The definition of contempt
The American Enterprise Institute, a think tank largely funded by Exxon-Mobil is offering to pay climatologists $10,000 for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This is not surprising: lacking any real defense, it's only logical for them to seek men of straw to argue the case for them. The surprise is that they expect climatologists to be willing to trash their professional reputations — in a manner that will come back to haunt them whenever they subsequently apply for a job — for a mere ten thousand dollars. For a professional lobbyist that's a couple of billable hours; yet they suppose it's the measure of a working scientist's life's work.
Seldom has it been so easy to put an exact price on contempt.
Addendum: I note with interest that the American Enterprise Institute are Ayaan Hirsi Ali's current employers. More on this rather creepy body of unelected would-be architects of your future here.
Comments
Wikipedia also lists Charles Murray, author of the racist "Bell Curve" as one of their Scholars and Fellows.
Posted by: Tim Hall | February 4, 2007 1:34 PM
Well, in science normally you don`t have to bribe anyone to prove or disprove anything. So `contempt` is pure understatement. Anyway:
>racist "Bell Curve" as one of their Scholars and Fellows
That should tell us everything about those people. Still, many of our fanboy friends
seem to be very impressed by those guys.
Andreas Morlok
Posted by: Andreas Morlok | February 4, 2007 1:47 PM
It's not surprising that when science becomes politicized, political think tanks will attempt to hire scientists.
Posted by: Andrew G | February 4, 2007 3:02 PM
To address Charlie's point about $10,000 being a small sum to ruin your career over for a scientist, that's probably true in much of the world but not in the US. There are a number of professional climatologists in the US that are global-warming skeptics. While writing an article just for the money is a risky thing for gradstudents or post doctoral fellows, there are people like Robert Balling, Patrick Michaels, John Christy who are all established scientists with a record of opposing global warming scaremongering.
And, knowing gradstudents, there are probably some here in the US who will jump at the chance to get $10k and spice up their names with a little controversy. If they're like the students I know, they're only making about $15k a year as it is...
Posted by: Andrew G | February 4, 2007 3:10 PM
My gut feeling is that it's only in the US that there is any controversy any more, and it's largely fueled by Exxon-Mobil's slush fund.
EM are still sticking their collective head in the sand, rather than looking to diversify and re-jig their public image to fit the changing climate -- sorry. (See for example Shell and BPs attempts at spinning themselves as environmentally concerned, diversifying into other energy sources and renewables, and so on. Much of it is smoke and mirrors, but at least they know better than to back a losing horse.) Anyway, EM they've been playing the same game as the tobacco companies in the 1960s and 1970s ... and stories like this show that they're generating blowback.
Politics shouldn't play a role in the process of scientific inquiry, but it has done so blatantly over the past few years. And I expect there to be a backlash, as faculties everywhere try to reassert their reputation for objectivity in research. Being tarred with the brush of oil industry money is going to cause academic credentials to be interrogated fiercely for the next few years. The nearest analogy is: Would you trust an epidemiologist who continued to maintain into the 1980s that smoking didn't cause cancer? Especially if you discovered they'd been taking money from the tobacco industry?
Posted by: Charlie Stross | February 4, 2007 3:49 PM
EM are one of the few "big oil" (and certainly the biggest) companies who have NOT seriously diversified in the last two decades.
You also have to remember, Charlie, about the tenure system in America. It's so very near to impossible to fire a tenure'd scientist that if you have tenure and you're allready a critic of global warming by stance, this is free money.
Did I mention I dislike the idea of tenure? (Long term stable contracts with no termination clause for the university in the normal term of events, but only by a maority vote of the trustees... sure).
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 4, 2007 5:08 PM
The tenure system is designed to prevent excalty this sort of thing -- requiring scientists and professors to pass some sort of ideological litmus test.
Professors must exhibit a great deal of strong research and teaching before they get tenure, it's a difficult and drawn out process. If tenured professors are critical of something, it's not because they're hacks. Now, private research scientists or those employed by various institutes and non-profits might be hacks. Tenure is a sort of quality assurance system.
Like it or not, climate change and politics are thoroughly interwined. I think it's a good thing that some people are critical of climate change, even if they're wrong they encourage other scientists to ensure that their arguments are strong.
Posted by: Andrew G | February 4, 2007 5:27 PM
I think it's a good thing that some people are critical of climate change, even if they're wrong they encourage other scientists to ensure that their arguments are strong.
I agree completely, and that's why this sort of thing is so bad; it poisons the intellectual commons by bringing the motives and methods of one faction into disrepute.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | February 4, 2007 6:04 PM
My gut feeling is that it's only in the US that there is any controversy any more, and it's largely fueled by Exxon-Mobil's slush fund.
I don't know about that. I'd say most Americans just don't really care. I'm of the opinion that climate change is happening, and is at least partially man-made, but that any attempts to stop it right now will be too costly.
Given an expanding world economy and improving technology, the human-caused element will likely cease in another couple decades anyway.
Posted by: Andrew G | February 4, 2007 7:40 PM
Never mind about the cost of not stopping it, then.
Posted by: David | February 4, 2007 9:11 PM
Andrew, IIRC Michaels has become a paid political propagandist--hasn't published a peer-reviewed climatology paper in years. Christy is a satellite researcher who turned out to be wrong in his interpretation of satellite data and, again, is a political these days, though he may also is also doing some science. Balling I haven't looked into.
Charlie, the AEI, IIRC, is nearly a fascist think-tank; I think Alterman covered them some in his book, *What Liberal Media?*
Posted by: Randolph | February 4, 2007 9:25 PM
Did anyone see Panorama last week? Big drug company lying their heads off, with the help of apparently reputable scientists, over a drug which was not only dangerous, but wasn't working any better than placebos.
Here's the webpage with details
What makes Exxon Mobil worse is that they don't seem to care about civilisation. They're too dumb to realise that what they're doing may leave them with a huge pile of money, and nothing to spend it on.
Posted by: Dave Bell | February 4, 2007 9:54 PM
As to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, given the contemptible, craven, I-am-a-humble-dhimmi-bend-over-for-it lack of protection she was given in the Netherlands, she has to seek refuge where she can.
What a bunch of gutless wonders; she has more of 'em than the whole sorry lot. Tromp and Jan Coen and the Sea Beggars must be spinning in their graves.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 5, 2007 3:31 AM
Charlie: "I agree completely, and that's why this sort of thing is so bad; it poisons the intellectual commons by bringing the motives and methods of one faction into disrepute."
-- Charlie, considering the gross, politicized-hack attack-and-destroy response to any questioning of the "holy writ" on this an other environmental issues, the other side simply has no grounds for complaint when their methods come back at them, in spades and with good financing. My sympathy for their feelings of injury and persecution is underwhelming.
Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. What can you say about those who routinely attack the motives, honesty and intellect of their opponents, but then squeal like little girls when they get the same back? Apparently they feel entitled due to their subjective feelings of having good intentions.
Eg., look what happened to Bjorn Lomborg. Deliberate attempts at sabotage by what the attackers knew were lies, attempts to destroy his career, and so forth, and all for expressing honest dissent.
All because he challenged the bien-pensant consensus.
Pollution is a technical, technological problem, not a moral, religious or ethical one.
