwise be. 

As they say, the third time's the charm!

• Presidents day.
• Oh the irony. Science comes up with a vaccine that saves millions, who turn into idiots.

The Climate is Changing

Fires in LA, and a puff of smoke in DC.

An ill wind has blown into Washington, a government of whim and spite, eager to send out the winged monkeys to spread fear and kidnap the unfortunate. The order of the day is anything that dismays the little people. The wicked witch will probably have melted away by the time his most grievous actions come to their inevitable fruition, of besmirching and belittling our country, and impoverishing the world. Much may pass without too much harm, but the climate catastrophe is already here, burning many out of their homes, as though they were made of straw. Immoral and spiteful contrariness on this front will reap the judgement and hatred of future generations.

But hasn't the biosphere and the climate always been in flux? Such is the awful refrain from the right, in a heartless conservatism that parrots greedy, mindless propaganda. In truth, Earth has been blessed with slowness. The tectonic plates make glaciers look like race cars, and the slow dance of Earth's geology has ruled the evolution of life over the eons, allowing precious time for incredible biological diversification that covers the globe with its lush results.

A stretch of relatively unbroken rain forest, in the Amazon.

Past crises on earth have been instructive. Two of the worst were the end-Permian extinction event, about 252 million years ago (mya), and the end-Cretaceous extinction event, about 66 mya. The latter was caused by a meteor, so was a very sudden event- a shock to the whole biosphere. Following the initial impact and global fire, it is thought to have raised sun-shielding dust and sulfur, with possible acidification, lasting for years. However, it did not have very large effects on CO2, the main climate-influencing gas.

On the other hand, the end-Permian extinction event, which was significantly more severe than the end-Cretaceous event, was a more gradual affair, caused by intense volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia. Recent findings show that this was a huge CO2 event, turning the climate of Earth upside down. CO2 went from about 400 ppm, roughly what we are at currently, to 2500 ppm. The only habitable regions were the poles, while the tropics were all desert. But the kicker is that this happened over the surprisingly short (geologically speaking) time of about 80,000 years. CO2 then stayed high for the next roughly 400,00 years, before returning slowly to its former equilibrium. This rate of rise was roughly 2.7 ppm per 100 years, yet that change killed off 90% of all life on Earth. 

The momentous analysis of the end-Permian extinction event, in terms of CO2, species, and other geological markers, including sea surface temperature (SST). This paper was when the geological brevity of the event was first revealed.

Compare this to our current trajectory, where atmospheric CO2 has risen from about 280 ppm at the dawn of the industrial age to 420 ppm now. That is rate of maybe 100 ppm per 100 years, and rising steeply. It is a rate far too high for many species, and certainly the process of evolution itself, to keep up with, tuned as it is to geologic time. As yet, this Anthropocene extinction event is not quite at the level of either the end-Permian or end-Cretaceous events. But we are getting there, going way faster than the former, and creating a more CO2-based long-term climate mess than the latter. While we may hope to forestall nuclear war and thus a closer approximation to the end-Cretaceous event, it is not looking good for the biosphere, purely from a CO2 and warming perspective, putting aside the many other plagues we have unleashed including invasive species, pervasive pollution by fertilizers, plastics and other forever chemicals, and the commandeering of all the best land for farming, urbanization, and other unnatural uses. 

CO2 concentrations, along with emissions, over recent time.

We are truly out of Eden now, and the only question is whether we have the social, spiritual, and political capacity to face up to it. For the moment, obviously not. Something disturbed about our media landscape, and perhaps our culture generally, has sent us for succor, not to the Wizard who makes things better, but to the Wicked Witch of the East, who delights in lies, cruelty and destruction.

• The oligarchy is upon us. Oh, and they will help the working class!
• The attention economy.
• Which distorts our public understandings.
• Good coverage will never win in the attention economy.
• Keep Greenland white!

A Housing Guarantee

A proposal for an updated poor house.

I agree with MMT economists who propose a job guarantee. That would put a floor on the labor market with an offer to anyone who wants to work for a low, but living wage, probably set below the minimum wage mandated for the private sector. State and local governments would run cleanups, environmental restoration, and care operations as needed, requiring basic discipline and effort, but no further skills. But they could use higher skilled workers as they come along for more beneficial, complex tasks.

