Decoding Disclosure

In her piece #WikiLeaks no favor to historians, Kiron K. Skinner believes there will be some unintended consequences of the recent deluge of WikiLeaks.

"Policy makers, intelligence analysts and statesmen [will] find it necessary to write to each other in code. ... Once frank and private interactions among statesmen will become more diplomatic. ... This will probably lead to greater secrecy and manipulation until technology devises yet more powerful lenses to reveal even the most private state encounters."

But surely historians have always been trained not to take any documents at face value. It stretches belief to imagine that private interactions among statesmen have ever been totally frank, or that official documents have ever been completely objective. Dr Skinner advocates other forms of historical document, such as contemporary interviews with political actors, but of course these cannot be taken at face value either.

Powerful people often oscillate between discretion and indiscretion. Journalists and spies have many ways of tempting people to boast about their knowledge and influence (Vince Cable being a recent victim of such techniques - see BBC News). Given the complex psychological and political factors that trigger specific instances of disclosure, there is no reason to believe that those items disclosed are either consistently more important or consistently less important than those not disclosed. As it happens, many of the WikiLeaks disclosures are pretty banal, and some commentators have gained the impression that the life of the professional diplomat is also pretty banal, but this impression may simply be a consequence of the WikiLeaks process together with selective media reporting. Anyone who believes that WikiLeaks provides some kind of "truth" should read Slavoj Žižek Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks (LRB 20 January 2011).

Scandal sheets such as Private Eye have always had coded ways of disclosing information. For example, famous people are often described as "tired and emotional" (drunk) or "discussing Uganda" (having sexual intercourse).

Historians will continue to have to wade through bureaucratic self-justification, empty boasting and unsubstantiated rumour, filtered through a gauze of topical references and codes, and to try and understand the hidden power of negotiating positions that were never made explicit. (Žižek mentions a crucial meeting in Portugal in 1974.) WikiLeaks isn't going to change this very much.

Dove World Outrage Center

A tiny church in Florida is punching above its weight by threatening to burn copies of the Qur'an on 11 September. The pastor appears to have no knowledge of what the Qur'an actually says, but has convinced himself and his followers that the Qur'an is "full of lies" [BBC News 8 September 2010].

This threat has attracted wide publicity, and has been condemned by American and other Western leaders including

• Tony Blair, former British prime minister
• Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State
• Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense
• Eric Holder, US Attorney General
• Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General 
• Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington
• Peter MacKay, Canadian Defence Minister
• General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan
• Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General 

Even key figures of the American right such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have criticized the plan. But in a world where traditional leadership can be defied and disrespected by tiny groups of trouble-makers, mere verbal condemnation (expressing one's outrage on Twitter) hardly seems adequate.

There is a general problem with protesting against extremism of all kinds, which is that such protests are often counter-productive, merely alienating the extremists and reinforcing their beliefs. But what is the alternative? In this case, there is an obvious remedy: I hope that Christian leaders, especially in America, have the courage to organize mass readings of the holy books of other religions, including the Qur'an, in order to demonstrate that their faith is compatible with many of the truths contained in these religions.

Meanwhile, people are sending books for the bonfire. Some of these books may be genuine copies of the Qur'an, but I expect that a few tricksters will be sending in disguised copies of the Bible and the American Constitution to be burned as well. Ha!

Purpose of a Nation

James Liu posted a question to the Linked-In Systems Thinking Group.

What is the purpose/aim of a nation (such as US, UK... ) as a system? How can we get there if we don't know the aim of our nation?

The following is edited from my contributions to this discussion.

---

My first response was to suggest that nations only exist because other nations exist. I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about a nation in isolation. The system whose purpose I'd like to understand is the system that has (often violently) carved the world into the nations we have today, and still threatens to split existing nations into smaller ones and/or create new ones. What purposes are served by the concept of "Nation"? And how does a single instance of this concept relate to this international context?

This prompted an interesting response from Joseph Higginbotham, who rephrased my suggestion in terms of alterity (Otherness) - the organization of the nation is an answer to the threat posed by organization of the Other. But that doesn't quite explain what triggers the process of nation-forming in the first place.

Joseph went on to speculate about the end of this process of nation-forming.

So what is advancement? A Utopia where humans only organize to accomplish something that can only be accomplished through cooperation, not because they feel threatened? And of course, as the world grows "flatter" and more interconnected and more interdependent, we have to ask if One World Government is inevitable, right? I mean, theoretically, can wars be eliminated if we're all One World?

Obviously if there is only one government, then there cannot be wars between governments. But history tells us about many other kinds of war - civil wars (British, American, Spanish), revolutions, guerrilla and terrorism. The nation-state pattern (one nation = one country = one government) is not a universal one. And from a systems perspective, the notion of historical inevitability is highly problematic.

A vision of competition being replaced by cooperation suggests that there were in fact two different questions under discussion: not only what the purpose of a nation actually is, but also what the purpose should be. Some of us may have a personal preference for cooperation over competition, or for peaceful resolution rather than violent conflict, but getting large complex systems (such as Global Politics) to follow our personal preferences is a highly political activity.