And in a world where China is burning more coal than the EU and the USA and Japan put together, and adding 8 megawatts of capacity EVERY DAY, those who think "Kyoto" is going to do anything at all are obviously living on another planet.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 5, 2007 3:46 AM
Never mind about the cost of not stopping it, then.
For the US, at least, the cost of not doing anything about climate change will most likely be much lower than the cost of trying to do something about it (at present). And people in the US know this, in the back of their minds if they don't consciously think about it.
The us is the wealthiest nation in the world, the most advanced, and the least vulnerable. We have huge areas of underused land, a low population, and almost all the resources we need. Add Canada to the equation, and and North America can withstand a great deal of alternation to the Earth's climate, far more than the worst case scenarios.
Posted by: Andrew G | February 5, 2007 4:51 AM
And I expect there to be a backlash, as faculties everywhere try to reassert their reputation for objectivity in research. Being tarred with the brush of oil industry money is going to cause academic credentials to be interrogated fiercely for the next few years.
For that little reward, yes. It'd probably take money on the order of that spent on drug and medical research to have the benefit be worth the lack of academic independence. It might be a little late to start spending on that scale, too.
Posted by: Carey | February 5, 2007 7:14 AM
SMS- I think its pretty well established that Lomborg basically engaged in dishonest dissent. i.e. dissenting by leaving out all the stuff that would show that your position was mince.
I agree that the attempt to get him done for dishonesty or whatever the precise phrase was, was over the top, but essentially, what he was engaged in was cherry picking and ignoring the realities of what he was commenting on.
Andrew G, you might want to make your paen to the USA a littl emore qualified, given that you have mined many of your resources out, not to mention problems with aquifers and rainfall and soil loss. Of course, your still in a better condition than say SOmalia.
Posted by: guthrie | February 5, 2007 9:31 AM
SO basically, SM Stirling, we should not bother saving for retirement because it's futile? Nice attitude.
There are more than two sides to the debate. There have allways been people like me who want to work construtively ans find ways to make being green profit for companies, so they will USE those methods. And yes, I'm pro-nuclear because it's far better for the environment - and it's far safer for Humans as well.
Pollution IS an ethical problem when one side has staked its ethical grounds on "if you try and tell us to be green, you are trying to destroy our profits".
Nice conflation of the screaming greens with everyone who's environmentalist, though.
And yes, AndrewG, if America conquered Canada it would be reasonable well off in the face of massive climate change...for a while.
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 5, 2007 10:49 AM
I don't know what all the fuss is about - it's hardly the first time an unpopular industry or interest group has hired `experts' to refute its detractors' point of view, and it wouldn't be the first time that scientists were willing to take the cash to do it. Sucky, yes; big surprise, no. ExMo do seem to want to do it on the cheap, though. Ten grand doesn't seem a lot for basically making yourself a scientific laughing stock.
Posted by: Dave Hutchinson | February 5, 2007 11:32 AM
RE Tenure: Yes, it was intended to make scholars (not just scientists) less susceptible to control by their own universities, and therefore more free to publish what they believed to be true. That's fine for those who already have tenure, but consider the politics of getting tenure. There's a set of people starting with your own department chairperson whom you have to satisfy as to your worthiness. The definition of worth is largely up to the the person doing the judging. You can imagine how that works out in terms of real-world institutional politics.
The granting or withholding of tenure can be used as a Damoclean sword for at least the two years of the candidate's second 3 year contract, the usual point at which tenure is offered in US universities. I've seen it used as part of a strategy for a new department head to clear out professors who antedated his reign, so they could be replaced by friends and cronies. In some ways university politics resembles medieval court intrigue.
One the flip side, some professors use it as a way to blow off their work without loss of income. Some just consider it early retirement, others use it as cover for a second career in consulting, or running startup companies developing technology licensed (or not) from the university.
So is it effective enough at preventing supression of academic freedom to be worth these occasional excesses? Well, maybe not. If a professor professes a position supported by his peers, not much will happen, even if the university administration wishes to supress those statements, as intended. But if the professor takes a position not supported, or actively opposed, by her peers, it's quite another story. Tenure affords no protection from attacks in the professional or public media, or political maneuvering within professional organizations. Sometimes the position is an incorrect or dishonest one, but does that make such attacks either ethical or acceptable as net-positive actions within the framework of academic freedom? Conversely, if the position is honest but misguided, or possibly correct, doesn't this openness to attack damage the structure of open discourse necessary for academic debate? In other words, is tenure even useful in protecting academic freedom in the face of current academic politics?
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | February 5, 2007 12:00 PM
Charlie, politics (and money) has always played a role in scientific inquiry. The hope was always that the political forces involved were sufficiently fragmented, and the amount of money involved for the individual scientist small enough, that the effect would not be great.
Neither of those conditions holds today. The political forces (in the US, fill this in with your own institutions for other countries) often include the Federal government, and often other governmental bodies, either in concert or opposition. The money may come from a pharmaceutical company with billions of $US at stake.
Scientific research has been seriously at risk since the first major influx of Federal money into shotgun biological research under Nixon in the 70's. The money is not aimed at specific research goals, it's aimed at general societal or political goals (cure cancer, design a missle defense system, etc.), so it becomes increasingly easy to divert money to unrelated research the scientist wants to do by adding the right buzzwords to the proposal, subverting accountability. And it becomes increasingly tempting to fake results, so you can get larger grants by preempting genuine research.
Add that university administrators will do almost anything for grant or endowment money, and research can be diverted or perverted in any number of ways.
For instance, and apropos of the discussion of tenure, one way for the administration to "persuade" an active researcher with tenure to take on work for a healthy gift to the university is to threaten to reduce facility support: move the researcher's lab to a broom closet, or have the instrument machinist become mysteriously busy when he needs something built. Yet another way money and politics affect science.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | February 5, 2007 12:21 PM
SMS: As to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, given the contemptible, craven, I-am-a-humble-dhimmi-bend-over-for-it lack of protection she was given in the Netherlands, she has to seek refuge where she could ...
You are aware that she lied on her original asylum application, I take it?
A point you may or may not have internalized is that while the Germans have a reputation for following rules, they're nothing compared to the Dutch.
Despite which, you might also want to note, the business over withdrawing her citizenship and forcing her to re-apply for asylum brought down the government. And she was promptly re-granted asylum. But by that time she'd figured out which side of the bread the butter was spread thickest over ...
The Netherlands aren't a terribly fun place to be Moslem right now, I gather. The Dutch reputation for tolerance drives straight into a reinforced concrete wall when confronted with overt intolerance: they get kind of scary. (But of course, this wouldn't make a worldview-reinforcing item for the particular line that the more alarmist right-wing US media are pushing, so it gets quietly overlooked.)
And in a world where China is burning more coal than the EU and the USA and Japan put together, and adding 8 megawatts of capacity EVERY DAY, those who think "Kyoto" is going to do anything at all are obviously living on another planet.
Now you're trying to shift the discussion! Bad boy. Nobody here's discussing Kyoto, we're discussing a large oil company paying sock-puppet lobbyists to build an astroturf propaganda campaign.
