Race and Policing.

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In August 2014, a police officer shot to death Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. In August 2014, 44 percent of Americans described race relations as bad.[1] Among African-Americans, 80 percent believed that the shooting “raises important issues about race that need to be discussed,” and 37 percent of whites agreed. In contrast, 47 percent of whites believed that “race is getting more attention [in the media] than it deserves.”[2] In December 2014, after the failure of a grand jury to indict police officers in the death of Eric Garner, 44 percent of Americans described race relations as bad, and 36 percent thought race relations were getting worse. In January 2015, 40 percent of Americans thought race relations were “fairly good” or “very good.”[3] In March 2015, 38 percent of Americans described race relations as bad.[4] Then, in April 2015 came the shooting of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, and the death of Freddie Gray, and the Baltimore riots. Soon afterward, 61 percent of Americans said race relations were bad; 44 percent thought that race relations were getting worse.[5]   In sum, less than a year ago, a large minority of Americans, but a huge majority of African-Americans, thought that race relations were bad. Broadly, this pattern continued until Spring 2015. Then the deaths of Walter Clark and Freddie Gray triggered a lurch toward seeing race relations as bad.

Clearly, this growing sense that race relations are bad is related to police use of force. In December 2014, after a grand jury declined to indict the police officer who shot Michael Brown, 48 percent approved the decision, and 45 percent disapproved it, including 85 percent of African-Americans.[6] When, on 3 December 2014, a grand-jury refused to indict New York police officers in the death of Eric Garner, 57 percent of Americans saw this as an error, 22 percent saw it as the correct decision, and 21 percent weren’t sure or didn’t know. Within the majority believing the decision to be an error were 90 percent of African-Americans polled, but only 47 percent of whites.[7] Again, there is a consistent majority of African-American opinion holding one opinion. White opinion seems to have shifted as case after case of grand juries refusing to indict police officers came to their attention.

In December 2014, 40 percent of Americans believed that deadly force was more likely to be used against an African-American.[8] In April 2015, 44 percent of Americans believed that the police are more likely to use deadly force against an African-American.[9] At the same time, 37 percent of whites and 79 percent of African-Americans believe that the police are more likely to use deadly force against African-Americans. A hair over 50 percent of Americans didn’t believe that race is a factor in police officers’ decision to use force.

There are at least two possible explanations for the divergence of views between African-Americans and Caucasian Americans. One explanation is that intense media attention to an unusual series of controversial cases has allowed African-American activists to foment anger. In this interpretation, the passage of time will heal wounds. Another explanation is that American society remains deeply segregated, so Caucasian Americans have no sense of the range of real experiences of African-Americans. In this interpretation, African-Americans are broadly correct in their perception and Caucasian Americans are living in a dream world.

By December 2014, a huge majority of Americans–some 87 percent–wanted body cameras on police so that contested incidents can have some kind of documentary record. (The racial divide on the issue was virtually non-existent: 90 percent of African-Americans and 85 percent of whites favor the cameras.)[10]

Which interpretation is more nearly correct? In early June 2015, a Washington Post effort to quantify police shootings found that US police had shot and killed at least 385 people in the first half of 2015. Two-thirds of the unarmed people killed by the police were African-Americans or Hispanics.[11] So, apparently, the police are more likely to use deadly force against African-Americans, and Hispanics as well.

According to the 2012 census, 63 percent of the population was non-Hispanic white; 17 percent was Hispanic-Latino; 12.4 percent was African-American; 4.4 percent was Asian-American, for a total of 96.8 percent. Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Arab Americans made up the remainder.[12]

About 50 percent of all American homicide victims are African-Americans.[13] If African-Americans make up about one-eighth of the population, then they are massively over-represented among the ranks of those liable to be murdered. Many African-Americans live in a violent place that white Americans cannot or will not bother to imagine. Moreover, use of the death penalty has dropped off sharply since it was re-instituted in 1977, but 77 percent of those executed have been put to death for killing a white victim.[14] Without wanting to argue for a wider use of the death penalty, can this be read as a subtle affirmation that “Black Lives Don’t Matter”?

