The Dearing Dialogue

Gilpin’s thesis is that a group or state with greater relative power than others, will try to modify the political system in its interests until the cost-benefit of doing so is no longer in its advantage.  Gilpin presents the reader with a framework for understanding this concept, similar to that of Max Weber’s ideal types.  Gilpin’s concept is based off of a few assumptions.  First, that political systems can be understood with the same theories as economic systems, namely the logic of cost-benefit analysis in decision making.  Second, the fundamental nature of international relations has not changed; it “continues to be a recurring struggle for wealth and power among independent actors in a state of anarchy”.  Third, historical experiences are relevant to understanding the international system.

To support his arguments, Gilpin presents examples of dominant powers exerting their control over the international system in order to advance their self interest.  He provides three forms of such control: imperial or hegemonic, bi-polar, and balance of power (between 3 or more).  He explains that a legitimate international order, or an equilibrium, is one in which no state is dissatisfied with the status quo.  Wars are thus fought in order to preserve the prevailing balance of power. 

My analysis of his arguments is that he provides a solid interpretation of the neorealist school of thought.  His economic approach takes on a “neoMarxist” character in that he alludes that economics tends to “influence human action” (69).  In fact it does within Gilpin’s framework, as the effects of changing the political order are weighed for their utility.  His analysis of hegemons is somewhat unconvincing.  One has to question the existence of a hegemon in a system of economic interdependence.  However, the rational objective of any hegemon that actually operates in an interdependent system will be to sustain the status quo.

The New York Times posts a thought twister that bends the semantic reach of “rational” warfare (my own quotes).  Talking about the assassination of Abdul-Sattar Abu Reesha, a Sunni tribal leader in Iraq, the Times explains that he was the “leader of the American supported Sunni tribal uprising against extremist Islamist insurgents”.  This indeed, forced me to sigh and attempt to digest the meaning. 

It is an interesting suggestion that we accept some insurgents are not “extremist”, this is what I gather from the descriptive nature of the quote.  If that be the case, that gives the non-extremist insurgent a cassu belli; legitimacy against occupation? against the Iraqi government? legitimacy of some sort.  A question worth observation, but not when being observed from the eyes of the occuping power.  At this stage of the insurgency, it matters little which side has a legitimate role, in reality legitimacy is an illusion that greases the wheels of the insurgent or the state to go from one violent act to another.  An opiate that clouds reality, veils the guilt, and feeds the insatiable hunger of vengence for the insurgent and power for the empire.

Another interesting notion is our support for tribal uprisings.  How thin must that support be?  What conditions are paramount for that support.  Just listen to history shout at our ignorance and lack of attention.  Can we really expect Sunni “support” to be something more than a temporary conveniance for disempowered Sunnis to regain what they’ve lost. 

A last thing to consider.  Many of the Sunnis we’re arming now to rise up agaisnt the insurgents have killed Americans in battle.  This should be enough to infuriate the most ardent patriot and at least frustrate the apathetic. 

Packer writes a bit on the use of Human Terrain Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan in his New Yorker blog on July 20th.  He sees a growing relationship between social scientists and soldiers, a mixture typically considered taboo in the past.  The professionalization of both sides of the spectrum, coupled with theoretical and practical “antagonisms” led to what Packer explains as “isolated American sub-culutres”. 

This year, the Army is actually deploying teams of social scientists with units in Baghdad and Afghanistan (…) The best soldiers I met in Iraq were eager to share critical views with professors and journalists. This past spring, when McMaster led a group of officials and private citizens to Iraq to assess progress there, he picked as one member an anti-war British political-science professor who happens to know a great deal about the country. Desperate times breed desperate measures. 

While the disconnect between American culture and military culture has often caused the military to be shunned from college campuses in the past, and created contempt amongst the military community (as international relations professor Andrew Bacevich often writes about), the divisions are becoming less prominent.  Both sides are beginning to realize the utiliy of the other and that moral and political compromises are essential towards forging a coherent plan of success in US foreign policy.  Packer is indeed correct when he ends: 

But a superpower can hardly afford to have its thinkers and its warriors despise and avoid one another.

Also see:  DNI Conference

From NY Times, Sunday, July 22:

(…) when asked how the United States would respond if Al Qaeda were to plot a successful attack on the United States from the tribal areas (Pakistan), the answer from one intelligence officials was direct: “We’d go in and flatten it.”

A video report by Jeffrey Gettleman on the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in eastern portion of Ethiopia.  The Ogaden people are ethnic Somalis.  The ONLF are fighting a political battle for independence from Ethiopia.  Their mission statement states they are “a grassroots social and political movement (…) as both an advocate for and defender of the people is dedicated to restoring the rights of Somalis in Ogaden to self-determination, peace, development, and democracy”.

Understanding this organization is paramount in attempting to stabilize Somalia. 

ONLF website

According to today’s L.A. Times article (Influx of Al Qaeda), money is flowing from Iraq to Pakistan to fund the scores of terrorist training camps there.  A former CIA official remarked:   “that the resurgent Taliban forces in Afghanistan are ‘being schooled’ by Al Qaeda operatives with experience fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.”

The CIA is further developing a new form of covert operative since 9/11, one that can use both the analysis and operations side of the agency.

These so-called “targeting officers” are given a blend of analytic and operational training to become specialists in sifting clues to the locations of high-value fugitives.

The CIA’s ability to send spies into the tribal region is limited, officials said.

