September 10, 2006
From the desk of Jane Galt:Tyler Cowen writes that Afghanistan is going worse than Iraq.
Not on a "how many people were killed today" basis, but on a "which country has a better chance of climbing out of its current muck fifteen or twenty years from now" metric. And no, I don't intend that point as either a critique of invading Afghanistan, which I favored, or as a defense of our very badly botched policy in Iraq. It is a simple observation: we have never had good reason to believe that the occupation of Afghanistan was going well.
A little while ago, I read William Easterly's White Man's Burden, which is very, very, good. It is not, to be honest, quite as brilliant as The Elusive Quest for Growth, which everyone on the entire planet should read, like, RIGHT NOW--but if you are even vaguely interested in helping the poor of the world, you should pick it up the next time you're at the bookstore.
One of Easterly's points--one he has been making in papers as well as his book--is that places that are not cohesive countries don't tend to do well. "Nations" like Iraq and Afghanistan that were essentially cobbled together for the economic convenience of former colonial powers, or accident of empire, have to be held together by despotic power, or they fall apart--and hell, they'll probably fall apart anyway. They have an immensely difficult time generating the level of trust between people that supports economic development.
One of my early jobs as a journalist was writing brief histories of a number of different countries, including a lot of places I didn't know much about before I started researching them. I was extremely surprised to find out how often nation-building--even internal nation building--failed. A hero sweeps out of the west, unifies the tribes into a formidable empire . . . and the whole thing falls apart as soon as he dies, or his son dies, or a couple of hundred years have passed. And that it doesn't necessarily matter whether the nation-building is internal or external; Great Britain is largely a creation of the Romans and the Normans, not the locals. The main thing is that no matter who tries to do it, it usually falls apart.
As these things go, Afghanistan is even less of a country than Iraq. Forget ethnic, tribal, and clan warfare, of which it has a huge amount; they don't even speak the same language. Its terrain is hostile to development of anything but a lively opium trade. And given that, like, every army in the entire world has invade Afghanistan to secure either trade routes, or a supply line to invade somewhere more inviting, they're extremely clannish and suspicious of outsiders. This is not a good recipe for building either an economy, or a state.
As Tyler says, this is neither a criticism of the Afghan invasion, nor a defense of the Iraq war (both of which I supported.) It's more a meditation on the fact that history is long, while human attention spans are short. As far as history is concerned, this United States thing is a very temporary experiment that may not work out.
Posted by Jane Galt at September 10, 2006 11:31 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>Failure of states has a long history- after all that is history- I like Gibbons, for all of his failings.
I remember reading some of the last few years Why not China? papers in the AEA journals, and I am struck by the conclusion that what form the state intrudes into daily lives dictates the destiny of the state. The more intrusive, the less progress.
Institutions matter, but so does the society in which they thrive or fail. Kinda obvious here in the West with literally centuries of institutional knowledge hurtling forward on the crest of technological change. Of course where society hasn't risen beyond which tribe, ethnic origin, or sect of religion provides the ties that bind, one can not expect a rational discussion.
We should not allow pre-enlightenment societies to partake of technological wonders they will not have the restraint to govern. Iran and Pakistan comes to mind as bunch of fools who think that ownership of technological terrors gives them a legitimate right to rule over their part of the world, without understanding the world ultimately only respects might through a cultural lens. What use is an Islamic bomb? To bomb Israel is to sign their own death warrants. So ultimately it is a waste of money and resources. But the welfare of a society that is based on religion, doesn't care about anything beyond their particular goal of martyrdom. That conclusion seems to be beyond most of the western leaders dealing with the Middle East.
Close the West off from this foolish situation. Buy oil, but do not allow immigration of people who will not assimilate into Western Culture.
I sound pessimistic, but thousands of pages of history seem to be backing my interpretation.
Posted by: Allenm on September 10, 2006 12:29 PMThe Pentagon -- particularly under Rumsfeld -- is obsessed with "metrics". They spend huge amounts of brain-power trying to figure out what would measure progress and how to do it and then doing it.