(The only good thing I'll say for the Kyoto treaty is that it's a start, and a wholly inadequate one that needs to be replaced by something more effective in short order. A re-evaluation of the usefulness of the Non-Proliferation Treaty would help; anything to help the spread of cheap-ish nuclear reactors to replace those goddamn brown-coal-burning stoves.)
Andrew G: For the US, at least, the cost of not doing anything about climate change will most likely be much lower ...
Think again. A huge proportion of your population live within 200 miles of the coastline. The land that's underutilized is underutilized for a reason -- it's less useful. And you may think you've got a small population, but they tend to spread out, don't they? All that cheap gas encouraging suburban sprawl over the past half-century has eaten up a lot of space.
As for the price arguments, if you want an argument on whether remediation is worth the cost, you might like to see the position H. M. Treasury take on the issue. Hint: they're not into spending money for the sake of it. Little statistical nuggets like 1.8 million of the UK population living in areas threatened by rising sea levels -- based on more conservative, pre-IPCC estimates of likely rises -- are not terribly amusing once you convert that into roughly £1Tn in housing costs (at current prices) or 3-4% of the population being turned into home less refugees.
Dave Hutchinson: I don't know what all the fuss is about ... it's very simple: if you lose the ability to get indignant about the little insults, they can run the big ones past you without undue problems. Worked for Goebbels, works for just about any well-organized propaganda campaign that goes unopposed. Get indignant and stay indignant, is my advice.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | February 5, 2007 12:50 PM
This letter was published in The Guardian today (http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2005907,00.html):
"In relation to your article, we wish to make it clear that ExxonMobil had no knowledge of the allegations made in the article. We fund the American Enterprise Institute for the purpose of promoting active policy debate, but we do not control their views or actions.
We are taking action on many fronts to address the risks of climate change. These include partnerships with vehicle manufacturers to reduce emissions, research, energy efficiency in our own refineries and supporting Stanford University's research to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Kenneth P Cohen
Vice-president, ExxonMobil, Texas, USA"
I have no idea how much of that is true.
Posted by: Dave Berry | February 5, 2007 1:11 PM
Regarding the economics of AGW, there's an interesting discussion at (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/01/stern-science/). I particularly like this comment:
"Question: If we could save the world from a 100% certain total destruction of the whole infrastructure in 2057 in a way that would cost 10% of it's total value, would it be profitable to do the investment and save the world?
If we use a moderate 5% interest rate in our calculation, the answer is clearly no! We should not save the world infrastructure 0f 2057, it costs too much today. The present day discounted value of the world infrastucture in 2057 (when I am 100 years old and probably in my grave), is only 8.72% of it's total value in 2057 and less than the calculated 10% (of the total value) required investment today. So we decide not to save the world infrastructure.
If the doom was about in 2107, using the same calculations, it would not be "profitable" to use even 1% of the total value of the future infrastructure to save it today. I hope you check my calculations, discounting is relatively easy and fundamental to profitability analysis the economists regularly use to give their expert opinions."
The ensuing discussion shows that the arguments can be more complicated than that (as one would expect). But this does give an insight into what sort of questions we should be asking if someone says that dealing with climate change now would be "too expensive".
Posted by: Dave Berry | February 5, 2007 1:29 PM
Sorry, Charlie, I phrased that poorly. I just meant to say that I didn't find it all that surprising if AEI, on ExMo's behalf, had started hiring their own greenhouse deniers - not that it didn't piss me off.
I'd never heard of AEI before; it does sound properly spooky, doesn't it?
Posted by: Dave Hutchinson | February 5, 2007 1:43 PM
A huge proportion of your population live within 200 miles of the coastline. The land that's underutilized is underutilized for a reason -- it's less useful.
That's not true -- the US is a former colony, our population settlement patterns are a result of that. We essentially started out on the coasts, and spread inward from there. The legacy of that is that much of our cultural, financial, and industrial apparatus are on the coasts. That's changing though, there's a great deal of "insourcing" going on where businesses and industries move to the much cheaper interior states.
There's tons of good land in the middle of the country. And apart from the Southwest, enough resources to handle the population. California depends on water from Arizona and Nevada for instance, it would be much more environmentally sound if they all moved to Kansas and Oklahoma.
A sea level rise of 20 feet would be terrible, it's true, but the US could handle it much better than any other region, especially Europe or Asia. We'd have 100 million people or so that would likely need to move, but as long as it didn't all happen at once it would probably be an economic boost for us.
And yes, AndrewG, if America conquered Canada it would be reasonable well off in the face of massive climate change...for a while.
No one's talking about invading Canada. Our economies are so intertwined that it makes sense to view North America as a single unit in this case. Who else are they going to sell their resources to?
Andrew G, you might want to make your paen to the USA a littl emore qualified, given that you have mined many of your resources out, not to mention problems with aquifers and rainfall and soil loss.
I'm not sure where you get your information from. There are regions of the world that can produce certain resources more cheaply, or in higher quantity, but that hardly means we've mined ours out. And water problems are mainly regional, and tied to overpopulation in a few urban areas. Miami and LA are the big offenders. And it's possible that radical climate change could boost rainfall...
Posted by: Andrew G. | February 5, 2007 2:39 PM
Andrew: while some of what you say makes sense, the statement about mining resources is misleading. The US hasn't mined-out all its mineral resources, but it has mined-out most of the high-concentration sources, those that are extractable at relatively low cost. For instance, the one source of high-grade iron ore in the US, the Iron Range of Minnesota, probably still has gigatons of iron, but it's not as conveniently extractable as was the ore that's already been taken out. It's only now that China has created a huge new market for iron that mining has begun again; the domestic market (which hasn't shrunk) has not been large enough to warrant mining for more than 30 years.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | February 5, 2007 3:20 PM
Thanks for the nice evaluation of Holland. Appreciate it...
Posted by: Cornelis Alderlieste | February 5, 2007 5:23 PM
AndrewG,
You're assuming a resource abundant scenario on one hand (than Canada will continue to export) and a resource scarce situation on the other (that America's resources will be depleted). Um.
And climate change is ALLREADY boosting rainfall. It rains more than ever. It's just storms are increasingly, in many weather systems, staying at sea. Or only the more violent ones - and more of those - are reaching the land in others.
(Hence, rain failures in some countries and more big violent storms hitting America)
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 5, 2007 6:17 PM
AndrewG:
Sorry, seeing the forest past the trees doesn't generally happen for me until well after the second cup of coffee, and I tried to reply to your post after the first. So here's a more general comment than the last.
The cost for the US of ignoring climate change will be low only if the rest of the world makes no change in its trade position relative to the US. It's not likely there'll be no change; Europe, at least will enact sanctions to punish and/or persuade the US to go along with their climate change initiatives. I expect that the net result on the US will depend largely on what China does, since they're the US' largest trade partner, and this will only get more so over time, and to some extent what the Southern Hemisphere nations, especially Argentina and Chile do.
The Southerners matter because the cost of ignoring climate change is low only if this means little change in the lives and consumption habits of the majority of citizens of the US. For obvious example, when the price of gasoline spikes, there are cries for change. If Argentina refuses to sell us beef, or hikes the price with a punitive tariff, or if Chile does the same with winter fruit and vegetables, America's dinner table will notice.
