After the Fall

While I normally pride myself on quality analysis of relevant issues, I've a soft spot for the fascinating and improbable. So this post, as a break from issues that matter, is going to focus on zombies. Now, there are lots of to take when talking about zombies - the zombie renaissance in film is a potent one, and the cultural implications are worthy of analysis. Of course, they've also received a lot of analysis, so it'd be a bit redundant.

More interesting is the zombie beyond film commentary - this is a gallery of the post-apocalypse zombie attack rendered in LEGO. What's fascinating for me there is not the nature of the zombie attack, but the fascination with resistance. The scene is somewhere between a resistance movement, a summer barbecue, and an NRA pipe dream. Playful, certainly, but it's people looking at a world the moment everything goes wrong, and people expecting humanity will make it out in a burst of glory and dashing heroics. Indeed, the emergence of zombie survival guides (this one famously, the AHSFoliage guide much less so) is a testament to prevalence of both impending horrible calamity, and to a certain survivalist gusto.

Equally interesting (to me, at least), is the approach of a friend of mine to short fiction. Her blog can be found here, and if you follow this tag you'll see that almost all of what she writes is short zombie stories. Or really, short stories that happen to have zombies. Zombies aren't ever really the focus of the story - they act instead as a constant malevolent force, one that cannot be changed but can only be killed. It makes all the stakes higher, the presence of a marching assault wearing down her cast of only a few characters. And yet, the characters exist in this hyper-heroic world, the kind epics are written about, and the focus is always commentary on the now, the present world before shit hits the fan, before the collapse of everything as we know. Her characters, even the most optimistic, don't have dreams about a glorious new world, about rebuilt civilization, or about how future generations will remember them. They don't have dreams beyond tomorrow or next week. Everything, instead, is focused on what life was, what it meant to have been alive in this present, this modern era.

The final, relevant, post-apocalyptic speculation I want to mention in this post is of an entirely different nature. Johns Hopkins released a study of who would be essential in a pandemic. Sure, their approach isn't related to zombies specifically, but it does address the potential weakness (if not the outright collapse) of federal government, in this paragraph that reads like a libertarian's pipe dream:

The report recognizes that given the widespread and sustained nature of a pandemic, federal assistance will be spread thin and local jurisdictions must develop their own preparedness plans to ensure they are capable of sustained self-sufficiency. Encouraging and working with local businesses to develop their own response plans can help reduce the burden on local governments during a pandemic. Similarly, individuals and families who can afford it should do their best to prepare for any disaster. The paper notes, the more initiative the general public exercises in stockpiling several weeks' worth of food, water, paper goods, batteries medicines, and other needed supplies, the less vulnerable they will be to a break in the supply chain. In fact, the report emphasizes, it is important for leaders to communicate to the middle class and the wealthy that it is their responsibility to prepare for self-sufficiency in order to free up scarce supplies and allow first responders to direct their attention towards those too poor or vulnerable to prepare themselves.

Now, in the zombie context "first responders" could easily refer to military forces, but it's a reassuring prospect that in a worst-case scenario our leaders (and their medical advisors) feel comfortable advocating self-sufficiency. Part of it is the very real strain on governmental capabilities, and it's nice for that strain and inability to respond to be acknowledged. And part of it lends itself more towards American post-apocalyptic coverage: when everything goes wrong with the world we've built up, we'll fall back on ancient, core (mythical?) values, and we'll do all right.

We're in an interesting time, where our hegemonic nation seems no more than decade or two away from collapse (odds are, though, I'll still be saying this in 2024), and collapse is not something the United States has really had to deal with. But all the science fiction consensus, as much as I can make of it (and as much as one exists) is that we'll survive. Institutions and nationhood may change (or not- they're not really addressed in my skimming of the material out there), but the people as a given will remain. The collapse isn't going to be an end-all cataclysmic event. It's not apocalyptic literature after all; it's post-apocalyptic.

Brinkmanship

Yesterday I finished reading "The Crisis of Islam" by Bernard Lewis. While I recommend a lot of books, I don't make the recommendations lightly, and that is especially true for this book. "Crisis of Islam" reads and feels like the best history and context for understanding the actions of Usama bin Laden (or as we know him, Osama), and the conflict he sees with the west. The book is a scant 169 pages, and it goes quickly, which is why I'm inclined to recommend it over every other book of the sort a person can find. This is a book that can be read, read easily, and will have a profound effect on a person's understanding of the War on Terror. (This makes sense, given that the book is assigned reading for the "War on Terror" class I'm taking). The book, again, is great history.