I want to know where these measures are posted, correlated, explained. (Or if no-place, why not.)
Brookings' Iraq Index is a good example (that nonetheless badly needs a "face-lift").
Anybody know if something else/better/more exists?
What use is an Islamic bomb?
It's extremely useful as a deterrent to conventional invasion. Compare our treatment of North Korea to Iraq. Yes, there's other differences, like Seoul and the artillery looking at it and a lack of previous UN sanctions, but to say that there's no useful reason for Iran to have nuclear weapons is to look at Iran from your perspective, not theirs. This kind of ideological blindness is far too common.
As for your other point, I fail to see how shutting off immigration will protect us. American Muslims are not the problem - it's visitors from countries such as Saudi Arabia, those close friends of ours.
Tom Paine, the LA Times had an article on Iraq metrics today, saying that they were considered classified, as revealing them would help the enemy.
Posted by: AK on September 10, 2006 3:12 PM
Jane Galt almost discovers that culture matters more than laws, but then backs off and changes the subject. I suspect that libertarians do not like to contemplate the fact that culture matters, because it means that there is more to a group of humans than just producing/consuming primates, and therefore not every problem can be resolved with sufficient numbers of monetary tokens...
What Afghanistan will devolve to is anyone's guess, but given the culture that has been in place for centuries, it could look rather a lot like it did 50 years ago, with some king in nominal charge of a lot of clans. Reversion to the mean, in a sense, is the norm in human affairs...
Posted by: ellipsis on September 10, 2006 5:00 PMI suspect I'm missing something. You're not saying Great Britain is a failed state, right?
Posted by: Jim Hu on September 10, 2006 5:51 PMIt is a simple observation: we have never had good reason to believe that the occupation of Afghanistan was going well.
This has always seemed straightforward to me -- we we're not facing opposition in Afghanistan remotely near what the Russians had faced, therefore the Afghans have to be at least reasonably satisfied.
If you had told me in October 2001 that Afghanistan would be so much more stable than Iraq in five years, I never would have believed it. But it certainly seems to be the case.
Posted by: JSinger on September 10, 2006 5:59 PMAfghanistan could be given the international pharmaceutical opium franchise currently held by Turkey, or, with a larger shift in the law, revert to producing hashish as they did until the '70s. Given sufficient stability there are probably other crops which could be produced profitably there.
Posted by: triticale on September 10, 2006 8:50 PMWhat does this say about the United States, which once had a fairly cohesive culture (or perhaps two), but which is now rather splintered culturally?
Posted by: Tom Anger on September 10, 2006 9:49 PMIt's extremely useful as a deterrent to conventional invasion. Compare our treatment of North Korea to Iraq.
Small numbers of nuclear bombs plus delivery mechanisms of uncertain reliability are lousy deterrents to conventional invasion. See the Yom Kippur War. See the Soviet-Chinese border war in 1969. See every military incident between India and Pakistan since the 1974 Indian nuclear test. Nuclear deterrence only works when you have both reliability and numbers.
The fact that we haven't invaded North Korea can be explained by other factors quite easily without an appeal to its symbolic nuclear capability. For just one example, the fact that China is treaty-committed to the defense of North Korea in case of invasion, meaning any invasion of North Korea would constitute a declaration of war on China.
Posted by: Warmongering Lunatic on September 10, 2006 10:41 PMNuclear bombs in the hands of people who are uncertain as to whom would be in charge after one assassination are ridiculous. We will close off the west after one successful nuclear event. I will go on record as stating that I fully expect one within the next ten years. The Middle East is full of people who are living in unsustainable population growth areas with looming shortages of everything, who believe in religions that do not encourage rational outcomes. 'nuff said. The future will not be very nice, but their leadership is never to blame, now is it?
BTW, I give good odds that it will be Moscow that is hit. They have after all been exterminating the Chechens for a decade plus, and the ability to smuggle stuff into Russia is manifest. Putin knows this, but he still has the infection of the Greater Russia meme in his brain. Better to have done business with them and bought their oil for trinkets essentially.
