Watch the Company you Keep

So, unsurprisingly really, negotiations over the small arms treaty failed in the UN. I have no real interest in discussing the issues at length, but it is notable who we happen to be siding with here. Aside from Syria, Iran, and North Korea in the recent discussion, in the earlier debate over the bill "24 countries abstained: Bahrain, Belarus, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Laos, Libya, Marshall Islands, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, UAE, Venezuela, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. The United States of America voted against the resolution. (was feeling lazy, wikipedia, sorry)"

I would just like to point out how often anti-internationalists point towards guilt by association types of arguments. It would be very, very hard to keep worse company than this. Perhaps this is something to reflect on.

What the Story of the Four Little PIGS Tells Us about the Welfare State

I often hear that the European debt crisis is an example of the evils of government spending and the welfare state.  However, something shared by at least three of these little PIGS (I don't know about Portugal) is that all had fairly rough transitions to democracy and retain some powerful clientelist features.  A recent Economist article reminded me of these features, which to be completely honest, I've been waiting for an excuse to blog about.

Italy, especially, has been used for a comparative case of a remarkably poorly functioning public sector and state spending that bears the form of rents more than it does characteristic welfare state features (Greece is probably an even starker example of this, but for various reasons, it is less frequently used for comparisons).  In all three of these countries, and perhaps Portugal, state spending serves largely to create political support for the existing regime and to support the legitimacy of the state.  These features largely date from the transition to democracy from their autocratic regimes, it was necessary to win over powerful constituencies that otherwise posed significant threats to the democratic transition.  While this was likely a necessary aspect of their transition, unfortunately none of these states managed to unwind these features while they had the freedom to do so.

It is undeniable that state spending used for clientelistic purposes is extremely damaging, the situation in Europe only confirms this.  However, it is a huge stretch to generalize from these cases to the idea that all state spending is unsustainable or a negative risk.  The main lesson to be drawn is that most mature democracies don't look anything like this, in most democracies most state spending is widely shared with its skewness being towards the poor generally, not towards specific privileged groups.  Attempts to say that all state spending leads to clientelism or to buying support from beneficiaries runs aground on the fact that benefits in states such as France, Germany, or Sweden are widely shared while other states, like Greece or Italy, have far more of their spending going to privileged groups and in particular highly paid and pensioned public employees.

The lesson here is about particularism and clientelism vs the welfare state, not one about spending vs. austerity.  Particularistic spending and benefits tends to lead towards imbalances and a higher possibility of economic stagnation (Spain certainly took off for a while despite these problems, if the crisis had been delayed for another decade or two things may have been very different), broad based policy and spending tends to be far more effective.

On top of this, of course, are the usual labor and business rigidities that plague Europe.  But this is shared across Europe, what is different in the experiences has a lot to do with the relative maturity of the democracies, their ability to rely on broad based legitimacy for their governments as opposed to particularistic interest groups, and the method they use to disburse state spending, broad based benefits vs. jobs.

This theme is worth developing further, I see it brought up far too much despite being a variable that occurs a lot in the political science literature regarding Italy especially.

Pennywise, Pound Foolish

I just read one of the most disappointing stories I've read in awhile in the NY Times.  Unsurprisingly the State Department's budget is expected to be on the chopping block as we seek to trim spending.  This is a key example of something I've said frequently, the incentives involved in making immediate cuts to spending means that politicians will be prone to making cuts in ways that reduce immediate spending but raise long term costs.  It doesn't help that many of the politicians involved in deciding on these cuts have ideological beliefs regarding spending that make them blind to potential benefits.

Foreign aid is one of the most cost effective means America has in projecting its power.  It's effectiveness is difficult to assess properly, it is hard to put a concrete value on relationship building and public perception.  It can also be done sufficiently poorly as to be counter-productive, such as when US foreign aid flows through a hated regime that we become associated with through our giving.

That said, the pay-off from having foreign support is tremendous.  Contrast the cost of the war in Libya ($896 million) to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (~$800 billion and $460 billion respectively).  While it's hard to untangle precisely why the Libyan public had a favorable view of the US while the Iraqis and Afghans didn't have similarly positive views* it is illustrative of the kind of difference public opinion can make on achieving strategic objectives.

A country that is seeking to get its economic house in order and to reduce spending should be reallocating resources away from the military and towards economic and diplomatic means.  A shift away from foreign aid is the worst kind of thing we can do if our goal is to balance our budget.  This is just another piece of evidence that makes me believe that the deficit cutters have little concern with actually balancing the budget and far more concern about making this country fit their ideological vision.  This behavior is the exact opposite of what a country seeking a foreign policy within its means should be doing.

*It's not like we were giving a lot of aid to Libya, but we had been pressuring them diplomatically to open up for awhile.  We have also been very active in the Mideast, particularly in neighboring Egypt.  It's easy to see why Afghans weren't crazy about us since we did so little in the region, contrasting Iraq and Libya is harder.  I find it plausible that our focus on Egypt may have had something to do with it.