Joseph says the challenge would be to agree on why we have a government or a nation. That is certainly a challenge, but I see it as primarily a political challenge. A systems-thinking challenge (I hesitate to say "the" challenge) would be to agree on a systematic or systemic way of exploring and perhaps improving the purpose of governments or nations, without being constrained or coopted by any single political or ethical position.

James offered an answer to his original question: "Currently the primary aim of a democratic nation is to help its citizens to enhance their quality of life." This answer has added two important words: currently and democratic.

I take the word "currently" to indicate that this is his observation of the AS-IS purpose of a nation (what it already is), rather than his aspiration of the TO-BE purpose (what he thinks it ought to become).

I also note the addition of the qualifier "democratic". Democracy has long been a key component of how America has perceived itself, and how it has been perceived by others. In his classic book Democracy in America, the 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville sought to understand why republican representative democracy had succeeded in the United States while (at that time) failing in so many other places. He sought to apply the functional aspects of democracy in America to what he saw as the failings of democracy in his native France. (Book summary based on Wikipedia.) A useful read if you want a historical perspective on the purpose of a democratic nation.

Today, many Americans sees one important purpose of the United States of America as being a Beacon of Democracy. If you search the Internet for "beacon of democracy", you will also find this phrase being applied to other nations, including Canada, Ghana, India, Mongolia and Taiwan, as well as some imaginary future state of Iraq.

But is this systems thinking as opposed to straight politics? By straight politics I meant undiluted politics, which Churchman identified as one of the Enemies of the Systems Approach. I wasn't thinking specifically of realpolitik.

---

James's second question (How can we get there if we don't know?) seems to be making an assumption about the nature of goal-directed systems. However, with large complex systems, we can achieve (happen upon) all sorts of wonderful outcomes without knowing the purpose in advance. I often use Stafford Beer's POSIWID principle to try and work out the hidden agendas of complex systems.

Joseph acknowledged that governments and government officials have many different purposes, some of them declared and some hidden. But then Joseph went on to say that "we cannot apply systems thinking to government until we can agree on what government is trying to accomplish". My view is the exact opposite of Joseph: we MUST apply systems thinking to government IF WE WANT TO MAKE SENSE OF what government is REALLY trying to accomplish. (This is perhaps a classic example of the POSIWID principle.)

Joseph thought that my position (that systems thinking must be applied to figure out what government is trying to accomplish) has at least three logical flaws:

1. It assumes humans always act rationally and that their plans always reflect their intent. I can use systems thinking to analyze the probably outcome of a government policy or I can go the other way and start with the outcome and work backwards from the outcome through the system that produced it to the cause but I still don't know what that government intended. Only if they are consistent systems thinkers who intentions always align with their policies can I assume that.
2. It assumes our policy makers are good enough systems thinkers themselves to reason from intent to plan to implementation to execution to outcome. We don't know if our leaders are systems thinkers. We don't elect them for their systems thinking skills. We elect them because they say what we want to hear and then we pray they meant what they said. Of course, most of the time they don't.
3. Policy keeps changing and pretty soon, due to budget cuts, elections, changes in party, lack of political will, lack of public support, etc., by the time we get enough data to start looking backward from outcomes to processes to causes to intents, we don't know what was intended.

Thus Joseph stood by his original statements that we have to know what a government is really trying to accomplish in order to use systems thinking to get it there.

My approach to systems thinking is careful not to make any of the assumptions he imputed to me, and I don't accept that there were logical flaws in my argument. But it became increasingly clear from our discussion that Joseph and I had completely different notions of what systems thinking actually was. He acknowledged the validity of logically walking backwards from outcomes through processes to ask questions about systems, such as "Your system is perfectly designed to deliver X, was that your intent? Did you know your system was designed to produce X or do you just not know what you're doing?" But he didn't seem to regard this line of inquiry as a form of systems thinking. I do, although it's not the only kind of systems thinking I recognize.

What Joseph is calling systems thinking seems to be limited to a particular rationalist style of systems design. As it happens I am currently re-reading Churchman's book on the Systems Approach and its Enemies, where this practice is described as Objective-Planning. But this leaves out what Churchman calls Ideal-Planning (working out the objectives in the first place), which I regard as an important (perhaps the most important) element in Systems Thinking.

---

To the extent that this discussion was taking place in the Systems Thinking group, I expected to see some willingness to find systems-thinking answers to some important questions about nationhood, and I hoped such answers would be different to the answers we might have found in a Political Study group (if there were one).

James thought it was interesting to see totally different perspectives from different groups. And he thought that this diversity suggested it was a question worth to ask and discuss.

Diversity is often a sign that there is something problematic about the question. Systems thinking often helps us by changing the question. The Linked-In Group was certainly having an interesting discussion about something important, although the exact nature of the question (as often happens with discussions about complex systems) seemed to be shifting kaleidoscopically, and I was interested to see the interplay between different systems concepts - purpose, role, causal loops, and so on.