Are African-Americans more likely to use deadly force against police officers? In January 2015, the Washington Post reported that 511 police officers had been killed between 2004 and 2013. Of the 540 people identified as having been involved in the killings, 43 percent were African-American and 52 percent were white.[15] Thus, it appears that Hispanics and Asians aren’t likely to kill police officers; whites are statistically somewhat under-represented in the killing of police officers; and African-Americans are dramatically over-represented.

These statistics just add another layer of complexity to understanding the violent police-community interactions that have so deeply troubled America in the last year.

The discussion shouldn’t stop there however. Race relations aren’t just about policing. In the aftermath of the riots in Baltimore attending the arresting-to-death of Freddie Gray, 50 percent of African-Americans believed that poverty and a lack of opportunity explained “a great deal” of the rioting.[16] To take just one example, in the wake of the “Great Recession,” white people are dramatically better off than are African-Americans. An average white household possesses 13 times as much “wealth” (assets, not income) as does the average African-American household.[17] In contrast, 39 percent of whites believed that poverty and a lack of opportunity explained “a great deal” of the rioting. That means that 61 percent of whites and 50 percent of African-Americans either did not believe that poverty and a lack of opportunity explained “a great deal” of the rioting or they “didn’t know.” You don’t have to believe that the rioters in Baltimore were driven by poverty and a lack of opportunity to believe that the focus on policing is a way of avoiding taking about other, more troubling and difficult dimensions of race relations.

[1] Dalia Sussman, “Views on Race Relations Worsen, Poll Finds,” NYT, 5 May 2015.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 29 August 2014, p. 17.

[3] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 16 January, 2015, p. 17.

[4] Dalia Sussman, “Views on Race Relations Worsen, Poll Finds,” NYT, 5 May 2015.

[5] Dalia Sussman, “Views on Race Relations Worsen, Poll Finds,” NYT, 5 May 2015.

[6] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 12 December 2014, p. 19.

[7] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 December 2014, p. 19.

[8] Dalia Sussman, “Views on Race Relations Worsen, Poll Finds,” NYT, 5 May 2015.

[9] Dalia Sussman, “Views on Race Relations Worsen, Poll Finds,” NYT, 5 May 2015.

[10] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 December 2014, p. 19. There is something very American and contemporary about believing that the solution to a problem is to be found in technology.

[11] “Noted,” The Week, 12 June 2015, p. 16.   About a quarter of the people killed were subsequently identified as mentally ill. Harder to organize the mentally ill, march on city hall, chant “No sanity, no peace.”

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Racial_makeup_of_the_U.S._population

[13] “Noted,” The Week, 16 May 2014, p. 18.

[14] “Noted,” The Week, 16 May 2014, p. 18.

[15] “Noted,” The Week, 23 January 2015, p. 16.

[16] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 15 May 2015, p. 17.

[17] “Noted,” The Week, 26 December 2014, p. 16.

JMO.

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Here’s what a former FBI profiler has to say about the Charleston shooter.  http://www.businessinsider.com/dylann-roof-was-a-paranoid-narcissist-says-fbi-profiler-joe-navarro-2015-6

Probably he’s correct.  However, I wonder if we’re going to learn–once somebody gets his hands on the shooter’s birth certificate–that he wasn’t born Dylann Storm Roof?  Perhaps he was born Dylan Something-Else-Entirely Roof.  The mutations of his name reflect the psychological turmoil going on inside him from when he was in his early teens.  Here’s my reasoning/puzzlement.

First, Dyl-ann.  Really?  what Southern working-class father is going to name his son Dylann, rather than Dylan?

Second, look at what he’s wearing in a couple of the pictures.  Some of them show him wearing what appears to be a woman’s watch: narrow gold band noticeably smaller than the watch itself.  Then, although he February arrest report lists him as weighing 120 pounds and he doesn’t look even remotely like a lifter, he is shown wearing a Gold’s Gym wife-beater.  Picture of a big heavily-muscled guy on it.  Is this aspirational or something else entirely?

Third, to my mind, the kid looks to have been deeply depressed from his mid-teens onward.  His step-mother describes him as “bright,” but he did 9th grade twice and soon dropped out.  Been drifting ever since, a worry to his family.  Started abusing drugs.  Sometimes Depression manifests as “violence.”  Mostly verbal and directed at other people in an externalization of what the depressed person feels about themselves.  But it can turn into actual physical violence too.

