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Some Questions.

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            Special Counsel Robert Hur harmed President Joe Biden by explaining exactly why he did not charge him with any crime.  Hur’s report makes it clear that Biden could have been charged with “willful retention [and un-authorized sharing with the ghostwriter of his memoirs] of national security secrets.”  When Biden left office in January 2017, he took with him classified documents, mostly regarding Afghanistan.  He soon shared some of this material with the man ghostwriting his memoir.  Moreover, in a February 2017 session, he told the ghostwriter that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”  That is, in February 2017, Biden knew he had classified documents in his possession. 

On the one hand, there is a Justice Department policy against charging a sitting President.  So, Biden would have to be charged either after the 2024 presidential election (if he loses) or after the 2028 election (if he is re-elected). 

On the other hand, Hur described President Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”  Hur’s report offered examples that are painful to read.  In October 2023 interviews with the Special Counsel’s team, Biden several times “did not remember when he was vice president.”  Nor could he recall when his son Beau had died.  As a result, Hur believed that “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his 80s—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”[1] 

Fair enough.  A “well-meaning, elderly man” is how any fair-minded person now would describe Joe Biden.   Still, there are unanswered questions.  Biden’s mishandling of classified documents began in 2017, at the end of his second term as Vice President.  Is Hur arguing that Biden could plead “memory problems” for events as early as 2017?  Or is he only arguing that Biden would cut a pathetic figure if charged in 2025 or 2029? 

That is, when did Biden’s memory issues begin?  In a February 2017 session with his ghostwriter, Biden had difficulty “remember[ing] events.”  Were his issues already apparent during—at least—the later part of the Obama Administration?  Had they remained stable or progressed by January 2020, when he began his run for president?  Did friends and family members, and doctors have a sense of his limits?  Only they can answer those questions.  (Well, tell-all memoirs from Obama or Clinton officials might add something after the whole unfortunate Donld Trump matter is resolved.)[2] 

Would he have defeated Donald Trump in November 2020 if the American people had possessed a full knowledge of his state of mind?  More importantly, can he defeat Trump in November 2024 now that this information is available?  Polling doesn’t offer much help to the Biden camp.  Biden is trailing Trump in most polls.  One polls has shown that a Trump felony conviction would about even things out, no more.  Another poll reported that voters who see democracy as threatened are evenly divided in their support for Democrats and Republicans.[3] 

It’s an awful choice that American voters should not be forced to make. 

[1] Michael D. Shear, “In Biden’s Exoneration, Political Hazard Emerges,” NYT, 9 February 2024. 

[2] Some presidents have hidden their medical problems from the public view: FDR wasn’t often photographed in his wheel chair; Kennedy concealed his Addison disease; Wilson’s entourage hid his totally disabling stroke.

[3] William Galston, “A State of the Union for the Middle Class,” WSJ, 7 February 2024 

MAFA: Make America Feared Again.

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            “What’s clear in the Middle East these days is that Iran has the weather gage.”[1]  Beginning during the Obama Administration, Iran has renewed its effort to make itself a revolutionary force in the region.  Iran is far weaker in economic and military power than is the United States.  Nor does it does it yet possess nuclear weapons.[2]  However, over the course of decades it has developed proxy forces in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine.  Those forces are well-armed, well-trained, and ideologically convergent with Iran.  Moreover, Iran’s focus is uniquely on the Middle East, while the interests of the United States are global.  Iran has created a position from which it can turn on and off regional crises like the burners on a gas stove. 

            The Obama Administration preferred reaching an accommodation with Iran on Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Focusing like the proverbial laser beam on the nuclear issue, it chose to ignore other baleful aspects of Iranian policy.[3]  The Biden Administration has mis-stepped itself.  It started off by proclaiming its disdain for the Serpent Prince of Saudi Arabia, only to have to slime up to him over oil prices.  It pledged complete support for Israel after 7 October 2023, only to drag on Banjamin Netanyahu’s coat-tails to no effect as Israel lay waste to Gaza.  It blustered in response to Houthi attacks on shipping, then launched demonstrative warning attacks, before hitting hard only after three American soldiers were killed.  It is talking about recognizing a Palestinian state as evidence mounted that some Democrats are appalled by Israel’s course of action.  It is an election year which threatens the return of Orange Man. 

