New Government of Spain: Right Priorities, Right Direction, Right Choices?

It's hard to tell. After the national parliamentary elections a month ago, won decisively by the conservative PP (Partido Popular), Spain's new government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was sworn in this week (December 21). The uncertainties surrounding the Spanish economy have made it imperative for the new government to start its mission in a convincing manner. Some characteristic changes became visible from the start: 1. reduced government size, 2. concentration of functions in fewer hands. Rajoy's first signal a few days before revealing his new team was that there would be cuts in every governmental sector except for pensions.

Indeed, according to many commentators a concentration of official power is taking place which is unprecedented in the recent democratic period. First, economic policy is shifted towards the Prime Minister (“President of the Government” in Spain's official parlance). The cabinet's interministerial council for economic policy (Comisión Delegada de Asuntos Económicos) is normally chaired by the Minister of Finance. Rajoy has decided to chair it himself. Second, the Spanish intelligence service is normally part of the Ministry of Defence. Rajoy has decided to move it to the Presidency of the Government, the cabinet secretariat, under the direct oversight of his chief of cabinet, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria (40), who is also a ministerial appointment and Rajoy's deputy (Vice President of the Government).

Finally, adding to the above is the fact that this is not a government of independent-minded technocrats (unlike the new governments of Italy and Greece). The new Ministers are highly competent and experienced, but they are PP loyalists. They are Rajoy's close collaborators from many years before. The facts seem to bode for a tight-knit, centrally steered operation, with one possible exception: The all-important Ministry of Finance.

The Ministry of Finance has now been split in two, an “externally oriented” Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness, with Luís de Guindos as the new minister, and an “internally oriented” Ministry of Finance and Public Administration – where the new appointee is Cristobal Montoro. In its long history the Spanish ministry of finance has several times and for considerable periods actually been two units, most recently with the José Maria Aznar government of 1996-2004, so the split may be in line both with historical precedent and with a preference of the Partido Popular. But why? And are two heads better than one?

My speculation is only that, but I believe Rajoy has made the best of a difficult situation where the judgement of the markets and the international community were primary: he had one fully capable man (Montoro) who could well have filled the job alone, but had inadequate foreign language skills, and a somewhat academic profile. Then he had another (de Guindos) who had the requisite skills for (at least) part of the job, an image of investment banking experience (Lehman Brothers in Iberia, no less!) and the language abilities to go with it. So the ministry was divided to fit the needs of the situation and the capabilities of the two men, while Rajoy in doing so also ensured that he would put himself in a stronger leadership position, which was further underlined by his taking the reins of the economic policy council into his own hands.

The question then is: Can the cabinet center manage it all? There is no doubt about Rajoy's motivation, nor about the clarity of his goals. He intends to drag his country out of this crisis no matter what. However, what we know of the new Prime Minister so far is that he is not given to Reaganesque free reins and lofty thinking. His performance in parliamentary debates of the past four years – as well as in the previous election debate with Zapatero of 2008 – shows a man who is polemic and does not hesitate to dive into detail. My suspicion is that here we may have a man of pedantic leadership, a nitpicking micromanager.

Possibly to compensate for this tendency, the Vice-President of the Government has been charged with the top managerial position. She certainly has both formal competence and experience, and she has worked for ten years with Rajoy. But with all these diverse responsibilities thrust upon her, one may well ask: Is Soraya up to it? As I see it, this can only work well if Rajoy comes out as a stronger visionary than he has appeared to be in the past.

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Germany and France: Mainstays or Loose Cannons?

The infamous role of the dominant twins of Europe has been much in the news recently. In jest, someone named the monster “Merkozy” to signify the leaders of Germany and France grasping jointly at the dominance of Europe.

I am not so sure this gets at the reality of their relationship, nor at their role in the wider European Union. In my view, one needs a different angle. I shall look into the nature of their role in Europe by using the naval metaphors of the headline: Are Germany and France the main supports of the good ship Europe - without whom all is in risk of failing, or are they two dangerous heavyweight power players only looking out for their own good, to the point of wrecking anything that comes in their way? (No, I'm not going to end up somewhere in the middle, so you can keep reading.)

Have a look in the rear view mirror. In early 1990 Germany was not yet united, but just about to. It was clear to everyone that merging the two Germanies would produce a new magnum power, a fear-inspiring European giant. France and Britain evidently tried to block the move, but were too late. Soon, at Germany's request, its four occupying powers (Britain, France, the US and the USSR) started unification talks with German representatives in Berlin. At the talks, the Soviet Union was pushing for united Germany to be neutral and demilitarized, while the US Bush-I Administration pulled in the other direction, to have all of Germany, the East included, as part of NATO. For their new-found harmony to endure, the two Cold War opponents had to agree. While the talks were going on I visited Moscow in March as junior company to Johan Jørgen Holst, former Minister of Defence and later Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway and at that time my boss. Lithuania had just declared its independence and everything in the USSR was floating around and hanging loose. Holst had a time-out from official duty and used the time to check up on (inter alia) the situation in the USSR. In all our meetings with Soviet officials and analysts Holst pushed his theme that a neutral united Germany would be the worst thinkable solution - “a loose cannon on the decks of Europe” as he put it, the strongest power in Europe with no compelling structures to tie it down. Mr. Holst was already well known and respected in Moscow. His line was that only NATO and the European Communities could keep a united Germany in check. By July 1990 the Soviet leadership finally came around to that way of looking at it. Mr. Gorbachev gave his assent to united Germany's membership in NATO.

Loose cannon aside, was the 1990 image of a dominant new Germany a realistic danger? Moscow, for sure, has later regretted allowing the NATO move, which has shifted Germany further out of reach of Russia's influence. The rest of Europe has probably benefitted. In retrospect it is indeed an open question whether it was necessary to tie united Germany down, because the task of absorbing East German lands into the existing structures of federal Western Germany took an unprecedented toll on the Federal Republic's resources, dragging its economy into the doldrums for more than a decade. Moreover, now that the German economy is back in high gear, it is reassuring to know that the attitude of most Germans towards Europe was and is (in my personal estimation) an ideal mix of caution, standard-setting stringency and optimism.

France saw its role in post-World War II Europe from the earliest time as building a strong European house to contain (West) Germany so that German militarism would never more be a threat. France was the architect and the master builder of the European institutions we have since come to know so well. Hand-in-hand with integration came the development of the special Franco-German relationship, which to the French always was about gently guiding the Germans along the path to peace and democracy. The Germans, from Adenauer on, played along wisely and always prioritized the Franco-German relationship, never letting on that they might be able to find their way alone. This fiction legitimized West Germany's place as free Europe's solid but boring number 2, always a step behind the shining example of its western neighbor. To Germany the cost was not excessive - partly a matter of foregone prestige, but mainly a patient indulgence of being left to pay the lion's share of the cost of France's excessive benefits from European integration. The Common Agricultural Policy was (and is) waste hole number one, and Germany the biggest contributor. Hence, as long as Germany was divided the French (and European collective) mission of containing Germany remained a credible one.

But that figleaf suddenly disappeared with German unification, which is also why the French instinctively opposed the project when it emerged after the fall of the Wall. When that failed, they grasped at the nearest straw, the notion of stepping up the European ambition to the federalist level with the 1991 Maastricht Treaty creating the European Union, thus ensuring Germany's continued entanglement in European institutions. Since this was most Germans' wish anyway, there was no conflict here.

