Blog Archives

Hostages

12/29/2023

Many things can be said about the brutalities visited upon Israelis in the course of Hamas’ October attacks (and prior). Many things can be said about the brutalities visited upon Palestinians over the past two months (and prior). I’m not here to parse (much less defend) any of the actions of those who have exercised force in the “Holy Land” over the past century attacking those who they believe to have disrupted/denied/ejected/rejected them. There are too many valid claims of victimhood. There is blood on all hands.

The kidnapping of innocents (yes, there still are such in this era of total war) is appalling—as is the killing of innocents—in a seemingly-endless set of reprisals.

The late November deal: “cease-fire” for return of some hostages, brought a brief breather and illustrated the sharp differentials in each side’s value of their own nationals’ lives on the one hand and their anger and power (and PR sensitivities) on the other. It also highlighted the plight of those millions who live(d) in Gaza as hostages themselves. That they are subject to the potential overwhelming power of Israeli armed force has been plainly demonstrated over the past three months. But they have been held hostage not only by their nominal foes, but also by their nominal brethren and, worse, by those who claim leadership/power directly over them.

As I have noted previously (see my “Three State Solution” piece of 051421), I am dubious of historical claims of Palestinian nationhood prior to the creation of Israel in 1948. Unlike many other nationalisms premised on a distinctive commonality of language and culture, this version seems to be based on a sort of derivative and negative case: those who lived and fled from the land claimed by Israel, but who could not secure inclusion in adjacent lands of their apparent brethren—similar (if not identical) in language, beliefs, and culture—in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Despite centuries of a pre-modern commonality under a caliphate, the concept of pan-Arabism or pan-Islam proved to have serious limitations. Palestinians are those who were ousted but not welcomed. All they had left was to construct their own new national identity. And even this was compounded by the geographic split between Gaza and the West Bank. (Shades of Pakistan following the partition of Greater India in the same timeframe).

The Arab states adjacent to Israel were previously just part of a congeries of administrative districts under the Ottoman Empire for some centuries. Even as that sprawling empire started falling apart in the 19C, there was little pretense of difference between the peoples on one side of a border and the other. As the British and the French divvied things up in the post-WWI land grab, borders were hardened and especially so as the concentration of Jews in Palestine increased during the inter-war period. But from Versailles to Israel was less than thirty years; hardly enough for any serious nationalism differentiations to harden. Yet in their effort at nation building, Britain and France constructed new monarchies and administrative proto-states which, as they moved toward an expected independence following WWII, saw Palestinian Arabs as outside their borders and, therefore, outside their direct responsibility.

Palestinian Arabs, now refugees after fleeing the new Jewish State, were of greater use to these new political entities as a tool to berate Israel and to distract their own populations from their domestic economic and political exploitation. Integrating these refugees would have been humane and pan-Arab. (But it would also have meant a de facto recognition of Israel). Since that time both adjacent and (more oil-rich) distant Arab states have provided modest financial and political support; but the squalid life of the Palestinian Arabs continued. In effect, they have been held hostage for 75 years by their “friends and families” for political purposes.

Which brings us to the Palestinians themselves. The PLO was founded in 1964 to represent those Palestinian Arabs ousted by Israel or who remained as Israeli citizens. The Oslo Accords of 1993 set the PLO on the path to “normal” statehood and governance, embodied in a Palestinian Authority for Palestinians living in both Gaza and the West Bank. Sharp disputes over relations with Israel within the Palestinian Arab electorate in 2006-07 led to armed conflict and the de facto separation of Gaza (under Hamas) from the West Bank (under the PLO/Palestinian Authority). A modus vivendi between the PLO and Israel has evolved to no one’s satisfaction or security. The PLO has not conducted a Presidential election since 2005. Meanwhile, Hamas has administered Gaza (also with no elections since 2006). And this top-level analysis doesn’t begin to comprehend the factionalism within each region or political grouping.

The result has been that Palestinian Arabs have been without democratic representation for close to twenty years. (Not that this is unusual in the Arab world where the country closest to having a democracy is Iraq.) For their leadership, too, the ordinary life and aspirations of the population of Palestinian Arabs has remained tertiary to a stance vis-à-vis Israel and the preservation of the incumbent political elites. They have become hostages in their own country.