            The great danger is that Iran will one day soon exploit the advantageous position it has built by unleashing a much larger conflict.  The United States will struggle to master that conflict in a region in which it has worn out its welcome.  Trying to rescue a situation after it has already gone over the edge will divert American attention from other conflicts with China and Russia. 

Walter Russell Mead blames “the “defeatists and Iran apologists” of the Obama and Biden Administrations for the current crisis.  They misjudged the danger and mounted a feeble reply to aggressive actions.  Mead sees “Hamas [as] an ISIS-class terrorist group whose existence threatens regional peace.”  He sees Iran as uninterested in “serious talks with the U.S….” and certainly uninterested in re-starting the Obama-era multilateral agreement. 

The way out, argues Mead, is to make “Iran fear Mr. Biden more than he fears Iran.” 

Questions arise.  What will it take to make Iran fear the United States?  Iran is one thing, but Russia and, especially, China are something else.  How do we make them fear the United States?  Are we even the country that people around the world used to fear? 

The alternative is to give hope to all the bad actors in the world already too troubled. 

[1] Walter Russell Mead, “Make Iran Fear America Again,” WSJ, 6 February 2024.  Mead is referring to the impact of the wind direction on warships in the “Age of Sail.”  The wind filled the sails of the ship “to windward” before it reached the sails of the ship “to leeward” (pr. “looward” just to make things more difficult for us landlubbers.)  The windward ship could rush down to attack the leeward ship, or claw back out of reach to avoid battle. 

[2] How long would it take to move from its current state of nuclear development to possession of nuclear weapons?  On a related issue, the Obama Administration’s agreement on nuclear weapons development did nothing to curtail Iran’s development of missiles. 

[3] What was the alternative to such a course?  Many of the partners in the sanctions campaign had narrower goals than did Washington.  Many people hoped Iranian oil would flow abundantly.  Most importantly, by 2014-2015, the American public was sick as a dog with the “Forever Wars.”  Starting a new one was a non-starter. 

Business Geeks.

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            The history of business is full of stuff–products, practices, people—that didn’t work out.  If you focus on such Eminent Fiascos,[1] you miss two things.  First, you miss how often standard business practices have produced spectacularly good results.  Second, you miss understanding the life-cycle of industries.  Still, a collection of Eminent Fiascos can make fun reading.  Also, they can provide the launching pad for alternative management theories.  So it is with Andrew McAfee’s latest book.[2] 

            McAfee celebrates the “business geeks” in some very successful high-tech companies (i.e. Amazon, Netflix).  From his studies of such companies, he distills four (but really three) characteristics shared by them all.  Essentially, the “business geeks” create a particular “culture,” then let ‘er rip.[3] 

            The first characteristic is choosing Speed over Perfection.  There will be lots of time to improve your product from what you learn about what actually went wrong when people have tried to use it.  (Hence, updates.)  No doubt investing in Help call-centers or ChatBots will help provide an early-warning system about what your engineers or manufacturing managers screwed up in the name of “speed.”[4] 

            The second characteristic is creating Ownership over Subordination.  You ever see Pieter Breughel’s “Return of the Herd”?[5]  Guy on the lower right is poking cattle in the backside with a sharp stick to get them to move forward.  Seems to be working.  Seems to be an important aspect of contemporary American business management.  What McAfee is proposing is that senior managers should tell subordinates exactly what they want accomplished and by when, then let the subordinates figure out the best way to accomplish this task.  (In the military, this is called “mission orders.”[6]) 

            The two other characteristics really are facets of the same thing: Arrogance in Leaders.  On the one hand, McAfee celebrates “Science” over Opinion/Intuition.  Basically, “Science” means hard data.  (Readers might suspect that McAfee is aligning his terms with recent political debates.)  On the other hand, Openness–to criticism, questions, advice, and adverse evidence—deals with the human element, rather than the data element of resisting arrogance. 

