Nicaragua and elsewhere: the search for a coherent, consistently applied US foreign policy

"Since Mr Ortega's defeat in 1990, US money has flowed to Nicaragua in the form of investments by foreign companies drawn by the country's cheap labour, low crime rates and recent decision to join the Central American free trade agreement."

"Pundita,
My reaction to Daniel Ortega's victory in Nicaragua is a measure of how much your ideas have influenced my thinking about US foreign policy. Two years ago I would have agreed completely with Bob Novak's dire view of Daniel Ortega's victory and blamed State's failure to back a particular candidate. But my first thought was about State's America Desk.[*] After US corporations spent a decade pushing free enterprise in Nicaragua, the country is still one of the poorest.

My second thought was about Russia. Despite the many differences between the Russia and Nicaragua, the same basic US actions have been in effect in both countries during the past decade:

1. After getting rid of the devil, the State Department and the IMF push onto the new regime whatever theory is currently the fad in economic circles to bring the poorest out of the worst poverty.

2. The country is then overrun with US companies cutting deals with the most corrupt, inefficient and powerful business interests in the country.

3. Nothing works to help the poorest.

4. The majority in the country then turn against the United States and support the strongman who promises them the most.

5. The US then uses whatever clout it has (loans, aid, entry to WTO, etc.) in the attempt to shore up their favored political party in the country and bully the strongman and his supporters into keeping concessions to US business.

6. The strongman wins and becomes the new devil. Repeat steps 1-5.

There must be a way out of this crazy cycle, which harms the US as well as the country in question.
Jan in Reston"

Dear Jan:
You put your finger on it when you termed the events you describe a "cycle" rather than policy. Policy is an explicitly stated outline of how an entity plans to act under specified conditions.

Of course the US didn't make Nicaragua into the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, any more than the US made the Soviet Union. But successive administrations and Congress along with the State Department become champion scab-pickers. There's no way the majority in the poorest countries can catch a break if the US keeps fueling the same cycle. And in today's world of transnational terror armies that's a deadly cycle for the US.

Here it's easy to be cynical and say that US business interests will always act according to their lights, the ruling class in another country will act according to their lights, Left and Right idealogues in Congress will act according to theirs, and IMF economists will act according to theirs -- and America's superpower status means it's easy to impose the resulting cycle on other nations. But none of that is a policy.

The central problem for America's foreign relations is that we do not yet have a foreign policy that can be universally applied, and which transcends conditions that entrench the cycle you described.

Yet America's foreign relations are under a microscope because of our superpower status; the upshot during this globalized era of instant communications is that we are called out, every time we apply a double standard. This is a key problem with making support of democracy the foundation of US foreign policy. Every time we favor a pro-American regime that represses democracy in their country there is instant feedback.

In a perfect world the solution would be for the US to abandon the double standard. However, we don't yet have the kind of minds in place in government to make headway. We have leftovers from the Cold War, and who are steeped in Cold War thinking.

Speaking of the Cold War mentality, I read that Robert Zoellick and Congressman Daniel Burton threatened to press for yanking a $175 million loan from the Millennium Challenge Corporation to Nicaragua, if Ortega won. I have not investigated the claim and because the article (a laundry list of US actions to influence the Nicaragua election) had some inaccuracies, the story might be inaccurate. Yet it sounds like a threat Zoellick would make. In any case the story makes a good illustration:

Millennium Challenge decides loans on the basis of strict guidelines that are specifically meant to support sound government practices and democracy in a needy country. So, provided Ortega's government adheres to the guidelines, why play fast and loose with the principles of a good US loan program?

I'd be surprised if Ortega intends to adhere to the guidelines but that's not the point. The US sacrifices integrity by using Millennium Challenge capriciously. It doesn't get more capricious than for a superpower government to use a thinly disguised aid program as a means to blatantly influence the outcome of an election in a struggling country.

State and the Congress should wait to pass judgment, at least until Ortega's government is formed and in a position to review the loan conditions.

If the US wants to break the cycle you outlined, the first step is to base US foreign aid and loans on a concrete (i.e., not abstract), empirically verifiable principle that everyone can understand and live with. Then apply the principle consistently with all countries. That's how the US can build a viable foreign policy instead of making Swiss cheese.

Now what would such a principle be? Can we base it on a defense of democracy? We'll examine the question in the next post, which will be on Wednesday at 9:00 AM. The question I pose never was an academic exercise but now with China's pledge to double aid to Africa it's vital to come up with a workable answer.

For a brief, reasonably balanced analysis of Ortega's victory, see the Time article but I like the Guardian piece I quoted at the start of the post because it underscores the points in your letter. The US experiment in making business the centerpiece of US foreign policy, which spawned the America Desk, has been a failure in Nicaragua.

With regard to Novak's analysis, I sympathize with Oliver North's angst over seeing Ortega returned to power. Yet US foreign relations strategy has depended on crystal ball gazing: analyzing what the other guy is going to do in the attempt to predict and control the outcome. The only thing you can predict and control with certainty is how you intend to act. The observation also applies to a government's foreign relations.

China's foreign policy is amoral but consistent to a remarkable degree at telegraphing how they will act toward other governments. US foreign policy strives to be moral but frequently falls into sin -- giving into the exigencies of accommodating special interests and US political infighting -- with the upshot that the US is perceived as inconsistent.

Peoples around the world know they'd be foolish to have high expectations about what a superpower can do for them. Yet what other governments feel they have a right to expect from a superpower is enough consistency on which to base predictions about the superpower's behavior. (If we do X, we know the US intends to do Y.)

That was the major reason Genghis Khan came to be trusted by the diverse peoples in his far-flung empire; he was the soul of consistency. The Khan laid down a few simple rules for everybody to follow. Everybody could set their hourglass by what he'd do if they flouted the rules. He was predictable, and he worked hard at being so. That was viewed as integrity, and for that he was respected.

Realize that the Khan was even more respected than the gods in the various god-worshipping cultures he ruled because the gods were fickle -- sometimes they sent rain in answer to prayers, sometimes they didn't. If the Khan said he was sending something to a government outpost, it got there.

That much dependability is too much ask of any modern government. The idea is for the US to aim for somewhere between the Khan's level of integrity and a policy so riddled with inconsistency that it resembles Swiss cheese.

* The Office for Commercial and Business Affairs at the US Department of State. See December 2004 Pundita post.

"Chirac and Barnett: Two Peas in a Pod?"

Hello Pundita,
I hope your doctor's optimism has proven true and your hand is healed or at least nearly so. I read your post on Thomas P. M. Barnett's ideas and how they relate to Chirac.[*] Since the time I first saw Barnett on C-SPAN two years ago presenting his first book, The Pentagon’s New Map, I’ve been a follower of his line of thinking, though I have always been much too wary about China’s rise to completely embrace his vision of a strategic alliance with them.

However, a couple months ago I read about Barnett's ideas on Muslim immigrants in Europe on his blog and was astounded to see how wildly unrealistic he was being on how they would integrate into Europe’s culture. Barnett railed against Mark Steyn's “racist” predictions of an apocalypse for Europe. He believes the Muslims will go mainstream and form Islamist parties like the one that rules Turkey.

No account is given for the fact that the 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants are less assimilated than their parents and that many do not know their adopted nation’s language. It made me think if he could be so wrong on that issue what other policies could be similarly misguided, like those concerning China.

Then about two weeks ago Barnett made as explicit a statement of China’s future in relation to America as I had ever seen from him, and it really turned me off from large portions of his analysis. He believes that America is the outgoing superpower –- like Britain was a century ago –- and that China will take over with America as the sidekick who is able to “punch above its weight” like Britain in the post WWII era did in its alliance with us. He views this as inevitable and I think him quite wrong.

If China is where America was a century ago, why isn’t it at the forefront of science and technology, still relying heavily on Russian and stolen western designs; why is it still so dependent on foreign capital, why does its demographics portend an unstable future, and so on? If America is the outgoing power it must be happening pretty slowly because as Barnett noted from the Economist even in 2040 our economy is still expected to be bigger than China’s.

Nevertheless, I still think Barnett is on the right track on what to do about terrorism and “shrinking the Gap” with his System Administrator concept even if I no longer agree with his alliance scheme. So here’s my two cents on where he stands in relation to Chirac:

I think the difference between Thomas P. M. Barnett’s vision and the Chirac school of foreign policy can be found within two statements:

The first statement was made by Condoleezza Rice: "The nature of regimes is more fundamental than the global distribution of power."

The second was made by Barnett: "During the Cold War countries who were like us politically were our friends but in the 21st century countries those who are like us economically will be our friends."

I remember thinking offhand that those two statements were irreconcilable. If you put the two statements together and replace "countries" with "regimes" you get the following statement:

The nature of regimes is more fundamental than the global distribution of power, and those regimes who are like us economically will be our friends.

The statement begs the question: To whom does "the global distribution of power" refer and how does that correspond with their economic preferences?

If Rice is referring to the balance of power schemes of the past and (to many) the imagined coming one between America and China, than one has to ask how is it that the nature of China’s regime can be divorced from the sort of power it will able to wield no matter its economic policies?

But that’s just it: Barnett disagrees with the assessment that conflict between the US and the Chinese is inevitable and in fact believes the opposite: that we are destined to be strategic partners as we were and have been with the British (though that relationship appears to be on its deathbed).

Nevertheless, taking such a position leads us to the opposite of Barnett’s claim -- that the global distribution of power IS more fundamental than the nature of regimes, not vice versa.

Otherwise, how can one gloss over the nature of the CCP [China Communist Party], urging the US to form a strategic alliance with them in order to ward off a potential Great Power War between America and China?