Lots of times, parents aren’t trained to recognize the signs of this and don’t know anything about it.  Easy to confuse it was something else.  Like “he has his head up his backside.”

So, I’m wondering if the kid is gay.  Closeted gay youth in the rural South.  Can’t find a way to come out.  The watch and the Gold’s Gym shirt and possibly adopting the extra “n” on his name may have been little clues that he was trying to drop.  Hoping to provoke some kind of discussion/revelation.  Apparently that didn’t work.  We probably will not know anything definite about this unless they find some trace on his computer search history.  Feels like he doesn’t fit in.  Looks for something to grab onto.

Which brings us to Storm.  Somewhere on-line I read that it is a name commonly adopted by white supremacists.  May be the same with Roof.  He found something to which he could belong.  Make a name that would ring out.  By doing something terrible.

Anything else?  Yes, one thing.  He bought a gun (far as I can tell), rather than being given one.  Practiced with it.  Probably found out that he was a poor shot.  There’s a laser aiming light under the muzzle of the Glock.  Did it come with the pistol or is after-market?  Maybe it’s another sign of failure.

Last, what is the third patch on his jacket, across from the two flags and over his heart?

Annals of the Great Recession IX.

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In the first five years after the “Great Recession” (i.e. 2008-2013), 60 percent of the new jobs that were created in the “recovering” American economy were low-wage jobs. By early 2013, a quarter of jobs paid less than $10 an hour. At the same time, from 2006 to 2012 the top 50 companies that relied on of low-cost labor paid $175 billion in dividends to stock holders. That is, middle and upper-income group stock portfolios rebounded from the recession while lower-income group earnings were held down. This created the much debated problems of the “working poor” and the legal minimum wage.[1]

Who are the “working poor”? The answer depends on your definition. One definition is people living in families in which at least one member is working but earns under the government-defined poverty line: $11,702 for an individual and $23,021 for a family of four. By this count, there are 46.2 million “working poor” in the United States. A broader definition, favored by activists, is anyone working who cannot afford the basics: food, clothing, housing, transportation, child-care, and health-care.

Who falls into this group? About 10 percent are white, mostly living in the South and Southwest. More than 25 percent each are African-American or Latino, distributed much more evenly around the country. Big business chains (Walmart, Target, fast-food chains like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut) that base their strategy on low-cost labor employ a lot of these people. Broadly, poor people come from poor families. Men from poor communities tend to have little education when the modern economy puts a premium on education; they have lousy jobs and are frequently unemployed; often they don’t get married or get divorced; lots of kids grow up in single-parent homes and go to the same lousy schools as did their parents. All this raises the prospect that we have created a hereditary under-class that amounts to a huge waste of human potential.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. It hasn’t budged since 2009. Between 2009 and 2012, inflation raised the cost of living by 7 percent. This knocked the real minimum wage down to $6.75. Raising the minimum wage would lift many of these people a little further up the ranks of the poor. Critics warn that this would just lead to job losses through automation. (Some economists argue that these low-wage jobs can’t be automated. This is undoubtedly true of some low-wage jobs, but the self-check-out lines that are already common at grocery stores and hardware stores could easily spread to fast-food chains.)

Lots of employers appear to have privatized profit while socializing costs. Low wages and no health-benefits are possible—in part—because a lot of working people earning the minimum wage have to rely upon food stamps and other forms of public assistance. An estimated 3.5 million people—minimum wage workers and their dependents—depend on food stamps to feed themselves. The cost shifted from employers to tax payers is estimated at $4.6 billion. Raising the minimum wage to just over $10 an hour would move these people off the welfare rolls.[2]

Unionization is another possible response. This would allow workers to bargain more effectively for higher wages. Only 11.3 percent of American workers belong to unions, about half of them to public-sector unions. One barrier here is that 24 states have “right to work” laws that obstruct unionization.