Posted by: Allenm on September 10, 2006 11:09 PM"...places that are not cohesive countries don't tend to do well..."
Exactly right. It's crazy that we're ruining the relative cohesiveness we've had in this country by allowing alien peoples by the million to live here. It's just insane. Just in the last day I've heard news stories in my area, the northern Midwest, about how the MS-13 latino gang is now established in my area and terrorizing people, and how the first mosque in the area has been constructed, complete with minaret to call the faithful to prayer. Insanity! Liberal multiculturalist universalism is going to be burned out of our population the hard way, I fear.
Posted by: Mark on September 10, 2006 11:20 PMWhat does this say about the United States, which once had a fairly cohesive culture (or perhaps two), but which is now rather splintered culturally?
Um, pretty much nothing. The culture is as unified as it's ever been. Pretty much everybody knows what an Ipod is. Everyone knows who JonBenet was. Nearly everybody's heard of MTV or seen the image of Mount Rushmore, or recognizes the Coca-Cola logo, or can tell you what happened on September 11, 2001. There are different subcultural groups, to be sure, but there always have been. As far as the whole Red vs. Blue state thing, it's pretty much a reverse image of what the political map used to look like, when the south was solidly Democratic. The country was at least as divided culturally in the 1960s as it is now, and it's surely a lot less than than it was in the 1860s. America's culture is very diverse -- that's certain, but it is nonetheless cohesive in an extremely powerful fashion. So powerful that it inevitably infects any foreign culture with which it come into contact.
Posted by: Pop on September 11, 2006 12:07 AMBTW, I give good odds that it will be Moscow that is hit. They have after all been exterminating the Chechens for a decade plus, and the ability to smuggle stuff into Russia is manifest. Putin knows this, but he still has the infection of the Greater Russia meme in his brain.
I've wondered about this myself. In particular, it's always puzzled me that Moscow isn't leading the charge to keep nukes out of the hands of the Iranians. I mean, if you had an Islamic terrorism problem as bad as Russia's, wouldn't you really want to retard the spread of nuclear weapons in the region radical Islam calls its home base?
Posted by: Pop on September 11, 2006 12:12 AMWell, but remember, Afghanistan was not so much cobbled together by colonial powers as it was the bit of Southern Asia that nobody wanted to deal with. It usually got invaded only in the service of the balance of power - it's not rich or fertile, and nobody really wanted the job of governing it. Until now, everyone who ever went in went out again as soon as they could decently manage it, and it's no wonder - the inhabitants furnished Kipling with material for dozens of stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King."
Afghanistan isn't so much the conventional post-colonial shotgun marriage of ethnicities; it's more like the Matalin-Carville marriage: they're keeping a lot of other people happy by staying together. And they like it.
Posted by: Nanonymous on September 11, 2006 9:49 AMAm I alone in measuring success in Afghanistan differently from in Iraq? My goal has never been a "cohesive society" in Afgh., just a thorough thrashing of the Taliban and a pruning back of the morons who think they can attack us safely. I'd be happy to see the country thrive, mind you, but that's not why I backed the invasion post-9/11.
ellipsis must talk to different liberarians than I do. In my circles it's never been questioned that culture is the most important requirement for societal success, and never postulated that more money will fix everything.
Finally, if Afghanistan truly is good for nothing other than trade/access routes and poppies, that's yet another argument for ending the War on Some Drugs. Legalize it, tax it, and let some bloody-minded equivalent of Johnson & Johnson try to run things in Kabul.
Posted by: Shelby on September 11, 2006 12:11 PMThe libertarians I know and know of continually chant "Let The Market Decide", and champion open borders in order to facilitate the free flow of human skills to where they are needed. Indeed, the Libertarian Party platform in 2004 explicitly called for open borders, and I think that the LP can be said to represent a significant subset of libertarians. The notion that certain humans don't have any skills beyond hurting and even killing other humans just seems to be something they cannot comprehend. Furthermore, the fact that humans tend to seek to replicate their "home" environment wherever they go, including cultural artifacts, just doesn't seem to sink it beyond a very superficial level. Lastly, concept that there are some things money cannot buy, that there are some things no amount of money can fix, also seems to be alien to libertarians. Since libertarians tend to be urban professionals, the idea of "vote with your feet" appeals to them, and they generally do not understand how anyone can take a "blood and soil" approach to reality, so they generally dismiss the very notion rather than seek to understand it.