            All well and good.  Been done many times.  The danger arises in passing from Creation to Maturity, from Founders to Successors, from Revolution to Defense.  Bureaucrats ascend. 

[1] See Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians (1918). 

[2] Andrew McAfee, The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results (2023).  To get a quick sense of his arguments, see: Andrew McAfee | Speaker | TED 

[3] Rodeo Terms: FloRodeo’s Full Dictionary Of Cowboy Slang – FloRodeo  Scroll down to “L” while trying not to get diverted along the way. 

[4] There is an analogy to rapid innovation in aircraft design between the two World Wars.  Charles Lindbergh first soloed in a Curtiss JN-4, a cloth biplane with a top speed of 75 mph and a ceiling of 6,500 feet (1923).  He flew the Atlantic in a Ryan with a top speed of 133 mph and a ceiling of 16,400 feet (1927).  In 1944, he shot down a Japanese plane while flying a Lockheed P-38 “Lightning” with a top speed of 414 mph and a ceiling of 44,000 feet.  In some areas and times, innovation comes thick and fast.  Waiting around until everything is “dead solid perfect” just gets you left far, far behind.   

[5] Pieter Bruegel (I) – The Return of the Herd (1565) – The Return of the Herd – Wikipedia 

[6] Mission-type tactics – Wikipedia  The article casts valuable light on the importance of personnel selection and training in making “mission orders” work.  Furthermore, it is made clear that many military organizations have only a nominal commitment to the approach, regardless of what they declare.  Implications for business are obvious. 

Gazaedy.

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So, the Israeli are blowing up most of the buildings in Gaza.  According to the Guardian, “about 65,000 residential units have been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. Another 290,000 have been damaged. That means that about half a million people have no home to return to.”  In all, “Across the whole territory, about 33% of buildings have been destroyed.”  Many others have been damaged without being “destroyed.”  Two-thirds of hospitals and 70 percent of school buildings have been put out of service.   Then there is damage to sewers, fresh water supplies, power generation, and roads.[1]  The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) aren’t done yet. 

A necessity of war in what amounts to a Stalingrad-with-sand, the IDF might say.[2]  It seems more likely that the IDF are trying to render Gaza largely uninhabitable for a long time.  

For the million currently-displaced Palestinians to return home, the rubble will have to be cleared, hopelessly compromised buildings torn down, damaged or destroyed water and electrical supply lines repaired or replaced, new roads constructed, and new buildings of all sorts constructed.  Cemeteries will have to be enlarged.  It might take a decade to repair the damage.   It also will take a lot of somebody’s money.  Recent “guesstimates” suggest that it will cost $50 billion to clear and rebuild.[3]  The usual suspects when it comes to donor conferences for Gaza are the European Union and the United States.  Both are already hard pressed on aid for Ukraine.  Saudi Arabia and the UAE might pay. Iran has $100-120 billion “frozen” abroad.[4]  Somebody could raid into those funds, given Iran’s apparent role in supporting and arming Hamas. 

What happens to the Palestinians of Gaza in the meantime? Spend an unknown number of years living under blue UNHCR tarps?  They aren’t Bedouin.  Probably, many of them will emigrate.

Where?  Would they go in dribs-and-drabs to many places, joining the already existing Palestinian diaspora?  There are more than three million in Jordan; more than 600,000 in Syria; and more than a quarter million in Egypt.  Would any of these countries agree to take in 1-2 million destitute new citizens bearing an intense grievance against neighboring Israel? 

Farther away, there are half a million Palestinians in Chile; a quarter million in Honduras; 200,000 in Guatemala; and almost 200,000 in other Central American countries, along with a quarter million in the United States.[5] 

I haven’t been following this war closely.  I’ve been pre-occupied with recent literature on positive psychology and American business practices.  That’s my excuse (such as it is) for not figuring this out earlier.  But I’d bet that the State Department and the Defense Department snapped to it real fast.  Made the White House aware too.  Although maybe not. They all may have been preoccupied with China and the war in Ukraine.  That would be their excuse (such as it is). 