Currently, raising beef in the US is a losing proposition, partly due to competition from Argentina and Australia, and partly due to the severe winter storms of the last three years. And many ranchers have had to sell off large parts of their stock at a loss to cover the sharp increase in hay prices recently. They won't recover from these effects for four or five years, assuming there are no more storms or increases in fodder prices (not likely).
So, if the US loses access to low-priced foreign beef, it will mean a sharp increase in beef prices that will last for several years until the US herds return to a size that can supply most of the country's demand.
Similarly for South American produce. The Pacific Northwest produces a large part of the world supply of apples, but there's no apple growing season in the winter, and people have become used to having apples (and lettuce, and pears, and grapes, and ...) in the off-seasons. They'll be pissed if they can't.
Of such disapproval is policy change made.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers | February 5, 2007 7:40 PM
And yes, AndrewG, if America conquered Canada it would be reasonable well off in the face of massive climate change...for a while.
Because the US is immune to the effects of, say, temperature changes in the Carribean? How's New Orleans doing?
Posted by: Tony Quirke | February 5, 2007 8:03 PM
How's New Orleans doing?
A lot worse than it would be if it didn't have crooks & idiots running it.... New Orleans doesn't have problems caused by the environment, it problems are entirely man made.
Posted by: Andrew G. | February 5, 2007 8:14 PM
Charlie: "The Netherlands aren't a terribly fun place to be Moslem right now, I gather."
-- well, boo-hoo. Gee, I bet they can't so much as murder a film director (or their sisters) or cut up a little girl's genitals without some _faranji_ interfering with their sacred culture. That's no fun at all! And the wicked imperialist gunboats made them abolish slavery, too.
Words cannot _express_ my cold lack of sympathy.
Why is it that when some people come right out and say: WE ARE GOING TO DESTROY YOU, STINKING CHRISTIAN AND JEW DOGS -- OH, AND RAPE ALL YOUR WHORE-SLUT WOMEN TOO. HAVE A NICE DAY, INFIDEL SCUM, AND DEATH TO YOU ALL...
... other people refuse to do them the courtesy of taking them precisely at their word?
When someone says he's my enemy, I believe him. Then I kill him first.
In dealing with enemies, the only sensible attidue is that expressed in the Talmud, Tractate Sanheidrin: "If a man come up against thee, to kill thee, rise up and kill him first."
"The Dutch reputation for tolerance drives straight into a reinforced concrete wall when confronted with overt intolerance: they get kind of scary."
-- and so they should!
Tolerance only applies to those who accept it themselves, and as a principle, not as a tactic; just as democratic rules only apply to those who accept them, and as principles, not tactics.
It's not a suicide pact.
The intolerant have no basis for complaint when they get fed their own medicine. They don't get to try applying their rules and then appeal to ours when caught.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 5, 2007 10:11 PM
Bruce Cohen: "The cost for the US of ignoring climate change will be low only if the rest of the world makes no change in its trade position relative to the US. It's not likely there'll be no change; Europe, at least will enact sanctions to punish and/or persuade the US to go along"
-- snigger, hoot, guffaw. The mice will get together and solemnly debate about how to bell the cat... chortle, chortle.
News flash: even the _Port of New York_ now does more business with Asia than Europe.
A bunch of aging, declining, increasingly irrelevant societies -- critically and increasingly dependent on exports for their very lives as their changing age-ratios freeze their ability to expand internal markets -- are going to trash their own staggering economies to try and force _us_ to do something we don't want? When we can hurt them infinitely more than they can hurt us anytime we decide to apply the pilers to the testicles?
Not.
"If Argentina refuses to sell us beef, or hikes the price with a punitive tariff, or if Chile does the same with winter fruit and vegetables, America's dinner table will notice."
-- uh... and who else are they going to sell to, precisely? The land of the Common Agricultural Policy, and home of the protectionist butter, veggie and beef mountains? The nannyist imbeciles who keep trying -- futilely, granted -- to control their use of genetically modified plants?
The Chinese (remember that 8 megawatts a day?) will probably buy some, though.
Again, they're far more vulnerable than we are.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 5, 2007 10:24 PM
Bruce,
The EU seems to be having trouble dealing with the habit the Russian Federation has of playing games with the pipelines delivering oil and natural gas to Western Europe. When will the develop the political cohesion to enact the measures you describe against the USA?
I'm not trying to troll with this, The EU does seem to be gaining that type of unity. When do you think it will be ready to do something along the lines you descirbed?
Posted by: Steven Rogers | February 5, 2007 11:47 PM
Steve,
OK, if it's the case that Europe can't do anything to the US, and the US doesn't give a rip about anything that Europe does, why is the US ever willing to take trade disputes to the WTO, and accept rulings against it?
Sure, the US could do anything it wanted, but it's been doing less of that than you'd expect lately, especially since the administration's stated position on international cooperation is exactly what you described: "you cooperate with us, and we do what we please."
Posted by: Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers | February 6, 2007 12:05 AM
Steven Rogers,
When will Europe develop the cohesion to work against the US as a unit, or against Russia for that matter?
Maybe they won't. But then again, maybe if they really start believing that they're all going to drown, maybe they will. Remember what Samuel Johnson said about the effect of knowing you're going to die soon.
The point I was making was that I don't think the cost of ignoring climate change is as small or as ignorable as Americans assume.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers | February 6, 2007 12:10 AM
SMS,
Sorry, I didn't notice that i had comments from 2 different Steves.
I'm not convinced it's going to work out like that, but assume for a second that it does. What happens to the dynamic of international relations when China's population begins to gray? They've been sitting hard on population growth for 30 years now (and they're willing to be a lot more draconian about it than just about anyone else). Looks to me like in about 15 or 20 years they're going to be in the same spot that Europe is now, and up there where Japan is in less than 30 years.
It occurrs to me that the likely reaction China will have to a graying population is to start calling in the US debt they hold. That should result in some real fun and games!
Posted by: Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers | February 6, 2007 12:17 AM
When we can hurt them infinitely more than they can hurt us anytime we decide to apply the pilers to the testicles?
What are you going to refuse to sell us, exactly? GM soybeans? Financial services? Premium content? Incontinence pads? Or will you attack us if we keep expressing cynicism about your abiding hegemonic urges and declining to participate in your catastrophically ill-advised plans for assaults on insubordinate middle-eastern countries?
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 6, 2007 1:22 AM
In dealing with enemies, the only sensible attidue is that expressed in the Talmud, Tractate Sanheidrin: "If a man come up against thee, to kill thee, rise up and kill him first."
Osama would happily say the same thing. Since the modern West has killed considerably more Muslims than the other way round, the Stirling Doctrine seems to justify Muslim atacks on the West...
Posted by: Tony Quirke | February 6, 2007 1:25 AM
So far as Ayaan Hirsi Ali lying in order to gain asylum, according to wikipedia she came clean on that back in 2002. That's four years before the Dutch government made an issue out of the matter. Clearly, something was going on in Dutch internal politics that made her look like an attractive target for somebody.
Posted by: Steven Rogers | February 6, 2007 1:28 AM
Words cannot _express_ my cold lack of sympathy.
I'd have more sympathy for Van Gogh if he hadn't refused police protection. There is such a thing as culpable negligence.