The slow progress and immense cost of Germany's unification on the ground during the 1990s made the reality of the coming tilt in German favor harder to see. Hence, France continued to act as if the new world of the European Union and united Germany was pretty much the same as the one before 1989. Moreover, most of the attention of the EU was focused on the process of dealing with the new applicant states in East Central Europe. The first opportunity to test the new Franco-German relationship came in 2000 when votes were to be weighted in the new expanded union (Nice Treaty) according to population. The sudden addition of 11 million East Germans to Germany's count made the former equals at one go unequal. Germany with 82 million inhabitants was 25 million ahead of Britain and France and demanded a corresponding voting weight. France refused to budge and won, helped by the reluctance of Chancellor Schroeder to challenge President Chirac. All the four biggest countries (Italy as well) were weighted equally at the top. At the same crucial summit a long prepared and much-needed drawdown of the agricultural policy was postponed for 10 years, again due to French resistance.

Actually, France was soon (from 2002) also in trouble with the euro by exceeding the debt limit, but nobody dared to raise the issue. The euro had just been introduced at this time and several countries, France at the head, but Germany too, were soon above the limit. German embarrassment over exceeding its own external debt limit probably discouraged Schroeder from raising the problem. So France's sins were forgotten along with the rest. Dealing with the problem was postponed, and it grew bigger - and bigger - and is haunting us, with a vengeance, today.

At the same time, the willingness of Germany and the rest to indulge French excesses is probably the secret of what keeps France in line.

What has changed after Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy entered the scene? Have they twinned their control of Europe and set themselves up as the mainstays of the good ship? If you take a closer look at what has been happening during the euro crisis, you will see that with Merkel at the helm Germany does not let France make major statements alone, thus gaining a closer grip on French policy positions. Berlin strives all the time to ensure that the two agree (not always succeeding). Most of the time Germany has been pushing for tougher financial controls than France wants.

Indeed, looking at the French record in public finance since the euro was introduced, and its stance in agricultural policy matters, I for one suspect that leaving France unfettered would certainly be to have a loose cannon on the decks of Europe. With Britain now effectively defining itself out of Europe, Germany alone is the indispensable controlling agent, keeping France in line and mobilizing French support for the badly needed leadership of the euro zone.

Therefore, to talk about dominance begs the question of what Europe's and the euro-zone problem is: a long-term lack of responsible leadership and fiscal discipline.

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Spain: Pulling Back from the Brink?

On Sunday November 20, Spain elected a new conservative government. Garnering 44% of the vote, the Partido Popular was lavished by the d'Hondt electoral system with a comfortable absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies as well as the Senate. The participation of 72% of the voters must be said to be satisfactory under the dire economic circumstances. People knew a government of PP will take away even more of their treasured welfare state benefits – and even so, they voted for Mariano Rajoy.

According to the Constitution, the new government will not take office until four weeks after the elections, which is to say shortly before Christmas. The new Prime Minister, a somewhat reserved and taciturn man, is not an economist and - though several times a Minister - is untested in the top governmental position. It may have been typical of his cautious style that the several press apearances made on the day after the elections were handled by the secretary general of his party, not by himself.

According to observers, Rajoy's inability to speak English will not help him much in the coming fight to protect Spanish interests in the EU. That demanding leadership will have to be assumed by a strong Minister of Finance. One leading candidate for the post at this point may be the former Minister of Finance and former head of the IMF (2004-2007), Rodrigo Rato. Currently director of one of the struggling banks of Spain, Mr. Rato had a meeting with Rajoy the day after the election. Another candidate is Cristobal Montoro, also a former Minister of Finance and most recently economic spokesperson for his party. While the former obviously has the required language skills, media speculation is divided regarding the English ability of the latter. Other candidates are also rumored, but Rajoy evidently is determined to keep his selection process confidential.

The two “enemies” identified by Rajoy during his campaign were Spain's huge unemployment (22%) and the national debt problem. He is certainly right in pointing them out, but alleviating them is not going to be merely a matter of policy change. These problems are structural, embedded in the system of labor legislation and the de-facto federal system of government.*) Flexibility in the labor market is the key issue where employment is concerned. To get employers to hire, they must also be able to fire, and that is very difficult according to the law dating from the 1980s. The labor law was modified last year to make it less expensive for employers to fire employees, but it will still cost an employer prohibitive amounts in severance pay to adjust his firm to the much inferior market conditions of these crisis years. This is not obvious from a first reading of the rules. As pointed out in a recent IMF report,

“While Spain scores well on the length of notice periods and on procedures, it has among the highest severance payments and a very restrictive interpretation of fair dismissals ... . Severance payments typically depend on whether the dismissal is considered fair or unfair. But in Spain, due to the very restrictive interpretation of fair dismissals, about 90 percent of lay-offs of permanent workers are treated as unfair ... . In 70 percent of the cases, firms prefer to pay the higher severance payments upfront rather than going through a trial. The relevant severance payment is thus the one that applies to unfair dismissals. Severance payments are 20 days per year of service in case of fair dismissals and vary between 33 and 45 days per year of service for unfair dismissals ... . This is much higher than EU15 average severance payments ...” (IMF Working Paper. “The Spanish Labor Market in a Cross-Country Perspective.” Prepared by Florence Jaumotte. European Department. Authorized for distribution by James Daniel. January 2011, p 10.)

Excepting those who are apprentices or short term contract employees, people who are normally employed in Spain have a contract of indefinite duration, dismissible only with severance pay as described above. Draconian measures will be required to change this – but Rajoy now has at least the votes in parliament required to make the change, provided he can also rise above the storm of protest that is likely to follow.

Rajoy's second enemy was said to be the debt problem, but it is really the quasi-federal structure of Spain which is the most serious impediment to handling it. While public borrowing at the national level seems to be well under control, the autonomous regions that make up the country each have considerable freedom to make their own decisions about financing. Under the autonomies there are the provinces which also have the right to assume debt according to certain guidelines. That goes as well for the municipalities, which are not allowed to get indebted beyond 75% of the current year's budget. Checks on delinquent cases are apparently non-existent, or limited to notification by the Ministry of Finance that they have to put their house in order (to the extent they find out at all what is going on.) The upshot is that the level of public indebtedness in Spain appears to be a phenomenon beyond the knowledge, supervision or control of anybody. If Rajoy can change this he will have to take on the constitutional system that authorizes the budgetary freedom of the autonomous regions, most recently accepted by his predecessor Zapatero in the case of Catalunya in 2007. A long shot, but Spanish posterity should thank him if he succeeds.

In the interim, there are easier targets which could produce substantial improvements: public over-employment and excessive public spending. Consider the local public health system. Spain has a very generous policy of both free and subsidized medication – an obvious target in itself for cuts. But there is more here: only doctors employed in the local public health centers have the right to authorize prescriptions for this free medication. Private practitioners are perfectly legitimate, except they cannot authorize prescriptions for free medication. So if I need more expensive medication and want it free, I have to take my private doctor's prescription to the public health center and get it approved there, before going to the pharmacy. Two doctors doing the work of one. Then again, it turns out that the publicly employed doctor leaves his office at the public health center at 1 PM, because he or she has to attend to his/her private practice. A gold mine for these MDs - double salary every day. 

Rajoy clearly has a job to do.

*) According to the 1978 Constitution Spain is a unitary state (article 1). The powers granted to the main territorial subdivisions (the Autonomous Communities) are, however, substantial and roughly comparable to those of federations like Germany or Canada.

Hierarchy, Unity and Democracy

The welcome death of Gaddafi last week – and the unchecked, frantic killings by Bashir al-Assad - may bring us once more to reflect on the difference between dictatorship and democracy. Politics is said to be all about power. Democracy harnesses power; dictatorship monopolizes it. Gaddafi's death just as Tunisians went to the urns this weekend illustrate the span. Monopolize power or share it.

