Bread and Circuses

Yesterday, a story on Marketplace made reference top the famous “bread and circuses” quote about controlling the ancient Roman crowds as an analogy to the cash Middle Eastern despots are busily dolling out to try and calm their own discontented populaces. Never missing a chance to comment on ancient Roman politics – especially when it’s in the news – it made me think many people will get the circuses references, but maybe not the whole depth of the bread one.

Grain in the Republic was a huge political issue because Rome could not feed itself from the surrounding countryside, so wheat had to be imported from all over – including especially Campania, Africa (the Roman Province), Sicily and Egypt. Custody of the state’s grain supply was a top political job and at various times, subsidized or even free doles of grain were given to citizens as a way to exert political power over the masses. Especially notable for this were the Gracchi and the great Publius Clodius. The other upshot of this was that you tended to want a really reliable person as governor of Sicily, since it was not only a major producer of grain for the city, but also the main staging point for the grain fleets out of Africa and Egypt. During the political turmoil of the late Republic, this was a frequent concern. Finally, it is worth noting that greater security over the grain supply was a major geopolitical justification for the annexing of Egypt.

China’s wheat crop

Not to be glum, but referring back to my earlier post, see this New York Times article on the UN FAO’s warning regarding the drought which is threatening China’s wheat supply. Bad news.

Huntsman’s resignation, echoes of the past

So when John Huntsman resigned officially as U.S. Ambassador to China the other day it was widely assumed that he did so in order to make way for a potential Presidential bid in 2012. The Obama administration was pretty notable in it’s early days for stressing merit to the degree that they handed out a lot of key jobs to people who were not political allies of the President. If Huntsman runs it will be notable for someone from the other party being given a serious policy job in an administration, which usually carries the expectation of political blandness if not loyalty, to resign in order to challenge the erstwhile boss. But of course this kind of thing happens more in an intra-party setting, and the episode reminded me of George H. W. Bush’s time as “ambassador” in China. As the 76 election approached, Bush was positioning himself and had a lot of allies. It was of course widely assumed that he wanted to be nominated as VP even if he did not opt to challenge Ford for the nomination – and the political legend has always gone that Don Rumsfeld, the Ford’s chief of staff, came up with the maneuver of pulling him from China to go to the CIA at the last minute. He is supposed to have been counting on Bush senior’s unstinting sense of public service and love for national security issues to make him accept the CIA job and get out of the way politically. Whatever the calculus was, it worked. Bush went to the CIA for 357 days as Director – and apparently loved every minute of it from his own recollections. Too bad we didn’t think of that fast enough with Ambassador Huntsman…

Egypt – round 2 (of …?)

So Mubarak appears to have lost the support of the military for indefinite continued rule – which combined with pressure from the White House to bring him to the conclusion yesterday that he would not seek re-election this coming fall. Clearly not good enough for the protesters, who remain out in force – but enough to prolong the dynamics of this situation. With Mubarak supporters now taking to the streets as well (whether government directed or spontaneous is hard to tell) the situation enters a new phase of complexity. Anyone who claims to know what will happen next is probably full of it – all we can hope for is some kind of smooth, stable transition, whether now or in October.

Keep an eye now on Jordan…

EDIT: In Defense of Joe Hewitt

Some people voiced concern yesterday that the Instability Ledger put out by CIDCM’s Joseph Hewitt failed to rank either Egypt or Tunesia as particularly unstable. A brief – if frustratingly technical explanation: the factors that are considered in coming up with the Instability Ledger rankings are those which statistically correlate to the likelihood of a humanitarian disaster related to instability. It is pretty clear that Tunesia has actually remained stable so far.Coups are considered in the ledger but the voluntary departure of elected leaders under popular pressure would not make it unless that pressure also involved events that led to the deaths of more than 1,000 people. Hopefully neither of these situations will come to that – although Egypt is still VERY much up in the air.

In general, however, autocratic regimes have historically been predictors of stability, and the rare instances in which they are swept from power under spontaneous, popular pressure (and they are rare) without other factors also changing tend to defy all the predictive models social science has come up with so far. This is an area that definitely warrants further serious study.

My prediction: Mubarak Stays

Here’s why:

In Tunesia, president ben Ali had done a great deal to anger the other parts of the ruling class through his eccentric governing behavior and by allowing his wife’s family to loot the country. When the chips were down, they did not back him. In Egypt, Mubarak has done a great deal to make his continued survival attractive to the other folks at the top of the totem pole. I believe that the key for his survival is retaining the support of the military – as long as the military backs him, he can weather the storm.

If the ruling elite loose their nerve, however, I predict they will find a way to move him aside for someone who is already at the top of the power structure. The implications of giving the Muslim Brotherhood a shot at taking even partial power in the government are so deeply unappealing to the power structure in Egypt that it will strenuously resist further change to the status quo even post-Mubarak. I believe this also means anyone hoping for possible new elections is out of luck. Bad mood in the country = bad time to give the opposition a shot at legitimacy.

But who knows – I could always be totally wrong.

Piracy continues to evolve its business model

News today that a group of Somali Pirates had hijacked a Danish vessel and taken the crew I think adds a new dimension to the ever increasing sophistication of this business. The fact that they took the crew, but left the argo and the abandoned ship might just mean a flawed plan or careless, but I think i9t more likely indicates that they lacked either the manpower or the desire to attempt to take them. Since the apparently may have included weapons, I guess that’s a good thing, but think about it this way:

If an assessment indicated that the cargo was not likely to be of overwhelming financial value, then a decision may have been made to take the crew for ransom, thereby making their profit, but to greatly decrease their likely-hood of being captured by the nearby EU NAVFOR vessels by not choosing to try and make off with the whole ship. Many cargo ships have low top speeds and especially if the crew has had a chance to radio their coordinates to one of the patrolling Naval forces (which they had in this case), deboarding them and leaving the ship as a decoy greatly increases your chances of getting away.