Then, perversely, the federal government offers incentives to the working poor to not make more money. The Earned Income Tax Credit (i.e. transfer payment from higher income groups) falls as the recipient earns more money. In one case, each additional dollar earned reduces the EITC by 88 cents. Working more hours or getting a slightly better paying job doesn’t make any sense.

In short, the problem of the “working poor” involves a lot of difficult problems that have deep roots and have been building up for a long time. That doesn’t mean that we should just throw up our hands in despair. Simple and obvious solutions, however, may have unforeseen effects or even none at all.

[1] “Working, but still poor,” The Week, 8 February 2013, p. 11.

[2] “Noted,” The Week, 21 March 2014, p. 16.

An eye for an eye.

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Here’s the narrative of the Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East as seen through Saudi Arabian eyes.[1] Back in the day, as my students often refer to any historical event that occurred before the latest installment of “The Dark Knight,” the dispute over who should lead the Faithful divided Islam into Shi’ites and Sunnis. Over many years, the two different schools of thought pretty much learned to live with one another. Later still, most people stopped caring about the argument in any concrete way. For fifty years in the middle of the 20th Century conflict turned on rivalries between conservative monarchical (and pro-Western) regimes like Saudi Arabia and Iran, and revolutionary, “democratic” (and pro-Soviet) regimes like Syria and Egypt. Still, that did not mean that particular religious identity had ceased to matter to people, just that they wouldn’t fight over it. Then came the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Not only did the Iranian ayatollahs overthrow the Shah, they also claimed the right to lead all of the “ummah,” and they attacked the conservative monarchies that had once been Iran’s partners. The Sunni countries, led by Saudi Arabia, weren’t taking this pretentious claim lying down: they counter-attacked by questioning the ayatollahs. Political conflicts began to activate the long-dormant conflict between sects.

Then, in 2003, the United States attacked Iraq. The American invasion overthrew the established order (a Sunni minority ruling a Shi’ite majority), then, first, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and, then ISIS arose out of the conflict. From 2011 on, the civil war in Syria turned up the flame under the Sunni-Shi’a struggle.   The Iranians backed the Assad regime in Syria and the Shi’ite state in Iraq. Now, the Iranians have supported (fomented) trouble in Yemen by the Houthis. This has finally alarmed the ever-patient Saudis: “Until this war, there has been a sense that Iran was encircling Saudi Arabia, [and] that this Shi’ite revival is occurring at the expense of Sunnis.” With the outbreak of fighting in Yemen, however, “It was no longer a Shi’ite crescent, but a Shi’ite circle.” The Middle East has been engulfed in violence as a result of the immoderation of Iran.

What gets left out of this narrative? The most obvious thing is that Iraq attacked Iran at the start of the Iranian Revolution. In the long (1980-1988) war that followed, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait financed much of the Iraqi war effort. Iran had done little beyond rhetoric at this point to threaten either “revolutionary” Iraq or the conservative monarchies. It looks more like trying to profiteer off a weakened Iran on the part of Iraq and then an attempt to fend off the consequences of an ill-considered adventure by Iraq on the part of the Saudis.

A second thing to consider is that Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship of Wahhabism, a conservative brand of Sunni Islam, did not arise as a response to a challenge from Shi’ite Iran. Rather, the Saudi monarchy and Wahhabism have been long-term allies. The oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 vastly enriched Saudi Arabia.[2] The wealth sucked out of Western countries allowed the Saudis to embark on a vast Wahhabist propaganda/proselytization campaign in many areas of the Muslim world.[3] That propaganda described non-Wahhabi Muslims as “apostates.”

All narrative demands simplification as a means to clarity. Some narrative simplification can be carried too far in the service of political advocacy. Doubtless this page is a case in point.

[1] Yaroslav Trofimov, “Sunni-Shi’ite Conflict Is More Political Than Religious,” WSJ, 15 May 2015.

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism#Afghanistan_jihad

[3] Including northern Nigeria, where Wahhabists opposed the local brand of Sufi Islam. Out of this struggle and from the many failings of the Nigerian state, emerged Boko Haram.

Menagerie a trois.

