SOTU and Sputnik: Economic nationalism, political paralysis, and the decline of the American Empire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't yet commented on last night's State of the Union address, nor on the Republican response, but, then, what more is there to say?

TNR's John Judis thinks it was President Obama's best speech as president. I do not agree, though I'm hard-pressed to name a better one. Not because I thought his SOTU was all that great but because he hasn't exactly given many memorable speeches as president.

Content-wise, I suppose a lot depends on what you think of Obama's economic nationalism, the core theme of last night's speech. The world is moving ahead and America is in decline. That decline is relative, as it is still on top, for the most part, but how long will it be before China and perhaps India take over?

In referencing Sputnik at the core of his speech, Obama was saying that America is now at a fork in the road, much as it was after the Soviet Union launched that first satellite into space. One road leads to further decline, one road leads to further superpowerdom:

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.

This is our generation's Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven't seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology -- an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.

I hardly count myself an economic nationalist, or a nationalist of any kind, and certainly not in American terms, but I do think that Obama is generally right about this. Private investment -- business -- is simply not enough. What is needed, as it was back in the '50s, is extensive government investment in everything from health care to education to research and development in next-generation technological innovation.

This is where conservatives get it wrong. No one is saying, let alone Obama, that business doesn't matter, or that government ought to replace business. We all acknowledge that businesses create jobs and for the most part keep the economy moving. But business, taken as a whole, simply does not have the big picture in mind. Business is about profit, about maximizing returns for shareholders. And that's fine. But sometimes you need, a society needs, government to step in and lead the way. Conservatives pretend that this is never the case, or perhaps have convinced themselves that government can never be the answer. This is historical revisionism, a failure to appreciate how American capitalism, and capitalism generally, has evolved over time.

As Slate's Fred Kaplan explains, huge government investment has been behind many of the most significant technological developments and innovations of recent decades, from space exploration (most notably JFK's pledge to go to the moon, ultimately realized less than a decade later) to the microchip to the Internet:

John Kennedy ran for president in 1960, promising a "new frontier" founded on "vigor." Early in his term, he directly responded to Sputnik in two ways: He poured money into the Minuteman ICBM program (both before and after he realized that the missile gap was a myth). And he pledged to land an American on the moon by the end of the decade.

In the spring of 1959, Texas Instruments had introduced a new technology called the microchip. But it was very expensive and generated no demand from the private sector. However, these tiny chips would be needed to power the guidance systems in the Minuteman's nose cone -- and in the coming Apollo program's space capsule.

It was the Pentagon and NASA that bought the first microchips. The demand allowed for economies of scale, driving down costs enough so that private companies started building products that relied on chips. This created further economies of scale. And so came the inventions of the pocket calculator, smaller and faster computers, and, decades later, just about everything that we use in daily life.

None of this was inevitable. It started only because of government investment. Obama made this same point in Tuesday night's address: "Our free enterprise is what drives innovation. But because it's not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout history our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support they need. That's what planted the seeds for the Internet. That's what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS."

GPS was initially an Air Force program, designed to make bombs more accurate. The Internet was an internal communication program created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Obama could have gone back further. The first commercial computer, the IBM 1401 of the late 1950s, came about only because the first customers were government agencies, the Social Security program and the Veterans Administration, which required a computer with enough capacity to store data about the millions of Americans receiving government checks.

If conservatives like today's had had their way, none of this would have happened -- or, rather, it would have, but America likely would not have been the leader of the computer age, the American economy wouldn't have boomed as it did, and Americans, along with American businesses, wouldn't have reaped the benefits of such astonishing innovation.

Obama's speech was all about winning the future, as Slate's John Dickerson notes:

He described a challenge to the American dream: The promise of prosperity is threatened by technology and global competition. His pitch was aimed at those Americans "who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game." After sketching this moment of uncertainty, he quickly moved to optimism, rallying the country to its strongest traditions of perseverance and affirming that Americans have always been able to shape their own destiny. His speech was practically a 12-step program for reconnecting the American people with the dream that animated the country at its beginning. 

There is a dark side to this, of course. Back in the '50s and '60s, there was a clear enemy, the Soviet Union, and Americans (and most westerners) rallied against it. But what is there now? According to Obama -- and he's right about this -- the real challenge to America (if not so much to the rest of the West) is not al Qaeda, or Islamism broadly, but emerging economic superpowers like China and India, and perhaps even Europe. A challenge is not necessarily the same as an enemy, but the risk is that the rest of the world will be seen now as the primary threat to America's future, if not to its survival then at least to its standing atop the world. And this would mean vilifying the Chinese and the Indians, among others. Nationalism, after all, isn't just about national pride and a focus on national interests but about exclusion, about "us" and "them." The world is getting smaller and smaller, but nationalism is about building walls, about driving people apart. Is that really the way to do?