Some later contributions to the discussion seemed to be converging on identifying a purpose for the discussion itself - perhaps to identify how people (such as ourselves) can make a difference to the political formation of the nation and its activities (including diplomacy and warfare).

And this is a strong theme within some styles of systems thinking - the need to rephrase the original question into "What is the purpose/aim of OUR ASKING ABOUT a nation (such as US, UK... ) as a system?

Someone else talked about the discussion "drifting around" - and calling it that makes it sound as if it's always better to follow a charted course. But then you will only arrive at pre-ordained destinations.

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.

Nuclear Disarmament

Why does Britain need to invest in a new generation of nuclear weapons? There is no conceivable circumstance in which these weapons will ever be used, even in self-defence.

The old argument was that the possessors of nuclear weaponry would use their power wisely to deter other nations from developing such weapons. This has clearly failed. There is no credible threat of ever using nuclear weapons against Iran or North Korea, let alone any non-state terrorist organization; the fact of proliferation is therefore completely uninfluenced by the fact that the Western powers have some expensive and untested nuclear warheads corroding in a bunker somewhere.

The supporters of multi-lateral disarmament say that it would be an excellent thing if everyone were to abandon nuclear weapons at the same time. But they don't believe that Britain's taking a unilateral move away from the possession of nuclear weapons will persuade any other country to disarm. Therefore we must continue to develop ever more advanced nuclear weapons. I heard the Foreign Secretary David Miliband putting this argument on the BBC News this evening.

Unilateral disarmament is traditionally associated with liberal philosophers and left-wing Christians - from Bertrand Russell to Bruce Kent. However, an increasing number of military top brass are openly questioning the acquisition of nuclear weapons that can never be used. [Generals in 'scrap Trident' call BBC News 16 January 2009. General calls for Trident rethink, BBC News 29 January 2009]

In the past, some supporters of unilateral disarmament have put forward the view that we don't have to wait for others to disarm, we can set a moral example. Once we lay down our arms, other countries will be shamed into doing the same.

Supporters of multilateral disarmament believe this is unlikely, and perhaps they are right. But they go on to draw a fallacious conclusion - that because our abandoning the bomb would have no effect on other countries, therefore there is no purpose in our abandoning the bomb, therefore we should keep it.

In other words, they are still hoping to use the bomb - not as a way of killing millions of innocent citizens but as a bargaining chip in some game of international politics. Keeping the bomb allows us a seat at a diplomatic table at which no meaningful agreement is ever going to be reached. What a wonderful way of spending $20bn of taxpayers' money.

---

See also

Jeremy Bernstein, Is Nuclear Deterrence Obsolete? (NYR Blogs, April 2010)

Back into the Fold

It is a time for reconciliation and return. Old political rivals welcomed back (Hillary Clinton, Peter Mandelson, Ken Clarke). And the Vatican has restored relations with the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist Catholic organization, founded in 1970 by the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Most controversially, the Vatican is cancelling the excommunication of four SSPX bishops, including Holocaust denier Richard Williamson.

I don't know whether this is bad luck or bad judgement on the part of the Holy Father, but Bishop Williamson appeared this week on Swedish television, denying the existence of the gas chambers. So much for Jewish-Catholic relations then.

The Holy Father appears to have a precise legalistic mind, in which there is no logical connection between the original reasons for Bishop Williamson's excommunication and his extreme views on the second world war. If the excommunication no longer serves a valid purpose, it must be cancelled; you cannot keep someone in a state of mortal peril just because you disagree with, or even disapprove of, his opinions.

Many will be offended by the pardon for Bishop Williamson and his SSPX friends, interpreting it as a further sign of an anti-Semitic turn at the Vatican. However, His Holiness doesn't seem to worry much about offending people.

Meanwhile, the Society of St. Pius V (SSPV), an organization that split from SSPX in 1983, holds that the papal seat is currently vacant ("sedevacantism"), as all the popes since 1958 (or perhaps 1963) are excessively modernist and therefore heretical. Perhaps Benedict XVI is trying to win their approval and acceptance.

 

---

Update 2022

Following more recent controversy concerning Bishop Williamson, I found a more detailed account of the history of SSPX, including the role of Cardinal Ratzinger. 

Michael Warren Davis, SSPX: Back to the Bad Old Days? (Crisis Magazine, 22 October 2019)

---

Sources 2009

• Pope 'to lift SSPX excommunications' just as Bishop Williamson denies Nazi gas chambers (Telegraph, 22 January 2009)
• Pope could welcome Holocaust denier back into the fold (Times Online, 23 January 2009)
• Bishop faces probe for Holocaust outburst (Independent Online South Africa, 23 January 2009)
• Pope move ignites Holocaust row (BBC News, 24 January 2009)
• Bishop Richard Williamson, Holocaust Denier, Reinstated By Pope (Huffington Post, 24 January 2009)
• Pope lifts SSPX excommunications (Ruth Gledhill, 24 January 2009)
• Benedict and the SSPX: the backlash begins (Telegraph, 22 January 2009)
• Pope admits Holocaust row errors (BBC News, 12 March 2009)
  

Related posts

 

Not Yet Quite Back (February 2009), The Symbolism of the Empty Chair (March 2015)

Relationships built on self-interest

A number of bloggers have reproduced a photograph of Barack Obama at a blackboard, teaching something called Power Analysis, with a diagram captioned "Relationships built on self-interest". This is supposedly based on the work of Saul Alinsky.

