Here are the good, the bad and the ugly things in President Obama’s important speech on counter-terrorism Thursday, and in the off-stage steps he has announced that mysteriously did not appear in the speech:
The Good:
President Obama seems determined to give responsibility for drone strikes to the Department of Defense, taking it away from the Central Intelligence Agency. While there is no automatic Congressional oversight of Pentagon actions and programs, the Congress can at will call over DoD officials to explain themselves. At the moment, the program is largely handled by the CIA and is covert, so that its very existence could not be admitted by US officials and no public question could be answered about it by, e.g., the Secretary of State. I have argued ...more
Chris Woods writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Barack Obama has made it clear that the US will continue with its controversial targeted killing programme.
In a major speech the US president also announced that he has signed into force a new – and secret – rule book for lethal action that provides ‘clear guidelines, oversight and accountability’ for covert drone strikes.
Journalists briefed on the contents of the Presidential Policy Guidance reported that much-criticised attacks on groups of men based on their patterns of behaviour – so-called ‘signature strikes’ – may come to an end. And counter-terrorism officials indicated that control of covert drone strikes will progressively pass from the Central Intel...more
Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com:
We have a word for the conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group: genocide. And one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the environment: ecocide. But we don’t have a word for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on, the world as humanity had known it until, historically speaking, late last night. A possibility might be “terracide” from the Latin word for earth. It has the right ring, given its similarity to the commonplace danger word of our era: terrorist.
The truth is, whatever we call them, it’s time to talk bluntly about the terrarists of our world. Yes, I know, 9/11 was horrific. Almost 3,000 dead, massive towers down, apocalyptic...more
Should parents allow their young children to watch television or play around on the internet?
Hanna Rosin described fears of the so-called "zombie effect" in her recent Atlantic article about the "touch screen generation":
Most parents can sympathize with the disturbing sight of a toddler, who five minutes earlier had been jumping off the couch, now subdued and staring at a screen, seemingly hypnotized. In the somewhat alarmist Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think—and What We Can Do About It, author Jane Healy even gives the phenomenon a name, the “ ‘zombie’ effect,” and raises the possibility that television might “suppress mental activity by putting viewers in a trance.”
Should parents be worried? Rosin offers this reassuring info:
Thes...more
A report published by the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) has confirmed anecdotal evidence that young people are moving away from car ownership. Moreover, BMI forecasts show that the number of cars per 1,000 people in the US will continue to decline, suggesting that this demographic trend will start to have an effect on the overall vehicle fleet. Data collected in the PIRG report also supports BMI‘s view that fuel consumption is not necessarily the sole reason behind the decline. Rising ownership costs, increasing urbanisation, and a preference among the young for hi-tech goods are all combining to reduce the reliance on cars.
Overall, there is a long-term risk to the autos sector in developed states, and particularly the US, that car ownership is no long...more
How is this even possible? Canada is advertising in Silicon Valley the fact that they're giving away visas and otherwise incentivizing highly-skilled immigrants to go to the land of milk and honey doughnuts and syrup, while the U.S. refuses entry. And the "pivot" language indicates that they are targeting Asians particularly, which is a part of the trans-Pacific diplomatic project.So, so stupid.P.S. In case it isn't clear, this post should be read as complimenting Canada.(Ht somebody on Twitter.)...more
In the wake of the Boston Marathon attack last month, considerable attention is being paid to surveillance cameras, which played a key role in the identification of the two attackers; their identification led within days to the killing of one and the arrest of the other. Had they not been identified, they might have escaped from the Boston area and committed a terrorist attack in New York City or elsewhere.
Many businesses (notably banks) and even homes have surveillance cameras nowadays. Usually they are pointed at the interior of the building though sometimes also or instead at the entrance to or the grounds of the building. These uses of surveillance cameeras are uncontroversial. But there is controversy over surveillance cameras that are owned by or form part of a...more
I have long been fascinated with the France's Academie Francaise, a body intended to guard the French language from the barbarisms of other, uncouth languages. The erstwhile linguistic barbarians have changed over the centuries: whereas the Academic Francaise was developed as a bulwark to Spanish, nowadays it's English, of course, that needs to be guarded. Recently, French higher education minister Genevieve Fioraso caused an uproar by suggesting that more courses need to be offered in English to attract international students. To this the traditionalists were of course up in arms. However, this reaction neglects the fact that several elite institutions alike the Sciences Po already provide instruction in English:Elite French business schools, and Grandes Ecoles such as...more
Over 90% of global trade travels by ship, making the international freight market a key part of the global economy. Since 2009, the cost of shipping goods by sea has been highly volatile, and now rates look set to fall again, dealing another blow to this crucial industry. This week’s BMI podcast features Michelle Berman, the head of BMI’s shipping and freight research service, and will discuss the impact of volatile freight rates on the global economy.
