Obama and Afghanistan … the rest of the story

The announcement of 30,000 troops to get Afghanistan under control sounds right. What was not announced is how the troops will be used, and how it fits with the other deals.

McChrystal’s counter-insurgency strategy will secure cities and town, and make them safe harbors against the Taliban. In the past, the Taliban had actually disarmed and demobilized fighters who supported local warlords, so it can be done. Safe areas will allow commerce and industry to take root, and makes the start to rebuild infrastructure.

More importantly, those 30,000 troops need to secure the Afghan borders and hand the frontier crossings over to the central government. In a country with little industry and minimal farming, border tolls is the major source of income, and flows into the pockets of regional warlords to support their followers and militias. These militia need to be disarmed and disbanded, and the tolls to be collected by the Karzai government as a means to rebuild the Afghan army and police.

And any residual C.I.A. funding to warlords must stop. In the not-so-recent past the United States has three Afghanistan policies running concurrently: Department of State, Department of Defense, and the C.I.A. Having a single policy with an aligned set of goals for everybody is a major first step.

Finally, Pakistan needs to be a full partner in allowing Afghans to run their own government. While Pakistan’s army leadership has railed against terrorist, the army’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (picture a combination DIA and FBI) has been funding terrorists as a mean to win Kashmir, and investigating civilians as a means to leverage domestic politics. Pakistan’s government needs to become responsive to its citizens.

Pakistan’s policy for half a decade has been to keep India away from its backdoor. Announcing that “there would be an announcement” at a joint press conference with the prime minister of India is not insignificant. Not clear what the deal is with India, but keep watching.

 

Clausewitz in India and Afghanistan

     Though Republicans are now concerned that President Obama is “dithering” about Afghanistan, I believe he is reviewing his choices in light of the counsel from Clausewitz.

  
     Carl von Clausewitz, a 19th century Prussian general better known for writing rather than conquest, is identified with his definition of war as “the continuation of politics [or policy] by other means.” While Republicans assume that Obama is deciding “how to pursue the war,” I believe the president is looking at regional politics and asking, “Why is there war in Afghanistan?” and “How do we to eliminate the underlying causes?”

  
     The major support for the Taliban has been the Pakistani army’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directory and members of the Saudi Royal Family. The ISI initiated the first Taliban organization with students and soldiers from Pakistan, with Saudi Royals supplying the money for arms and logistics. Until this outside support for the Taliban’s fundamentalism and trans-national crime is stopped, it is hard to see how any nation can secure Afghanistan with more and bigger troop deployements.

  
     The prudent approach is for Obama to take Clausewitz at his word, and do the policy first. The Bush administration lost track of policy, so that war became a means to prove that America was strong, America was fearless, American was right. You can do a lot of things fighting a war, but proving yourself right is not one of them.

  
     The Obama administration is right to take the time and go back to basics: what is the policy in Afghanistan (and Pakistan and Iran) that America is trying to implement through force of arms? The follow-up question will be: is force of arms the best way to implement the policy? In the Afghanistan struggle, the United States and Iran find themselves natural allies supporting rule of law, conservative governance, and an end to transnational crime. It is unfortunate that the shrill voices to Iran’s west make this regional alliance difficult to pursue.

  
     If we need an open-ended commitment to protect civilian populations from extreme militias that the Western alliance unleashed then ignored, well … more troops could make sense. If we want to see democracy, free trade, and liberal republicanism take root in Afghanistan, war is not the way. Instead, we need to stop the outside supporters who favor an unstable Afghanistan for their own interests.

  
     It is more than possible that announcement of a solution at a press conference with India’s Prime Minister is the signal to Pakistan that they have been cut out of the loop. The United States can move directly against the Taliban from India and Kashmir on the east, the Central Asian states on the north, and perhaps Iran on the west. This eliminates any further dependence on the ISI and puts Pakistan’s army alone against the world. The administration’s waiting period to announce the details is giving time to Pakistan’s fundamentalist army chiefs to reconsider their view of the world.

 

The Core Healthcare Question

The core healthcare question is rarely discussed: is health care a market good or a natural monopoly?