• BAGnewsNotes: Obama As Machiavelli (July 2008)
• JustOneMinute: The Time To Lead Is Later (August 2008)
• Politics and Prosperity: Obama and the Saul Alinsky Method (October 2008)
• The Union News: How Obama organized America: Alinsky-style (October 2008)

See also

• The American Prospect: Big Picture Power (August 2008)

Before the election, bloggers strived to interpret this connection. Did it mean Obama was a closet radical, or a crafty pragmatist? If Alinsky was a socialist, did this mean Obama was also a socialist? If Alinsky was an amoral atheist, was Obama also?

Following the election, Obama's appointments were closely scrutinized for hints of policy. Was this person too close to Israel? Was that person too close to the banks?

But for most of us, watching Obama's opening moves is like watching a grandmaster playing chess. We don't yet know why he is putting a bishop here, or a castle there, but we have every reason to believe he has a pretty well-worked-out plan.

Hillary Clinton is also familiar with the work of Saul Alinsky, having written a student thesis on him [MSNBC, 9 May 2007]. Many sections of the US media like to portray the Clintons as manipulative and power-hungry, and this portrayal perhaps caused many Obama followers to fear that Clinton would somehow steal the nomination by devious means.

Following the nomination, some people (including Joe Biden, apparently) thought that Clinton ought to be the Vice President. But after eight years of cynical realpolitik in that post, it was perhaps time for an honest and simple Vice President.

In which role, then, does President Obama really need to deploy someone who is as clever and pragmatic as himself, who has read and understood Alinsky, and who can operate international realpolitik as a master? Step forward Secretary of State Hillary Rodman Clinton. As the popular song goes: I Wonder Who's Kissinger Now?

The Wrong Side of History

In his inaugural speech yesterday, President Barack Obama spoke the following words: "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history." [President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address]

Anyone who thought those words were directed at the Cubans or the Iranians or the Filipinos or Israel or Jimmy Carter or Microsoft would have been alerted to their true target by the swift censorship of the Chinese authorities, which excised these words from the Chinese translation (along with some unfavourable references to communism and blaming the West) [BBC News 21 January 2009].

As BBC Journalist James Reynolds reminds us, President Bill Clinton used similar words before making a "friendship" visit to Beijing in 1998. "When it comes to human rights and religious freedom, China remains on the wrong side of history" [CNN, June 1998]. And in his speech at Beijing University [BBC News, 29 June 1998] he asked his hosts "How do we work together to be on the right side of history together?" Apparently Clinton's views on history were shared by disgraced former Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang [New York Times, 25 June 1998] See also Jonathan Fenby [Guardian, March 2008]

Does history have a right and wrong side at all? Is history some kind of bully, that we have to stay on the right side of or get beaten up? Is there an inevitable march of progress and freedom, or is that just what Butterfield called The Whig Interpretation of History? (See commentary by Dr John Warren). Butterfield charged earlier historians who believed naively in such progress, especially Macaulay, with "fatuous and complacent optimism". Carl Becker levelled similar charges against Jefferson (see David Noble, Historians Against History, p 91).

Pray Obama does not succumb to fatuous and complacent optimism.

From Malcolm X to Barack Obama

Many of us expected some kind of statement or action by Al Qaeda after the election of Barack Obama. But I don't know whether anyone expected anything quite like the statement that appeared yesterday [Al-Qaeda vows to hurt Obama's US, BBC News 19 November 2008].

Malcolm X contrasted "field negroes" who hated their white masters with "house negroes" who, he said, were loyal to them [Message to the grassroots]. Referring explicitly to this speech, Ayman al-Zawahri described President-elect Obama as a "house negro". (Mr al-Zawahri actually used the arabic expression "abeed al-beit, which means "house slave", but this was rendered as "house negro" in the message's English subtitles.) What possible effect is this message supposed to have, in America or in the rest of the world? Or has AlQaeda lost the plot?

• Al-Qaeda plays the race card against Barack Obama … no, seriously (TrainWreckPolitics)
• Al-Qaeda's most epic fail ever (The American Prospect)
  

What effects is it likely to have? Firstly, it has prompted several bloggers to refer sarcastically to the crazy rightwing myth that Obama is actually Malcolm X's love-child. Sounds like Star Wars to me - Obama as a Jedi knight, overcoming the black ideology of his symbolic father. I guess AlQaeda would read the symbolism the other way around - Amerika as Sith. In any case, AlQaeda and the American Right are both attached to the kind of simplistic mythological worldview promoted in films like Star Wars, and perhaps Mr al-Zawahri will be happy to see anything that reinforces this worldview.