The problem I have with it is that the book is poor political science, and it tries to be. In fact, the book was drawn in part from articles in Foreign Affairs (my favorite source of international relations political science), and the book was written with the intent of influencing major policy decisions. Checking the wikipedia on Bernard Lewis, it was kind of startling to read that he was one of the major intellectuals arguing in favor of the United States invasion of Iraq. The book itself doesn't overtly advocate the actions wikipedia attributes to Lewis's influence. But it's implied, and it's a strong undertone in the last chapter.

The book was written and published before the United States invaded Iraq. Lewis' plan, as it can be inferred, was for an externally imposed democracy to become a catalyst for more genuine democratic movements in the middle east, which would lead to prosperity, stability, and a positive outlet for moderate Islam to regain control of the debate from radical extremes. This is, as you've probably reasoned, absurd.

The logic behind it states that Islam, as nation-religion, no longer has adversaries to play off against each other. The rest of the West is out, Russia is out, and the United States stands as the only civilization opposing the glorious spread of Muhammad's nation and religion. Bernard Lewis does such a good job explaining the desire for the global religion-state as the objective of radical Islam, and he does such a good job showing the current regimes in the middle east as failed custodians of the faith and successors to the Caliph, that he can't figure out how a nativist movement could be anything but violently radical. In Lewis' view, the only hope for democracy in the middle east (excepting Turkey and Israel) is an external catalyst.

This contradicts his own understanding of the importance of nativism to the nation-religion of Islam. The importance of bin-Laden and the threat that he represents is based on and enhanced by his success in driving Russia out of Afghanistan. Khomeini and al-Sadr both can be pointed to as having had meaningful action against the corrupt and the foreign, and without the legitimacy of the act they would be fringe elements. That Khomeini's state became more oppressive than the one it succeeded is a grave flaw, but the quasi-democracy it operates, the poor economic fortunes of many Iranians, the concentration of poor economic prospects in the younger half of a nation where the media age is 26, and the fading memory of revolution all provide the opportunity for a nativist change in government, and a move away from oppressive and radical Islam. The state bin-Laden supported has been reduced to the margins, and with luck will remain there. Meanwhile, a variety of ethnic parties have filled the void left by a religious government, and this too bodes well for nativst change. Perhaps the devolution of the state of Afghanistan, but certainly a trend towards nativist rule over outsider radicals.

And then we have Iraq. Iraq is my major sore point with Lewis, and it baffles me how he can write that history and assume an imposed democracy will work. The way Lewis sees it, the United States needs to just maintain a presence, outlast the terrorists, and it can claim victory. He points to the fact that the PLO repeatedly engaged in terrorist activity but never had Isreal give in as a sign of success, and treats the largely one-sided negotiations between Israel and Palestine as a positive sign. The trick, Lewis seems to be saying, is for the US to master brinkmanship - we stay right on the edge, we keep our opposition there, and we don't blink. If we can hold out, prove by our existence their futility, they will be forced to adopt other means, and the whole crisis of radical Islam will be over. This actually justifies making the Iraq the battleground for the war on terror, as it is an overt desire to create an actual battlefield on which terrorism can lose.

It's a bold statement, but it's fundamentally stupid. In all his reading of history, and in his undertanding of bin Laden's reading of history, Lewis makes the astute observation that the terrorists are motivated by percieved marks against the dignity of the nation-religion of Islam. Specific grievances cited are the crusades (which are much more of an after-the-fact grievance), the breakdown and destruction of the Ottoman empire, and US support for corrupt and weak leaders in the middle east. Again, the grievances are: 1- an invasion by infidels, 2-the destruction of an important and powerful muslim state, and 3-the support of government that otherwise shouldn't exist. Having made this claim, I cannot understand how he thinks the overthrow of the government of Iraq by the US with the express purpose of putting in place a new government is a good idea. That is two of the above indignities, and close to the third (Iraq was, in name, secular, but it has a muslim population and is a historic center of muslim government).

The problem with the crisis is that it is too big an issue to be tackled by one solution. Catalysts are nice, and sometimes essential, but that are very hard to create from the outside. And I think that is the fundamental frustration that Lewis is unable to address. The United States has suffered from terrorism, and the destruction of the United States is the stated objective of radical Islam. The United States, as the most power country in the world, should be able to do something about it. The wars is Iraq and Afghanistan were moves to do something about it. But the problem is that they don't work, and the thing that is absolutely terrifying about this conflcit is that the United States is powerless here. To end radical Islam, moderate Islam has to make real gains at home. That will require the end of oil money and the end of US interest in backing corrupt governments that provide oil, and then it will require American non-interference in the potentially revolutionary or democratizing moves that follow. The United States must let native movements take place, and let self-determination and human dignity be affirmed by these movements of their own will, even in the shape of religious parties or states. Without dignity, the terrorists will continue. With human dignity restored, with governments responsive to the needs of the populace (or at the very least vulnerable to the populace), then and only then will we have outlasted the War on Terror.

