Rural vs Urban America

For what's supposed to be a humorous website, this article has some very good points.  Warning, though, there is cussing involved.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

I know drug addiction is a problem in rural areas, and I've seen many small towns that are struggling today.  Two main things I wanted to point out.

First -  with modern technology, it really doesn't have to be that way.  Especially if telecommuting jobs continue to grow.  I know a lot of people seem to prefer living in big cities, but I've got to admit that I don't see the appeal.  Sure, I like to visit them on occasion.  And it's nice to have more options.  Better restaurants, bigger dating pool, enough customers to support more specialized shops.  But get stuck in traffic every day trying to get to work?  No thanks. 

I live literally five minutes from work.  As well as the grocery store, Barnes and Noble, and various places to eat and shop.  If I can't find it here (or on the internet),  I can spend a weekend in Chicago or Indianapolis or St Louis.  But I'm not giving up two hours of every work day just sitting in traffic.

Cost of living is also significantly cheaper.  So why are rural towns dying?  Why aren't businesses sick of city costs pushing back out?  (couple of answers -  some are.  Others need to be close to their market, or need the creativity that comes from random interactions which occur more easily in a city.  Still, technology has made it so much easier to work remotely... We really ought to be decentralizing more.  Take, for example, DC.  On the one hand, it'd be harder to network and build connections if you're not in DC.  On the other hand, the pentagon and various federal agencies make a nice big military target and much of the analysis and reporting could be done anywhere.  We'll, depending on the classification level of course.  Even with that, though, some analysis can be done in SCIFs at our various bases and don't require actually being in DC.  Surely there's potential there?)

Anyways, second thing?  Did you take a look at that map?  America is a sea of Republican red, with Democratic blue islands.  Yes, due to the population density those islands of blue have larger populations.  Hence why Chicago helps make Illinois reliably blue, despite the red rural areas.  It helps explain some of that political polarization we talk so much about.  It's not just the segregation as social classes sort into various neighborhoods.  It's also that someone in a small town is generally surrounded by like minded people, whereas those in a city are likely to also be surrounded by those who see things their way.

National Security Musings

The trouble with writing this post is that there are so many choices.  I have to weigh various ideas and ask myself 'is this just good to know, or is it critical to our understanding of national security?' 

There's a lot out there that is just good to know, particularly with regards to game theory, negotiation, nationalism, economics, technological change, and more. 

The first point I want to make, or remake (as I can't emphasize this enough) is that everything is situationally dependent.  Getting a clear-eyed view of the situation is over half the problem, especially since there are so many reasons to obscure or hide what's going on.

That said, getting that clear eyed view is a bit like qualitative analysis.  That is - quantitative analysis seems solid and reassuring, since it's based on numbers and facts.  Find a good sample size, conduct a poll, run some analysis on the results.  Maybe get a standard deviation, or regression analysis, or something.

Qualitative analysis can be different.  It involves in depth interviews with small groups of people.  Yet it's important, as well, because sometimes how we frame the situation determines what we find.  You can't create a poll and run statistical analysis if you don't know what questions to ask in the first place, or how to explain a correlation in your findings.  Qualitative analysis, then, ideally involves an open-minded and in depth inquiry into a particular situation...which allows you to develop some sort of framework as to what factors are involved, how and why.

Qualitative studies work hand in hand with quantitative, since once you have a theory about what's  going on you can create your quantitative studies and do some research to validate your framework.  See if the correlations match what you predicted, etc.

In order to get a clear eyed understanding for a national strategy, you have to know what questions to ask in the first place, and how to interpret the answers.  (This is why I'm going into those underlying assumptions in more depth.)

Underlying assumptions can encompass anything.  Optimist or pessimist?  Cooperation or competition?  Do we live in a world where every nation is out for itself, or is there room for common ground?  Zero sum game, or the opportunity for a win-win?

These things seem very basic, almost not worth mentioning.  Yet consider water rights.

When I was in Helmand province, water was a big issue.  People who lived upriver could use water freely, and grow crops that required plenty of irrigation.  Those downriver, on the other hand, were left to make do with water that was more scarce and sometimes even salty.  This limited what crops can grow profitably.  (Opium, btw, grows in these conditions well enough that finding an economically comparable alternative for farmers is difficult.  Especially since there was apparently a new strain established that used even less water.)

I talked to a hydrologist about the situation, and he insisted that there was enough water for everyone - it's just that everyone had to agree on how to use that water.  This is where underlying assumptions come into play.  If you think cooperation is possible, if you think other people would abide by an agreement, then it makes sense to get together and negotiate how you're going to use that water.

If, on the other hand, you think agreement is impossible, that everyone is selfish, and that everyone is going to ignore the agreement and get as much water as they can regardless...then there's no point negotiating anything.  Get what water you can get, while the getting is good.  (This also ties in with game theory, and social dilemmas.  Understand that game theory is often based on artificial environments where students or other subjects are asked to respond to various scenarios.  It's an interesting field that raises good points about how we actually interact, but be careful about how you apply those findings to the real world.)