The second potential effect is reflexive. People often inadvertently reveal their own weaknesses and shame when criticizing others. Perhaps this is because they focus on those characteristics they are most uncomfortable or ashamed about in themselves. As a result of contrasting President-elect Obama with "honourable Black Americans", Mr al-Zawahri is inevitably going to find himself and his terrorist pals contrasted with "honourable Arab Moslems". And perhaps at some level he thinks this too.

Purpose of Guerrilla

Today (2nd May) is the 200th anniversary of one of the key events of the Peninsular War, the uprising in Madrid against French occupation. Napoleon's armies were eventually pushed out of Spain and Portugal by a combination of regular forces (the British Army under Wellington) and irregular forces. We now refer to such irregular forces by the Spanish word "guerrilla", which literally means "little war". Wikipedia defines it as "bloody, spontaneous fighting"; the comma is important.

[Wikipedia: Guerrilla Warfare, Peninsular War]

For some historians, attitudes towards guerilla depends on the context. From a British perspective, fighting against the Napoleonic Empire was a Good Thing. People who are instinctively disapprove of Empire tend to look favourably on guerrilla that opposes empire.

Indeed, the traditional opposition between Guerrilla and Empire leads some people to infer the existence of Empire from the existence of Guerrilla. "People are fighting against America as if it were an Empire, therefore it must be an Empire." This is a dangerous and invalid line of argument. Any argument about the nature of America must surely be based on America's own actions and aspirations, not on the actions of its opponents.

The traditional opposition between Guerrilla and Empire may also lead to either automatic approval of all guerrilla, or automatic disapproval. But that's like saying "All War Is Justified", "My Country Right Or Wrong" or "All You Need Is Love". Grand slogans, but no substitute for intelligent thought.

America's own stance towards guerrilla is complex and context-dependent: guerilla in Vietnam or Nicaragua is not the same as guerrilla in Africa or Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Asymmetric warfare sometimes works in your favour; but as the British discovered long ago, powerful countries generally have more to lose than to gain from asymmetric warfare.

In the UK, intelligent but disaffected medical students often become comedians. In Latin America, a medical student became the glamorous face of the revolution, pinned up in countless student bedrooms, and now invoked as a fashion icon by people who have no understanding of politics or history. The purpose of guerrilla as marketing? I don't think so.

Peaceful Coexistence

Film-maker Stephen Spielberg has severed diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic of China [BBC News, Feb 13th 2008]. He wants China to put more pressure on the regime in Dafur.

I am struck by two features of this story.

The first is the power of celebrity in international relations (discussed by the Duck of Minerva blog: The Glitterati Strikes Again). Or at least the illusion of power.

The second is the notion that it would be a good thing for China to interfere in the internal affairs of African countries. This is a fairly recent notion. Previous generations of diplomats - both in the West and in the Non-Aligned Movement - have put enormous emphasis on the exact opposite, and have been wary of China's aspirations to promote revolutionary change around the world.

Sometimes politicians are accused of taking a short-term view, but they are mostly far-sighted indeed compared to the average celebrity.

Note 1: The Power of Celebrity

• Central Bankers look to Bono for advice as markets plunge
• Bono and Bob Geldof increase Africa's problems say charity (NME, Nov 23rd 2007) - via Fake Steve Jobs

Note 2: Sino-African Relations

• China to double its aid to Africa (BBC News, Nov 4th, 2006)
• China's Rising Role in Africa (CFR Report)
  
• China, Africa and Oil (CFR Report)

Strange Career Move 2

The other day I commented on Negroponte's strange career move. This has also prompted comment on the Duck of Minerva blog. Rodger Payne recalls a previous instance in which Negroponte left a high-status job for an apparently lower-status role sorting out Iraq. 

Repetition is a strong clue in a POSIWID world. Whenever something happens more than once, this is an indication that there is some system at work - although it isn't always clear which system it is.

The Duck of Minerva focuses on International Relations and Foreign Policy, and seem to operate a political worldview that seeks to explain motivation in terms of status and influence. But there are alternative worldviews, from which we can see other possible motives for someone getting involved in Iraq at this time. 

An economist might observe that there is a lot more loose money sloshing around Iraq than in the uptight bureaucracies of New York and Washington. Some people are motivated by the opportunity to get their hands on some extra cash, and other people are motivated by righteous indignation and the desire to expose corruption.

An organizational theorist might comment on the dysfunctional and frustrating nature of certain institutions, and express surprise that any normal person would ever choose to work in them, regardless of the status. And there is sometimes more autonomy (= job satisfaction?) at the edge of an organization than in the centre. 

And a psychologist might cite Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - self-actualization is higher than esteem. So there are many different ways of accounting for a single event - different effects therefore different purposes.

