Category Archives: Democracy

And Another Thing…

Posted on March 15, 2021 | 1 comment

Last week Zachery Tyson and I published in Foreign Affairs our indictment of the current Intelligence Community. There was a lot that Zach and I wanted to say and some of it ended up in the clipboard buffer. So let me make a couple of those points here.

One of the reasons why the IC should modernize and become more open is because it has a part to play in addressing the information and truth crisis eroding American democracy. I’m not exactly sure what that part looks like, other than it is a supporting role. But I’m persuaded that a more open, collaborative approach to making sense of the world would help citizens have just a bit more confidence in the information practices and decisions of its government.

The internet has all but destroyed the ability of so-called experts and elites to claim they know better. Actually let me fix that sentence. The failure of organizations, governments, scientists, businesses, and academics to adjust their processes to the reality of the internet has undermined their credibility. So many organizations, not just the Intelligence Community, have persisted with closed, antiquated processes that just sow suspicion, distrust, and conspiracy theories. When so much other information is available, and not all of it is junk, closed information networks and decision processes no longer inspire confidence.

Obviously many parts of any intelligence process could not be made open to the public, but some parts could be. In fact the Intelligence Community already does some of that with its Global Trends Project, but instead of a study being published every few years, imagine if the Intelligence Community maintained a dynamic, real-time information service for the American public, and the world. One issue that could be extensively covered on such a platform is the worldwide COVID-19 crisis. Would its existence have prevented or ameliorated some of the information controversies we’re still living with? I think so if, for example, the platform was interactive, allowed for a moderated but vibrant debate, permitted users to up- and down-vote information, and adapted to changing user preferences. Perhaps such a platform could be a collaboration among government, business, and nonprofits. Imagine if the Gates Foundation and the Koch Foundation could both support such a platform and a diverse group of citizens served as its board of directors?

Fanciful, right? But for democracies to prosper in the future, more of these types of approaches will be necessary.

Some folks commenting on our Foreign Affairs piece have noted that we didn’t say enough about the role Artificial Intelligence will play in the future. Fair enough. But I don’t think that reengineering the current intelligence process with Artificial Intelligence will make it that much better, only presumably a little less human. Using AI to summarize thousands of documents will only manufacture the same uninspiring type of work that many human analysts produce today. Policymakers will find both equally useful…or not. Using enhanced processing networks to pursue new ideas in sensemaking holds much more promise; imagine if AI, by scouring millions of images, could identify subconscious “tells” that would give us some insight as to the mood or veracity of Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. Now that might catch a decisionmaker’s attention.

Many of the comments on the piece focus on the Open Source angle but tend to overlook another important recommendation–to supplement formal intelligence products with a more dynamic, less formal, and less hierarchical approach toward assessing breaking events and new information. Some of my favorite information and analysis sites on the internet operate that way: often the most informative and provocative content lives in the comments sections attached to articles. And of course that’s the strength of Twitter: threaded discussions where hundreds of individuals comment and provide perspective on issues of common concern. Ensuring quality on such a platform would be key but there are many useful approaches here, from moderation to some type of certification model before intelligence officers could participate. If the medical profession has been able to make a similar model work, I would hope that committed national security professionals could succeed as well.

But at a minimum, efforts to reform the Intelligence Community have to avoid the Athena complex: the tendency for reformers to overengineer their change proposals as if they had perfect vision on which new ideas will work best in the future. (Like the Goddess of Wisdom Athena who emerged fully formed from the forehead of Zeus.) As Zach and I suggest, we’ll be better off starting small and letting the user community determine where the platform goes.

Who knows where fate will take us!

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In Normal Times…

Posted on January 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking about how White Houses in the past would have prepared for the events of last week. I know that’s a stretch given that it’s hard to imagine any other administration but Trump’s contesting an election past all legal and reasonable recourse and/or encouraging a demonstration against Congress (and a Vice-President) performing their constitutional duties. Nevertheless, if you compare what might have happened in normal times with what actually appears to have happened last week, you get a sense of a dangerously dysfunctional administration.

During my time in government, the FBI Director had at least a weekly time slot with POTUS during the morning security briefings during which he would brief on internal security issues. As I remember it, the Director of National Intelligence and the POTUS briefer would also attend, although I can imagine a topic so sensitive that the room would be cleared.