What really worries me is statements like this:

She recalled a State Department envoy’s informing her of $250 million in relief to Pakistan after last year’s devastating floods. “I said I think that’s bad policy and bad politics,” she said in an interview at her office on Capitol Hill. “What are you going to say to people in the United States who are having flooding?”

I get the domestic politics, but Pakistan remains one of the most likely countries where some type of intervention may be necessary in the future.  Giving aid to improve our image there is an essential component to reducing the risk of an Afghanistan or Iraq size debacle.  $250 million is small change compared to the costs of a potential intervention (I blogged about the importance of aid there at the time).  The only reason we have a perception problem is because of politicians unwilling to take necessary action domestically.   These kinds of shortsighted actions are how states decline and fall.  That isn't meant as hyperbole, I'm being completely serious.  If the deficit cutting mania continues to erode key US competencies, such as foreign policy, by cutting long range projects for short term cuts to show the electorate we may be painting ourselves into a corner we can't get out of.  If we ignore the potential benefits to government spending to avoid tax hikes we'll lose the capacities our state needs to maintain stability and prosperity.  I'm getting increasingly worried.

Libya: End of the Beginning

It seems that the uprising against Gaddafi has reached its final stages.  News reports indicate that rebel forces are outside Tripoli and are perhaps coordinating with an uprising inside Tripoli itself.  At this point, rebel victory is only a matter of time.

What remains to be seen though is what comes after.  The rebel leadership seems to be faction ridden to the point of factions arranging assassinations against other leaders.  This raises reason to doubt, but shouldn't be blown out of proportion.  These kinds of problems are to be expected in countries without much history of participatory political leadership.  This means that the probability that Libya will fracture into competing violent factions is a real factor to be taken into consideration but it doesn't make this result inevitable.  Powerful forces pushing against this outcome are also evident, including the current outside military support, political support from the Arab League and especially the United Arab Emirates, and perhaps most significantly the unifying impact of successfully overthrowing Gaddafi.

On the whole, I think Libya is perhaps the best case for how foreign intervention should be done.  It is not without risks but as every foreign war has shown the ability of military forces to exert control is largely illusory, Iraq and Afghanistan being the key exhibits here.  Military force can at most create a very high level, imprecise form of control that has little impact on the functioning of a social system that has been of greatest interest in modern conflicts.  It lacks the ability to create political legitimacy, economic stability, or to address the grievances driving terrorism, these things persist despite boots on the ground.  By contrast, the conflict in Libya is serving to generate the political legitimacy that may lead to future economic stability and to addressing the Libyan people's grievances.

This result is by no means assured, we are operating with a great deal of uncertainty about ultimate outcomes, but our actions there have maximized the probability of a good outcome.  It's very important to recognize that in these sorts of situations there is no way to have certainty of results or to calculate precise enough outcomes to allow for a formal cost/benefit accounting.  We do know enough to have a rough approximation of the relative importance of factors leading to success however.  All human action is inherently uncertain, we should not let arguments that point out this essential quality lead us to tying our hands unnecessarily.

Though it helps for my view that I regard the atrocities that have happened after previous failed revolts in the mid-east as the baseline condition.  If it wasn't for our support, I believe the situation in Libya would have been far worse than what we're seeing in Syria.  Our intervention in Libya may have even had an impact on Syria delaying its use of heavy-handed tactics for fear of intervention, though there's no way to be sure.

Great Sentiments about the Needs for Our Relationship with China. But I'm Left with All Questions, No Answers

Admiral Mike Mullen has an op-ed in today's NY Times that expresses some wonderful sentiments.  I just don't really think I learned anything from reading it.  Basic exchanges of information have gone on for a long time, I don't have a detailed enough knowledge to say whether or not current exchanges are much different but I can't see them as being any more than marginally so.  In any case, this kind of information sharing, while necessary, is hardly game changing on its own.

Where are more concrete initiatives, say something regarding the South China Sea?  Are efforts being made to examine how Chinese-American security concerns link in with economic concerns?  The Chinese certainly aren't shy about expressing some of their economic concerns in security and foreign policy terms, are we being similarly forthright?

I'm probably expecting too much, but while I think this article expresses praiseworthy sentiments I'm left feeling that I didn't read a single thing that makes me think that anything has changed or that relations are on a firmer basis.  This all seems very informal and non-binding, what's to prevent our next over-reaction or the next Chinese walk-out?  I don't see anything.

I should note, however, that the lines indicate that the admiral is responding to some specific critiques:

I’m not naïve. I understand the concerns of those who feel that any cooperation benefits China more than the United States. I just don’t agree. This relationship is too important to manage through blind suspicion and mistrust. We’ve tried that. It doesn’t work.

