How to lose the future

Taken as a percentage of GDP, investment in research by the United States is at the lowest level in decades.  Other nations such as Finland and Israel, known for their innovative and entrepreneurial economies, spend far more than the United States.  Cuts in research spending won't hurt us now - they will hurt us in a decade or two.  The time lag between benefit and cost makes such cuts a tempting political target. Enter the Ryan plan, which plans to cut "non-defense" research spending to trim our budget.

We're in a tough time economically, and our deficit is absolutely out of control.  If someone was making the case to me that we just can't afford to increase R&D spending until our fiscal future is secure, I don't think I would find that argument unreasonable, although I wouldn't agree with it. What I do find to be unreasonable is the Republican insistence that the military needs to be spared all forms of spending cuts.  It is the epitome of short sighted to cut general research spending in order to maintain our high current levels of military spending.

Mitt Romney plan will cut research spending, but he has promised to increase military spending (for what threat are our current forces insufficient, I wonder).  Barack Obama has stated he will not spare the military from a greater plan to fix our budgetary crisis, but has nevertheless urged increased spending on research and development.  Americans have been given a choice this election.  They can think about the present, or they can think about the future.  The central theme of pretty much every history book I've read ever, is that great national powers which maintain high levels of military spending to the detriment of other areas of the economy quickly cease to be great powers. 

Obama's foreign policy: an "astonishing failure", according to Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney called Obama's decision to remove US troops from Iraq "an astonishing failure". Almost a half-year after Barack Obama's reckless withdrawal from Iraq, that nation has descended into chaos and civil war.

Stupid Obama. He should have continued the US occupation for another few years - at least! - and not pulled out until he got permission from "the commanders on the ground".

The Failure of Netanyahu

A good analysis from TPM:
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For years the top generals in the IDF have agreed that Israel can handle withdrawing to the 1967 borders in military terms. But PM Netanyahu says that's impossible because those borders are not defensible. It's an amazing level of denial, intransigence and self-destructiveness on display today -- something the pre-statehood and early statehood Zionist leadership was seldom so vulnerable to.

I agree with Gadi Taub who said recently that while peace is the ideal the highest priority for both peoples right now is partition. Netanyahu's position makes that impossible. The 1967 lines are the only practical and politically conceivable basis for such a division -- with mutually agreed upon swaps of territory along those lines. Netanyahu's plan is simply to withdraw from areas of dense population within the West Bank. In fact, I think that overstates the case. I don't think Netanyahu has a plan beyond holding his coalition together and himself in the prime ministership. The rejectionists' 'plan' is simply to hold on for as long as possible and play for time.

The man is a fool at so many levels. But there's no denying that he speaks for a very large chunk of the Israeli electorate.
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Bibi called the 1967 borders indefensible. Of course, Israel successfully defended those borders in 1967, and again in 1973. Meanwhile Israel has seen a foe become a friend (Jordan), its arch-foe become a non-factor (Egypt), another arch foe (Saddam's Iraq) irrevocably weakened, and an Arab world in general more concerned about a threat from Iran than from Israel. In other words, Israel's geopolitical position is far stronger now than it was forty years ago, when it was able to decisively defend the 1967 borders on two separate occasions.

When one stops to think about the threats Israel faces, it becomes even more ridiculous. There is no conventional threat to Israel. Iran has rockets, not a ground army with thousands of tanks like Egypt had in the 60's. The greatest threat to Israel is terrorism from WMDs or delegitimization. Occupying the West Bank makes Israel more vulnerable to those dangers, not less.

I used to hold Binyamin Netanyahu in such high regard, but he has proved himself to be incredibly short sighted. I wrote another post about his missed opportunities just a few months ago. Very disappointing.

Should we exit Afghanistan with dignity?

Really, the book "Nixon and Kissinger" should be required reading as the discussion about ending the war in Afghanistan starts to pick up. We should stay and fight in Afghanistan if we think our interests are at stake and we think we can win the war (however defined). By contrast, we should leave Afghanistan if our interests are no longer at stake, or if we don't believe there is a reasonable strategy through which a victory could be accomplished, given human and financial considerations. In other words, if we "win" by sacrificing thousands of soldiers' lives and trillions of dollars for meager gains, we didn't really win. We just lost in a different way.

What we should not do is stay and fight in Afghanistan so that we can "exit with dignity". That is exactly what Richard Nixon did in Vietnam. Nixon sacrificed the lives of thousands of US troops in a war that he knew we weren't going to win, and a war that he was actively terminating, because he did not want a stain on his honor (and we all know how important Nixonian honor turned out to be). We ended up losing Vietnam without dignity anyway, as the world quickly saw what a farce the face-saving agreement with the communists was. Remember helicopters evacuating the US embassy in Saigon?

The long term consequences of the US withdrawing from Vietnam without dignity were precisely nil. Nobody doubted our strength in the long-term, even if morale was sapped a bit in the short term. I would argue that morale would have been less damaged in Vietnam had we ended the war sooner and saved thousands of lives, though. Furthermore, from the perspective of credible military deterrence, America would be more feared by non-state Al Qaeda types if they believed we could get involved in effective short-term military operations without always settling down for a decade-long war.

The reason I brought this up was because I saw some candidates at the Fox News GOP Presidential Debate say that we should make sure we exit Afghanistan with dignity. The suggestion that the lives of US soldiers are worth less than such petty superficiality is nothing less than reprehensible. Any politician who places priority on such nonsense should send their sons to execute the last face-saving operations of the failing war. The politician who puffs their chest out and talks a tough game about "honor" and "dignity" when sending other peoples' children to fight and die is the worst sort of politician there is. I wish Americans could see through that garbage.

In Libya, we send a message to the militaries of autocracies.

The debate over Obama's actions in Libya have been hopelessly muddled by what happened in two other recent situations: what George W. Bush did in Iraq, and what Bill Clinton let happen in Rwanda. We must remember that there is a middle ground between "send 150,000 troops to occupy and nation build" and "let millions of people get massacred while the world watches". While Obama attempts to find that middle ground, critics are hysterical on both sides with claims that he is doing too much ("just like George Bush!") or not enough.

The truth is, our intervention in Libya is likely to be inconsequential more than anything. Our help may come too late to save the rebels. Even if they do hold out, they may not be able to finish the drive to the capitol to remove Qaddafi. Thats OK though, because the consequences of our intervention are similarly modest. We have a UN resolution and support from the Arab league. We aren't sending ground troops. Meanwhile, the Libyan military poses zero threat to us or our allies around the world. At best, we allow a revolution to drive out a dictator; at worst, our actions won't change anything.

There is another very good reason to intervene that I don't see many people talking about. This is an extremely important time in world history, with more revolutions in the Middle East almost certain to come. Our actions in Libya are very important, as they provide a very stark contrast for other militaries to consider. When a dictator in the future orders his military to attack civilians, what should the military do? They can take the example of the Egyptian military, and ignore their dictator's orders to shoot, thereby winning the adoration of their people, the support of the world, and the favors of America. Alternatively, they can follow the example of Libyan military, which followed Qaddafi's evil orders and ended up a smoldering, flaming wreckage as a consequence.

The threat of force won't deter everyone. For geopolitical reasons, we can't intervene in Iran, Syria, Bahrain, or some other potential hot spots. Still, this season of revolution is certain to be unpredictable. The single most important factor for the success of peaceful revolution is whether or not the military attacks the people. The last thing we want to do is send a message that it is OK for an air force or military to start attacking civilians. We would almost be inviting massacres. Even though it would be nice if some other country could deal with things for once, Obama is doing the right thing.

Something Americans should be proud of

Support for Mubarak aside, our military has played a large role in educating and training the Egyptian military. Now as Mubarak is on the verge of collapse, he is almost certainly trying to order the military to crack down. The Egyptian military has refused to turn its guns on the civilians (thus far).

It would be nice if not massacring civilians was a given, but we've seen that very thing happen time and time again in dictatorships. The professionalism of the Egyptian military reflects well on the US military and the excellent job it has done in training the leaders of Egypt's armies.

The real question is whether or not the civilian leadership will successfully push for free and fair elections. My suspicion is that President Obama will do the right thing and reject the installment of another strongman to replace Mubarak. The Egyptian people need to finally have a chance to attempt to build a democracy.