“Gaza is a concentration camp”? check out #ThankyouHamas video
10 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, development economics, economics Tags: Gaza Strip, Hamas, Middle-East politics, war on terror
@NZGreens very sane compared to @DrJillStein @GreenPartyUS
08 Aug 2016 1 Comment
in defence economics, laws of war, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: 2016 presidential elections, Left-wing hypocrisy, Middle-East politics, peace movements, Syrian Civil War, useful idiots
Jill Stein managed to denounce American imperialism without mentioning the invasion of the Crimea and Russian intervention in the Syrian Civil War to prop up the old regime.
Stein is what Orwell called a renegade liberal. Progressives hunt the world for dictators to worship. As George Orwell said in 1941
Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’.
Transition in Eastern Europe – Gary Becker and Ronald Coase
06 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, defence economics, economics, Gary Becker, Ronald Coase Tags: transitional economies
Was it Wrong to Drop the Atom Bomb on Japan?
06 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: bombing of Hiroshima, World War II
What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?
05 Aug 2016 2 Comments
in defence economics, economics, politics - Australia, war and peace Tags: anti-war movement
Fewer Nukes Could Make the World Less Safe
27 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace
Noah Smith wrote an excellent defence of mutually assured destruction as a force for peace today. A key step towards deterring nuclear war is making sure no one can survive it so there is no point in starting one.
Source: Fewer Nukes Could Make the World Less Safe – Noah Smith.
Disarmament is impossible unless there is universal brain surgery to eliminate all knowledge of nuclear weapons and the principles of physics behind their development as Tom Schelling argued in 1962
A sharp distinction is often drawn between arms control and disarmament. The former seeks to reshape military incentives and capabilities; the latter, it is alleged, eliminates them. But the success of either depends on mutual deterrence. Short of universal brain surgery, nothing can erase the memory of weapons and how to build them.
If “total disarmament” is to make war unlikely, it must reduce the incentives. It cannot eliminate the potential for destruction; the most primitive war can be modernized by rearmament as it goes along.
Schelling wrote a fine essay in 1985 about what went wrong with the arms control. One of the things that went wrong was the obsession with reducing the number of nuclear weapons rather than manging the incentives to use them.
Nobody ever offers a convincing reason for preferring smaller numbers (I may exaggerate: saving money is a legitimate reason…). And some people think that with fewer numbers there is less likelihood that one will fall into mischievous hands or be launched by mechanical error; this I think is incorrect, but may not be worth refuting because it is in no one’s main motivation.
For the most part, people simply think that smaller numbers are better than bigger… If people really believe that zero is the ultimate goal it is easy to see that downward is the direction they should go. But hardly anyone who takes arms control seriously believes that zero is the goal.
Always beware of the man with one nuclear bomb, not the man with 1000. Schelling argues for force postures consisting of
economical and reliable retaliatory weapons that are neither susceptible to preemption nor capable of preemption.
Schelling went on to argue that stabilising, offsetting nuclear force postures share three “crucial elements:” an assured retaliatory capability, “restrained targeting and some capacity for war termination.” Counterforce targeting, the enemy of stabilizing deterrence and arms control, was ignored once these capabilities were in reach while the ability to terminate a war is hardly discussed.
The hotline was developed at the suggestion of Thomas Schelling in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis because Washington and Moscow lacked any quick way of communicating.
Radio Moscow broadcast the Russian acceptance of the American offer that resolved the crisis because there is no faster way of communicating the message in the final hours of the crisis before it went out of control. Quick thinking by the Russians.
Schelling had a good point when he said brinkmanship is not a cliff, but a curve slope that you can fall down unwillingly. In the Cuban missile crisis that was possible simply through the lack of quick communications to terminate a crisis.
Unedited Army Air Force footage of damaged and sinking ships near ground zero of the Able detonation
26 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
A nuclear free New Zealand delayed the end of the Cold War
24 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: Cold War, game theory, George Orwell, nuclear free New Zealand, peace movements, war against terror
If the dilettantes at the end of the known world accomplished anything at all by declaring New Zealand nuclear free after 1984, anything at all, it was to prolong the Cold War, embolden Communist Russia and increase the chance of a nuclear exchange. As George Orwell said in 1941
Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’.
The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.
Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with.
In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.
There is a strong peace movement in the 1930s that undermined rearmament at every point. Indeed, the then leader of the British Labour Party met with Hitler one afternoon with the aim of persuading him to become a Christian pacifist. He failed.
The slaughterhouse of World War I would certainly rest on the memory but Hitler gave them no choice but to rearm yet some on the Left would not accept this reality. The purpose of British foreign policy in the 1930s was to buy time to rearmament before the inevitable clash.
The pro-fascism of the peace movement continues to this day. To quote Michael Walzer
so many leftists rushed to the defense of civil liberties while refusing to acknowledge that the country faced real dangers–as if there was no need at all to balance security and freedom.