By the same token, focusing on the nature of the CCP means the US must be prepared to fight a Great Power War with China. So a more accurate version of Barnett’s construction might be that the nature of regimes is fundamentally tied to the global distribution of power and those who are like us economically will be our friends.

Chirac believes the opposite of Barnett: that the global distribution of power is more fundamental than the nature of regimes and those who are like France politically (in spirit, if not constitutionally) will be its friends.

Yet for the same reason as I cited with Barnett, the Chirac school of foreign policy’s version should read that the nature of regimes is fundamentally tied to the global distribution of power and those who are like France politically will be its friends. That seems to me to be the distinction between the two. Out of that departure you get two major differences:

Firstly, Chirac (being French, after all) posits that the elites of society should be running the show in a sort of quasi-EU like arrangement on a global scale, within which the EU would form an alliance with Russia and China to create a counterweight to American power.

Barnett certainly would not be in agreement with the latter part. Moreover, he sees the private sector, particularly that of his “New Core” (most prominently India and of course China, which he believes will become ever more open politically) as the crucial and dominant element in his “shrinking of the Gap.”

It is with the incorporation of China, still an authoritarian state, into the halls of global decision-making, I gather, that it most appears that he is of the same mind of Chirac. Yet even there he does not regard its authoritarian political system to be permanent, as no doubt Chirac and Co. believe, perhaps even hope (given that it is much easier to deal with a bunch of technocrats than an unruly mob of populists -- from their perspective; just look at the last time the French tried to improve their own domestic unemployment rate).

This leads directly to the second difference, namely that Chirac has no endgame vision of a completely democratic world -- and why should he, when his own nation has become more of a technocratic republic run by bureaucrats in Paris and increasingly from the EU, and whose constitution the French thankfully rejected last year?

On the other hand, the logic behind Barnett’s largely economic arguments, such as getting nations beyond the $3,000 GDP per capita barrier after which a lot of the ills of the Third World begin to subside, drives us to the eventual democratization of the world even if that road is longer than those such as yourself, who quite rightly in my opinion feel that the ideals of freedom should be pushed from the getgo, would like.

Lastly, a third difference clearly separates Chirac from Barnett in that in the latter’s vision Europe is almost completely irrelevant, destined increasingly to be a mere spectator on the world stage. So I don’t think it would be fair to put Barnett and Chirac in the same camp even if their starting points look very similar.

For an alternative to Barnett’s Core/Gap model I find James C. Bennett’s formulation much more useful as he divides the world along the lines of the former empires -- Franco-, Russo-, Islamo-, Sino-, Hispano-, and Anglo- spheres.

That to me offers much greater clarity and a more secure fortress to successfully defend and spread democratic ideals, as the cultural differences of each portion of the Core and Gap are roughly accounted for. It makes clear your point that Barnett’s Core is easily divided. Only the Anglo- and perhaps Hispano- spheres appear willing to defend and extend our ideals. "For can two walk together, except they be agreed?"

From that we must conclude that the UN must go the way of the League of Nations and in its place a League of Democracies must be formed beginning with the Anglosphere.

James Bennett gives an excellent set of book reviews, including Barnett’s Pentagon’s New Map, in this National Interest article titled Dreaming Europe in a Wide-Awake World.
Greg in Orlando

Dear Greg:
You central point is well taken; I'd agree that Barnett and Chirac do not march in lockstep when it comes to ultimate aims. Barnett would not support a world order in which France has a leading role. But then he doesn't support a world order in which America has a leading role, despite all the words he has written about America's leadership status in the plan he outlines.

Barnett sees America as Gulliver, and his blueprint for action is a clever strategy for helping the Lilliputs tie down the giant. That's just why China's generals are big fans of Barnett's ideas.

Your letter was written before I published a link to Jim Ellsworth's paper on SSTR, so you might want to read the last Pundita post and take note of the mention of "preemptive SSTR."

Understand that the "System Administrator" (SSTR) concept, when extended to include warding off war conditions, locks the United States into the very same multilateralism that the Chirac School represents. Indeed, Barnett's blueprint is an outline for the military wing of the Chirac School.

Watch carefully; don't blink: What Barnett has done is peel off the Nato approach to dealing with the Soviets and slap it onto all the world's troublesome regimes. So now, instead of the need to fight the Soviets driving the US into an alliance, what does Barnett envision? The US needs an alliance that includes every government that could possibly help the United States preempt any serious trouble that rogue governments could cook up.

What's wrong with that idea? It makes it virtually impossible for the United States to take preemptive action against a threat unless the alliance agrees.

This is just how we got into hot water; the threat from the Axis of Evil and their terror armies had been building for years but to deal effectively with the threat, the United States would have had to break with Nato allies. The State Department, the Congress and two presidential administrations didn't want to make the break. The consequences were 9/11 and all that has gone with it.

Thank you very much for introducing me to James Bennett's essay. I don't like his model any more than I like Barnett's because it's wrong for this era for the United States. As with Barnett's model, it does not acknowledge that the US is at war. But I found Bennett's essay to be a great summary of the debates about the future of the European Union and the Euro-Anglosphere tensions. Both discussions receive little press in this country despite their importance to US foreign policy.

Finally, I do not disagree with Thomas Barnett's view that in Europe "Muslims will go mainstream and form Islamist parties like the one that rules Turkey." A British pundit recently observed that there is a 'get tough' atmosphere building in Europe which translates to "Assimilate or leave" for the Muslim populations.

Pundita has been warning for years of the building blacklash in Europe and Britain against the Islamic radicals, which lumps every unassimilated Muslim into the radical camp.

Maybe Barnett is jumping the gun, but things are working up to the point that either the radical Muslims in that region go mainstream or they will be forced out. Then Western Europe will get its cheap labor from non-Muslim countries. Believe you me, that would certainly take the heat off Mexico, if the poorest in countries to their southern border headed to Europe to do gardening and construction labor. Don't think the Euro governments wouldn't pay the airfare for those workers and put them up in housing, if they can't get enough cheap labor from Eastern Europe.

The next post will be this Monday.

* From October 13 Pundita post:

"Barnett takes the world as he finds it, and so he's designed his blueprint to mesh with globalization. The problem is that the term 'globalization' has become a euphemism for multilateralism and what I call the Chirac School of foreign policy. So one might say that if Thomas P.M. Barnett didn't exist, the State Department would have invented him -- or at least the factions at State that still cling to the Chirac School.

Chirac's multilateralism is barely disguised neomercantilism; the school of foreign policy that he and his advisors pushed at the UN and EU, and which so greatly influenced US policy under President Clinton, excludes all but the exigencies of doing business from a government's foreign relations. That effectively places dictatorships on the same level as democracies, which includes decisions about development loans, aid monies, and trade."

SSTR

Professor James B. Ellsworth’s paper SysAdmin: Toward Barnett’s Stabilization and Reconstruction Force is now available online in PDF format. The paper is only ten pages (minus footnotes) and written in succinct, non-technical language, so it’s highly accessible to the general reader.

Jim Ellsworth sticks to a discussion of the central issues about SSTR ("Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction"), which Thomas P. M. Barnett terms "SysAdmin." One realizes from the paper that Barnett’s discussion about SSTR is highly projective. (The paper is also a good introduction to Barnett’s major arguments in Blueprint for Action, which owe much to the SSTR concept.)

Ellsworth stresses that SSTR is not new, and that no matter how you think about it, the DoD is moving ahead it. SSTR has profound implications for the US military -- indeed, for militaries in all major countries -- as well as US foreign policy. So I strongly recommend a reading of the paper.

The paper specifically addresses the key issue at this time about SSTR, which is whether it should have a military (“force structure”) or civilian structure.

Jim only mentions the issue that Barnett made much of in Blueprint for Action, which is "preemptive" SSTR. But the paper makes a clear distinction between preemptive SSTR and SSTR. It’s Barnett's discussion about preemptive SSTR that raised my hackles.

The idea behind preemptive SSTR is that if it’s waged judiciously it will avert or mitigate situations that lead to war. Yet in a world of national borders how does one wage “preemptive” stability, security, transition and reconstruction?

The US might wait for a natural disaster, such as the Tsunami, to deploy preemptive SSTR. But the US experience with the Bam, Iran earthquake points up an important fact:

It doesn’t necessarily follow that preemptive use of SSTR will avert or mitigate conditions that make the government of an underdeveloped country warlike or aggressive toward neighboring contries.

In any case, Jim’s paper sticks largely to a discussion of plain unvarnished SSTR while giving warning that the concept of preemptive SSTR is not something that Barnett concocted. So we can assume that as the discussion heats up about which agency will control SSTR, we will see the State Department marshalling their troops.

10:45 AM UPDATE - Letter from Jim Ellsworth in response to the above post:

Thanks, Pundita, for your comments. Actually, I do believe in preemptive SSTR -- but as you note, in a world of national borders that will in the overwhelming majority of cases be a matter of encouraging struggling governments to ask for our help in providing the short- to intermediate-term security necessary for intermediate term economic and long-term cultural development to take durable root. And here I would embrace your notion of the importance of restricting this to those meeting at least some minimum standard of commitment to the principles we stand for --or willing to be held to some defined standards of progress toward those principles. That is where Millennium Challenge comes in -- both in terms of the long-term Center of Gravity and of reasonable criteria for staying true to our principles as we work to shrink the Gap.

In some much smaller percentage of cases -- I would argue Sudan should be a case in point -- I would still endorse intervention whether the recipient national government wants it or not. But then that's not wholly SSTR, but rather something farther up the Range of Military Operations spectrum that by definition ends up having a big SSTR component anyhow (as I mention in the paper).