Raises some questions.  Do we want our hands any dirtier than they are already? Are the Israeli hoping to provoke attacks from the West Bank so that they can do the same thing there?  What if this actually is the least-bad solution?  Hard to believe, but what’s a better one? 

[1] See: The numbers that reveal the extent of the destruction in Gaza | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian 

[2] “You know, he’s got a point.”—The Mayor of San Francisco in “Dirty Harry” (dir. Don Siegel, 1971.  Hamas could have avoided all this by surrendering right at the start of the war and turning in all their fighters to the International Criminal Court. 

[3] Israel conflict: Who will pay for Gaza reconstruction? – DW – 12/13/2023 

[4] Iranian frozen assets – Wikipedia 

[5] Palestinian diaspora – Wikipedia  Many of the immigrants surging against the southern border are fleeing poverty and misgovernment in Central America.  What share of these are Palestinians? 

Multiple Standards.

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            Liz Magill, until recently the president of the University of Pennsylvania, said that anti-Semitic speech should be restricted when it is “directed and severe, pervasive.”  Claudine Gay, still President of Harvard University,[1] said the line should be drawn when speech “becomes conduct” (i.e. action).  So, help me out.  Wearing a white sheet with eye-holes on a campus would be “speech,” but burning a cross would be “conduct”?  How about chanting “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Judenrein”? 

John McWhorter[2] argues that a far lower threshold for action exists when it comes to Black people at a university.[3]  How so?  Discourse has long held that White people hold the power in American society.  Power makes them, if not invulnerable to affront, perfectly capable of absorbing a challenge and even fighting back.[4]  Blacks, however, are not seen as resilient. 

Administrations have learned to speak out and act out, against anything that may make Black people “uncomfortable.”  McWhorter cites the Ilya Shapiro incident at Georgetown[5] and the Dorian Abbot incident at M.I.T.[6]  This, says McWhorter, “means treating Black students as pathological cases rather than human beings with basic resilience who understand proportion and degree.”[7]  To “train young people, or any people, to think of themselves as weak is a form of abuse.”  Hence, the low expectations for Black people on many college and university campuses constitutes the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and even “racism.”  

To the contemporary historian, it could appear that political Progressives view Blacks as a group as having been damaged—perhaps irretrievably damaged–by slavery and the legacy of slavery.  Hence, Blacks today cannot be held to the same standards as other people.  This view is reflected in the different standards of taking offense and of resilience discussed by McWhorter.  It also appears in the outcome of some hiring decisions (notably in academia).  Then, public efforts to “assist” Blacks often turn out to be social welfare bureaucracies that merely “administer” Black clients.  The outcome of such “help” can be disastrous for the intended beneficiaries, especially when compared with the older Black tradition of struggling against the Powers-That-Be.[8]  Moreover, some Progressives view Asian-Americans with suspicion for showing what an oppressed people can do with the aid of strong families and a strong culture. 

[1] I’m assuming that the Board at Harvard had some tight-lipped law firm run everything Gay has ever written or said through a plagiarism-detection program.  No more shoes to drop.  Still, see Carol Swain’s seething op-ed in the WSJ, 18 December 2023. 

[2] For the bare bones, see: John McWhorter – Wikipedia 

[3] John McWhorter, “Training People to Think They Are Weak Is a Form of Abuse,” NYT, 17 December 2023.  The “soft bigotry” bit is from a speech by President George W. Bush. 

[4] “Jews are seen in some quarters as white and therefore need no protection from outright hostility.”  Bunch of things to un-pack there.  First, “seen as white”?  Jews ARE white and always have been.  Second, “outright hostility” is OK so long as it is directed against Whites?  Who argues that position?  Asking for a friend. 