Maybe the right balance will emerge spontaneously from the clash of right-wing authoritarianism and left-wing absolutism, but it would be better practice for the left to figure out the right balance for itself, on its own; the effort would suggest a responsible politics and a real desire to exercise power, some day.
But what really marks the left, or a large part of it, is the bitterness that comes with abandoning any such desire. The alienation is radical.
How else can one understand the unwillingness of people who, after all, live here, and whose children and grandchildren live here, to join in a serious debate about how to protect the country against future terrorist attacks? There is a pathology in this unwillingness, and it has already done us great damage.
With one exception, democracies do not go to war with other democracies. There are plenty of undemocratic countries out there with dictators willing to have it go if they see weakness.
That is before you consider the suspicion that the Communist dictatorships had of other countries. In Tom Schelling’s view, many wars including World War 1 were the products of mutual alarm and unpredictable tests of will.
Robert Aumann argued well that the way to peace is like bargaining in a medieval bazaar. Never look too keen, and bargain long and hard. Aumann argues that:
If you are ready for war, you will not need to fight. If you cry ‘peace, peace,’ you will end up fighting… What brings war is that you signal weakness and concessions.
A nuclear free New Zealand signalled weakness and a willingness to make concessions. The peace movements across all democracies had the same effect.
Disarmament increases the chances of war. Aumann gave the example of the Cold War of how their stockpiles of nuclear weapons and fleets of bombers prevented a hot war from starting:
In the long years of the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union, what prevented “hot” war was that bombers carrying nuclear weapons were in the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? Disarming would have led to war.
Peace activists are utterly clueless about what is discussed at peace talks. The ability to negotiate a credible peaceful settlement between sovereign states depends on:
- the divisibility of the outcome of the dispute,
- the effectiveness of the fortifications and counterattacks with which an attacker would expect to have to contend, and
- on the permanence of the outcome of a potential war.
Central to any peace talks is that any peace agreement is credible – it will hold and not will not be quickly broken:
A state would think that another state’s promise not to start a war is credible only if the other state would be better off by keeping its promise not to start a war than by breaking its promise.
Peace talks occur only when there something to bargain about. As James Fearon explained, there must be
a set of negotiated settlements that both sides prefer to fighting
That need for a bargaining range is the fundamental flaw of peace activists. When they call for peace talks, peace activists never explain what will be discussed in a world where everybody is not like them terms of good intentions.
What are the possible negotiated settlements that each both side will prefer to continue fighting? Diplomacy is about one side having some control over something the other side wants and this other side have something you want to exchange. In a war, the attacker thinks he can get what it wants to fighting for it.
If peace activists truly want peace, rather than victory for the other side, they must prepare for war including fortified borders so that the other side doesn’t dare cross them and start a war. A peace settlement depends upon the ability to divide the contested territory with or without fortified borders to make a settlement credible:
…despite the costs and risks of war, if a dispute is existential, or, more generally, if the whole of a contested territory is sufficiently more valuable than the sum of its parts, then a peaceful settlement is not possible.
A peaceful settlement of a territorial dispute, and especially a settlement that includes an agreement not to fortify the resulting border, also can be impossible if a state thinks, even if over optimistically, that by starting a war it would be able at a small cost to settle the dispute completely in its favour permanently.
In most public health campaigns, “zero” doesn’t mean zero. But to eradicate Ebola in a big city; “zero” means “zero”
20 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics, growth disasters, health economics Tags: Ebola
Military coup success rates since 2000
17 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, development economics, Public Choice
Since 2000 there have been 62 coup attempts and 23 successful coups.
Source: Map of coups since 2000 – including 2016 Turkey Coup attempt.
Tullock vindicated by how the Romanian revolution succeeded
16 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, defence economics, economics of bureaucracy, Gordon Tullock, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: economics of revolutions, fall of communism, military coups, people power, Romania
The obituaries today for Victor Stanculescu, the Romanian army chief at the time of the 1989 revolution, vindicated Gordon Tullock’s view that popular revolutions are in fact military coups.
Tullock argues that any dictator can survive popular revolts as long as he has
- a secret police that is moderately competent and willing to torture and kill; and
- offers large rewards for informing on members his own entourage plotting to overthrow him.
Ordinary citizens obey dictators because if they don’t, they are highly unlikely to make any difference in any revolt and could get killed during the uprising even if it succeeds. Worse awaits them if the revolt fails.
Most dictators do not anoint a formal successor while they are in office. Tullock argued that as soon as a likely successor emerges, loyal retainers start to form alliances with that person and may see private advantage in bringing his anointed day forward.
More than a few autocrats were murdered in their sleep. To his very last day, Stalin locked his bedroom door because he did not trust the bodyguards who had been with him since the 1920s.
The role of street protests in the Arab Spring was to throw in the possibility of mutinies and desertions in the army and police. Previous alliances are thrown into doubt especially as the autocrat is old and sick, but had for many years grooming his 39 year-old son to inherit power.