This sad/horrible state moved to a new level with Hamas’ October attacks on Israel and the resulting military reprisals. The latter were only to be expected due to the intentional brutality of the attacks and undermining of Israeli security. Apparently, Hamas was willing to put their own people at risk of death and vast suffering as part of a classic resistance move of instigating a crackdown in the hope that confrontation would lead to outrage and a change in the fundamental power structure. In this way, Hamas—which has sponsored any number of suicide bombings against Israel—effectively strapped the entire population of Gaza into a bomber’s vest.

***

I wish I could bring this to a close with a proposal for some elegant solution to the whole catastrophe. Or even a kludgy solution. But the purpose of the study of history is merely to help us comprehend the complexity of life/politics/society. There is likely no situation in the modern world that is more complicated than this one. All I have tried to do is think through one segment of the story.

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Moral Hazard

12/22/2023

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“Moral hazard” arises when a policy or stance makes it easier for the subject of that policy or stance to do something bad. It is usually couched in terms of financial markets, and taking on too much exposure to risk and has been most frequently used in the context of how federal deposit insurance or “bail-outs” make it more likely that bankers would breach their fiduciary duties and make too many risky loans since they know they won’t face the full downside of their actions. It dates back to the development of English insurance markets in the 17-18C and was bandied about amid the financial crises of 1997-98 and 2008-9.

Lately, however, it has become a common term in the policy debates about what to do about climate change. The concept is superficially applicable, but those that raise the concern are naïve and idealistic, which could actually contribute to a much worse outcome than we’re currently headed for.

In particular, the “moral hazard” argument has been raised by those who oppose a variety of climate solutions—including increased renewable energy sources, carbon capture, and, most recently, the possibility of solar geoengineering—that would reduce our dependence on the ultimate (and necessary) solution set: broad and fundamental changes in modern human behavior.

There is considerable merit to the argument that people are lazy, especially when it comes to disrupting the deeply-ingrained habits of arrogance, nescience, and entitlement manifest in the way we live, buy, and waste. As a species (and as to most individuals), we are short-sighted and selfish. The imminence of climate-caused disasters still leaves their impact in an undefined future and, compared with our affinity for instant gratification, it’s all too easy to push those longer-term costs and pain away in favor of yet another extravagance.

As I have suggested earlier, it’s only when those costs and pain start mounting dramatically and relentlessly that we are likely to take the more dramatic and painful steps around reducing consumption and changing individual and societal behaviors to mitigate what will, by then, be on-going catastrophe.

The argument from “moral hazard” is that people should change and need to change and that they won’t change if there is an easier way out. So, we should not take mitigatory steps which will only delay the looming environmental disaster and thereby enable folks to defer facing that reality. The “moral hazard” argument seems to be based on a belief that as a species we can somehow step up and do the right thing even in the absence of dire threats. It’s an argument from hope in human enlightenment. It would be really swell if it was right, but there’s no history behind it.

In the meantime, according to this argument, we should eschew steps taken by those who are willing and able, but which don’t involve broad changes in general human behavior either directly or as the result of governmental policies (e.g., carbon markets, tax structures). I don’t pretend to know if a massive program to blast sulfur into the atmosphere or some kind of solar umbrella in space are even feasible means of producing the necessary planetary cooling. Both the technology and economics of carbon capture schemes are, to say the least, speculative. Nuclear power is feasible as are other renewable energy sources, even if they would make it easier for folks to consume more energy than they otherwise would. So, to oppose such steps—in principle—seems to me to be trying to prevent real (even if incremental and incomplete) progress in reducing the threat.

That is not to say we should rely on such unproven concepts. A lot of imaginative engineering—both technological and financial—will be needed to bring any of these into the real world and contribute to bending the curve of our increasing global temperature. But, given what we know of widespread political dysfunction and deep social inertia, looking to legislators and consumers to suddenly (or even briskly) “see the light” is at least as much of an “unproven concept” as sulfur in the atmosphere, geo-thermal energy, or mega-scrubbers of pollutants. The situation is sufficiently dire that we can’t afford to exclude on any one of these channels to make some progress. [Unpaid-non-political announcement: this is why I like tree-planting. It requires no new technology, the economics are demonstrable, and we don’t need the attitudinal changes at either the political level or in terms of broad cultural change to make serious progress.]