Of course for such a policy to be practical, we would need both a much larger Army (and USMC)--I still argue that this Administration's National Security Strategy requires a World War sized force (millions) to effectively execute--and, at least as important, a citizenry that understands we're at war, and going to have to be fighting that way literally for the survival of our way of life against the real "Axis of Evil" -- transnational terror, transnational organized crime, and kleptocracy -- for a generation at least.

And at the moment, we have neither.

BTW, "which agency will control SSTR" is, at least for the moment, officially settled: NSPD 44 assigns the role of Lead Agency for SSTR to State, and DoDD 3000.05 reinforces our (military's) supporting role. Of course war being merely the continuation of politics with the addition of other means, the result in politics -- like war -- is never final, so that certainly isn't meant to end the debate.

Condition guarded but improving

Reader “E” suggested that I try a combination of ‘activated’ quercetin (with bromelain) and garlic capsules to alleviate the tendonitis. (1, 2) Together the supplements have a powerful anti-inflammatory effect. He gave me the name of specific brands along with his comments. (3)

I have supplemented the activated quercetin formula with 100 mg. of calcium because I don’t like taking a magnesium supplement, even in the small dose (50 mg.) used in the preparation, without adding a calcium supplement. My understanding from reading nutrition books is that the calcium/magnesium ratio should be roughly 2:1.

Also, upon waking I take about a gram of the quercetin (two capsules of the recommended brand) instead of one capsule three times a day because I snack throughout the day, and the quercetin needs to be taken on an empty stomach. (4)

Although the quercetin – bromelain combination has stopped the pain, work at the computer (combination typing/ mousing) still causes discomfort if I do it for any more than about 15 minutes at a time, even though I am wearing a hand brace. (Discomfort, not pain, so there has definitely been healing.)

Also, I have had to learn to hold a full coffee mug with two hands and refrain from lifting/ carrying all but the lightest loads with the affected hand.

I suspect that if I put the hand in a sling and continued the quercetin treatment the condition would heal rapidly, but at this point I am unwilling to take such an extreme measure.

I did not take the cortisone shot. The specialist bailed on his appointments on the day I was to receive the shot. Because he came highly recommended by my primary care physician I will simply wait until he can fit me into his schedule -- and hope that by then the hand injury will have improved so much that I can forego the cortisone.

I am reluctant to get a cortisone shot because of the side effects and look at it as a last resort. So I am content for now to stay with the quercetin treatment, given the good results so far.

To give you a graphic idea of how much the quercetin has helped: before the treatment, I had been taking 1,800 mg./ day of Ibuprofen. It made no difference -- didn’t do a thing to relieve the pain. One gram of activated quercetin had very dramatic results within an hour or so. And without side effects.

Allergy sufferers and those with bursitis or tendonitis – or any type of inflammatory condition – might want to take note of my experience with quercetin. Note, too, the Wikipedia mention (below) of quercetin’s ability to shrink tumors.

I don’t know where all this leaves the blogging. There are posts I want to type up. Yet there is nothing like having an injury to the hand that you use the most to put a scare in you. I want the hand to get better; I want the full use of the hand back! At the same time, light typing for short periods does not seem to do any more harm than ordinary use of the hand provided I use care. And straight typing doesn’t bother the tendonitis as much as mousing. If I limit mousing I can get away with using the left hand for the mouse.

So I am going to write up at least one of the two posts I want to publish and use the left hand for the mousing I’ll need for the publishing process. After that, I will take it a day at a time.

My target for publishing the next post is Tuesday around noon.

Thanks very much to E for the advice and his good wishes, and for the other letters of support, and thanks to everyone for their patience!

I should note that at least one author (who works for a company that makes quercetin supplements) disputes that quercetin should be taken in megadoses. (5) Here’s my experience with the dosage amount:

I started with 500 mg. of quercetin and saw no improvement. It was not until I took a gram that I saw the dramatic results. But not all inflammatory conditions might require a megadose, so one has to play it by ear.

Also, at first I took the quercetin – bromelain preparation without adding the high - allicin garlic preparation that E recommended. I am not sure how much ‘boost’ the garlic gave to the quercetin/bromelain supplement but surely it’s been a help.

However, if you are taking a blood thinning medicine (e.g., aspirin therapy) you’d want to forego the garlic or at least discuss with your physician whether that high a dose of allicin is safe.

1) Wikipedia article: “Quercetin is a flavonoid that forms the "backbone" for many other flavonoids, including the citrus flavonoids rutin, hesperidin, naringin and tangeritin. Quercetin is found to be the most active of the flavonoids in studies, and many medicinal plants owe much of their activity to their high quercetin content.

Quercetin has demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory activity because of direct inhibition of several initial processes of inflammation. For example, it inhibits both the manufacture and release of histamine and other allergic/ inflammatory mediators. In addition, it exerts potent antioxidant activity and vitamin C-sparing action. […]

Quercetin also shows remarkable anti-tumor properties. A recent study in the British Journal of Cancer shows that when treated with a combination of quercetin and ultrasound at 20 KHz for 1 minute duration, skin and prostate cancers show a 90% mortality within 48 hours with no visible mortality of normal cells. Note that ultrasound also promotes topical absorption by up to 1,000 times making the use of topical quercetin and ultrasound wands an interesting proposition.

Quercetin may have positive effects in combating or helping to prevent cancer, prostatitis, heart disease, cataracts, allergies/inflammations, and respiratory diseases such as bronchitis and asthma.

Foods rich in quercetin include apples, black & green tea, onions (higher concentrations of quercetin occur in the outermost rings[1]), red wine, red grapes, citrus fruits, broccoli & other leafy green vegetables, cherries, and a number of berries including raspberry, bog whortleberry (158 mg/kg, fresh weight), lingonberry (74 and 146 mg/kg), cranberry (83 and 121 mg/kg), chokeberry (89 mg/kg), sweet rowan (85 mg/kg), rowanberry (63 mg/kg), sea buckthorn berry (62 mg/kg), and crowberry (53 and 56 mg/kg).[1] A study[2] by the University of Queensland, Australia, has also indicated the presence of quercetin in varieties of honey, including honey derived from eucalyptus and tea tree flowers.[3] [...]

2) “Garlic has decongestant and anti-inflammatory properties and is a good source of quercetin, a natural antihistamine, making it good for colds and hay fever."

3) “Activated Quercetin (in this case, the brand matters)
Allicin Garlic (it's odorless)”

4) "Quercetin’s main disadvantage is that it is barely soluble in water, and therefore difficult for the body to absorb. Without biochemical help, its beneficial properties may be of very limited use to our bodies. There are lots of quercetin products on the market, but they won’t do much good if the quercetin is not activated for use by the body. Source Naturals combines its quercetin with bromelain, an enzyme derived from pineapple that is known to increase the body’s ability to absorb various substances. Bromelain also is known to have many of the same histamineand leukotriene-inhibiting properties as quercetin, so they enhance each others’ performance. Source Naturals ACTIVATED QUERCETIN contains vitamin C in a non-acidic form, magnesium ascorbate. Studies suggest that vitamin C has a synergistic relationship with quercetin, which improves quercetin’s use by the body. Since the acidic form of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) can create mild stomach irritation, and since quercetin is best taken on an empty stomach to maximize absorption, a pH-buffered form of vitamin C such as magnesium ascorbate is preferable."

5) Disputing megadose: “Because [quercetin] is not considered an essential nutrient, there is no RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) set. However, various studies have indicated that there doesn't seem to be an issue of toxicity with quercitin [sic]. However, to err on the side of caution, we would suggest refraining from using mega-doses -- 500 mgs or above. A dosage of between 50 mgs and 150 mgs seems much more reasonable."

My doctor the optimist, and Dave Schuler comments on Thomas Barnett's ideas

When I told the doctor today that I didn't see any use to getting a steroid injection given that it wouldn't actually heal the tendonitis, she replied that wasn't necessarily true. She said that she'd had her tendonitis cured years ago by just one injection. Who heals and who doesn't from such injections seems to depends on several factors. She is arranging for me to see a specialist; the appointment should be around the beginning of November.

Meanwhile, Pundita has not stayed completely off the Internet. I have answered emails and I got into a fun exchange this weekend with Jim Ellsworth that started out about Thomas Barnett's ideas then ranged to China policy then to globalization's bad guys (e.g., transnational organized crime and US 'legit' corporations that flout American laws).

I am so used to being on the Internet that withdrawing completely from it feels like I am agreeing to an amputation. But that is a silly and counterproductive sentiment, if I want the tendonitis to heal. So I am initiating a blackout -- literally disconnecting the computer until November 1st, which means not opening any emails until then.

We'll see how long the blackout lasts, but at least I can make it inconvenient for myself to get on the Net.

An email that got under the blackout wire was one from Dave Schuler in response to my recent posts on Thomas P. M. Barnett's latest book, which I've published below with my reply.

By the way, if you'd like to get away from the grind for a few minutes, take a hike with Dave and the Samoyed members of his family to enjoy the fall scenery.

"Dear Pundita:
I haven't read Blueprint for the Future but I suppose I should. As you may recall I have written about Barnett's Core-Gap model a number of times in the past and am, to say the least, skeptical. I like a number of things about Barnett's model. It's extremely optimistic and does provide a way forward. However, I also have a number of problems with his model namely:

> it's non-falsifiable
> it's not quantified
> it's politically non-feasible
> it has unachievable prerequisites
> it's redundant

The non-falsifiability is obvious. How would you go about proving that the Core and Gap simply did not exist on the terms that Barnett imagines? He'd simply come up with some additional qualifier, e.g., "Seam State", "New Core", etc., to explain away the inconsistencies. It's also not quantified. How connected must a country be to be considered part of the Core? New Core? Seam? Gap? As best as I can tell these are all self-referential.