But we've created a battlefield on which it is impossible for us to win. Brinkmanship won the Cold War, but that was against a nation. The Nation of Islam that bin-Laden wants to establish doesn't exist in a present form, and as a transient quantity, it can't be destroyed. As an ideology, and as an ideology with at 1400 year legacy, it can be outlasted. That's an impossibility, and even turing Iraq into an accelerator of the movement, the lighting of match to burn out the gas leak, will not help. The problem cannot be changed in that way, and our continued actions only breed contempt.

We need to find a solution other than this impossibility.

Edit 9/12/2008: It's well worth mentioning that Lewis is very orientalist in his perspective, and that he sees most of the past two centuries of development in the Muslim world as adapted or inspired by Western ideals. That said, the history is still good, and he even counters his own emphasis on the West by repeatedly referring to the necessity and importance of nativist trends.

A Gentle Way Down

(This post is in part inspired by an interview with David Simon on Charlie Rose. The interview isn't available on the site, but it should be.)

The theory goes like this: America (as the United States, not as the continent) has peaked. We've exhausted our better instincts, and are losing our imperial hubris. The end of Pax Americana is upon us, and this is an end brought about by an inability or an unwillingness on behalf of the United States to be competent. This explains the long-lasting dead-end wars, the bold statements about power that are only followed by fails to properly use that power (see: the War on Drugs, or either of the major wars that have been going on for over 5 years now). The US of today may care about clinging to power, but that's a holding action; we are in decline and the best we can do is put off that decline or go out in a blaze of glory. (No one really considers the blaze of glory a real option, but that is what a war with Iran would be.) The gradual decline is more like what we see happening to New Orleans: a lack of interest, and a feeble attempt to restore horrible prior conditions. Either way, the US is through.

This isn't a line of reasoning I agree with, but I'll run with it. If we take the US's decline as a given, we have a short list of facts to work with:

• The United States is still the most powerful nation on earth at the moment
• That power is not going to dry up for at least a decade or two
• There are several nations who could make a stab at being successors to the US, but none of them are a given
• Given that several nations are capable of succeeding the US, odds are that none of them will make it entirely, leaving several competing major powers but no single dominant power
• Unlike the collapse of every prior hegemonic imperial period (Rome, The Hapsburgs in the 16th century, Imperial Japan, the Tang Dynasty, Great Britain), significant international organizations founded on the rule of law exist

I'll get to what the list means in a second, but first some background: I wrote, during my senior year of high school, a short essay on "Roosevelt's China". The phrase refers to an expressed sentiment on behalf of FDR for China to become a bastion of democracy. At the time he expressed this hope, Nationalist China was the favored side in the Chinese civil war, and had been fighting nominally on the side of the Allies in WWII. This is how China was granted a permanent seat on the UN security council, and it later lead to difficulty when Taiwan represented China, and the People's Republic had been excluded (a situation which was later rectififed). But I digress - in that short essay, I argued that instead of China, the US should look to India as a bastion of democracy. India had ties to the West that China lacked (by virtue of not having been a formal colony, and of then being decidedly anti-western for a while), India was already a democracy, and India has a large segment of the population that speaks English. It looked to me to be the logical power for the US to set up as a successor, much as the British handed over the reins of hegemony to the United States.

That was a gentle way down for the US. It was a potential hegemon, a nation on the rise, and a nation that could remain a strong ally of the US. But the transferral of hegemonic status is a game that never ends well.

The better way down, the easier option to prevent another nation reaching hegemonic heights, is to make the UN supreme. Not supreme as in a "world government" sort of a way, but supreme as in the ultimate legitimizer and protector of national sovereignty. In a world where every nation fears being powerless to act against a single superpower, the answer is to collectively enable an international democratic body to prevent such a status. The gentle way down is a UN in charge of the global commons.

This position is hindered by the past 4 US presidencies. International law needs to be accepted as ultimately more important than national self interest, and international law cannot be so willfully and fragrantly violated as it has been under the later Clinton administration and under the second and third Bush administrations. The US acting as it did was incredibly short-sighted, and it ruined the chances the US would have at a peak transfer of status. But the potential for such a move still exists, and with luck the next US president will see the unsustainability of current US postions and vouch for a greater empowerment of the UN. It's not the only way down, and it's not the most glorious end to an era of power and prestige, but it is the gentle way down. That, above all else, should be a good thing.