The FBI Director arguably should have been aware of the reports of criminal plotting by some planning to demonstrate at the Capitol on January 6. We know that at least one FBI officer had warned of the possibility of violence and that the warning was shared with other law enforcement agencies. We also know that law enforcement officials had advised known troublemakers not to go to the DC event and that they had enough information in advance to arrest a Proud Boys leader as he arrived in the District. I haven’t seen any reporting, however, on whether or not the FBI Director was also directly told of this assessment. (This is a common problem/failing of warning intelligence; it isn’t always shared with everyone who needs to know. And even when it is shared appropriately, many people don’t take it seriously.)

Assuming the FBI Director was aware of the reporting, then it would have been his duty to inform the White House, if not the President, about the possibility of criminal activity at the Stop the Steal rally. If they still occur, the weekly briefing would have been the appropriate setting for the FBI Director to bring up the issue, although I doubt the briefing is still a regular event. It would have been a sharp “speak truth” moment but a necessary one for the President’s own safety. Informed by the FBI briefing, POTUS and/or his advisers could have chosen to cancel his speech or more likely explicitly warn the crowd not to act unlawfully.

So that’s how the process would have worked in a more normal administration. My guess would be that this process has decayed or been completely abandoned. I’ve always been opposed to process for its own sake, but I have to admit that this scenario highlights the importance of having a reliable, rigorous approach to crucial issues, such as national security.

In addition to highlighting the importance of a consistent approach to national security, the consideration of how the scenario would have unfolded in a more normal administration reveals several other questions that need asking.

First is how aware was the FBI Director of the threats that his officers were picking up on social networks prior to January 6? If he wasn’t aware, then he needs to reexamine how information flows in the Bureau. If he was aware, did he forward the warning to other parts of the government? Did he for example inform the Secret Service, responsible for the security of the President and Vice-President? (One would hope so.) Might that be the reason the President did not accompany the marchers to the Capitol, after saying he would? Would a desire to avoid having to answer such questions explains the FBI Director’s lack of public comment to date?

But if the President and/or White House were in fact warned about the potential for violence and did not alter their plans, then their complicity appears clear, even if they were not involved in the planning beforehand. If they weren’t informed about the threats, then they are probably to blame for creating an environment where government officials don’t want to deliver bad news or see no purpose in speaking truth to power. A dangerously dysfunctional administration.

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Political instability in US likely to continue even after Trump’s departure

Posted on January 10, 2021 | 2 comments

(What follows is a mock analysis piece written from the perspective of an intelligence officer in a more or less neutral country, such as Switzerland or Norway. They’ve been asked the question by the policymaker: Is it over? I’ve written it in the style of intelligence analysis I was trained in and propagated for several decades: Make your main point in short paragraphs and then provide supporting data or amplification in bullets. The idea being that a reader should be able to get your main points even if they only had time to glance at the piece.)

Just a few days after the violent occupation of the US Capitol, American politicians have returned to the partisan squabbling that fails to address the country’s widening social, political, racial and economic fault lines.

  • Twitter’s permanent ban of Donald Trump was necessary given the possibility he could again move to incite supporters, but Republicans have used it to pivot to a more popular topic: defense of “free speech.”
  • Democratic Speaker Pelosi’s move to impeach the President again, intended to demonstrate that Trump’s reckless, if not premeditated, behavior demands consequences, nevertheless serves to divert attention from the declining legitimacy of the American democratic system.

Public opinion polls indicate the overwhelming majority of Americans disapproved of the attack, but nevertheless just under 10% expressed support for a violent effort to overturn democratic elections. Analysis of posts on social media platforms reveals the assault on the Capitol had been planned for weeks; recent monitoring suggests that more protests are likely in the run up to and during Inauguration Day on January 20

  • In addition to Inauguration Day, protesters are declaring January 17 as a day of “armed marches” on all 50 US State Capitols and again in Washington, D.C.
  • The recent purge by Twitter and other social media companies of hundreds of thousands of extremists and QANON supporters from their platforms is intended to disrupt extremists’ planning efforts. However, extremists likely will migrate to fringe sites and closed messaging applications to communicate, platforms that are harder for authorities to access and monitor.

President-elect Biden believes he can calm the political turmoil and restitch the union, but he faces significant obstacles.

  • Polling from December indicated that 75% of Republicans rejected the election results. This is a historically high number; in 2016 most Democrats (65%) accepted the legitimacy of Trump’s victory. The skepticism of the Republican base will embolden GOP legislators to obstruct Biden’s agenda.
  • Ending the COVID19 pandemic is Biden’s highest priority, but efforts to do so, such as encouraging mask mandates and restricting social gatherings, will only further antagonize extremist groups, many of whom have staked their “freedom” agendas on opposing COVID-19-related restrictions.