These two in combination render the Core-Gap model theology rather than science.

It's a political nonstarter. Where will the budget come from? There are only two alternatives: a brand-spanking new budget item or it will need to come from State or Defense. There won't be a brand-spanking new budget item. We're already borrowing to the hilt now and the American people won't accept a new tax to fund an organization to build schools, hospitals, and roads in other countries while they want schools, hospitals, and roads here. To divert budget from State or Defense he'd need to convince current bureaucrats to abandon the weapons systems and programs they've backed they're entire careers in favor of his SysAdmin Force. I don't see it happening.

The prerequisite for his entire model is the world's acceptance of the U. S. military as a world-spanning Leviathan. It will never happen.

Finally, it's redundant. We already have a SysAdmin Force: it's called American companies and the American people.
Dave Schuler
The Glittering Eye "

"Dear Dave,
Because of the tendonitis I am not up to adding much by way of comments, but FYI Barnett is talking about adding a Cabinet-level department. (!)

Funding for development is the least of the problem with his idea. The funding burden could be shared with other governments via development banks, etc. But Barnett is talking about building a US bureaucracy to administer the SysAdmin concept that would necessarily be so large it boggles the mind.

And if one wanted to be cruelly dismissive of Barnett's idea, one could say that he is talking about a quasi-military bureaucracy that puts a literal gun in the hand of paper pushers and systems engineers.

However, you really should read Blueprint if only because Barnett has been so energetic in pushing his ideas in the military communities here and abroad (including China). And also because the basic idea behind the SysAdmin concept is going forward anyhow in the military, even without Barnett's input -- even though, as you (and Barnett) point out, it is being fought tooth-and-nail by factions that don't want to give funding ground for their weapons systems.

More on Thomas P. M. Barnett's ideas

This update follows on my post earlier today; it's to acknowledge Jim Ellsworth's opinion that Thomas Barnett would greatly disagree with my outline of his position as he put forth in Blueprint for Action, and to add a few comments to my observations today about Barnett's ideas.

It is hard to critique Barnett's ideas simply because there are so many of them. His book ranges from a sketch of his Core-Gap-Seam model of states and call for a larger 'SysAdmin' force to accompany the traditional warfare force, to foreign policy discussions, his debunking of American exceptionalism and defense of China, a foray into crystal ball gazing, and on and on.

But in brief Barnett's thesis envisions that traditional war is headed for history's dustbin. So he examines the kind of armed conflicts arising outside the traditional model of war and asks how the Pentagon can best plan for dealing such conflicts.

Some of his suggestions are good; e.g., "We need to stand an African command" (along the model of CENTCOM). And when he confines his discussion to the Pentagon, he is illuminating: "Contrary to popular imagination, the Pentagon is primarily in the business of preparing for war, not waging it [...] It may seem counterintuitive but the defense budget accounts only for future wars, not today's."

But Barnett skirts the central problem with his thesis that the Core states should be chiefly concerned with integrating the Gap states into the Core. The Core-Gap-Seam model is actually based on trade; specifically, the World Trade Organization. So when the model is applied to defense, one must ask whether oppressive regimes should be part of a global 'System Administration' force.

A deeper question is whether the United States wants to trade in the Cold War Nato model of defense for one that simply substitutes 'world peace' for 'fighting the commies.'

Barnett is very clear on arguing that strengthening the Core via closer integration of Seam states and Gap ones should take top priority in foreign relations:

"America needs to commit itself to the concept that getting countries from the Gap to the Core is not only a national security imperative, it's our overarching foreign policy." (page 30)

This idea leads straight to Barnett's argument for the obvious conclusion: if America is to be the world's supercop, "the US can't go it alone in peacekeeping." Thus, by many twists and turns, we find ourselves plopped in a desk at the Chirac School of foreign policy.

During the Cold War days, we couldn't do too much to rile our Nato allies, or our defense model would fall apart. Barnett wants US foreign policy to commit to refraining from doing too much to rile the WTO members; this so US military planning does not run into problems in those countries where America has joint operations.

In other words, if we set up joint military operations with every country on earth -- well, at least every Core-Seam country -- we will de-Gap the world. The catch is that we have to mesh our foreign policy with that of the Core-Seam countries.

Thomas Barnett has used the war on terror to argue that long-term safety for the US in the post-9/11 era calls for unprecedented cooperation with countries that fit his Core-Seam criteria.

I would argue that long-term safety lies in getting very clear on how to translate American democratic values into our foreign relations. That means, at root, being explicit on where we can compromise and where we can't, and building our post-9/11 defense policy on that foundation.

Update

I received a note from Jim Ellsworth in response to my thoughts about Thomas P. M. Barnett's ideas. Jim observed, and I believe quite correctly, that he believes "Tom would take exception to several of the points you use to characterize his position!"

It's not very nice of me to take pot shots at a position while saying that I'm taking a hiatus from blogging, thereby limiting all debate and discussion -- particularly so because this blog does not have a comment section!

So I will append to today's post some further comments, which will have to do for a time. I should be able to post the comments by 6:00 PM at latest.

Regards,
Pundita

E gives sage advice; Jim Ellsworth does Feng Shui, sort of; Pundita draws bead on Barnett

When I last left the Reader, I dutifully popped copious amounts of an anti-inflammatory drug, wore the hand brace, and continued to power through a rush project -- well, actually, a project I deemed rush on account of wanting to rush through it.

After a week there has been zero improvement in the tendonitis and the Ibuprofen hasn't made a bit of difference, although the condition has not worsened.

In the middle of this I received emails from two Pundita readers. I have forgotten the following reader's pen name and because it would take troubling him with an email or mousing to look it up, I am posting the letter signed simply "E."

"Hi Pundita,
[...] You want my advice? Well, even if you don't here it is:

If you're at the computer a lot, you can inadvertently develop a bad posture where you almost unknowingly put too much weight or stress on a particular point such as a hand, elbow, even (believe it or not) a shoulder. This has happened to me.

Then eventually it reaches a point where it gets sore. Sometimes really sore and the pain seems out of proportion to anything you could have done to set it off.

So what to do? It gets better on its own but takes some months. But you have to rearrange where your mouse, arms, and everything are, to guarantee you won't keep falling back into the same position, 'cause that's what most people will do. Only way is to change the layout (seat, mouse, things you might rest your arm on, put pressure on). Otherwise when its 95% gone, you can do the same thing and bring it right back. Once you got it, it comes back easy."

After mulling E's advice I realized that I didn't relish the idea of chronic injury to my right hand. I decided that I could not do both the project and the blog, so I decided to hang up on the blog until the tendonitis was completely healed, instead of messing around with steroid injections that only dull the pain, and get through at least the first phase of the project (which is for a friend) before hanging up on that too.

Then came an email from James B. Ellsworth of the US Naval War College, who was in town to present a forthcoming land warfare paper with the title, SysAdmin: Toward Barnett's Stabilization and Reconstruction Force.

The paper, Jim explained, takes Thomas P. M. Barnett's "Department of Everything Else" proposal from Barnett's Blueprint for Action book and "operationalizes it, with a roadmap (well, a sketch anyhow) aimed at the senior military [leadership] of how we might go about making it real."

Readers with a long memory will recall that this is the very same James B. Ellsworth who intuited last year that Pundita was sticking her head in the sand about an impending personal crisis.

This time a warning from Jim not to push myself again beyond what is sensible. But his mention of Barnett's latest book had an effect on me reminiscent of a wonderfully silly lottery ad that ran in my region a few years back:

An elderly woman lies on her deathbed surrounded by grieving relatives. Then a Feng Shui expert shifts the placement of a bureau in her room, and she immediately rises from her bed.

What Barnett does not mention in his book -- indeed, what is rarely mentioned anywhere -- is that the intelligence department that Donald Rumsfeld and some Neocons in government set up in the Pentagon after 9/11 created a fine "department of everything else" to manage post-conflict stabilization in Iraq. Indeed, with the help of Iraqi expats they created a working model for post-conflict Iraq, right down to the ministry levels.

I learned about the model from a PBS Frontline episode some years back. Frontline was allowed to photograph the 'shadow' government at work, and which was created in advance of the US invasion of Iraq. (Ret.) Major General Paul Vallely mentioned the model during a speech at the Intel Conference in early 2005 and spoke darkly about its tragic abortion by forces in government other than the Pentagon.

For reasons that are still unclear, the model government was not transferred to Baghdad after the invasion. Instead, we got Paul Bremer and the bumbling of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Yet given the epic war between the Pentagon and the US Department of State that launched after 9/11, I suspect that at least some of the blame for the abortion rests with State.

One can't base a critique of Barnett's book on his omission of the model and it would have been outside the scope of his discussion to examine why such a useful project was blocked from implementation in Iraq. Yet Barnett's ruthless pragmatism, which informs his entire blueprint for action in the post-9/11 world, is jarringly out of place in the current war.

The observation would not be a criticism if narrowly applied to Barnett's discussion of the 'new' US military that has been taking shape under Rumsfeld's guidance. Barnett's book is a godsend for a general public trying to understand how the military is finally grappling with a post-Cold War defense environment. So I recommend the book but with great misgivings; I joked to Jim that I had trouble finishing the book because I kept throwing it across the room.

Barnett takes the world as he finds it, and so he's designed his blueprint to mesh with globalization. The problem is that the term 'globalization' has become a euphemism for multilateralism and what I call the Chirac School of foreign policy. So one might say that if Thomas P.M. Barnett didn't exist, the State Department would have invented him -- or at least the factions at State that still cling to the Chirac School.