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Many Saudis blame Iran for fomenting the fighting in both Syria and Iraq, fighting in which Sunnis have been the biggest losers.[1] Government spokesmen equate the Houthis in Yemen with Hezbollah in Lebanon. A spokesman for the Saudi military stated Saudi Arabia’s view of Iranian strategy: “Wherever the Iranians are present, they create militias against these countries. In Lebanon, they have created Hezbollah, which is blocking the political process and has conducted wars against Israelis, destroying Lebanon as a result. And in Yemen, they have created the Houthis.” (Obviously, this is a simplistic analysis that ignores many other factors. However, not many people doing applied politics have the spare time to read the American Political Science Review.) Facilitating this equivalence is the Houthis’ firing of rockets into Saudi Arabia, which Saudi officials compare to Hezbollah’s firing of rockets into Israel. That is, the Saudis see the rocket as the Iranian weapon-of-choice. Since Iran is in hot pursuit of nuclear weapons, it is easy to see why this alarms the Saudis.

Alarmed over the looming escape from sanctions by the Iranians, the Saudis are beginning to draw distinctions. “Israel is an enemy because of its origin, but it isn’t an enemy because of its actions—while Iran is an enemy because of its actions, not because of its origin,” said a former Saudi diplomat. In theory, the Palestinian issue still obstructs Saudi-Israeli co-operation. In practice, anything that appears to be an existential threat to both countries will lead to lesser issues being swiftly resolved or adjourned.[2]

There are hints of other ramifications as well. Saudi Major General Anwar Eshqi (retired), now the director of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, told the WSJ that Saudi Arabia wants Israel to be integrated into the Middle East. “[W]e can use their technology while they can use our money.” When the United States cut off aid to Egypt after the coup against Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government, Saudi Arabia immediately stepped in to more than make up for the lost aid. Since then, Egypt has gone ahead pretty much as it prefers without paying much attention to Washington. What if the same thing happens with Israel? Well, the Israelis are not likely to make an open break with the United States because it is the chief source of advanced arms and cover in the UN’s Security Council. Still, the Bush Administration’s attack on Iraq and the Obama Administration’s embrace of the “Arab Spring” have had long-term consequences that undermine American influence in the Middle East.

[1] Yaroslav Trofimov, “Saudi Arabia and Israel Find Common Ground on Iran,” WSJ, 19 June 2015.

[2] See: What would Bismarck drive? 3,” May 2015.

Good enough for government work.

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What follows is the sort of quibbling over details that appeals only to scholars. However, historians believe that human affairs are “contingent.” That is, even if humans are storm-tossed in some vast sea of historical processes, the actions that individuals take or do not take always have consequences.

Commenting on the troubles in Yemen and Libya, Professor Daniel Benjamin (US State Department counter-terrorism co-ordinator, 2009-2012, and now a professor at Dartmouth) said that “The forces that drove the Arab Spring [of 2011] were of such enormous dimensions that it’s unrealistic to think any president or any group of leaders could steer these events.”[1] It is possible to take a different view.

For one thing, the “forces that drove the Arab Spring” have been totally mastered. Protests in Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Djibouti, and Somalia all soon ended after largely cosmetic concessions by the authorities.   Something harsher was required in in Egypt and Syria. Under pressure from the crowds in a few urban areas and from the United States, the Egyptian military dictatorship bent but did not break. Now it has reasserted its power, using the threat of Islamism as its justification. Seeing what was happening in Egypt, the far more ruthless Assad government in Syria took a strong line with the urban malcontents.   They malcontents are mostly in refugee camps at the moment. What the Syrians were left with was an uprising among conservative Sunni Muslims who have been joined by a flood of Islamist foreign fighters, just as the insurgency in Iraq attracted hordes of Islamist jihadis. What does Islamism have to do with the American liberal vision of the “Arab Spring”?[2]

For another thing, the United States played an active role in creating the chaos that now engulfs both Libya and Yemen.   The Obama Administration exceeded its mandate from the UN when it expanded its involvement in the Libyan rebellion from protecting civilian lives to toppling the Gaddafi regime through air-power.[3] Then the U.S. walked away when the overthrow of Gaddafi opened a Pandora’s box of troubles. Much more reasonably, the U.S. also supported the initiative by the Saudi-dominated Gulf Co-operation Council to push “president” Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office. Here alone the Americans had a clear goal: to preserve the ability to hunt Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula jihadis.