Of course, many other governments invest heavily in domestic industry, and so, to an extent, the U.S. would (and should) be no different. So, fine. Go ahead and invest. The problem is, where is the investment going to come from? Beyond Obama's high-falutin' rhetoric, where is the political will for it happen?

Obama did not call for shared sacrifice but instead for bipartisanship. There's a huge difference. It was fairly easy, relatively speaking, to call for sacrifice when faced with the Soviet threat, but now? All President Bush told Americans to do after 9/11 was to go shopping. Obama still clings to the delusions of post-partisanship that characterized his campaign -- whether he actually believes such nonsense is not clear, but what else are we to take from his insistent rhetoric? -- and so merely asks Democrats and Republicans to work together to address the country's problems. He will do his part, as always, by reaching out across the aisle, but have we, has he, learned nothing of the first two years of his presidency. Republicans want no part of working with him or his party on anything. He might be able to peel off a Republican or two here and there, but the health-care debate is ample evidence that Republicans refuse to compromise in good faith.

And so, the merits of Obama's innovation-based approach aside, progress, it would seem to me, isn't likely. Dickerson notes that the president used the phrase "win the future," or a variant, 11 times in his speech. That means that the speech sounded very much like "a self-help seminar," one loaded with typically banal "tag lines from corporate marketing." Yes, he's for more government investment, perhaps akin to what happened in the '50s and '60s, but the message was presented at such a high level that it rang hollow. And as if that weren't enough, Obama indicated that he remains committed to the tax-cut, spending-cut fiscal conservatism of the political center. As Kaplan writes:

Obama proposed, starting this year, to "freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years," a step that, he boasted, would "bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president."

It's hard to see how he or the Congress can resolve this contradiction -- Kennedy-esque vigor and investment on the one hand, Ike-like torpor and penny-pinching on the other. He said much of this extra money could be freed up by eliminating subsidies for the oil companies. First, good luck on that. And second, that alone won't free up enough.

So where's the money going to come from? Even if he gets Democrats on board -- and he certainly won't get all of them -- there's no way Republicans are going to agree to massive government investment in anything, let alone when they mistakenly think voters gave them an anti-government mandate last year and when they plan on running along Tea Party lines in 2012.

Sure, this was the "old" Obama again, the one calling for the "hard choices" to be made and for bipartisanship to prevail, and he was generally quite effective, and, sure, Americans seem to like what they heard, but where exactly do we go from here? It sounded more like Obama was laying the groundwork for his re-election bid, presenting a nationalistic (and vaguely populistic) vision that appeals to independents, then he was presenting anything resembling a realistic policy agenda for the next two years. (As TNR's Jonathan Chait remarks, the president's "emphasis on public investment reflects less a desire to increase spending on infrastructure, R&D and the like than a platform from which to oppose anticipated Republican cuts.")

That's fine, I suppose -- he needs to run on something, after all -- but it just seems to confirm that nothing is actually going to happen. Even if Americans like what they heard, they don't want their taxes raised and they have a party, the GOP, that is fundamentally anti-tax and anti-government and that will appeal to them along those lines. Americans also oppose cuts to most government programs, including Social Security, of course, even if Republicans refuse to acknowledge this, and so as the country faces political intractability, and as the willingness to accept shared sacrifice is largely non-existent, there just isn't the money for what Obama wants.

Even if this is another Sputnik moment for America, the outcome will be very different. Obama will make his case, Republicans will make theirs, and nothing will change -- except, from time to time, the politicians voters send to Washington.

The decline of the American Empire, already in full swing, continues.

(photo 1, photo2)

The spy who came in from the cold, became a best-selling author, and spoke out against the evils of his time

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Raw Story:

John Le Carre, author of dozens of cloak-and-dagger thrillers, told the Sunday Telegraph's Seven magazine that the British intelligence agencies for whom he worked in the 1950s and 1960s -- MI5 and MI6 -- carried out numerous assassinations in the name of fighting the Cold War.

"Certainly we did some very bad things," he said. "We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations. Although I was never involved."

But of course we were never as bad as they were:

Le Carre argued that the operations carried out by Western intelligence agencies were a far cry from the "unaccountable" killings by their Soviet Bloc adversaries.

"Even when quite ruthless operations are being contemplated ... the process of democratic consultation was still relatively intact and decent humanitarian instincts came into play," he said. "Totalitarian states killed with impunity and no one was held accountable. That didn't happen in the West."

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Not only did we win, but we played nicer. We're awesome.

(Actually, I like Le Carré a great deal. I've read almost all of his novels, all of them up to the last few. While I prefer the realist Le Carré of the Cold War to the moralist Le Carré of recent years -- and it's that moralism, wrapped up in righteous outrage, that has turned me off his recent work -- I admire him for speaking out with indignation against the excesses and abuses of the West, not least with respect to Africa, as well as against the madness of recent U.S. foreign and military policy, notably the Iraq War. When he speaks, it seems to me, he ought to be taken seriously.)

