North America
The AP reported last week that some “Tea Party” leaders and Oklahoma legislators are discussing forming a militia to defend against encroachment by the federal government.
There are other indicators that extremism is finding new purchase.
In February, a man used his light plane to launch a terrorist suicide attack on a government office in Austin, Texas. He appeared to be a troubled man acting alone, but that is the case with many people who are also political terrorists, such as the Fort Hood shooter Major Hassan. Stack invoked politics directly as a motive:
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.
Stack is citing classic insurgency theory as well: trigger an overreaction that fuels a rebellion.
His manifesto is also highly reminiscent of much of the rhetoric emanating from factions of the Tea Party movement, which brings us to the question: is that movement symptomatic of a threat to American stability? There are a number of worrying signs:
- Scale: There has been a right wing of this ilk for decades, but this incarnation seems larger and has more tendrils into the “mainstream.” If even a tiny fraction of turned toward violence, they might number in the tens of thousands.
- Celebration of violence: Tea Partiers have formed ties with “militia” groups that have preparing for violence as their central activity.
- Lack of restraining mechanism: In the past, mainstream media and the Republican Party provided dampers on the spread of right-wing radicalism. Now, extremists can confirm their views with them own media (which includes some corporate media entities as well). And the most of the Republican Party is either silent in the face of extremism, or actively panders to or reinforces it.
- Irrationality: The strong role of anger, and the strange visions of socialism and / or fascism, are also worrying. One could have a perfectly rational (or at least reality-based, if passionate) movement that favored radically downsizing government, but this doesn’t seem to be that movement. Many seem to have headed straight for the black helicopter rabbit holes.
Foreign terrorists can do the US harm; domestic extremism is orders of magnitude more dangerous, as it can undermine fundamental stability.
And the danger does not have to involve violence: a competent and trusted government is rare in the world, and one’s of America’s biggest competitive advantages. Destroying that trust and dismantling that competence would deal a severe blow to American prospects.
Author Bruce Sterling offered his “State of the World 2010” on The Well this week. A few excerpts follow.
As a result of “an emergent, market-driven global financial system that was all about a faith-based market fundamentalism,” he says,
we’ve ended up with our current “It’s a Wonderful Life” Pottersville, where Rupert Murdoch plays our Mr Potter. …. Societies that are top-heavy in this way are just not gonna have major prosperity. Too much of the civil population has been fenced off from the trough. The wealth-generating capacity of the society has been short-circuited. There’s zero political will to socialize the entire planet and re-channel its currency flows, so that’s not gonna happen. Basically, the political class is waiting for the civil population to come back to the church of the free market and get over the fact that its cardinals walk in public with no clothes on.
So you’re just not gonna see a lively, vibrant scene in Pottersville. You can have a Japanese Pottersville, where everybody’s getting older and they’re building huge concrete bridges to nowhere. Or a Managed Democracy Putin-Pottersville, where everybody agrees not to say anything much about the many Potemkin aspects. You could even get some Rio de Janeiro Pottersville full of armed, dropout-ethnic shantytowns where everybody’s high on medical marijuana. But not prosperity.
Continue reading ‘Bruce Sterling’s State of the World’
The environment was prominent on the program of The Economist’s World in 2010 conference this week. Some particularly interesting points:
Joe Lockhart, Founding Partner and Managing Director, The Glover Park Group:
- The rest of world is going ahead on climate change. If the United States steps away from leading on climate change again, it will continue our slide away from global leadership in general.
Gary Lawrence, Urban Strategies Leader, Arup:
- People at the Chinese Academy of Sciences are telling him that “we’re using your debt” to create a green system “that will run the world.”
- Fifty-two percent of the US economy is located in coastal zones that would be affected by a one-meter rise in sea level.
Gawain Kripke, Director of Policy and Research, Oxfam America:
- Climate change is the single greatest threat to global poverty reduction.
Vijay Vaitheeswaram, Healthcare Editor, The Economist:
- New nuclear power will not be viable in Western, liberalized energy markets; only places like China where the cost of investment does not matter will be able to use it.
Twitter: @Geofutures
(Image courtesy Rob Brewer, Flickr)
I attended the Economist’s World in 2010 conference this week. The economic outlook was cautiously positive.