The goal of market-driven goods is to build revenue and earn a profit. The goal of government-regulated monopolies is to provide a service that cannot be achieved through the pursuit of profit. For example, the goal of education is to ensure all children have a minimum of education. The goal of local governments is to provide streets, sewers, and cemeteries. The goal of the government-regulated telephone monopoly, AT&T, was to provide universal phone service. The goal of healthcare is to provide reasonably priced health care to every United States citizen, a goal that aligns with goals of other government provided goods.

It is difficult to see how a market-driven system can achieve this goal.  The goal of a market-driven business is to reduce costs and increase profits. That is exactly what market-driven health care has done: drop out those who cannot pay, eliminate those who incur highest expenses, disqualify those with pre-existing conditions. The free and open market is what brought healthcare to where we are today, because the goals of health care and the means to provide it do not align.

Healthcare insurance is simple: many individual pay a small amount of money to share the risk of possible future health care costs. Everyone will not need a heart transplant, so we all pay something for those persons – perhaps eventually ourselves or our loved ones – who will need a transplant. The government can spread these health care risks across all those who participate.

Private insurers who are striving for profit will remove those at higher risk to reduce their eventually costs. The insurance companies major costs are their payments for healthcare. To repeat the obvious: healthcare insurance companies make more money when they do not pay for healthcare.

It is said that private industry can never compete with such a government option, because the government will not need to “make a profit.” Yet the government will insure all these high risk individuals that private insurance has weeded out to improve their bottom line. Government will insure all those families who cannot afford insurance provided by the market.  Including these high-risk individuals should increase the cost of government health care, since these are the very people market-driven insurance does not target. To do that effectively, a government option will necessarily have to include many people who are low-risk, the exact population that health care insurance companies have been “cherry-picking.”

Questions like “Is health care a right or a responsibility?” pose as a  discussion, but instead are a platform for self-righteous posturing that does not address the central issue. Are roads and sewers a right or a responsibility? Police and fire protection? Education?  Regardless of the “theoretical rights”, these are all goods and services that our pragmatic governments provide directly from taxes. There is nothing in the nature of healthcare that makes it any different.

Health is not – and should not – be a market driven business. Education is a government provided service, with charter schools  attempting to add market drivers into the system. Fire and police protection could also be market driven, with those paying higher monthly premiums getting faster and more effective response. Roads and streets and sewers are provided by government through our taxes. Why not let private industry buy those roads and drains, then charge users and make a profit?

The goal the old AT&T government-regulated telephone monopoly was “Universal Service.”  Under a free-enterprise, market-driven system, that last phone customer at the end of the line – 20 miles out, over a river and up a mountain – would never have been connected. Under the goal of “universal service” providing that last connection was seen as the mission of the government-regulated monopoly. And goals change. Once “universal service” was achieved, a new goal of “technology innovation” could not be achieved under the regulated system. AT&T was divested into competing elements that could better achieve innovation through pursuit of profits. The same could happen in health care in the future. But today “universal service” is a good summary of what we want in healthcare.

Though the answer may change in the future or when looking at the past, health care in the United States today is clearly not market-driven, and needs government direction and regulation to ensure achieving the goal to provide reasonably priced health care to every American c

 

bin Laden Strategy still at work

The recent attacks in Pakistan on government and security force positions is the latest attempt of “the bin Laden strategy.”
Similar to the strategy of bin Laden’s attacks on the United States on 9/11, underground attacks in London, and the train bombing in Spain, The Pakistan Taliban believe that attacks against the government will deter the the army and the government from regaining control in the tribal areas.
Bin Laden had attempted to influence Americans to change U.S. policy and draw back its forces from the Islamic world. Instead, 9/11 served to raise awareness of a threat that had been seen simply as an annoyance. 9/11 gave Americans reason to not stop until Qaeda and all its associated and eliminated forever.
Only in Spain were the results “possibly” as expected : the newly elected Spainish government pulled its forces out of Iraq. Whether the attack changed the course of the election is speculation.
The Bush/Cheney doctrine was very similar. Use force to intimidate until you get what you want. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, attacks have only served to harden the course against the attackers.