Why is it that when some people come right out and say: WE ARE GOING TO DESTROY YOU, STINKING CHRISTIAN AND JEW DOGS -- OH, AND RAPE ALL YOUR WHORE-SLUT WOMEN TOO. HAVE A NICE DAY, INFIDEL SCUM, AND DEATH TO YOU ALL...
... other people refuse to do them the courtesy of taking them precisely at their word?
Because some people just entertain colourful revenge fantasies. Ever hear of the Ghost Dance? Thirty feet of soil was going to bury all the white men. Sounds like a Caliphate to me.
When someone says he's my enemy, I believe him. Then I kill him first.
Or perhaps you just...vote for Bush.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 6, 2007 2:11 AM
Bruce C: "OK, if it's the case that Europe can't do anything to the US, and the US doesn't give a rip about anything that Europe does, why is the US ever willing to take trade disputes to the WTO, and accept rulings against it?"
-- because it's more convenient in routine matters. Attempts to infringe on American sovereignty would not, to understate, be minor matters.
Infringing on sovereignty is grounds for _war_. A healthy society and people in a position to do so responds to such meddling with a nice loud roar of carnivore aggression, followed by violence if necessary.
Demands and interference are hobbies for the strong, not the weak.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 6, 2007 3:15 AM
Adrian Smith: "I'd have more sympathy for Van Gogh if he hadn't refused police protection. There is such a thing as culpable negligence."
-- so... let me get this straight... he's supposed to live under house arrest for exercising his right to free speech in his own country?
Or he should censor himself?
And those careless women who go out in short skirts just deserved to get raped, eh? At least, that's what a 'prominent Muslim cleric" in Australia just said. (He referred to them as "uncovered meat", IIRC.)
Don't think so. Pity Van Gogh didn't have a gat on him, though; he certainly needed one, not a policeman arriving ten minutes later.
"Because some people just entertain colourful revenge fantasies."
-- blowing up skyscrapers in New York seems rather more than a fantasy to me. And the London Underground comes to mind for some reason.
"Ever hear of the Ghost Dance? Thirty feet of soil was going to bury all the white men."
-- yeah, and we responded to that with machine guns and Springfields until the point was driven home firmly.
The moral of the story is: don't make threats you can't carry out. And if you do, don't feel aggrieved when you're taken at your word and the full force of your enemy's iron fist smashes your skull and splatters your brains down ten yards of bad road.
It's an educational process. You make it very clear that threatening or attacking you results in Really Really Bad Things happening to those who do so.
"Or perhaps you just...vote for Bush."
-- actually I'm a registered Democrat and vote the straight party ticket; I intend to vote for Hillary Clinton next time.
But in fact, I practice what I preach. The last time someone threatened my life and tried to kill me, I killed him. Granted, that was 30-odd years ago and in another country.
I see no reason why this maxim should not be applied on both the personal and collective level.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 6, 2007 3:30 AM
Bruce Cohen: "What happens to the dynamic of international relations when China's population begins to gray?"
-- the median age in China is already about 33, and rising very quickly. It'll pass the US (about 35) within the next couple of years and the number of Chinese turning 18 has already started to fall quickly, resulting in the first labor shortages (masked by the swift rural-urban migration).
TFR's in China dropped below the replacement level in the 1980's and kept right on falling. In urban areas they're down to Italian or Spanish levels, only they dropped much more quickly from much higher starting points. A demographic transition that took 150 years in Europe was compressed into about 30 in China.
For 20 years, this gives you a "sweet spot" as the dependency ratio goes down (fewer infants born, not many old people yet) and the percentage of people of working age goes up.
Then you hit the brick wall. The one with the long sharp spikes in it.
The Chinese are just finishing moving through the "sweet spot" and getting into the "brick wall" stage. 64% of their people are between 17 and 64. Now the number over 64 starts to rise inexorably, and then the huge generations born at high fertility levels in the 50's, 60's and 70's reaches retirement age.
With only the ever-smaller birth cohorts born since the 80's to support them.
Which shows you what all the "rise of China" stuff is worth. Soon China will have Japan's demographics... _without_ Japan's accumulated wealth.
"It occurrs to me that the likely reaction China will have to a graying population is to start calling in the US debt they hold."
-- no, precisely the opposite.
The economic symptom of a falling population is deflation.
Demand collapses -- that's a big reason why Japan has been sputtering every time it tries to rise from the mats the last 15 years, and increasingly Germany too.
Countries with falling populations have to _export_. And running a surplus on your current account is exactly equivalent to exporting capital; they're two sides of the same coin.
Conversely a country with a brisk rise in internal demand tends to _import_ capital (and goods). The US characteristically has had a negative net balance of trade throughout most of its history.
Higher demand, faster growth, high imports of capital and goods.
China has been trying to develop on an export-led model suited to small countries like Taiwan or South Korea, and it's going to screw them good and proper. Just when they need to ratchet up internal demand (because there's a limit to what you can export) the aging of the workforce will start putting structural downward pressure on demand.
Result? More Chinese goods (and money) going abroad, worldwide pressure on prices.
Not a good sign for countries in the same position... like, for example, most of Europe.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 6, 2007 3:56 AM
I didn't really want to get into an arguement about how great or villainous the US is...
My point was to attempt to explain some if the US's attitudes on Climate Change and the environment in general. Basically, Americans are moderately concerned but not willing to go to any great expense to do anything about it at the moment. The simple reason being, that out of all of the peoples in the world, Americans will be hurt the least. They may be hurt quite a lot, but you can bet that everyone else will be hurting more.
The best the rest of the world can do is to persuade Americans to come around to their way of thinking, or else deal with climate change without the US and China. Attempts at extortion like France's recent suggestion that trade sanctions be put in place against non-Kyoto nations won't work. It's extortion for one thing, and it's the sort of foreign meddling an arrogance than Americans have a natural distaste for. Not to mention that the loosers in a trade war between the US and Europe would be mainly Germany and the UK, so it's not very nice of France to try and start one. The NAFTA block can supply most of what the US needs, and China supplies the rest plus a bunch of low cost consumer goods that we don't really need.
Posted by: Andrew G | February 6, 2007 3:56 AM
If one is looking for discussions of the economics of global warming more reliable than Lomborg's, one might try Stern or Nordhaus; Brad Delong's discussion of Nordhaus's position provides an entry point into these quite extensive technical arguments. Generally, I lean towards Stern for two rather subtle reasons: (1) for historical reasons, the mathematics of economics does not model dramatic change well, and economists therefore have trouble thinking about it; and (2) economists assume that growth is "natural" and unending and that is unrealistic.
Lomborg treated the scientific data very poorly; as far as I can tell he's another political and, in fact, has a Poli Sci background rather than a background in the physical or biological sciences. He's still around, btw; being a propagandist means never having to say "I was wrong", I guess.
Scientific American critique, w. Lomborg's responses:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00000B96-9517-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF
Grist magazine articles:
http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/search.pl?query=lomborg&submit.x=0&submit.y=0
(the ones from 12 Dec 2001 issue are most of the critical ones.)
Posted by: Randolph Fritz | February 6, 2007 7:36 AM
Conversely a country with a brisk rise in internal demand tends to _import_ capital (and goods). The US characteristically has had a negative net balance of trade throughout most of its history.