Berlin

By Mustang Bobby

Ross Douthat mourns the lack of celebration marking the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall.

There will be speeches and celebrations to mark this anniversary, but not as many as the day deserves. (Barack Obama couldn’t even fit a visit to Berlin into his schedule.) By rights, the Ninth of November should be a holiday across the Western world, celebrated with the kind of pomp and spectacle reserved for our own Independence Day.

Never has liberation come to so many people all at once — to Eastern Europe’s millions, released from decades of bondage; to the world, freed from the shadow of nuclear Armageddon; and to the democratic West, victorious after a century of ideological struggle.

Never has so great a revolution been accomplished so swiftly and so peacefully, by ordinary men and women rather than utopians with guns.

Twenty years later, we still haven’t come to terms with the scope of our deliverance. Francis Fukuyama famously described the post-Communist era as “the end of history.” By this, he didn’t mean the end of events — wars and famines, financial panics and terrorist bombings. He meant the disappearance of any enduring, existential threat to liberal democracy and free-market capitalism.

I think there are several reasons why the anniversary is not getting more play here. In the first place, the Cold War had become something of an anachronism even before the opening of the Wall, and as far as we were concerned, it was the stuff of spy novels and the rantings of the John Birch Society. The last time the Soviet Union had acted in an overt manner to crush rebellion behind the Iron Curtain had been the tanks rolling into Prague in 1968. They had already begun to show their paper-thin veneer of toughness with the response to the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1981 and their inability to control their client states. By the time Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union, it was clear that the only thing that was keeping it functioning on a daily basis was the rhetoric of its geriatric leaders playing off the anti-communism rhetoric we kept feeding them (see: Cuba). Ronald Reagan may have called the Soviet Union the "evil empire," but it was an empire that couldn't make soap.

That's not to minimize the brutality and the denial of basic rights that existed behind the Wall. Those impediments to liberty are the hallmarks of rulers who know they are keeping their people oppressed and live in constant fear of being overthrown, so the weaker they got, the more repressive and petty they became. What was amazing was the lack of revenge exacted by the people as the dictatorships collapsed. With the notable exception of Romania, the people of Eastern Europe did not visit on their former leaders the oppression and torture they had endured; it was as if they realized that they were better than their past, that nothing would be gained by vengeance, and they knew what a tough road they had ahead of them to rebuild their nations after decades of war and oppression.

So perhaps the reason we're not making a bigger deal out of the anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall is because it did not come after a brutal and bloody struggle. No shots were fired; after weeks of peaceful protests without repression from the state -- a sign of impending capitulation itself -- an East German bureaucrat mistakenly announced the lifting of visa requirements and the dreaded VoPos of East Germany stood meekly aside as the Trabants trundled through Checkpoint Charlie to the rhythm of rock music and dancing teenagers. What had been the stuff of James Bond and John Le Carre became Woodstock.

The Cold War didn't end with a bang or a whimper; it was more like a sigh of relief that it was over. Like recovery after a hurricane, we were glad that it had passed but daunted by the task of cleaning up after. And it would be unseemly to remind the survivors of how grateful they should be that they made it through with what they had.

(Footnote: Mr. Douthat takes a parenthetical swipe at Barack Obama for not visiting Berlin to honor the moment. Maybe he's forgotten that quiet little visit Mr. Obama made to Berlin in 2008.)

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

It's about time

By Mustang Bobby

A poll in Miami-Dade County among Cuban-Americans indicates a marked change in attitude about the embargo and diplomatic relations with Cuba.

The poll, conducted by Florida International University's Institute for Public Opinion Research and funded by the Brookings Institution and the Cuba Study Group, indicates that 55 percent of those polled favor discontinuing the trade embargo imposed in 1962. Sixty-five percent favor reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.

''The poll has an extraordinary historical importance,'' said Guarione Díaz, president of the Cuban American National Council, a nonpartisan advocacy group in Miami.

The results, particularly as they relate to the embargo, reflect ''the fact that the Cuban Americans who were born in the United States or left after 1980 do not have the same vision as those who came in the 60s,'' Díaz said.

Ninoska Pérez, director of the conservative Cuban Liberty Council, dismissed the results.

''I am tired of these polls that mean nothing,'' she said. ''The point is that three Congress members who support the embargo were elected by an overwhelming majority of the people. The reelection of these Congress members tells me that this sample is not a majority. I don't believe this poll.''

The embargo question has been consistent since FIU began conducting the poll in 1991. Beginning in 1997, the trend showed a gradual decrease of support for maintaining the embargo. But this year's poll is the first to show a majority in favor of lifting it. In 2007, 42 percent of those polled were in favor of ending the trade ban.

''It's a significant jump,'' said Hugh Gladwin, director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research at FIU.

''I'd give two explanations. The first one is that there's been this continuing demographic change. The other factor is the election of Obama. There's a process of change. People see the handwriting on the wall,'' he added.