...more
[This piece appeared at Asia Times Online on May 21, 2013. It can be reposted if ATOl is credited and a link provided.] The big story in Asia affairs today is a little trip that was supposed to stay a secret: the dispatch of Isao Iijima, adviser to Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to meet with senior officials in North Korea, thereby breaking the united US/South Korean/Japanese front in negotiations with Pyongyang. It is the first instance of an overt divergence between Japanese and US diplomatic and security strategies, something that has been implicit in Japan's sometimes-inflammatory brand of nationalism under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - and Abe's determination to move Japan beyond its traditional role of obedient US ally to independent regional...more
As Attentive Reader knows, I’ve been pushing a couple ideas about the diverging aims of the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar ever since the reboot of the overseas Syrian opposition at Doha in November 2012.First, the logical endgame for the increasingly radicalized and bloody Syrian insurrection is not victory; it is a clubbing together of moderate, conservative, and authoritarian forces to suppress the jihadis, as occurred during the “Anbar Awakening” (or less politely, “death squads a go go” or “liquidation of AQ-aligned forces by an opportunistic alliance of local Sunni elites and US special forces”) in Iraq.Case proven on this point.The United States is way past hiding its anxiety about extremists in Syria. According to UAE’s The National, it wants...more
Surveillance cameras, tax reporting, Internet-based data,
emails, mobile phone records and their cameras are some of the more salient modern
ways that provide information on individuals and organizations. Few object when
banks and other organizations use surveillance cameras on their premises to
deter theft and robbery. There is much greater concern when Internet companies
like Google and Facebook use their vast stores of data to learn about the interests
and other personal information, of the millions of individuals who use their
services. Probably, however, the most serious threat is the misuse of “big data”
by governments, including democratic governments.
This past week the possible misuse of extensive data by the
Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Departm...more
There’s been a lot of bullish sentiment towards Japan lately, as reflected by the Nikkei index’s 70% gain over the past six months – the index now stands above 15,000, at its highest level in 5¼ years. Much of this is thanks to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to revive the economy via his ‘three arrows’ of extreme quantitative easing (QE), fiscal stimulus, and an as-yet-unveiled new growth strategy. Abe is clearly a man with a mission, and I don’t recall Japan having such a seemingly determined leader since the early days of Junichiro Koizumi, a reformer who served as prime minister in 2001-2006.
But is this optimism justified? Regular readers of this blog will recall that I have generally sounded a pessimistic note about Japan...more
Corey Robin has written a long article arguing that Austrian economic thought and marginalism in general is descended from Nietzsche. Hence, Hayek et al are a bunch of aristocrats dedicated to oppressing society. I'd be happy to be persuaded that the marginalists -- at least as Robin uses the term, which isn't the only way -- are Nietzschean, but Robin's article didn't do it. Too many strong assertions based on tenuous evidence, and Robin is not exactly an impartial observer. This follow-on John Holbo post -- while exceptional in many ways -- doesn't do it either. Partially because it rests so heavily on a peculiar (I think) reading of this quote from Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty:To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function...more
Formerly known as the Cold War Studies programme, LSE IDEAS has always been focused on post-1989 events in that part of Europe. As out founders keep saying, understanding the Cold War is key to understanding the current era of globalization. I need not remind anyone that the wars there were especially long and awful after the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. Although Western commentators tend to uniformly portray Soviet-era strongmen in a negative light, I have always had a more sanguine view of Josep Broz Tito. Say what you will about his methods, but centuries-long ethnic hatreds that were again to erupt after the Iron Curtain's demise were mitigated to a significant extent during his reign. It was not uncommon, for instance, for Serbs and Croats to train side by si...more
What is the difference between a socially active priest and one who dabbles in leftist politics? The dividing line was much clearer during the Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI eras when the latter was strictly verboten and priests were discouraged from engaging directly--especially in electoral politics. A few weeks ago I discussed the changes that may be in store at the Vatican given that someone from Latin America-- homeland of liberation theology spurred by the world's highest rates of inequality--has become pope. While Pope Francis has disavowed liberation theology in speech, in practice, many alienated (former) Latin Catholics believe that the hardline of the past will be replaced by a more tolerant and receptive outlook.The highest profile critic of the Catholic...more
I learned last night that my (sometimes) coauthor Nayef Samhat is departing Kenyon College, where he has served as Provost since 2009, to become President of Wofford College.
Congratulations, Nayef!
Here's a video interview from Wofford:
And this is the press release.
Visit this blog's homepage.
For 140 character IR and foreign policy talk, follow me on twitter.
