Drive, He Said

The long, dark nightmare of the Bush Administration is over, and while we’re cleaning up the mess, I’d like to suggest that we allow ourselves a brief moment to sit back and ponder what lessons there are to take from what we’ve all just been through. We clearly are at a turning point in our nation’s history, and not just because we elected Mr. Obama as President. We’ve also seen some of our most cherished principles challenged, and our beliefs about ourselves confronted with some ugly realities. While ‘absolute’ statements may be premature, there are some important inferences we can draw from the years since the Reagan era, which will be useful to recognize when coping with the difficult times ahead.

Neo-Conservatism is dead. Like it’s old arch-nemesis, Communism, it needs to be quickly relegated to the trash heap of history. A mutant, non-viable offspring of classic Conservatism, it was a creature spawned on ideology rather than common sense. It’s underpinnings, a semi-religious fervor for Adam Smith’s ‘free market,’ was one of it greatest weaknesses. As the last few years have so well demonstrated, we can now see that no such creature truly exists. No market can ever stay free in the truest sense, because those who become successful in it immediately limit competition, raise barriers to entry, control the market through heavily-lobbied legislation, and over time become the well-entrenched oligarchies we see today in energy, finance, etc. This situation occurred in the late 1800’s with the Trusts, and it took – yes, the US Government to finally break them up, just like it took the US Government to bail our collective fannies out of this crisis. Without the regulations, oversight, and penalties necessary to control market forces, what rational person would assume that all of this would not happen again?

The myth of the ‘purity’ of the free market, so seductive to generations of reactive right-wingers, has been revealed to be a poor basis for a political philosophy, though not necessarily as an economic one. That distinction is critical. An economic system is just that – a system for handling our material needs... not a religion, not a philosophy, not anything other than a method for people to regulate the exchange of goods and services. Under certain conditions, the market is an excellent engine to drive production. However, under other conditions, it rewards cronyism, creates oligarchies, and denies basic subsistence to those not well equipped to operate within its confines. Though an excellent producer of wealth, it is, in social terms, a poor distributor, as anyone who’s observed the US healthcare system can attest.

Remember - any human system, capitalist, socialist, or otherwise - is inherently imperfect, subject to the full, rich palate of self-indulgent vagaries the human character possesses. As such, periodic adjustments to this factor or that policy are always necessary to ensure the health and stability of civil society. Neo-Conservatism, by eschewing political flexibility for a rigid, blinder-encumbered ideology, found itself unable to adapt to the needs of the society it purported to serve.

The metaphor of the automobile may prove an ironically apt one. Free market capitalism can be compared to a powerful engine that can crank out prodigious quantities of goods and services, but in and of itself has no steering mechanism. Up until recently, that function was accomplished by the abiding political philosophy of the times - a moderate, liberal, humanitarian overview that has prevailed since Franklin Roosevelt. Simply stated, it was that the price of living in a free society is that a portion of the resources generated by that system must go to assure that the needs of society as a whole are met, and that markets, in order to function for optimum stability, must be regulated. The counterbalance, or steering wheel, if you will, for the engine is this political philosophy as expressed by the will of society through its elected government. Every force needs an equal and opposing force to balance it, and whether one looks in physics or in society, the principle holds.

The popular emergence of Neo-Conservatism (as opposed to classic Conservatism, which was once a useful counterweight to the fiscal excesses of those wishing to be re-elected) in the 1980’s removed the steering wheel from the vehicle. Unaided by any moral guidance other than voracious greed, the automobile predictably wound up in a ditch, awaiting the government tow truck. This scenario is still playing itself out, and the full consequence of the unfettered markets of the last eight years has yet to be fully understood, much less repaired.

Nevertheless, even as rationality is slowly reinstated, it is of paramount importance that we take this historic opportunity, while the paucity of the free market as a political system stands fully exposed to public view, to reconfigure society in such a way that amoral market forces can never again be allowed to determine the welfare of our citizens, but rather be harnessed so that social stability is, and always will be, the order of the day. In other words, don’t toss the engine, but by understanding its nature and its proper role in society, it can be controlled in such a way that the benefits of it’s energy are enjoyed by all. By educating future generations to both the dangers of unregulated markets and the benefits of careful steering an able vehicle, we will have gone a long way towards completing the Driver’s Training course we apparently still need.

Do The Math

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will soon discover, if he hasn’t already, the corner into which he’s painted his country – for by brandishing the threat of a small handful of nuclear weapons in a world where the major players, especially the United States, already have tens of thousands, he has put his country on a mathematically untenable path, the long-term consequences of which far out-weigh the short-term political benefits.