 On the whole, the op-ed leaves me without answers but with a big question, who exactly is it that is being responded to, and what is their argument?  And why is this being published now?

Assistance to the Rebels

Another New York Times article details some of the problems with the current level of support we're giving to the rebels.  With the current weaknesses in the rebel army it will be difficult for them to take substantial ground and there is doubt that the coalition can hold together for the months it will take to shape a real fighting force.  This leads me to a couple of thoughts.

First of all, there should be absolutely no western troops participating in anything but training exercises.  This is the Libyan's battle, or at the widest I'd go, the Arab's battle.  If an Arab state is willing to commit some troops, then that might work.  But even this I'm cautious about unless it is something like specialized forces, such as armor or mobile artillery.  Infantry has an emotional appeal that other branches of the service don't have to the same degree and will be necessary to creating the national myth they will need to hold the country together afterward.

It may also be wise to support them with additional arms.  I have a strong reservation about this however.  We gave a lot of small arms to Afghanistan back in the 80s, since then this has proven rather costly.  To limit this. we should discuss with the rebel forces how many soldiers they have trained on heavy equipment.  Once we know this, we should donate as much equipment as they can use.  This would avoid the problems of filling a country with small arms that can further destabilize it and that could later prove lethal to our forces, either through sales abroad or if on the ground action is necessary later on.  To do this we would have to drop the fiction about maintaining an arms embargo, but the disadvantages of smuggling in small arms, which I'm sure is already happening, are great enough to lead me to think the trade off is worth it.  Of course, if the rebels haven't had defectors from armored divisions, it's really not clear exactly who defected, this might not work since piloting a tank probably isn't intuitive (I don't really know however).  In this case, we'd need someone on the ground to use the equipment, which would bring complications.  Also, the disparity between Qaddafi and the rebels seems to be mostly a combination of troop quality and heavy equipment.  Small arms don't close this gap, heavy equipment would close one of the two.

I'd also worry about supplying too much artillery.  I fear the rebels will prove indiscriminate in their attacks and armor seems less prone to collateral damage than artillery.  Our air support can mostly fulfill the same role as artillery, though this would require a level of organization and coordination between our forces and the rebels I haven't seen any reports of yet.

Rebel Professionalism

There's a very good article in today's New York Times on the lack of professionalism in the Libyan rebel's armed forces.  It's not anything surprising, it's exactly what should be expected from this kind of spontaneous uprising.  But there's a couple of things worth commenting on here.

First, they do seem sufficient to take ground and slow down Qaddafi's advances alongside air strikes.  At this stage all they need to be able to do is not lose.  Eventually the soldiers will get blooded and learn enough to carry on some kind of real offensive.  Until then, lines are likely to stay very fluid.  This kind of combat probably won't be able to reliably hold territory but it should be able to limit the mobility of Qaddafi's forces now that they don't have air support.  They may not be able to stop a slow, measured advance but they can probably hammer a strung out column that is trying to blitz Benghazi.  Once the rebels manage to organize the real soldiers they do have into units and these irregulars become somewhat organized they might have a chance of advancing.  This will take several weeks, if not months, as I said before.  Anyone that thought this would be over in days either doesn't know anything about revolution war or assumed that Qaddafi would give in easily, which was obviously not a possibility within a few days.

Second, anyone that thinks that the 2nd amendment actually protects us from government needs to study this.  If assault rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, and a couple of jets can't fight back effectively against a marginal military force such as Qaddafi's without overwhelming outside strategic support what the hell are a bunch of rifles, shotguns, and pistols supposed to do against a military able to take on the US army, or the US army itself?  This shows pretty clearly what it actually looks like when an armed citizenry rises up against a dictatorial power in the era of modern arms.  Even if everyone had an assault rifle, which is more or less the case in Libya, they can't fight back against organized military opposition with modern equipment.

What We Avoided: Civil Wars of the Past

There's a meme circulating among those that opposed the war that we don't really know how bad things would have been and that there's no way of knowing.  In a facile sense, this is true.  We can't know the future.  However, there have been a lot of civil wars in the second half of the 20th century.  Here's what a few of them look like.  (Numbers are for the losing side and wars posted in no particular order because I'm lazy.  All of these conflicts are primarily civil wars, though some do involved intervention of outside powers, more on that at the end of the post.)

