Some More Reasons China Will Defeat The US

There are two contests currently underway in global affairs.  In each the stakes of the game are nothing less than planetary preeminence.  One of the two "games" is between adherents of political Islam, particularly violent political Islam, and the civilized states both great and small.  The other is between the US and the Peoples Republic of China.

Both are dangerous.  Both directly threaten the US and We the People.  Without going unacceptably far out on the limb of doom laden speculation, each--and particularly the second--are existential in the sense that should the US be on the losing side, life will change for Americans, and not for the better.

As was the case in World War II when the US was faced by war on two fronts, war conducted by two qualitatively different enemies, a choice must be made as to which enemy deserves priority.  In 1941 the leadership of the US and UK correctly estimated that Nazi Germany constituted the greater threat and thus merited the greater effort by the Western Allies.  Now, the leadership of the US must make a similar decision.  It must evaluate which threat--violent political Islam or expansionist China--is greater and, thus, must take pride of place in American efforts.

It is not an easy choice to make.  There is no doubt but violent political Islam constitutes a clear and present danger.  There is no arguing against the proposition that should the adherents of this objectionable religion based political philosophy gain greater influence around the world, the consequences for the US and other civilized states would be unpleasant and all too often lethal.  However, the potentials of violent political Islam pale when compared to the threat contained in Chinese expansionism.

Unlike the majority of those who advocate the triumph of political Islam (which are actors of the non-state sort), China is a fully functioning state with all the appurtenances of statehood.  Not only is China a nation-state, it is an authoritarian one, which means it has automatic advantages in long term planning and execution of policy.  China is not only a nation-state with an authoritarian political system, it is a country with both a long history and an equally long record of being quite historically conscious.  Historical consciousness implies that policy is more often than not based on trajectories and world views of very long standing, backed as it were by the power of time.

Given its advantages of organization, economic and technological predicates, population size and cohesiveness, unitary political will, and the very real force of time, China possesses a number of advantages in the Great Game of Nations which are denied to the adherents of political Islam.  In short, China is today's equivalent of Nazi Germany in 1941 while the practitioners of political Islam are the contemporary version of Imperial Japan in 1941--a major annoyance, an enemy which must be defeated in the fullness of time but not a true existential menace.

When considering the match up between China and the US, it is clear that China has a number of very potent advantages.  Some of these have been examined in earlier posts such as Beijing's severely narrow focus on Chinese national and strategic interests, its capacity to assure monolithic political will, or the Trolls' well demonstrated ability to plan and execute foreign policy with an emphasis on the long term.

There are other factors which amp up China's tactical capacities which merit close consideration since without effective tactics even the best strategy will fail.  A second justification for scrutinizing certain tactical matters is that the differing approaches taken by the US and China are illustrative of larger factors which militate against American success in the current contest.

Consider for the moment the notion of "doing good."  The notion of "doing good" is inherent in the concept of "nation-building."  And, as has been demonstrated by our interventionary operations in the post-World War II decades, the slippery critter called "nation-building" has been a centrality.  Actually, the roots of nation-building go back nearly a century when Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines ashore in Mexico in order "to teach the Mexicans to elect good men."

Nation-building is one of those ideas which reads well in academic conferences or policy discussions by ad hoc inter-agency working groups sitting around highly polished fine wood tables in some chancery somewhere.  In the real world, particularly among those benighted folk upon whose backs a nation will be built, the idea is not so well received.

The idea is even less well received when it is presented--as it always is--with overtones of condescension, of the well intentioned expert parachuting in with salvation for the heathen contained in his briefcase or on his flash drive.  The wannabe nation-builder does nothing to enhance the favor with which his efforts at uplift are received when--as inevitably it must be--hectoring replaces mere condescension.

No one likes to be told he is somehow lacking, somehow inferior, somehow in need of guidance, moral uplift, political transformation.  No member of a traditional society and culture enjoys hearing how it is deficient and what he must do to "build" his nation.  The universal crustiness of the human critter assures that the most well intended nation-building will fail unless the "builders" limit their role to that of provider of money and other goodies.

