The Real World Order

The Real World Order

August 18, 2008


By George Friedman

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”

After every major, systemic war, there is the hope that this will be the war to end all wars. The idea driving it is simple. Wars are usually won by grand coalitions. The idea is that the coalition that won the war by working together will continue to work together to make the peace. Indeed, the idea is that the defeated will join the coalition and work with them to ensure the peace. This was the dream behind the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the United Nations and, after the Cold War, NATO. The idea was that there would be no major issues that couldn’t be handled by the victors, now joined with the defeated. That was the idea that drove George H. W. Bush as the Cold War was coming to its end.

Those with the dream are always disappointed. The victorious coalition breaks apart. The defeated refuse to play the role assigned to them. New powers emerge that were not part of the coalition. Anyone may have ideals and visions. The reality of the world order is that there are profound divergences of interest in a world where distrust is a natural and reasonable response to reality. In the end, ideals and visions vanish in a new round of geopolitical conflict.

The post-Cold War world, the New World Order, ended with authority on Aug. 8, 2008, when Russia and Georgia went to war. Certainly, this war was not in itself of major significance, and a very good case can be made that the New World Order actually started coming apart on Sept. 11, 2001. But it was on Aug. 8 that a nation-state, Russia, attacked another nation-state, Georgia, out of fear of the intentions of a third nation-state, the United States. This causes us to begin thinking about the Real World Order.

The global system is suffering from two imbalances. First, one nation-state, the United States, remains overwhelmingly powerful, and no combination of powers are in a position to control its behavior. We are aware of all the economic problems besetting the United States, but the reality is that the American economy is larger than the next three economies combined (Japan, Germany and China). The U.S. military controls all the world’s oceans and effectively dominates space. Because of these factors, the United States remains politically powerful — not liked and perhaps not admired, but enormously powerful.

The second imbalance is within the United States itself. Its ground forces and the bulk of its logistical capability are committed to the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States also is threatening on occasion to go to war with Iran, which would tie down most of its air power, and it is facing a destabilizing Pakistan. Therefore, there is this paradox: The United States is so powerful that, in the long run, it has created an imbalance in the global system. In the short run, however, it is so off balance that it has few, if any, military resources to deal with challenges elsewhere. That means that the United States remains the dominant power in the long run but it cannot exercise that power in the short run. This creates a window of opportunity for other countries to act.

The outcome of the Iraq war can be seen emerging. The United States has succeeded in creating the foundations for a political settlement among the main Iraqi factions that will create a relatively stable government. In that sense, U.S. policy has succeeded. But the problem the United States has is the length of time it took to achieve this success. Had it occurred in 2003, the United States would not suffer its current imbalance. But this is 2008, more than five years after the invasion. The United States never expected a war of this duration, nor did it plan for it. In order to fight the war, it had to inject a major portion of its ground fighting capability into it. The length of the war was the problem. U.S. ground forces are either in Iraq, recovering from a tour or preparing for a deployment. What strategic reserves are available are tasked into Afghanistan. Little is left over.

As Iraq pulled in the bulk of available forces, the United States did not shift its foreign policy elsewhere. For example, it remained committed to the expansion of democracy in the former Soviet Union and the expansion of NATO, to include Ukraine and Georgia. From the fall of the former Soviet Union, the United States saw itself as having a dominant role in reshaping post-Soviet social and political orders, including influencing the emergence of democratic institutions and free markets. The United States saw this almost in the same light as it saw the democratization of Germany and Japan after World War II. Having defeated the Soviet Union, it now fell to the United States to reshape the societies of the successor states.

Through the 1990s, the successor states, particularly Russia, were inert. Undergoing painful internal upheaval — which foreigners saw as reform but which many Russians viewed as a foreign-inspired national catastrophe — Russia could not resist American and European involvement in regional and internal affairs. From the American point of view, the reshaping of the region — from the Kosovo war to the expansion of NATO to the deployment of U.S. Air Force bases to Central Asia — was simply a logical expansion of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a benign attempt to stabilize the region, enhance its prosperity and security and integrate it into the global system.

As Russia regained its balance from the chaos of the 1990s, it began to see the American and European presence in a less benign light. It was not clear to the Russians that the United States was trying to stabilize the region. Rather, it appeared to the Russians that the United States was trying to take advantage of Russian weakness to impose a new politico-military reality in which Russia was to be surrounded with nations controlled by the United States and its military system, NATO. In spite of the promise made by Bill Clinton that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union, the three Baltic states were admitted. The promise was not addressed. NATO was expanded because it could and Russia could do nothing about it.

From the Russian point of view, the strategic break point was Ukraine. When the Orange Revolution came to Ukraine, the American and European impression was that this was a spontaneous democratic rising. The Russian perception was that it was a well-financed CIA operation to foment an anti-Russian and pro-American uprising in Ukraine. When the United States quickly began discussing the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO, the Russians came to the conclusion that the United States intended to surround and crush the Russian Federation. In their view, if NATO expanded into Ukraine, the Western military alliance would place Russia in a strategically untenable position. Russia would be indefensible. The American response was that it had no intention of threatening Russia. The Russian question was returned: Then why are you trying to take control of Ukraine? What other purpose would you have? The United States dismissed these Russian concerns as absurd. The Russians, not regarding them as absurd at all, began planning on the assumption of a hostile United States.

If the United States had intended to break the Russian Federation once and for all, the time for that was in the 1990s, before Yeltsin was replaced by Putin and before 9/11. There was, however, no clear policy on this, because the United States felt it had all the time in the world. Superficially this was true, but only superficially. First, the United States did not understand that the Yeltsin years were a temporary aberration and that a new government intending to stabilize Russia was inevitable. If not Putin, it would have been someone else. Second, the United States did not appreciate that it did not control the international agenda. Sept. 11, 2001, took away American options in the former Soviet Union. No only did it need Russian help in Afghanistan, but it was going to spend the next decade tied up in the Middle East. The United States had lost its room for maneuver and therefore had run out of time.

And now we come to the key point. In spite of diminishing military options outside of the Middle East, the United States did not modify its policy in the former Soviet Union. It continued to aggressively attempt to influence countries in the region, and it became particularly committed to integrating Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, in spite of the fact that both were of overwhelming strategic interest to the Russians. Ukraine dominated Russia’s southwestern flank, without any natural boundaries protecting them. Georgia was seen as a constant irritant in Chechnya as well as a barrier to Russian interests in the Caucasus.

Moving rapidly to consolidate U.S. control over these and other countries in the former Soviet Union made strategic sense. Russia was weak, divided and poorly governed. It could make no response. Continuing this policy in the 2000s, when the Russians were getting stronger, more united and better governed and while U.S. forces were no longer available, made much less sense. The United States continued to irritate the Russians without having, in the short run, the forces needed to act decisively.

The American calculation was that the Russian government would not confront American interests in the region. The Russian calculation was that it could not wait to confront these interests because the United States was concluding the Iraq war and would return to its pre-eminent position in a few short years. Therefore, it made no sense for Russia to wait and it made every sense for Russia to act as quickly as possible.

The Russians were partly influenced in their timing by the success of the American surge in Iraq. If the United States continued its policy and had force to back it up, the Russians would lose their window of opportunity. Moreover, the Russians had an additional lever for use on the Americans: Iran.

The United States had been playing a complex game with Iran for years, threatening to attack while trying to negotiate. The Americans needed the Russians. Sanctions against Iran would have no meaning if the Russians did not participate, and the United States did not want Russia selling advance air defense systems to Iran. (Such systems, which American analysts had warned were quite capable, were not present in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, when the Israelis struck a nuclear facility there.) As the United States re-evaluates the Russian military, it does not want to be surprised by Russian technology. Therefore, the more aggressive the United States becomes toward Russia, the greater the difficulties it will have in Iran. This further encouraged the Russians to act sooner rather than later.

The Russians have now proven two things. First, contrary to the reality of the 1990s, they can execute a competent military operation. Second, contrary to regional perception, the United States cannot intervene. The Russian message was directed against Ukraine most of all, but the Baltics, Central Asia and Belarus are all listening. The Russians will not act precipitously. They expect all of these countries to adjust their foreign policies away from the United States and toward Russia. They are looking to see if the lesson is absorbed. At first, there will be mighty speeches and resistance. But the reality on the ground is the reality on the ground.

We would expect the Russians to get traction. But if they don’t, the Russians are aware that they are, in the long run, much weaker than the Americans, and that they will retain their regional position of strength only while the United States is off balance in Iraq. If the lesson isn’t absorbed, the Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another.