In addition to the long distance between concept and execution, we also need to be careful because many of those urging apparent panaceas have vested interests in maintaining the status quo and are creative (disingenuous?) in promoting ideas that will enable them to keep drilling, mining, spending, consuming, wasting etc. The key is to ensure (much more easily said than done) that the necessary underlying changes are made in global production and consumption patterns. In other words, buying more time is a good thing only if we actually use the time well.

I suspect that there may be more than a little Puritan school marm in the “moral hazardists.” Their idealistic purity about the “right” way to fix this problem is logically sound, but in the real world, students get dirty from dust in the playground, pass notes, and don’t always do their assigned reading.

Indeed, I would look forward to a situation in which one of these alternative vectors developed into something that proved effective and could have a considerable impact on the state of the planet. That some such relief would allow for more transition time seems—at this stage—a price I would be willing to pay. To cut them off preemptively would be the real moral hazard.

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Global Wars of the 20C

12/17/2023

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The first multi-regional war, I guess you could say, was Alexander the Great’s march of conquest from Greece to Egypt to Persia and on to what is now Pakistan, about 2300 years ago. For the next two millennia, wars remained incremental and pretty much regional in scope. Even empires of some magnitude worked mostly in adjacent areas. You could argue that Genghis Khan’s sweep across Eurasia in the 13/14C was a reprise of Alexander (from the other end of the continent). Communications were primitive, so coordination and integration across armies was pretty limited; any sense of strategy similarly spotty. Still, they scooped up a lot of territory. But even so, until the 18C, there was no sense of large geographic cohesion such as we imagine when we use the word “world,” so no one really could conceive of a “global” war.

The spread of European empires beginning in the 15C overtook the heretofore limited frame of reference. Larger and more powerful fleets connected an increasing web of footholds and colonial holdings. As the field of operations increased, the centuries-old dynastic dynamics of European politics started to play out in far-flung locations. The Seven-Year’s War (1756-63) pitted British, French, Spanish, Prussian, and Austrian forces in Europe against each other, as well as the navies and colonies of the first three in the Western Hemisphere (North America and the Caribbean), Southern Africa, and the Indian Ocean. There were intermittent echoes during the (French) Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1791-1815), but the long peace which followed the Congress of Vienna made the wars of the 19C (even if European-inspired) relatively rare and localized.

The war that began in 1914 grew out of the mare’s next of the declining power of the Ottoman Empire in SE Europe. A combination of rigid thinking, alliances, and technology (not least of which was communications) quickly spun the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand into a continent-wide conflict involving all the European Great Powers. Given the absence of overseas Austrian colonies, and the spotty nature of German holdings (four locations in Africa, plus a handful of South Pacific Islands) there wasn’t really much reason to conceive of the war as global conflict.

There was one notable exception to this framing: the ability of the Brits and French to mobilize their imperial resources—both men and materials—as part of the “total war” mentality which now seized the nature of modern warfare. It was a sign of globalizing perspectives—the roots of what we now see as normal supply chains and integrated trading and financial and labor markets.

But of course, they (i.e. the folks at the time) didn’t call it a “world war.” It was “the War” or “the Great War.” The adjective “World” wasn’t added until afterwards and didn’t gain currency until the 1930s. The use of “First” only grew as the likelihood of a “Second” loomed larger..

Whether the “Second” was separate from or merely a (long-truce-) interrupted continuation of the “First” was debated from the outset of the “peace.” Certainly the palpable global scale of the “Second” solidified the worldly appellation of the “First.” There are other framings of continuity as well, both backward and forward looking.

From history we can look at the interconnection between major geopolitical events which, in terms of amassed power and degree of interconnection were centered on Europe and the Atlantic beginning in the 16-18C: the American offshoot of British culture, the incremental revolution by which middling sorts and commercial elites replaced hereditary monarchs from the late 18C to early 20C), the rise of concentrated physical power (aka the industrial “revolution”). From this perspective, the demise of four empires in the course of WWI (German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Turkish)—while never “inevitable”—certainly fits within trends. The upsets of that war in Europe—cultural, economic, demographic, political—echoed across and cracked open the remaining formal empires (British, French), although they would take a further 30-50 years to collapse. This first global war of the 20C was fought in old terms: “liberal democracies” vs. stale monarchies in the last gasp of the Ancien Regime.