The Americans (and other Westerners as well) have never gotten the message no matter how often it has been delivered by different recipients of our nation-building efforts.  In Afghanistan today as in South Vietnam fifty years ago or Mexico a half century before that, Americans are committed to nation-building complete with the ribbons and bows of hectoring and implicit superiority.  The result is simple: No matter how much "good" we do, the efforts are invariably resented and rejected by the objects of our succor and assistance.

The Chinese are not so high minded.  Perhaps because China was the target of nation-building in bygone days, the Trolls and their agents are willing to simply pass out money and urge that Chinese companies be hired for infrastructure projects.  China does not seek to build nations but rather to secure influence within existing governments and the states these rule.  To this end the Trolls will distribute money, seek to recoup as much of the dole as possible through the awarding of contracts, and in the process gain and retain influence within both the government of the target state and its associated elite(s.)

This is a coldly realistic process of pursuing Chinese national and strategic interests.  The Trolls have no lofty aspirations of uplifting the heathens, of changing the local culture, society, or polity for the "better" or otherwise doing "good" for the local "masses."  Chinese national and strategic interests in no way require the transformation of the recipient country into a simulacrum of China.

This diplomatic philosophy is in sharp opposition with that of the US (and some other Western states.)  It doesn't matter if neocon ninnies or High Minded Progressives are running the White House or congress, the US always demands the recipient become some sort of Western style democratic polity with a society marked by the full panoply of "rights" enjoyed by Americans today and an economy having all the features of a well regulated, "rule of law" approach.

The implications of this sharp set of distinctions are too self-evident to require elucidation.  Or, at least, they should be.

For the Deep Thinking Denizens Inside the Beltway, the distinctions and their impact do not seem so self-evident.  This dynamic comes into sharper focus in another area of difference between the methods of the Trolls and those favored by the US government and its fellow travelers within our domestic elites.

The second illustration of the differences between the Chinese and American ways of 'nation-building" is the role of corruption.  To Americans at the policy level corruption is anathema.  To the Trolls it just another way of acquiring and keeping influence.  To us it is a sin.  To the Chinese it is a fact of life to be used in the pursuit of interest.

In many places around the world graft, corruption, nepotism, and a lack of transparency are a normal and expectable part of life.  When these features of quotidian existence become a problem for the local elite or the citizenry generally, it is usually because the fruits of corruption are not distributed equitably.  It is not the corruption per se but rather its lack of breadth which cause outrage.

The American answer to corruption is to stamp it out with the moral fervor of a health Nazi facing a McDonald's warehouse.  The Chinese response is to build corruption in as a normal cost and try to make sure it is spread around appropriately.  The more spreading the better as such assures more people will be tied in effectively to the Chinese program.

Our approach is more--more laws, more regulations, more courts, more commissions, more oversight, more investigators, more cops.  The Chinese approach is also more--more money and more widespread distribution.

Pop quiz:  Which approach is more likely to produce more positive results with more people in the recipient traditional society?

This brief consideration of two tactical advantages enjoyed by China over the US today illustrates why it is critical for us to stop and take a hard look at the two threats facing the Americans today.  It also helps in understanding why China is the larger, more important threat as well as why the US is not likely to prevail in the contest underway today.

To put it all quite simply, when the deck is stacked against you is it is with respect to the Trolls time is not on your side.  The US does not have the luxury of sitting back and wondering what we should do--if anything.  The real deal is the Obama administration has no viable option other than to remove its collective head from the sand and realize that the Chinese are cruising on by us on the fast track to global preeminence.

Really, Mr Obama is that why you received the Nobel Peace Prize?

Today's Eighth Deadly Sin--Corruption

Of late one gets a clear impression from the news that the entire world has its collective panties in a knot over corruption.  This big "C" is seen as being behind the successful recruiting efforts of the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Legions of critics assert that corruption is the single greatest feature abroad in Vladimir Putin's regime and Russia generally.  And, Transparency International, a group given to the study of such distasteful matters, assures us in a recent poll that perceptions of corruption are going up almost faster than can be tracked.