The other country that is watching and thinking is Iran. Iran had accepted the idea that it had lost the chance to dominate Iraq. It had also accepted the idea that it would have to bargain away its nuclear capability or lose it. The Iranians are now wondering if this is still true and are undoubtedly pinging the Russians about the situation. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can’t do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the United States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see).

One of the interesting concepts of the New World Order was that all serious countries would want to participate in it and that the only threat would come from rogue states and nonstate actors such as North Korea and al Qaeda. Serious analysts argued that conflict between nation-states would not be important in the 21st century. There will certainly be rogue states and nonstate actors, but the 21st century will be no different than any other century. On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.


Taken from: Stratfor.com

Faith and the Presidency

Believer in Chief

In his review (Books & Culture, July/August 2008) of Randall Balmer's book, God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Gary Scott Smith agrees that modern politics has become religousized and religion has become politicized, much to the harm of both religion and politics. Balmer evaluates the faith claims of the presidents from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush and compares them to their actual policies and lifestyle. His conclusion is that no clear connection exists between a president's faith and personal morality and his policies. The record of the last four and half decades suggests that candidates' professions of faith are "a fairly poor indicator of how they govern."

Smith agrees with Balmer to a certain extent, but feels he has overlooked all the positive contributions the faith of the presidents made to their character, conduct and policies:

“Indeed, although the politicizing of religion involves dangers, and though presidents have often misused religious rhetoric to woo voters, win support for policies, and please various constituencies, their personal faith has generally helped them perform their duties more effectively. Moreover, at times in American history the participation of religious groups in the political process has helped make our nation more compassionate and just (such as the abolition of slavery, the promotion of civil rights, and various policies to aid the poor). Therefore, while criticizing the political misuse of religion by politicians, religious groups, and voters, we should encourage all three groups to consider carefully how biblical values and personal faith can help shape and direct the political process in ways that benefit our nation and the world.”


You can read the whole article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/004/5.35.html.

Al Qaeda Leadership Under Fire

The Jihadist Threat and Grassroots Defense
August 13, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Egyptian al Qaeda contingent in Pakistan. On Aug. 12, Pakistani security sources confirmed that an Aug. 8 operation in Bajaur resulted in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy.

If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid. Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization. Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured. Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy. If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid.

Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization.

Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured.

Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland. However, that does not mean that the United States is completely free of danger when it comes to the jihadist threat. While the core al Qaeda group has been damaged, it still poses a tactical threat — and still can kill people. Furthermore, as the jihadist threat has devolved from one based primarily on al Qaeda the organization to one based on al Qaeda the movement, al Qaeda’s regional franchises and a nebulous array of grassroots jihadists must also be accounted for.

With al Qaeda’s operational structure under continued attack and the fact that there are no regional franchises in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps the most pressing jihadist threat to the U.S. homeland at the present time stems from grassroots jihadists.


Beyond the Cliches

There are many cliches used to describe grassroots jihadists. As we have long discussed, grassroots operatives tend to think globally and act locally — meaning they tend to be inspired by events abroad and yet strike close to home. Additionally, these operatives tend to be a mile wide but an inch deep — meaning that while there are many of them, they are often quite inept at terrorist tradecraft. These cliches are not just cute; they have a sound basis in reality, as a study of grassroots jihadists demonstrates.

There are two basic operational models that involve grassroots jihadists. The first operational model is one where an experienced operational commander is sent from the core al Qaeda group to assist the local grassroots cell. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 1.0 operational model” since it literally is the first one we became familiar with. We saw this model used in many early jihadist operations, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. It has also been employed in a number of thwarted plots, such as Operation Bojinka in 1995 and the millennium plots in 2000. This model also was used in the thwarted 2006 Heathrow airliner plot.

The second grassroots operational model involves operatives who launch attacks themselves without external funding or direct operational guidance. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 3.0 operational model.” Examples of attacks committed using this model include the November 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York, the July 21, 2005, London bombings, the July 2002 armed assault of the El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport and the botched June 2007 bombing attacks in London and Glasgow.

Something of a gray area exists around the borders of these two operational models, and at times it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other. For example, Mohammed Siddique Khan, the leader of the cell that carried out the July 7, 2005, London suicide bombings, had attended training camps in Pakistan with another member of the cell. While there, he had at least some contact with al Qaeda, since al Qaeda released a copy of the martyrdom videos the two made during their time in Pakistan.

Notably, these attacks show that most of these grassroots jihadists, whether as part of a 1.0 or a 3.0 structured cell, selected targets in close proximity to their place of residence. Even when such cells have established safe houses to store chemicals, to manufacture improvised explosive mixtures or to construct improvised explosive devices, those safe houses quite often have been close to the target and the attacker’s residence. Grassroots jihadists really do think globally and act locally.

A second notable aspect of several of these attacks is that these operatives lack terrorist tradecraft such as operational security and surveillance techniques. Blunders in these areas have frequently led to the groups being identified and nabbed before they could launch their attacks. Plain old police traffic stops have exposed jihadist cells such as the Virginia Jihad Network and have helped to thwart several other terror plots.

Even when a grassroots group is able to execute its attack without detection, it often has been hampered by a lack of bomb-making skill. The failed July 21, 2005, London bombings and the June 2007 London and Glasgow attacks exemplify this flaw. Grassroots groups simply do not have the same level of training and operational experience as the professional operatives comprising the core al Qaeda group. Operationally, they are a mile wide and tend to be an inch deep.

Another consideration that comes to light while contemplating past grassroots cases is that lacking funding from al Qaeda core, grassroots operatives are likely to indulge in petty crimes such as credit card theft, cargo theft or armed robbery to fund their activities. For example, in July 2005, a grassroots cell in Torrance, Calif., was uncovered during an investigation into a string of armed robberies. After arresting one suspect, Levar Haney Washington, police who searched his apartment uncovered material indicating that Washington was part of a militant jihadist group planning to attack a number of targets in the Los Angeles area.

Truthfully, most grassroots operatives are far more likely to commit a criminal act such as document fraud or receiving stolen property than they are to have telephone conversations with Osama bin Laden. When they do commit such relatively minor crimes, it is local cops rather than some federal agency that will have the first interaction with them. This means that local police are an important piece of the counterterrorism defenses — they are, in essence, grassroots defenders.


Beyond Grassroots Jihadists

A recent study led by Brent Smith of the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas’ Fulbright College suggests that these trends extend beyond the grassroots jihadist threat. In a July article in the National Institute of Justice Journal, Smith noted that his research team studied 60 terrorist incidents in the United States over the past 25 years. The terrorist actors were from a cross-section of different ideological backgrounds, including domestic left-wing, domestic right-wing, domestic single-issue and international terrorists.

In the study, Smith and his colleagues identified the residences of 431 terrorist suspects and found that, overall, 44 percent of the attacks were conducted within 30 miles of the perpetrator’s place of residence and 51 percent were conducted within 90 miles of the residence. When broken down by type, the numbers were actually highest for international terrorists, with 59 percent of the suspects living within 30 miles of their target and 76 percent of the suspects residing within 90 miles.

Smith’s study also noted that many of the preparatory actions for the attacks occurred close to the attack site, with 65 percent of the environmental terrorists and 59 percent of the international terrorists studied conducting preparations for their attacks within 30 miles of their target sites. Of course, some preparatory actions, such as preoperational surveillance, by their very nature must be conducted within close proximity to the attack site. But still, the percentage of activity conducted near attack sites is noteworthy.

One other interesting result of Smith’s study was the timeline within which preparation for an attack was completed. For international groups, the preparation could take a year or more. But environmentalist and left-wing groups proved to be far more spontaneous, with a large portion of their preparation (88 and 91 percent, respectively) completed within two weeks of the attack. This means that prior to an attack, international terrorists are generally vulnerable to detection for far longer than are members of a domestic left-wing or environmentalist group.


Application

While there are always exceptions to the percentages, with people like Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta traveling long distances to conduct preparatory acts and execute attacks, most people conducting terrorist attacks tend to operate in areas they are familiar with and environments they are comfortable in.

When we examine the spectrum of potential terrorist actors — from domestic people such as McVeigh and Eric Rudolph to international figures such as Mohammed Atta and Ahmed Ajaj — it is clear that a large number of them have had no prior interaction with federal law enforcement or intelligence officials and therefore no prior record identifying them as potential terrorism suspects. That means that even if they were stopped by a local police officer (as Atta was for driving without a license), any national-level checks would turn up negative. Because of this, it is extremely important for police officers and investigators to trust their instincts and follow up on hunches if a subject just doesn’t feel right. The Oklahoma state trooper who arrested McVeigh, the New Jersey state trooper who nabbed Yu Kikumura, or the rookie Murphy, N.C., officer who apprehended Eric Rudolph are all examples of cops who did this.