Similarly, I think we could offer a housing guarantee, putting a floor on homelessness and misery. In the state of California, homelessness is out of control, and we have not found solutions, despite a great deal of money spent. Housing in the private market is extremely expensive, far out of reach of those with even median incomes. The next level down is housing vouchers and public housing, of which there are not enough to go around, and which is extremely expensive. And below that are shelters, which are heavily adverse settings. They are not private, chaotic, unpleasant, meant to be temporary, can be closed much of the time. And they also do not have enough space. 

A local encampment, temporarily approved during the pandemic under the freeway.

As uncompassionate as it sounds, it is unacceptable, and should be illegal, for public spaces to be commandeered by the homeless for their private needs. Public spaces have many purposes, specifically not including squatting and vagrancy. It is a problem in urban areas, because that is where people are, and where many services exist at the intersection of public and private spaces- food, bathrooms, opportunities to beg, get drugs, etc. Just because we have been, as governments and citizens, neglectful of our public spaces, does not mean we should give them over to anyone who wants to camp on them. I was recently at San Francisco city hall and the beautiful park surrounding it. But at lunch time, I realized that there was nowhere to sit. The plague of homelessness had rendered park benches untenable. We deserve to keep these public spaces functional, and that means outlawing the use of public spaces by the homeless. At the same time, provision must be made for the homeless, who by this policy would have nowhere to go in fully zoned areas. Putting them on busses to the next town, as some jurisdictions do, is also not a solution. As a rich country, we can do more for the homeless even while we preserve public spaces.

I think we need to rethink the whole lower end of housing / shelter to make it a more regular, accessible, and acceptable way to catch those who need housing at a very basic level. The model would be a sort of cross between a hostel, an SRO (single room occupancy hotels) and army barracks. It would be publicly funded, and provide a private room as well as food, all for free. It would not throw people out, or lock them in.

This poor house would not demand work, though it would offer centralized services for finding jobs and other places to live. It would be open to anyone, including runaway teens, battered women, tourists, etc. It would be a refuge for anyone for any reason, on an unlimited basis. The space and the food would be very basic, motivating clients to seek better accommodation. It would be well-policed and its clients would have to behave themselves. The next step down in the ladder of indigent care would not be homelessness, which would be outlawed in areas offering this kind of poorhouse, but would be institutionalization, in increasingly stringent settings for either criminal or mental issues. 

Such a poor house might become a community center, at least for the indigent. It would be quite expensive, but given the level of inequality and lack of care for people in various desperate straits, we need to furnish a humane level of existence between the market housing system and institutionalization. Why not give everyone a house? That is neither financially practical, nor would that co-exist well with the market housing system. Certainly, more housing needs to be built and everything done to bring prices down. But to address the current issues, stronger housing policy is needed.

Why not go back to a public housing model? It turned out that public housing was somewhat unrealistic, promising far more than it could deliver. It promised fully functional neighborhoods and housing, pretty much the equivalent of market housing, but without the ongoing discipline from the market via private financial responsibility by the residents or from the programs via their bureaucratic structures and funding, to follow through on the long term. The public authorities generally took a hands-off approach to residents and their environment, in line with the (respectful) illusion that this was the equivalent of market housing. And the long-term is what counts in housing, since it is ever in need of repair and renovation, not to mention careful use and protection by its residents. Building is one thing, but maintaining is something quite different, and requires carefully though-out incentives. 

With a public poorhouse model, the premises and residents are extensively policed. Individual rooms may descend to squalor, but the whole is built, run and maintained by the public authorities with intensive surveillance and intervention, keeping the institution as a whole functioning and growing as needed for its mission. There is going to be a sliding scale of freedom vs public involvement via financing and policing. The less functional a person is, the more control they will have to accept. We can not wash our hands of the homeless by granting them "freedom" to thrash about in squalor and make dumps of public spaces.

• Or you could join the squid game.
• Economic policy should not be about efficiency alone, let alone rewarding capital and management, but about long-term cultural and environmental sustainability.
• Could AI do biology?
• Carter was an evangelical. But that was a different time.

Capitalism on the Spectrum

Prospects for the new administration.