Or for basketball, baseball, movies or other stuff, follow this personal twitter account.
...more
Research psychologist Robert Epstein, a former editor of Psychology Today, has coauthored a study with Dr. Ronald E. Robertson of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, on this question called “Democracy at Risk.” It is slated for presentation at this year’s meeting of the Association for Psychological Science:
In a double-blind, controlled experiment, web pages and search engine results from an actual election were presented to three groups of eligible voters. In two of the groups, rankings favored one candidate or the other. Preferences shifted dramatically toward favored candidates, with 75% of subjects showing no awareness of the manipulation. In a second experiment, voter preferences again shifted in the predicted direction...more
The IMF program for Cyprus has been released (here and here). Growth is projected to fall 13 percent over the next two years, though the discussion of risks implicitly acknowledges that a larger decline is likely (many private analysts expect a decline of 15 percent this year alone). Given that the program contains 6.6 percent of fiscal consolidation measures during 2013-14, and a major deleveraging of the financial system is underway, skepticism is warranted. The Fund also acknowledges that should these downside risks materialize, or program implementation slip, government debt (which is forecast to peak at 126 percent of GDP in 2015) becomes unsustainable. The programs have buffers, but financing looks inadequate. Coming after a negotiation where the Troik...more
“Irritating Japan” Well On Its Way to Replacing “Rising China” MemeThere is a delicious—well, delicious to me, anyway—flavor of Western bewilderment about the neverending parade of Japanese nationalist shenanigans.The most recent entry was Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s endorsement of the World War II Japanese military brothel system a.k.a. “comfort women”:"In the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain and wind, the soldiers are running around at the risk of losing their lives," "If you want them to have a rest in such a situation, a comfort women system is necessary. Anyone can understand that." Hashimoto—who seems to have way too much of his mental space occupied by visions of sexually rampaging soldiers-- made his remarks i...more
A showdown is looming at the World Bank over whether to discontinue or water down the Bank’s annual “Doing Business” Report. As reported here, and blogged about here, and here, China is leading the charge against the report, which is one of the Bank’s most controversial and influential projects. The U.S. government has been lobbying in favor of Doing Business, but so far has failed to generate the degree of high-level support from other G-20 countries or thought leaders that will likely be needed to save the report. A committee established by the Bank and headed by South African Planning Minister (and former finance minister) Trevor Manuel to assess the future of Doing Business will report as early as next week. Based on comments fr...more
The most recent Pew Survey on European attitudes (summary table below) shows that support for the European integration project is dropping. My colleagues at CFR are far more able than I am to address the broader political ramifications of this shift. A few points though on the link between economic growth, public opinion, and support for the European reform agenda.
Growth matters. Today’s Eurozone GDP numbers remind us that Europe remains in a grinding recession; a second-half recovery now looks to be a long shot at best. The only bright spot comes elsewhere, with news of a German labor deal that will raise engineering wages by nearly 6 percent over the next 20 months (rebalancing European demand and stimulating German consumption needs more of t...more
During the past 30 years tuition at American colleges has
been growing at a fast pace. The increase has been greatest at 4-year private
colleges and universities, and least at 2-year public colleges, but all college
categories have had large tuition increases. For example, real tuition at the
4-year private colleges has more than doubled since 1980, while tuition at
2-year public colleges increased by over 50%.
Many commentators have criticized these large tuition
increases. Colleges and universities are said to be too greedy and are charging
what the traffic will bear, or colleges are
claimed to conspire together to increase tuition. Although colleges do conspire
on some financial issues, such as agreeing through the NCAA to prevent payments
to college athletes, cons...more
Henry Farrell's article on the plight of European democracy in the face of "technocratic" management is very good reading. Tangentially related is this bit from Thatcher making a similar argument ex ante: Which is not to say she was anti-Europe. She wasn't. Alex Harrowell put it well:[T]he European Union has not turned out to be the nice alternative to Thatcherism it was sold as in the 1990s. ... The policies it delivers – open trade, austeritarian macro-economics, open capital flows, no real redistributive budget, and a permanent war on inflation – are basically nothing Margaret Thatcher would not have welcomed. ... Thatcher was a European; it’s Europe that’s the problem.Except that Thatcher rejected the central bank, which is Europe an...more
Today’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Benghazi:
Exposing Failure and Recognizing Courage chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa raised more questions than it
answered. These are not questions about the assault on Benghazi or the response
to the events, but rather questions on the process and rationale behind the hearing.