Of course, following your instincts is difficult to do when management is pressuring police officers and agents investigating cases such as document and financial fraud to close cases and not to drag them out by pursuing additional leads. Indeed, when Ahmed Ajaj was arrested in September 1992 for committing passport fraud, the case was quickly closed and authorities pretty much ignored that he had been transporting a large quantity of jihadist material, including bomb-making manuals and videos. Instead, he was sentenced to six months in jail for committing passport fraud and was then scheduled for deportation.

Had authorities taken the time to carefully review the materials in Ajaj’s briefcase, they would have found two boarding passes and two passports with exit stamps from Pakistan. Because of that oversight, no one noticed that Ajaj was traveling with a companion — a companion named Abdel Basit who entered the United States on a fraudulent Iraqi passport in the name Ramzi Yousef and who built the large truck-borne explosive device used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

While many state and local departments have specialized intelligence or counterterrorism divisions, training on how to spot potential terrorist preparatory activity often does not go much further than those officers specifically assigned to the counterterrorism portfolio. In some jurisdictions, however, law enforcement managers not only give investigators the leeway to investigate potential terrorist activity, they also encourage their street officers to do so — and even provide training on how to identify such behavior.

In many jurisdictions, serious problems in information sharing persist. Much has been written about “the wall” that separated the FBI’s intelligence investigations from its criminal investigations and how that separation was detrimental to the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts prior to 9/11. The FBI is not the only place such a wall exists, however. In many state and local law enforcement departments, there is still a wide gulf separating the intelligence or counterterrorism division officers and the rest of the department. This means that information regarding cases that general crimes investigators are looking into — cases that very well could have a terrorism angle — does not make it to the officers working terrorism cases.

As the shift toward grassroots operatives continues, information pertaining to preparatory crimes will become even more critical. Identifying this activity and flagging it for follow-on investigation could mean the difference between a thwarted and a successful attack. As the grassroots threat emerges, the need for grassroots defense has never been greater.


From www.stratfor.com.

Invisibility Cloak

Here’s an interesting breakthrough in science: Star Trek and Harry Potter are just around the corner…


Invisibility Cloak on the Horizon, Scientists Say
By Steven Musil, CNET news.com

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that will render people and other objects invisible.

Researchers say they can redirect light around 3-D objects using metamaterials--artificially engineered structures created at a nano scale that contain optical properties not found in nature, according to an Associated Press report.

People see objects as a result of the light reflecting or scattering off them. This new mixture of materials has "negative refractive" properties that keep light from being absorbed or reflected by the object, allowing only the light from behind the object to be seen. Essentially, the material bends visible light in a way that eliminates the creation of reflections or shadows in much the way water flows around a stone.

The findings, to be released later this week in Nature and Science, were made by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang. The research, which was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center, could have broad applications, including for the military.

But the materials work in limited wavelengths, so they won't be used to hide buildings from satellites, said Jason Valentine, who is a co-author of one of the papers.

"We are not actually cloaking anything," Valentine told Reuters. While the Harry Potter series of books and films has made the idea of a personal "invisibility cloak" popular, he says, "I don't think we have to worry about invisible people walking around any time soon. To be honest, we are just at the beginning of doing anything like that."

Armageddon in Retrospect

Armageddon in Retrospect
By Kurt Vonnegut


This is a posthumous collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace that range from a visceral nonfiction recollection of the destruction of Dresden during World War II — an essay that is as timely today as it was then — to a painfully funny short story about three Army privates and their fantasies of the perfect first meal upon returning home from war, to a darker, more poignant story about the impossibility of shielding our children from the temptations of violence.

1. Vonnegut's Speech at Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, April 2007
2. Wailing Shall Be in All Streets
3. Great Day
4. Guns Before Butter
5. Happy Birthday, 1951
6. Brighten Up
7. The Unicorn Trip
8. Unknown Soldier
9. Spoils
10. Just You and Me, Sammy
11. The Commandant's Desk
12. Armageddon in Retrospect

Vonnegut writes each story with extraordinary insight and a lively style that forces you to reassess your view on war. His own experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden during WWII brings each story to life with realistic descriptions of conditions, characters and dialog. Each story reveals the foolishness of war, the brutality of all sides, and the total waste of life and property that war brings.

In “Spoils,” the main character goes out with his buddies to pillage a village for war souvenirs and to find food for supper. While in a barn looking for food, he finds a rabbit in a cage and kills it, hoping to make a delicious stew with it. Suddenly, the inhabitants return to their farm, so he hides in the shadows of the barn. As he waits, a small boy comes in and finds his pet rabbit dead. The soldier watches in horror as the little boy carries his beloved pet outside and falls down weeping and wailing. As a result, the soldier refuses to collect souvenirs and returns back to the United States ridden with guilt.

In “Just You and Me, Sammy,” the main character is a German-American who served in the American Army and was captured by the Germans. While in a prison camp, he observes George, another German-American soldier in the U.S. Army who was also captured. George gains the German guards’ confidence and becomes the camp entrepreneur, trading cigarettes and other goods for food and favors. Now that the Russians are coming, he is worried and talks Sammy into going into town with him. George tries to “buy” Sammy’s dog tags so he can assume his identity to escape a court martial for collaborating with the enemy. George doesn’t have the nerve to kill Sammy and misses his chance when the Russians come. After the Russians leave them alone, Sammy kills George with a pistol he found in the house and then lies to Army Intelligence, saying he accidentally shot himself after falling into a ditch. After investigating the incident, they discover that George had fake ID tags because he was a German spy sent to the camp to gain intelligence for the Nazis.

In “The Commander’s Desk” an American Major sets up a headquarters in a Czech town and forces a carpenter to make him a desk. The carpenter was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Americans after suffering both under the Russians and the Nazis, but becomes quickly disenchanted with the gruff major. The only American who has any sensitivity is a captain assigned as the major’s aide, so the carpenter builds a relationship with him. The major puts a lot of pressure on the carpenter to finish the desk, so the carpenter makes a secret drawer and places a bomb in it. However, as soon as the desk is delivered, the major is transferred and the captain takes his place. The carpenter informs the captain of the secret drawer and deactivates the bomb before it can go off.

In “Armageddon in Retrospect” scientists are searching for ways to prove that the Devil exists and find a way to trap him. In one last attempt, the lead scientist talks his assistant into performing one last attempt to trap the Devil in a special copper barrel wired with electricity to keep him from escaping. After performing a special ceremony at midnight, the scientist begins to go mad and falls into the copper barrel. The assistant locks him inside and turns on the electricity, claiming that the scientist had become possessed by the Devil.

The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power

Here is an excellent analysis of what is happening in Georgia and its implications for the balance of world power.


The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power

August 12, 2008

By George Friedman

The Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already shifted. The United States has been absorbed in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as potential conflict with Iran and a destabilizing situation in Pakistan. It has no strategic ground forces in reserve and is in no position to intervene on the Russian periphery. This, as we have argued, has opened a window of opportunity for the Russians to reassert their influence in the former Soviet sphere. Moscow did not have to concern itself with the potential response of the United States or Europe; hence, the invasion did not shift the balance of power. The balance of power had already shifted, and it was up to the Russians when to make this public. They did that Aug. 8.

Let’s begin simply by reviewing the last few days.

On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the city, nor the rest of South Ossetia.

On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power. South Ossetia was informally aligned with Russia, and Russia acted to prevent the region’s absorption by Georgia. Given the speed with which the Russians responded — within hours of the Georgian attack — the Russians were expecting the Georgian attack and were themselves at their jumping-off points. The counterattack was carefully planned and competently executed, and over the next 48 hours, the Russians succeeded in defeating the main Georgian force and forcing a retreat. By Sunday, Aug. 10, the Russians had consolidated their position in South Ossetia.

On Monday, the Russians extended their offensive into Georgia proper, attacking on two axes. One was south from South Ossetia to the Georgian city of Gori. The other drive was from Abkhazia, another secessionist region of Georgia aligned with the Russians. This drive was designed to cut the road between the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and its ports. By this point, the Russians had bombed the military airfields at Marneuli and Vaziani and appeared to have disabled radars at the international airport in Tbilisi. These moves brought Russian forces to within 40 miles of the Georgian capital, while making outside reinforcement and resupply of Georgian forces extremely difficult should anyone wish to undertake it.