Libertarians seem to take as given that a high trust culture can exist anywhere, despite the fact that high trust cultures are very rare in human history, and come with a set of unique cultural baggage. Pick up a copy of "Reason" or "Liberty" and see if there's any article with the underlying premise that certain cultures are more likely to become libertarian, and thus that there are other cultures much less likely to do so. I've seen very few such in the last 10 to 30 years.
Posted by: ellipsis on September 11, 2006 12:38 PMI have to wonder where ellipsis comes up with his ideas regarding libertarians. No libertarian I know of wants to be associated in any way with the nuts of the Libertarian Party. I do not think that the LP is in any way a meaningful subset of small "L" libertarians.
I'd also like to see some citation for the proposition that "libertarians tend to be urban professionals", because my experience is to the contrary. OTOH, I don't live in an urban area, so what do I know?
I also think that ellipsis is generalizing from what he/she thinks is absolutist libertarian philosophy and assuming that most of the readers of this blog must share those views because they self-identify as small "L" libertarians. I could be wrong, but that would explain some of his/her statements in the comments that seem to come out of left field. In reality, small "L" libertarians have many libertarian viewpoints that are tempered by experience and reality, and therefore have little in common with either the LP or absolutist libertarian philosophy.
Posted by: Rex on September 11, 2006 1:58 PMRex wrote:
I have to wonder where ellipsis comes up with his ideas regarding libertarians.
From observing libertarians directly, and from reading the writings of libertarians, and from the evolution of my own political thinking (I cast my first ballot for a Libertarian in 1976).
No libertarian I know of wants to be associated in any way with the nuts of the Libertarian Party.
So therefore the LP doesn't exist? Or therefore members of the LP aren't real libertarians? Come, come, this won't do. I very much doubt that there is some central scrutinizer determining who is, and who is not, a real libertarian that I've somehow missed reading about, so it appears that am I free to regard Libertarians (members of the LP) as a subset of the overall set of libertarians, right? Just because Rex and his friends don't want to participate in the 3-ring circus of the Libertarian party, it does not at all follow that they are in the majority. Maybe they are, but maybe not...
I do not think that the LP is in any way a meaningful subset of small "L" libertarians.
Why is that? Has Rex actually surveyed libertarians to come to this conclusion, or compared the membership numbers of the LP with the subscription list of "Liberty" in order to estimate the total number of libertarians and how meaningful a subset the LP constitutes? Or is this just a case of "Me and my friends don't like those guys, therefore" followed by a generalization?
I'd also like to see some citation for the proposition that "libertarians tend to be urban professionals", because my experience is to the contrary. OTOH, I don't live in an urban area, so what do I know?
There don't seem to be as many libertarian farmers as there are libertarian software coders, based on my informal observations over many years. I'll admit that I don't have to hand the total number of software coders in the US vs. total number of farmers, I'm merely pointing out that libertarians are not uniformly distributed across all the different ways of earning a living. The number of articles one finds about rural issues in "Liberty" or "Reason" has, for many years, been heavily outnumbered by issues about urban and suburban issues. The people one commonly encounters at various events who self-label as "libertarian" are overwhelmingly from urban areas. I'd be quite surprised to find that the subscription base for "Liberty" and "Reason" include more rural addresses than urban ones. Sure, I know some people who are pretty libertarian who live in places like rural Massachusetts, but there aren't that many of them. If I start looking for libertarian weblogs, I find more of them from urban California than from rural South Dakota, for example, and while that may be simply a function of population density, I'm skeptical of such a simplistic explanation. So while I cannot produce any citation, I can demonstrate my reasoning.