Algerian War: 800,000+ civilians killed or wounded
Hungarian Revolution of 1956: 2,500 killed, 13,000 wounded, 13,000 imprisoned, 200,000 refugees estimated 350 executions
North Yemen Civil War: 100,000 dead
Zanzibar Revolution: 2,000 - 4,000 with estimates up to 20,000 civilians killed in aftermath
Indonesian Invasion of East Timor: 60,000 to 100,000 soldiers and civilians
Internal Conflict in Burma:  121,000 killed
Greek Civil War: This one's a mess and representative of other political conflicts that lasted many years and with multiple sides.  The winning side claimed about 16,000 dead all told and the losers just under 40,000.  Another 1,000,000 were displaced.  Other major civil wars of this complexity, such as Congo's, have been omitted.
Al-Anfal Campaign:  Saddam Hussein had a much more effective army than Libya.  This is what he did to combat an uprising: 182,000 civilians killed.  I think this is probably the most comparable of these as to what could have been expected in Libya if Qaddafi had his way.  In these sorts of conflicts, the worst killing happens after the main fighting is over.
Nepalese Civil War: 12,700+ deaths
1994 civil war in Yemen: 7,000 - 10,000 dead, appearing twice on the list is one reason why I don't think we're going to get involved in Yemen.  In this case most casualties are listed as soldiers, but I question how distinct the civilian/soldier divide is in a weakly institutionalized state such as Yemen.
Spanish Civil War: 500,000 dead on both sides.  Both sides engaged in substantial killing of civilians

This is just a brief round-up of what I could easily find on Wikipedia.  While there are rational reason to oppose intervention, it does look like the kind of terrible outcomes of many of these conflicts have been avoided.  I find it unlikely that the rebels will feel able to act without outside support, while there will very likely be reprisal killings by the rebels afterward I expect these to be at the very low end for a civil war.  If Qaddafi had instead hung on to power, I would have expected towards the higher end since he would have already been angry at the other powers and seen little reason to take their reactions into account.  It's simply not true that we don't have any idea what would have happened if Qaddafi had succeeded, reprisals after a civil war are a nearly constant feature of them.  While there are exceptions, such as our own Civil War where post-war executions and extra-judicial killings were fairly rare, these are very rare exceptions and there is absolutely no reason to believe Qaddafi would have acted as the exception, rather than the rule.

Of course, there are a couple of complicating factors.  First, most 20th century civil wars have involved an element of great power competition.  This surely lengthened them, raised the stakes, and thus increased the casualties.  Second, many of these civil wars involved some degree of outside interference, which is exactly what we're doing in Libya.  While this gives some reason for doubt, the unusual combination of substantial defected forces and a huge disparity in arms quality between those intervening and Qaddafi's forces gives a strong reason to expect a different outcome.  More detail could certainly be given for these differences.  But, at a glance, there's good reason to believe that the situation prior to intervention would have looked much like most civil wars, while the ways that this intervention differs from earlier cases gives good reasons to believe that casualties will be relatively small. 

That said, I won't be at all surprised if the scale of what happens approaches Srebrenica (8,000) in total, though not in any one place and including battlefield deaths.  This will still be ugly, it's against the mind-numbing horror of what most modern civil wars end up looking like that intervention is justified.  The sheer scale of destruction caused by civil wars is rarely appreciated when so few of them occur anywhere near reliable reporters and television cameras.  As long as there is some form of international force deployed in whatever settlement arises from this conflict, I believe the worst of the reprisals will be avoided.

Some Additional Thoughts on Libya

First, sorry for the irregular posting, my personal life has been getting in the way of following current events closely.  Regular posting will hopefully resume this week, no promises however.

The situation in Libya is something that I've been trying to follow, though my impression so far is that there haven't been too many new developments from my last post on the subject.  The situation seems to be currently in a stalemate, my best guess is that it is likely to remain so for some time, likely weeks.  The dynamic I expect is a continued slow erosion of Qaddafi's government with a slow trickle of officials out of it.  This will lead to either a negotiated settlement where Qaddafi accepts exile or a sudden collapse as some of his officials mount a coup.  I don't expect this to be settled on the battlefield.

At this point, the rebels have time on their side.  All they have to do is hold on and let the slow rot of Qaddafi's government do their work for them.  They seem to have sufficient numbers to be able to do this though they lack the organization to push Qaddafi out in a major offensive.  Given evidence of Egyptian and American support, if Qaddafi hangs on long enough they may gain the capacity to score some major battlefield victories once they get the organization to charge through the shelling of mortars and artillery that seem to play such a large role in throwing them back in recent battles.  This is likely to take weeks at least, and I'm unsure if the conflict will remain in play this long.  If this scenario does happen, it tips the balance in favor of coup against Qaddafi rather than a negotiated settlement with him.  Though a settlement will have to be negotiated with whoever the coup leaders are.

Probably the biggest question I have right now is how bad Qaddafi's intelligence is.  A constant theme with authoritarian governments is that their access to information, and particularly bad news, is very unreliable.  People don't want to contradict the dictator.  Given the number of defections that have occurred, I would expect this tendency to be even stronger than it is in most authoritarian governments; anyone with bad news about the military and political situation will fear that sharing it will be looked upon as doubts about the regime and disloyalty, with the predictable consequences.  This would mean that Qaddafi will continue to hang on well past his situation becoming hopeless, anyone with information that the situation is in fact hopeless will have reason to fear sharing this with him and an incentive to defect abroad to protect their own hide.