Higher demand, faster growth, high imports of capital and goods.
So that's alright then. The EU will be able to cruise along gracefully due to its investments in the US, and the US worker can carry the load.
Posted by: Tony Quirke | February 6, 2007 8:06 AM
-- so... let me get this straight... he's supposed to live under house arrest for exercising his right to free speech in his own country?
I think the Dutch police actually *come with you* when you go out. Astounding, I know.
Or he should censor himself?
I was thinking more along the lines of not ignoring death threats. "No one would kill me - I'm just a clown", he's supposed to have said. Can't have studied the religion he was having a go at very carefully IMO.
-- blowing up skyscrapers in New York seems rather more than a fantasy to me.
Feh, that was just the low-hanging fruit. They're kind of stuck with a case of Second Album Syndrome now, at least as far as attacks in America go. But ObL sounds like he plays a long game.
And the London Underground comes to mind for some reason.
The British can take that sort of thing without going all New Paradigm about it. Though if I was a Muslim-looking guy wanting to carry a big rucksack on public transport now I think I'd be prepared to show my fellow passengers what was in it.
-- yeah, and we responded to that with machine guns and Springfields until the point was driven home firmly.
Bury my heart (and anything else you can find) at Wounded Knee, innit. That wasn't you, it was your ancestors/predecessors. A different and much harder bunch of people.
The moral of the story is: don't make threats you can't carry out. And if you do, don't feel aggrieved when you're taken at your word and the full force of your enemy's iron fist smashes your skull and splatters your brains down ten yards of bad road.
Hey, I thought I was in one of your books for a moment there.
It's an educational process. You make it very clear that threatening or attacking you results in Really Really Bad Things happening to those who do so.
So...when? You've attacked Afghanistan and got bored with it, and it's going to shit. You've attacked Iraq and messed around with it, and it's going to shit.
Is Iran going to be the beginning of the real "lesson"?
I intend to vote for Hillary Clinton next time.
Don't think she's quite electable myself.
Granted, that was 30-odd years ago and in another country.
Ooo.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 6, 2007 9:06 AM
S.M. Stirling, I think you've missed something. Your internal market is modern and mature. Europe's is..not any longer. It's a vast free-trade zone with massive internal investment opportunities. Exporting for the European economies is now a LOT easier than even three years ago.
And sure, your thinking is why America banned gambling - it's going to bite when countries start ignoring American IP as a result. And yes, that probably IS when the fan hits. Of course, if you take your eye off Asia, China might just do somethiong nasty with Taiwan's trade routes. So...
Steven Rogers, which countries? Because the directly affected countries are not EU members, or even anything close to full candidate status.
Adrian Smith, so...point me to the countries ruled by Saddam or the Taliban recently. Thanks!
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 6, 2007 1:07 PM
The last time someone threatened my life and tried to kill me, I killed him. Granted, that was 30-odd years ago and in another country.
I see no reason why this maxim should not be applied on both the personal and collective level.
And you haven't stopped masturbating about it yet. Congratulations. I know people who did the Arctic convoys. None of them insist on behaving with your utter lack of dignity.
Posted by: Alex | February 6, 2007 1:14 PM
By the way, if you want to talk economics and demography, perhaps it would be worth mentioning that US median age is not currently skyrocketing because of....immigration!
Posted by: Alex | February 6, 2007 1:26 PM
Adrian Smith, so...point me to the countries ruled by Saddam or the Taliban recently
So what, if they're going to shit? Sounds like nostalgia for both is increasing. In any case, neither of them attacked you, even if with hindsight the Taliban would have been wise to be more enthusiastic about handing over someone who actually *had*. Mr Stirling's point was, if I do not misinterpret him, that you descend with the much-feared fist of iron upon those who "threaten or attack you". Humanitarian missions to save beleaguered peoples from tyranny are all very well if their quality of life shows signs of improvement, otherwise scepticism may creep in, alas.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 6, 2007 1:50 PM
By the way, if you want to talk economics and demography, perhaps it would be worth mentioning that US median age is not currently skyrocketing because of....immigration!
America's immigrants mostly have the advantage of not being Muslim...
Posted by: George Carty | February 6, 2007 1:53 PM
So what, if those polities were a danger to themselves and to others? Oh, and Saddam WAS funding Palestian militants (directly and indirectly) who attacked my people (Frankly, Abbass would be in a shallow grave by now if Saddam had still been in power).
That the American troops were not trained to fight a peace...is quite beyond my control. British troops ARE, and they have not had anything like the issues. Perhaps that's an issue you might want to take up.
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 6, 2007 2:01 PM
So what, if those polities were a danger to themselves and to others?
Whatever, but that wasn't what I was discussing with Mr. Stirling.
Oh, and Saddam WAS funding Palestian militants (directly and indirectly) who attacked my people
The idea that American foreign policy should focus on Israel's interests is certainly an intriguing one.
British troops ARE, and they have not had anything like the issues. Perhaps that's an issue you might want to take up.
They'd have had a lot more problems if they'd been assigned Sunni areas, though they probably would have been less heavy-handed. But they want out now, on the grounds that they feel they're doing more harm than good by staying.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 6, 2007 2:27 PM
Andrew Crystall,
What countries? Germany seems to be affected. At least, What little news about the pipeline problems that show up this side of the water mentioned that Germanys' natural gas supply was impacted.
Posted by: Steven Rogers | February 6, 2007 2:57 PM
Adrian Smith, please provide a link to said assertion by a current British military strategist, and not an purely armchair one either. You are projecting your desires onto a situation, basically.
It's allways heartwarming to see the isolationists at work, I should add. Don't worry, they'll be taking over America shortly so they won't prod us so much.
And I'd point out that Israel as one on America's strategic allies IS a consideration in planning. Not to mention a there is a portion of the American electorate who are Jewish (and because of deomographics, quite a powerful one).
Steven Rogers, yes, Germany is having some issues mostly due to some very old agreements and equipment. There's a lot of political pressure to resolve that, and it likely will within a year. Russia is seen as being basically very heavy handed over this, and there's little patience for it in Europe anymore.
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 6, 2007 3:04 PM
Adrian Smith, please provide a link to said assertion by a current British military strategist, and not an purely armchair one either.
Ten seconds on Google later: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6046332.stm (from 13 October 2006)
You are projecting your desires onto a situation, basically.
Projecting projection - is that metaprojection or just recursive projection?
Posted by: FungiFromYuggoth | February 6, 2007 7:24 PM
Gee do you think that S.M.Stirling posts are tongue in cheek?
Posted by: Derrick Knight | February 6, 2007 11:50 PM
Adrian Smith, please provide a link to said assertion by a current British military strategist,
(thanks to FfY) But I dunno, the unelected head of the British Army isn't necessarily going to represent the views of the ordinary Brit squaddie, who may be behind Tony Blair 110% on this one.
It's allways heartwarming to see the isolationists at work, I should add.
Who's an isolationist? There are ways to relate to foreign countries other than by occupying them.
And I'd point out that Israel as one on America's strategic allies IS a consideration in planning.
A totally informal alliance, isn't it? But there comes a time when one has to admit that the tail might be wagging the dog.
Not to mention a there is a portion of the American electorate who are Jewish (and because of deomographics, quite a powerful one).