Chirac's multilateralism is barely disguised neomercantilism; the school of foreign policy that he and his advisors pushed at the UN and EU, and which so greatly influenced US policy under President Clinton, excludes all but the exigencies of doing business from a government's foreign relations. That effectively places dictatorships on the same level as democracies, which includes decisions about development loans, aid monies, and trade.

In the war on terror, democracy is fighting for its life. Until and unless the realization percolates to all levels of the Pentagon, State and the US Congress, we can expect to fight the war for many decades.

And speaking of the French, one need only read of the proposed bill to arrest anyone who publicly refuses to acknowledge that the Turks practiced literal genocide on the Armenians to realize that many French have only the most tenuous understanding that freedom of speech is a pillar of democracy.

I will stop myself here, but the above is enough to convey the wondrous effect on me that Jim's mention of Barnett's book wrought. I think it was Ethan Zuckerman who wrote, or quoted another blogger as saying, that a blog is the "remnants of attention." The Pundita blog is not a remnant for me; it is my way of speaking out instead of fuming in silence about the kind of pragmatism that Thomas Barnett represents, and keeping myself focused on news developments that I consider important.

Then again, I don't want to end up with chronic tendonitis. So I informed my friend that I was at least temporarily suspending my work on his project. As for the blog, I'm going to check back on November 1st and stay off the computer until then, and hope that there has been considerable improvement in the tendonitis by that time. In any case, I am not giving up the blog.

Jim's paper should be posted online by November, and I will pass along the URL at that time. The Department of Everything Else is a concept that is growing in importance in the defense establishment, and one that needs considerable attention at the operational level.

For readers unfamiliar with the "Department of Everything Else," it's an envisioned "department of global security that speaks to the world in terms of our shared responsibility [to further and defend peace in the world]."

Until November, then, and best regards to all.
1:30 PM update
I have just learned that Dymphna at Gates of Vienna blog is suffering from the genetic disorder fibromyalgia and releated chronic fatigue syndrome, which has made many physical activities difficult for her. And here I thought I had a health problem! It seems that her condition has taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks, which occasioned an apology that she had not replied to an email of mine. Dear Dymphna, no apology needed. You will make Pundita happy if you coddle yourself.
6:00 PM update
See this post, just up, for more of my discussion about Barnett's ideas.

diagnosis

doc's best guess is that i have tendonitis. put me on prescription-strength ibuprofen and told me to keep wearing hand brace. if no improvement in a week she'll send me to another doc who will inject injured site on hand with steroid.

i am suspending posting on the blog until next friday. by then i should know more where i stand.
regards to all,
pundita

situation unchanged

sorry for delay in writing today.
doctor appt. bumped to wed am.
wearing hand brace which helps a little but still stabbing pain 1 point on back of hand when i mouse.
ominously there does not seem to be swelling.
hope not nerve damage but no use self diagnosing.
will write again wed pm.
best to all,
pundita

With apologies again to evariste

This is a reply to Rugby, who, having escaped the laboratory, found a doting human who gifted him with a laptop. As near as I can make out from Rugby's spelling, this meeting occurred while the human was sitting at an outdoor cafe minding his own business and typing on his laptop. Rugby ran up his leg and proceeded to type a dissertation on gerontology, which he plagiarized from a scientist at the lab.

No, my post on Saturday is not a clue that my real identity is that of a cat. Now please ask your human to buy you a book called PCs for Dummies. If your paws can't navigate the book pages, ask the human to read you the book's explanation of a computer mouse -- or send you an email on the topic, if you have trouble with spoken human language.

While you're at it, please ask the human to show you how to work the Spell Check.

"the best laid plans of mice and men..."

pundita injured her right hand during the course of work on the rush project. too much clicking on the mouse at a very un-ergonomic computer work station. i will learn from the doctor on monday whether the problem is carpal tunnel syndrome or whatever and post a note for readers on monday night.

Meanwhile i am typing and mousing with my left hand, which is a strain for this right handed person. Even holding a pen is painful for the right hand and typing with it is out of the question. so i am afraid i am off the blogosphere until the hand is healed.

my left hand is getting tired now so i will sign off with best wishes to all.

pundita

Mordor draws an ace against Wolfy's king

(September 18 The New York Times):

[...] a committee of finance ministers that oversees the World Bank endorsed in principle a plan by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the bank president, to crack down on corruption in the bank’s lending, but not unreservedly. The ministers added a proviso that the bank’s board of executive directors, a separate group that oversees the day-to-day bank operations on behalf of donor and recipient nations, be able to override the way Mr. Wolfowitz carries out the plan.

Mr. Wolfowitz [...] has stirred unease in the bank with his corruption policy. Many directors fear that it may be overly punitive and lead to cuts in aid to poor countries.

The finance ministers’ committee also raised concerns, Mr. Wolfowitz said, about the standards to apply to various countries and the question of how much of the bank’s resources should go to anticorruption plans.

The finance ministers’ committee issued a statement that supported the anticorruption campaign but with what seemed to be muted wording. It supported the bank’s “engagement” on the issue but demanded further information on how it would be carried out , and in a suggestion of unhappiness, “stressed the importance of board oversight of the strategy.”

Educate us, Mr Mallaby: how much is too much intolerance for corruption?

A Tibetan once told me the difference between a friend and an enemy: "An enemy is, no matter how much good he does you say, 'Must be something wrong.' A friend is, no matter how much bad he does you say, 'Must have had a good reason.' "

By that definition I am a friend to Paul Dundes Wolfowitz. But in 2004, when I could no longer ignore that Wolfowitz had placed unjustified faith in Ahmed Chalabi, I mournfully observed, "Time to take down the poster and votive candles."

This April I gleefully replaced my idol to his pedestal after reading Sebastian Mallaby's sputtering lecture that Wolfowitz had been Blinkered By His Big Ideas because he failed to take into account the nuances of corruption when he froze World Bank loans to India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Chad and Argentina on the grounds that the governments were massively corrupt.

[...] corruption in poor nations indeed destroys entrepreneurial incentives and swallows development assistance. But the fight against corruption involves vexing dilemmas: All countries have some corruption, so which ones should the World Bank cut off? How do you deal with a borrower who steals a quarter of your aid but uses the other three-quarters effectively?

Now let us be clear that by corruption we're not talking about a box of Godiva chocolates handed under the table or a few tons of steel filched from a Bank construction project. We're talking about so many US dollar billions that only a computer can imagine the amount. Above all, we're talking about the rape of the world's poorest people.

By a conservative estimate the World Bank -- one development bank out of many -- is responsible for losing 100 billion dollars to corruption since 1946, which is nearly 20% of the Bank's total lending portfolio, according to a US Senate committee report in 2004. That was $100 billion slated for development in the world's poorest nations.

In arguing against Paul Wolfowitz's zero tolerance for corruption, Mallaby hauls out the totally inappropriate example of Indonesia:

[In the mid-1990s] The World Bank's officials recognized that corruption in the country had risen to threatening levels -- some 20 to 30 percent of project loans were being stolen. But the officials also knew that projects in Indonesia nonetheless got done, and a lot faster than in other developing countries. Moreover, Indonesia was a stunning development success; each year it lifted a million people out of poverty. After some internal agonizing, the World Bank carried on its Indonesia programs. Corruption did not seem to warrant a rupture in relations. So, responding to corruption is complicated.

No it's not complicated, Mr Mallaby, if you understand that Indonesia's oil meant that commercial banks raced to buoy the Indonesian government's worst errors and smooth over gouges that the government's massive theft ripped in Bank-sponsored projects.

It's not complicated, if you understand that by looking the other way on Indonesia's corruption, this made it impossible for the Bank to check corruption in other governments that stole from their own people and the taxpayers who contributed to World Bank funds.

Yet Sebastian Mallaby is only expressing the view of Brussels, which sees in Paul Wolfowitz's uncompromising approach to dealing with corruption the same problem they see plaguing the Bush administration: Paul, and President Bush, must learn that all true leaders are actually followers. Now why is this? Because if you lead as a leader, this will inevitably bring you into conflict. And setting off conflict, Mallaby warns Wolfowitz, is no way to fight corruption:

In February [Wolfowitz] launched a richly justified effort to postpone debt relief to the super-corrupt Republic of Congo. But the government officials who sit on the bank's board pushed back, turning the normally formulaic board meeting into an all-day fight and forcing Wolfowitz to backtrack.

They forced him to retrench, but it is the horror of being pushed back that all leaders must seek to avoid by not pushing in the first place.

Now why are we discussing Sebastian Mallaby's gobbledygook at this time? Because -- horror of horrors -- there has been a big push back against Paul Wolfowitz's crackdown on corruption, which we will discuss on Thursday.

The Central Debate

Pundita is still on vacation. The following is abridged from the original essay published November 2004 and titled Two Very Different Views of the World.

China's leaders have a horror of being backward -- witness the new standard for intelligence in China : you must have a college education or be stupid (read, "backward"). So as long as America takes a two-faced approach to dealing with dictators -- well, that must be "modern." Then we wonder why Beijing sees nothing wrong with being two-faced on the subject of democracy.

But now we have a president who is reading Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy. Of course since 9/11 Bush has intuitively moved toward Sharansky's direction under Paul Wolfowitz's tutelage. But -- Sharansky! I've read that Bush's father dismissed Sharansky's ideas as naive and impractical as did earlier US presidents and a host of other national leaders; Ariel Sharon dismissed his ideas for the same reason!

I think Bush grasps what more ornate minds have not about Sharansky's message, which is that democracy is the only practical system of government. Indeed, 9/11 is a textbook illustration of the point. Every other door leads to tyranny, even if the tyrant wears a friendly face. That leads to oppression, which drains worker creativity and tax dollars. That in turn calls for more tyranny, which calls for more protest against tyranny, and it all finally ends in oceans of blood.