As the NYT headlined the story in which Daniel Benjamin was quoted, “Killing Terrorists May Be Best U.S. Can Hope For.” That’s a modest goal. Not transformative of the entire Middle East. Not a lasting solution to the problem of radical Islam. Not the sort of thing to win someone a Nobel Peace Prize. But manageable within the limits of our power.

[1] Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “Killing Terrorists May Be Best U.S. Can Hope For,” NYT, 17 June 2015.

[2] See: “Arab Youth,” September 2014.

[3] It also helped poison Russian-American relations. See: “Obama versus Putin,” September 2014.

Climate of Fear XVII.

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In 2006, a Pew poll reported that 79 percent of Americans saw global warming as a serious problem; in 2010 the number fell to 63 percent; and a recent poll reported that the number has risen to 69 percent. Similarly, in 2009, 57 percent of Americans accepted that there was “solid evidence of [global] warming”; in 2015, 68 percent agree.[1]

How do we explain the fluctuations? There are a number of possible answers. First, people trade off fears about climate change with fears about economic growth. When the economy tanks, people worry that environmental regulations will cripple recovery; when the economy recovers, people start to worry about the environment.

Second, the deep polarization of American politics causes the party out of power to swing against whatever the party in power proposes. In a classic example of this, in March 2015, 53 percent of Republicans supported automatic registration of all eligible voters. Recently, Hillary Clinton endorsed this proposal. Now, only 28 percent of Republicans support automatic registration of all eligible voters.[2] Many Republicans responded to the push by the Democrats for major climate legislation in 2009-2010 by clinging to their skepticism about climate change. Still, this hardly tells all of the story. For one thing, apparently, male Democrats are slightly less interested in the issue of climate change than are female Democrats, and the Democrats couldn’t get their climate change bill through Congress when they controlled both houses in 2010.[3] For another thing, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The Republicans now are the “party in power” in both houses of Congress. If parties become more intensely opposed to the position of the party in power, then perhaps the spike in climate change belief really reflects a knee-jerk response among Democrats.

The economy always fluctuates, but climate change is a continuing problem. The changing salience of climate change as a problem suggests something not very quantifiable about the continual intrusion of short-term concerns into the response to long-term problems. Parties alternate in power, sometimes every two years, but climate change is a continuing problem. The changing salience of climate change as a problem suggests something not very quantifiable about the continual intrusion of irrationality and passion into politics. Americans have no monopoly on this trait, as the bitter Greek debt negotiations show.

[1] David Leonhardt, “Americans’ Concern Over Climate Change Is Again on the Rise,” NYT, 17 June 2015.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 June 2015, p. 15.

[3] I know, I know: “super-majority,” “filibuster,” “gerrymandering,” and “the Koch Brothers.” However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could not even muster the support of all the Democrats. See: Carl Hulse and David Herszenhorn, “Democrats Call Off Climate Bill Effort,” NYT, 22 July 2010.

“Die for Danzig?” Marcel Deat, “Mourir pour Danzig?” L’Oeuvre, 4 May 1939.

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Fighting Russia isn’t a very popular idea. Fighting Russia over Ukraine doesn’t have much support in spite of the obvious Russian intervention in the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. But fighting Russia if it attacks a fellow member of NATO seems like a no-brainer. That’s what a military alliance is all about, right? Well, not necessarily.[1]

Back in 1956, in the midst of the Eisenhower administration and at the height of the Cold War, 82 percent of Americans believed that a Russian attack on one member was an attack on all and that the US should fight, while 8 percent opposed it, and 10 percent weren’t sure. In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 56 percent of Americans supported using force against Russia if it became involved in a “serious military conflict” with another NATO member state, while 37 percent were opposed, and a mere 7 percent weren’t sure. Among some other NATO countries, support then falls off by small steps. Support for fighting slides down through Canada (53), Britain (49), Poland and Spain (48), France (47), Italy (40), and Germany (38).[2] In Germany, 58 percent opposed fighting Russia, while only 4 percent weren’t sure.