Yet the meaning of power remains elusive. Power is what it takes to deal with widespread conflict, public disagreement that is not easily otherwise resolved by compromise. The French say “trancher”, literally “slice through” a problem, as with a butcher's knife or an axe (Norwegians say the same, “skjære igjennom”) where compromise is unavailable. All societies have to find methods to handle public disagreement. In one way or another, all thinkable solutions involve what may be called the principles of (a) hierarchy and (b) unity. The principle of hierarchy says the top leader decides. The principle of unity says only one hierarchy is allowed; the domain in which decisionmaking applies must be preserved.

Complete hierarchy places all members of society in a rank order of levels where decisions for each level is made by the levels above, and one individual or small group at the top is the ultimate decisionmaker. China today is one example, Iran another, Burma a third. Within given functional areas sub-hierarchies may exist, like Chinese state-owned companies often posing as commercial ventures.

Nevertheless, hierarchies may be more or less complete or stringent. Dictatorships strive for complete hierarchy. But even democracies are hierarchies! All societies have to decide public disagreements; there is not room for everyone to participate in the making of every decision. Perfect democracy is a chimera. Democracies are always to some extent hierarchical, in that they define which representative assemblies and other publicly controlled bodies shall make which kinds of decisions, and prevent unauthorized decisions. Hence, although democracies strive for minimal hierarchy, they are not anarchical; they insist on the need for government to be given a mandate to make decisions for all. Implied here is also the legitimacy principle, the requirement that all must accept the decisions made, even if they disagree.

Here is where Greece makes a mockery of their own ancient invention – they elect a parliament and then take to the streets for months on end to oppose the parliament's decisions. And the Greek parliamentarians respond by similar betrayals, by increasing their own salaries while cutting everyone else's, and (most recently) by voting themselves new state-funded cars (!) after deciding on increased austerity for the citizens.  (http://www.grreporter.info/en/greek_parliamentarians_privileges/5216 )

Here is where the opening for grey areas and sham democracy appears – like Iran's and Russia's circumscribed democratic systems, or even Gaddafi's “green socialism” run by “people's committees” without any decisionmaking authority.

Here is also where the unity principle enters: The legitimate right to make decisions for a society includes a prohibition against mass escape. If you disagree, you cannot just take part of the country with you and leave, setting up shop for yourself. This was Lincoln's defense against the Southern secession 150 years ago. Provided you or your ancestors have agreed to a voluntary federation, you cannot just leave. (If you were forcibly annexed, like the Baltics in 1940, it's a different matter.)

The ingeniously simple formulation by Albert O. Hirschmann (1970) comes to mind: Exit, Voice or Loyalty. In every economic or political project, party, association, company - even nations - disaffected members (customers, affiliates, citizens) have three choices – they can leave (exit), they can complain (voice), or they can shut up, stay put and be loyal. National governments, of course, insist on unity along with hierarchy. That is why governments of hierarchically run countries with centrifugal forces (e.g. China or Russia) refuse to let the UN Security Council endorse humanitarian intervention in places like Syria (though they stepped aside by abstention to allow the Libyan intervention, a decision in hindsight not likely to be repeated any time soon).

That is also why the new governing systems about to be established in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya should consider that absolute principles of government – like those deriving from literal readings of Islam – must be tempered by the need to minimize hierarchy and find solutions in maximum tolerance. The easiest solution is to revert to hierarchy, or by another name, dictatorship.

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Knee-jerk Conservatism in US and Europe

A socialist friend (on the European side of the Atlantic) has challenged me to give my views on taxes. Presumably he wants to put me on the spot since I call myself a conservative. The background, of course, is what among US conservatives passes for the plight of American taxpayers, fleeced year after year, while they see people in Europe happily paying their taxes without demur. In 2011 the US is in crisis over taxes, while Europe is in crisis over debt (at about the same level as the present US “non-crisis” over debt, public and private, but don't let anyone know). The circus atmosphere and lack of perspective in much of US public debate on the conservative side causes the Atlantic to seem wider than ever since steam replaced sails. Not that we can claim to be much better. On our side, we have the voters of Greece who expect the government to provide for them even without their paying taxes. We have the bankers of Spain who think the money in the vault is theirs to spend as long as the politicians agree (and get their share).

In short, though a conservative, I venture the possibly dangerous view that government is inevitable and so are the taxes required to pay for it. I even believe that view is fairly mainstream among European conservatives. Still, taxes and government are never swallowed without suspicion among our voters of the center-right.

A key problem for most conservatives is that bureaucratic growth is a self-propelled phenomenon and one very hard to restrain. Usually brushed off by the left as a minor issue or even myth, the phenomenon is a fact. It is widespread, and it is costly, especially in countries where civil servants are reasonably well-paid and taxes are already high. (For a good overview and synthesis see Marshall W. Meyer: “The Growth of Public and Private Bureaucracies”, Theory and Society

Volume 16, Number 2 (1987), 215-235.)

There is also a strong tendency among governmental representatives – civil servants – to see themselves as holders of a higher kind of knowledge (or “truth”) about what is best for ordinary citizens. Conservatives reject this. Both of these kinds of scepticism are at the core of conservative thinking, even across the Atlantic. Hence a restricted reading of Ronald Reagan's statement “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” can find support even in Europe. But that support does not extend to the loud-mouthed US crusades against government as such, which is the normal reading of Reagan's intention.

Bureaucratization and knowing what's best for you go together in the third scourge of social-democratic policies, namely reform policies. Nothing to me raises warning flags as surely as a government that announces the coming of some broad-scale reform. They are usually untested and usually require an expansion of government jobs. In this kind of reaction conservatives on the two sides of the Atlantic are pretty much in agreement.

Fortunately there are even conservative American commentators who are not altogether oblivious to the need for government and taxes. Recently, the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger wrote, “To ensure American well-being, the pre-eminent purpose of a modern tax system should be to achieve the highest possible level of growth in the private economy with a competent, efficient state in a supporting role.” (Daniel Henninger, “What Are Taxes For?” WSJ, Dec 16, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704828104576021672925440698.html). His blog leaves unclear, however, how a competent, efficient state can be built without an expensive civil service paid for by taxes, presumably at the expense of his desire for growth. Finding the trade-off point is the hard part.

The bottom line must be that countries without government are anarchies, and that taxes are required to govern with some degree of stability. The curious idea that government is not needed was tested in the Iberian peninsula in the late Middle Ages. When Isabella and Ferdinand took over their reigns of Castile and Aragon in the 1470s, Castile especially had been living with weak government for more than a century and was in dire need of some semblance of order. Each town had been left to its own devices and many had created voluntary “brotherhoods” to protect their citizens. Isabella instituted la Santa Hermandad (the Holy Brotherhood), a national levy for Castile as a whole and soon changed the situation to the better. Resources were taken from (guess who?) the citizens, i.e., a form of direct taxation.

Taxation is much older, of course. The historian Charles Tilly wrote about early European state-building as a form of protection racket. The King's men would arrive in the villages during the day to declare that “We'll protect you from bandits if you pay your taxes.” The same people came back at night as bandits to visit those who didn't pay. Medieval common folk in Europe often had the scourge of competing tax collectors confiscating their harvest on behalf of rival claimants to the throne. Centuries later we hear about the need for a government to have a monopoly over the means of violence for political stability to exist. Even conservatives understand (except of course in the US).