I've been around long enough to have seen the embargo in place from the beginning in 1962 -- I was ten -- and I have never understood the reasoning behind it, then and now. When I moved to Miami in 1971 to go to college and then again thirty years later, I asked some Cuban friends to explain why the embargo, which by then was clearly not having the desired effect, still had their unshakable support. The answer boiled down to "It's a Cuban thing; you wouldn't understand."

Okay, well, then don't expect me to be sympathetic to a policy that seems both pointless and harmful, and not to the intended targets. There is no doubt that the Castro brothers are thugs and dictators, but all the embargo did was give them an excuse for prolonging their "struggle," and we couldn't have handed them a better gift of legitimizing their regime if we had delivered it to them with candy and a stripper. The tightening of the travel and financial restrictions by the current Bush administration did nothing to Fidel and Raul, but it imposed more misery and family separation on the exile community here in Miami. And yet every time someone mentions loosening the restraints and dealing with a dictatorship on the same level we deal with all the other non-democratic governments around the world, including Vietnam, where over 58,000 Americans lost their lives (and a country that now sells us tennis shoes) and China, which basically holds the mortgage on our financial system, we hear the knee-jerk responses like those of Ms. Pérez, who shuts her eyes, sticks her fingers in her ears, and basically says that she doesn't believe the polls.

While I may not understand the Cuban thing, one thing that's clear to me is that unlike Vietnam and China, the Cuban embargo is based not on practical policy but on a personal vendetta that is deeply felt by every exile who blames Fidel Castro personally for their plight and everything else that goes wrong in their life. The car won't start or the hot water heater leaks? Fidel did it. The dog crapped on the carpet? Again, Fidel. It's as if in 1959 Castro himself marched into their home in Pinar del Rio, parked his ass on the couch, put his combat boots on the coffee table, ground out his cigar in the family portrait, and told everyone to get out and leave the keys to the Desoto by the door.

And I know any number of people in the exile community who are prepared for their own version of the Rapture: As soon as word comes that Fidel and Raul have shuffled off this khaki coil they will be on the first plane back to Havana, property deeds and house keys in hand, ready to resume their life as if they've been off on a vacation. They carry on about how they are dreaming of a "free Cuba," as if the previous regime of Batista was a model of Jeffersonian democracy. This, more than any economic or political logic, is the mindset that keeps the embargo in place, refusing to acknowledge the possibility that if we had flooded Cuba with McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and -- most importantly -- a chain of NAPA auto parts stores, the Cuban revolution's dictatorial and Soviet-style elements would have been deeply challenged by the time we started shipping them Ford Pintos in 1972. Capitalism may have its flaws, but it is undeniably human nature to try to make a buck, and it's awfully hard to chant revolutionary slogans when you're listening to the Beatles on an iPod.

Perhaps with a new administration in Washington -- the eleventh since Castro came to power -- will come some enlightenment about the embargo. And while there will be an uproar from some on Calle Ocho if the restrictions are loosened, you can be pretty sure that some of the first in line for the first flights back will be those who protested the loudest. But then, it's a Cuban thing; you wouldn't understand.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Negotiation, appeasement, and "tough diplomacy"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Capt. Fogg, Carl, and I -- along with many others -- have commented on Bush's ridiculous (because worthy of ridicule) claim that talking to one's enemies, broadly speaking, amounts to appeasement.

But make sure to check out TNR Executive Editor J. Peter Scoblic's well-argued op-ed in yesterday's LAT. Here's a key passage:

[I]f there is anything that has been discredited by history, it is the argument that every enemy is Hitler, that negotiations constitute appeasement, and that talking will automatically lead to a slaughter of Holocaust-like proportions. It is an argument that conservatives made throughout the Cold War, and, if the charge seemed overblown at the time, it seems positively ludicrous with the clarity of hindsight.

The negotiation-is-appeasement claim is all-too-common to modern American conservatism. And, with Republicans looking at a possibly massive defeat in November, we'll be hearing a lot more of it from McCain et al.

As usual, though, conservatives have history against them. And, this year, they also have Obama against them.

And, as he showed in response to Bush, he's not about to take their shit:

Satellite shoot-down plan provokes Cold War flare-up

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The U.S., as you may have heard, is planning to shoot down a rogue spy satellite. Needless to say, the Russians are not amused:

Russia has accused the US of using a plan to shoot down a broken spy satellite as a cover for testing an anti-satellite weapon.

The US said last week that it would use a missile to destroy the satellite, to stop it from crash landing.

Officials say the satellite contains hazardous fuel which could kill humans.

But Russia's defence ministry said the US planned to test its "anti-missile defence system's capability to destroy other countries' satellites".

*****

Russia's defence ministry said the US had not given enough information on the reasons for the decision.

"Speculations about the danger of the satellite hide preparations for the classical testing of an anti-satellite weapon," a statement reported by Itar-Tass news agency said.