Political economics can be seen as a spectrum from anarchic gangsterism (Haiti) to total top down control such as in communism (Cuba, North Korea). Neither works well. Each end of this spectrum ends up in a state of terror, because each is unworkable on its own terms. Capitalism, in its modern form, is a compromise between these extremes, where free initiative, competition, and hierarchical relations (such within corporations) are allowed, while regulation (via the state and unions) makes humane what would otherwise a cutthroat system of gangsterism and corruption. The organization and stability allowed by state-sponsored legal systems raises system productivity far above that of the primeval free-for-all, while the regulatory rules also make it bearable to its participants- principally the workers. The magic comes from a dynamic balance between competition and guardrails to keep that competition focused on productive ends (that is, economic/business competition), rather than unproductive ones (war, assassination, corruption, capture of the state, etc.)

The new Trump administration promises to tear up this compromise, slash regulations, and cut government. That means that the workers that voted for this administration, and who are the primary beneficiaries of the regulatory state, will be hurt in countless ways. The grifting nature of so many in this incoming administration is a blazing alarm to anyone who pays attention. Whether it is stiffing workers, bloviating on FOX, hawking gold sneakers, making a buck off of anti-vax gullibility, defrauding the government of taxes, promoting crypto, or frankly asking for money in return for political favors like petroleum deregulation, the stench of corruption and bad faith is overwhelming. Many of them, starting from the top, see capitalism as a string of scams and frauds, not exactly Milton Friedman's vision of capitalism. An administration of grifty billionaires is unlikely to rebuild US manufacturing, help workers afford housing, or fulfill any of the other dreams of their voters. Indeed, a massive economic collapse, on the heels of bad policy such as crypto deregulation, or a world-spanning trade war, is more likely, and degraded conditions for workers all but certain.

Freedom for capitalists means permission for companies to abuse workers, customers, the environment, the law, and whatever else stands in the way of profit. We have been through this many times, especially in the gilded age. It can spiral into anarchy and violence when business owners are sufficiently "free" from the fetters of norms and laws. When the most powerful entities in the economy have only one purpose- to make money- all other values are trampled. That is, unless a stronger entity makes some rules. That entity can only be the government. It has been the role of governments from time immemorial to look to the long term interests of the collective, and organize the inherent competition within society into benign and productive pursuits.

OK, more than a little ironic, but you get the idea.

On the other hand, there is a problem even at the golden mean of governmental rule-making over the capitalistic free-for-all, which is that the quality of the rule makers and their rules, their attention to real conditions, and their prompt decision making, all can decline into bureaucratic inertia. While this may not be a Stalinist system of top-down planning and terror, it still can sap the productive energies of the system. And that is what we have been facing over the last few decades. For instance, there is the housing crisis, where home construction has not kept up with demand, mostly due to zoning stasis in most desirable places in the US, in addition to lagging construction after the 2008 financial and real estate crisis. Another example is public infrastructure, which has become increasingly difficult to build due to ever-mounting bureaucratic complexity and numbers of stakeholders. The California high speed rail system faces mountainous costs and a bogged-down legal environment, and is on the edge of complete inviability.

Putting rich, corrupt, and occasionally criminal capitalists at the head of this system is not, one must say, the most obvious way to fix it. Ideally, the Democrats would have put forward more innovative candidates in better touch with the problems voters were evidently concerned with. Then we could have forged ahead with policies oriented to the public good, (such as planetary sustainability and worker rights), as has been the practice through the Biden administration. But the election came up with a different solution, one that we will be paying for for decades. And possibly far worse, since there are worse fates than being at a well-meaning, if sclerotic, golden mean of governmental regulation over a largely free capitalist system. Hungary and Russia show the way to "managed democracy" and eventual autocracy. Our own history, and that of Dickensian Britain, show the way of uncontrolled capitalism, which took decades of progressivism, and a great depression, to finally tame. It would be nice to not have to repeat that history.

• Daniel P. Moynihan was for the job guarantee.
• Housing in New Zealand.
• Nature's key scientists of 2024.
• A grumpy Krugman signs off.
• Notes on crypto and its grifting community.
• Who is for workers?
• MAGA to kill off the greatest public health advance, ever.

Hubris, Terror, and Disaster in Afghanistan

Review of "The American War in Afghanistan", by Carter Malkasian.