The socio-economic ideologies around which the First War was nominally structured were already melting. Globalization was accelerating (although the war set it back for thirty years), by the 1930s, socialisms had sat at the top table in Britain, France, Germany, and Russia and that strange beast of American ideas and energy was awakened.

All of these faced-off when modern fascism combined with old-fashioned territorial imperialism as Germany and Japan rolled the dice against the US/UK/Russia. Japan’s Axis with Germany and Italy (don’t forget Italy!) ensured that this time, the “World” was at war, as air and naval technologies allowed both sides to project power to every corner. From an economic perspective, the Axis didn’t stand a chance. Even beyond productive capability, the idea of territorial occupation as an effective means of permanent control was an idea straight out of the 15C: it couldn’t work in a nationalist/democratic/globalizing world; but fortunately, we never had to see their world view tested in practice.

The Allies’ triumph put international fascism by the boards, although a range of domestic varieties continue to pop up. The Soviet Union mangled Marxian economics and made one last stab at a territorial empire only to prove that there actually was something to Lenin’s critique of imperialism and his expectation that the natural path to socialism would take centuries.. It turned out that the “internal contradictions” of soviet communism were more dire than those of centrifugal capitalism. The US, now realizing that it could dominate the global economy without a formal empire, proved that a bureaucratic economy was no match for capitalist dynamism. It was a “cold” war at least as between the two champions, even if often “hot” in many places around the world; proxies on each side ensured that the nuclear confrontation could be kept theoretical (even if a brooding omnipresence).

By the end of the 20C, “liberal democratic capitalism” had beaten (or at least outlasted) monarchism, fascism, and communism. Geopolitics caught its breath for a decade. By now, thirty-something years later, we can see that the old models of how the world works are best consigned to the dust bin of history. As for what’s happening now…it’s too early to tell.

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All the Causes We Cannot See

12/8/2023

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All history, Thomas Carlyle argued (1841), “is at bottom the History of Great Men.…” This might have been an accurate description of how history was written in the middle of the 19C. It certainly isn’t now; we look at all sorts of perspectives and players in our more diverse and democratic age. But in terms of how most folks understand the past (notwithstanding the output of historians), Carlyle’s point still has a lot going for it.

Part of this is due to our fixation on the dramatic and the heroic. Indeed, Carlyle’s essay was part of a collection called “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History.” Part of this is due to some issues to which I have previously alluded, about how most folks insist on seeing the world as a product of human action, almost as if we exist on a stage, with no proper attention to be paid to the sets and props. No small amount of the modern mentality is captured by observing the developing human awareness of our own small place/role in the universe, as Copernicus, Darwin, and others have shown.

All this was brought to mind recently, by two books that I happened to read back-to-back (coincidentally): “Mosquito Empires” by John McNeill and “How the War was Won” by Phillips O’Brien. The first I (re-) read for use in one of my classes; the second I picked up because of my general interest in WWII. Both provide revisionist perspective on how we look at history and, in particular, on the nature of war. Both argue, in essence, that, despite Carlyle, it’s not about the heroes and generals and grand battles.

Of course, for most of us in the 20/21C, we absorb more history from movies/TV than we do from scholarly tomes. Our images, whether from 10th grade history classes, famous art works, or films, are of Washington (or Napoleon) on horseback, Patton in a tank, or, even more plebian images, like Tom Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan,” or any number of “blood-and-guts” combat films from any number of wars over the past several hundred years, ranging from “Spartacus” to “Rambo.” (btw, do NOT rely on the recent Napoleon biopic for close historical accuracy!)