 

Wikipedia: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Strange Career Move

John Negroponte is leaving his job as Director of National Intelligence to become Deputy Secretary of State. [BBC News, 4th January 2007] 

This move is causing some speculation in the blogosphere. Why did Negroponte switch jobs? asks Susan UnPC on NoQuarter. Is this a demotion or an intelligent move? asks Peter Howard on the Duck of Minerva blog, while Dan Drezner puts it down to Condoleezza Rice's powers of persuasion. 

It is interesting to see how different analysts frame the question in terms of different effects ...

... on Negroponte's personal status in Washington ... on Negroponte's personal accountability for future disaster ... on the Intelligence community and leadership ... on the diplomacy skills and experience within Rice's team ... on Iraq

 ... and speculate about the meaning of the move. Is this a signal that Negroponte is in or out of favour? Is this a signal that Rice is strong or weak? Is this a signal that the intelligence community is in trouble? Who is actually pulling the strings? 

Note the indeterminacy of POSIWID here. Once you have chosen which effects you want to analyse, then the analysis may seem to lead to certain interpretations and conclusions. But POSIWID doesn't tell you where to look first - which effects of which system.

Update: In a later post (The Other Shoes Drop), Peter Howard points out that Negroponte's move is part of a much larger reshuffling of Bush's Iraq team. This again highlights the problem of knowing which system to look at first. Our perceptions may be influenced by the (accidental? fortuitous?) sequence with which the moves are announced or leaked. 

(Peter suggests we need a program to keep up with who is going where. I assume he means software program - in UK English we have the advantage of two different spellings programme/program. I don't know what the software would do, but a graphic diagram would be nice.) 

Next post: Strange Career Move 2 (January 2007)

Disaster in Iraq 2

Following Tony Blair's admission (to David Frost on al-Jazeera) that the Iraq invasion was a disaster, the Washington administration (having finally dumped Rumsfeld) has started to make similar noises.

Someone once said that the first casualty of war is truth. (For various theories about the origin of this phrase, see Guardian Notes and Queries.)

So what does it mean when statesmen finally admit something that most people already knew? What is the purpose of a belated truth?

One popular excuse for telling lies in wartime is to keep up morale. We must support our troops, therefore we must pretend that they are doing well even when they aren't.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! One falsehood leads to another, and it becomes harder and harder to abandon the deceit. The deceit becomes self-perpetuating. The first falsehood may have had some plausible purpose (effect) - support the troops, dishearten the enemy - but the purpose of the 50th falsehood is merely to provide cover for the previous 49.

When we realise someone is lying to us, this generates a hostile feeling. And when the lying SOB suddenly starts telling the truth, it is such a relief that it is sometimes tempting to forgive him everything. That's where it starts to get Machiavellian ...

See earlier posts: Disaster in Iraq, Real Audience.

See also Joan Didion "Cheney's Fatal Touch" (New York Review, October 5, 2006). Mark Danner "Iraq: The War of the Imagination" (New York Review, December 21, 2006).

Disaster in Iraq

Top story in the Daily Telegraph this morning: "Iraq invasion a disaster, Blair admits on Arab TV". The admission came in an interview Tony Blair gave to David Frost, broadcast on the new English-language service of al-Jazeera [al-Jazeera, BBC News]. Downing Street is saying that Tony Blair was just being polite to Frost, but BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson doesn't agree (Two Little Words).

All of the players in this story carry a lot of historical baggage.

• Tony Blair invested a lot of his political authority in the decision to invade Iraq. Some people are comparing this with Anthony Eden's disastrous intervention in Suez. Perhaps Blair's purpose now is to rescue his reputation for future historians.
  

• David Frost has a history of apparently soft interviews with world statesmen - most notoriously Richard Nixon. And yet it seems he hasn't lost his ability to extract the telling truth. Perhaps his apparent softness has exactly this purpose - to lull the statesman into a false sense of security. Telegraph writer Neil Tweedie comments that Blair is badly nipped by a vintage touch of Frost.
  

• al-Jazeera is seen in many quarters as a less-than-objective source on Middle Eastern affairs - indeed some American sources (including Fox News) commonly describe it as propaganda. By agreeing to be interviewed, Tony Blair is clearly trying to get his message across to a Middle East audience [BBC News comment]. Meanwhile, al-Jazeera now has an opportunity to demonstrate the quality (breadth? objectivity?) of its news to English-speaking viewers.
  

• The Daily Telegraph was the only serious UK newspaper to give this much prominence to the story. It is commonly seen as more right-wing than the others (including the Times), but its opinions are not always predictable on party lines. So what is the Daily Telegraph's agenda here - anti-Blair or pro-Arab, or just to upstage the Times?
  

• The Times does cover the story on its website: "Iraq war 'pretty much a disaster', Blair concedes" - but unlike the Daily Telegraph, the Times story repeats the characterization of al-Jazeera as propaganda. Perhaps News Corporation (which owns Fox News and The Times) feels more threatened by a rival news organization than the Telegraph Media Group does.