Only because of demographics?
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 7, 2007 1:13 AM
Keep in mind, the US is the largest Jewish country in the world. Nearly half of all the Jews in the world live here...
Still, they're only about 2% of the population and aren't unified in their level of support for Israel. Also, slightly more muslims live in the US.
In the US a large degree of support for Israel actually comes from conservative Christians, for reasons of their own.
Posted by: Andrew G | February 7, 2007 1:46 AM
In the 70's we had global cooling and mass starvation, now we have global warming and mass evacuations, in another 20 years I think we will have global cooling again, since it seems the sun radiation pattern is changing again.
The Earth has more pressing problems like tyranny and corruption in quite a large part of the world, but as we all know that "noninterference in internal affairs" is the holy writ of international politics today, so it's better to howl at straw dangers that no one will do anything anyway about...
C.
Posted by: conrad | February 7, 2007 2:08 AM
For those of you who think the US is the only big and powerful country that has a strong anti-warming crowd, look into what some of the Russian scientists are saying.
Apparently, they've taken insolation variability much more seriously than most of the Western climate zealots (a lot of the bigger global warming cheerleaders seem to believe that insolation is a constant - it's not).
Some very clever folks have looked at sunspot cycles, and are suggesting that the warming trend might reverse much sooner than expected... as soon as 2050, by some predictions.
This work has enough support in Russia that they're actually doing long-term planning in case we get another Little Ice Age, since it will affect Russia much more than any of the more powerful countries, and since global warming is almost certainly going to be a huge benefit for Russia (they get a thawed Siberia, a completely ice-free northern coast, and a host of other good things, with very few bad side effects).
Of course, one of the big Stupid Assumptions about global warming is that technology will stand still for most of the next century or so, and that we won't change to new and better power sources until forced to by some World Government bureaucrats.
Note also that the "bad" companies like Exxon are actually fairly "green" when compared to the "good" ones like BP (which keeps running some of the dirtiest refineries in the world), and that some of the others (like Shell) aren't going into alt-energy out of the goodness of their hearts, but because their oil-exploration contracts have fallen through and they can't get access to the more profitable new fields.
Posted by: cirby | February 7, 2007 3:05 AM
Alex: And you haven't stopped masturbating about it yet. Congratulations. I know people who did the Arctic convoys. None of them insist on behaving with your utter lack of dignity.
-- thank you for the confession of intellectual bankruptcy and physical cowardice... 8-).
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 7, 2007 4:40 AM
Alex: By the way, if you want to talk economics and demography, perhaps it would be worth mentioning that US median age is not currently skyrocketing because of....immigration!
-- actually, no, for the most part it's not due to immigration. The main reason is the slow but steady increase in birth-rates here since the 1970's. The state (Vermont) with the lowest TFR today has about what the whole nation did in the late 1970's -- about 1.6-1.7
And no, that isn't due to immigration, either; or to be more precise, about 1/3 of it is due to immigration and about 1/3 to higher fertility among some groups of the native-born.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 7, 2007 4:46 AM
"Still, they're only about 2% of the population and aren't unified in their level of support for Israel. Also, slightly more muslims live in the US."
-- actually, that's not true; you see it all over the place, but it's one of those self-perpetuating memes that once released spring up like bindweed.
The source is an Islamic group which evidently just picked the figure out of the air so they could say there were as many of them as of the Jews. Typical trouble with the reality principle.
It's rather like the Palestinian Authority figures for the West Bank and Gaza... which turned out to be too high by about 1.5 million and rising. (Figures in error because of double counting, unchecked assumptions that turned out to be wrong but weren't corrected, and plain lying.)
In truth there are probably about 2 million Muslims in the US, not 6 million.
Posted by: S.M. Stirling | February 7, 2007 4:53 AM
Keep in mind, the US is the largest Jewish country in the world. Nearly half of all the Jews in the world live here...
Indeed, but in view of the 2% of the population they represent this is kind of swerving around the question of how the lobby manages to punch so far above its weight.
In the US a large degree of support for Israel actually comes from conservative Christians, for reasons of their own.
Hey, we're back to the Rapture again. You might want to read the fine print in that eschatology, some of it isn't too respectful of the cultural/ethnic autonomy of certain people.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 7, 2007 7:16 AM
Well, no, now that you mention it there is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, too ...
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | February 7, 2007 7:17 AM
And both of you sound like the last few seconds of recess in third grade as everyone tries to have the last insult. But don't stop on our account, it's highly entertaining.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | February 7, 2007 7:23 AM
Bury my heart (and anything else you can find) at Wounded Knee, innit. That wasn't you, it was your ancestors/predecessors. A different and much harder bunch of people.
Oh, I dunno. When Custer bit the big one at Greasy Grass, didn't they collectively wet themselves, create a Dept of Homeland Security and sign away their civil rights in exchange for the illusion of more security?
Oh, no, wait - they didn't.
Posted by: Tony Quirke | February 7, 2007 7:37 AM
This might be of interest - a short FT article on Heinsohn's theory of the youth bulge (demographic influence on a society's disposition to violence), which I found via rassef-w:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/652fa2f6-9d2a-11db-8ec6-0000779e2340.html
I think he's wrong about why the European democracies don't wage war against each other anymore (I think it's due to heaviness of weaponry), but the rest of it makes a lot of sense.
Cheers,
Posted by: Elethiomel | February 7, 2007 8:32 AM
Well, no, now that you mention it there is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, too ...
That's the Elders of AIPAC to you, my lad. But really, I'd just never heard of demographics as a reason. Are they all supposed to be childfree boomers or something? That might make them weigh in at 3% or so, relatively speaking.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 7, 2007 12:16 PM
Cirby, you mean like, oh, nuclear. Unless the government forces it, there WON'T be a switch.
Adrian Smith, depends what you mean by "informal". If there's a treaty explicitly stating America will defend Israel, no. But Israel gets lots of exceptions and free trade considerations.
And no, it's no secret why American Jews "punch above their weight" - demographics (key concentrations in certain cites) and campaign funding. And the Otherdox Jewish population has a LOT of children. (Although a lot drift away to the Conservatives, who have less, so it's not as-rapid as it might be)
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 7, 2007 1:08 PM
Tony Quirke,
I think they did collectively wet themselves, but Homeland Security? Signing away their rights? No, they took much more direct action than that. Take a good hard look at what happened to the Plains Indians in the the three years following Greasy Grass. I don't think the American people are currently capable of that kind of ruthlessness.
That could change. One of the dynamics of terrorism is, how do you top what the other terrorists did last year? When the day comes that somebody tops the destruction of the World Trde Center... well, we'll see.
Posted by: Steven Rogers | February 7, 2007 1:32 PM
Adrian Smith, depends what you mean by "informal". If there's a treaty explicitly stating America will defend Israel, no.
That would be what I meant, yes. I find the exception interesting. It certainly makes things much more flexible.
And no, it's no secret why American Jews "punch above their weight" - demographics (key concentrations in certain cites)
Ah right, that's a broader definition of demographics than what I'm used to. I realise that that's given them a lot of influence over the Dems historically.
and campaign funding.
True, but it still doesn't seem like enough.
