Left Flank

On the Diane Rehm Show, three economists, Fred C. Bergsten, Alan S. Blinder, and Jeff Faux debated the Impact of Free Trade on American Workers. With the emails and call-ins, it was a very informative discussion. Although like Blinder testified, I tend to espouse a «quasi-religious» free trade stance, it's clear also that federal and state governments can do more. As Bergsten argued, the US economy, with low inflation and high employment, can't improve much more. Bergsten also added, that Germany and Japan are both high wage states that also compete more effectively than the US, so it's not only low-wage states that have an advantage.

Some of the extra benefits accruing to US capital must be used by the government to improve labor, that is, more money for programs the US has never traditionally done well, like re-training and wage insurance. But, I disagree with Jeff Faux, that these improvements have to come «on-the-fly», that is, as the US continues to pursue more free trade agreements. Faux, though did rightly emphasize, that today's world is full of horizontally-integrated economies, not separate economies as in Adam Smith's day. The US needs to pay down the budget deficit, encourage private savings and reduce consumption, correct the housing market, and reduce corporate and agricultural welfare. Finally, Blinder had the best advice for high school students planning for a career: personal service jobs, where people are proximate, like surgeons, are occupations that cannot be outsourced.

I don't think any of the contributors discussed how any move towards protectionism would actually undermine the fairness most voters want, or how America's military spending and commitments affects free trade.

Well, at least it's not global warming.

A recently published article in the March 30 issue of the journal Science reported that, Overfishing of big sharks along the Atlantic Coast has led to the reduction of bay scallops and other shellfish in the market. The article also reported that it has also led two linked marine species in the food web to the same fate.

The study was carried out by a team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by world-renowned fisheries biologist Ransom Myers at Dalhousie University, has found that overfishing the largest predatory sharks, such as the bull, great white, dusky, and hammerhead sharks, along the Atlantic Coast of the United States has led to an explosion of their ray, skate, and small shark prey species.

â€ūWith fewer sharks around, the species they prey upon – like cownose rays – have increased in numbers, and in turn, hordes of cownose rays dining on bay scallops, have wiped the scallops out,â€? says co-author Julia Baum of Dalhousie.

Huh?

The Charlie Rose Show is hosting a series on «A Memo to the Next President», and the second installment featuring former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich outclassed the first show with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Albright: A moral foreign policy does not mean a moralistic one; there needs to be a blend of realism and idealism in foreign policy; talking to enemies and signing treaties is not appeasement; Iraq is a strategic disaster; Iran can help in Afghanistan; IGOs and NGOs must be a part of American leadership.

Gingrich: the State Department should be 50% larger; the alliance between the Pope, Reagan, and Thatcher to rollback the Soviets in Eastern Europe is a model for Iran; the next president needs to listen to world leaders; a president cannot be involved in every decision concerning what matters to world leasers, and must prioritize; Iraq is a squandered moment, when in June 2003 the Bush administration «fell off a cliff»; domestic reform is necessary for America to fulfill its leadership in the next 20 years.

A must-see conversation!

The list of good books using the metaphor of a »rising sun» is legion, but yet one more seems worth adding to the bookshelf. The Economist reviews Kenneth B. Pyle's Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose:  

â€ūJapan Risingâ€? is a history of Japan's approach to the world, drawing on 1,000 years or more of its political and cultural development but focusing on the period since American ships forced the Tokugawa shogunate to liberalise trade in 1853. And it is an admirably balanced history too, able to see the Japanese point of view about the hypocrisy of the European and American imperialists, especially in the first half of the 20th century, who spoke of ideals, human rights and self-determination while preserving their own empires, exerting their own power and seeking to entrench racial inequality.

As a result, Mr Pyle provides a good answer to the question â€ūwhy?â€? about contemporary Japan's changing stance, even if he says little about â€ūhow?â€? and nothing about â€ūwhere to?â€?. The picture he draws is of a country that has generally seen its foreign policy in defensive terms, not as a tool to shape the world in its interest or image but as a means of survival or at least of self-protection. That took a highly aggressive form in Japan's occupation of Taiwan and Korea at the turn of the 20th century and its invasions of parts of China in the 1930s. Mr Pyle argues that although there were keen imperialists in the Japanese leadership, the underlying motive was consistent with a longer-term desire to prevent instability in either of Japan's main neighbours from damaging Japan itself, or of tempting in another imperialist who might prove hostile to Japan.

That same defensive motivation is what Japan is exhibiting today. A new generation of politicians is emerging, without the post-war hang-ups about defeat or the need to let economics take the lead. China's growth, and increasing willingness to throw its weight around in Asia, is worrying many Japanese leaders. So is the prospect of Korean unification, which might lead to the withdrawal of American troops and some unpredictable, and perhaps hostile, new regime there. Reluctantly, but emboldened by economic recovery, Japan is beginning to exert itself again, loosening its army from its post-war ties and trying to build alliances in the region. But another book will be required to explore where that may lead.

Read Governor Bill Richardson on «New Realism» from his speech at Johns Hopkins University. This is «realism», no matter what it has to be called because of that 14+ year hiatus the Clinton and Second Bush administrations took from reality.

You may have heard me speak elsewhere about the need for what I call a «New Realism» in American foreign policy. By this I mean that we need to wake up and see that the greatest threats we face today, from global warming to terrorism, do not face only us - and that this means that unilateral action usually will not work. To defend ourselves in the 21st century, we may occasionally need to act alone, but usually we must work with others. Building and leading strong international coalitions should be our first thought when we face common challenges -- not an afterthought when our unilateral course has failed.

A New Realism for the 21st century also understands that many threats today come not from states, but rather from societies, including our own society. Not from armies massing or nation states targeting us with missiles, but rather from complex social trends - such as our own consumption of fossil fuels. Not so much from hostile states as from hostile individuals, empowered by their willingness to kill and die for fanatical beliefs.

Of course, we must rebuild our military and be prepared to use it when we must -- but we also must reject the unilateralist illusions of recent years. Our remarkable military power gives us the ability to lead. But others follow us not because we intimidate them with the argument of our power, but because we inspire them with the power of our arguments.

Defending ourselves from new dangers requires new thinking, new strategies and new tactics. We need to adapt our ideas about national security to an age in which the nuclear threat come not from a missile, but from a suitcase or a cargo hull. Not from a nation, which can be deterred by the threat of retaliation, but from a shadowy terrorist network with no return address.

That a small group of stateless terrorists could destroy New York or Washington with a black-market nuclear bomb epitomizes just how much the world has changed -- and how urgent it is that we lead other nations with a comprehensive global plan to lock down ALL of the world's fissionable material. Quickly. Before terrorists get their hands on a nuclear bomb.

And I would add another point: meeting the challenge of nuclear terrorism is not just a national security imperative for the United States - it also is a moral imperative. We created the first atomic bombs -- because we feared that Hitler would get them first. We are the only country that ever has used them - to end World War II. During the Cold War, we and the Soviets built enough thermonuclear weapons to destroy all human life on the planet several times over. For six decades, all of humanity has lived with the knowledge that everything we know could end in a flash of light.

Alright, quiet down on that moral stuff! It makes some Americans crazy, and they've gone a little too far over the deep end lately!

A coercive response is in the process of unfolding in the Persian Gulf (as well as this CFR article). The Economist indicates three reasons why Iran abducted the 15 sailors and marines.

At first blush it looks like a re-run. In 2004 Iranian forces, without provocation, snatched British sailors in the Persian Gulf. Last week Iranian forces, probably the Revolutionary Guard, did so again, detaining 15 sailors on patrol in small boats. But the later incident is proving to be the more worrying. In 2004, Iran’s government held the British sailors for a while, made them confess to crossing into Iranian waters, and let them go. This time, Iran evidently wants more.

This time the British insist that there is absolutely no doubt its sailors and marines were well on the Iraqi side of the Shatt-al-Arab, the waterway dividing Iraq and Iran. They were on a routine mission inspecting an Iraqi ship, something that Iranians have often monitored them doing. Iran, in particular the Revolutionary Guards who have reportedly taken the sailors to Tehran, is in a provocative mood. Shortly before the Britons were snatched last week the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, commemorating the Persian new year, delivered an unusually bristling and defiant speech for that normally cheerful holiday. He gave warning that Iran would strike back with all its capabilities at any invading enemy.

Firstly, there are the recent UNSC sanctions on Iran for nukes. Secondly, Russia's decision not to deliver fuel to Bushehr. Lastly, revenge for the American abduction of Iranian officials.
What should London do? The first step is to define the policy goal. London should seek to de-escalate Iran from its rhetoric, and then seek the release of the 15 personnel. Any other goals exceeds the legitmacy of Britain's response.

I'm worried now that the US has sent in the Stennis and Eisenhower, along with other American and British vessels for an exercise, that London and Washington will not be able to operate with restraint. The two aircraft carriers are a powerful warning, but I wonder if the US can deter another abduction or a coordinated series of bombings in Shi'ite areas within Iraq. In that case, the two carriers would be a sign of frustration and a mis-match. According to a former submariner-turned-blogger (via Danger Room), this deployment might actually be a mistake:

It interests me that we're going for a «show of force» option that tends to minimize our ability to actually conduct any attacks on Iran; this is good news for those of us who don't think war with Iran is the right option at this time. While the Kos Kids might think that this is a precursor to an attack on Iran, in actuality the absolute worst initial conditions for a U.S. attack on Iran would be to have both (or any) carriers inside the Persian Gulf - that's the only place where the Iranian forces could conceivably hurt our capital ships. For that reason, while a «show of force» has some public relations uses, I'm not sure it's the right move at this time from a strictly military standpoint-- the Iranians might actually be intending on starting something. (I don't think they are, but it's hard to read the mullah's minds.) Putting the carriers in a better position to defend themselves (i.e. pulling the Eisenhower out of the Gulf) would have sent a stronger message to the Iranian military -- at the cost of appearing «weak» to those who don't understand the military at a tactical level. On the other hand, this might be the Administration's way of being «de-escalatory» themselves.

Any British or American response would also unify Iranian public opinion against both. I think this situation will require coordination among the UNSC, Britain, the US, and probably, if not China and Russia, some outside state, like Germany or Saudi Arabia.