• And where does the BBC stand?
  

Multiple interacting systems - therefore multiple interacting purposes and effects.

Technorati tags: al-Jazeera Blair Iraq POSIWID

Purpose Tacked On Afterwards

There seems to be a common pattern in a lot of major (expensive, high-risk) initiatives. The politicians seem to have decided they want to do something, and then they cast around for some plausible justification.

But if the first purpose doesn't stick, they don't abandon the scheme. Oh no. They just make up a new purpose.

This pattern seems to apply to the UK Identity Card scheme (discussed in my previous post), as well as to the Iraq war (see my post Yadda Yadda Yadda, discussing the suggestion that the bringing of democracy to Iraq was an imaginary and inauthentic purpose).

The apparent advantage of this pattern is that schemes with imaginary or unstable purpose can never fail - in so far as we can almost always find some purpose or other that has been fulfilled. So there is practically no risk - at least for the politicians who promote these schemes with an enthusiasm that is not always shared by the voters and taxpayers.

However, schemes whose purpose is imaginary or unstable seem to be particularly vulnerable to mission creep and therefore grossly escalating costs. In order to escape one kind of failure (errors of execution), they generate worse kinds of failure (errors of planning, errors of intention).

And eventually the public realises it has been conned. So the politicians get the blame after all. (Or is this just wishful thinking on my part?)

Yadda Yadda Yadda

Over at the Duck of Minerva blog, Rodger is taken to task for saying "Yadda Yadda Yadda" in relation to the downfall of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi elections.

"Yes, Saddam is gone and brave Iraqis voted to select their new leaders. Yadda yadda yadda. Is the Bush administration serious about American national security -- or not?" [Iraq and 9/11]

"Why not leave the Yaddaing to the Kissinger and Scowcroft types?" [Comment by "a"]

"I was 'yaddaing' the empty repetition of the claimed successes in response now to every criticism of the obvious insecurity created by the Iraq war." [Should progressives be happy about Iraq's successes?]

Rodger and his fellow-bloggers on the Duck of Minerva talk a great deal about framing, but in this post he seems to have neglected to indicate the frame in which his words are to be taken. (Can I mention the Pope again here?)

As he now makes clear, Rodger is accusing the war supporters of empty repetition, repetition of (increasingly) empty words. In Lacanian thought [see note1 below], empty repetition is a kind of obsessive evasion, trying (often unsuccessfully) to conceal what one really thinks or desires.

Many progressives simply don't believe that the purpose of the Iraq invasion and occupation ever really had anything to do with bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. And it is sometimes hard to explain the strategy of the occupying forces in terms of this purpose. Therefore it is tempting to regard this purpose as an imaginary one [see note2 below].

What I think Rodger is saying, therefore, is that the frequent invocation of Iraqi democracy and freedom is not an authentic expression of a deep commitment for the human rights and natural dignity of the Iraqi people.

He may be right, but I am not sure that's the most important thing. The words may be insincere or cynical, but they have a profound effect on the devastated country nonetheless. People are dying every day for this "yadda yadda", so it had better be worth dying for. I'm not optimistic, I don't see a good outcome here, but I really hope I'm wrong.


[Note 1] Lacan's distinction between full speech and empty speech is derived from Heidegger's distinction between Rede (discourse) and Gerede (chatter). "The subject seems to be talking in vain about someone who . . . can never become one with the assumption of his desire." [Source: NoSubject wiki: Speech]

[Note 2] For Lacan, "the imaginary is far from inconsequential; it has powerful effects in the real". [Source: NoSubject wiki: Imaginary]

del.icio.us tags: POSIWID
Technorati tags: Iraq Lacan POSIWID

Papa Ratzi 5

I have just read an extremely interesting analysis of Pope Benedict's lecture and the ensuing row on the Duck of Minerva blog - Misdirected Offense. 

In my earlier comment Papa Ratzi 3, I wondered why His Holiness had chosen to include the offending quotation, which didn't seem to add any logical weight to his argument. As PTJ points out, the lecture wasn't actually about Islam at all, but about the place of force within Christian tradition. So why did the Pope talk about Moslem violence, when history contains so many examples of Christian violence? 

PTJ suggests that the Pope was merely adopting a cheap rhetorical trick against Christians who disagree with his Hellenistic position. Many Christians have believed that God is above reason, but the Pope chooses to associate this belief with Islam (which he regards as an alien and inferior religion), and then uses the ad hominem fallacy to dismiss this belief without proper argument. 

Whom was the Pope addressing in the offending lecture? Some people have noted that the Pope's words have caused some violence in the Moslem world, and imagine that this violence somehow proves the Pope correct. (It doesn't - he wasn't talking about that kind of violence.) And imagine that he was talking directly to the Moslem world. Surely we cannot see the Pope as some kind of provocateur, deliberately stirring up trouble in the Moslem world in order to demonstrate that Christianity is more civilized? This seems extremely unlikely, if only because this Pope probably doesn't think the superiority of Christianity needs any demonstration. 