The Mystery Behind the Georgian Invasion

In this simple chronicle, there is something quite mysterious: Why did the Georgians choose to invade South Ossetia on Thursday night? There had been a great deal of shelling by the South Ossetians of Georgian villages for the previous three nights, but while possibly more intense than usual, artillery exchanges were routine. The Georgians might not have fought well, but they committed fairly substantial forces that must have taken at the very least several days to deploy and supply. Georgia’s move was deliberate.

The United States is Georgia’s closest ally. It maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that t he Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?

It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it. This leaves two possibilities. The first is a massive breakdown in intelligence, in which the United States either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the Russian forces but — along with the Georgians — miscalculated Russia’s intentions. The United States, along with other countries, has viewed Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when the Russian military was in shambles and the Russian government was paralyzed. The United States has not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since the Afghan war of the 1970s-1980s. The Russians had systematically avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that the Russians would not risk the consequences of an invasion.

If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well — indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow’s calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, as we have discussed, and they struck.

The Western Encirclement of Russia

To understand Russian thinking, we need to look at two events. The first is the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. From the U.S. and European point of view, the Orange Revolution represented a triumph of democracy and Western influence. From the Russian point of view, as Moscow made clear, the Orange Revolution was a CIA-funded intrusion into the internal affairs of Ukraine, designed to draw Ukraine into NATO and add to the encirclement of Russia. U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton had promised the Russians that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union empire.

That promise had already been broken in 1998 by NATO’s expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — and again in the 2004 expansion, which absorbed not only the rest of the former Soviet satellites in what is now Central Europe, but also the three Baltic states, which had been components of the Soviet Union.

The Russians had tolerated all that, but the discussion of including Ukraine in NATO represented a fundamental threat to Russia’s national security. It would have rendered Russia indefensible and threatened to destabilize the Russian Federation itself. When the United States went so far as to suggest that Georgia be included as well, bringing NATO deeper into the Caucasus, the Russian conclusion — publicly stated — was that the United States in particular intended to encircle and break Russia.

The second and lesser event was the decision by Europe and the United States to back Kosovo’s separation from Serbia. The Russians were friendly with Serbia, but the deeper issue for Russia was this: The principle of Europe since World War II was that, to prevent conflict, national borders would not be changed. If that principle were violated in Kosovo, other border shifts — including demands by various regions for independence from Russia — might follow. The Russians publicly and privately asked that Kosovo not be given formal independence, but instead continue its informal autonomy, which was the same thing in practical terms. Russia’s requests were ignored.

From the Ukrainian experience, the Russians became convinced that the United States was engaged in a plan of strategic encirclement and strangulation of Russia. From the Kosovo experience, they concluded that the United States and Europe were not prepared to consider Russian wishes even in fairly minor affairs. That was the breaking point. If Russian desires could not be accommodated even in a minor matter like this, then clearly Russia and the West were in conflict. For the Russians, as we said, the question was how to respond. Having declined to respond in Kosovo, the Russians decided to respond where they had all the cards: in South Ossetia.

Moscow had two motives, the lesser of which was as a tit-for-tat over Kosovo. If Kosovo could be declared independent under Western sponsorship, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia, could be declared independent under Russian sponsorship. Any objections from the United States and Europe would simply confirm their hypocrisy. This was important for internal Russian political reasons, but the second motive was far more important.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster. This didn’t mean that he wanted to retain the Soviet state; rather, it meant that the disintegration of the Soviet Union had created a situation in which Russian national security was threatened by Western interests. As an example, consider that during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,200 miles away from a NATO country. Today it is about 60 miles away from Estonia, a NATO member. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had left Russia surrounded by a group of countries hostile to Russian interests in various degrees and heavily influenced by the United States, Europe and, in some cases, China.

Resurrecting the Russian Sphere

Putin did not want to re-establish the Soviet Union, but he did want to re-establish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union region. To accomplish that, he had to do two things. First, he had to re-establish the credibility of the Russian army as a fighting force, at least in the context of its region. Second, he had to establish that Western guarantees, including NATO membership, meant nothing in the face of Russian power. He did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did want to confront and defeat a power that was closely aligned with the United States, had U.S. support, aid and advisers and was widely seen as being under American protection. Georgia was the perfect choice.

By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly), Putin re-established the credibility of the Russian army. But far more importantly, by doing this Putin revealed an open secret: While the United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts and the Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. The United States wants to place ballistic missile defense installations in those countries, and the Russians want them to understand that allowing this to happen increases their risk, not their security.

The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk.

The Russians also know something else that is of vital importance: For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.

Therefore, the United States has a problem — it either must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran — and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).

In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily, that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.

The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.


Taken from Stratfor.com

Adversity Assumptions

Adversity Assumptions That Limit Your Potential


Less adversity is better

My job is to shoulder adversity and protect my loved ones from it

Success can be gauged by how effectively you eliminate adversity from your life


From The Adversity Advantage, by Paul Stoltz and Erik Weihenmayer

Responding to Adversity

Responding to Adversity

AVOIDING
It can buy you time, especially when you are overwhelmed, but more often it prevents you from taking on adversity and using it positively
Denial is one of the most frequent ways adversity is avoided

SURVIVING
Can be arduous and draining
Can be inspiring if it is a life or death situation, but more often it is not a heroic choice

COPING
Some coping strategies are constructive, such as venting to a friend, blowing off steam at the gym, or going for a walk
Many coping strategies are destructive, such as drinking, eating, complaining, blaming and playing political games
Coping may help you get through adversity unscathed but it does not enable you to take advantage of it to grow and excel

MANAGING
Managing adversity tries to minimize the downside of the problem and its potential impact on your life
This is more effective than the previous three, but it still takes a lot of energy and doesn’t give much back

HARNESSING
Adversity has tremendous latent energy that can be harnessed to achieve incredible results and fuel your dreams
It creates big energy boosts and accelerates progress as well as builds momentum
It drives innovation, boosts confidence, strengthens morale


From The Adversity Advantage, by Paul Stoltz and Erik Weihenmayer

Man's Finest Hour

“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, his greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he ahs worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle—victorious.”

Vince Lombardi

Waiting to Live?

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

Alfred D. Souza

Three Views on China

Here is an excellent article from Books & Culture that discusses three new books on China, each with a different perspective.


Whither China?
Three scenarios.
by Terence Halliday

Like a giddy debutante ball, the Olympic Games mark China's long-delayed coming out into Global Society. At once a moment of international recognition where China can display its modernity and maturity, 2008 will be the symbolic event when the humiliations of 19th-century Western tutelage, the slaughter of millions by the Japanese, the Cold War isolation of China from the non-Communist world, the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the bloody pavements of Tiananmen Square, will all be forgotten in a blaze of national glory and international acclamation. The world's eyes will be on Beijing, and neither China nor the rest of the world will be the same again. Or that ostensibly is the hope of China's leaders and the aspiration of its people.

In the aftermath of the catastrophic Sichuan earthquake, there will be considerable international sympathy for China, perhaps defusing some of the criticism that built in the months leading up to the games, as the Olympic torchbearers ran gauntlets of foreign protesters. But which China will follow the Beijing Olympics? The hot China of spectacular economic growth or virulent anti-Japanese demonstrations? The warm China of pandas and cultural exchanges? The cool China of military build-up and hard-headed Communist Party rule? Or the cold China of Tiananmen Square and support for the genocidal Sudanese government?

Answers to these questions diverge sharply. Three significant books display strikingly incompatible interpretations of China's present and prognostications about its future. From their respective angles of orientations, these China-hands position themselves along a rough continuum from bright optimism to dark skepticism. In so doing, they effectively caution that this vast and exceedingly diverse country belies any naïve characterizations or glossy snapshots. They also exemplify how easy it is to allow faulty methodology and incomplete theory to produce flawed historical extrapolations.

Certain facts about China are unassailable. Over thirty years China has sustained annual economic growth of around 8-10 percent, lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, become the world's industrial factory, enacted hundreds of new laws, moved from a command economy to a predominantly private market, graduated from amongst the poorest countries in the world to a mid-level developing country, risen from a country of bicycles to only the third nation in history to put a man in space. China now pronounces itself committed to the rule of law and to a "peaceful rise." The China of Mao jackets and Little Red Books is a distant memory, displaced by ubiquitous Western fashions and technology of every kind. By any standard these are extraordinary accomplishments.