“We can’t go into the tribal areas without protection,” said the former CIA official who was involved in the planning of the surge. “For the most part they have to travel with [the Pakistan intelligence service] and their footprint is not small because they’re worried about getting shot too.”

Instead, the effort is designed to cultivate sources in the outer perimeters of the security networks that guard Bin Laden, and gradually work inward.

The aim, another former CIA official said, is “to find people who had access to people who had access to his movements. It’s pretty basic stuff.”

Still, without an inside look at the the clan and tribal elements from where insurgent and terrorist factions arise out of, the CIA is not likely to get even close to breaking up these cells.  Looking with binoculars from an ISI Toyota at the guy who sells bread to the guy who goes to the mosque with the guy that once saw Zawahiri at the public toilet, is a waste of money.

James Risen’s article in the NY Times (Poppy Fields Are Now a Front Line in Afghanistan War) has given a greater perspective on the urgent need to confront the drug trade in Afghanistan.  The drug trade inevitably fuels the insurgency as Taliban commanders profit off of the trade of poppy for international arms.  More so, as Risen points out, many in the Afghan government leadership also profit off of the drug trade (one regional governor being caught with a stash of 9 tons in his office).  The US leadership is slow to react to the poppy economy, which fuels roughly 50% of Afghan exports.  The current operation is slow and disoriented.  Their is no plan to transition farmers from poppy to another profitable crop.  The US can not use another Columbian effort that has yet to curb the flow of cocaine from Columbia after 20 years. 

The current export revenue of poppy in Afghanistan is 3 billion a year.  We could easily purchase the entirety of poppy, use it for morphine production in the US, and offer incentives for the growth of new crops (how about corn?).  Instead, the DEA is thinking of flying crop dusters over Afghan farms.  Imagine the cultural implications. 

In the meantime, Afghans are picking and choosing farms to destroy based on tribal loyalties.  They send out a hundred or so men to destroy poppy plants by hand while US contractors provide security from Taliban reprisals.  However, the growth of poppy production is scheduled to grow.  It is currently producing at levels above global demand.  A new, logical alternative is needed for farmers and for the Afgan government.

A Dutch and Afghan military patrol in Oruzgan Province of Afghanistan rolled into a police station and found:

The police officers there were cultivating poppy within the compound’s walls, openly participating in the heroin trade. The Afghan Army squad that visited them, itself only partly equipped, did nothing.  (NY Times)

Poppy production is the #1 export for the new Afghan economy.  Eradicating the problem will take more than simply burning fields or preventing the harvest of crops.  Professor Thomas Johnson at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey suggests the US buys all existing poppy and use it for medicinal purposes in the States, such as production of morphine.  Then we provide the Afghan farmers with the knowledge and means toward producing new, sustainable crops that have both domestic and export value.  The Bush Administration does not support such a plan however.  Could Afghanistan become another Columbia solution?

So says Senator Harry Reid, as quoted by the NY Times.  I agree with him.  Of course, it was lost years ago when we failed to take account of thousands of years of history and culture.  It is not an indictment on our servicemen and women who spill blood everyday, rather one on the incompent administration in Washington.  Dwelling on this matter is of little consequence.  What will come about with a collapsed state of Iraq?  That is more important. 

• A clash of cultures.  Shia and Sunnis will battle it out in the streets.  It does not help that both sides are funded by outside sources.  The Sunnis by America, Saudia Arabia, and Pakistan.  The Shia by Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Iraq is thus a proxy war, much like Vietnam was between the Americans and Soviets.
• The inevitable rise of an Islamic state.  No matter which side wins out the bloodfest, an Islamic state will materialize.  That is what any democratic vote would bring today or any long-fought battle.  With Shiia representing the majority (60%) in Iraq, and making up the vast majority in Iran - the dawning of a Shiia empire has already shown its light.
• The Fall of Saudi Arabia.  The Saudi regime has called for the war in Iraq since the 90s since it provides their Wahhabi extremists an outlet.  The regime is corrupt to the bone and every Saudi outside the regime knows it and despises it.  A Shiia Iraq will likely bring strength to the Shiia minority in Saudi Arabia.  All of those weapons the Saud family purchases from Boeing for its personal protection would not likely stop an all out rebellion. 
• Worldwide Recession.  Robert Baer in the first chapter of Sleeping with the Devil  paints a picture of a virtual plug to the oil spigots if the Al Jubayl oil field were taken out.  A rebellion in Saudi Arabia would send oil prices through the roof and cut-off supplies to world markets in a way that would send us into one of the deepest recessions we’d ever see.  The US economy thrives due to a constant and steady flow of Saudi crude.  If that were suddenly stopped due to instability in Saudi Arabia, I can only imagine what would happen.

Of course all of this could have been prevented if Americans actually paid more attention and were more active in the administration of their government.  Instead we were governed by fear, and like sheep, led over the cliff. 

It’s good to see Mr. Bush preassuring Sudan in light of the recent NY Times article on weapons shipments to the Darfur region.  The al-Bashir regime has been sending shipments of arms under the cover of a fake UN airplane (painted over) to fuel the genocide in Darfur.  Hopefully these are not vain warnings.  But what is really needed is not only US leadership, but a UN peacekeeping force, led by NATO or a European nation willing to take responsibilty.  If it was so easy to build a coalition against Iraq, it should be much easier to do so with Sudan, especially given the moral justifications.