The tragic Benghazi
attack has been thoroughly examined and has established a record with more
than 30 hearings, interviews and briefings with senior government
officials – including high-profile hearings with former Secretaries Clinton and
Panetta as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey; the
review of more than 25,000 pages of documents; and a thorough
investigation by an Account...more
Many of our debates about America's role in the world are merely different ways of asking how goody-goody we should be when faced with others' unruliness? This question is at the heart of a Jim Traub post a couple weeks ago on "Limits of Leading by Example." The piece asks whether President Obama's climb toward the nonproliferation moral high ground has gotten him anywhere. Do good deeds such as negotiating New START, narrowing doctrine for n-weapons in the Nuclear Posture Review -- and the yet-to-be-announced, though rumored, further reductions in the US arsenal -- help the United States gain others' cooperation?
Traub offers interesting thoughts about the special challenges posed by a troglodyte regime like North Korea. He also, ...more
This post was writtenby James Lamond and Bill French
Events and reports are coming out of Boston rapidly. Much of what we hear in the next few hours will be refined and corrected. This week’s media coverage has been a reminder of the need to wait until the facts are in before jumping to conclusions, speculation and accusations. However, it can be helpful to think through what questions need to be answered in the near term, what this means for the investigation and what lessons can be learned. Many of these questions are based on early reporting and speculation and may prove to be void in the coming days.
Did the Tsarnaev Brothers act alone? There have been reports about a third accomplice involved. Clearly if that is the case the manhunt will extend to that individu...more
One of the most repeated, and most dubious, axioms about strategy is the notion that being proactive is wiser than being reactive, and that reactivity is something we should be allergic to. In the words of Briain's foreign secretary William Hague, 'the nation that is purely reactive in foreign policy is in decline.'
Likewise, written into the folklore of the US foreign policy establishment is the notion that the 'strategic shocks' that struck America - such as Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor or 9/11 - happened because Washington was passively sleeping. A quick read of Presidential speeches on the anniversary of that attack shows how powerful the creed of active vigilantism lives on, even if it doesn't power all of America's day to day behaviour.
Never mind th...more
If you haven't been seeing any posts for a few months, that's because we moved to http://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/. Some readers have informed us that the redirect may not be behaving for some subset of RSS feed readers. If that's the case, you can subscribe to the new feed at http://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/?feed=rss
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The Diplomat asked me for a short piece on what South Korea would like from the new US president, as part of a general forum - including Shen Dingli from Fudan on China and Adam Lockyer from Sydney on Australia - on Asia and the US election. I have reprinted my essay below, and here is the whole forum. It’s worth a read, and Lockyer’s disbelief at tea party rhetoric should once again be a red flag that American global leadership is not an entitlement of our ‘exceptionalism,’ but something we must earn through seriousness and responsibility. I’d like to thank Zachary Keck for soliciting my participation: 1. At the elite level, the ROKG (Republic of Korea government) probably wants a standard reaffirmation of the US- Korea alliance from whomever wins. My sense...more
Well, folks, this is it for me! ThinkProgress is the team I’ve been a part of longest, and it’s really been a fantastic job and an enormous privilege to work with everyone here and at the larger CAP/AF. I’ll miss everyone! But on we go to new things.
In principle there should be shiny new Moneybox blog here come Monday. If that all goes horribly awry, I’ll be on my public twitter account come what may telling you where to find me.
...more
I’m really looking forward to engaging in a bit less intra-progressive sniping about political tactics, but one thing I keep hearing said on behalf of Occupy Wall Street protests is that the regular electoral process has somehow “failed” progressives. I don’t think that analysis withstands the slightest bit of scrutiny. We had fairly substantial political changes in the 2006 election (Democrats take both the House in the Senate), the 2008 election (Democrats take the White House), and the 2010 election (Republicans take the House) and in every case the direction of change has been as you would predict. Better, more progressive legislation happened in 2007-2008 than happened in 2005-2006. In 2009-2010 it got even better. Then in 2011 it’s b...more
Matt Yglesias has left ThinkProgress to join Slate, where he writes the “Moneybox” blog. You can check it out here.
We wish Matt continued success and thank him for nearly three years of insightful blogging here at ThinkProgress.
...more
Edwin G. Dolan is an economist and educator with a Ph.D. from Yale University. Early in his career, he was a member of the economics faculty at Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago, and George Mason University. From 1990 to 2001, he taught in Moscow, Russia, where he and his wife founded the American Institute of Business and Economics (AIBEc), an independent, not-for-profit MBA program. Since 2001, he has taught at several universities in Europe, including Central European University in Budapest, the University of Economics in Prague, and the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, where he has an ongoing annual visiting appointment. During breaks in his teaching career, he worked in Washington, D.C. as an economist for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and as a regulatory analyst for the Interstate Commerce Commission, and later served a stint in Almaty as an adviser to the National Bank of Kazakhstan. When not lecturing abroad, he makes his home in San Juan Islands, Washington.
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