Carmen Reinhart, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for International Economics, University of Maryland:
- A rapid V-shaped recovery is unlikely, as the conditions are not in place.
- The revenue hit inflicted by the recession will accelerate the arrival of problems associated with paying for rising health care and Baby Boom retirement costs in the US.
- There is no natural successor to the dollar in view. The dollar has Treasuries behind it, but the euro has no unified debt market.
- A “Tobin Tax” on financial transactions would have to be orchestrated globally, or it would simply push business to markets that declined to implement it.
Leo Abruzzese, Economist Editorial Director, North America:
- By the 3rd quarter of 2011, world economic growth will not be back even to 2003 levels.
- The US economy will reach its 2007 size by the 3rd quarter of 2011. It will have taken 16-17 quarters, much worse than other recessions in recent decades.
- The US banking crisis is not over, and many more small- and medium-sized banks will still get in trouble.
- In China, stock and property bubbles are forming, and are likely to pop within 2 to 3 years.
- China should overtake Japan as the world’s second largest economy in the next few months.
Twitter: @Geofutures
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In an attack on the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic reassurance,” Robert Kagan and Dan Blumenthal make an interesting point
“Strategic reassurance” seems to chart a different course. Senior officials liken the policy to the British accommodation of a rising United States at the end of the 19th century, which entailed ceding the Western Hemisphere to American hegemony. Lingering behind this concept is an assumption of America’s inevitable decline. Yet nothing would do more to hasten decline than to follow this path. The British accommodation of America’s rise was based on close ideological kinship. British leaders recognized the United States as a strategic ally in a dangerous world — as proved true throughout the 20th century. No serious person would imagine a similar grand alliance and “special relationship” between an autocratic China and a democratic United States.
Leaving aside that the writers are straining to detect how Obama differs from his predecessors — some see unusual continuity — it is true that the US lacks a natural protege. Brazil and India come much closer than China, as multicultural, democratic countries strongly shaped by Western culture, but real “kinship” is absent.
In any case, having a protege offers no guarantees: the US actively worked to deprive Britain of its chief global-power asset, its empire, even as the “special relationship” formed.
Given the strong odds that China and other countries will singly or collectively surpass the United States, the lack of proteges reinforces the value of the embedding the rising powers in an international system that Americans find amenable. It also argues for vigorous pursuit of soft power, converting rising powers to think more like us. Both of these tools were battered by the Bush administration, but Obama is pursuing them.
It should also be noted that an “autocratic China” is not forever. In many respects China is already less oppressive than South Korea and Taiwan were 50 years ago, when they were bastions of “the free world.” China may follow a similar course, and Kagan and Blumenthal imply that that matters. (Pure realists might object. After all, the US and Britain spent the first 100 years of their relationship warring or talking about warring with each other.)
Decline can be gradual: Britain remains a great power, 120 years after losing its place as the world’s largest economy. By that math, America will still matter in 2150.
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Marian Salzman asked me and others to talk about re-branding the United States. These are extracts from two of her blog posts, about challenges and solutions.
My remarks:
Brand America is suffering from the hangover of the Bush years, which intensified perceptions of the U.S. as arrogant, violent, greedy, ignorant and self-interested. One of the tragedies of the Bush administration’s missteps was that about a billion people came of age during those eight years, forming their first impressions of the U.S.
One path to future reputation is making an impression on the vast cohorts of young people growing up now. We don’t want to battle the BRICs with our legacy strengths, the size of our economy and our military power, which are declining or sullied advantages. We can fight the challengers in areas where they have weaknesses and we are admired: freedom, egalitarianism, creativity and opportunity, for instance.
As Davids says below, diversity is another area of comparative advantage over the BRICs.
Keith Reinhard:
We have become an unwelcoming brand—with visa policies that discourage the best and the brightest from coming to study … We are not taking the lead in addressing challenges the global “market” most cares about—climate change being an important current example. America is still the leading nation brand. Surveys on innovation and competitiveness still rank us as No. 1. But other nation brands, like China, are gaining on us.
Our position as the world leader did not come overnight, and our brand recovery will take some time—maybe a generation.
Axle Davids:
A smart marketer would push diversity and inclusiveness for Brand America. Show us how you are a world nation, instead of acting like the standard-bearer for all nations.