There is a wild card.  Qaddafi has shown himself to be fairly reckless in the past.  Recent accounts have shown that he is reducing his use of heavy equipment and favoring weaponry similar to that used by the rebels.  With his troops superior training and advantages in superior light equipment such as mortars this should prove sufficient for him to score incremental gains against the rebels for some time.  Most likely, this will be used as a bargaining chip to gain a better settlement for himself and those loyal to him.  Alternately, he may seek to grind down the rebels and to provide few targets for airstrikes for a time, relying on friendly fire casualties like that reported on recently (NY Times) to reduce the rebel's reliance on those, and save his armor and mobile artillery for a final attempt at a blitz.  Given this already failed once in Benghazi I feel this is fairly unlikely, but given someone as reckless as Qaddafi I wouldn't regard it as impossible.  Especially if he feels there is no avoiding the ICC or capture by the rebels.

Syria: A Possibility of Some Things We May Not Like Developing

I'm getting caught up on the situation in Syria right now, I may have some more things to say about it later.

But I just came across this on al Jazeera's live blog.

3:28pm

Protesters in Deraa are shouting slogans denouncing Maher al-Assad, brother of the Syrian president and head of the Republican Guard, a witness tells Reuters. As they headed to the main square in the city after the funeral of at least five protesters killed by security forces this week, thousands chanted:

Maher you coward. Send your troops to liberate the Golan

 Israel captured the Golan Heights in a 1967 war.

Something to remember about democracy is that a lot of early pushes for democracy have involved revanchist claims.  While I think in the longer run developments in the Mid-East will be good for the international system, including western interests, there are likely to be some challenges arising out of it in the short term.  Democracy is great, but don't forget the actual course France followed, or Italian reunification, or even territorial claims of the early United States.  While some of the more recent waves of democratization have been generally peaceful, these transitions weren't accompanied by the kind of wide ranging social and cultural change that is occurring in the Mid-East, most of these transitions involved states that had already developed a stable national identity.  These identities are still being formed in most Middle Eastern countries, it would be unsurprising if they made similar claims to the early European democratizers whose transition happened in the midst of socio-cultural change as well.  Tensions with Israel may be the least of it.

Also, specific to Israel, if a democratic Syrian state starts making claims against Israel, where do we stand on this?  Much of our support for Israel (or at least the stated reason for it) owes to their status as the only democracy currently in the Mid-East.  If the Arab states around them become democratic and start making territorial claims, similar to claims that Israel makes in the West Bank, what will our position be on this?  It's a much different situation when claims on democratic legitimacy and other rationalizations of our position are no longer different between Israel and its neighbors.  This is something that deserves some serious thought sooner rather than later.

Tribes and Libya

I'm going to preface this by saying that I know nothing specific about tribalism in Libya, so this is all going to be on a more general level since I do know something about tribes more generally (though it's hardly one of the areas I'm most comfortable with).

This post is basically a reaction to Friedman's post from the 22nd.*  The issue of tribalism is an important one for discussing how these revolutions might possibly turn out in the Arab world, tribalism is certainly a major barrier to successful democratization and strong tribal structures can certainly go a long way towards short circuiting democratic transition.

However, this is true of just about any powerful ascriptive identity that is present in a population.  Too often talk of tribalism is used as some kind of excuse for why we're so advanced and the rest of the world is so far behind (Friedman's column doesn't quite step into this, I have some other issues with it rooted in IR theory, especially about artificial borders since virtually all borders are artificial, but they're not worth taking up here.  I could also go on for awhile about the tribe's with flags bit, it's more complex than that, but not worth it).

But tribal identity isn't that much different from the kind of personal and local loyalties that were present throughout Europe before the rise of the modern state.  They're not that much different from powerful lineage groups that were present at points in Chinese history.  Comparing and contrasting these forms of identity would probably take a (series) book, so I won't go in depth here.

My point is that while ascriptive identities such as tribal identities certainly are a barrier to democracy and something that needs to be considered when intervening, it's also something that was present at some point in all successful democratizers since it is a universal trait.  These forms of identity were usually overcome at some point well before democratic transition, especially in the west where wars against the cities, landowners, and religious wars, all served to help reduce personal loyalties and replace them with loyalty to the state, but history shows they can be overcome and often have (sometimes with explicit recognition of the divisions such as in Lebanon) even later in the process of development.

A common theme in replacing these earlier identities with something more akin to national identities is violence.  It is not necessary, but a frequent way of developing a national myth is a revolution, such as the American or French revolutions (though in both of these strong earlier identities had been substantially eroded before revolutions, in the American case mostly due to emigration to the colonies).