PTJ constructs a system frame in order to make sense of the out-of-context quotation - what assumptions does the Pope seem to be making about his audience, in order that this quotation might contribute (albeit fallaciously) to his argument. According to PTJ, the Pope thought he was addressing Christians who share his ignorance about (and aversion to) Islam. If Islam is the Other, then the only acceptable course for Catholics is to believe the opposite of whatever Moslems believe. 

In short, PTJ assumes that the use of the offending quotation was carefully chosen to produce some (rhetorical) effect within some (academic) context. This explanation appears to be sufficient to explain the Pope's original speech, as well as his professed surprise when the speech was widely interpreted as anti-Islamic. Within the system frame of giving an academic lecture, it might seem reasonable for the Pope to ignore effects outside this frame. But this system frame is embedded in a much larger system frame. The Pope has advisors who can warn him of the wider effects of his words, but only if he choses to listen to these advisors. 

In this situation, the Pope's lack of awareness and lack of consideration must be regarded as (the consequence of) a strategic choice.

Conspiracy Theory

POSIWID appears to encourage the creation of conspiracy theories - looking for the hidden agenda that will explain actions - especially when the official story doesn't seem to add up.

But it is one thing to search open-mindedly for a hidden agenda, and another thing entirely to presume its existence without evidence. Sometimes it is not conspiracy theory but chaos (cock-up) theory that best explains some complex series of events.

For example, Anthony's post entitled Boom Bang-a-Bang attributes the latest events in the Middle East to the cock-up theory, and rejects the "received wisdom" that the bombing of the UN Lebanon post (BBC report) was a deliberate act.

The BBC report ends with an interestingly ambiguous comment:

"The UN post was on high ground, in an area once occupied by Israel."

Anthony's reason for choosing cock-up over conspiracy is that he cannot see how this outcome delivers any advantage to the Israelis. Doubtless correct in this case, although of course well-crafted conspiracies are often complex and obscure - like grandmaster chess - and not intended for public scrutiny. By arguing in this way, Anthony is leaving himself the option to advocate conspiracy theories in other cases, where the balance of advantage may be different.

But I need to say more about the relationship between POSIWID and conspiracy. The purposes to which POSIWID refers are not always consciously planned purposes, but can often be emergent and unplanned. Complex systems often resist and frustrate the actions (even the conspiracies) of the leading actors - it is as if these systems had a purpose of their own. Thus POSIWID is just as amenable to cock-up explanations.

del.icio.us tags: POSIWID
Technorati tags: conspiracy POSIWID

Escalation

Yet another tense situation in the Middle East, where the actions of both sides seems to result in escalation rather than resolution.

BBC News: Israel PM warns of 'escalation' (July 5), Israelis to escalate Gaza raids (July 11), Hezbollah capture marks new escalation (July 12), Israel blockades Lebanese waters (July 13).

Recent commentary (via Technorati): Bush Faces Major Choice Amid Escalation (Jim Lobe, IPS News), Worse and Worse (Yoav, NewZionist).

POSIWID tells us that escalation may sometimes be a deliberate outcome of some tactic, not merely an unfortunate side-effect. For example, escalation is sometimes used as a tactic to convince people that you are serious about something. (Rodger makes this point in Framing Iraq: A Lesson from the Vietnam Experience on the Duck of Minerva blog.) Tactical escalation is also used to build support for your position, although it also tends to build support for your opponent as well [source: Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colerado]. Louis Kreisberg (Beyond Intractability) advocates non-violent modes of Constructive Escalation.

Escalation is also an act of reframing - a way of refusing to treat some incident in isolation, but as part of a long-running chronic situation. "This has been going on for generations ... we cannot continue tolerating this kind of thing ... weakness now would encourage further incidents in future ... and so on." In other words, it is an act that is intended to be interpreted by the other side - a message calling for a response. (Both fight and flight are symmetric responses to violence, because they take the violence on its own terms. Non-violent resistance to a violent situation is an asymmetric response, in so far as it reframes the initial violence.)

del.icio.us tags: framing POSIWID
Technorati tags: escalation Hezbollah Israel Middle East POSIWID

President Bush regrets

President Bush had vowed to speak candidly with Chinese President Hu Jintao about affording more political and social freedom to Chinese citizens. During President Hu's speech, a protestor interrupted. Protest and free speech are fundamental American values. But not apparently when these conflict with diplomatic hospitality. The protestor was silenced. President Bush apologized to President Hu, and begged him to continue. Bush later said he regretted the unfortunate incident. As Bill Petti puts it on the Duck of Minerva blog: Do as I say, and, apparently, as I do.

when citizens protest unjust policies they should be stifled, charged with a crime, and those who previously touted the virtues of freedom of speech and political expression will apologize for it

What is the point of diplomatic talks between America and China, and what is their effect? Do they persuade China to adopt American values, or do they persuade America to adopt Chinese values? 

 

[source: BBC News April 21, 2006]