So anyways.  Applying this to national security - if you think we're capable of creating, implementing, and enforcing an agreement then you will think one way.  If, on the other hand, you think it's impossible...you'll choose a completely different set of options. (Consider how this applies to the recent nuclear treaty with Iran).

What I'm personally most interested in, btw, is how you change from one view to another.  Or rather, from distrust and opposition to cooperation...the other direction happens all too easily on it's own.

That is, if the hydrologist in Helmand was right and there was plenty of water (if everyone worked together) then how do you convince people to cooperate and support such an agreement?  Particularly when their own history and experience shows that such agreement is unlikely?

National Security, Current and Historical Events

Due to current events, I've been rethinking how I was going to write my next few posts.  It seems that (much though I was planning to avoid it) I actually have to write about some of my  underlying thought processes. 

Take the current situation with Russa, regarding Syria and the US elections.  There are some Americans arguing that we need to be firm, that Russia sees anything less as a sign of weakness and will keep pushing unless or until we do stand firm.  Others see the potential for the situation to escalate out of hand, and do not think we should risk starting World War III over Syria.

Historically, there's merit to both arguments.  For a while there, some Americans thought Saddam Hussein misinterpreted a discussion with our State Dept as an indication that the US would do nothing if he invaded Kuwait.  (Reading up on it now, clearly more information has developed since I heard about this in college...and it looks like this isn't actually what happened.)

On the flip side, historians say that Germany helped create the conditions for World War I because they had lost almost all their allies except Austria, and so had to demonstrate their firm commitment to their ally...which helped expand what could have been a much more local conflict into something global. (Otto van Bismarck allegedly believed that Germany was at risk of encirclement, and worked hard to maintain good relations with his neighbors.  Kaiser Wilhelm wasn't quite so adept at foreign policy, and managed to alienate almost everyone.) 

Given the articles I posted a couple of days ago, I decided to check around a bit online.  One article said that Russia had to support Assad, because if Assad is overthrown then Iran is the only ally they have left in the region.

What's funny is that this article is discussing the decline of Russian influence (and paints the support for Assad as a sign of that weakness, much like Germany supporting Austria), whereas a lot of other articles are basically saying that Russia is standing strong and making the United States look weak and ineffective.

I don't know enough about the situation to say what's truly going on, unfortunately.  It seems like there are two (or more) ways of analyzing the situation, and the recommended course of action for one scenario is the absolutely worst thing you could do if the second is closer to reality.  And vice versa.

Anyways.  The point of this post was to say I'm changing up what I was going to write about.  I planned to discuss our relationship with Iran - I don't think anyone can say that our policies towards Iran have made  us more secure over the past thirty or forty decades.  Our involvement with the Iranian coup in 1953 was a factor in our hostile relations since the revolution.  What's funny is that according to Wilsonian ideals we should never have done gotten involved like that. 

Were the American individuals who supported the coup the realists?  Or should they have expected and predicted the backlash we received?  After all, we were once a colony ourselves.  We fought our own revolution against imperial rule.  If any great nation should have understood how resentful a nation can be when outside powers appear to be in control, it was the United States. 

(What's funny is I came across an article that had the exact opposite take on Iran.  That it wasn't our heavy-handedness in installing the Shah that hurt, so much as our making the Shah weak by pressuring him to liberalize.  I didn't find the source very credible, especially considering they claim the West instigated the revolution against the Shah as well.  I think the United States lost out too much to justify that theory...but I'm including it because I wanted to highlight how completely different historical analysis can be.  FYI - the source has ties to the John Birch society, and I felt the article drew on the all too common 'realist' notion that ideals make us weak.)


Instead of delving into these topics more deeply, I'm considering what underlying beliefs are necessary to create a sound national security policy.  I don't have anything solid yet, so I'll either wait until the ideas develop more or start writing a stream-of-consciousness type post to see what bubbles up.  Haven't decided yet.

Russia and the US Election

I'm only going to touch on a few of the things swirling around in the news, and mostly to complain about how little I truly know.  I can't tell if I'm seeing shadows or being realistic.  Sometimes I kind of regret not being in the intelligence industry any more.


In the last 24 hours came across three really disturbing articles, when you put them all together:




First, yesterday was an article saying the Russians had asked their government officials to come back home, and bring their families with them.  Now, looking at Snopes this morning it appears it was an informal request, ostensibly because of domestic perception that officials had too many ties to the West. 




Thing is, there's a darn good reason why militaries are especially careful whenever another state is conducting 'training maneuvers' near a border.  It's hard to surprise an opponent when they know you're moving to attack, but if you can make them think something different is happening then you can gain the advantage.



So, does that mean this was something more serious than it sounds?  Who knows.  I don't have the intel access or the basic information needed to really say.  I do think that an 'informal request' from Putin would probably have the effect of a formal order, regardless of what the Russians say.  And I think the perceptions about government officials have probably been around for a while, so I don't know why this would be a major concern right now.  But who knows?  I don't know what's going on with domestic Russian politics.