For Randall Peerenboom, an authority on China's legal system, the straight line of rising economic growth will likely continue at a gallop towards full modernization. China's rise offers a paradigm of development, emulating the East Asia Model (EAM) that he finds in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. "I argue," Peerenboom says, "that China is now following the same general path—modified slightly in light of the realities of the 21st century—of other East Asian countries that have achieved sustained economic growth, established rule of law, and usually developed constitutional democracies, albeit not necessarily liberal democracies."

Peerenboom celebrates each of China's "four main pillars of modernity," as he styles them. The economic pillar surely merits applause. Few countries have managed to compress so much growth in a scant three decades. To achieve this feat, China's leaders have prioritized economic growth and taken a pragmatic rather than ideological path to reforms. As a tradeoff, however, they have postponed democracy, settled for a "thin" rule of law, delayed constraining constitutionalism, and left to the future possible civil and political rights. This is the EAM, says Peerenboom, that distinguishes the Asian Tigers from the relative sluggards: Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, and India.

He endeavors to set the story straight on the second pillar—human rights. China, he avers, has done extremely well on social and economic rights. On the UN Human Development Index China progresses well. More than 150 million have been lifted from poverty in ten years. Adult literacy is up. Diet is improved. Infant mortality is down. Life expectancy has lengthened. Women's rights are at a similar level to other nations at a similar income level, though serious problems remain. Most rights for its fifty-five ethnic groups (about 8-9 percent of the population) are reasonably protected. Accusations of cultural genocide in Tibet are overstated.

Civil and political rights are another matter. On "physical integrity rights," Peerenboom disputes China's low ranking on Amnesty International's Political Terror Scale, a rank signifying that "murders, disappearances, and torture are a common part of life." China's critics, he says, seize unfairly on dramatic stories about torture of Falun Gong adherents or police brutality. He accepts government statistics on rates of police torture and asserts there are few "extra-judicial killings," though he does acknowledge that China is ranked in the bottom 10 percent of Asian countries on civil and political rights and deservedly so.

On political rights—freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly—the government takes a harder line. Here social stability is its touchstone. The Communist Party will brook no rivals. That includes religion, because of a "long history of religious movements toppling dynasties in the past." The Propaganda Department and State Security Ministry control tightly discussion of politically sensitive topics. Domestic debate and overseas news daren't touch Tiananmen Square, Falun Gong, attacks on the Party, Taiwan, criticism of top leaders, or loose talk about democracy. Yet, says Peerenboom, while not defensible, such stifling of freedom is understandable. China has chosen "economics first," not "freedom first." If it follows the EAM trajectory, freedom will come. In any event, he protests, China is subject to a double standard on rights, unfairly criticized when other nations get handled with kid gloves.

On the third pillar of modernity, the legal system, Peerenboom is an eminent specialist and, perhaps not coincidentally, his optimism is tempered. China has come a tremendous distance since the Cultural Revolution as it pushes toward a "socialist rule of law state." But despite clear advances in the prominence, efficiency, and fairness of the legal system, "the assumption that China is moving toward a liberal democratic conception of the rule of law is unfounded," at least in the short term. Criminal law reforms, which are most salient to human rights, have largely failed. China has taken enormous strides to implant a commercial law regime. But progress is slowing as "reform fatigue" sets in with diminishing returns. A competent, strong, independent judiciary is a distant dream, and without decisive movement towards a "thick" rule of law the government's own goals won't be realized, let alone those of western optimists.

And democracy, the fourth pillar? Decidedly downbeat, Peerenboom says democracy in Asia disappoints. Indeed, progress toward democracy for "Third Wave" countries worldwide with low levels of wealth has been "stunningly disappointing." China's leaders have essentially postponed it until later—when the "country is richer and more stable." Given that "most Chinese citizens are happy with their lives, optimistic about the future, and relatively satisfied with the government as a whole," he sides with the decision of China's leaders "to put democracy on the back burner."

This rose-hued portrait of an inexorable march to prosperity and freedom would have us sit back, defer to the wisdom of China's leaders and the supposed choice of its people, and allow events to take their course. If all goes well China will be a South Korean success story—a rich, stable, democratic, open society—in a few decades. It might even become, as the book's subtitle provocatively suggests, "a model for the rest."

This is not the China that Susan Shirk observes. A distinguished China scholar and former Deputy Assistant Secretary with responsibility for China in the Clinton Administration, Shirk has been closely following Chinese politics for three decades. As her 1971 photo with Zhou Enlai signifies, she has been meeting with and writing on China's leaders since she was a young political scientist. In China: Fragile Superpower, what we find is less a nascent superpower than a fragile society, teetering on the brink of domestic chaos that could lead to war. Yes, war with the United States.

Shirk doesn't dispute the remarkable economic progress made by China, nor its increasingly symbiotic economic relationship with the United States and its integral place in the world economy more generally. But, in contrast to Peerenboom, she argues that emerging economic problems augur badly for social and political stability. The social security of the "iron rice bowl has gone," and with it guaranteed health care, permanent employment, and assured retirement pensions. Tens of millions of workers have lost their jobs, especially in China's northeast rustbelt. China's west and hundreds of millions of its rural population are being left behind in a widening inequality that could trigger "massive unrest." Opportunistic speculators, often in complicity with local officials, seize land without adequate compensation. Corruption is rampant among officials. Environmental problems make domestic headlines daily.

Add these together—rising mass protests, ethnic unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, labor unrest, rural unrest, student unrest over international incidents, social unrest—mix them with flammable nationalism, and the paranoia of China's authoritarian leaders intensifies. From this vantage point, a white-hot economy merely buys time for China's vulnerable leaders who can barely stay in the saddle of their writhing dragon.

China's Communist leaders, Shirk believes, have made a Faustian bargain. Above all, they strive to stay in power. Yet they are "haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered." They struggle to maintain political control, fear their own citizens and exude "a deep sense of domestic insecurity." They look back to Tiananmen Square, where they came within a hairsbreadth of losing the country. They look across their long borders to Communist regimes that cracked and crumbled with stunning speed. They look outside their cloistered redoubt alongside the Forbidden City and see a population that has abandoned the very ideology that defines the Party.

To maintain their "brittle authoritarian regime" over a public that finds Communist ideology bankrupt, they have stoked the fires of nationalism. China's new ideology whips restive publics into support of its grey, "colorless, cautious" technocratic leaders by turning their emotions outside—to chest-thumping against real and supposed offenses to China's pride by the United States, Taiwan, and, above all, Japan. But this bargain—beating the nationalist drum and keeping the economy going in exchange for keeping the Party in power—may end up driving China into the very fate it should avoid, a war that will derail China's rise and plunge the country into a maelstrom.

Nationalism can explode in the hands of the Party leaders who wield it. Headlines grow ever more incendiary as papers competing for survival in the market find common cause with propagandists. Despite a massive apparatus of media censorship, however, the Propaganda Department and public security find that the internet and cell-phones in the hands of adept youngsters can spill protesters into the streets with little or no warning.

While the Party-state security apparatus spreads its tentacles widely to contain political speech, the media paradoxically tie the hands of cool-headed leaders. Oddly enough, the very media that Party censors tightly control are also a primary source of information for Party cadres and even top leaders. Without the varied outlets that democracies have to inform leaders of strong public sentiment, top Party officials gauge public opinion by relying too uncritically on their own censored publications.

How might the domestic fragility Shirk describes lead to war? China takes the line that in international relations it is "a responsible power." It seeks friendship with its neighbors in Asia. It conciliates potential rivals, like India. It prides itself as a team player in multilateral organizations. It joined six-party talks to help resolve North Korea's nuclear ambitions. It participates in UN peacekeeping operations. It has used its economic ties to make friends. Joining the WTO has brought it into the world's dominant trading regime. But while such gestures may have convinced most of the world that it is "a benign and peaceful rising power," a central contradiction remains in its foreign policy. Can China resolve the contradiction between its public opinion and a constructive foreign policy?

To solidify its nationalist support, says Shirk, the Party has used the United States, Taiwan, and Japan as triggers to arouse passion. Japan's brutal occupation of eastern China during the 1930s and 1940s remains fresh. For many Chinese, Japan compounds its perfidy by refusing to acknowledge honestly the measure of its atrocities, from the Nanking Massacre to the approximately 10 million Chinese war dead. When Japan approved a new textbook in 2005 that played down its wartime culpability, 10,000 students demonstrated in Beijing, smashed Japanese storefronts, overturned Japanese cars, bombarded the Japanese embassy with bottles, stones, and eggs, and called for a boycott of Japanese goods. Possibly 100,000 demonstrators turned out in Shanghai and many more elsewhere. Each time Japan's leaders visit Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are interred, tensions re-ignite. Chinese popular sentiment, fanned by Party leaders, is inflamed by any slights to national "face," including competing claims to oil and gas fields in the East China Sea, and, not least, Japan's support of Taiwan.