Apparently the defining feature of today's political, economic, and judicial arenas is the prevalence of corruption, that is the exchange of money for favored consideration.  Whether Mexico or Pakistan, Africa or Eastern Europe, there is a widespread view that without the handing over of money, it is impossible to have access to necessary governmental or judicial services.  Even in countries such as Denmark where no one seems to have had any direct encounter with corruption, the perception is that systems of law, economic order, political practices are rotten to the core with corruption and graft being normative.

The Geek has encountered discreetly outstretched palms in Asia, Latin America, and Africa--as well as the US.  Her Geekness has a great tale of how her family was held for hours at the border of Bulgaria back in the days of the Cold War while other vehicles breezed through only later to discover the reason for the delay was her father's probity preventing him from passing over the required amount of valeuta,  As these international encounters occurred long ago there is reason to believe that corruption is neither new nor as alarming in effect as recent reports hint.

If the journalists, academics, diplomats, and military people currently in such a snit over corruption and its harmful effects on US interests (to say nothing of local morality) were to take the briefest look at the diplomatic correspondence and the memoirs of travelers from a century or so back, they would quickly discover two salient facts.  The first was that corruption was rampant not only in the Ottoman Empire, but in the lesser developed regions of the world generally, East and West, North and South alike.  The second, and far more surprising fact, is the calm and creative way in which Americans and Europeans both diplomatic personnel and private citizens dealt with the plethora of corrupt officials and businessmen.

Only a few of the most moralistically inclined--mainly missionaries--actually objected to the widespread corruption or were of the view that corrupt officials prevented the exercise of diplomatic or commercial duties.  There were very few who saw the outstretched hands and unctuous smiles as undercutting the ability of foreign governments to function.  Whenever local citizens complained of corruption, it was with the same theme--the unfairness, the inequality with which the fruits of corruption were distributed.

To do business, as well as to prevent undue inflation in the bribe, graft, corruption, and kickback department, it was far from unusual to see Western embassies establish acceptable rates or percentages of corruption.  In short, the diplomatic establishments of the Western countries institutionalized corruption.  This model was quickly followed by commercial interests, tourists and, yes, even missionary organizations.

This approach allowed for corruption to be domesticated and, as a very real benefit, distributed with greater equity within the several recipient communities.  It set limits and promoted cooperative competition within the locals both official and private.

Once institutionalized, there was no functional difference between corruption at the governmental level and corruption at the personal as in the bribes offered to restaurant personnel under the rubric of "tips."  Both are understood, limited and fairly distributed forms of corruption.  Indeed, at the personal level, the institutionalization of bribery has reached the point that the fixed percentage is built into the bill presented to the diner.

Looking back, even to relatively recent years, corruption was so well understood by Western governments and businesses that it was factored in to aid packages, contracts, and all the other forms of transaction where the passage of money could facilitate matters.  In the Fifties and Sixties, there are numerous examples from both public and private accounts of the governmental equivalent of the comprehensive price system used by some restaurants.  Just one more line item, no big deal, no reason to pump up a storm of moral outrage; it's just the way things are done around here.

The fascination not to say fixation on corruption is another unfortunate legacy of the Sixties.  The fear and loathing, the spewing of moral opprobrium on corruption also paralleled the rise in concern on human rights which is a product of the Carter period.  The parallel may be accidental but it is all too evident--and even more destructive of effective international relations than the human rights matters.

The objection to corruption put forth by Afghans or Pakistanis is identical:  The bribes, the graft, the corruption generally is not equitably distributed; it is not available to all comers.  The same sentiment can be detected in venues as disparate as Nigeria and Venezuela.