O’Brien, in contrast, argues that WWII was won primarily by air and naval forces, not ground battles. He highlights the impact of logistics and supply chain interruptions. It’s not just that the Allies produced more and better stuff, but that the way we used it (sometimes intentionally, sometimes incidentally) made it harder for the bad guys to fight well. It’s a provocative argument, the O’Brien backs up with scads of statistics and anecdotes (although his argument is not well organized and it’s a bit of a slog to read). Instead of focusing on D-Day, Stalingrad, El Alemein, Iwo Jima, etc., O’Brien shows that cutting Japanese supply lines or bombing German factories actually had a bigger effect on the outcome of the war. Heroism is great, but without bauxite for airframes and effective airplane production, the Axis powers were effectively doomed by 1944.

McNeil’s ground-breaking study focuses on bugs; especially mosquitos. He shows that the inter-imperial battles between the British, French and Spanish in the Caribbean in the 17/18C were determined not by logistics or generalship, but by the impact of Yellow Fever and Malaria which made it relatively easy for the Spanish to defend their positions in Havana, Vera Cruz, and Cartagena. Of course, this is a century or so before germ theory and no one knew that mosquitos were the cause of the deadly waves of illness that beset the attacking forces. The Spanish did know that the “climate” was a critical ally in their defense, but nothing more specific.

The point of these books, taken together, is that much of our understanding of war (and, by implication, the rest of history) has been skewed by our fixation on the “Beau Geste” and guys commanding battles rather than on the context/background, human-created or natural, in which they fought. And it’s not just our understanding of history that needs revision; there were direct “real-world” effects. Blood-stirring tales led to mind-sets that were stuck in traditional modes of war-making, and prevented those in charge from understanding what they were doing and what would actually work to defeat their enemies. We like to think that history (i.e., human events) is driven by visible, intentional decisions and actions; much of the time, we’re wrong.

Psychologists tell us that our world-views and decision-making are skewed by overweighting what is right in front of us—the “I saw it with my own eyes” syndrome—often reinforced by well-embedded cultural perspectives on motives and effects and by adrenaline-filled dramatic events. Neither generals nor historians are immune from these phenomena. It’s often the less-visible and less-dramatic factors that are decisive. O’Brien points out that the quality of the aircraft and the distance the Germans had to fly relative to the British had a decisive effect on the famous “Battle of Britain” of 1940, the valor of the RAF and Churchill’s speech-making notwithstanding. McNeill suggests that the American victory at Yorktown in 1780 was due in large part to the malaria-weakened state of British forces; but for a few-thousand blood-sucking pests, we’d still be singing “God Save the King.”

Building history on a mythos of grandeur isn’t new. For thousands of years, most folks attributed everything to one set of gods or another (some still do). For a while the locus of power was humanized, but we still looked to grandeur/courage/heroes as the prime movers of history. Is it more comforting? More inspiring? George Patton (played by George C. Scott in 1970) was a great war leader and pulled off some amazing feats during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. But Germany was already effectively defeated by then. More credit should go to the guys who developed much more effective sonar in 1943 enabling the destruction of U-Boats attacking Allied shipping in the Atlantic. The strengthened supply line to Britain made possible D-Day and the rest of the European war’s successes. But it’s not such an exciting movie.

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Going Deep

12/1/2023

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I am always amused when watching some video/movie to see a brief claim of verisimilitude: “this story was inspired by actual events.” As if. As if every piece of fiction wasn’t inspired by actual events and people and authors’/directors’ experiences. How are we supposed to parse the difference between facts and pretense? At least these media creations have the courtesy to alert us that they’re not actually claiming to be true. “Fiction” announcing its fictionality is a nice counter-part to news/non-fiction claiming some adherence to reality. There are exceptions of course, Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast of 1938 famously incited panic among listeners who missed the disclaimer at the start of the show. It all seems so old-fashioned now. The difference between a memoir and a first novel is less its degree of accuracy than a function of which editorial department the publisher assigned to the manuscript when it walked in the door.

In the 21C, “deepfakes” are among us. The use of sophisticated audio and video editing software has spawned a slew of faux interviews, statements, and cultural performances. “Compromising” pictures of Senator X with some semi-clad bed-partner, hi-jacked images or voices of some “A-list” star being sold for real bucks. A Presidential statement embracing a North Korean dictator (Gee, sorry, that actually happened!). Notable figures and ordinary folks will be subjected to this misappropriation of their likenesses and voices. It will get worse before it gets better, but “reality” will fight back in several ways.