It is this last flashpoint, this potential affront to China's national honor, that is most likely to lead to war. Said a senior People's Army officer to Shirk, "If the leaders stand by and do nothing while Taiwan declares independence, the Communist Party will fall." To Chinese media and the publics they inform, Taiwan's leaders seem intent on provoking China to an armed response. In the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the United States gave a visa to Taiwan's president to attend a ceremony at his alma mater, Cornell University. The incident escalated when China fired missiles in the direction of Taiwan and the United States responded by sending in two battle fleets. Periodically since the late 1990s, pro-independence leaders in Taiwan have issued statements that engender heated Chinese reactions. Shirk believes China's current leaders are too weak to tone down shrill reactions and engage in meaningful negotiations to produce a long-term solution. In the meantime, Taiwan could precipitate an armed response from China that would pull in Japan and the United States.

The Chinese public, Shirk contends, is "highly mistrustful of the U.S. government," while top leaders believe that the United States wants to slow China's aspirations to become a world power. Periodic incidents reinforce this outlook. On top of the spy-plane confrontation in 2001 and the bombing of the Belgrade Embassy, the Chinese point to U.S. criticism of China's human rights record, not to mention steady U.S. support for Taiwan and, possibly, the re-armament of Japan. The invasion of Iraq demonstrated how far the United States will go to project its power.

Here again Shirk sees a leadership hard-pressed to pursue China's long-term interests. While top leaders have worked at improving Sino-American relations, and fully recognize that a peaceful rise—and their own power—depends upon U.S. cooperation and comity, they confront a fractious public which demands they stand up to the U.S. Their anti-American Propaganda Department is not entirely under top leaders' control. Their crisis-management machinery works too slowly for defusing of explosive incidents.

Not least, says Shirk, ultimately the Party relies on the People's Liberation Army to keep it in power, as Tiananmen bloodily revealed. Leaders who lack the gravitas of Mao or Deng Xiaoping have bought loyalty by spending heavily on military modernization. The military is projecting its naval power farther and farther from China's coasts; its rockets can destroy satellites in space; its missiles become ever more accurate and farther reaching. A stronger military tolerates slights less willingly. On a future hot-button issue, hard-line military leaders may demand action, not diplomacy. Thus Shirk confronts us with her worst-case scenario: "A future crisis with the U.S., especially one involving Taiwan or Japan, could arouse the public's ire to the degree that China's leaders might believe that the regime would fall unless they respond militarily to the insult to national honor."

For James Mann, former Beijing Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times, neither Peerenboom's relentless optimism nor Shirk's sober realism hits the right note. Mann tilts his lance toward The China Fantasy, the predilection of U.S. policymakers and opinion-leaders to engage in massive collusion with China's Party leaders to pretend all is well on the China front, both domestic and international. Their "Soothing Scenario," as he styles it, insists that China is heading in the right direction. The economy booms. People are getting richer. Eventually a big middle class will demand more political voice. Authoritarianism sooner or later will yield to liberal democracy. In short, Peerenboom's East Asia Model.

American business leaders and the foreign policy establishment buy into this sort of pollyannaish thinking because it suits their interests. Corporate CEOs can concentrate on profits while blithely assuming that democracy will follow. China experts get bought as expensive private consultants to tell politicians what they want to hear. And China élites in the United States insist that "the good guys in America and the good guys in China" have to team up and not rock the boat.

To rock the boat would be to tell the truth, Mann says, and the truth is ugly. China is a repressive state run by the Party (7-8 percent of the population) for its narrow interests. He concurs with Shirk that the Party will do anything to stay in power—mow down weaponless protesters with tanks, spirit away tens of thousands of political prisoners to remote camps, use torture and executions to silence dissidents. One way or another, political dissent is ruthlessly silenced. A peaceful demonstration, such as Falun Gong's brilliant organizational feat of ringing the entire leadership compound of China's leaders, was met with mass deportations, incarceration without legal redress, torture, and death. China's former Premier, Zhao Ziyang, was held under house arrest for fifteen years—from 1989 until his death—for being on the right side of Tiananmen. The United States, Mann charges, legitimates Chinese anti-terrorist programs that lock up Tibetan and Uighur activists.

Of course, China's leaders skillfully disguise their repression. Except for bank notes and the huge portrait of Mao at the entrance to the Forbidden City, visitors to Beijing would be hard-pressed to know that China is a one-party authoritarian state. Tourists and even business people do not see online bulletin boards shut down whenever their exchanges became too wide-ranging and thereby too appealing; they know nothing of arbitrary detention of unknown numbers in labor camps; they cannot observe lawyers who are intimidated and occasionally imprisoned if they defend their clients too vigorously; they are scarcely aware of surveillance cameras flowering in public meeting sites all over the country—a fitting symbol for a political system that fears its own people and stands ready to crush swiftly any seeds of dissent.

Champions of the "Soothing Scenario" explain all this away, says Mann. Jailing of dissidents is ignored. New headlines are treated as old news. China's leaders are excused for taking two steps forward and one step back, or by suggestions that leaders miscalculated. If evidence of China's authoritarianism is repressed, positive developments are over-hyped. Village "elections" become harbingers of state-wide democracy. Rule of law in business, to the extent it exists, gets generalized to basic freedoms. China's lapses are compared to those of India or, even more convincingly, of the United States. If critics talk of repression, they are "China Bashers," "anti-Chinese," tainted with a "Cold War mentality." They are "troublemakers" who are "ideological" and "provocative."

In Mann's view, purveyors of the "Soothing Scenario" subscribe to the "Starbucks Fallacy": more middle-class consumers will eventually lead to more political choice. In fact, China's population, it is said, is pretty happy. "People in China don't care about politics," they just care about "making money."

In response, Mann doesn't fall back on a fragility analysis, à la Shirk. He acknowledges that there is an "Upheaval Scenario" in which disaster looms through economic downturns and political disintegration in response to inequality, corruption, rural protests, land seizures, and ethnic struggles. But he cautions that China is a big and surprisingly resilient country that can bounce back under extreme domestic and international pressures.

A more plausible path, he proposes, is "The Third Scenario." The current economic trajectory is maintained. The middle class thrives and is contented. Rather than mobilizing against Party dominance, it accepts ongoing repression as a tradeoff. So long as material benefits improve, Party leadership will be accepted. No political opposition, no freedom of the press, no religious freedom, no elections beyond the local level, no substantive rule of law but a persistence of repression, a tightening of the security noose, and a non-democratic recasting of "democracy with Chinese characteristics."

It is sobering for foreigners to be reminded by Shirk and Mann that all is not as it seems. Tourist traffic to five-star hotels, the Great Wall, Xian's terracotta soldiers, Tibet's monasteries, the Three Gorges, Hangzhou's lovely West Lake, and Shanghai's bustling cosmopolitanism will never see the China described by Mann and Shirk. Since westerners are not well trained to recognize state-directed propaganda, and face formidable language and cultural barriers, too often they fail to observe the social unrest, stirrings of discontent, poverty, inequality, anger at official corruption, and persecution of minority races and religions that have been papered over. Mann properly advises us to sharpen our critical faculties, to be open to the diversity of opinions on China, even by specialists.

But specialists themselves are not immune from methodological lapses that undermine their premises and evidence for China's alternative futures. Peerenboom, for instance, consistently and properly urges readers to appraise China not only by some absolute standard or by those of advanced or modern countries but by its peers. Yet how those peers are selected substantially determines what conclusions result. It is conventional to compare China to Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore, all countries that experienced extraordinary economic development over fifty years. Except for Singapore, their economic growth led to increasingly open societies with vigorous multi-party liberal politics. But Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are small and homogeneous compared to China, and they all benefited economically and politically from shelter under the U.S. security umbrella as close U.S. allies. Korea and Taiwan would never have liberalized politically without significant pressure from the United States, particularly on repressive military leaders in the 1980s, pressure that helped widen the democratic opening that sprang from domestic reformers. Moreover, none of these countries had the scope and complexity of the fragilities portrayed by Shirk. And as for a hope that China will become a 21st-century version of late 20th-century Singapore—rich but authoritarian—the differences in history, size, law, and territory are so great as to render any extrapolation very doubtful. If there is an East Asia Model, China may not share its fundamental attributes.