[5] See: Ilya Shapiro Quits Georgetown’s Law School Amid Free Speech Fight – The New York Times (nytimes.com)  McWhorter later refers to a 2020 incident at USC.  See: How USC’s Dr. Greg Patton Accidentally Ignited an Academic Culture War – LAmag – Culture, Food, Fashion, News & Los Angeles.  He does not cite the Joshua Katz incident at Princeton.  See: Joshua Katz (classicist) – Wikipedia 

[6] See: Dorian Abbot – Wikipedia  “The barrage of negative press and public outrage resulting from Abbot’s cancellation led MIT to hold two forums at which faculty were polled on two free speech questions. That a large majority felt that their voices are constrained at MIT revealed the need for decisive action.”

[7] See: Controversies about the word niggardly – Wikipedia 

[8] Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (1999). 

Cancel Culture.

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            German public opinion scholar Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann (1916-2010) grew up in easy circumstances, then got a hard lesson.  Her family had money and gave her a first-rate education.  That education included a year spent on study-abroad at the University of Missouri (1937-1938), where she studied American media and journalism.  George Gallup’s opinion-polling methods particularly interested her.  So did Walter Lippman’s book Public Opinion (1922).  Returning to Germany, she got her Ph.D. in 1940. 

            In 1946, she married a Christian-Democrat politician, Erich Neumann (1912-1973).  Together, they founded post-war Germany’s first public opinion research organization in 1947.  She rose to great prominence in her field, teaching at a German university (1964-1983), serving as president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research, and holding a visiting appointment at the University of Chicago (1978-1991).  In 1990-1991, the question of how anti-Semitic, how pro-Nazi or anti-Nazi, she had been, came out in the open at Chicago.  Political Science professor John Mearsheimer, nobody’s idea of a marshmallow, found her answers unpersuasive.  Some student protests followed.  Her invitation to teach was not renewed. 

            Her chief scholarly contribution came in an idea called “the Spiral of Silence.”[1]  Noelle-Neumann argued that “not isolating himself is more important [to an individual] than his own judgement”, meaning his perception of how others in the group perceive him is more important to himself than the need for his opinion to be heard.”[2]  That is, nobody wants to be in the minority, so if one set of beliefs appears to be dominant, then people will adjust their own opinions, either by following the crowd or just keeping silent.  Being noisy and grabbing attention can define the perception of which opinion is dominant. 

            This insight lies at the heart of the debate over “cancel culture.”  Back in the day some eminent speakers who had been invited to speak at colleges and universities encountered resistance from students who held a different intellectual perspective on various issues.  Demonstrations, protests, and petitions demanded that the invitation to speak be cancelled.  Often, colleges and universities caved-in to these demands.[3]  Hence, the origin of the term “cancel culture”: if you don’t like what somebody has to say, then silence and shame them. 

Here are a few examples.  In Spring 2014, it was announced that former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would give the commencement address at Rutgers University.  Weeks of protest by some students and faculty followed.  In early May 2014, Rice withdrew.  During Spring 2016, at least seven speakers withdrew from invited appearances after protests at various colleges or were shouted down.[4]  In March 2017, the conservative scholar Charles Murray tried to speak at Middlebury College.  Protests disrupted the talk, which was moved to a more secure venue.  Then Murray and his college hosts had a hard time leaving the campus, with one professor receiving a concussion. 

The recent and current intimidation and censorship generally comes from the left.  However, as every political science professor knows, Noelle-Neumann’s “Spiral of Silence” is rooted in her own experience of conformity in Nazi Germany.  It just doesn’t stop there. 

[1] Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, “The spiral of silence: a theory of public opinion,” Journal of Communication, vol. 24 (2): 43–51. 

[2] Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, “Turbulences in the climate of opinion: Methodological applications of the spiral of silence theory”, Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 41 (2): 143–158. 

[3] See: “Wine-sod! Dog-eyes! You have the heart of a deer!” Iliad 1.224–226. 

[4] List of Disinvited Speakers at Colleges (businessinsider.com)   

Full Speed Ahead.