So on to the second article, Russia's use of inflatable weapons and maskirovka as a strategy.  Now, the Allies used inflatable weapons during World War II to deceive the enemy, so this isn't exactly a sign that the Russians are any trickier than we are.  It does, however, mean it's wise to always look two or three times at what the Russians say they are doing.  Again, I wish I still had a clearance.  And access.




The third article is the one that really spurred writing this post...though again, it's not a direct or obvious threat.  Or rather it is...if this is Putin's roundabout and indirect way of threatening us through surrogates.  Otherwise, it's just another bit of hot air.




Basically, a Putin ally said Americans need to vote for Trump or face nuclear war.  Now, I'm not exactly a war-mongerer...but if they seriously think they can force us to vote for that jack ass all I can say is - "Bring it."

Speaking of Signals

This is pretty ominous.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/552839/russia-recalls-officials-deputies-family-children-abroad-return-fatherland-ww3-world-war-3

I won't speculate further, as I know there's information I don't have, w/regards to what's going on.

Realism and Vietnam

So.  Vietnam.




While looking up articles to support this post I came across this one, which nicely sums up three of the views I knew of (the Vietnam War was a crime, the Vietnam War was justified and we were betrayed on the homefront, and that the Vietnam War was a tragic mistake brought about by U.S. leaders who exaggerated the influence of communism and underestimated the power of nationalism)...and added a fourth I hadn't heard of before.  This article makes it clear why I support the third view.  As for the new fourth one, I'm not sure I buy it.  Sure, after the fact it seems to make sense of what was going on.  For the thought processes at the time, though, it doesn't touch on a key argument used to support our involvement in Vietnam.




Namely domino theory.  The belief that if one nation fell to communists, all the neighboring nations would also fall.  The Wikipedia article linked above gives the evidence both in favor and against this theory.  Unsurprisingly, I'm most persuaded by the fact that Thailand, Indonesia, and other large Southeast Asian countries didn't fall after the 1975 end of the Vietnam War.  My opinion was probably also shaped by the fall of the Berlin Wall, which really made the communist threat seem overblown.




With regards to nationalism, it definitely seemed more important than communism in shaping Vietnamese resistance.  Ho Chi Minh's biography again sums up what I learned in college, particularly this bit:




He [Ho Chi Minh] joined a group of Vietnamese nationalists in Paris whose leaders were Phan Chu Trinh and Phan Văn Trường. They had been publishing newspaper articles advocating for Vietnamese independence...Following World War I, the group petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored. Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, they expected U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to help remove the French colonial rule from Vietnam and ensure the formation of a new, nationalist government.




Our feared enemy cited our own Declaration of Independence and the Wilsonian ideals of self-determination...and became further radicalized when we failed to live up to those ideals.




You could almost say we lost our power and influence because we gave up on an idealistic foreign policy.  Almost. I'm too much of a classic realist to go that far. (I really liked Hans Morgenthau's work, though I think I was a classic realist before I read Politics Among Nations).




One more thing.  No institution is monolithic.  Building up the communist opposition meant acting as though China and the Soviet Union were a single communist entity.  That's part of the genius behind Nixon's visit to China.  I am not entirely sure it was wise in the long run given current events, but I do think it's a better strategy than letting your imagination create a threat that isn't quite as perfect as we built it up to be.


I suppose it's a bit like diamonds - they all have fractures, though some have less than others.  An expert may figure out where to tap the diamond to fracture it entirely...

Decision Making, Fear, and Intelligence Work

“.. Fear is often described as False Evidence Appearing Real.”

― Nick Vujicic, Life Without Limits

Saw this on Facebook yesterday, and it fits what I've been thinking about all too well.  First, though, I wanted to explain why I'm writing about something that happened before I was even born.

Right now there's all sorts of issues going on - Syria, ISIS, Russia, China - and making the right decisions is crucial.  I don't want to say that the decisions I'm about to discuss have direct parallels.  The situations are different.  Russia is not quite the same as the Soviet Union, our relationships with China are different, etc.

What I hope to do, more than anything, is get people thinking more about what signs will prove or disprove any particular belief about the current situation.  It's like prepping a battlefield - if you know the enemy has to take one of three different paths (barring trickery or creativity you aren't prepared for) then you'll want to know which one they're taking.  You can't make assumptions, or your defenses will be set up all wrong and you'll be vulnerable to the side you weren't expecting.  So you figure out what will let you know that they've chosen a particular route.  Maybe sensors far enough away to give you time, but close enough that they won't trigger unless the enemy is committed to that route.  And you have to watch all three routes, not just the one you think is most likely.

So, whether Vietnam or our current mess, the question becomes "what indicators tell us what the enemy is doing?"   

Or to add another cliche:

Hope for the best, plan for the worst...

But don't assume the worst.