False historical comparisons can also bedevil China predictions. If the end of the Cultural Revolution constitutes the baseline for contemporary comparisons, then conveniently the worst chapters of China's modern history get excised from the narrative. But this is like talking about American race relations beginning in 1867, without slavery or the Civil War. China's Communist Party rule looks benign if we are able to forget that under the rule of the ccp, China's leaders managed to kill tens of millions of their own people—many more than the Japanese. By pitching a thesis based on China only after the Cultural Revolution, it is possible for Peerenboom to compare China favorably to India, a country with an exceedingly diverse population speaking more than a dozen languages where hundreds of millions are poor, but which has nonetheless maintained a robust democracy and open society for a half-century and avoided a Great Famine in the meantime.

In China studies as elsewhere it is too easy to settle for straight-line projection from some series of points aligned in the same direction. For instance, observers look back over a period of 20 or 30 years, discover a steady line of growth and development, and simply extend it into the future as if history brings no surprises. But one does not need to be a historian to recall the society-transforming shocks of the 1929 market crash, Pearl Harbor, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the Asian Financial Crisis, 9/11, or Tiananmen Square. Who expected them?

Shirk skillfully points to contingencies for China's future, to pressure points and faultlines in Chinese society and politics from which seismic shocks might abruptly alter the course of China's economy and position in the world. An international political incident could escalate out of control, shattering the fragile porcelain that is China's present creation. Or an economic shock—contamination of Chinese food, an international backlash against Chinese competition, an over-reaction to Chinese product safety—could precipitate a crash "that throws millions of workers out of their jobs or sends millions of depositors to withdraw their savings from the shaky banking system." The threat of such an event, Shirk warns, is the "greatest political risk" facing China's leaders.

Not only is history fraught with contingency, unexpected turns, and sudden jolts, but social and economic theories of democracy and markets cannot naively assume that one necessarily or inevitably accompanies the other. Mann does us the service of calling into question the widely held assumption that democracy in China is just over the horizon if we only wait long enough and don't interfere. As he rightly observes, another model altogether is possible—an economically developed country that is also politically repressive. Some recent empirical research on Latin America lends support to this argument. As countries get richer they don't necessarily get democratic. That research indicates that citizens tend to support the kind of regime that brought them material benefits. If the quality of life improved under an authoritarian regime, they are likely to continue to support it. China may get richer and use its wealth to clamp down on basic legal and political freedoms.

What then to do? From each diagnosis follows a prescription. Peerenboom's optimism leads to implicit counsel that China should be left alone to succeed on its own terms. In his defense, when Peerenboom speaks behind closed doors to China's senior officials, he takes a more contingent line. China's leaders should recognize, he says, that many countries stall somewhere along the upward climb to economic success. To break through requires hard and wise decisions, which include stronger rule of law. But his emphasis falls much more strongly on material than political values, on property rights than basic legal freedoms.

Shirk's counsel vividly illustrates Mann's complaint. After showing that China's domestic fragility could propel its weak leaders into dangerous military overreactions to an international incident, she might serve as an exemplar of Mann's "Soothing Scenario" on how to mitigate impending disaster. Like Peerenboom she urges U.S. leaders, whether politicians or monitors of human rights, to exercise restraint. The more noisome foreign pressures, the more muscle China's weak leaders will need to flex. Dramatizing human rights abuses merely raises the hackles of China's leaders and inflames their publics.

Mann will have none of this. The United States must care about democracy in China. American citizens cannot turn their backs on the fate of 1.3 billion fellow humans. Moreover, contra Peerenboom, an undemocratic political system is unstable because it provides no way to resolve high level disputes, a judgment likely shared by Shirk. And an undemocratic China clearly poses problems for the rest of the world. If China's rise manages to combine wealth with repression, this will become a perverse "model for the rest." Indeed, Mann warns, in such circumstances "China will serve as an exemplar for dictators, juntas, and other undemocratic governments throughout the world." The Burmas, Zimbabwes, and Sudans among nations will gain solace from a paradigm that combines wealth with secret police. They will also find an ideological compatriot to stand against pressures for human rights and democracy. Finally, Mann notes, a politically liberal regime in China would lower the threat of war.

It follows that we must not accept clichés of exotic China, or Panda China, or Olympics China. Compare, Mann says, the Rome Olympics of 1960, Tokyo in 1964, Seoul in 1988—all celebrations of countries that had emerged from authoritarianism—with the Berlin Olympics of 1936, which hoodwinked the credulous into believing that all was well in the Third Reich. All is not well in China, and U.S. leaders should not collude with China's Party hierarchy to pretend it is. Now is the time to forestall the installation of a permanent Chinese authoritarianism, not in those roseate decades ahead when it may be too late.

Although a mere coda, Mann's bottom-line deserves serious reflection. He calls for a vigorous domestic debate over what the United States should do about human rights and democracy in China. Such a debate might conclude, with Shirk, that direct public pressures on China's leaders harm democratic prospects. Or the debate might arrive at Peerenboom's position—that nothing can be done or should be done, since history will take care of itself. But the debate could conclude that the fate of China and its citizens requires action. Mann gives us few clues about what kind of action, but presumably prudence would lead in directions that would at least keep Shirk's cautions in mind.

Curiously, none of these authors has much to say about religion in either China or the United States, now or in the future. Since Peerenboom emphasizes property rights over human rights, it is not surprising that more is not said about basic freedoms. But Christians in house churches and even official churches across China would be startled to read "that freedom of religion exists side by side with state-endorsed atheism in China" and that "despite the official endorsement of atheism, China tolerates religious practice subject to concerns about social stability." So, too, would Buddhists, some of whose holiest sites are devoid of monks and guarded by uniformed soldiers. Peerenboom surely is correct that Christianity in China could be de-stabilizing, if by this he means that China's Christians will inexorably—some quietly, others more vocally—press for conditions under which their faith and witness can thrive, conditions that cannot exist alongside a one-Party state intolerant of competing ideologies. Shirk by contrast attributes none of China's fragility to religious restiveness, although she hints that rights-champions in the United States, some of whom are religious activists, might be among those whom China's leaders and publics find confrontational. Neither Christians in China nor their counterparts in the United States find their way into Mann's critique, though the former would be prime beneficiaries of the democratic China he advocates, while the latter could emerge as their international vanguard.

Friends of China rightly applaud its tremendous strides over the past twenty-five years, the achievements sympathetically documented by Peerenboom. Yet we do well to heed the cautionary voices of Mann and Shirk as well. The hand of friendship means little if China's people are abandoned to repression once the world's television cameras leave Beijing in August 2008. Then we will discover which of Beijing's Olympic predecessors Party leaders have chosen to follow.

Terence Halliday is Co-Director, Center on Law and Globalization, American Bar Foundation and University of Illinois College of Law. He writes on commercial law-making and the criminal justice system in China. He has consulted with the World Bank, OECD, and State Council Office on Restructuring the Economic System, PRC.

Books discussed in this essay:

Randall Peerenboom, China Modernizes: Threat to the West or Model for the Rest? (Oxford Univ. Press, 2007).

Susan L. Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower(Oxford Univ. Press, 2007).

James Mann, The China Fantasy (Viking, 2007).


Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Books & Culture magazine.

July/August 2008, Vol. 14, No. 4, Page 30

Russia in Georgia

Russia is reasserting its influence in its former Soviet states, signaling a possible return to the Cold War.

The following is taken from Stratfor.com

Given the speed with which the Russians reacted to Georgia’s incursion into South Ossetia, Moscow was clearly ready to intervene. We suspect the Georgians were set up for this in some way, but at this point the buildup to the conflict no longer matters. What matters is the message that Russia is sending to the West.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev summed this message up best: “Historically Russia has been, and will continue to be, a guarantor of security for peoples of the Caucasus.”

Strategically, we said Russia would respond to Kosovo’s independence, and they have. Russia is now declaring the Caucasus to be part of its sphere of influence. We have spoken for months of how Russia would find a window of opportunity to redefine the region. This is happening now.

All too familiar with the sight of Russian tanks, the Baltic countries are terrified of what they face in the long run, and they should be. This is the first major Russian intervention since the fall of the Soviet Union. Yes, Russia has been involved elsewhere. Yes, Russia has fought. But this is on a new order of confidence and indifference to general opinion. We will look at this as a defining moment.

The most important reaction will not be in the United States or Western Europe. It is the reaction in the former Soviet states that matters most right now. That is the real audience for this. Watch the reaction of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Balts. How will Russia’s moves affect them psychologically?