Turning back to the Romanian revolution, Victor Stanculescu was the recently appointed army chief and initially stuck by the regime. He ordered the troops to open fire on protesters and at least 1000 died from in the shootings in the street.
In common with the Arab Spring, a large street protest did led him to reconsider his position:
Sniffing Mr. Ceausescu’s defeat, General Stanculescu quickly returned to Bucharest, where he faked a broken leg to avoid further counterrevolutionary deployment. Promoted to defense minister after the incumbent minister killed himself, he helped Mr. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, flee by helicopter from the roof of party headquarters.
But fearing that the copter had been spotted by radar and would be shot down, the pilot hastily landed. Mr. Ceausescu hijacked a passing car, but he and his wife were soon surrounded and arrested.
After the couple were captured, General Stanculescu organized their trial by a military court and recruited the firing squad (before the verdict, by some accounts) that executed them on Christmas Day. He then joined the new government.
But for this late switch by the army chief, the popular revolt would never have succeeded. The army was needed to put down the still loyal security police. The army chief’s top priority was to execute Ceausescu as quickly as possible so that he was not a rallying point for a counter coup.
Ceausescu found out that his game was up when who he thought was his still loyal army chief arrived at his hideout with military judges to try and execute him.
About 10 years later, the Romanian government turned against the man who made the revolution and put him in prison for the many deaths in the street when he was on the side of the regime putting down the revolt.
Not so good an idea. A little bit of forgiveness carries a lot of weight encouraging late switching within the ruling elite and army that makes the difference to bringing down the old regime.
How religious are so-called “Islamic terrorists”?
15 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics, economics of crime, economics of religion, law and economics Tags: economics of oppositional identities, war against terror
Peace activists didn’t use the knockdown argument against 2nd Iraq war
10 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: anti-war movements, British politics, game theory, Iraq, Iraq war, Middle-East politics, mutually assured destruction, nuclear deterrence, peace movements, Syrian Civil War
This idea of suing ministers for abuse of public office has appeal given the gap between many left-wing policies and sound economics.
https://twitter.com/_PaulMonaghan/status/751525929613156352
Anti-war MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn should be sued for abuse of public office and crimes against peace for not making the knockdown argument against the 2nd war against Iraq.
Instead, Corbyn said he did not like war without explaining how this was different from appeasement and surrender. The easiest way to stop a war is to surrender. The easiest way to start a war is to look weak to an aggressor.
That knockdown argument against the 2nd Iraq war argument was right under the noses of the peace movement. It was yes, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Source: The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons – The New York Times
It is madness to invade a country that has weapons of mass destruction because they might use them especially if the objective is regime change. Iraq may not have had nuclear weapons, but the potential for Iraq to have biological and chemical weapons secreted away was real.
No one is mad enough to invade North Korea. They will use chemical and biological weapons on Seoul and Tokyo. Syria has chemical and biological weapons to make sure no one invades it.
From what I read, in the current Civil War, Syria uses chemical and biological weapons when it is on the retreat but does not use them to advance and claim new territory.
The reason why the renegade left could not possibly make this obvious argument against the war in Iraq, which was it could be a massive disaster if these chemical and biological weapons were used in desperation, was these peace activists would have to admit nuclear deterrence works. To stop a war by having to admit that weapons of mass destruction deter war was too much for the peace movement to swallow.
An admission that nuclear deterrence works would invalidate the entire political activism of the peace movements in the Cold War. The practical effect of those peace movements was, of course, to undermine the one factor preventing a nuclear war, which was nuclear deterrence.
Since 1945, at least seven or eight wars have occurred where one side had nuclear weapons. In 1973, Israel had nuclear weapons it could have used.
The reason for the non-use of nuclear weapons in those seven or eight wars including the 1973 Yom Kippur War was none were wars of annihilation. Nuclear weapons were more likely to be used if the suspected intention is to invade or occupy a country.
The Yom Kippur war was launched with a plan by President Sadat to reclaim the Sinai then after a few days agreed to an internationally brokered ceasefire. He was intending on reclaiming lost territory, not invading Israel proper continue and risk nuclear retaliation.
Saddam destroyed his nuclear, biological, and weapons but not his weapons development capability soon after he lost the first Iraq war. Saddam played a double strategy: make sure he was not caught with contraband but play a fine game of bluff making everybody think Iraq still has them so he remains a regional strongman.
Saddam could have produced biological and chemical weapons within weeks if he chose to do so but was probably 5 years away from a nuclear weapon. Chilcot’s recent report concluded:
The ingrained belief that Saddam Hussein’s regime retained chemical and biological warfare capabilities, was determined to preserve and if possible enhance its capabilities, including at some point in the future a nuclear capability, and was pursuing an active policy of deception and concealment, had underpinned UK policy towards Iraq since the Gulf Conflict ended in 1991.
The 2nd Iraq war started because Saddam fooled his enemies into thinking he had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. He certainly had the Japan option. This is having in place the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons quickly if he wanted.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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