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            At the height of its mobilization during the Second World War, the United States possessed a vast industrial and demographic advantage over both its foes and friends.  In particular, it could build and man warships and war planes in greater numbers and at a much faster pace.  To take one example, the Japanese losses of aircraft carriers and of combat pilots at Midway in June 1942 could not be swiftly replaced. 

            Now the shoe is on the other foot in any non-nuclear confrontation between the United States and China.[1]  China possesses a vast industrial base that is firmly under the control of the government.  A Sino-American war over Taiwan could begin as a naval war in the Western Pacific.  China has powerfully developed its ship-building capability, while the American ability has badly wasted over many years.  In China, there is a shipyard that can produce in one year as many ships as American yards have launched in the last nine years.  No, those ships, like many other products, are not as good as high-end Western products.  However, Chinese industries have been improving quality.  On top of that, in the Second World War, German soldiers were generally better than Red Army soldiers.  The Red Army just had a lot more soldiers. 

In the United States, the defense budget as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has slid from 8.9 percent during the Vietnam War to 4.6 percent during the Afghanistan-Iraq War to 3.1 percent today.  Declining defense spending has led to a wasting defense industrial base.  That is, the ability to produce weapons to meet needs. 

After 1990, the end of the Cold War and falling defense budgets caused the Pentagon to give defense contractors a strong shove toward consolidation.  Furthermore, a series of small-scale wars encouraged arms manufacturers to limit productive capacity to what was needed to serve a just-in-time delivery model.  One effect has been endemic cost-overruns.  Another has been a stretching-out of delivery times.  Doubling production of anti-tank missiles will take four years, not the originally projected two years.  There’s an up to six year lead-time in the production of anti-ship missiles already promised to Taiwan. 

It will take time to set this right.  Productive capacity includes manufacturing capacity, supply chains, and skilled personnel.  All have been thinned out over the last thirty years.[2]  Other economic changes of the time have similarly shrunken the U.S. manufacturing base in general.  Moreover, weapons production sometimes requires highly-trained specialists, so training may take a long time.  As a result, it will not be easy to shift key resources from non-essential to essential industries.[3] 

It took better than thirty years, along with some fundamental social and economic changes, to arrive at this situation.  Just reversing course doesn’t seem like a workable solution.  Facetiously, Wall Street Journal columnist Greg Ip raises the possibility of just handing the problem to Elon Musk. 

The essence of the issue lies in risk: could the U.S. Navy risk battle with the Chinese navy if it meant taking losses that would be hard to replace in a timely fashion? 

[1] Greg Ip, “U.S. Struggles to Build Up Its Military Might,” WSJ, 7 December 2023. 

[2] The same thing happened in Great Britain between the world wars.  This contributed to appeasement. 

[3] During the Covid lock-downs in New York City, it finally occurred to people that many activities combined in an economic “eco-system.”  The same goes for the arms industry, in particular, and all industry, in general. 

AI call home.

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            Initially the plaything of the very rich, now cars are everywhere in the world.  The first time I saw a cordless phone was in the movie “Wall Street” (dir. Oliver Stone, 1983); recently I saw a newspaper picture of a displaced Palestinian family in Gaza riding on a donkey-cart with the obese “pater familias” talking on his cell-phone.  The point is that all useful new technologies tend to become cheap and widely available.[1] 

            Today’s rapidly emerging technologies include artificial intelligence (AI)[2] and “synthetic biology.”[3]  Some people foresee the dawn of a new golden age.  “What dreams may come” true?  Great scientific breakthroughs, leading to cures for diseases, are vaunted.  International co-operation plus AI might end world poverty and hunger, or climate change.  “There seems no obvious upper limit on what’s possible.” 

Other people feel more alarm than glee.  The fact that a new technology is useful, cheap, and widely available doesn’t guarantee that all its effects will be beneficial.  Cars run on carbon; cell-phones facilitate bullying, among other harms.  Then there are “guns of the hand.” 