Cost benefit analysis. Somali piracy has evolved an ever more sophisticated business model over the last two years, including an informal bourse where investors can buy into crews and gain shares in their profits. Greater discrimination in high-value, lower-risk target selection strategies only makes sense. Don’t go pleasure cruising in the Indian Ocean until they’ve got this thing figured out…

Sorry Sancho, you exceed the weight limit for carry-on…

Let’s start the new year (yes, yes, late I know!) with something funny, before turning to the generally dismal state of world affairs, shall we?

In one of the more amusingly twisted moments of the world wide, credit fueled, real estate mania, a local bank used cheep credit to fund the construction of an airport in Ciudad Real, La Mancha, Spain. The problem? La Mancha today is pretty much the same as it was when Cirvantes wrote about his eccentric knight errant: windmills and grain fields. The nearest real destination is Madrid, over two and a half hours away, so not surprisingly, NO ONE is using this airport. And I mean no one. They average SIX FLIGHTS PER WEEK. Shall we have a look at the runway on a regular business day? I think so…

no danger of being diverted to Teterboro here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The delicious irony of a fantastically grandiose and totally insupportable public works project in the middle of the old man’s plains is almost enough to make you forget for a moment that projects of this epic silliness may be about to cost Spain it’s banking system and torpedo the world economy… again.

Laugh it up Miguel.

Update – Look Who’s Not Coming…

The final list of countries that have used China’s hissy fit over Liu Xiaobo as cover to skip the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony: Afghanistan, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam. And of course, China itself.

Meanwhile, no award will be handed out, since Beijing has declined to allow any of Liu’s family to leave the country in order to travel to Oslo. Other prominent critics of the regime have also been grounded, including Ai Weiwei, the artist and auteur most recently of the mind blowing installation of 100 million hand painted, ceramic sunflower seeds at the Tate Modern. Ai was scheduled to travel to South Korea this week and insists that he had no intention of attending the Nobel ceremony.

One wonders if Beijing really does not understand the negative PR impact of this kind of over-the-top statist wingeing, or if they don’t care? Are they maybe just frustrated that the broader international community continues to lack respect for their right not to ever be publicly embarrassed or criticized by anyone? Who knows – but in my opinion this remains one of the significant areas where China’s foreign policy continues to reflect a lack of sophistication. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Countries (like the US dare I say?) that are good at covering up their human rights misdeeds with a show of public concern and open-mindedness might be much more threatening than those which do it right out in the open.

Food for thought.

Drop the Facade – The Mad, Bad and Goofy find political success online

This week the NYTimes featured an article about the amazing YouTube success of New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Christie is a blunt, overweight individual, and the more than 160 videos on his channel mostly feature him getting tough with impertinent questioners and giving strait talk to real people. This makes for a distinct contrast with the polished, warm and patriotic feeling that most politicians try to cultivate in their managed online media. The important thing here is, it works. with close to 800,000 views at the time the article was published, Christie is attracting lots of attention and seriously elevating his profile.

I have written before about the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and his rediculous public persona. The man was once fired from BBC radio for having an accent that was “too posh” and he continuous to be a flabbergasting anomaly to his political opponents who don’t understand how a man they view as a clown could have beaten serious politicians for the job. Once again though, the answer lay to a large extent with he very un-politician-like public persona he has created. After becomming one of the most popular guest stars ever ion the BBC comedy news Quiz Have I got News for You, he gained a national media profile that gave him the kind of name recognition that politicians salivate over.

Barack Obama – certainly Howard Dean as a precursor – even the absurd porn star who ran against David Vitter for the US Senate: people want to feel the authenticity of their elected leaders. It’s no fun to watch a poltician behaving like a politician on YouTube, in fact it’s lethally boring. It is fun to watch Barney Frank rip into a woman at a town hall meeting, comparing her conversationl style to a “dining room table” and questioning what planet she is living on.

Political types – take note. If Chris Christie has better name recognition than Tim Pawlenty when 2012 Presidential primary season rolls around, it won’t be because of their comparative merits on policy issues, but because a million viewers wanted to watch Christie trash someone on video…

Inspector Clouseau Goes to Kabul

The revelation today that the Karzai government and US and NATO commanders and diplomats have been negotiating with a fake Taliban commander (www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23kabul.html?hp) could hardly be more embarrassing - until you learn that they also made a bunch of good faith payments to “the Taliban” through this guy. To quote from the Times:

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

Sigh. This story has generated a massive amount of dialog already, and since I try to use this blog to point out the angles on news I think are being overlooked, I am going to beg forgiveness from the reader and skip my analysis of the situation as a whole to hammer very directly on one point.

Last year’s killing of many of the top Intelligence Community operatives and analysts on Afghanistan and Al Qaeda by the double agent who blew himself up in the base in Pakistan highlights a real problem with human intelligence: you need humans for it to work. Unfortunately, when you have a small number of highly experienced experts, they have not only great institutional knowledge but  almost as  importantly,  powerful instincts, honed over years and based on thousands of almost imperceptible inputs from a given situation. When you loose people like that, it makes you more vulnerable to situations like the one we find ourselves in. I don’t know the identities of the brave men and women who died in that room, but more than likely one of them might have smelled a rat faster than we did with the fake Mullah Mansour.

These are the risks you take with human intelligence – but they are vital ones. People may have actually met other people, they may know them or they may not, but pick up on something they feel suspicious about that satellites and phone intercepts just are not going to tell you about, because the data is raw. Really great HUMINT involves a kind of synthesis of the collection and analysis processes at the top level – and that has real power.