N. Sedef Onder:
A global audience watched as we failed the most basic test of our authenticity during the recent financial crisis. A country built on the premise of capitalism, or the ability of anyone with any background to succeed based on individual effort, hard work and innovation simply failed to deliver on that promise.
Brand America was, and is still, a bit “drunk” on its faded glory as the pinnacle of opportunity and invention during the industrial age. We’ve yet to reinvent ourselves for the Brave New World. Understanding our role as international partners and working in collaboration with other nations will be critical to regaining respect and credibility.
Joy Donnell:
It seems all my overseas acquaintances felt America had gone rogue during the Bush administration and hoped our new president would signal a return to the world stage.
Michael Margolis:
What “big story” initiatives might the government introduce that bring to life how our country continues to fulfill the larger promise? What about a global entrepreneurship competition sponsored by the U.S. government, with both monetary prizes and immigration visas?
Several of those interviewed wisely point out that it is not about PR — real-world actions matter.
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Pew reports that most Mexicans see life in the US as better than that in Mexico, and 33% of Mexicans would like to come to the US. Some 18% would do so even if it were illegal.
They identify these issues as “very big” problems in Mexico:
- crime — 81%
- the economy — 75%
- illegal drugs — 73%
- corruption — 68%
That is a lot of people interested in a life in the United States, given that Mexico has a population of 111 million, of whom 68 million are over 19.
- 33% = 22 million adults
- 18% = 12 million adults
The poll was of adults over 18 generally, while likely immigrants would be concentrated among young adults, but they would tend to create chain migration that can bring in children and older people.
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People are not that certain of China’s rise. Majorities or pluralities in only half of the countries surveyed “believe that China will — or already has — replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower.” Sensibly, only minorities believe that the handover has already occurred — 4 to 17% think so, with no clear pattern emerging in countries with larger percentages within this range. Only 8% of Chinese believe that they are already on top.
People in developed countries –and thus likely higher education levels — are more likely to expect Chinese dominance.
Two exceptions set the stage for future clashes of expectations: only 26% of Americans foresee being replaced by China, with 57% doubting that this will ever happen, while 59% of Chinese expect to replace the US, and only 20% are skeptical that this will occur.
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Earlier this month Slate and the Global Business Network got together to think about how the United States might come to an end over the next 100 years.
They devised four scenarios:
- Collapse — A series of disasters fray and ultimately destroy American social cohesion. “The country could fall apart as our national creeds of freedom, democracy, and openness are gradually abandoned.”
- Friendly breakup — “The country dissolves peacefully because the overhead of running a large nation becomes unmanageable.” This includes an amicable version of the red-blue US disintegration scenario.
- Global governance — “The national government declines in importance relative to the world community,” in order “to head off the challenges of the ‘non-zero-sum,’ globalized world: climate change, biological weapons, pandemics.”
- Global conquest — The US and the rest of the world are conquered by force. Peter Schwartz of GBN sees this as the least likely.
The larger world would not fare well in the collapse or global conquest scenarios. Forces large enough to destroy the US would likely handle most other places severely as well. The friendly breakup scenario could be positive or negative: it might indicate that the world was integrated and peaceful, and thus safe for smaller states — the pattern now developing in Western Europe — but it could also leave a power vacuum if the US simply stepped away from its current role.
(Thanks for article tip to Kristin Nauth)
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As Russia plans to drop paratroopers into the Arctic as part of an exercise, Canada’s Defence Minister said last week that “We’re going to protect our sovereign territory and we’re always to meet any challenge to that territorial sovereignty.”
The Canadian Press article by Elizabeth Macmillan offered this context:
- “Many countries have beefed up their military presence in the Arctic.”
- “Russia, Canada, Sweden, Finland and Norway are increasing Arctic forces or increasing training for existing forces.”
- “International experts say the military buildup indicates that nations with territory in the resource-rich Arctic believe that armed conflict in the high north is a very real possibility.”
There is certainly a “very real possibility,” but that does not equal a high probability; the Arctic is surrounded by countries with a relatively low likelihood of fighting each other. Still, several of the more likely scenarios for future wars involving Canada take place in the Arctic.
(Image courtesy madmack66, Flickr)