These attacks by Pakistani Taliban go to the core of the state of Pakistan. Will the government “share power” with the Taliban to stop the attacks? Or will this drive the first, serious effort of the Pakistan army to take control of the Frontier lands and bring them under full control of the central government?

The government and army of Pakistan may have become complacent, but neither is incompetent. The Pakistani army is highly trained and effective. It is political decisions – worries about being surrounded by Indian influence – that led to allowing the western frontier to
act “on its own” to give the central government a veil of deniablility.

This use of military force is not the same situation as Sherman marching through Georgia.
The citizens of the American Confederacy fully supported the Confederate armies. Sherman’s march was a punishment against these supporters. Picture instead a Civil War that went on for twenty years, where people wanted peace and security, with guerillas and the Northern armies regularly coming through to demand obedience.

At the heart of the Taliban’s control is a lack of functional, impartial government in the provinces. For too long these have been “tribal areas” where the wealthy rule through bloodlines and money. “Corruption” is simple the tribal system at work, paying for support.
The army and government of Pakistan need to exert control over their western regions. Insurgents must be rooted out and replaced with fair and impartial judicial systems. The activist lawyers in Islamabad need to take note, and insist that the western provinces join the State of Pakistan as full partners.

 

Again with Iran …

Israel is again making huffing noises towards Iran, in an effort to build U.S. support for its policies of regional leadership. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/04/content_10456538.htm

This is not based on real concerns that Iran is going to drop a nuclear weapon on Israel, that is ridiculous.  It is common knowledge that Israel has submarines with second-strike capabilities which would respond against an attacker. A nuclear attack would affect not only Israelis but Palestinians, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. A nuclear attack is not a “surgical strike.”

Instead, this is Israeli posturing to become the Middle Eastern hegemon. Economically, Israel is in a strong position in the region as long as Iran is marginalized. But if the United States begins support to Iran, and enters a relationship with Iran, it is likely that Iran will become the regional hegemon. It is fairly western in outlook, has a population and economy many times the size of Israel, and has contacts throughout the middle asian turkish states which are a source of growth in the coming years.

This issue is not about security, it is about power politics.

The new administration should be very clear that if Israel proactively attacks Iran they are on their own, they should not expect U.S. support when Iran responds. Israel needs to tone down the rhetoric and work their issues through non-violent, non-confrontation methods. There are a lot of Israeli citizens who agree.

 

What about the Big Three?

The recent change of heart by UAW leadership to make major concession to help the Big Three survive can be seen as a disaster for labor, or an action long overdue. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/business/04auto.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&adxnnlx=1228391287-Gl%20KNhBggdwQc0CspVDIZg&pagewanted=all

It certainly does take a step back from building a strong middle class, which is what occured during the 1950s and 1960s, where blue-collar workers could achieve the American dream with hard work and minimal education.

But the world today is different. This concession finally acknowledges that the auto industry is no longer driving the economy. “What’s good for General Motors” may or may not be good for the U.S. of A. What’s good for Cisco, what’s good for Walmart, what’s good for Exxon, makes a lot more difference. And that is unfortunate, since none of these companies leads the way in building a strong middle-class.

But is that the fault of the companies? No. Instead it is a lack of good policy by the federal government, which has allowed companies to operate as fiefdoms for the wealthy. Current economic policy is not “neutral capitalism”, it is biased toward capital ownership. That needs to come back into balance with the rights of labor.

Even more important, we need another strong driver for the economy. Obama has suggested alternative energy which is a good choice. New technologies can promote new industries which creates new jobs which builds new money flows through the economy. Government needs to drive  these technologies until they can stand on their own, especially now that the price of oil is dropping.

If there is any question about how to do this, look at China’s economic policies over the past 20 years, of protecting new industries until they are strong enough to stand on their own.

 

What’s Going on with the Economy?

At a high-level its very simple, and will be confirmed by detailed economic analyses over the next few years.

The gap between rich and poor reached the breaking point several years ago. But new bunkruptcy legislation under the Bush/Cheney/Republican administration allowed credit card companies to pursue their debtors for life, no more wiggling out through Chapter 11. This gave credit card companies the incentive to pull more people with shaky credit into their system, knowing that long-term, they would get back their pound of flesh. So credit card debt continued to pump the economy when it should have slowed.

