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Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index is released today. Somalia just edges out Afghanistan for most corrupt nation on Earth.
Yeah, well, our other BFF, Iraq, didn’t do much better — tied with Sudan for number 4. Now THAT’S a surprise, eh?
With it's trillion $ plus deficit and culture of lobbyists and earmarks how did the US finish as high as 19?
Considering the recent and on-going world financial crisis, which is expected to have negative effects for years to come, one would think that the United States (considered the main culprit) would have fallen somewhere below its current 19th place.
Considering the recent and on-going world financial crisis, which is expected to have negative effects for years to come, one would think that the United States (considered the main culprit) would have fallen somewhere below its current 19th place.
True, if one is mentally retarded and assumes that the "on-going world financial crisis" is somehow connected to purported American corruption.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/16/building_on_2_blunders_th...
Summary: Money shouldn't be diverted to contingency planning for a contingency we plan to avoid at all costs, one we've only experienced twice due to our own screwups.
what do you think? reasonable claim?
Alex Schindler:
1) Was it on this or SWJ (I think this) that the question was asked, Since COIN is really hard, should we be doing it?
2) Naturally, I wanted to write SM Walt and ask if he had heard of one COL Gian Gentile.
3) I think there's an interesting question derived from the 2006 Lebanon War. Should American doctrine be more oriented toward COIN (eg, Iraq or Afghanistan), or asymmetric warfare writ large (eg, 2006 Lebanon)? I'd like to get SM Walt's opinion regarding the latter? Does Professor Walt really think American military doctrine should remain static?
4) Off-topic: it was nice of Tom Ricks to give us "Charlie's" new blog today.
ADTS
Transparency International is a reputable NGO. Still, I'd love to know how they measure corruption, with any semblance of precision, in places like Afghanistan or Somalia.
ADTS
Edged out by Somalia, damn that's sure to be an incentive to them to try harder next time.
Kind of strange that Somalia, which has had no functioning government for many years except perhaps a military deterrence machine and not much more than food aid, is ranked as low as Afghanistan, which has a government of sorts and lots of aid money to waste/steal.
NGOs=That's many billions of largely unregulated and untraceable money. If you think they aren't dipping their beaks, start checking how many of them have houses in Connecticut, drive Mercedes, in-ground swimming pools, etc..etc. Sen Charles Grassley started to look into this, but then elections changed committee heads.
BTW WTF (W = who) are these people? The Community Organizers of the "Worlds Poor"? GTFOutta here.
Who voted for, vetted, appointed, confirmed or audits them? BULLSHIT.
Like the missionaries in Hawaii, they went there to do good, and did very well indeed.
See - Sri Lanka after 2005 tsunami.
And then there's the UN. They can't be trusted to go shopping in NY.
ADTS, et. al:
Walt does not seem to realize that the recent changes in military doctrine (toward COIN, etc.) come -- not from such isolated conflicts as Iraq and Afghanistan -- but, instead, from a dynamic new American foreign policy direction.
This new foreign policy direction sats that that it is our mandate in the 21st Century to transform the Third World.
It is for this reason that the US has/is changing its military doctrine -- using lessons learned in past and present conflicts of this nature (First World v. Third World).
Walt, as yet, does not seem to recognize and acknowledge this "sea change" in American foreign policy direction -- which learns from Iraq and Afghaistan -- and uses this information to better accomplish its goal (transforming the Third World).
Bill:
1) I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you - in re: transforming the Third World - suggesting a TPM Barnett-type foreign policy?
2) Can't everyone use asymmetric warfare as practiced in Lebanon in 2006? Didn't Mattis say, this was our Spanish Civil War?
ADTS
ADTS:
I am suggesting something of a TPMB foreign policy direction -- as the driving force for the recent changes in military doctrine (toward COIN and other irregular warfare capabilities).
In this regard, I see great power conflict in the near future (with China, Russia, etc. -- with or without asymmetrical warfare) as being unlikely; this, in my mind, somewhat negating the Spanish Civil War and "everyone" analogy/arguments.
Instead, in determining what is causing our doctrinal change, I look to where the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual seems to get many/most of its foundation, its ideas and its references -- from the "imperial-like" conflicts of earlier times -- when the First World then pushed into and attempted to transform portions of the Third World.
Bill:
Interesting. I tend to think of FM 3-24 as having been Vietnam-inspired. And interesting that you equate TPM Barnett foreign policy with pre-WW I imperialism.
ADTS
ADTS:
Would you agree with the position that great power war in the near future (with or without the asymmetrical and/or proxy war aspects) is unlikely -- and that this somewhat negates the "Spanish Civil War" and "everyone" analogy/arguments?
Bill:
Great power war unlikely - no. I'm a student of Waltz, Walt and Mearsheimer, and multipolar world systems are unstable (although I'm not sure how nuclear weapons might damp down great power rivalry). Rising powers and power transition (I guess I'm a Gilpin student, too) are unstable as well. I DO think, however, that the US is unlikely to get into a great power war (the stopping power of war being what it is).
I don't agree with the Spanish Civil War analogue being inapposite, though. If Israel/Lebanon 2006 is how all great powers fight against each other, then one should see more of the same should two great powers fight. I'm not sure, though, if how a proxy fights an asymmetric war against a non-state actor is the same as how two great powers fight against each other. Your proxy war caveat is a powerful one.
ADTS
ADTS:
Over at the Tom Ricks site, there is a today post about how Gen. Casey is worried about China's new middle class (as big as the entire population of the United States) and how he perceives that the needs and demands of this huge body of consumers might lead to resource wars with the United States.