PR-wise, I've always thought that the Israelis have managed to present themselves as a version of America's "lost youth" - hardy, virile frontier spirits making the desert bloom (by draining aquifers) and clearing the land of swarthy native peoples who had been making pitifully inefficient use of it. On top of an unhealthy dose of survivor guilt this triggered a visceral identification with Israel which continues to this day. In fact, it's hard to imagine what would shift it, other than (say) Israel somehow dragging America into something a lot more unpleasant than sad little Iraq.
Fortunately, there are no such scenarios on the horizon.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 7, 2007 2:38 PM
Adrian,
I think you are pretty much dead-on. Many Americans do project a lot of the Wild West motif on the Middle East - without allowing for the fact that the Arabs are a hell of a lot more resilient than the Siberian-Americans were.
Plus, I think open loud support of Israel is used to mask anti-semitism in the US. I have heard lots of people (inculding some of my relatives) trumpet their support of Israel as proof that they are not anti-Jew. In spite of observed behavior to the contrary.
Posted by: Steven Rogers | February 7, 2007 2:49 PM
It's been said that the Khrushchev-era Soviet Union fell for Cuba as comprehensively as it did because it reminded the politburo of their revolutionary youth. In a sense, Israel may represent an analogous phenomenon for the US. Certainly it did for the Western left up to about 1970.
Posted by: Alex | February 7, 2007 2:51 PM
Adrian, PR wise Israel does really really poorly. This is a mix of insisting on using young Isralies (whose understanding of Western culture is often somewhat limited) for PR, and neopotism in the selection of said PR officials.
The Palestian PR machine is a LOT more slick. Usually.
The image you've got is...er...biased. During the War of Independence, a lot of Palestians fled Jewish forces (Nearly 750,000 stayed, mind you, and they and their families are full citizens of Israel today),
That land has been improved, eys, some of it due to technology, but a lot simply due to land recovery from the sorry state the Ottomans left Israel in ~1900 (mass deforestation, etc.).
And the Isralie goverment has repeatedly offered as part of an overall peace deal payment to the refugees for that land - on the current usage value, even when it was desert.
The "right of return" is a red herring which cannot pass in Israel, and is a Palestian leadership tactic for derailing talks. Israel, by offering payment, is doing all international law requires, incidentally.
And no, there is no such scenario. Lebanon was a mess, American involvement was limited to logistics and orbital pictures, though.
(Jordan? The King is firmly in favour of the economic benefits of trade with Israel. Egypt? Likewise, although they do sometimes posture. Syria? Can't hope to take the Golan Heights. Lebanon? Think we saw that one. Iran? If they nuke Israel, they'd get a response in kind. I don't think the Iranian leaders are THAT mad)
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 7, 2007 5:03 PM
I think you are pretty much dead-on. Many Americans do project a lot of the Wild West motif on the Middle East - without allowing for the fact that the Arabs are a hell of a lot more resilient than the Siberian-Americans were.
Also, strength(Islam) > strength(Christianity) >> strength(American Indian religions)
Posted by: George Carty | February 7, 2007 5:29 PM
Cirby, you mean like, oh, nuclear. Unless the government forces it, there WON'T be a switch.
You do realize that most of the reason we don't have a lot of nuclear in the Western countries right now is because of badly-written government regulations holding it back, right?
Sure, there needs to be some solid and tough rules for something as potentially dangerous as nuclear power, but what we have now is pretty pathetic. With our current industrial base, we could have a hundred pebble-bed reactors up and running within five years if we wanted, not to mention the potential of the thorium reactor designs for less-dangerous byproducts.
But... there's all of these Byzantine rules and regs that all new nuke plants have to follow, even if they aren't vulnerable to the sorts of risks those rules are designed to address.
Posted by: cirby | February 7, 2007 9:53 PM
Cirby, and those rules came about mostly because of scaremongering. If goverments *wanted*, those could be swept away. I agree on the potential of pebble-bed reactors, but thorium ones, well - when it comes to our future, I prefer not to reach at all.
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | February 7, 2007 11:32 PM
The image you've got is...er...biased.
Remember, I wasn't talking about the reality, I was describing my impression of how many Americans see Israel, and what I see as a big reason for their support. It's a memetic structure, almost like a brand. And I'd be the last to deny that they seem to have been losing their touch lately. Lebanon was sort of like a failed product launch. Oddly, I've heard more Americans making excuses for it than Israelis. Though I did think this was a bit sad.
If they nuke Israel, they'd get a response in kind. I don't think the Iranian leaders are THAT mad
You see, this is what I've been saying - if the Iranians do want nukes, it's for deterrence. But no, that President whose name I can never spell is hoping for the return of the Twelfth Imam and will stop at nothing, therefore how can I even *think* of objecting to an Israeli preemptive strike, or better yet an American one, not that the IDF aren't up to it you understand...
But as you say, there's no such scenario.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | February 8, 2007 12:07 AM
Adrian,
Looks like "The Hellhound Project" - a cover story novella from Analog Magazine back in the early seventies -may be about to come to fruition. The story dealt with the development and deployment of hummingbird sized autonomous antipersonnel missles that could loiter and track their designaed targets.
Posted by: Steven Rogers | February 8, 2007 1:00 AM
Then those raving idiots at Chernobyl decided to see how far they could push an obsolete reactor, and the official reaction to the resultant accident was to send in several thousand workers without any training or dosimeters to clean up the mess. When they started dying of radiation sickness, and the Lapps had to kill off a large part of the reindeer herds in Finland, the whole world blamed nuclear power in the abstract, and not human greed, short-sightedness and stupidity.
Even with inherently safe reactors, there are choke points in the distribution of nuclear fuel and the resultant waste that can prove dangerous if the people running them don't take their work seriously. So there's still significant effort to make the whole industry safe, but it mostly has to do with oversight, accountability, and not hiring the boss' idiot cousin to drive the truck carrying the fuel. Unfortunately, this is not an area where technical people do well, which is why, even though I agree completely that we need nuclear (fission) power as a primary energy source for at least the first half of this century, I am a little cynical about our ability to do it safely.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | February 8, 2007 5:53 AM
I gotta ask, because it's such an astounding claim --- and let me reiterate that it would be a fairly astounding claim from anyone, considering no more than 1.4 percent of the male population of the U.S. has ever committed homicide. (That's a maximum bullshit estimate, of course. It assumes that all homicides are committed by men aged 15-50, with a uniform age distribution, and that all killers murder only one victim.)
So, Steve, who'd you kill, where, and what were the circumstances? This is the second time that you've mentioned it on Charlie's blog, so it doesn't seem to be a particular secret or trauma. Dinos, por favor.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | February 8, 2007 8:23 AM
Adrian,
Israel had nukes in the Yom Kippur war, when they were at one point hours from losing it all. They didn't use them, and while not officially accnowledged, it's no real secret that they're there to make using non-conventional weapons on Israel by Arab countries a BAD idea.
Bruce,
Look at Japan's nuclear industry. Some workers get killed practically every year. THAT (critical flashes) is, frankly, what happens when you have a badly run nuclear power industry. It's bad, yes, but nobody not working in it has been affected.
Chernobyl was way WAY out of parameters. It was badly obselete even at the time, as you know. Modern PWG reactors themselves have a very good overall safety record.
Posted by: Andrew Crystall |