The enigma that is N. Korea

Normally the death of the leader of a half-starved country with few natural resources would not garner much attention. But that major leaders like Hilary C. had something to say on it is a signal of importance.

N. Korea has nuclear expertise. They have mastered the whole nuke cycle, all the way up to ballistic missiles. And that gets the attention of all the big boys from USA and China to Russia and Japan.

What is also interesting is how one sided their power is. It is all 'hard power' military, missiles, intel., border patrol, the works.

There was a debate in the last decade about hard versus soft power. Soft power is the influence of culture to achieve your goals instead of bullets. War is not unfortunately out of style yet but it is costly and no longer contributes to the national interest. Lots of smart folks know that and started praising soft power. I have said to my students that the old show Baywatch killed more so-called terrorists than did fighter jets.

N. Korea offers insight into the opposite extreme. Lots of hard power. Then all they have to do talk scary and everyone worldwide perks up their ears.

You would think that a combi-nation of hard and soft power would be ideal. But the US has not shown that to be the case lately. That is because the best strategy is smart power, which means something like knowing when to hold them and when to fold them. Unfortunately too many interest groups and politicos get invested in current circumstances and refuse to let failures end.

Right now everyone is criticizing Europe for failure but watch out! They have hard, soft, and smart power! I will explain what I mean next time.   

The rise of New Europe

There may or may not be a crisis in the Eurozone. My take is that at worse it is a crisis for the financial sector, but that society's other sectors would muddle through should that be allowed to fail (examples: Iceland, Sweden).

What the political sector does is another mater however. For them, this crisis is a godsend. They are in the drvier's seat again, which is always exciting. I think that Europe's politicos will come around to an arrangement that stabilizes the financial sector, allows them to continue in office, and offers them more benefits from staying in the EU than out of it.

We are long past the point when nationalism matters in W. Europe. National interests will not drive the future of the EU. It will not be France, Germany or Italy that makes the difference. Those referents will be modified into a new amalgam called Europe.

You see, the EU government has become more and more detached from the nations of the Europe, i.e. the will of its peoples. Witness their numerous rejections of Europe in referendums. That detached condition had to change.

Postmodernism is nothing if not a lesson in ambivalent politics. Europe will end its purely fictional existence (which was still Modernist) and trade it for ambivalence. The referent will become less clearly defined as France, Netherlands, etc. Only then can Brussels represent Europe.   

Supercommittee fails so America wins

Most analysts that predicted the failure of the much vaunted US congressional super-committee on deficit reduction predicted failure because 'nothing gets done' in DC anymore.

But what is the postmodern view? That tells us that nothing political happens by accident or mistake. (Why? check out Foucault's concept of 'productive power).

Ergo, this recent political 'failure' could be read as a success. How? Well one problem it helps solve is the overly strong dollar, which will hurt exports and what few decent jobs are left in the USA. US Treasuries have just been too hot lately. (Frankly EU and the US trade back on forth on this in a game of chicken over who has the least valued major currency).

This failure also brings back attention to DC and the drama of feuding parties and a President seeking a path to success. Nothing is worse than seeming irrelevant. It's good for the national media too which lacked good stories for pundits to chat up.

Sounds like a win to me. Might even be good for Main Street too. Economists say deep cuts will throw USA into a depression.

The Greek referendum in a Post-TARP World

There may come a point when historians talk about times before and after TARP. That policy by Bush and co. was the equivalent of ancient Rome's Sulla, who upset the longstanding balance between the society's estates or classes with in-your-face policies that promoted one group over another. Recall that bailout did not make it past the House of Representatives when it was first voted upon, sending Wall Street into a tizzy.

Now the Greek PM has set the stage for round two of this great drama. Wall Street tumbled again today at the prospect that 'the people' (of Greece) will vote down the latest TARP plan (for Europe this time). They are right to fear for the European voters have always voted against Europe, the EU, and its plans.

A referendum is worrisome to world elites for it leaves no room for maneuver. The banking crisis of Europe cannot be dragged out as it has been this far. It is a showdown at the OK corral, which is a relatively unfamiliar scene today.

Obama ends Iraq war

The last time Obama ended the Iraq war he said that all 'combat troops' would return home. That was a signal to observers that the Yanks were in to stay, 50000 strong, as 'trainers' or what not.

Today was a different story. Most of the information I have heard lately is that Iraq is to be cut loose. Effective  sovereignty for Iraq: defined in political science as the monopoly over the use of violence. US troops will remain nearby but in Kuwait.

And so now begins a new cold war as Saudis and Iranians support proxies inside Iraq. They will stalemate, for now. But civilians there will continue to die suddenly

A world without Gadhafi

World leaders today are a boring bunch...technocrats often, or worse, ideologues. Gadhafi cannot be classified as either a technocrat or as an ideologue (that is for sure).

Gadhafi was the first postmodern leader. He altered his look and temper often, no doubt purposely, as part of his ruling style. These changes prevented enemies from grabbing hold of his image, fixing it as evil, mad, brilliant, stupid, or anything else in particular, thereby making it more difficult to target him. That's what will be missed...the lengths he went through to play with power and to dominate it (watch Berlusconi for some of the same moves).

What arises as a  serious question today is whether his pomo style was necessary to govern a place like Libya in modern times, whether it was a function of his own personality, or both? This is an important question because it is the question that Libya faces now.  

Occupy Wall Street: Fair play

What's it mean? I have not met them and cannot speak for them. But my take is that they saw Wall Street get a bailout and so, quite rightfully, they want a bailout too. They are 99% after all.

Wall Street banks not only got TARP from Congress/Presidents but the Fed Reserve secretly coughed up $3 Trillion for them. Don't believe me? Just check out the recent audit that Ron Paul forced from Bernanke and the Fed.

It's that simple.

So, since Wall Street has been such a great location for handouts why not wait there too for a big handout?