"Such testing essentially means the creation of a new type of strategic weapons," it added.

"The decision to destroy the American satellite does not look harmless as they try to claim, especially at a time when the US has been evading negotiations on the limitation of an arms race in outer space," the statement continued.

This is a sensitive operation, and, obviously, there is a lot we don't know. Still, as Noah Shachtman has pointed out, the official rationale for the operation -- namely, that "the hydrazine tank could rupture, releasing a 'toxic gas' over a 'populated area,' causing a 'risk to human life'" -- seems rather far-fetched. In fact, there isn't much of a risk at all. Hydrazine isn't that toxic, and any affected area, in terms of geographic size, would be tiny.

So, then -- why?

Shachtman cites "a veteran space security specialist" who suspects, and with good reason, that, for the U.S., "the satellite shot is a chance for the military to try out its missile defense capabilities; a way to keep secret material out of the wrong hands; and a warning to the Chinese, after they destroyed a satellite about a year ago." "Regardless of the central rationale for the anticipated intercept of a dying satellite," however, "the action almost certainly would offer the Pentagon useful data on conducting antisatellite missions."

All of which is to say that the Russians are probably right, more or less.

To be fair, the U.S. may have communicated this in some way to Moscow and/or to Beijing and/or to anyone else -- through back channels. And the official Russian response may have been largely for domestic consumption. Putin does not want to appear weak, after all, and Moscow can ill-afford to appear as if it isn't standing up to the U.S.

Still, the U.S. is up to something -- and that something has required the use of a flimsy pretext, a cover story that is simply not credible and that further weakens America's credibility generally, both at home and abroad. (What does America's word mean nowadays?)

I don't expect the U.S. military to make public its more sensitive projects and operations, of course, but it must collectively think that we are all too stupid to figure out what's really going on. Given that the go-ahead for this operation came from the occupant of the Oval Office, it should be no surprise that there has been such a campaign of misinformation.

**********

Update: China isn't amused either.

Rounding up Russia

By Carol Gee

The year 2008 will be big on elections. In the United States, the Democratic party will, in my opinion, have a pretty good idea of who is to be the nominee after February 3, when a large number of states hold their primaries and caucuses. A month later the election of a new Russian president will happen on March 2. In December of last year Russia's premier newspaper, Pravda, declared that Russia will be united , but that "It is still unclear what role Vladimir Putin will choose after his resignation, but it’s likely that Dmitry Medvedev would be nominated his successor. Elsewhere, it is also expected that Dmitri Medvedev will succeed Vladimir Putin, who will then become Prime Minister.*

Meanwhile our own current president (OCP) is traveling in the Middle East attempting, after all this time, to secure some kind of a peace legacy. (The website PressTV-Iran carries an interesting interview, offering a different perspective on the Bush legacy). OCP seems to have no interest in U.S. 2008 elections.

It is also not clear that the U.S. has much interest in Russian affairs. However President Putin in November seemed to feel that foreign nations were meddling in the Russian election process by funding his opponents. The BBC News (11/21/07), headlined "Putin attacks 'jackal' opponents. To quote:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused opposition politicians of scavenging like jackals for funds from foreign embassies.

He also accused the West of meddling in Russian politics, saying: "Those who confront us need a weak and ill state."

Though OCP has looked into Putin's eyes, and our Secretary of State has a heavy (cold war era) Russian portfolio, the administration seems unable to focus on much of anything but the Persian Gulf region. In a recent post titled,"Bubbling Balkans crisis is back," Steve Clemons at the Washington Note says as much. To quote from the post:

Lieven is correct to note that there are anti-Putin, anti-Russian hardliners in Washington who want yet more reasons to ignite global conflict and tension -- which reinforces the high-fear politics they have become vested in.

But beyond some folks in DC demonizing Putin and a resurgent Russia, there is little evidence that Russia is a priority today on Washington's foreign policy roster of concerns. As one former senior G.W. Bush administration official said at a
Nixon Center gathering, "I can see no evidence that this administration has a
strategy towards Russia of any kind."

The image of OCP blithely traveling around the Middle East seeing the sights in Dubai, hugging the King in Saudi Arabia (and filling up their sophisticated weapons caches), contrasts sharply with Vladimir Putin's markedly increasing unfriendliness towards the West. A headline, "FSB calls British Council staff for questioning" from the Financial Times (1/16/08) illustrates my point. To quote:

Russia’s Federal Security Service has summoned for questioning all the Russian staff of the British Council’s regional offices while the head of its St Petersburg office was detained last night for an hour as a standoff between Russia and the UK escalated.

. . . The intervention by the Russian security services comes after the British Council on Monday reopened its regional branches in defiance of an order by the Russian government in a dispute over the UK cultural arm’s legal status. The diplomatic feud has been linked by both sides to the rapid chill in relations over the November 2006 killing of Alexander Litvinenko.