Yet the vision Sharanksy (and Bush) follow stands in opposition to the vision of Jacques Chirac and the school of geopolitics he represents. I am grateful to the
Belmont Club writer's Pro and Contra essay for clearly defining the two views:

History may remember Jacques Chirac as one of the most prolific institution builders of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The European Union and the United Nations are but some of the multilateral projects he sought to strengthen in the belief they would serve as a prototype for the future ordering of the world.

Wolfowitz's vision seems altogether more complex. He seems unwilling to speak of institutions outside the context of empowerment, as if to speak of instruments of governance without freedoms was tantamount to prescribing tyranny. Their difference of opinion may be rooted, not so much in an argument over bureaucratic arrangements, but in their view of the nature of man himself.

". . .as if to speak of instruments of governance without freedoms is tantamount to prescribing tyranny."

With those words, the Belmont Club writer nails the essence of the argument. If modern civilization is built on the concept of an alliance of cooperative nations, then tyranny can easily present itself as on equal footing with democracy, merely by making an appearance of cooperation.

The writer quotes Chirac as arguing for a new world order based on multi-polarity:

That of an order based on respect for international law and the empowerment of the world's new poles by fully and wholly involving them in the decision-making mechanisms.

"Only this path," [Chirac] added, "is likely to establish a stable, legitimate and accepted order in the long run."

The new "poles" [Chirac] spoke of are the emerging regional powers of the new century, including Europe, China, India and Brazil. . .

"It is by recognising the new reality of a multi-polar and interdependent world that we will succeed in building a sounder and fairer international order. This is why we must work together to revive multilaterialism, a multilaterialism based on a reformed and strengthened United Nations."

Now one may snort that Chirac's argument is self-serving but he has neatly articulated the ideas that give legitimacy to tyrannies in the modern era. The multi-polar order Chirac envisions is built on regional trading powers, not on the concept of an advanced civilization; i.e., one that does not govern by oppression.

Chirac's view is considered realistic; he accepts the world as he finds it. Sharansky shreds the belief that this view is realistic. Yet the facts Sharansky marshals are ignored in favor of branding his view "moralism" and thus, idealistic. And from there, backward-looking.

Wolfowitz and Bush (and Sharansky) are dismissed by their critics as impractical dreamers, as ideologues -- while Chirac's ideas are seen as practical, modern.

Through this inversion democratic governments must allow for the legitimacy of despotic governments. And further: democracy must stand on the side of an equitable sharing of the world's pie, not on the side of an advanced notion of civilization.

That's the argument to be tackled if this century is to be "liberty's century," as Bush envisions. It must be tackled outside the wonkish language and circles that the American public left in charge of the debate.

Americans inside and outside the Beltway must recognize that despite the criticism lobbed at America this nation is the standard of modernity for the world. How we treat tyrants, and the extent to which we're willing to look the other way in our diplomatic, foreign aid and business dealings, are emulated the world over. So Chirac's world view is our chickens come home to roost.

Americans who are cowed by the criticism that America is trying to impose democracy on other countries should take heart from an observation Wolfowitz made:

"The contradiction is to say that allowing people to choose their government freely is to impose our ideas on them. There was a wonderful moment at a conference here in Washington where someone said it's arrogant of us to impose our values on the Arab world, and an Arab got up and said it's arrogant of you to say these are your values because they are universal values."

Golden Oldie: The price of Indian tea in Iran

Pundita is on vacation until September 16. The following essay was was originally published in February 2005

"Pundita, I'm seeing why you still refer to the Group of 8 as the G7. There's a move afoot to get Russia's membership suspended until Putin toes America's line. Russia's place in the group is still not secure, even though they were supposed to host the G8 summit in 2006.
Caesar in San Francisco"

Dear Caesar:
During his Brussels speech Bush spoke of Russia taking their full place in the European community. He criticized Moscow's actions in the context of how they fit with the standards of the EU. Moscow has been very concerned that NATO's expansion is 'surrounding' Russia. Bush's speech seemed to be saying to Moscow, 'Where's the problem? If you keep your nose clean, you can join the WTO and down the line you can join the EU and NATO.'

The problem is that Russia doesn't need to become a part of the Europeon community. Russia sits on the invisible line that divides Asia and Europe. During earlier centuries a series of French diplomats managed to convince Russia's tsars that they were barbarians unless they learned to speak French. But today's Russia doesn't need to fit in with Europe. They can fit in with Asia.

European Union countries as well as the US were deeply involved in promoting Yushchenko--an involvement that included trashing Russia. So if Russia needed a lesson on where they'd stand in NATO and the EU if they joined, the Ukraine affair was it. The lesson is that Russia can be treated as a full-fledged European country only if the people running Russia allow Brussels a big say in how Russia is run.

That's the same message Dame Neville-Jones conveyed to the National Intelligence Conference during her keynote speech--not about Russia but about Europe's view of the United States. She was not speaking in an official capacity but her previous standing in the British government gives her words much weight. Stripped of polite language, the message she passed on is that the EU's idea of improved cooperation with Washington is for things to return to the way they were during the Clinton era. That was the era during which US foreign/defense policy was run from a post box in Brussels.

I add that Neville-Jones is a Good Guy--a very staunch friend of the US war on terror. That's why she squished herself into the middle seat of Coach class to fly from London to Washington just to deliver a heads up to the US defense community.

It's doubtful that President Bush first heard the warning via Neville-Jones's speech. It's obvious that the EU has taken a hard line toward Washington and there's no indication they plan to soften, even if they find agreement over Syria's role in Lebanon. The EU leaders want to have more say in how US defense/foreign policy is run; if they don't get it, they can drag their feet on a host of issues. From that view, Bush's tough stance on Russia can be read as a bone thrown at the EU's demands for more say in US policy.

However, there have been big changes in the world since the US invaded Iraq. The US triumph in Iraq--and it is a triumph--brought up a situation that was greatly suppressed because of Saddam Hussein's aggression in the Middle East. The situation is that Iran is a Persian island in a sea of Arabs. As long as Iran could act to keep Saddam's aggression in check, Arabs were happy to invite Iran to their backyard barbecues. But now that Saddam's threat is removed, Iran is feeling, well, like an island. And they aren't going to reach out to Israel--not as long as the present regime in Tehran is in power.

What would you do, in Tehran's position? For the answer, look at a map. Iran sits on that invisible line that divides the Middle East from Asia. Iran has long been a big purchaser of Russian weapons technology and so they've had good relations with Russia. But to interest Russia in forming a bloc would take more than arms trade. It would take a bunch of countries getting on board.

The map shows that the first choice among the bunch is China. That was Beijing's idea when they formed the hilariously named Shanghai Cooperative. Beijing envisioned an Asian arc of power that included Russia, Iran, India and various satellites, such as whatever Stans the bloc could pry away from US influence.

Put in unpussyfooting language, the Shanghai Cooperative is a pussyfooting attempt to form an Asian version of NATO. Vajpayee had his own idea; he wanted to create an IT trade alliance with China that would leave the EU trade bloc and the US eating dust for the rest of the century.

One sticking point for Vajpayee's party was bringing Tehran on board with the Shanghai Cooperative. The Islamic fundamentalists in Tehran don't say nice about Hindus behind their back. Vajpayee's party represents Hindu nationalism. Iran didn't see why they should be allies with India and vice versa. So the Shanghai Cooperative sort of bumped along in getting off the ground.

Also, Iran and Russia, having many centuries of experience with China, knew that the Chinese have a penchant for never naming anything for what it actually is, if it has unpleasant or forceful connotations. That's why Chinese gulags in Tibet were given names such as Bluebirds Nesting in Feathered Fan.

To boil it down, Tehran and Moscow weren't sure they wanted to be run from a post office box in Beijing. Months passed. Moscow waffled and watched India and China waltz each other around, and Iran lost a lot of money and caused a lot of unnecessary bloodshed while trying to swing things their way in post-Saddam Iraq. Meanwhile, large numbers of Indians were getting more and more steamed at Vajpayee, who was so busy entertaining Microsoft executives and wooing China that he neglected his voter base. In what was a stunning surprise to no one but Vajpayee, the Hindu nationalists were routed last year from the seat in Delhi and the Congress party returned to power.

The thing to write on your hand about the Congress party is that they trust China no further than they can throw it. And with a Sikh in the top post in India--Sikhs being sort of an Indianized Islamic sect with a few nods to Hinduism--Tehran found they could deal with India, after Tehran faced the writing on the wall about Iraq and looked around at the sea of Arabs lapping at their shore.

The upshot is that Tehran is talking up the creation of a common market that would include India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, the Central Asian states, and the Caucasus. Just to show they're willing to put their money where their mouth is, Tehran has dropped import barriers to Indian tea.

Tehran is doing more than agreeing to drink Indian tea. They want India to back them up regarding Tehran's stance on going nuclear. As sweetener, they've offered India a gas pipeline deal and India has reciprocated with all kinds of planned investment in Iran.

Thus, the outlines of the early 21st century are jelling. For all their hi-tech industrial knack, the EU, America, India and China are heavily dependent on regions in Russia, the Caspian Sea states, and the Middle East for energy supplies. Tehran has sized up the situation, and is making a pitch to Russia to play by the new geopolitical order.

Now put yourself in Putin's place listening to the pitch from Tehran. Putin's overriding concern is to build up Russia as a truly sovereign nation and from there a stable democracy. Imagine Dallas, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago running their own foreign policy counter to Washington's. That's pretty much where Russia's at.