At the other end of the scale of governmental ambition, however, is where the political battles of the 21^st century will be fought – how big an administration is needed to cater to the demands of rapidly growing, progressively more undereducated populations – and what tasks are better left to non-governmental organizations. This may sound like the US discourse, but it isn't. It is an open question whether reality will ever catch up with the US situation of massive untapped resources and unmet needs. My bet is it will.

Fair taxes will be recognized as such. Taxes are fair if they are paid by all, in the same proportion, and according to ability to pay. But I dissent on the principle of progressive taxation. Whether I make a million or just a hundred, I should pay the same percentage of my income.

While my American conservative friends assure me that I am not worthy of the name of a conservative, I hope I have shown that conservatism doesn't need to smell as much of sulphur as theirs. As for my socialist friend, I am sure he'll tell me I'm as deep in trouble as he thought before.

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Oslo Massacre: Christian Fundamentalist or Extreme Anti-Marxist?

About 76 people were killed, 8 in a huge blast that devastated the main government building complex in central Oslo, and at least 68 of them about an hour later, participants in a Labour Party youth camp near Oslo on Friday July 22. All of the mayhem apparently the work of one man.

What kind of motive could be behind the double massacre in Oslo ? The self-avowed killer, Anders Behring Breivik, has told the police that his actions were "terrible, but necessary". In the hours since his arrest, a wealth of documentation has turned up, produced by himself and posted on the net. The first material that showed up was from a Norwegian conservative political website (document.no). The website is known as highly critical of muslim imigration to Norway and Europe, and while its conservative tendency is obvious, it cannot in my view be regarded as extremist. The site editor of document.no, obviously sensing the heat that was on when the suspect's name became known, compiled and published Breivik's “collected works” in one file in its pages the morning after the horrific events.

In what sense could he be a "Christian fundamentalist"? Judging from the 45 pages of his comments rambling across political topics, there is nothing to indicate a Christian fundamentalist leaning. There is hardly any talk of the Bible, God or Jesus Christ and what their teachings would dictate as right political action in today's world. The writer does declare himself to be a “conservative Christian”, and makes it clear that this makes him very critical of the Protestant Church of Norway. Apparently, though, he has referred to himself in his statement to the police as a "Christian fundamentalist".

This fits well with a propaganda video (a "manifesto", in English) which subsequently surfaced on the internet, produced by a man who calls himself "Andrew Berwick", and which is attributed to the suspect by the authorities. The themes of the video are anti-Marxist and anti-Islam, and the heroes are all the brave knights - especially crusading knights - who have kept Islam at bay through the ages. Curiously, there is no recent hero (ironically, El Cid is included though he spent years fighting for Muslims against Christians).  Notably, no heroes at all are portrayed in the fight against Marxism. That would perhaps have brought him uncomfortably close to the nazism that many of his ideas resemble, but which he takes care to stay clear of in all his statements. The video ends by showing the author himself posing in various gallant garb, in the last image posing with a machine gun.

The message of the video is clear. That of his other writings are more vague. There is a certain preoccupation with the pragmatic aspects of winning the soul of the Norwegian people for conservative causes, and a clear admiration of the success of the political left in Norway in monopolizing the country's political space for “Marxism” (he never talks about “socialism” and rarely about social democracy). That success of the left must in Breivik's view be destroyed, after which a new day will come for “conservative culture”. He views himself and other conservatives in Norway as hounded by “Marxism”. In a key passage Breivik says that “Today, Conservatives don't dare to flag their views on the street as they know that extreme Marxists will club them down. We cannot accept that the Labour Party subsidizes these violent 'Stoltenberg Jugend' [ref to Jens Stoltenberg, the Labour Party leader and Prime Minister] who systematically terrorize political conservatives.” (For those who do not know the country it may be added that there is no political violence occurring in Norwegian political life today that matches this description.) In a different context he also perniciously puns on the unofficial honorary label “Landsmoder” (Mother of the Country”) for the former Labour Party PM Gro Harlem Brundtland, making it “murderer” instead of “mother”. In short, there can be no doubt of his hatred for the Labour Party.

Breivik's obsession with what he sees as the need to stop Marxism and his hatred of the various political “boot camps” (youth camps) of the parties of the left are the most pronounced aspects of his writing that I see pointing toward the horrific deeds of July 22.

Among the latest materials to surface is also a sort of diary of the last 80 days before his attacks, detailing all his preparations of the bomb, test explosions, scares of being found out before he was ready, etc., the last entry made a few hours before the attacks.

This  man is clearly psychologically disturbed, but shows all the signs of normal intelligence. He has planned his acts meticulously, he writes well both in Norwegian and English and argues his viewpoints with considerable skill. A hard case to understand in all its grotesque inhumanity. If he wants to be known as a Christian fundamentalist, that may be a reflection of his evident admiration of the methods used by fundamentalist Islamists, a way to mark his "cause" as equally righteous as the beliefs held by the "marxists" and Islamists he hates so much. 

Indeed, the video is so full of hate that it alone explains the actions that followed. It is also so well made that it points to more than a lone man's work.

(This blog has been revised since July 23 due to the wealth of new material about the case. The number of victims was adjusted downward by Norwegian authorities from 93 to 76 on July 25.)

China Ready for War over the South China Sea Dispute?

Will China go to war with Vietnam and other regional neighbors over their disputed claims in the South China Sea? There are experts who think that is possible. Co-authors Rory Medcalf and Raoul Heinrichs of the Australian think-tank Lowy Institute argue this in a recently published report (Crisis and Confidence: Major Powers and Maritime Security in Indo-Pacific Asia, 2011). Their emphasis on the dangers focuses on the lack of regard in Asia for maritime confidence-building measures (CBMs).  

Though violent incidents in this area have been numerous over the years, I would personally doubt they could erupt into more sustained violence. Still, the dangers are legion and they are not being avoided, notably not by the major player on the scene, China. At this time tempers flare once more, as they have done intermittently since the 1980s. Governments of the Southeast and East Asian region – represented by their Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Defence - are hotly involved, along with those of the United States. Navies conduct exercises and flagwaving protesters march on the streets of the region's capitals.

The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has made maritime relations between countries and the resolution of disputes much calmer and easier to handle than they used to be (even though the United States after 30 years of the convention's existence has still not ratified it). Nevertheless, there are problem areas where disputes remain unresolved. The South China Sea may well be the most complex of these.

The South China Sea is bordered by Vietnam to the west, the Philippines to the east, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia to the south and China to the north. The eastern and northern parts of the sea are littered with reefs, sandbanks and occasional islands, mainly the Paracels to the northwest and the Spratlys to the southeast. Deposits of oil and other mineral resources have been located in many places. The South China Sea is also an area of active fishing by the littoral nations.

Moreover, a major portion of seaborne trade to and from (not least oil deliveries to) China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea moves through the area, making it both an area of general maritime interest to major maritime nations around the world, and a strategic interest for the countries referred to. By implication, that makes it an area of strategic interest even for other countries, most notably the United States.

Then why is there no movement towards resolving the issues? Because they are exceedingly complex.

Complexity factor 1: China claims sovereignty over all the islands in the South China Sea and the waters around them, for historical reasons. UNCLOS does not admit sovereignty claims on historical grounds. Customary international law, however, allows sovereignty claims for historical reasons under certain conditions (e.g., if the islands have been occupied, and the claims made public). The Chinese historical claims are not unfounded, but also not patently convincing.