Hedging Our Bets

It used to be more of a point of mine in the past, but I've always had a notion that the ultimate human goal is to escape earth. Evolutionarily, it makes sense - we want lots of populations to evolve in different places and to safeguard our species for perpetuity, or at least until we reach some cosmic singularity. So I'm a big fan of Warren Ellis' latest post on colonizing Mars. The bit that intrigued me (found via R Stevens) is here:

And while I did indeed just say that no kind of extinction is good, it should also be pointed out that giving up a bolthole for human breeding pairs — which are, make no mistake, the stakes on a Martian colonisation drive — on the basis that we might kill something less substantial and self-aware than a cough is no way to run a railroad.

Russia and New Mexico

This is a summary of a conversation with John Fleck, who I need to add to my blogs sidebar.

Initial facts (the premise, if you will):

• Russia, flush with new wealth and renewed national pride, is re-militarizing
  
• Russia is fast becoming the regional power it should be, and will now be back as regional hegemon
• Russia may well decide to renew its nuclear program (the conversation assumed they will; let's go with the assumption for now)
  
• This is great news for New Mexico, as the threat (and not the reality) of nuclear war means lots more money for this state, and more good jobs)

Wait a second, why does a Russian Nuclear program necessitate a new US nuclear program? The old cold war scenario (below) no longer fits:

• Russian tanks from Eastern Europe
• Territorial Squabble
• Escalation in turns
• The small battle becomes the one moment when both sides try to win the war
• Nukes held as last threat, but used simultaneously

The new Scenario doesn't involve static superpowers, and is more complex than two sides trying to win the last battle. The new nuclear escalation (as makes sense to me), is:

• Civil unrest in a Central Asian Republic (the countries that end in -stan, and a few others); Azerbaijan will be the specific example (US already has plans for operations in Azerbaijan)
• The government appeals for help, to many nations. Other factions may appeal as well
• Acting unilaterally and independently, both the US and Russia intervene in the nation in turmoil (unilateral is assumed on behalf of at least one party; NATO/UN/EU could easily be the other)
• A specific strategic resource. Ports, forts, government buildings oil fields are all likely. (In Bosnia, an airport was held by Russia. NATO, under general Wellesley Clark, were supposed to take the airport, and while troops were sent, communication with Russia worked, and accidental conflict was avoided)
• Both sides converged on said specific strategic resource location, and both are unaware of the other's actions. A skirmish, as troops act to protect their own (George Washington, in the 7 years war, helped escalate the war by accidentally attacking allies)
• Military decisions move faster than political ones, and the conflict escalates rapidly
• Fear of retaliation mounts, and nukes become active

The idea is a political long shot, and one that hopefully improvements in communications technology and chains of command will have lessened. Also, more international cooperation would be beneficial in preventing this, but the scenario exists, even as a slim chance.

And this is relevant, because new nukes means better nukes means more jobs for New Mexico. High paying jobs, too.

Senators policies can be so weird sometimes.

Lights Out All Over

[Disclaimer - this is a bleak one, and is best thought of as a companion piece to this article. If you've read that, and still feel like delving into revisionist pre-apocalypse nuclear policy, read on. If not, it's perfectly understandable, and one day I'll blog about kittens and how awesome sunsets are.]

I don't know how quickly the connection was made between September 11th, 2001 and a new era in nuclear policy, but we're sitting six years after the fact, and sixty two years after nuclear weapons came into existence. Increasingly, the end of the Cold War seems to be an interlude and a reorganizing, and less of an end to nuclear fear. Surely, the fears are different, but we've moved from mutually assured destruction to random acts of extremists. If one fears things on a personal level (and most people tend to), the fact that one random nuclear strike would not be nearly as devastating as a full launch of a nuclear arsenal is not a comfort. Extremists are random if weak; nations can be strong but are usually more predictable. And, as fear works, the one random strike is just as likely to kill kid A on the street as the full launch would be. If any statement better epitomized the disconnect between rational brain and the fearful brain, it was when John Kerry said that someday terrorism will only be a nuisance. No one thinks in terms of nuisance's - they will see themselves as victims, and random crime will inevitably hit home.

I don't see nuclear war in the future; the remote possibilities of Pakistan/India or Israel/Iran are still present, but will be as localized as nuclear war can be, and will only devastate earth in bits and pieces. The more likely scenario, the new scenario, is that some nukes will be used. A few, here and there, with devastation that nations can survive. The perpetrators will not long survive these things, but that won't matter - given the current population, people are incredibly cheap and delivery systems are expensive. Weapons themselves are expensive, but a whole cadre of nations will exist that can look favorably at a world where they lose nuclear weapons and their enemies suffer terrorist attacks. These won't, almost as a rule, be democratic or wealthy countries. They will be run by elites, those who see power as a game and apply Machiavellian insight to the usage of the most powerful weapon ever created.