Probably the most intense concern among the lay public is the fear that AI will escape human control, that we will end as slaves of the machine that we—“they” once it has happened and people are looking for someone to blame—have created.[4]  We’ll all have to shape up according to the dictates of a Vegan-eating, Alcoholics Anonymous-belonging, Pilates-loving, classical music-listening, PBS-watching, and armed-to-the-teeth-with-nuclear-weapons super-computer named Pythia. 

There is another, more realistic, fear.  What if “AI” does NOT escape human control?  What if it falls into the “wrong” hands as well as into the “right” ones?[5]  Criminals, terrorists, and countries or companies gone “rogue” are all drawn to the immense possibilities of “AI.”[6] 

One solution might be to restrict the legal right to develop AI and its off-shoots to “responsible certified developers.”  This could be backed by some international apparatus of audits, controls on the transfer of the most advanced computer chips, and regulating the flow of information on the internet.   It’s difficult to imagine how this would work effectively in a world of competing nation-states, a still very open world economy, and intractably curious scientists.  The proliferation of nuclear weapons is one example of the difficulties. 

Even if regulation limps behind any kind of innovation, it is worth asking “How can we guide technology in a way that allows us to benefit from its extraordinary promise without being destroyed by its exceptional power?”[7] 

[1] Mustafa Suleyman, with Michael Bhaskhar, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Biggest Dilemma (2023).  OTOH, we’re less than a quarter of the way into the 21st Century, so who knows? 

[2] See: Artificial intelligence – Wikipedia 

[3] On the latter, see, for starters: Synthetic biology – Wikipedia 

[4] We have been prepped for this fear by popular culture.  See the seminal works: “2001: Space Odyssey” (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968); “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (dir. Joseph Sargent, 1970); “The Matrix” (dir. The Wachowskis, 1999); and “Ex Machina” (dir. Alex Garland, 2014).  The threat resonates most powerfully with liberal arts faculty.  Many deans would fail the Voight-Kampff Test.  Blade Runner – Voight-Kampff Test (HQ) – YouTube 

[5] Who has the “right” hands?  The European Community?  UNESCO?  The Sackler family?  OK, the Fed. 

[6] I’m reading William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984), so none of this seems far-fetched to me. 

[7] David Shaywitz, review of The Coming Wave, WSJ, 7 November 2023. 

My Weekly Reader 6 December 2023.

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            American political leaders confronted two important questions in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[1]  On the one hand, where did the central front in the Cold War lie, in Western Europe or in East Asia?  After 1945, the presence of the Red Army rendered democratic government in Eastern Europe a lost cause.  Western Europe, including the most heavily industrialized parts of Germany, formed an essential part of American security.  Economic revival in Western Europe would stabilize democratic government as a bulwark against further Soviet expansion.  From 1947 to 1949, the United States had dueled with the Soviet Union over the fate of Western Europe.  First the Marshall Plan had provided critical aid to Western European economic recovery.  Then the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) offered an American guarantee of military security.  Without firing a shot, the Americans had slapped the Soviets silly. 

            Yet there were critics of this policy of “enlightened self-interest.”  Most of the post-war Western European governments leaned distinctly to the left.  Marshall Plan aid seemed to be subsidizing a Socialism far to the left of anything the New Deal had done.  Paradoxically, it also sought to revive trading partners who would soon enough become competitors on world markets.  At the same time, some people saw America’s future in an orientation toward Asia.  Hence, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War (1949), combined with insurgencies in Indochina, the Philippines, and Malaya threatened future interests. 

            On the other hand, had the New Deal sated the American public’s appetite for expanded government and reform, or did there remain important things that should and could be done?  President Harry Truman, like his eventual successor Lyndon Johnson, ardently supported the accomplishment of the New Deal, yet saw it as incomplete.  After his election as president in his own right in November 1948, Truman sought to complete the New Deal by establishing national health insurance, repealing the Taft-Hartley law restraining labor unions, regulating agricultural prices, further shifting income from the wealthy to the working class, and taking steps against racial discrimination.  From 1945 to 1952, Truman would press for this “Fair Deal.” 