The relevance of this to Libya is two things.  First, tribal identities are a reason for caution, but they shouldn't be given too much importance.  These forms of identity are not constants, they change as institutions change and its fully plausible they haven't survived the heavy urbanization of Libya in strong enough form to be an insuperable barrier.  While tribalism was a problem in Iraq, Libya doesn't seem to have the further complication of sectarianism.  The second point is that the resistance to Qaddafi provides the germ from which a more modern form of identity can emerge that suits a modern state (not necessarily western nationalism, but tribal identities aren't very compatible with the kind of hierarchical authority pattern based on the rule of law essential to the functioning of a modern state).  This was lacking in Iraq and is a major problem in that country's ongoing attempt at transition (among many others).

An excellent article on Libya's tribalism also a appeared in the NY Times on March 21.

*I'm finally getting around to this after a busy week trying to get some work done before vacation in San Diego, which I've finally arrived in and will be here till Monday.  Starting next week posting should become more regular again.

What Happens to Tripoli?

This question has been bothering me.  Qaddafi seems firmly in control of the city for now and even if unrest does occur there I doubt there is any way for air support to effectively intervene.

Assuming there isn't a negotiated abdication of Qaddafi there doesn't seem to be any good outcome for the citizens of this city.  The rebels have a lot of irregulars, after a few weeks of heavy fighting in what will undoubtedly be a hard fought push to take the city how much trust we can have about how these soldiers will act in liberating Qaddafi's main stronghold?  There is also a possibility of street to street fighting which has historically been very rough on civilians.  While I think intervention on the whole saves civilian lives in what would have otherwise been years of brutal crackdowns by Qaddafi loyalists in the short term it is not unlikely that many will see the choice as having been to trade a slaughter in Tripoli for a slaughter in Benghazi.

I just hope there is some form of negotiated settlement or stalemate instead of the city having to be taken by the rebel forces.

Mission Creep Already?

This early in a conflict it's hard to tell how much accurate reporting is happening and how much is distorted due to limited sources.  This New York Times article is making me wonder if the US is already starting to play a larger role than it needs to.  I understand that it is essential for US forces to take out the anti-air defenses but I don't see the need for US forces to be striking at ground targets.  It may be that our larger naval forces and problems with coordinating still incoming allied forces mean that we have forces in striking distance of targets such as armor and artillery while others currently do not.  On the other hand, America has a poor track record of sharing command and operations with others so it is also possible we're suffering mission creep when we don't need to because of this characteristic of our strategic culture.  Too early to tell, but I was worried about this but cautiously optimistic that as a result of the reluctance of the administration to participate in the Libyan intervention that we'd avoid our usual fate of demanding a leadership role whenever we participate.

Also, the divisions in the Arab League worries me.  Part of this is expected, none of these countries are all that democratic and they want plausible deniability.  Hopefully this is all that is happening.  What discourages me is that this is an example of completely unrealistic assumptions about war.  It was never possible to enforce a no fly zone simply by sending jets over and only firing back when fired on.  Of course we were going to have to hit command and control centers, airstrips, and anti-air batteries.  To think otherwise is incredibly naive.

This is a problem that I see often however.  People want to impose morality designed for individuals on state and group action, namely don't strike until someone else strikes first and then do so proportionately.  This isn't possible when you have a responsibility to others that are being asked to take action.  I find the idea of ordering pilots into harms way without first doing all we can to mitigate the chances of their getting killed to be an immensely immoral action.  No one should have the right to do this when they have the power to defend those they are responsible for.  The responsibility for commanders to see to the well being of their troops require that known valid military targets be taken out first before individuals under their command are asked to risk their lives.  It's regrettable that live will be lost in the installations struck but weighed against the power that the state possesses against the rights of the people under its command this is clearly the lesser of the two evils.  If Qaddafi hadn't been intending to fight back his troops would have already been withdrawn, sending our planes in before taking out these installations would have been little different then sending our soldiers to the gallows since we both knew about and had the power to save their lives by eliminating these installations.  No state can do that with a clear conscience.

Libya: What are Foreign News Sites Saying?

[Update:  This is from Al Jazeera's live blog:

These offers of a ceasefire are a little strange, seeing as there is already the offer of a ceasefire from the foreign minister yesterday.
You have to ask if this is a decision being made in the full view of the Libyan public. When the military spokesman was asked if this was going to be broadcast on state TV and Libyans would be made aware that there was a ceasefire offer, he said no.

What kind of cease fire do you not announce to your own public?  If there was any question about the intent of these cease fires to be anything other than providing diplomatic cover and an attempt to split the military coalition I think this detail adds a lot of context.]


This is by no means a representative survey, just a brief run through of some foreign news sites I check moderately frequently.  Given the contentiousness of foreign interventions I thought others might be interested in some brief highlights.

Chinese news sites are unsurprisingly still dominated by headlines from Japan.  People's Daily plays it straight and is mostly reiterating China's focus on sovereignty without making any strong claims about the specifics of the Libya situation.