This book is a nightmare to read. It records one bad decision after the next, through two decades of a slow-moving debacle. Should we have invaded at all? Should we have set up a puppet government? Should we have let the mission expand to incredible society-changing scope? Should we have built a sustainable Afghan military? Could any government have stood up to the Taliban? A million questions and pointed fingers follow such a comprehensive loss. Each of the four Presidents who presided over the war made grievous errors, and tried to muddle through the resulting quagmire, until Biden finally threw in the towel.

In the end, even Mullah Omar reportedly considered whether it had been wise to refuse the US demand to turn over or turn against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It is a poignant coda to a national tragedy. But what could we have done differently? I will divide this question into several areas, including mission creep, Islam and the Taliban, the Afghan army, and the Afghan government. At the very outset there was a sad narcissistic paradox, in the "war on terror". War is terrorism, pure and simple. The idea that others are terrorists, and that we are not when we drop bombs on them, is a curious, but typical bit of American exceptionalism. Our whole adventure in Afghanistan was colored by the vast gulf in how we saw ourselves (righteous, moral, good), and how Afghans saw us (depraved infidels who violated every norm of civilized behavior).

Mission Creep

It is startling to look back at the progression of our goals in Afghanistan. First, we asked them to give up Al Qaeda. Then we overthrew the Taliban government and installed a new one. Then we sought to establish a democracy. Then we sought to hunt down not just Al Qaeda, but also the Taliban- the former government and a significant cultural and Islamic movement. Then we sought to advance women's rights, fight corruption, and set up a competent government and army. All these things were desirable, but replicated what we could not accomplish in either Vietnam or in Iraq, working with similarly bad partners. Contrast this with our occupations of Germany and Japan, where we put a few of the former leaders on trial, policed with a pretty light touch, kept political development local at first, and concentrated on economic reconstruction. While the cultural alignments were obviously much closer, that should have moderated our ambitions in Afghanistan, not, as it happened, stimulated them progressively to "civilize" the Afghans. This is especially true when the national will and funding to deal with Afghanistan was so impaired by the Bush administration's adventure in Iraq, and later by the tortured path of Afghanistan itself. It is somewhat reminiscent of the defeat the Democrats experienced in the recent elections- a party that got a little overextended in its missions to affirm every virtue, identity and interest group, far beyond the core issues.

Islam

That Afghanistan is an Islamic country is and was no mystery, but that did not seem to get through to those setting up our progressively more invasive policies, or the new government. Poll after poll found that the Taliban had continuing support, and if not support, at least respect, because they were seen as truly Islamic, while the government we installed was not. Malkasian points out that as religious scholars, the Taliban tended to not be infected by the fissiparous tribal conflicts of Afghanistan, which Hamid Karzai, in contrast, tended to encourage. This also led the Taliban to nurture a very strong hierarchical structure, (patterned on madrassa practices), also unusual elsewhere in Afghan society. These three properties gave them incredible morale and sway with the population, even as they were terrorizing them with night letters, assassinations, suicide bombings, and other mayhem. As long as the government represented the infidel, and however well-intentioned that infidel was, the population, including the police and army, would be reluctant supporters.

The only way around all this would have been to allow one of the Northern Alliance leaders to take control of the country after they helped defeat the Taliban, and then get the hell out. But this would have invited another civil war, continuing the awful civil war Afghanistan suffered through before the Taliban rose to power. The deep conflict between the Pashtuns and the northern Tajiks, Uzbeks and other groups would never have allowed a stable government to be established under these fluid conditions, not under the Tajiks. So we came up with the magic solution, to appoint a Pashtun as president, over a nominally democratic system, but with US support that, instead of tapering off over time, rose and rose, until we got to the surge, a decade into our occupation, with over a 100,000 US soldiers.