Meanwhile, occasionally the Russians are behaving like grown-ups, members of the family of nations. It seems that they are attempting to curb air pollution, by cutting carbon emissions. This headline appeared in Ria Novosti (1/16/07) : "Russia's auto industry switches to Euro 3 emission standard." To quote:

Russia's auto makers have competed their transition to the Euro 3 emission standard in vehicle production, the chief executive of the Association of Russian Auto Makers said on Wednesday.

Nations meddle in each others' business all the time; it is called diplomacy. Last fall I wrote a post called "The Business of Sovereignty," which I posted at TPMCafe. It produced a very intriguing conversation with Howard Berkowitz that I saved, just for this occasion it now seems. I quote his lovely Russian spy story in full:

On October 14, 2007 - 11:44am hcberkowitz said:

Even during the Cold War, it was impressive to see Soviet and American warriors (I think the term here is more appropriate than soldier, which are not truly equivalent) get together under nonconfrontational situations. There was an unwritten agreement between the CIA and KGB not to attack one anothers' officers. If a local CIA case officer had his car break down on a lonely road in a bandit-filled area, he would have been delighted to have his KGB counterpart drive by. It would have been understood that the only damage that would have been done by the KGB man was the shared vodka hangover in the morning.

At high levels, when Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, the military adviser to Gorbachev, to the general acceptance and shock of all concerned, to have paid a visit to the Pentagon and been invited into the National Military Command Center, he and the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe, connected on some emotional level, and, by the observation of everyone who saw them together, formed a true friendship. It is not clear how Akhromeyev died in the attempted coup against Gorbachev; suicide was the initial report but that has come into question. Back at the Pentagon, Crowe grieved deeply.

Both sides have been opening their histories, sometimes showing frightening things, and, on other occasions, finding things to share. No one knew, for example, that the Soviet commander in Cuba, during the Missile Crisis, had tactical nuclear weapons with the preauthorization to use them against an amphibious landing.

In the US and fUSSR strategic air defense organizations, there were mid-level officers, who, at various times, made the right call when sensors were reporting a nuclear attack in progress. This happened a handful of times, but it makes the reciprocal teams in the command centers very, very aware of responsibility not just to their own countries, but to humanity.

A colleague of mine had retired from the US Army Band, where he was the lead arranger. One year, he got me VIP tickets to their annual 1812 Overture concert. People forget that Overture is about the Battle of Borodino, when Russia turned Napoleon back. Customarily, the Soviet military attaches were invited and given honored seating. There were various pieces in the concert, but when the Overture played, the Soviets, in dress uniform, arose and stood at attention. After the last cannon and bell was silent, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff saluted them, and the salutes were returned sincerely.

Sometimes, there is reason to hope.

--
Howard

*Reference regarding Russian presidency: Analytical article from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, by Andrew C. Kuchins. To quote:

Putinism Without Putin?

With a 70 percent approval rating, an economy inflated by oil wealth, stability-minded voters and the media under his thumb, Russia’s president holds all the cards in his country’s 2008 elections. But whatever the results, Russia’s foreign policy likely will continue to be driven by a cold calculation of its national interest.

Not all the news about Russia is bad, though it may seem that way. Today's Russian Roundup was my attempt to present a bit of both sides of that picture. Some day I will try to write a post about OCP that will be more balanced, but I just do not have it in my heart yet. I am one of those "angry Democrats," and it will take me a while to regain my perspective and get over it.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

A timely review

By Edward Copeland

As it so happens, I was planning to post on my film blog today a review of Charlie Wilson's War, which now proves particularly timely in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. A brief excerpt:

As a member of an important subcommittee, Wilson, almost on a whim, doubles the amount of U.S. dollars being spent on covert activities in Afghanistan. Wilson's action attracts the attention of a wealthy Houston socialite Joanna Herring (Julia Roberts), who is as right-wing and Republican as Wilson is not but has made the Afghan situation a cause aimed at winning the Cold War. She encourages Wilson to add a trip to Pakistan on to a planned junket to the Mideast so he can meet with Pakistani President Zia (Om Puri), the man who hanged the late Benazir Bhutto's father in a previous takeover in Pakistan.

To read the full review, click here.

How about No Press Secretary Left Behind?

By Edward Copeland

You'll have to scroll down a bit through the story to get to the details, but as further evidence of the pisspoor historical education received by people in this country (and unfortunately way too many members of Dubyaland), Bush spokeswoman can't remember what that Cuban Missile Crisis deal was all about:

Appearing on National Public Radio's light-hearted quiz show "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me," which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and she didn't know what it was.

"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

So she consulted her best source. "I came home and I asked my husband," she recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.'"

The lives of West German spies in the East

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Have you seen The Lives of Others? Arguably -- and I will make the argument -- the best film of 2006, it is a quiet, reflective masterpiece, a brilliantly humane, if harrowing, look at the ruthless Orwellianism of the former East Germany.