Xinhua is somewhat more opinionated and is not so subtly insinuating ulterior motives for the intervention.

Some highlights:

The western coalition claimed they launched the assault for humanitarian interests. But many analysts and media believed they did it for the sake of their own goals and interests instead of the safety and welfare of the unarmed Libyan civilians as they have claimed.

With a record-low popularity and facing a presidential election next year, Sarkozy was eager to take the reins in global crises and show voters that he can take the lead.

Gaddafi, then, offers Sarkozy an opportunity.

Pravda probably isn't an example of mainstream Russian opinion, but wow.  Read it for yourself; I have no comment.  Hitlerites, Luftwaffe on the Move. 

Al Jazeera's coverage has been studiously neutral from what I've read so far.  I find their live blog especially interesting.

 This is by no means meant to be a representative sample, it's simply a summary of what I've read so far.  If anyone has been reading some other foreign news sites that diverge in coverage from the US I'd be curious to know what they're saying.

Government Spending as Percent of GDP

Since I found the data figured I'd post it.  Pretty much the same comments as the taxation figures.  Government expenditure is even messier than tax expenditure, I guess I'm used to seeing smoothed charts.  Unfortunately the data set isn't as good, several states start late in the series, though oddly enough Korea starts earlier.  In any case, there's a sharp spike for the current recession but the same kind of flattening of spending occurs as with taxation, though it's a little harder to see and looks less clustered.  Korea is the only country with a clearly rising government expenditure, but that's expected.  Sweden breaks 70% spending and Finland breaks 60%, though neither of them maintains it for long.  I assume this is due to a recession and counter cyclical spending, but am too lazy to do the research to check for temporary blips.  On this chart we get a few countries whose spending settled above 50% (though Sweden's data series is so short and noisy I can't say they look like they've settled into anything), Belgium, France, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland (France's curve looks like it still may have a slight upward slope, probably because they have completely unsustainable labor practices, and Belgium just barely makes the cut).

For the most part though, spending seems to become basically flat between 40 and 50% of GDP in most cases, and this has been stable for some time.  Unfortunately this data set only begins in 1970 so it leaves out the years that experience rapid growth of government.  If the curve had been there it would be more obvious how much leveling out there is post 1980 (and from the chart a leveling out that proceeded somewhat messily between 1980 and 1990) for many countries compared to the rapid rise of the state in the 50s and 60s, though the tail end of this is visible in the 70s for the few countries the data is present for (I especially regret not having Spain which started so much less developed and caught up).  Korea appears to be the only state that remains on a clear upward trajectory, while all countries show a recent spike this is to be expected due to the shrinking of the economy in the recession, and judging from the sharp spikes and recoveries common before there is no reason to think this will be sustained.

[Unfortunately I haven't found a good way to put graphics of this size into the blog yet.  I may eventually find a way for now it should be enlargeable in your browser or you can get the OECD data directly.  It's much clearer in Openoffice where I can highlight individual lines.]

What Makes Libya Different?

I see a lot of commentary that seems to be taking the line that action in Libya can easily lead to us becoming over committed and feeling obligated to get involved elsewhere.  While it is never possible to be sure with military action, there's always a party advocating for ever more involvement, there are several factors that I think makes Libya different from other cases.

1. The Arab League endorsed intervention.  A major international innovation over the past century has been the development of a number of formal international bodies.  This has been particularly remarkable since WWII and is a major feature of the American international system.  So far, while these bodies have not always proven effective, they have proven to be far more effective at promoting peace than anything else yet tried in history.  As our relative power declines it is the strength and persistence of these bodies that has the most promise for creating a stable international system that we can continue to prosper in.  Raw power is something we won't possess enough of.  Enlarging and emphasizing the role of these organizations is in my opinion the number one strategic challenge on the US in the coming decades so that the world remains favorable to us even when we are one of several powers.
2. Libyan government defections (NY Times).  So far, none of the other revolts in the Mid-East has involved substantial defections of high ranking officials.  The defections mean there are substantial rifts in the Libyan government and give strong hints of how shallow his power is.  If he can't even keep the loyalty of officials dependent on the center his prospects for controlling the rest of the country effectively are dim.  He may be able to maintain some authority through brute power, but this is fragile and can't be maintained for long.  This hints very strongly that even if Qaddafi were to win stability would not be restored.
3. Large military defections, including pilots (NY Times).  Air forces are one of the most expensive, and by extension should have been one of the most loyal, military institutions a state has.  While numbers have been small, two fighters (does anyone know what happened to these two planes after landing in Europe?) and another voluntarily downed, this hints strongly that Qaddafi's grip on the military isn't the tight.  As the story linked to says it seems he has some intensely loyal brigades and that the bulk of the army is weak and poorly trained, but his reliance on mercenaries hints that he may not be all that certain of even these troops.  His grip on power seems linked to his series of successes, if western help can break this his forces may not keep stable enough for prolonged action.  Though forcing him from his capital will be problematic.
4. Refugees.  While there has been violent suppression of riots elsewhere this has not led to a mass exodus of people.  This hints strongly at a different scale of violence then has been observed elsewhere.