North Korea, busily firing its little rockets into the sea, has done the same, though it is closer to its unintended consequences than Iran. Unless the saber rattling is mostly for domestic consumption, it’s hard to imagine a more foolish course for Kim Jong-Il to adopt than his current one. Public bluster is one thing, but execution of an implied threat is another. Should North Korea launch a nuclear strike on its southern neighbor, U.S. bases, or even Japan, it would leave itself open for a nuclear retaliation several hundred times as large, at the very least, one that it could not survive. Simply put, once a small, rogue state plays it’s nuclear card, the game is over. The world community would not condemn a nuclear response against such an act, and would, in fact, have a clear duty to defend itself in kind. Any country that defended itself in kind would feel no opprobrium after such retaliation. The Western world, now returning to rationality after a brief foray into political extremism, can once again be counted upon to not “go nuclear” first, but such restraint on retaliation would be removed should a small state use its few warheads in what could only be called a suicidal display of defiance.

A little simple math might be helpful. Current estimates put North Korea’s entire nuclear stockpile at 6-8 warheads. A single US Ohio Class submarine can currently carry 24 independently targeted missiles, each with five Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) warheads, each capable of striking a different target. Assuming only one such sub is stationed just off the coast of North Korea, should Kim Jong-Il launch a nuclear device, 110 North Korean targets would be obliterated within a scant few minutes. The logic of the math of this scenario is inescapable – the consequences of North Korea using its few nuclear weapons would assure it’s own destruction, utterly and completely. By joining the nuclear club, Kim Jong-Il has painted himself into a corner. He can’t possibly use the weapons he’s worked so secretly to create without assuring his own immediate destruction. With this perspective, the weapons’ value is not in its use, but in the threat of it’s use. If that threat is not credible, the weapon has no value, and in fact, becomes a liability. This is exactly the situation in North Korea today.

Similarly, Iran’s leadership now finds itself facing the same question. A single or even small multiple Iranian nuclear strike on Israel or US bases would signal that all restraints are off, all diplomacies suspended, and that nuclear consequences on the aggressor would be acceptable by the world community, as sad and unfortunate as that scenario would be. Though a larger country, Iran’s math would work out much the same. Ceasing to exist in a moment of madness and misdirection, the price Iran would pay for a few small strikes at an enemy, however devastating, would be too dear for any sane leader to contemplate. Yet, Ahmadinejad follows his current course.

This is obvious, to rational people, but it is clear that neither Kim Jong-Il nor President Ahmadinejad have much care for the consequences to their citizens, nor engage in a long-term understanding of the precarious nature of matters they’ve created for themselves. However well nuclear braggadocio may play on the domestic front, it has the opposite effect on the world stage. China, now a strong business partner with the West with a considerable investment in international stability, has nothing to lose and everything to gain by ridding itself of its troublesome “little brother,” though a certain amount of self-righteous public noise would have to be made. The Islamic world would also put on the face of bewailing the collapse of Iran, but with the exception of various highly vocal radical groups, most of the Middle East, including the Arab countries, would secretly be rubbing their hands with glee should Iran step off the precipice. Leaders of most countries, no matter what their ideologies, innately understand the value of civil stability, both for their own political futures, and that of the world community as a whole. Therefore, the isolation that rogue states bring upon themselves as a result of their actions results in an untenable political position, heady in the short term, but unsustainable over time.

Libya’s return to international cooperation and it’s accompanying benefits serve as an example when errant states correct their behavior. Though not yet a model citizen – Libya is still a transit and destination country for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia for purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation - it’s leader, Col. Muammar Qadhafi, has made great progress in normalizing relations with the west, having renounced terrorism in Dec. 2003, discontinued it’s WMD program and allowed international inspections. Economic sanctions have been lifted, business investment has increased, and the US and Libya have exchanged ambassadors in January of 2009, normalizing relations for the first time in years. The message here is simple – if Libya can do it, so can North Korea and Iran.

If these two states have indeed painted themselves into this corner, it is easy enough for them to get out - though at this point, it is easier for Iran than North Korea. The taste of crow is never enjoyable, but at least it’s a dish that everyone has tasted, including the U.S. In either case, the consequences of continuing down their current paths falls most heavily on them, not anyone else, and should these states make the error of nuclear engagement, their ‘allies’ would vanish in the mists, privately glad they’re gone. If these two countries do the math, sanity and peace might yet prevail.