With regard to the conflict in Ukraine, Poland (50 percent) and the United States (46 percent) most strongly support sending weapons to the Kiev government. Thereafter, support declines among other NATO members through Canada (44), Britain (42), and France (40), before falling off sharply in Spain (25 percent), Italy (22) and Germany (19). Similarly, 62 percent of Americans favor admitting Ukraine to NATO, but only 36 percent of Germans supported such a move.

One way to think about this is that, in spite of the frequent media references to a revived Cold War, most people in the West aren’t there yet. Still, it may be where we are headed. Favorable opinion about the United States among Russians has fallen from 51 percent in 2013 to 15 percent in June 2015 and favorable opinion about NATO has fallen from 37 percent to 26 percent over the same period. Favorable opinion about Russia in the NATO countries has fallen from 37 percent to 26 percent.

Another way to think about this is that there has been a significant disaggregation within the NATO alliance since the end of the Cold War. The United States and Germany now represent opposite poles on a number of key policy issues. As the creation of the Eurozone and the negotiations over the Greek debt crisis show, Germany has become the dominant power in Europe. Americans demonstrate a resolution (or belligerence) unmatched by the Germans. This is something with which future leaders of both countries will have to wrestle.

Still another way to think about this is that we are witnessing yet another phase in the troubled, tortuous relationship between Germany and Russia. Before the First World War they were two conservative empires in opposed alliances. Between the wars they were ideologically opposed states driven to co-operate by their international pariah status. Since 1945, the partitioned Germanys first clung to their dominant partner, then West Germany’s “Ostpolitik” began opening a road East based on economic complementarity. Vladimir Putin’s assertion of Russian power and interests among the non-NATO former members of the Soviet Union has challenged that relationship. Belarus and Georgia may be next, but people worry that he will not stop at the borders of the Baltic states. Putin’s own moderation—or lack of it–holds the key.

[1] Naftali Bendavid, “Poll Shows West Is Divided On How to Deal With Russia,” WSJ, 10 June 2015.

[2] The Polish stance is worth some thought because Poland is going to provide the most likely battlefield in such a conflict.

Whistling past the graveyard?

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Simon Nixon holds that in the years before the financial crisis broke, Greece was flush with money. The Greek governments of the time did the popular thing by increasing pensions and wages for public employees well beyond the level that the feeble Greek economy could sustain in normal times. Then the slump dried up the river of money. Greece faced a crisis; a Greek financial collapse could spread to the rest of the Eurozone; and the European Central Bank, the Eurozone countries, and the International Monetary Fund stepped in with a bailout.[1]

In return for this bail-out, the creditors demanded that Greece make reforms of its unsustainable public-sector and pension systems to reduce spending to a level that the Greek economy could support in normal times. Instead of pursuing this politically unpopular course, Greece laid its main effort on enhanced tax collection and on a reform of the pension system that did not address the real problem. Thus, the number of bureaucrats fell as they were transferred to early retirement. This increased the burden of pensions in the budget rather than reducing it.

The Syriza government argues that budget cuts will just push Greece deeper into recession. They have been asking for an expansionary budget policy combined with more money from the European Union for “investment.”

There is a consensus on the need to “restructure” (greatly reduce) Greece’s debt. There is a consensus among the creditors on the need for serious reforms of Greece’s public sector and pension systems. A deal should be easy to reach. However, the Greeks want the debt reduction to come at the same time as the promise to implement reforms in the future.[2] The creditors don’t trust the Greeks to implement the reforms once they have the money in hand. As a result, they insist that the reforms have to precede any debt restructuring.

Anatole Kaletsky argues that, between the outbreak of the Greek financial crisis in 2009 and the end of 2014, there existed a real danger that a Greek default would be the first domino in a chain that ran through Portugal, Spain, and Italy before crashing down on Germany.[3] In January 2015, however, Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, won approval for a massive program of bond-buying on the part of the ECB. In essence, the ECB now can print all the money it needs to drown the fires of a financial crisis. Euro-zone countries agreed to this measure in order to build a fire-wall between Greece and the rest of the Eurozone. Now, the dangers of a Greek default are chiefly to the Greeks themselves: default will block access to foreign credits, end ECB support for the Greek banking system, lead to a run on the banks that will leave many people empty handed, and the government will be unable to pay the pensioners and public employees on whose behalf it has been engaged in this game of chicken.