I also think that ellipsis is generalizing from what he/she thinks is absolutist libertarian philosophy and assuming that most of the readers of this blog must share those views because they self-identify as small "L" libertarians.
"Absolutist Libertarian philosophy" is a giggle, isn't it? People that call themselves libertarians may have some things in common, but an absolutist philosophy isn't one of them. Heck, not all of them adhere to the Principle of Non Aggression. As for this weblog, I don't recall ever making any statement about what the readership does or doesn't believe. It would be foolish to do so; consider Andy Freeman and Blissex, just to pick a couple of posters at random. List the beliefs they hold in common...pretty short list, isn't it?
I could be wrong, but that would explain some of his/her statements in the comments that seem to come out of left field.
Tosh! Some of my comments may come from way out in right field next to the foul line, or from so far out in center field as to have popped out of the cheap seats, but never from left field...
In reality, small "L" libertarians have many libertarian viewpoints that are tempered by experience and reality, and therefore have little in common with either the LP or absolutist libertarian philosophy.
But both libertarians and Libertarians tend to strongly believe that libertarianism is a universalist philosophy. That is, that any person, no matter from what cultural background, can become a libertarian...and furthermore, any culture can become libertarian. Re-read Bastiat, is he writing only for 19th Century France, or for all time? Or consider Lysander Spooner; sure, he's writing specifically about the US Constitution from the perspective of someone in the late 1860's, but did he really intend to limit his observations and conclusions only to his time and place, or was he not proposing a universalist notion of society?
Now point me to libertarian writers who have clearly stated that not every culture is going to fit in to Libertopia. I cannot think of any, myself, but perhaps someone else can...or perhaps, just perhaps, there aren't any?
Posted by: ellipsis on September 11, 2006 4:27 PMEllipsis, it may be true that anyone at any place in history can be a Libertarian. But I think history shows clearly that what all people everywhere become is Socialists. The periodic swings between part-socialism and full socialism are about all I can see in history. The dream of a free lunch will never die.
Posted by: Jack Wayne on September 11, 2006 5:04 PMActually Afghanistan as it roughly exist today has been one country for several hundred years.
It was never a colony and the colonial powers has essentially nothing to do with establishing its borders. It Northern border is a river, its eastern border is a mountain range known as the Hindu Kush -- hindu killer -- and its western border with Iran is an unoccupied desert.
In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, the founder of what is known today as Afghanistan, established his rule. A Pashtun, Durrani was elected king by a tribal council after the assassination of the Persian ruler Nadir Shah at Khabushan in the same year. Throughout his reign, Durrani consolidated chieftainships, petty principalities, and fragmented provinces into one country. This family ruled until a military coup in 1973 that preceeded another coup in 1978 and occupation by the Soviets in 1979.
To understand Afghanistan you have to read about how the British tried to occupy it in the 19th century with no sucess. In the first war the only survivor was a British Doctor who was tied to a mule and sent back to India so the British would know what happened to their army.
Posted by: spencer on September 11, 2006 5:40 PMJack Wayne wrote:
Ellipsis, it may be true that anyone at any place in history can be a Libertarian.
It may be true that if pigs grow wings, they can fly, too, but I'm skeptical of both.
But I think history shows clearly that what all people everywhere become is Socialists. The periodic swings between part-socialism and full socialism are about all I can see in history. The dream of a free lunch will never die.
I'm afraid this may be correct...and to think some people call me cynical and/or pessimistic...
My reaction to the first line of Jane's post was, DUH!!! Iraq is a fairly modern nation, where people expect to have electricity and running water, and often understand the difference between electing a legislature and sending your tribe chiefs off to confer. It isn't fully modern, but it's mostly in some part of the 20th Century, at least. It's got major problems, especially being a collection of parts of three nations forced together by foreigners drawing lines on a map, but this pales beside Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a collection of tribes, mostly stuck in the 14th century, thrown together by accidents of geography and history - and all are armed with modern RPGs and machine guns. It did have a king for over two centuries, but that was just one tribal chief achieving dominance over the others, and that's gone now.
Posted by: markm on September 12, 2006 5:24 PM