It rather resembles studies done with chimps which show that as long as every member of a troupe gets the same goody, say a cucumber, everyone is happy.  But if some individuals get the much more prized melon slice or banana, those unfortunate enough to be stuck with a previously acceptable cucumber are outraged.  Dissent, even violence erupts.  Chaos ensues.  The inbuilt sense of fairness has been insulted.

So it is with humans.  As long as only some are eligible to receive the fruits of corruption or there is a wide differential between levels of corruption, the have-nots or have-less folks will be disturbed deeply and denounce the existence of corruption.  If given a fair share, the protests fade with the speed of Obama's approval rating.

This suggests an easy solution, an answer to the problem of corruption which will be cheaper and more effective than the efforts to stamp it out.  The answer is to duplicate past experience and build in the line item marked "corruption."  Sure, a more euphemistic term would be necessary lest the morally pure and high minded sorts in Congress and the media be offended, but rebranding comes easily to politicians.

It doesn't even harm the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan and elsewhere if the corruption flows in part to the insurgents provided it is used as a way of weaning these guys away from the lure of sleeping on the ground, eating bad food, and getting shot at.  Insurgents, other than the most hard core sort who need to be killed, are amenable to the seduction of ready cash.  That is as long as the cash is not tendered as a direct payment for abandoning the "Cause."  The goal would be a manageable black economy in which corruption becomes a weapon for the central government.

The stresses imposed on traditional societies by the Western challenge, particularly in places long wracked with internal conflict can and should be assuaged by a creative use of corruption.  The corruption is not going to suddenly vanish no matter how much it may be desired by the US government and others of well meaning orientation.  It is a necessary part of the human face of these societies as well as a way in which leaders justify their position in life.

Once the ground truths both past and present involving the Big "C" are recognized and understood, the presence of corruption should be used to the advantage of American policy.  To do otherwise is an act of incredible stupidity no matter how much moralizing is employed.  To reject the potentials for success resident in the proper use of corruption is akin to inviting either defeat or an unnecessarily prolonged and bloody effort.

But, we are Americans and thus not given to allowing unpleasant, not to say immoral, realities to impinge on our consciousness.

 

A Better State Of Peace

In every war, both inter-state and interventionary, each and every belligerent fights in order to see the war end with a better state of peace. It is the conflicting views of what would constitute an improvement in the pre-war state of peace which lies at the heart of every war.

A very real complication emerges in the case of interventionary war. In this situation there may be real, deep contradictions between the "host" government and the foreign intervenor. So it is in Afghanistan. Not only is there a variance of view between the Karzai government and the insurgents, there is no harmonious symphony of agreement between the US government and its "host" in Kabul.

Had the US limited its goals in Afghanistan to the elimination of al-Qaeda as a threat and the punishment of Taliban for its ill-advised exercise of "Islamic hospitality," there would have been no disagreement between Washington and most of the rivals for power in Afghanistan as to what constituted a better state of peace. But the shift in American policy to the goal of creating a Western style pluralistic democracy with an independent judicial system, an absence of mass market corruption, civil liberties, gender equality, and, at least implicitly, a separation of faith and state assured that an increasingly large gap would emerge between Kabul and Washington (as well as other foreign capitals) as to the precise nature of a better state of peace.

The dichotomies have emerged in a high profile and utterly unmistakable way in the past few months. On subjects as crucial as power sharing, ending governmental corruption, squeezing the flow of drugs, corruption, and extortion generated money out of country, the animus between the governments of the US and Afghanistan have grown.

In each of these areas as well as the legion of lower profile issues, a careful parsing of the causes of the differing understandings of the much desired better state of peace hinge on one word. The word is one which is most unwelcome not only by the current American administration but by the opinion molding elites of the US and Western Europe. In the minds of many, perhaps all of these self-elected hoi olligoi, the word is a virtual epithet.

And, you might wonder, just what is this magic word, this word of unlimited ju-ju?

Nationalism.

Yep, bucko, that is the evil and ever-so-potent word. It is the word invoked by President Karzai and his people almost every other breath. To the Afghans the better state of peace is defined almost exclusively by the implications of nationalism.