Moscow has to get control of the regional governors and the oligarch clans. Putin doesn't want to do it by brute force, in the way China and Iran solved similar problems. So it's messy because Putin and his technocrats are making up solutions and correcting them as they go along.

Washington and Brussels don't care about the mess. They care about oil and gas and gas and oil and oil and gas. Russia has no other use to them other than maybe a place to set up US/NATO bases. Quite frankly, Russia doesn't have all that much offer during this era, aside from energy and a weapons industry left over from the Cold War era.

For now, Putin is trying to keep everyone at bay while he continues to fiddle with structural adjustment in the effort to wrest Russia away from the clan model of government.

The question is whether Bush should approach Russia in the way he indicated in his Brussels speech. His lecture to Russia might be a reflection of pressure from factions in the Democrat and Republican party that want to go along with Europe's lead on Russia.

However, the factions are still living in 1982 and Bush knows this. So we'll have to see what happens in Bratislava, now that Bush made his bread-and-butter speech to the EU and made a pass at placating the factions back home.

Just to throw in more suspense, Pundita suspects that Germany is particularly against the Bush-Putin friendship. Germany, we should all remember, is the most influential member of the European Union.

For more on Iran-India talks:

http://news.newkerala.com/india-news/?action=fullnews&id=75559

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=2/22/2005&Cat=2&Num=006

Golden Oldie - Stand and Deliver: Bringing the US Department of State in line with today's world

Pundita is on vacation until September 16. The following essay was originally published in December 2005.

Hi, Pundita:
Re: your post about de-Europeanizing the US Department of State. As always, I enjoyed your essay, and don't disagree with the premise. Being human, however, I can always quibble about something.

One thing I've noticed about people who grow up (individually) in cramped quarters: disagreements to them are win-lose. Those of us who grew up with a little more space around us (even though the city grew out to change that) tend to think more in terms of win-win.

Oddly, societies seem to operate in somewhat the same way, though the flavor is a little different. Europe, with its history of so many wars fought over the same dreadful ground, sees all contests between states as win-lose, while the US, with its history of taking our kit and going elsewhere, tends to be win-win. You can have your way here; I'll just go over there, and we won't bother each other -- we might even trade a bit eventually.

But those Americans most likely to be the doers rather than the arguers are those least likely to be attracted to the State Dept. Most societies are older than ours, and so generally those attracted to old societies will be the ones who want to deal with them. The doers of that group will want to deal with them for profit (business), the talkers will gravitate to a talking shop: State, the UN, etc.

As for a universal truth, I think that wonderful set of clauses [in the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence] may be just that, though John Locke had to spell it out for us. I've come to the conclusion that he had to spell it out because those truths are not self-evident. (Though it made a lovely bit of framing the argument, eh?) Further, it is because they are not self-evident we must say them aloud, indeed proclaim them early and often and defend them every time, lest they be nibbled away like a stream bank when no one is looking.

Since those serving at State and desirous of serving in the UN, et al, are those among us least likely to live that truth, perhaps we need to make government service less of a career opportunity, even at the risk of introducing new forms of ineffeciency. After all, the inefficiencies which come with our present career service model (including tenure, by any other name as sweet) are most dissatisfying.
Annlee Hines

Dear Annlee:
You should know by now that Pundita loves quibbles, which have inspired many Pundita essays and helped me (and I hope, readers) clarify thinking on a matter. Which is to say that knowledge does not build if everyone is in perfect agreement. I appreciate your comments, which are always thought provoking. I disagree with you on some points in your letter and see in them a need to clarify some of my statements.

I agree that environment, including the amount of "space" one inhabits, is a factor in attitudes about how far to carry a disagreement. However, my call to wrest the State Department away from Eurocentrism is grounded less in what the Europeans are like and more in what official Washington and the American public are like.

It is pulling teeth with an elf's tweezer to get the majority of Americans to think with any depth about global matters and thus, it's easy for State to operate outside the spotlight of the American public's scrutiny. This situation won't change markedly because America is a vast nation, Americans are such terribly busy people, and many matters of diplomacy are best carried out without the constant glare of media attention.

The other side is that because of America's superpower status, American foreign policy should not drift under the influence of foreign regional concerns and the increasingly globalized interests of American big business.

The latter reflects the viewpoint that characterized the foreign relations of the European colonial powers. Such attitudes are not necessarily the best for America's defense and the regions of no great interest to the business powers. Yet if 9/11 has taught anything, it is that no world region is unimportant in this era.

For this reason American foreign relations need to be brought closely in line with the only rational definition of foreign policy, which is to directly support the defense of a nation.

Toward this end, the US government must not fall in love with any one world region, bloc, alliance or other nation -- no matter how valuable they might be to US strategic resources and business interests. This is on the theory that the backlash from an oppressed, isolated, ignored or especially favored region can wipe out whatever security the US gains from focusing on a particular resource or region at the expense of others.

Yet during the waning years of the Cold War and running into the post-Soviet era the US Department of State was dominated by factions that were hyperfocused on Eastern Europe/Russia. The American public had only the haziest notion of how the post-Soviet era in those regions was shaking out and so was unaware that the Cold War did not stop with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, a few other things were going on in the world, as Americans learned on 9/11 and again, when France and Germany rose up in 2002 at the UN to tell America to go sit on a tack. And again as it dawned that Beijing had not sat on their hands with the power accorded them by the big Western trading nations. This was a power considered by the NATO allies to be a 'necessary evil' to offset Soviet expansion, and which continued unexamined by the State Department after the Soviet Union dissolved.

So I take issue with your implication that State is a talker and not a doer. If only State had confined themselves to talk! The problem for the American people and the world at large is that throughout the Clinton years, State continued as a big doer.

By the end of the Cold War State had gathered tremendous power; I believe they got more power than the Congress and White House to set and direct foreign policy. During the Clinton era no small part of the power was placed under the control of George Soros and the Marc Rich crowd, US corporations wanting to cash in on the breakup of the Soviet Union, and congressionals who listened to lobbyists here and abroad who didn't want to stop with 'winning' the Cold War; they wanted to take control of Russia's government and destroy any possibility of the Soviet Union rising again.

By the end of Clinton's presidency State was virtually running the Central Intelligence Agency and controlling the Pentagon's agenda. And it's not much of an exaggeration to say that State was by then run from a post box in Brussels; i.e., they fell in line with the foreign policy of the European Union. This policy was in turn (and still is) influenced by the 'Chirac School' of multilateralism, which is a thinly disguised rationale for allowing trade to dominate all other issues.

One cannot blame all this on America's foreign office, and one certainly can't blame it on the European Union. During the Clinton era State acted behind the screen of public inattention, which reflected the US media's hyperfocus on domestic issues and battles between the US political left and right.

Nor can State's power be tracked solely to the Cold War and the US determination to retain the NATO alliance after the Cold War ended. The power State accrued over decades was an inevitable consequence of the inbuilt tension between the congressional and presidential branches of US government.

The tension serves the checks and balances in the US Constitution in that it acts as a corrective measure when one branch becomes too powerful. The downside is that the constant jockeying for power between two elected branches of government gives power to a civil service agency. This is because a bureaucracy is buffered against the revolving door of political appointments and attendant shifts in political winds.

People who understand this warned passionate supporters of the Bush doctrine not to pin great hope on Condoleezza Rice's appointment to State, particularly during the first years. The Secretary of State does not run Foggy Bottom. Those whose entry into the State Department is through presidential appointment, or who come to State hand-picked by appointees, must find ways to negotiate with powerful civil servants they know can outlast a term of political appointment.

Generations of those civil servants at State were trained to give the highest priority to NATO aims, which meant little adjustment in thinking when the focus went to chipping away at Moscow's hold on the waning Soviet empire. The Bush doctrine, while retaining lip service to NATO, represents a completely new day for US foreign policy -- and a very dangerous, untested one, in the view of State's most powerful chiefs.

What happens, they ask, when Bush leaves the presidency and Rumsfeld leaves Defense? The United States of America could be out there bouncing on the limb of democracy yappity-yap and with no safety net provided by our oldest and most powerful allies.

These civil servants see themselves as the tiller on the ship of state, which in a democracy is buffeted by the winds of politics. They are there to keep America's foreign policy on a steady course through the storms of change wrought by political winds. They provide the continuity that democratic politics does not necessarily allow.

Is their view of their function right or wrong? There is no easy answer, until you stop and think it through very carefully. Let's begin with the obvious questions. Do we really want our foreign office to act as a pioneer? To always place integrity above the exigencies of dealing with a flashpoint situation? Do we want them to march in lockstep with the latest power shift in Congress and presidential election?

From the other side, is the US foreign office supposed to set US foreign policy and shield the decisions from control by the Congress and White House?

That's a question the Founding Fathers didn't think about because at the time the US Constitution was framed, the Union was not the world's lone superpower nation in a world of many governments and alliances with global power. But we can feel our way to the answer because the Founders designated three and not four branches of US government. This was alluded to during a recent debate on PBS NewsHour. An ex-State official fumed that State was being shut out of a place at the table by the Bush administration when it came to decisions on Iraq.

The other guy stared at the official in quiet amazement then said something like, "State is a bureaucracy. They don't get a seat at the table."

Britain's foreign office does function as a virtually autonomous branch of government. But in our version of democracy our laws do not allow for a fourth branch of government.

This brings me to another disagreement with your statements. I am in great sympathy with the position of America's foreign service workers. Whether they serve in diplomatic missions or at Foggy Bottom, they are at the mercy of political appointees who often can't find their country appointment on a map and whose knowledge of diplomatic matters would not fit on the head of a pin.