Complexity factor 2: Six nations with territorial waters bordering on the South China Sea (Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam) are claimants for sovereignty over specific islands and/or exclusive Economic Zones in it. In addition, Taiwan advances its own claims on behalf of China.

Complexity factor 3: As just suggested, China's interests are claimed by two independent decision-making centres – the People's Republic of China in Beijing and the Republic of China in Taipei (Taiwan), each of which have established their own separate bases or installations in the area, and each of whom makes the claim on slightly different conditions. Taiwan, of course, is regarded as just a renegade province by China.

Complexity factor 4: While the claims of other littoral states are made in conventional terms according to UNCLOS, the Chinese claim is rather unconventional (a) in that China seems to claim the entire area – not just the islands but even the waters between them - exclusively for itself, and (b) also unconventional in that the Chinese do not declare specifically what the boundary of their claim is, but show it on maps represented by a dotted line – in fact, a line made up of nine (sic!) dashes. A normal claim for China would yield merely a slice of EEZ at the northern end.

Complexity factor 5: Islands with a civilian population or economic life of its own give rise to claims for maritime rights, especially the right to an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). But islands in the South China Sea are uninhabited and mostly tiny (the largest is less than one square km), and some of the claims made in the area refer to structures built on reefs that are submerged part of the time.

Complexity factor 6: Instead of seeking peaceful settlement of the dispute, China has repeatedly resorted to aggressive moves, and as early as 1992 granted exploration rights to a US oil company in an area as remote as possible from the nearest Chinese point of land (about 1000 miles away). Now several other claimants (Vietnam and Indonesia) have done the same. Vietnam has recently also invited the Indian navy to make regular use of one of their coastal naval facilities. These continuing moves make the situation in the South China Sea disturbingly fluid and complicate further any attempt to start working towards a multilateral settlement.

Complexity factor 7: All the involved parties did succeed in 2002 in agreeing on a “document of conduct” (under the aegis of ASEAN) intended in time to lead to a “code of conduct” for the area. Yet the code of conduct has so far not materialized and the conduct of the parties in the meantime does not seem to be governed by the restraint and will to build confidence called for in the 2002 document. Acts of violence – even if non-lethal – continue to occur. Demonstratively aggressive postures are taken by naval forces, and media reports on all sides are frequently inflammatory.

At this point, tension is high as military exercises are being held by several of the parties. The United States is exercising jointly with the Philippines. China has announced trial runs for its first aircraft carrier in the South China Sea to begin on July 1. While China and Vietnam, as the most intensely engaged opponents, managed to agree to back off from further confrontation for the time being, it is curious that China as the dominant actor of the region is not able to offer a more consistent example of how to go about peacefully resolving a complex dispute.

As one of the parties to UNCLOS China has a clear obligation to take a step back from what it calls its “indisputable claim of sovereignty over the islands and the surrounding waters of the South China Sea”. The course it has chosen is another, pointing toward the simplest solution: that China grabs it all. Intimidation is the name of that game.

What's Wrong with Asking Israel to Stick to its 1967 Borders?

To most of my readers this is old news, and tiring news. But President Obama has spoken (Thursday May 19^th), and some reaction seems appropriate.

Here's an old Israel supporter who has gradually lost faith in the Israeli leadership. In the fall of 1990, representing my institute in Oslo, I spent a couple of hours at the dinner table talking to our up-and-coming political visitor from Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu – he was a most charming and spirited interlocutor, setting out in our conversation his deep concern about peace with the Palestinians and the need for a basic change to come about in their mutual relations. This was three years before the famous Oslo accords. It was therefore very difficult for me to understand later on that he would not sign off on that agreement, and that as time went by he slowly made it clear that he would not support its implementation, finally declaring that he would fight it in every way he could. Some of my colleagues who had watched his rise over a longer period warned me back then that I'd been had. It took me quite some time to accept that they were probably right. For the past decade or more I have resigned myself to the understanding that this man was not – and is not – credible.

Of course, Israeli politics is not run by one individual; from an initially fairly stable political unit it has become a complex short-term coincidence of incoherent political forces, each of which is insufficient to provide a stable course for the nation. Yet it has been tough for many of us who have sympathized with Israel's right to exist alongside its neighbours, to see the unrelenting course taken by its governments in the past decade. The Palestinian side has helped the extreme side of Israeli politics immensely with its own practice of (and ideological support for) indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. And so the old practice of an eye for an eye – the ancient law of Hammurabi, as familiar to Israel as it is to the rest of the region – goes on without pause. Israel attacks the Palestinians, and the Palestinians attack Israel, and no one knows for sure what is a retaliation and what is a fresh offence. The story is almost too familiar to repeat.

The Palestinians missed their chance in 1948 when they could have had what they are now denied – the entire West Bank and Gaza strip. They preferred instead to push the Israelis into the sea, having all Arab neighbours jointly attack the newly established state of Israel to achieve its extermination. After two years it was obvious that they had failed. The tottering Israeli state survived. Palestinian residents of Israeli-held territories left in large numbers, some under threat of force, others out of fear. The ensuing decades saw repeated attempts to shift the balance between the parties with surprise attacks, mostly by the Arab neighbours, but also by Israel (the 1956 war). The disastrous Arab failure in the 1967 Six-Day War - initiated by Israel after an escalating campaign of Arab provocations - led to Israel's long-term occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza strip and East Jerusalem as well.

I cannot believe that the great circle of Israel's (now gradually diminishing) sympathizers abroad would reject the 1967 borders. To terminate the occupation, to me, is the only way forward. The long series of permissions being unstoppably granted for new Israeli settlements to be established in the West Bank, and the unscalable wall to protect them, are a disgrace. Evidently the Obama administration is of the same opinion. It may be too little, too late.

With the Arab uprisings and regime changes of this year, democracy is uncertain to advance and some kind of primitive pay-back seems to be looming in any case. Israel has long held the key to its own future, but refused to put it into the lock. It may be a late stage now - perhaps too late? - to expect that same key to be able to turn things to the better.

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Unarmed Civilian Assassinated in His Home

There are many ways of relating Osama bin Laden's final fate. We have hardly seen the end of the story, especially when Western “experts” charge that a breach of international law has been committed by the United States (Ove Bring in Sydsvenska Dagbladet, David Allen Green in the New Statesman). So, the enforcement agent must put his own life and that of his team-mates at risk in order to ensure the humane treatment of one who has organized suicide bombings of thousands of people? Sure. Mind you, they did not even ask for his ID. 

In my view, it is not the HR principles that are stupid. In fairness, while Bring sees this as a serious matter, Green says he will hardly lose any sleep over it. Then again, many in the Muslim world think like the Swede, which leads them to call for reprisals against the US.

The obligation to provide bin Laden with a fair trial must be laid at Pakistan's door. The US took its own measures when its ally failed to do what it could and should have done.

There is a good old rule of foreign policy that says if you don't effectively control your own territory, others will – or at least they will take advantage of you. Territorial control is a military task. Pakistan, however, has a military that is busy with other matters, domestic politics above all. The only border they guard jealously is that with India. So it was apparently easy for the US Navy Seals team to swoop down from Afghanistan in their helicopters and snatch bin Laden where he was hidden in northern Pakistan, next to a Military Academy. The hue and cry afterwards about the transgression on Pakistan's sovereignty was predictable. However, blaming others for failing to respect an unguarded border is hard to take seriously, even more so considering the circumstances.