Realpolitik hasn't been practiced lately because it's a zero sum game, and everyone is afraid of upsetting the balance and getting less. At some point, people without anything are going to be willing to go to lengths to increase their worth. A stable dictatorship, if oppressive, will look much better than an impotent republic or a formerly opulent empire. This changes the zero sum game, where no new values are put in, but some are lessened. Nothing looks a lot better when everyone else is sitting on negative values.

This isn't the way it has to go, and it's far too abstracted to have much relevance on how things will be. It's a possibility, though, and its one that lines up more with a Bush Doctrine view of the world. This view holds that terrorists act, if not at the behest, than with the explicit consent of sponsor states. These people are opposed to the United States, it's wealth and values, and the whole of the Western world. For the United States to do nothing, in this world view, is folly, and as a corollary, diplomacy is inaction. This doctrine holds that it is not safe to refrain from using power, and that any state capable and willing to sponsor terrorism must be forcibly prevented from doing so. This is why weapons of mass destruction were the reason given for invading Iraq, and why the invasion has failed by its own tenets.

Pakistan, as the article discussed, is a state much more likely to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, and so Pakistan was either to be courted or attacked. The United States, being sensible, decided that bringing Pakistan into line ('courting' is too weak a phrase for the policy) made more sense than invading the foremost nuclear Muslim state. In this process, the Bush Doctrine admitted a fatal error: it allowed Pakistan to come on board and keep it's nukes. Alliance through disarmament may have been too much to ask for, but it was essential for this policy to work. Losing the alliance with Pakistan, after having helped them disarm, would have been disappointing but not globally destabilizing. Losing a nuclear Pakistan is terrifying. Expediency, as in most military affairs, was a flaw, and a consequence is the current political situation in Pakistan. The pro-US dictator is holding onto power, and more or less has to if Pakistan's nuclear capability is not to be let loose piecemeal. Piecemeal nukes are terrifying.

This isn't a good thing, and I can't ignore the decent person voice that says that the democracy protesters are right, that this dictator is bad, and that the general will of the people comes before preserving unfair power structures. This isn't good, and the whole affair is too rough a thing, too unjust a thing to let slow change fix. But this is what it demands. Ideology inevitably gives way to realpolitik, and to justify it I'd have to extend this social contract to the whole human community.

I'm not doing that. I'm not forgiving oppression. But it's a bleak day, a bleak era, and while it isn't 1939 all over again, it feels a good deal like January 1936.

New to Plastic Manzikert?

Here is a rough and quick guide - the tags are below, and everything I've blogged will fall there somewhere.

I recommend the education posts, as they seem to be the most relevant. Or at least, I can act the most authoritative in them.

Lowell Wood and Geo-Engineering

Global warming itself is better discussed in the climate blogoshpere (check the climate sidebar), but geo-engineering seems to be an under-covered topic, which is unfortunate. Geo-engineering is an idea that has been around since at least the days of Edward Teller, who wanted to make harbors using thermonuclear detonations in Alaska. That was relatively small scale; move this piece of earth, here, and while the notion of using nukes to alter a small part of the earth's landscape is frightening, it is little compared to solutions designed for global warming.

Lowell Wood, a disciple of Edward Teller's, was featured prominently in an article in Rolling Stone, which stated out by describing him as Dr. Evil. Not Dr. Evil in the wacky "I'm a mad scientist teehee" sense, but Dr. Evil in the Dr. Strangelove sense; "I'm a mad scientist people take seriously, watch me say nuclear war is survivable teehee". Lowell Wood has a valid point in saying that all options should be considered. His opinion gets less merit when one looks at the ideas he tries to implement (with Edward Teller he worked on the Star Wars initiative), but when he says he has a cheap, temporary solution to global warming that will not require a lifestyle change, those in power could easily listen.

The solution being considered? Filling the atmosphere with particles to block out sunlight, in much the same way as volcanoes work. This will cool the earth for a bit, and then give us more time to develop a genuine solution to the problem. The particles will fall out of the atmosphere within a years time, and unless a solution has been developed, we can just shoot up more particles for the next year.

It's nutty, and it's out there, and while the potential to go wrong (the particles injected into the atmosphere are sulfur, which seems to be a direct trigger for acid rain) is huge, the idea is oddly fascinating. Not worth risking, of course, but certainly worth a look at.