What is presented so intimately in that film is what has been known for so long, if not in such human terms, namely, that the East German Communist regime subjected its oppressed citizens to seemingly ubiquitous surveillance, that the country itself was a state of seemingly universal intelligence-gathering.

What is not known nearly as well is that many in the East were not spying for the East but for the West -- and a fascinating new study reveals the massive extent of that espionage:

It's a well-known fact that East Germany had agents crawling all over West Germany during the Cold War. Up to 6,000 of them, some in high places, were regularly passing information eastwards across the wall.

According to a new study published on Friday, though, when it came to recruiting spooks, the West Germans were even better. Fully 10,000 citizens of Germany's communist half were spying for Bonn. Not only that, but West Germany's intelligence agency the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) had a pretty good idea about the plans to build the Berlin Wall, but their bosses in Bonn simply didn't want to believe them.

German historians Armin Wagner and Matthias Uhl have pored over files released by Germany foreign intelligence agency (BND) covering the period between the formation of the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In their book "BND Against the Soviet Army," they reveal that the agency managed to recruit thousands of people from all sections of East German society for military espionage.

Of course, the East was doing the same thing, with spies all over the West, and, indeed, "the [East's] spies were significantly more successful at the espionage game". One East German agent was even "a top aide to Chancellor Willy Brandt" -- a disturbing development that "led to Brandt's resignation" in 1974 (for more see here.)

Interesting stuff.

Military activism

By Carol Gee

The term "military activism" is not an oxymoron for people whose defining war was Vietnam. But it could be a contradiction in terms for many of us who have retired, because our defining war was World War II. We were growing up during the 1940's, the decade when most everyone had come to agreement that World War II was a "just" war. We were united; no one protested.

The meaning of the term, for me as I first use it in this post, is "anti-war or pro-war activism within the ranks of the active military or among veterans." From the Korean War on, some American people -- including some veterans -- became disenchanted with the government's stated justifications for going to war. Vietnam was the impetus for the emergence of the first really significant antiwar veteran activism. Senator John Kerry cut his teeth in such public service soon after he returned from his stint in the jungles and waterways of southeast Asia.

What is the current level of antiwar or pro-war military activism associated with the war in Iraq today? An article in my current Democratic Strategist linked to a fascinating story in the Washington Monthly that was the basis for yesterday's South by Southwest blog post. It's title is "How a Democrat Can Get My Vote: Advice from seven recent war veterans." It opens with these statistics:

Three years ago, in 2004, 60 percent of military voters polled by the Military Times identified themselves as Republican. Today, that number is down to 46 percent, or less than half. The reason for this change is obvious: Iraq has gone from bad to worse. Afghanistan, too, is in trouble.

The article ends with links to seven short and very interesting essays (see *list below) "from a group of military veterans of various ranks and political persuasions, each of whom wrote a short essay in response," as well as a link to, quoting further from the Monthly,

"The Bitter End," a reported piece by Washington Monthly national security correspondent Spencer Ackerman, who argues, based on what he has seen in Iraq and at home, that Democrats are right on the merits of withdrawal from Iraq but misguided on what message that will send to our troops there.

Exploring the term "military activism" further, I was surprised when it became apparent that the government can also be the activists. I found a fascinating article from 2002 entitled, "The 'New Warfare' and the New American Calculus of War," the Project on Defense Alternatives' Briefing Memo #26, written by Carl Conetta, 30 September 2002. Table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. The new calculus of war
3. The new warfare
4. The poverty of analysis: a splendid little war?
5. Precision attack, chaotic outcomes
6. The new warfare: disappearing "the civilian"?

"Rosy scenario-with cautions?" -- Quoting the author's introduction reveals what might have been the "prevailing wisdom" in military thinking at the beginning of the war in Iraq:

One legacy of the 20th century's great conflicts was the emergence of a general societal presumption against war: the simple idea that war should be an instrument of last and infrequent resort. Although this lesson came at a very high price, it has proved difficult to retain. Especially since the end of the cold war, the idea has been in retreat. A new cost-benefit calculus is at work in American policy discourse and practice -- one accepting a lowered threshold for the use of force as an instrument of US policy.

Important in shaping this development was the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of global superpower conflict. This geostrategic revolution elevated America's relative power position to one of distinct military primacy and it mitigated concerns about the possibility that regional intervention might escalate to the level of an all-consuming nuclear conflagration.

Also important in altering America's war calculus has been the putative "revolution in military affairs" (or "RMA") which is associated with developments in the field of information technology. RMA capabilities are supposed to give the United States the capacity to fight regional wars surgically and to conclude them rapidly with minimal casualties and collateral damage. Much as the geostrategic revolution served to relax concerns about war escalation, emergent RMA capabilities have served to mitigate the fear that regional intervention might lead to "quagmires" reminiscent of the Vietnam War.