Lying, of course, isn’t new. Ever since Cain denied knowing what had happened to Abel (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”), dissimulation has been a standard human practice. In WWII, Churchill (defending the use of misinformation about Allied war plans) said: “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Indeed, there is a long history of military deception. In the political world, misquoting or taking statements out of context also has a robust past.

The rise of photography and electronic media (the original stuff: radio and TV) held the promise of verifiability as to what people said and did; after all, we had it “on tape.” But now, we’re all used to computer generated graphics as the background in many movies and the mix of live (“real”) and fake characters (“Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” a film mash-up of live and cartoon characters dates from 1988). The progress of technology has now advanced to the point that photos, recordings, and videos can all easily (with a modest amount of technical savvy) be wholly created. Now, everything is up for grabs; the lines between fact and fiction have been rubbed out and we’re left a bit bewildered. Most of the time (with things that proclaim or at least signal their “fictionality”) it doesn’t matter, but deep fakes present the risk of undermining our confidence in understanding what is “real” in a new and problematic way.

One of the complications arises because of the highly accelerated speed of social media. Items are re-“Xed” (formerly re-twittered/tweeted) or forwarded in chat or email in a moment, almost always with an implicit endorsement (at least of interest if not veracity). Retractions, corrections, clarifications, etc. aren’t so newsworthy and don’t get passed along, so the initial “news” stays in our social media consciousness far more than any digested assessment of the situation.

Did Biden really say that he loves China? Did Putin announce Russian withdrawal from Ukraine? Did some prosecutor’s announcement of an investigation get transmogrified into an indictment? Apparent slurs (racial, ethnic, personal) by media personalities are easy to produce. We might as well expect a remastered statement by Walter Cronkite (the personification of trustworthiness) announcing that the moon landing was a fraud. In each case, the damage is quickly done and never fully remedied.

A second complication comes from the broad undermining of truth in modern society. Propaganda isn’t new, but the degree to which notable people make false statements or statements without caring whether they’re speaking the truth has become far too ordinary. When we don’t care (as a society) if we’re hearing the truth, then we shouldn’t be surprised when we get all manner of gobbledy-gook. In a sense, the “supply” of truth is a function of the “demand” for it; it’s basic economics. Great efforts are being made to train young people in “media literacy” and “critical thinking”; but there is an awfully long way to go in this direction.

Another problem (less dire) arises from deepfake videos that undermine artists’ performances. With a little work, I can look like Olivier as Hamlet or do a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” (ouch!). I can even create “influencers” that tout my dramatic or musical work.
But back to the “news” and the remnants of civic culture. It’s ironic that after social media has eviscerated the traditional vehicles of journalism, we now need someone to verify who actually said what. It won’t be enough merely to report on a video of Mike Pence endorsing a chain of marijuana dispensaries, tomorrow’s journalist will need the technical chops to evaluate the provenance of the digital file. Of course, this verification function will likely face its own fakers: a deepfake of Tucker Carlson undermining a deep-faked statement by He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. The possibilities are endless and will make Alice in Wonderland seem downright homey.

Alternatively, the crescendo of falsity may build to such a point as no one knows or cares what is published and completely tunes out. Or maybe, some folks only subscribe to media outlets./channels/streams with some verifiable reliability; sort of like Trust-e for certain websites or the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Unfortunately, too many folks already just listen only to those channels that push their pabulum of choice and much of modern journalism has already been eviscerated so that the “reliable” choices are few; as are the number of listeners/watchers who summon enough attention and focus to watch/listen critically. If Jack Webb repeatedly asked for “Just the facts, Ma’am” on Dragnet, he may have his work cut out for him.

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Hostages

Moral Hazard

Global Wars of the 20C

All the Causes We Cannot See

Going Deep

Condemned to Repeat It --
Musings on history, society, and the world.

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Hostages

Moral Hazard

Global Wars of the 20C

All the Causes We Cannot See

Going Deep

Condemned to Repeat It --Musings on history, society, and the world.

Archives

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Condemned to Repeat It --
Musings on history, society, and the world.