That was never going to win any popularity contests, even if it did put the Taliban on the back foot militarily. Why was the government never seen as truly Islamic? Malkasian does not explain this in detail, but in Afghan eyes, more tuned to the US as foreign infidels than to the formal conditions of Islamic jurisprudence, the question answers itself. Democracy is not inherently un-Islamic. Consultative bodies that advise the leadership are explicitly provided. Whether they promote women's rights, or accept foreign soldiers, night raids, and legal immunity of foreigners is quite a different matter, however. Whatever the form of the government, its obvious dependence on the US, as painfully illustrated by Karzai's incessant and futile complaints about US military transgressions, was the only evidence needed that the Afghan government was, in popular terms, un-Islamic. It was the same conundrum we experienced in Vietnam- how to be a dominant military partner to a government that had at best a tenuous hold on the affections of the populace, which were in turn poisoned by that very dependence? It is an impossible dilemma, unless the occupying power is ruthless enough to terrorize everyone into submission- not our style, at least not after our dalliance in the Philippines.

The Armed Forces

Because the government never managed to get true popular support, its armed forces were hobbled by low morale and corruption. Armies and police forces are only expressions of the political landscape. Afghans are, as the Taliban shows, perfectly capable of fighting, of organizing themselves, and of knowing which way the wind blows. The army dissolved when faced with its true test. The most powerful solution would clearly have been to have a more effective and popular government that either included or sidelined the Taliban. But could there have technical solutions as well?

The air force was emblematic. The US experience in Afghanistan from start to finish showed the immense power of air attacks, when combined with ground forces. So we planned for an Afghan air force. But we seem to have planned for a force that could not maintain its own equipment, relying in perpetuity on Western contractors. Nor was the selection of assets well-organized. The Afghans mostly needed close air support craft, like attack helicopters and A10 gunships. They should have focused on a very few models that they could fully sustain, with financial and parts support from the US. But that assumes that the US, and the Afghan government, had more thoughtful long-range planning than actually existed.

Always a difficult relationship

The Government

Apart from being seen as a puppet and un-Islamic, the government was riven with tribal and regional conflicts. Karzai spent most of his time managing and trying to win tribal contests. Malkasian repeatedly shows how major decisions and mental energy went into these issues, to the exclusion of attention to the armed forces, or the resurgent Taliban, or resolving corruption, among much else. 

Overall, however, the main issue was that the US installed a top-down quasi-democracy without giving the people true power. Unlike the local political reconstruction in the post-WW2 occupations, let alone our own system, the new Afghan government was explicitly centralized, with provincial and district heads appointed by Karzai. Karzai was really the new king of Afghanistan, more or less foisted on the country, though he had a significant amount of national credibility. There was a great deal of effort to sell this to the people as democracy, and foster "communication" and collaboration, and buy-in, but the people were never allowed into a true federal system with full electoral control of their local districts. Perhaps this was done for good reason, both from the monarchical Afghan tradition, and in light of the strong tribal tensions frequently at work. But it sapped the mutual support / accountability between the people and their government.

Karzai himself broached the idea of bringing Taliban into the system early on, but was rebuffed by the US. We went on to lump the Taliban in with the other "terrorists", and they, like Ho Chi Minh, used their natural legitimacy (with enormous helpings of terror, suicide bombings, and other guerilla tactics .. yes, terrorism again!) to eventually get the upper hand. How much better it would have been to have drawn a relatively generous line against allowing the former Taliban top echelon into official capacities, suppress militias and all forms of political violence, and let the rest re-integrate and participate in a truly ground-up federal system? It was those excluded from the system who holed up in Pakistan, seethed with resentment, and organized the return to power that started in earnest in 2005/2006. The Taliban may have been a bad government and in bed with Al Qaeda and the rest of it. They were not particularly popular with people in many areas of the country. But they were also very nationalistic, highly Islamic, and made up a fair slice of Afghanistan's educated demographic. 

A common theme through all these issues is American hubris, and lack of listening / empathy / respect for / understanding of local conditions. We insisted on making the Taliban the enemy, then insisted on rooting them out through night raids, Guantanamo imprisonment, exile to Pakistan, and other degradations. And were frequently getting fraudulent intelligence to base it all on. We thought that more military power, and more money, would get what we wanted. But what we wanted was Afghans to want to work on behalf of their own country in a free, stable, and prosperous system. How could that system be built on our money and blood? It couldn't. I had to be built by the Afghans, in their own way.

• Global leadership is in play.
• Private jets are abominable. Gas taxes, anyone?
• The planet simply can not take it.
• Meritocracy... good or bad? I would offer that is a lot better than the alternative. But can it be improved?
• Drilling for the climate: geothermal power is coming along, at large scale.