In the US and most of the West, nationalism has been unilaterally consigned to the scrap heap of history. Nationalism is seen universally within the elite, academic, political and journalistic, as the cause of wars, the basis of misery, the virus of xenophobia, racism, and other ills which have beset humanity for generations. We are assumed to live in a post-nationalistic age where trans-national corporations, multinational institutions, the "international community" are celebrated as the axis around which the globe now rotates.

Ironically, the foreigner forces led by the US have been attempting to impose a highly nationalistic template upon the raw material of Afghanistan and the Afghans. Tossing multi-cultural sensitivities to the winds, the US and its partners have been beavering away in an effort to create a nation-state with all the features of the liberal democracies of the West, an arrogant and highly nationalistic notion to say the least.

Why anyone in the Obama administration would be surprised by the Karzai government's invocation of nationalism as a defense against the better state of peace sought by the outsiders is a mystery. Only Afghans can determine what is in their domestic interest which is to say what constitutes a better state of peace, Afghan style.

To Americans or Westerners generally it is impossible to believe that Afghans would willingly accept a government which tolerates, indeed engages in, corruption. Or why they might accept a better state of peace predicated upon an austere interpretation of Islamic law. Or, why they might welcome former insurgents, including the most barbaric members of Taliban, into the central government. Or, why they might be comfortable with a society and government which has more centripetal than centrifugal features.

We the People and our Western European counterparts would not see such features as desirable in our polity or society. Nor would we be comfortable with a legal system which is, at best, a hybrid of the sacred and the secular. We wouldn't find the pervasive presence of corruption, cronyism, or the supremacy of family, clan, and tribal identities conducive to a stable and comfortable environment.

The people of Afghanistan see the matter differently. For them all these features are as familiar and comfortable as one's own living room. To be sure some features are more objectionable than others, but as far as the locals are concerned, the most ineffective local remedies are infinitely superior to the best ideas imported or imposed by outsiders.

Governmental corruption is a very real, very live issue in Afghanistan. The Taliban uses its existence as a powerful tool for motivating support among the people who are always paying the graft--never receiving it. The use of graft is a universal tool for cementing political alliances, assuring family and tribal fortunes as well as (to quote Bruce Springstein) "to get a little something for yourself." Nearly everyone in Afghanistan wants to "do something" about corruption (usually make sure they are on the receiving end of it) but no one wants the outsiders to move in, take over indirectly, and clean the mess impartially.

Corruption and its control have become the line in the sand dividing the definition of a better state of peace as between Kabul and Washington. In a microcosm who does what with the corruption issue will determine whose definition prevails as the war enters its penultimate stage.

The takeaway for the donor nations, most of all the current administration, is simple. When all the money is spent (or blown) and the diplomatic rhetoric is exhausted, the Afghan people and only the Afghan people will define the better state of peace.

We had best get used to the idea. Get a grip on it. After all, it is nothing new in our experience. The towering figure of international morality, President Woodrow Wilson had the Marines land in Vera Cruz, Mexico to give the locals a lesson in good government and good citizenship. Even Mexican historians have allowed that under the American Marines the city and its surrounding area never had such good, effective, efficient, honest government.

It was a great lesson in good government. It failed to inspire the locals to emulate it. The huge elastic band which is culture, society, the force of "that's how things are done--here" took over the day after the last marine left. The good ole days of graft, corruption, ineffective government resumed as if there had been no interruption.

The lesson is simple. There is no need to relearn it in Afghanistan. When you are the outsider, your notions of a better state are as relevant as would be mammary glands on a bull. Only the locals know what is a better state of peace in terms of their history, their culture, their society, their ideas as to how "things are done around here."

That means we should kill al-Qaeda, Taliban and other armed troublemakers so as to provide an example to future Afghan governments as to what will happen should they repeat the fatal mistake of Mullah Omar and his Koran-waving thugs. Everything else must be left to the locals, for only they have a direct stake in the future.

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