Those same “shaky credit” people were given mortgages that in an earlier time, they would not have qualified for. Since many banks, mortgage brokers, and lenders simply originated mortgages then sold them at discount, the originators were not concerned about defaults. Because the mortgage purchasers simply bundled the debt and sold it, they, too, were unconcerned about the quality of the borrowers.

But it all started with the increasing gap between the wealthy and the middle-class. As the wealthy accumulated more and more money into their “capital”, there was less and less “real money” for the middle-class to spend. The real issue is the Bush administration tax breaks: it threw out entire economic system out of kilter by taking money away from the people who spend it on a day-to-day basis, and giving it to people who simply accumulate it.

 Bush – apparently driven by Cheney – gamed the economic system to suppport his wealthy buddies. The end result is this collapse.

Future historians will see this time as similar to the “roaring 90’s” of the late 1800s, when similar policies allowed the rich to become incredibly wealthy, until Republican Theodore Roosevelt began to bring the system back into balance.

Who is at fault? Who elected these guys? Twice. For all the people who think that abortion-in-general, guns, and religion are the basis for your vote, think again. They fooled you twice already.

 

What a Difference Obama Makes Already …

Three reports coming out of Iran yesterday are showing that Iranian leaders see an opening for detente with the new president.

First, Iran has offered to build nuclear power stations jointly with its Arab neighbors in the Gulf area. This should allow for more transparency, and help reduce the “security dilemma” for Arab neighbors who might anticipate starting their own nuclear programs as protection from unknown Iranian machinations. The offer is for joint light-water reactors, which cannot be used to produce highly-enriched fuel necessary for weapons.(http://www.rferl.org/content/Iran_Offers_To_Develop_Nuclear_Plants_With_Gulf_Neighbors/1354998.html)

Second, the Iranian foreign-minister has announced support for the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement. Support for any U.S. proposal is a change in tone and attitude. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gMEyXUMuGvtuOoN9mXGlOzVCIXEgD94PR5KO0)

Third, Iran has arranged to return the remains of Iraqi soliders, killed during the eight year war of attrition. This is a highly symbolic opening between Iran and the new Iraqi government, opening the possibility of continuing exchanges and communications. This in place of the continuing news reports that Iran is trying to “overthrow” or “infiltrate” the Iraqi government. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7757861.stm)

Why does the new president make such a difference? Because it sets the clock back to 2000, when the Clinton administration was closing in on opening relations with the progressive Khatami administration in Iran. There was even hope that Khatami might prove to be a “Gorbachev” figure, producing a dramatic change in Middle-East politics. As part of this growing detente, Iran provided significant support to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and had sponsored the Northern Alliance against the Taliban for a decade. U. S. diplomats met secretly with Iranians under the cover of the United Nations’ “Geneva Channel.” The Iranians offered support for aircraft, search-and-recovery, and killing Taliban leaders. (Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 346-7) Then a few months later U.S. President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address declared that Iran was part of an “axis of evil”.

This change of direction from the Bush Administration gave Iranian hard-liners the ammunition they needed to undermine Khatami, and move the country away from detente. Diplomats who had supported arrangments with the United States lost their careers. All trust of the Bush administration and the United States evaporated, and Iranian self-interest surfaced in support for Middle-East national insurgencies.

An opening with Iran does more than solve a question of nuclear proliferation.

As the United States ponders how to deal with the resurgent Taliban, Iran can play a key role as an interested neighbor in that support, as it did seven years ago. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/world/asia/02strategy.html?th&emc=th)

More importantly, this election may allow Middle-East power struggles to play out in non-violent ways. For decades, power in the Middle East was balanced between Iran and Iraq. That balance is why the United States originally supported Sadaam Hussein, and why Israel supported Iran supporting Kurdish persh merga against Hussein, and why the United States did not support the Shi’a revolt against Hussein after Iraq I.

But with the successful invasion and overthrow of Hussein’s Iraq that power balance is gone, and a new struggle for regional power has emerged between Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. This is not a religious struggle, though religion is often portrayed as the excuse. It is not about Palestine, though Palestinians are often used as a motive. It is about security, national interests, and control for the three states involved.