Egypt and Libya

My biggest question mark in regards to Libya right now is what Egypt will end up doing.  Facts are thin, this is all that was in the most recent NY Times Article:

The administration also spoke to Egyptian officials about taking part but Egypt — the leading military power of the Arab world — was concerned that air strikes could endanger some million Egyptians who live in Libya. In addition, protesters only last month toppled the 30-year regime of President Hosni Mubarak and Egypt’s transitional military government remains fragile.

It makes sense that Egypt wouldn't want to take the risk with its air force, for this type of action at risk civilians are a liability.  However, if ground forces become a question then Egypt's concerns may change, subject to internal risk.  I believe they would be particularly likely to intervene on the ground if Qaddafi attempts a blitz and it looks like a massacre may take place.  An insecure regime like Egypt's can't afford this kind of foreign policy crisis this early in the transition process.  Expect Egypt's stance to change very rapidly, and unpredictably, as circumstances develop. 

Wish I read Arabic so I could read what their papers are saying.

Qaddafi's Cease Fire

Couple of thoughts on the cease fire that Qaddafi has called.  First, it showed that European forces should have had a command structure in place and planes ready to go instantly.  They've had a couple of weeks to prepare and the British and French were both onboard early.  Reminds me of the disorganization that made Suez a fiasco.  Still early and things seem to be moving far more swiftly than that mess so I doubt things will get that bad.

From Qaddafi's point of view I see two advantages.

The first is that him calling a cease fire gives diplomatic cover to try to split the alliance.  If bombing proceeds some states may waver in supporting the coalition that will give him breathing room and turn Arab support against the west.  It certainly raises the risk but too much uncertainty to say how it will go.

The second advantage is that if we resist bombing for fear of alienating allies it may occur that he can organize his forces for a quick blitz.  It takes time to put forces in place and it's unlikely we'll put assets in play that will be effective against ground units such as tanks and artillery until anti-aircraft missiles as well as his air force is eliminated.  This means that a blitz to eliminate the rebels may work if his air force and anti-air ground weapons can keep our planes busy long enough for his ground forces to overrun the rebels. 

So we're left with a tough choice, if we bomb in advance so he can't blitz this may alienate our allies.  If we wait he may blitz and snatch a win out from the jaws of defeat.  I hope that the Arab League makes this call for us since that will weaken the costs of early bombing.  We will see.


What I really hope will happen is that we called his bluff and he'll accept asylum somewhere.  Not impossible since he knows he is overmatched, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Look at the Difference with China

Just read about coordinated intervention to offset the appreciation of the Japanese yen.  Got me to thinking about how much different it is with trying to coordinate currency adjustments with China.  Well not really, I've been thinking of this for several hours a day for the past few weeks already.  Unlike my last two posts, I'm not procrastinating when observing on this because it's related to the work I should be doing, which is finish my paper on a comparative examination of US influence on the Japanese currency vs. the Chinese currency.

Yes, I'm Still Procrastinating: Libyan Intervention

So the Security Council decided to pass a resolution to intervene (NY Times link).  I believe it's dangerously late but given the reservations expressed so far it seems to be just about what I wanted to come out of it.  We'll see if we get dragged too far in.

In case you don't want to use up your 20 New York Times article reads, some key points.

Beyond that, the diplomat said that officials in Britain, France and the United States were all adamant that Arab League forces take part in the military actions and help pay for the operations, and that it not be led by NATO, to avoid the appearance that the West was attacking another Muslim country.

That support is likely to consist of much of what the United States already has in the region — Awacs radar planes to help with air traffic control should there be airstrikes, other surveillance aircraft and about 400 Marines aboard two amphibious assault ships in the region, the Kearsarge and the Ponce. 

The Americans could also provide signal-jamming aircraft in international airspace to muddle Libyan government communications with its military units.

I'm nervous about the possibility of using our marines, but Awacs, surveillance, and signal jamming aircraft sound like about the right level of US involvement.

The resolution stresses the necessity of notifying the Arab League of military action and specifically notes an “important role” for Arab nations in enforcing the no-fly zone. Diplomats said Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were considering taking a leading role, with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt also considering participating.

This should definitely be primarily their show.  I see a role for the west to use our technological superiority to take out Qaddafi's most dangerous weapons, particularly ground to air missiles, and to take out his most dangerous fighters, but after that it should be their job.  We've shown from the previous two Gulf Wars that our aircraft are close to impervious to the air forces in the region so it would be needlessly wasteful of lives to have them go in as the first line in an even fight when experience has shown the chances for casualties for us are slim.  After that though, our direct action should be over and it should be their job.