Time and again, these appointees have wrecked months and even years of delicate negotiations through sheer ignorance or the desire to carry through a political party's agenda at the expense of sane actions. But I am reminded of the punchline in Under Siege, when the ex-Navy Seal tells the disgruntled ex-CIA operative that if you don't like taking insane orders, don't sign up.

The State Department is not the guardian of the American nation. It is not the tiller of the ship of state. That function falls to the American people as a whole and elected representatives to the Congress and White House. State is there to carry out orders by elected officials. If they don't like them apples, find another place to work.

That does not mean America's foreign service workers do not have a legitimate beef. One cannot put competent workers in the position of receiving dangerously inept orders from idiots and expect them to be cooperative. We saw this in starkest terms during the Viet Nam war, when reportedly US soldiers sometimes replied to clearly insane orders by shooting the idiot who issued them.

Certainly, State's vast bureaucracy, which I sent up in The US Department of Pack Rat, needs pruning and refurbishing for the post-Soviet era. However, I don't think less is more in this case. America is a superpower nation in an incredibly complex world of many competing powers; we need the best diplomats (and foreign office) that US tax money can afford, not "less." We need a meritocracy at State, one that does not pass over intelligent, experienced and very dedicated workers in favor of a 'political' promotion.

Foreign service employees posted abroad often work under very dangerous and difficult conditions and are always looked upon as spies by the host government. Despite this, they do not garner respect and gratitude in the American society in the way that police do. Bureaucrats are not held in high esteem in America and the foreign service is no exception. The American public needs to become more aware of the contributions of the best field workers yet at the same time they can't just because those workers are placed in more danger by the spotlight of public attention.

Also, we need to give our foreign service workers protection against Americans who are handed power and diplomatic posts simply as a plum because they wrote out big donation checks to a political candidate and did big fundraising. The American public needs to realize that such plums are very counterproductive and even very dangerous in this era.

A good analogy is Michael Brown's appointment to head FEMA. During a settled weather pattern, it didn't matter so much that FEMA was run by someone whose greatest expertise seemed to be showing Arabian horses. Then came the perfect storm.

There many storms during this very unsettled era. Gone are the Kabuki-like days of Cold War diplomacy, when moves by other governments were so predictable that an American with no foreign service experience and not even speaking the language could be expected to hold down a diplomatic post. The 9/11 attack was the perfect storm in US foreign policy circles. Congressional attention to the needs of our foreign service has not reflected this because such discussion boils down to pay scale hikes and more money spent on training. Yet at the least we need to move past the era when being a great friend to a political campaign is the sole criterion for determining competency to run a diplomatic mission.

Let the friends sleep in The Lincoln Bedroom or run the White House Easter Egg Roll. Give them any kind of plum except the work of US diplomacy.

I also take issue with your statement "Americans most likely to be the doers rather than the arguers are those least likely to be attracted to the State Department."

We desperately need the best arguers we can find. Arguing skillfully about highly abstract concepts that underpin different types of government is very much a "doer" occupation, and one that has been tragically neglected on American shores, which carries over to US diplomatic missions.

Yet I will grant that the sentiment you express about talkers and doers is a hallmark of American thinking. Thus, in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand took a thousand pages to bash home the point that despots such as Josef Stalin did not think up Communism and its rationale; that was done by philosophers who were quite distant from the clock-punching workaday world of "doers."

The view among many Americans is that to see American success is to love democracy and capitalism. So if we just keep doing our thing, eventually everyone will see its value. Tell that to someone who lives in a country taken over by transnational dope-selling gangs that are models of free market enterprise after they've murdered all dissenters in the government.

Tell that to a country taken over by a cadre of foreign investors and bankers practicing free market economics, cranking out pro-democracy tracts and stage-managing "democratic" elections while taking zero interest in the welfare of the populace.

The Bush democracy doctrine is not a real doctrine in the sense of a developed philosophy of foreign relations. It is an outline of ideas, which must run the gauntlet of many thoughtful, subtle and shrewd disputes if it's to outlast Bush's presidency. America's foreign service workers are on the front line of the disputes, which means they need to hunker down to serious talking -- and keep talking outside the narrow channels of diplomacy.

In the bars of Calcutta, the coffee houses of Cairo, the shopping malls of Shanghai, they must talk and talk and talk. They must learn to talk skillfully, intelligently, and thoughtfully when challenged by arguments that elevate profit motive, national security, internal social order, and religious law above democracy.

Before talk must come hard thinking. Months ago I warned a reader that America is facing the fight of our lives. The battlefield is ideas. I say with a smile that you have already made that point, and eloquently, so I will close with repeating your own words:

...it is because [the truths stated in the Preamble] are not self-evident we must say them aloud, indeed proclaim them early and often and defend them every time, lest they be nibbled away like a stream bank when no one is looking.

Golden Oldie: Democracy Stage Show Kit

Pundita is on vacation until September 16. The following essay was originally published in March 2005.

The stage-managed Orange Revolution in Ukraine was a product of what could be called the Democracy Stage Show Kit. The kit comes complete with instructions on how to stage civil disobedience, how to use the media, and coaching on how to line up your talking points. The basic kit is not new. It's as old as big money buying mobs. In the modern era the kit was refined by Western governments and used to peel some former Soviet regions from the Kremlin's influence.

A problem with the kit (aside from the question of whether it's really a democratic revolution if a foreign government is behind it) is that it doesn't teach how democratic rule is administered. The problem is easily solved if the democracy revolution is stage managed by a powerful democratic foreign government. Such governments have the money and expertise to throw in after the revolution phase. They can teach the leaders how set up a real democratic government. When that situation is not the case, there's nothing more untidy than gaining the palace then having to ask each other, "Now what do we do?"

With that thought, it might be helpful if someone published, Democratic Government During the First Hundred Days for Dummies. To Pundita's knowledge, the Democracy Stage Show Kit is not yet available for sale on the Internet--not as a package for $294.95 plus shipping and handling. Yet things are approaching that point; there are now organizations (ostensibly) independent of any national government that will advise any movement worldwide calling themselves democracy advocates on how to confront their non-democratic government.

On paper, that's not such a bad idea--provided foreign government influence can be kept out of the confrontation process. Yet there is an insidious drawback to the packaging of democratic revolution, which works greatly against real democracy.

That people in a democracy have the right to stage mass protests is not the same as saying that mass protests are a demonstration of democratic government. They're demonstrating a benefit of such government. Yet many people who use the Democracy Stage Show Kit are not clear on the fact that democratic government requires the rule of law, not the rule of a crowd.--and that democracy demands increased personal responsibility on the part of the self-governed.

These two concepts--rule of law and personal responsibility--are strikingly absent in the sales pitch for the Democracy Stage Show Kit. What you hear most in the pitch is "freedom." People are encouraged to seek more freedom. But freedom is not free. It's a tremendous responsibility, which imposes considerable discipline on the individual and takes up much time.

That's just why dictators keep being returned to power. After the glow of a stage-managed democracy revolution wears off, the populace realizes how much work and responsibility it entails to make democracy work. Thus, many become willing to make a tradeoff between freedom and free time. They go looking for a hardworking fool to take on the burden of governing responsibility--preferably, a benevolent fool.

This impulse doesn't stem so much from laziness as from the need to conserve energy. Those who labor 12 hours a day in fields, coal mines and factories don't have much energy left over for the task of self-governance. But of course there is no such thing as a benevolent dictator when push comes to shove.

Thus, the conundrum. One might characterize the 20th Century as the era in which democracy won the argument about which form of government is best. The 21st Century will pound home the point that you can't have it both ways: you can't have the luxury of letting someone else take on responsibility for your governing and expect to have good government.

This argument is not easy for the developed nations to make. The majority in advanced countries have labor-saving devices and disposable income, which allow them to conserve enough energy to spend on activities that go beyond eking out an existence. So they have enough energy for the task of participating in the work of government, which democracy demands. Large swaths of humanity still don't have much energy beyond tending to survival basics. That means it's easy for them to hope that a benevolent dictator is a bearable compromise between lack of freedom and physical exhaustion.

Humanity will work through the conundrum; we have no choice, given our current population and where the figure is headed. Democracy is not only the best form of government in terms of protecting human rights, it's also the only workable form of government in the era of huge human populations. We have simply passed the era when a small elite could be counted on to properly manage the problems of governing a populace. It takes large numbers of people to efficiently govern populations that run into the hundreds of millions.

But you can't have responsibility for governing without attendant authority. Thus, the authority of the elite must be shared with the majority of the citizenry. That's what democracy does: it confers authority on the people along with the responsibility for government.

Today, and in country after country, the elite running non-democratic governments are simply overwhelmed with the everyday problems of managing hundreds of millions of people. The other side of the coin is that those millions can be too exhausted to undertake the weighty, time-consuming responsibility of choosing good government representatives and overseeing them.

Technology is one part of the solution. Satellite-linked town halls, computerized voting, talk radio stations in rural areas, and other technologies can reduce the amount of physical labor it takes for citizens to participate in government. Yet the technology is wasted, if the people using it are not clear on the nature and operation of democratic government.

So another part of the solution is education. That's the problem with kits. They don't teach the fundamentals--they're not meant to be educational; they're meant to be used. The Democracy Stage Show Kit doesn't teach the principles of the democracy gizmo and how to put the gizmo together and keep it working. Chanting "Freedom!" and flashing the "V" sign is no help to understanding the system and operations of democratic governance.

Unless more people learn how the democracy gizmo works, they will continue in the counterproductive practice of relying on an elite to make democracy work for them. Hello, that practice is obsolete, given our population number. Today, when the elite screw up, they can climb into their helicopter and fly away. The millions left behind have to clean up the mess; flashing the "V" sign at it generally doesn't work.