Is it possible (and probable) that our shift in military doctrine and new initiatives in the Third World are in relation to this concern?
The way to avoid conflict with China is to 1) figure out what they would go to war over (energy and access to natural resources in this case - see String of Pearls) and 2) Can we give it to them? 3) about the money we owe ya...
The answer is yes we can, we are sitting on literal mountains of oil offshore and on, coal and shale - shale's why Canada is our biggest importer of oil. Then there's literally the mountain ranges of underground deep Natural Gas in the lower 48 states. One such runs from upstate NY to VA. That may be 100-1300 years of NG supply with the new technology. This is the most important energy discovery since oil.
NPR on NG
Marcellus Basin
So we can do all three things, and avoid a ruinous war.
Of course, that would require we abandon the faith based policy and science of "Green", a mirage based on Gaia (Earth mother) worship, and their fabulist technology.
So I guess we re-visit this issue in 2010 and 2012.
Bill - maybe someone was thinking of such things a couple of years ago, but right now the USA (and the world) is staring down the gun of hyperinflation and global bankruptcy. The rest of the world is buying Gold so fast the stocks are about to exhaust. We bought Chicago snake oil, and he's retrenching. Don't worry about the 19th century. Worry about the 1930's. Worry about stumbling into the Dark Room.
Bill:
Over at the Tom Ricks site, there is a today post about how Gen. Casey is worried about China's new middle class (as big as the entire population of the United States) and how he perceives that the needs and demands of this huge body of consumers might lead to resource wars with the United States.
Is it possible (and probable) that our shift in military doctrine and new initiatives in the Third World are in relation to this concern?
###
Bill, a few points first (I know that sounds pompous):
1) I'm always skeptical of facts and figures regarding China
2) I think China's middle class is a mixed blessing - marked disparity in wealth and income is not always a good thing
3) I'm not sure rising demands in resources need to lead to resource wars. Could Japan and the US have arrived at a war for Japan to have oil in the 1940s, or was Japan driven to war, and had the US known Japan needed oil, would it have given Japan oil rather than fight a war? George Friedman of (now) Stratfor fame predicted a second war with Japan for the same reasons and was/is, obviously, wrong (and contributes to my skepticism with prognosticators).
4) There's a literature, I think, that military leaders tend to be risk-averse and threat-sensitive (Huntington? Betts?). It makes sense; they're the ones who have to meet the risks and face the threats once they arise and should they materialize. So having the Army Chief of Staff be risk averse or threat-sensitive wouldn't be out of role or character.
That said, two things
1) I don't know enough about what our military leaders are thinking and doing to know if they're acting on these concerns when (supposedly) changing our doctrine. It would seem to me that the arguments are running the other way: we're changing our doctrine too much toward COIN and not enough toward great power war (or am I misunderstanding you here?). The only major weapons system I can think of - although I'm sure others more knowledgeable than myself can find examples - geared for major power war is the F-35; the Navy seems focused on the littorals. And the Army and Marine Corps keep having this COIN debate. :-)
2) I think your question about our initiatives in the Third World is an interesting one. I don't think we're debating how best to counter insurgency in Afghanistan so that China can dig up copper, although maybe I'm naive.
I'm not sure I've answered all your questions or responded to all your points, but I've tried to begin to. :-)
ADTS
Some follow-on questions regarding General Casey's "resource wars:"
Where would these wars occur?
What kind of wars would they be?
How would these wars be fought?
Who would fight them?
And to what end?
Re: Prof. Walt's post:
Could somewhat different questions be asked:
Had conventional war been done right in Afghanistan and in Iraq (the proper number and type of assets, deployed correctly), then would we be contemplating a far-reaching revision of US defense priorities and military doctrine?
Could this "if conventional war was done right" viewpoint have bearing on the other arguments regarding the need for doctrinal change?
I believe in an earlier item by Gen. Casey (at http://www.lawac.org/speech/2007-08/CASEY,Gen.George2007.pdf), he likewise stated that he was concerned with the middle class of India (also about the size of the entire population of the United States).
If I understand his arguments correctly, Casey is saying that, in part, globalization creates:
a. "Have" and "Have-Not" societies.
b. That the "Have-Not" societies, thereby, become more vulnerable to exploitation by (1) the "Have" societies (those with the exponentially expanding middle classes) and (2) also those with extremist ideologies (like Al Qaeda).
c. That the demand for resources by the countries with these new large middle classes (like India and China) will make the exploitation of these "Have-Not" societies (by the "Have" societies) much more likely, and much more intense, leading to "resource wars" by vying middle class nations (China, India, the EU, the US, etc.).
This, along with other trends (like demographics) will tend to place us in an "Era of Persistent Conflict," taking place primarily in the "Have-Not" nations and regions of the world.
The alternative idea, of course, is that the "Have" nations will cooperate (rather than compete) in their exploitation of the "Have-Not" nations, and will cooperate in dealing with the extremist groups that spring up from this exploitative environment.
This scenerio is also a possibility.
Herein, the "Have" nations, likewise, might be expected to cooperate in helping the "Have-Not" nations "adapt;" such that they might achieve their new role in the world, which is: To optimally provide for the wishes, needs and demands of the world's new (and old) middle classes.
The Third World, in its current inefficient and chaotic state, cannot do this and, therefore, must be "transformed."
Thus, this "cooperative" model -- like the "competitive" model immediately above -- finds the "era of persistent conflict" taking place in the Third World.
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