These initial probes towards reconciliation can lead the new Obama administration to make more progress in stabilizing the Middle-East than we have seen in a generation. The key will be to include Iran in an implementation of a regional security system, support for regional energy policies, and containment (aka “don’t let the United States get sucked into …”)  nationalistic drives by the three nations.

 

What Obama should do with North Korea

After 58 years of war-footing in Korea, the election of Obama may finally be able to bring real peace to the region.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is lawless: it has lied and cheated since its creation in the 1940s, and it cannot be trusted. So what can the president-elect do that makes a difference?

First, he can understand and address the real motivations at work. The Korean War was first and foremost a civil war, similar to Vietnam but the first of the “dominoes.” Japan had occupied Korean since the early 1900s, and after World War I Koreans had either fought the Japanese or worked with them. Kim Il-Seong had been a “freedom fighter” against them. The new leadership put in place by the United States had been officers and officials in the Japanese army and government.

Second, he can recognize how much of the North Korea posturing is a response to U.S. policies. Until George Bush I removed nuclear weapons from the Korea peninnsula and replaced them with precision-guided munitions, the United State’s policy was to defend the south through nukes. This threat had started during the Korean War with MacArthur and continued until the early 1990s. A nuclear first strike was never ruled out. In response, Kim Il-seong massed his army at the DeMilitarized Zone so they could quickly push across the border and mingle with the South Koreas, to avoid such a strike. Once the United States had removed nuclear weapons, it wanted the entire area nuclear free.

Third, it was Kim Il-Seong who originally suggested that the United States replace North Korea’s old, Soviet-style low-capacity reactors with newer Light Water Reactors, with higher capacity and no possibility to create enriched plutonium. Though agreed in principle, the deal never completed.

Fourth, there is a standard procedure for threatening with nuclear weapons: make the leader look like he is crazy-mad, since only a madman would use nuclear weapons. Nixon used this approach against the North Vietnamese (thought it was never clear if this was an approach or the truth.) The Soviets tried the same by hiding their movtivations and decision-making process. The North Koreans play the same card.  They had a little bit of plutonium, a little bit of knowledge and experience, then they “leak” that they have a nuclear weapons stockpile.  And now Iran is doing the same.

Finally, the “Bush Doctrine” has confused a reasonable approach against non-state insurgents with the right way to deal with sovereign nations. “Preemptive Strkes” make sense against an enemy that is fluid, mobile, and has little if any infrastructure to attack. If North Korea were to supply plutonium to a non-state actor, and that was used in a nuclear attack against the United States, the radiation signature would eventually be tracked back to the source. (Same is true for Iran.) Is there any doubt about the response?

But with this doctrine, and the invasion of Iraq, North Korea (and Iran) has a real worry tha the United States will do the same against them. It already happened, they have the proof . Why wouldn’t they want a nuclear weapons? How else can they deter a U.S. attack? And isn’t this the same policy that the United States has been using against them for the past 50 years: if you invade South Korea we will nuke you. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the U.S. government is not happy.

So what does the new president do? Clarify the Bush Doctrine that it does not apply to North Korea, Iran, or any other sovereign state. Then rollback policy discussions to 2000 and pickup where the Clinton team left off. (Sec. Powell first stated in 2000 that U.S. policy towards Korea would stay on track, until explicity contradicted by the president. He then had to backtrack.)

Support an international initiative to build electrical power plants in the North. Nuclear? maybe. Hydro-electric or something else? Even better. Continue to push the North Korea administration on human rights and truly joining the community of nations? Of course. They are liars and cheats, but do not let the South Korea competitive rhetoric get in the way of a real solution.

 

 

 

Israel’s actions …

 

A news report from BBC shows that Israel is now using food supply as a means of controlling Gaza.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7722948.stm

Way back, when NGOs and humanitarian aid groups worldwide were trying to stop the starvation in Somalia, it turned out that the problem was with local warlords who were using food supplies as a means of coercing allegiance and loyalty.

Setting aside motives, history, goals, etc. , how are the ACTIONS of Israel different from the ACTIONS of these warlords who were condemned by world opinion?