…the cautions -- The author's closing two paragraphs are eerily prophetic:

The increasing role of special operations troops and covert operatives, and the increased dependence on indigenous ethnic militias, may also have the effect of blurring the military-civilian boundary. In addition, the use of ethnic militias or other local irregular troops as proxies raises issue of control and accountability. In the aftermath of the Afghan war, some elements of the Northern Alliance may have committed grave and systematic breeches of the Geneva Conventions, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross and several human rights organizations. At minimum, this could reflect badly on the United States and tarnish the moral authority of the war against terrorism.

The demise of the Soviet Union elevated America to a position of unparalleled global military superiority. Today the United States accounts for more than forty percent of world defense spending. In the shadow of the 11 September attacks, US military power may seem more relevant than ever. But America's preponderance of military power does not settle the question of how to employ this instrument or when. Nor does it tell us how best to balance this instrument with others in order to meet today's unique challenges. Although these questions are urgent ones, we cannot hope to answer them wisely without a better accounting of both the "new warfare" and the dynamics associated with military activism in the new era.

"Not so fast," says Russia. In the face of our current president's (OCP) weird missile defense proposal for/against(?) Russia, Vladimir Putin has been exercising a bit of military activism himself. The ContraCosta Times headlines the dilemma into which OCP has again gotten us, "Bush assuages, assails Putin on defense." To quote:

President Bush gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a double-edged message Tuesday, reassuring him that he has nothing to fear from a missile-defense system that he abhors, then slapping him verbally for backsliding on democratic reforms.

Bush's words threatened to inflame his already-tense relationship with Putin and to overshadow the Group of Eight Summit that opens today in Germany.

Bush said he intends to tell Putin when the two leaders meet Thursday at the G-8 summit that the U.S. plan to build a Europe-based missile-defense system poses no threat to Russia.

*The Seven Veterans' Essays:

-- One Soldier's Story: An Introduction - by Phillip Carter
-- Withdraw Decisively - by Ross Cohen
-- Stay and Fight - by Garth Stewart
-- Understand the War We're In - by Andrew Exum
-- Elect More Jim Webbs - by Clint Douglas
-- Bash the Generals - by Melissa Tryon
-- Ask Americans to Serve - by Nathaniel Fick

(Cross-posted from South by Southwest.)

The return of the Cold War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Escalation revisited:

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Europe with missiles, including potentially nuclear weapons, in a dramatic escalation of his Cold War-style showdown with the United States.

Mr. Putin, in an interview at his country residence outside Moscow, said he considers U.S. plans to build an eastern European anti-missile site to shoot down Iranian missiles a provocation aimed at Russia.

Asked what he might do to retaliate, he said he would return Russia to the Cold War status where missiles were aimed at European targets.

"It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States is located in Europe, and according to our military experts will be threatening us, we will have to respond," he said.

"What kind of steps are we going to take in response? Of course, we are going to get new targets in Europe."

He suggested that this could include powerful nuclear-capable weapons.

I am not one to defend Putin. He has essentially turned into Vladimir the Terrible, suppressing dissent and opposition to his essentially tyrannical rule and otherwise preventing liberty and democracy from taking hold in Russia.

And I will certainly not defend him here.

But he is right that the U.S. bears much of the responsibility here. The U.S. -- at least the U.S. according to the neocons and their allies -- may believe in the concept of and project for benevolent American global hegemony, but much of the rest of the world is troubled by what it sees as America's malevolent neo-colonial aims -- what else is it to make of U.S. policy towards the Middle East, and particularly the Iraq War and its support for friendly dictators? It is not prepared to view American power as quintessentially benevolent, and rightly so. Whatever the universalist rhetoric, U.S. power supports U.S. national interests -- and this means not so much the extension of liberty and democracy around the world as the establishment of markets and, in this age of endless war on terror, as exploited by Bush and his allies, the establishment of an American military footprint, and a show of American military power, wherever possible.

The U.S. may not be targeting Russia, of course. Its primary focus now remains the Middle East, and particularly Iran. But Putin is right to concern himself with the extension of America's military presence more generally. Is the rest of the world -- is Russia, which was America's chief enemy and rival for so long -- simply to trust that the U.S. will act benevolently? Is it simply to trust that the U.S. will not seek to extend its military presence even further, that it won't seek to establish an even more prominent footprint? If it's Iran today, according to Putin's reasoning, it could be Russia tomorrow. And why not? The U.S. doesn't ask anyone's permission to pick its enemies. It doesn't ask for approval to act. It just does, according to its own national interests, or at least according to the reigning perceptions of its own national interests.

All Putin wants is balance, and who can blame him? The unbridled hegemony of the United States of America hardly inspires confidence or good feelings in Moscow or anywhere else.

If a second Cold War descends over Europe, or over the world generally, it will very much be a consequence of the misguided policies of the United States.