Lowering expectations for Afghanistan

My comment sums up my thoughts on Afghanistan.

Lowering expectations for Afghanistan | Lexington's notebook | Economist.com: "

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The Russians in Afghanistan used massive amounts of conventional explosives to burn all the oxygen in populated areas - this is one example of tactics used by Russia to try to tame Afghanistan. Futile tactics.

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The United States and coalition partners cannot use these methods now. Plainly put, the Afghanistan fighters could teach the Viet Cong a thing or two about asymmetric warfare. The coalition partners do not stand a chance. Perhaps an isolated airstrip and surrounding no-mans-land can be maintained for responding to the upcoming crisis in Pakistan. Anything more, and the coalition just makes the Muslim violent extremists more attractive to the rural population. The political battle is lost - Karzai is less politically relevant than the former South Vietnamese government.

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Really sad. This cartoon sums up the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/no-hoax/

Every conversation about Afghanistan should begin and end with an assessment of the potential for crisis in Pakistan. The political battle for Afghanistan was lost a long time ago - don't throw more good soldiers' lives away.

Leverage Against Israel... Whither Egypt?

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One thing that is not mentioned enough is that USA aid to Egypt is really aid to Israel, once removed. Only the disgustingly repressive state of Egypt can contain a Muslim uprising against Egypt's neighbor of Israel. If the Egyptian army had the USA aid source of funds removed, it would quickly join with the Islamists and attack Israel with rockets (cowardly but effective). The aid to Israel and Egypt has to be considered as two parts of a single aid package for Israel's security.

Leverage Against Netanyahu - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan: "

Of course, the idea of using the lever of suspending aid has long been a non-starter in Washington so strong is Israel's support in the capital. But Tom Friedman today urged a policy of American withdrawal from the conflict altogether until the two/three parties show some minimal interest in moving forward:

If the status quo is this tolerable for the parties, then I say, let them enjoy it. I just don’t want to subsidize it or anesthetize it anymore. We need to fix America.

That no-subsidies-for-Middle-East-intransigents line would have real traction for many Americans, sick of spending their money and risking the lives of their sons and daughters in religious conflicts far away. (It could be used against Egypt as well).

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I hope Israel chooses a two-state solution. They cannot compete with the demographics of the Muslim population - a growing Muslim population relative to Israeli Jews. I hope they stop with the *new* settlements, and focus only with concrete walls. Some settlements will have to be *sacrificed* because there isn't enough concrete in the world to protect them (sacrificed - a.k.a. Jewish settlers will have to leave behind their best chance at their own homestead). Israeli civilian security - Muslim rockets retaliated with disproportionate force (a.k.a. killing Muslim civilians) with Israeli rockets, and not Israeli troops. The rockets falling upon Israeli civilians will *never* stop, the number will wax and wane, but never cease.

Nobody is allowed to put these plainly true sentences together - it is a political impossibility. I pray it happens, or there will not be a Jewish state for my grand-children to know. Fantasies on the Left and on the Right stir suicidal actions. Sadly, if you string together the political and military facts, and use them to draw a plain conclusion, you are "Un-Serious" or "Blood-Thirsty". So the suicidal fantasies on the Left and on the Right rule the day, right up to the day the world loses the Jewish state of Israel. The conclusion will be in less than a single generation.

Annoyed by Fisker electric cars

Was so annoyed by Fisker electric cars getting a $528.7 million loan from the US Department of Energy, had to write this comment: How to Kill Entrepreneurship, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty: "

Leave aside the farce of a 'plug-in' vehicle. These Fisker cars will create a lot of jobs for the coal industry in the USA. I don't much mind mercury in the lake fish I eat - at my body weight it would take a lot to bring me down - but I am less excited to further poison myself so these alleged virtuous souls can pretend to be environmentalists.

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Leaving aside this particular farce... One question I have for libertarians is: why is the example of South Korea supposed to to be noxious? They have a heavy government hand in all industry. Seems reasonable, seems to produce good results.

Answering my own question, as best I see: The best argument against such a heavy government hand here in the USA would come from Mancur Olson _The Rise and Decline of Nations_. After the devastation of the Korean War, South Korea was starting from scratch. They don't have the burden of steadily accumulating rent-seeker and entitlement government lobbyists, as the USA has accumulated.

The most interesting reply I received was:

david writes: I wonder whether it's possible for a country to have an arrangement of interest-groups such that virtually all power is concentrated in the hands of a few groups with an interest in longer-term growth. Caplan might consider Singapore, whose government has been noted to absorb or demolish other civil institutions. It is also a small open economy. So presumably it can be modeled as one rational actor restricted by international competition rather than by local politics.

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South Korea is presumably similar, but with its massive industrial conglomerates instead. Since most of their markets are overseas, beyond the control of their own government, there are perhaps fewer attempts at domestic regulatory rent-seeking. They have to be competitive or die anyway. Posted September 25, 2009 3:59 PM

I still think government intervention into technological innovation is irrationally too low.