            Here, too, the Truman policy met critics.  Worse, the president misjudged his times.  The New Deal had rested upon a coalition of liberal Eastern Democrats with conservative Democrats in the South and West.  Some wildly mistaken actions by Franklin D. Roosevelt had weakened that coalition.[2]  The war had forced a degree of national unity; peace allowed the divisions to re-emerge.  The “Fair Deal” was dead by mid-1950: the New Deal would not advance. 

            In June 1950, Communist North Koreans invaded South Korea.  A Cold War that Americans had believed to be European; politico-economic, rather than military; and in the process of being won, revealed itself to be global and centered in Asia; military; and on the edge of being lost.  It was not what many people had hoped. 

            The New Deal would stand, being neither expanded nor rolled back.  America would fight wars in Asia against Chinese proxies.  Basic American policies into the 1960s were set in cement during 1950. 

[1] Aaron Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Strategy (2000).  Nick Bunker, In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 (2023) offers a recent popular take. 

[2] Notably his attempt to pack the Supreme Court and his attempted “purge” of Democratic legislators who had opposed him. 

Thought Experiment 1.

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Much of world opinion appears to believe that Hamas has a “right” to win.  Israel is pressed to limit or pause or end its attack on Hamas, but Hamas is not pressured to end its resistance to Israel or to surrender. 

Does Hamas have a “right” to win?  If so, on what grounds? 

First, Israel is powerful and Hamas is weak.  Many “right-thinking people” reject the judgement of Thucydides on this matter as immoral.  Whoever is “stronger” is reflexively assumed to have the worse cause.[1] 

Second, at its founding, Israel committed a great crime against the Palestinians.  The Arabs in general were resolutely anti-Zionist; the Palestinians mostly emphatically so.  Israel fought for its survival.  In the process, many Palestinians fled the fighting or were driven out.  Israel conquered territory not assigned to it in the League of Nations partition plan.[2]  The refugees were not allowed to return.  Israel has continued to commit the same crime against Palestinians on the West Bank.  The settlements on the West Bank are progressively expanding.  They seem to be intended to make it impossible for the Palestinians to remain.  As one Israeli politician said years ago: “The Palestinians already have a country; it’s called Jordan.” 

Third, it doesn’t matter to many Palestinians (or foreigners) that the West Bank is under a totally different government than is Gaza.  Hamas is a Palestinian nationalist organization, not just the “de facto” governing power in Gaza. 

To understand all is NOT to forgive all.  Still, understanding is widely accepted as a good thing.  In the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors did not want to remain in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe.  In Eastern Europe, various national governments combined anti-Semitism with Stalinism.  The gates of Western countries were partially closed to Jewish immigrants.  Jews huddled in camps for Displaced Persons or wandered around in search of surviving family members.  Going to Palestine and helping to found a Jewish state offered an alternative.  A Jewish state would never turn away Jews in any future surge of anti-Semitism. 

The ending of the Second World War unleashed massive forced-movements of populations across Europe.  Poles were kicked westward to fit within the boundaries of a redefined Poland.  People of German ancestry fled the revenge of the people Germany had abused during the war.  Slave laborers and Prisoners of War held in Germany headed either homeward or westward.  Over time, all were absorbed or re-absorbed into countries struggling to recover from war.  From a callous Zionist point of view, displaced Palestinians would naturally be absorbed by neighboring Arab countries.  Too often ignored is the corresponding expulsion (and depredation) of perhaps as many as a million Jews living in Arab countries after the foundation of Israel. 

            Finally, a two-state solution was possible from 1948 to 1967, but Egypt and Jordan wanted the West Bank and Gaza—and all Palestine–for themselves. 

[1] Perhaps this feeling is a projection onto international relations of popular judgements about domestic politics.  Perhaps it is the Marxist influence.  However, it is very unhistorical.  It conveniently leaves aside the examples of the American Civil War, the Second World War, and the Cold War.  In all those cases, Right and Might were one. 

[2] Yes, I know: “it’s called the United Nations.”  You really think that there is any significant difference, aside from the huge number of nations created after 1945 who batten on the organization like flies?