Keeping the Bar Low

In politics, whether local school board elections, or district, state or even national races, legislation and problem solving rarely ever happens for simple reasons. Even axioms like "follow the money" seldom give the whole answer - even if they do point to a malodorous trail. The right posture, portrayed in the right light, can lead to policy that is not in the best interest of constituents.

Likewise, when politicking is at its best, the public can be served despite enormous odds against it. Yesterday afternoon, John Murtha passed away. He was a politician who excelled at finding ways to shape politics to benefit his constituents. He also famously came out against the Iraq war in 2005.

Politicians like Murtha fought for his own district, but also weren't afraid to risk political capital to stand up for what is right. Too often do politicians hem and haw about the election implications of taking a stand. One thing that Barack Obama did during his campaign, and which he has continued to do since entering office, is to avoid this lowering of the bar so as to always appear in the right as much as possible.

Of course his administration has downplayed results, and avoided taking explicit positions - they play politics 24 hours a day. However, more often than not, they have taken a position that accurately reflects the President's view on what is best for his constituents - the entire country. It says something that he has been lambasted by liberals and conservatives alike. It bears remarking that he has demanded political action on a scale not scene in generations while also candidly taking responsibility for errors. It is worth noting that he is both a constitutional scholar and a community organizer.

When politicians put reelection above their duty, or muddy the political landscape as a stall tactic, it harms their electorate, plain and simple.

Instead of a weak and vacillating Government, a single, purposeful, energetic personality is ruling today.
Hjalmar Schacht

Just don't put too much stock in one man's personality...

Political Trade-Offs

There is a trade-off in every political structure between what the government provides and what it controls. Though long and nuanced academic debate exists on this topic, simpler, more accessible discussion still presents seemingly unsolvable problems.

From the obvious contradictions in the American activist that uses the publicly financed highway to drive to an anti-government-spending rally, to the citizen of China who seeks spiritual and religious exploration but is denied, every nation deals with this balance differently.

As NATO and Afghan forces prepare for an offensive in Marjah, the last big Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, questions about the role of government in people's lives and well-being loom large.
The Taliban alternates between a staunch and reliable provider, and a vicious, demanding tyrant to the people of Helmand. With the money form selling (illegal) poppy, residents are able to survive. When this revenue disappears with the Taliban, people will starve, even as they no longer have to fear violence at the hands of Taliban forces, many residents will not welcome the change.
Corrupt as it undeniably is, the Afghan government is supported by NATO, and recognized around the world as the better and safer option for all of Afghanistan.

However, for individual people, towns, and even regions, the vicious but substantive Taliban leadership might be the better option. If the change of control will mean months or even years without steady income and slow and inept development projects providing meager resources and jobs, continued Taliban control is in residents' best interests.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill

Arms Sale To Taiwan

The Sino-US relationship has developed rapidly since the affirmation of the One China Policy in 1972. With the huge bilateral trade and massive implications of shifts in international power balance, this relationship is of overbearing complexity and importance.

With typical precision of diction, the Xinhua response to the confirmation of the $6 billion arms sale from the US to Taiwan detailed China's anger while also adhering to its implicit view of itself in the world.

With each posture and move, the US and China push their relationship in new directions. Whatever the intended message here, the result will become just another step in a complicated dance. As for the mid-to-long-range implications of this for Sino-American relations, no single factor will outweigh all others. Both parties have the ability to construct policy and message based on both slights and moments of cooperation. This means that China and the US can make use of issues ranging from the Dalai Lama to Internet Sensorship or industry specific tariffs to justify a wide range of actions.

In the end, moderate response is most likely to all but the most extreme events, and despite the sharp diction of the Jinhua article, this arms sale is not one of those extreme events.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Realistic Missile Defense

Barack Obama's announcement today that the US would no longer be pursuing single-location ground based missile defense in Eastern Europe was a well though out and well articulated announcement. As has been the case for decades, ICBM "Star Wars" type defense is exciting in concept, but fails to ever match its potential.

To put it simply, the plan to stop long range missiles was not going to work, and replacing a costly and ineffective system with one of the best functioning missile defense systems makes sense. Obama's decision also overturns a strange decision of the previous administration to actively antagonize Russia and local citizens by insisting on installing missile defense systems in former USSR states.

Another way of saying it:

Poking Russia and Iran in the eye isn’t worth the hassle.

McCahill

Instead, how about a US foreign policy balance practical and useful military technology with diplomacy. Wouldn't it be best if the US made use of its vastly superior resources and technology to provide safe and realistic missile defense?

Oil; Part One of Many

Deciding to go to war is the most significant decision a nation can make. The rise of total war has given conflict the potential to encompass all aspects of a nation. Likewise, the dramatic increases in globalization in the past few decades have made economic interconnectedness a facet of everyday life for developed nations. The complexity of the modern world demands that nations develop long-term strategies for maximizing political and economic wellbeing. 

When contemplating the use of military force, the weight of innumerable factors all come to bear.  No political schema is free of the subtleties politics of state. No matter if you are Kim Jong-Il or Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama or Felipe Calderon, war is no simple decision of yes or no.

Why did Japan choose to go to war in the Pacific, and finally against the United States in 1941?  The answer is elusive, and every explanation seems to either leave out important facts, or skew them to suit a particular political theory.

Uniquivocally, however, at the very core of Japan's decision, was it's lack of abundant natural resources.  Above all of its material needs sat one specter: Oil. 

Victory [in war] is the beautiful, bright-coloured flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed. (1899)

— Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

In The River War (2004), 87.