Then there is the collateral damage. A “Grexit” may not do serious damage to the European economy. It will harm the reputation of the IMF. IMF rules bar it from lending to countries that are unlikely to be able to sustain the debt. The Eurozone lured the IMF into participating in the Greek bail-out by warnings of a “financial contagion.” Well, the current level of Greek debt is not sustainable. A Greek default will gore the IMF, which prime minister Tsipras has just denounced as ‘criminal.” That will affect IMF lending programs in several ways for the foreseeable future.

The level of emotional engagement here reminds us that politics isn’t always rational.

[1] Simon Nixon, “Athens and Its Creditors Head for the Brink,” WSJ, 8 June 2015.

[2] See: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

[3] Anatole Kaletsky, “Greek crisis: Europe has nothing to fear from Greek belligerence,” The Guardian, 16 June 2015.

A tale of two occupied cities.

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Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran two stories in one day on the problems of “occupied territories” in two wars. The stories cast some light on possible future developments.

Since seizing Mosul in June 2014, ISIS has provided a sort of good government to the captured city of 1-1.5 million people.[1] Roads have been repaired and are well-maintained. The street lights are working far better than they did under the old regime. Theft of electricity through improvised wiring has ended. You can walk down the street without navigating around kiosks and barrows. Littering has come to a stop. All men wear beards and all women are fully covered. You don’t feel offended all the time by people scrolling through their Smart phones because the cell towers and Internet have been turned off.[2] ISIS drove out the Christian minority from the city. Now churches host garage sales. ISIS blew up the Shi’ite shrines that once dotted the city. One way to ensure compliance with government orders is to kill anyone who violates them.

The recapture of Mosul has been a loudly-proclaimed goal of the American—I mean Iraqi—strategy against ISIS. So far, most of the heavy lifting has been done by the Kurds, who have made advances around the western, northern, and eastern flanks of the city. However, the fall of Ramadi in Anbar province has put a spoke in the wheel of that strategy for the moment.

The Sunni majority in the city fears both the reconquest by the Shi’ite-dominated government and what might follow at the hands of the “liberators.”

It isn’t at all clear that Petro Poroshenko’s Ukraine government expects—or even wants—to recover the rebel territories in eastern Ukraine.[3] A cease-fire worked out in February 2015 has greatly reduced casualties among civilians. However, Poroshenko’s government has been tightening controls on movement between the two parts of Ukraine. One estimate is that trade across the cease-fire line has fallen by perhaps 70 percent since the cease-fire was implemented.[4] The Poroshenko government argues that the economic and political integration clauses of the cease-fire agreement have to wait on the military aspect of the cease-fire being “fully ensured.” The distinction seems intended to punish the residents of the eastern zone. Delays at the Kiev government’s check-points have extended a round-trip between Donetsk and neighboring towns in Ukraine proper from two hours to twelve hours. Furthermore, the Ukrainian border guards regularly demand hefty bribes—in effect a government tax on exports—from truckers. Food and medical supplies from Ukraine have begun to dwindle as the border guards refuse to allow their passage. The Kiev government has begun denying pension benefits to anyone living permanently in the rebel-held regions. The Russians have not taken up the slack. Yet. This policy runs the risk of driving many people in eastern Ukraine who do not support “independence” under the Russian thumb into the arms of the rebels. One frustrated traveler said “”Give me the opportunity to work and live peacefully and I don’t care who is in power.”

Clearly, conditions in Mosul are far worse than in eastern Ukraine. The occupation of Mosul by ISIS seems likely to end in a horrific fashion, while Ukraine will be partitioned.

[1] Nour Malas, “Year of Islamic State Rule Transforms Mosul,” WSJ, 10 June 2015.

[2] That doesn’t mean that no news reaches the city. Residents seem well aware of the reports of very destructive fighting, looting, and retribution killings by Shi’ite militias in the re-capture of Tikrit.

[3] Laura Mills, “In Ukraine, Anger Grows as Border Tightens,” WSJ, 10 June 2015.

[4] That is, much more trade took place while the fighting was still going on at a high pitch.