Now the dispute is on concerning who's to blame for bin Laden's eight-year residence in the area where he was found. We need not ponder long to guess that someone must have known. Of course, within the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence there are many different sections, and as in any large political organization sections often become factions with aims of their own, some corresponding to movements in the subterranean landscape of Pakistani politics. One of the ISI sections was previously in charge of training mujahedin to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, among them the young Osama. No one knows for sure when they stopped doing that after the Soviets bowed out in 1988. I read somewhere recently that turning a blind eye to inconvenient facts is said to be a necessity in Pakistan's political culture. That is a believable statement.

Nordic Democracy: Endangered by Populist Extremism?

In Finland, the recent election victory (relatively speaking: 19%, tied 2^nd place) of the anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-establishment party “The True Finns” (Sannfinländarna) has detonated a shock-wave rattling the other member countries of the European Union. The shock is real, to the extent that the new Finnish government has to approve the emergency package for Portugal which the True Finns have made a prime target of their EU critique. How could such “bottom dregs” win an election – in yet another European country? Memories go to Jörg Haider's former glory, of which little is heard nowadays, but the trauma of his party's ascendance to the height of Austrian politics and thus also that of the EU, little more than a decade ago, is a continuing nightmare in Brussels. Gradually, of course, it was found that the world did not come to an end, and the whole thing was brushed off understandingly as something one had to expect from Austrians, given their history.

The Nordics, on the other hand, have long prided themselves on being the most democratic countries in the world, and have also been accepted by many others as such. Even with the rightful claims to democratic excellence of the Americans, the Brits, the Frenchmen and the Dutch, the Nordic countries have a head start in many ways - in Iceland they have the world's oldest parliament still working; the Nordic flora of voluntary associations is about as rich as they come; and they have what many consider to be the world's most advanced welfare societies - despite the struggle in recent years to keep that flagship financially afloat. In all of this, the Nordic Social Democratic parties (variously through history also called Labour or Socialist parties), have been the leading political force everywhere.

Enter the so-called right-wing parties, in Denmark since the 1970s (currently Dansk Folkeparti, last election 14%), in Norway, also since the 1970s (Fremskrittspartiet 23%), even recently in Sweden (Sverigedemokraterna 5%). The oldest of these parties began as tax-protest movements, but all of them criticize the immigration from non-Eurpopean countries as excessive and want less interference from the EU in their country's affairs. They even gain support from many former Social-Democratic voters – what shame for the formerly progressive North!

But are they right-wing? And are they all the same? The label “right-wing” has possibly attached itself to them because they have all targeted the dominance of the social democratic labour parties.

Yet when the Finnish election results were recently published, the Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet's spokesperson disdainfully rejected any comparison with the Finnish party, saying they had rejected approaches for cooperation. “They want a strong state, but we are a liberalistic party”, he says. And indeed, the True Finns look more like a populistic centrist party.  In a recent analytical article in Svenska Dagbladet, Swedish-Finnish political scientist Ann-Cathrine Jungar lays out an illuminating comparison. She regards all of these parties as “center-extreme” rather than right-wing because they all have socio-economic policies typical of centrist positions. Yet she also points out that the “West-Nordic” (Danish, Norwegian) parties have moved in this direction from an originally more liberalistic, anti-tax position whereas the Finnish and Swedish parties had different origins. The True Finns are successors to an agrarian populist movement, while the Swedish party has roots both in anti-tax movements and neo-fascist movements of the 1990s.

Some take this as a danger signal for Sweden. However, I think Sverigedemokraterna's recent success has shown the party it does better with a more democratic profile. One can nevertheless perceive strands of influence here from nationalistic right-wing parties in Europe, emphasizing the need for a strong state, both in the Finnish and the Swedish party. Personally I would also regard the Norwegian party as mainly a rightist anti-tax, small-government party. Such differences are nuances, but not without significance.

In any case, all of these parties are strongly critical of the immigration policies of the EU and their own countries, regarding both this and the never-ending stream of money to foreign aid as pure waste that should have been channelled to the country's own citizens instead.

Here is where the establishment Social Democrats raise their charges of “fremmedfientlighet” / ”främlingsfientlighet” (xenophobia) and extremism. Controllers of the incumbent political correctness in the Nordic world for half a century, they dislike being challenged on their generosity, and strike back with the labels above and that of “populism” as well. To some it might sound a bit peculiar to hear Social Democrats derogating something that is “of the people”, but that is perhaps because they are quick to label as “populist” whatever grass-roots phenomenon they cannot themselves control.

The label xenophobic is part of Nordic party politics. In my view, it is a misnomer. Most of these voters have no particular dislike of foreigners; what they do object to is the government lavishing “social support” funds on immigrants who in most cases are not able to enter the labour market directly and who are allowed (indeed, for a long time were encouraged) to keep their own language and thus to remain unemployable in the long run. Next, the principle of “family reunion” allows them to bring their relatives to join them in the new country. These are in most cases not “the poorest of the poor”. They are those sufficiently healthy, crafty, moneyed and enterprising to beat their less fortunate brethren to the departure point on the Mediterranean coast or Turkey's eastern border.

Had there been a selection at the source it would have been possible to pick out only the really needy. As it is, the selection of non-European immigrants arriving is a confused self-selection, such that there is no obvious criterion to say, why not admit all others as well? In short, the policies of the EU and the individual destination countries are not sustainable. Even worse, the Nordic governments have refused to take the full and open debate required. The Swedish elections last autumn showed how this dam of political correctness – intended to stop populists from taking advantage of the immigration unrest - probably only served to channel additional power to Sverigedemokraterna.

So, the problem is partly that Social Democracy is disintegrating in the Nordic countries while the successor parties have not yet fully established themselves. In the process, the loyalty of “the people” - previously the unquestioned prize of the Left - is up for grabs. Beyond that, the current maelstrom of change also reflects the painful effort of disoriented voters to find a way to stop the effects of a world without borders. Messy, perhaps, but this is no threat to Nordic democracy.

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“Arab Democracy” – What Kind of Animal?

How do Arabs think of democracy? I am not an Arabist but there is one impression that stands out in my mind from this Arab spring: the call for leaders to step down and be replaced. Beyond that, I suspect the ideas of democracy among common men and women in the Middle East are rather hazy.

Nevertheless, the World Values Survey undertaken from 1995-6 to 2001-2 shows Arabs strongly agreeing with the statement that “democracy may have problems but it's better than any other form of government”. These UNDP studies show also that Arabs were the regional group that most strongly rejected authoritarian rule defined as a strong leader who does not have to bother with a parliament and elections.* The meaning of such responses is still less than crystal clear.

Watching from afar as Arab protests have played out in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria, we have heard unceasing calls for "democracy" and "freedom". Yet, we Westerners should perhaps stop and consider the possibility that maybe we don't know what they are talking about. And Arab readers of English-language commentaries should also ponder the chance that language and tradition could play tricks on all of us. Slogans, internet postings and interviews are translated, either by the demonstrators themselves or by reporters. How do we know what they really mean? What does "democracy" mean to most Arabs – and to young Arabs in particular? While a Westerner's first thought may be that we all know what democracy is, the thing they have on their mind may not be the same as the image raised in our minds by their shouts.

Of course, there are different types of democracies, and in recent decades a broad range of would-be democracies have emerged around the world that don't fit the classical mould. Democracy theorists have been struggling to classify them. For some of those imperfect variants the label “diminished subtypes” has been suggested** – these are cases that have some characteristics of democracy, but lack others. Sort of like a judgement of "not bad, but not quite".

Indeed, some countries in the Middle East claim to have a kind of democracy not found in the West, Libya under Gaddafi with its People's Committees being the most prominent case. On a visit there in 2003 I was told by my guide that Libyans all governed themselves by participating in the committee meetings for their neighborhood, and there was hardly ever any disagreements because “we all understand what is the right thing to do”. In reality, since the 1970s Gaddafi's Libya has had two pillars of government – the People's Committees that have mobilized support for the regime, and the Revolutionary Security pillar that exercises actual control in secret. Of course, the official account of the system only mentions the first pillar. The farce of Gaddafi's system did not really fool his people for long, but they went along, and young people like my guide naturally started out believing what they were told.

But Libya as Gaddafi made it could hardly be classified as a “diminished subtype” of democracy – it is rather what Weber called a “sultanistic regime”, an unlimited despotism. Lebanon, on the other hand, could perhaps be classified as a diminished subtype of democracy, diminished due to its constitutional grant of parliamentary seats to specific groups without regard for their popular support. Turkey might be another example of a diminished subtype, due to the constitutional role of the military and the judiciary.

Beyond these examples, however, traditional Arab ideas pertinent to democracy are not terribly impressive. There is the obligation (non-binding) of the ruler to consult with the ruled, and about governing "with mutual consent" (among the elites, that is). In fact there is no Arab concept of democracy even remotely reminiscent of the Western idea, whether in theory or practice.

Given this foggy state of affairs, what could the demonstrators mean? For the sake of simplicity, let us say there are two main possibilities. Either (1) the demonstrators know what real democracy is, and say they want it. Or (2) they have something else in mind that they call "democracy", which may be short of or different from the Western idea, but is something that would still be a huge improvement to them.

Admittedly not knowing the true answer, I suspect a tiny fraction of one percent of the demonstrators may fit the first alternative (they know that what they are talking about is what their Western listeners think they are talking about), while the rest, the vast proportion of them, are looking only for one big thing: to get rid of the present ruler NOW and be given a chance to elect a different one closer to their preference. Then, if even that person were to prove a bad choice, they want the additional chance of getting rid of that leader as well in a future election. This big dream is the primitive essence of democracy – asking for bad leaders to step down, asking for change for the better, and asking for a chance to throw even the new leaders out if they don't deliver.The hard part about it all, of course, is to organize it so that it can become a durable system for the long term. This is where some societies offer better preconditions than others for what Westerners call democracy.

Though I don't agree with Thomas Friedman's recent claim that the East European countries revolting in 1989 were so much simpler in societal make-up than those of the Middle East, I do share his pessimism about the prospects for the Middle East (“Pray, Hope, Prepare”, New York Times, April 12). If the demonstrators and freedom fighters are lucky, as I see it, they may be granted the first part of their wishes, getting rid of the tyrant - like the Tunisians and Egyptians have done. The next challenge – getting the opportunity to scuttle even their next ruler – may be no more than a dream vision.

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*M. Browers, Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought, Syracuse University Press, 2006, p 4, citing UNDP.

** D. Collier & S. Levitsky, Research Note: “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research.” World Politics. Volume 49, Number 3, April 1997, pp. 430-451.

Libya - a Complex Muddle

The Libyan situation is now being acted out on multiple levels in a maze that should be a dream to conspiracy theorists. Theoretically, the situation in Libya is being dealt with by the UN Security Council through the instrument of an international coalition of governments contributing military resources to a no-fly zone. In reality there are several more levels, and they are not well connected with each other:

1. The bottom level is the struggle between Libyan rebels and the Gaddafi government's forces in which fortunes and loyalties seem forever changing and unpredictable; neither side has helpful international links;
2. The military action level of implementing the UN-mandated no-fly zone and associated airstrikes against Gaddafi forces in Libya – a multinational coalition venture lately led by NATO and consisting of both non-NATO and NATO forces gathered in a multitude of national military contributions, each delivered under specific limiting conditions and all subject to continuous coordinating discussion between the military authorities involved, working through the established machinery of NATO military diplomacy and NATO's consultation apparatus linking it to partners and other non-members;
3. The politico-diplomatic level of coalition government leaders and their officials – as of March 29 organized into a Contact Group of nearly 40 governments – seeking to hold the implementing coalition together from day to day, tackling sceptical parties like Turkey and Germany, and attempting to gain some semblance of coherence as to what their goals (long-term and short) actually are;
4. The global/international political level where Russia, China, India, Iran and others offer sceptical input into the UN Security Council oversight of the implementation of the resolution mandating the no-fly zone.

Interwoven with this multidimensional mess are (a) the domestic political struggles in all of these countries, most intense in the countries participating in the coalition and clearly more intense in the United States than anywhere else; (b) the diplomatic role-playing, mostly in the wings, of the intergovernmental organizations also involved, pushing their separate agendas (the African Union, the Arab League, the European Union, the Islamic Conference, NATO); (c) the international and national media competing in pursuit of their stories or in making them up.

You may think that you grasp an important part of the whole if you are completely informed about what is going on at one level. However, this is not necessarily so, because the connections between the levels are weak – the governments do not directly command the military level although they are supposedly their superiors, and the military cannot control what happens on the ground except indirectly through their use of air power and missiles. Even that use of military means depends on passing through several intermediate levels, since the employment of military force is still the responsibility of the national military units that make up the coalition.

Hence, all of these levels must produce outcomes pulling in the same direction for the totality of efforts to yield a meaningful overall result. What is the chance they will, instead of buckling up this way and that as domestic concerns, interstate rivalries and other pressures enter the picture? Not much, in my view. Even the military input from the outside now appears to have little chance of putting the rebels on top unless a more direct intervention takes place. That would be counter to the essence of the Security Council resolution (# 1973). In short, while the world's forces of goodwill for democracy have mounted an immense effort to save a chance for Libyan freedom, these activities appear to have precious little chance of making a difference where it counts. Inside Libya, Gaddafi cannot be counted out yet. Discussing his destination in exile is merely wishful thinking at this stage.

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CORRECTION (PREVIOUS BLOG):

Gaddafi (whose name is spelled in a multitude of different ways, even in English) has seven sons, not five as I stated in my previous blog. Even worse.

“The Arab Spring”: 1989 all over again? Yes and No.

Yes – these popular uprisings of 2011 are – as they were in 1989 - all going down (or up) in flames at the same time. No nice sequence pacing one after the other, except Tunisia setting it off, and Egypt opening the floodgates next by showing the revolution's maximum dimension and potential, the way the Baltics and East Germany did in 1989. From these initial, hesitant steps into the breach it quickly turned into a free-for-all, in 2011 as in 1989. In North Africa as in Communist Europe, popular sentiment that had been slowly brewing for years came to a state of boiling. A growing awareness of much better living next door stoked the fire in both cases. Whether it was tv, underground cassette tapes and VHF movies in the 1989 case, or mobile phones, Facebook or Twitter in the most recent case, it was enhanced communication reaching (especially) young people that triggered both revolutionary chains.

But: No – the similarities are both indicative and yet superficial. In 2011 there is no common controlling authority being challenged, no superpower tottering, just local dictators. There is no ideology from the top, only the smokesceen of Islam veiling oldfashioned despotism and an unimaginable greed. Unlike Eastern Europe, the Arab world seems to have had few movements living a secret organized life aiming for change. There has been systematic oppression, suffering and still somehow the bare survival of ordinary people. But there was never an overt justification of Muslim misery the way the Marxist-Leninist ideology was used to justify the oppression and low lifestyle of the Communist world.

Then there is the material wealth, above all the oil and gas, available to many of the rebelling peoples in 2011. In Soviet-controlled  Europe there were no riches to be redistributed. In the Middle East and North Africa, the worst crime of despotic leaders has been the theft of national wealth in the face of the abject poverty of their subjects. As the spirit of rebellion awoke, the image of a better future is a strong stimulus that has no comparison in Eastern Europe of 1989. True, the East Europeans also expected a better material future, but the riches they imagined were not as concrete and massive as those of (e.g.) Algerians or Libyans.

An open question is still whether the follow-up in the Middle East and North Africa is likely to be as successful as that in Eastern Europe (which admittedly has its downsides even two decades later). Obviously in 2011 “democracy” of some sort is a goal, however inchoate, but it has no historical reference very close to the experience of North African or Middle Eastern societies. Autocracy is the more familiar model, and (as Hillary Clinton just said), the West does not have all the answers. We may be facing a future of some kind of modified "auto-demo-cracy" emerging, more akin to the various Asian regimes in existence today.

The thought keeps coming back to me that I have no good answer to the charge that a people gets the government it deserves. If a people finds itself living under a despot, that is as good as deciding to do so; it is their choice. Some have called me heartless for that view. Yet the world is cruel, and we can only at our own peril ask others to meddle in our affairs to impose their sense of what is right.

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People Power Is not Democracy

Hosni Mubarak has left, Egypt is suddenly engulfed in celebrations of freedom, and bystanders in the rest of the world rejoice - and some also worry.

Regardless of what the spirit of Tahrir Square seems to be, "people power" is not democracy. People power is the power to block, to stop the country from working, to prevent the exercise of formal power. It served well to topple the dictator. 

But the demonstrating masses cannot act. To act they need organization, the selection of transitional leaders, reform of the constitution, and time to bring information to the people in preparation for ordinary elections. Democracy is not everybody rules, but choosing rulers who can govern well or be thrown out in the next elections.

Hopefully, the army can lead the first part of the transition to democracy in a peaceful and responsible manner, and leave the people to choose a transitional civilian leader in September. Several outspoken figures with outstanding credentials have already marked their presence on the field - Amr Moussa and ElBaradei among them. This chance for Egypt must not be wasted.

Egypt and the US: the Instability of Stability

President Mubarak has spoken once more. Amid a peak of demonstrations against him, and widespread anticipation that he would step down, he let it be known that he would continue to guide the country as a father guides his children, until the end of his term in September. The crowds were not pleased, but that is not likely to change his course. Even larger demonstrations are to be expected along with the announced general strike, certain to stir up renewed trouble where the army has to step in as peacemaker and with increasingly impatient (and violent) groups still supporting the regime.

President Obama, who yesterday more or less ordered the Egyptian President to step down, has learned the limits of American power the hard way - incredibly, just the way his predecessor did! Where do US Presidents get their notions of power from? The effect of Mr. Obama's statement was (surprise!) the direct opposite of that desired. A so-called stable US ally is now more unstable than ever, given the falling out between the two countries' leadership. 

If Egypt has turned out to be unstable, that is first of all the fruit of Hosni Mubarak's policies over 30 years. A firm hand and a strong executive, yes - a favored army and a clear eye on what the price of it all would be: Peace with Israel. But how a man in that position has managed - for three decades - to "forget" his people's needs with all the money washing over him from abroad, this is inexplicable. While Mubarak is hardly likely to be the richest man in the world, as some reports had it on Wednesday, according to a more sober assessment by msnbc.com his worth may be as high as 2 billion dollars. (http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/10/6025656-mubarak-could-leave-with-2-billion). In any case, Mubarak's regime has been stability itself, and no wonder - given those terms.

Yet stability is only meaningful if it endures the test of time. The challenge of stability is to keep the balance even as changes (for the better) are carried out. The recent events in Egypt demonstrate well the delicate difficulty of maintaining stability in a poor and populous country where ordinary people have not been given the experience of the slightest improvement over the long run. To suddenly meet the erupting demands from the raging demonstrating masses in the short run is of course impossible. This is what a stability-concerned government would have methodically done in the years before. Easy to say now, of course, but such views about Egypt have been raised for years. Stay tuned to Cairo for the next chapter in this familiar tale of old dictators' follies.

Egypt: Revolution, regime change or just stress test?

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is in a shaky position, after days of rioting on the streets of Egypt. Clearly, his people followed the example of the Tunisians. When Mubarak finally addressed the nation shortly after midnight on January 29 it was to put the blame on the government (his government) and to vaguely promise better conditions for the poorest among his citizens.

The Tunisian example probably led many observers to expect Mubarak to slip out the back door that night. That did not happen. But since January 27 he has an outspoken rival in the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner and former IEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, who just returned to Egypt. What can we expect from this challenge to an obviously authoritarian leadership? How do revolutions turn out once they have gotten “out of hand”, beyond the point of no return? At the time of writing this seems to be where Egypt is at.

In April 1917 Vladimir I. Lenin returned from exile in Switzerland, seeking the leadership of the Russian revolution, which until then had been off to a slow start under the bourgeois Kerensky regime that deposed the Tsar. Lenin and his comrades Trotsky, Stalin and others set off their own Bolshevik revolution half a year later and turned their country into the totalitarian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), lasting 74 years. Though bad enough, this was not an isolated case.

In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to an Iran in turmoil after the Shah had been deposed. From day one he made sure that moderate politicians – until then the most active in the reform process - would be weeded out from the new regime. Under Khomeini the Iranian Islamic Republic – a self-declared “theocracy” - was established in December 1979. As is well known, post-1979 Iran was and remains a totalitarian regime, irrespective of a few superficial vestiges of democracy such as a popularly elected parliament (with limited powers) and a president (with unconfirmed final authority).

Do these cases have something to say about Egypt 2011? Whether Mubarak is finished now or next summer is immaterial; he is effectively already gone. Could Mohamed ElBaradei’s return from exile signal the opening for a turn to a democratic regime, as the West would like to think, and as his own inclination would seem to indicate? Or could he fall by the wayside and mark just an interlude to a more authoritarian or perhaps even totalitarian/Islamist regime in Egypt, the way it happened in Iran and Russia? An Islamist state in Egypt would be a worst case for all concerned about Muslim extremism. Could it turn out that way?

Maybe – but probably not. Modern Egypt is a country with a strong, moderate Muslim political community, organized in the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1920s. The Brotherhood has long been banned and hence at the margin of politics, repeatedly bought off from attaining a more controlling place in Egyptian politics by whatever powers were ascendant. Their potential role under the new circumstances in Egypt is thus far uncertain, but their future ambition may remain modest like it has been before. That is, unless they have been waiting all along for an opening to reveal a previously hidden extremism. Be that as it may, the Brotherhood would anyhow require that the demands of the current popular protests are satisfied. 

This is where a moderate democrat like ElBaradei is potentially a key figure – and certainly not one to lead Egypt along the path to extremism. Yet, like Tunisia, the Egyptian system is without pointers to regime change. Should Mubarak manage to hang on for some time to come, the opening is still there for other actors - such as the army, for instance - to slip into the power vacuum and quietly take over. A strongly democratic leader (such as ElBaradei) backed by a broad popular movement (even if not genuinely democratic) like the Muslim Brotherhood, might be the way out of authoritarian dictatorship for Egypt. However, if and when the Brotherhood finds itself the legitimate governing party of Egypt, who knows what ideas might get into their heads. That is also where headaches come in for some of us.

To the West, an Egypt with the Suez Canal beyond Western political influence, is a huge strategic asset lost. No one in Western capitals will deny that. Will it mean back to another 1956? Or forward to a new kind of partnership? I’ll be as curious to know as you are.