The Russians hold a trump card with the Americans: Iran. They can flood Iran with weapons at will. The main U.S. counter is in Ukraine and Central Asia, but is not nearly as painful.

Tactically, there is only one issue: Will the Russians attack Georgia on the ground? If they are going to, the Russians have likely made that decision days ago.

Focus on whether Russia invades Georgia proper. Then watch the former Soviet states. The United States and Germany are of secondary interest at this point.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christianity

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christianity

1. A Brief History of Jehovah’s Witnesses
• 1870’s Russell (1852-1916) studied the doctrines of Second Adventists:
• 1879: Russell began publishing Zion’s Watchtower And Herald of Christ’s Presence (The Watchtower magazine)
• 1881: Main Legal Entity Founded - Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
• 1909: Headquarters Moved to Brooklyn, New York - Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc
• 1917-1942: Second Watchtower President “Judge” Joseph F. Rutherford
• 1931: The name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” adopted.
• 1942-1977: Third Watchtower President Nathan H. Knorr & 1978-1992: Fourth President: Frederick W. Franz
• 1992-2000: Fifth Watchtower President: Milton George Henschel
• 2000: Three Corporations Formed: Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Religious Order of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Kingdom Support Services

2. The New World Translation and the Watchtower
• Translators had insufficient knowledge of biblical manuscripts
• Translation distorts the Deity of Christ at John 1:1; 8:58; Hebrews 1:8 and other passages
• Inserts God Name “Jehovah” into the New Testament without manuscript support

3. Theology
• Jesus is the created Archangel “Michael”
• God’s “holy spirit” is an impersonal force
• Only a special group of 144,000 people interpret Scripture
• All Old Testament believers and Christians who are not in the 144,000 group will live on earth eternally.
• Conditional Mortality, Soul Sleep = Soul does not survive death, Resurrection of only the worthy; No Hell
• Restoration of Paradise Earth by believers after the Tribulation

4. Salvation
• Salvation is found through faith in Jehovah, Jesus and performance in the Watchtower organization

5. Ethics and Practices
• No holiday or birthday celebrations
• No participation in flag salutes, voting, politics or war activities
• No blood transfusions
• Limited higher education
• Limited contact with non-Jehovah’s Witness friends and family
• Shunning of former Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Forbidding critical thinking and disagreement and literature critical of the group
• Forbidding non-Jehovah’s Witness religious broadcasting and church attendance
• Mandatory door-to-door proselytizing

6. False Prophesies
• 1874: Date for Christ’s “invisible presence,” changed to 1914
• 1914: End of the world
• 1915: Replaced 1914 for the end of the world
• 1918: End of the world, the destruction of churches
• 1925: End of the world with the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
• 1929: “Beth Sarim” House of Princes built in San Diego, deeded to king David and other biblical prophets for their “soon” return upon the earth
• 1940’s: End of the World would come with the “soon” battle of Armageddon
• 1975: 6,000-years of human history, the end of the world would come within “months, not years.”
• 1994: 80-year Generation of 1914 should bring the end of the world, 1995 redefined the word “generation” to be symbolic of general readiness for the end.

7. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christianity

Taking Responsibility

Taking Responsibility

We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.

This statement may seem idiotically tautological or self-evident, yet it is seemingly beyond the comprehension of much of the human race. This is because we must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it. We cannot solve a problem by saying "It's not my problem." We cannot solve a problem by hoping that someone else will solve it for us. I can solve a problem only when I say "This is my problem and it's up to me to solve it." But many, so many, seek to avoid the pain of their problems by saying to themselves: "This prob-lem was caused me by other people, or by social circum-stances beyond my control, and therefore it is up to other people or society to solve this problem for me. It is not really my personal problem."

Most people who come to see a psychiatrist are suffering from what is called either a neurosis or a character disorder. Put most simply, these two conditions are disorders of re-sponsibility, and as such they are opposite styles of relating to the world and its problems. The neurotic assumes too much responsibility; the person with a character disorder not enough. When neurotics are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that they are at fault. When those with character disorders are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that the world is at fault.

Even the speech patterns of neurotics and those with character disorders are different. The speech of the neurotic is notable for such expressions as "I ought to," "I should," and "I shouldn't," indicating the individual's self-image as an in-ferior man or woman, always falling short of the mark, always making the wrong choices. The speech of a person with a character disorder, however, relies heavily on "I can't," "I couldn't," "I have to," and "I had to," demonstrating a self-image of a being who has no power of choice, whose behavior is completely directed by external forces totally beyond his or her control.

As might be imagined, neurotics, compared with character-disordered people, are easy to work with in psychotherapy because they assume responsibility for their difficulties and therefore see themselves as having problems. Those with character disorders are much more difficult, if not impossible, to work with because they don't see themselves as the source of their problems; they see the world rather than themselves as being in need of change and therefore fail to recognize the necessity for self-examination.

In actuality, many individuals have both a neurosis and a character disorder and are referred to as "character neurotics," indicating that in some areas of their lives they are guilt-ridden by virtue of having assumed responsibility that is not really theirs, while in other areas of their lives they fail to take realistic responsibility for themselves. Fortunately, once having established the faith and trust of such individuals in the psycho-therapy process through helping them with the neurotic part of their personalities, it is often possible then to engage them in examining and correcting their unwillingness to assume responsibility where appropriate problem of distinguishing what we are and what we are not responsible for in this life is one of the greatest problems of human existence. It is never completely solved; for the entirety of our lives we must continually assess and reassess where our responsibilities lie in the ever-changing course of events. Nor is this assessment and reassessment painless if performed adequately and conscientiously. To perform either process adequately we must possess the willingness and the capacity to suffer continual self-examination. And such capacity or willingness is not inherent in any of us.

The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the conse-quences of that behavior.

Dr. Hilde Bruch, in the preface to her book Learning Psychotherapy, states that basically all patients come to psychiatrists with "one common problem: the sense of helplessness, the fear and inner conviction of being unable to 'cope' and to change things." t One of the roots of this "sense of impotence" in the majority of patients is some desire to partially or totally escape the pain of freedom, and, therefore, some failure, par-tial or total, to· accept responsibility for their problems and their lives. They feel impotent because they have, in fact, given their power away. Sooner or later, if they are to be healed, they must learn that the entirety of one's adult life is a series of personal choices, decisions. If they can accept this totally, then they become free people. To the extent that they do not accept this they will forever feel themselves victims.


M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Delaying Gratification

Delaying Gratification

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure' by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.

Children who are truly loved, although in moments of pique they may consciously feel or proclaim that they are being neglected, unconsciously know themselves to be valued. This knowledge is worth more than any gold. For when children know that they are valued, when they truly feel valued in the deepest parts of themselves, then they feel valuable.

The feeling of being valuable—"I am a valuable person"—is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline. It is a direct product of parental love. Such a conviction must be gained in childhood; it is extremely difficult to acquire it during adulthood. Conversely, when children have learned through the love of their parents to feel valuable, it is almost impossible for the vicissitudes of adult-hood to destroy their spirit.

This feeling of being valuable is a cornerstone of self-discipline because when one considers oneself valuable one will take care of oneself in all ways that are necessary. Self-discipline is self-caring. For instance-since we are discussing the process of delaying gratification, of scheduling and ordering time-let us examine the matter of time. If we feel ourselves valuable, then we will feel our time to be valuable, and if we feel our time to be valuable, then we will want to use it well.

The issue is important, because many people simply don’t take the time necessary to solve many of life's intellectual, social or spiritual problems.

Actually, there is a defect in the approach to problem-solving more primitive and more destructive than impatiently inadequate attempts to find instant solutions, a defect even more ubiquitous and universal. It is the hope that problems will go away of their own accord.

Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.

This inclination to ignore problems is once again a simple manifestation of an unwillingness to delay gratification. Confronting problems is, as I have said, painful. To willingly confront a problem early, before we are forced to confront it by circumstances, means to put aside something pleasant or less painful for something more painful. It is choosing to suf-fer now in the hope of future gratification rather than choosing to continue present gratification in the hope that future suffer-ing will not be necessary.


M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Life is Difficult

Life is difficult.

This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?

Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing.

Problems, depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration or grief or sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair. These are uncomfortable feelings, often very uncomfortable, often as painful as any kind of physical pain, sometimes equaling the very worst kind of physical pain. Indeed, it is because of the pain that events or conflicts engender in us all that we call them problems. And since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy.

Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt, instruct." It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.


M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled