Category Archives: Academics

In AfPak, Iraq and elsewhere: If you break it, you buy it

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Since the two GBU-38 500lb bombs struck the fuel tankers in Kunduz province, Afghanistan and engulfed by-standing civilians in a giant fireball on September 4, 2009, what have we really learned?

I fear that amid all the self-righteous blameshifting and  frantic second-guessing of the attack, which was launched from an American fighter jet, but ordered by the German Oberst Klein, we haven’t learned nearly enough.

We haven’t learned nearly enough about this mayhem of a failed state and the chaos that even the well-intentioned regime changes or peacemaking bring.

We haven’t learned nearly enough about the nightmares, that result all too often, when the high and mighty West comes to the rescue.

Tank Graffiti, via Flickr, originally uploaded by Luodanli

Tank Graffiti, via Flickr, originally uploaded by Luodanli

ISAF, MNF-I Go Home? – not so fast.

This isn’t a simple question of surging or withdrawing: from this nightmare, there is no waking up.

We need to learn a lesson, of what happens when we disrupt and exploit divided, traditional societies, equip them with technology and weaponry far outmatching their level of development. From this responsibility, there is no escaping.

It’s a simple lesson, we all accept before entering a store: if you break it, you buy it.

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Failure in Iraq: It’s Hobbes First, Then Jefferson/Madison

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On May 1st, 2003 when then President George W. Bush, declared the end of major combat operations and the mission Iraqi Freedom to be “accomplished” aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, much of the failure and dying in Iraq still lay ahead.

Mission Accomplished Banner on USS Abraham Lincoln

Mission Accomplished Banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln

The invasion, starting on March 19, 2003, had been a remarkable military success, on schedule and with comparatively few casualties (139 US troops and approximately 7,500 civilians before May 1, 2003 according to CNN and Iraq Body Count estimates, respectively).

In the insurgency that followed (and has recently slightly abated), more than 4,000 US troops and 60,000 Iraqi civilians were killed (ibid.). To this date, seven years after “major hostilities” ended, the country is still plagued by sectarian violence and crime, marred by economic hardship and destruction and paralyzed by deeply divided politics and dysfunctional government. The vision and partial casus belli of the “Coalition of the Willing”, to turn Iraq into a role model liberal democracy for the Middle East, has not materialized. Instead, the suffering and dying continues.

What happened?

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Low-Carbon Tech, an Infant Industry in Need of Protection

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How to react to global warming? How do wean ourselves off that harmful oil – and still prosper?

I maintained that we’d better be safe with Sinn‘s fears of a Green Paradox than sorry without him, notwithstanding the uncertainties of his argument.

Economist Hans-Werner Sinn is no easy read for a green German: he pretty much pulls german and European green policy into pieces. Much of his critique is plausible, if unsettling: without international cooperation, much of our unilateral efforts may be in vain.

But there’s one thing where I wholeheartedly disagree with Sinn: low-carbon technology, for the time being, does indeed require subsidies.

Renewables / via Flickr, originally uploaded by Chad Johnson

Renewables / via Flickr, originally uploaded by Chad Johnson

Yes, it may be hard for states to pick winners, but low-carbon technology still needs infant industry incubation, if it is to sustain us in the near future.

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The Copenhagen Game

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The Big Ask is on: These days, the leaders of the world convene in Copenhagen for the 15th time to address that “greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen“: Climate Change.

Will they ward off that Tragedy of the Commons of our time? We don’t know.

They are playing games in Copenhagen. Not of the entertaining kind, but of the intricately interdependent kind.

The Green Paradox is one of those intricacies: are we reckoning without our fossil-fuel supplying hosts? What are their stakes?

Let’s get the rules straight. Then let’s see what we can do to improve our collective odds for a cooler planet.

And while we’re at it, let’s level out this playing field.

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The Perfect Tax

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Have you met the perfect tax?

The duty that is both elegant, and fair. The regime that lets our economies grow, and have everyone partake in its fruits. The excise that reconciles efficiency with equity. The set of rules that raises the revenue for a potent polity, and, at the same time, curbs wasteful decadence, to form that more perfect union.

If you haven’t met the perfect tax, let me introduce you: the postpaid progressive consumption tax.

The secret of the perfect tax? It burdens that behavior which is truly wasteful and undesirable: excessive consumption. It leaves all other economic activities unaffected.

Together with a negative income-tax for poor income earners and, possibly, a wealth tax to avoid boundless capital accumulation, it can replace all other redistributive taxes, both on individuals and corporations. Read on for more.

Children's coats, starting at $340. Via flickr, originally uploaded by permanently scatterbrained
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