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American Exceptionalism

Posted on November 3, 2020 | 1 comment

I look forward to a return to civil political discussions. I do not demonize those with whom I disagree politically. In fact my views encompass many parts of the political spectrum, and I suspect this is true for many of us. Also, political and social views are constantly emerging and evolving.

Today’s snapshot:

1. More often than not government (all) regulations do not entirely achieve their intended effects. Their unintended effects can be positive or negative. This is due to the world’s and society’s infinite complexity. Thus, I am skeptical of most grand efforts to “fix a problem”.

2. Immigration is a net plus for societies and nations. Most closed and static systems wither and die. Illegal immigration is unfortunate but the individuals involved are humans. If you can’t stop the illegal immigrants at some point the only good option is to normalize their status. The world’s population is stabilizing and will begin to decline in the second half of this century. This will undermine societies and economies whose systems assume population growth. All countries need vibrant young populations to pay taxes and support programs such as welfare safety nets. By 2050 all countries will be actively competing for immigrants.

3. Abortion is horrible. Forcing women to be prisoners of their bodies is horrible. Given that I cannot achieve clarity on this issue I think it’s best left to personal choice.

4. Climate change is real and it is currently driven by humans. Given that regulatory approaches are often flawed, solutions should be emergent and market and locally-based. (See point 1) Thirty years ago I was debating pollution and energy with a friend in an English pub. He was advocating a large government program. I asserted that the first successful electric car would be created by a private company.

5. Humans form associations to solve problems or take advantage of opportunities that can only be done at scale. Governments and large corporations are examples of such associations. Epidemic diseases need to be tackled at scale.

6. Human ingenuity and innovation are everywhere. So is human fecklessness, selfishness, and evil. Large organizations and societies try to maximize the first category and suppress the second. It’s hard. But the key point is that both large organizations and governments are staffed by the same species–adorably imperfect humans.

7. Decent health care should be available and/or affordable for everyone. Unfortunately designing an equitable health care system is particularly complex. Some nationalized health systems–such as the NHS in the UK–suffer from chronic underfunding because once you nationalize health care it has to be funded through taxes and you know how people feel about taxes.

8. Altruism is advantageous from an evolutionary perspective. Communities with altruistic individuals do better than communities without. The Golden Rule is just about the only philosophy we need.

9. Ideologies are unhelpful. They narrow your options and simplify complex reality.

10. Skin color is irrelevant to human performance.

11. America is the world’s most multicultural nation. That is its only true exceptionalism. We will prove to be either a successful example or a tragic one.

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Words Fail Me

Posted on June 16, 2017 | 1 comment
I’ve been thinking about writing for a while but it’s difficult to know what to say. So many horrible things have happened around the world it’s hard to keep track. Although I still believe that measured using decades and centuries–not months and cable news–humanity is demonstrably improving, we are nevertheless suffering through a difficult period. I would call it a patch but that implies we know it will end soon, and we don’t know that at all.
I was cheered when French President Macron won and UK Prime Minister Theresa May was humbled. (I’m always encouraged when any grand political figure is skewered by their ego-driven calculations.) I don’t find anything in the US cheering. Partisan politics, having created this situation, are unlikely to help resolve it. Although it is tempting to blame President Trump for our problems in the US, he is undoubtedly a symptom of the pathology, not the fundamental illness. The anarchist in me says that it’s the very fact we have a political process which is the problem. Powerful institutions attract huge egos and make partisan, petty monsters out of all of us…and each of us.
The conviction that there exists a right side and a wrong side is, in my opinion, a disastrous delusion that costs us dearly. There appear to be two fundamental secular ways of thinking about the human condition, about the best way to live our lives. (I say secular because there are other religion-based approaches which I don’t dismiss; they essentially argue that our secular concerns are irrelevant.) One is that humans attain their ultimate greatness as individuals. The other argues that humans attain greatness in community with others. Where I think we veer off-base is when we think one of these philosophies is destined to prevail. I suspect the truth is that both are right to some degree and that both are wrong  in excess. Given that the two appear irreconcilable, the job of our political process is to mediate the tension between the two, regulating the pendulum to avoid abrupt and destabilizing swings.
This is not a new idea. In the book The Discovery of Chance, the biography of the Russian philosopher Alexander Herzen by Aileen Kelly, she writes about the French philosopher Pierre Leroux who insisted on an

ineradicable conflict between the human drive toward social solidarity and the individual’s urge for self-realization. In this…perception he was ahead of his time…In the next decade {Pierre Joseph} Proudhon asserted that conflict between the individual and society was not a temporary aberration but “the very condition” of social existence.

Methinks that gets it just about right.
Can anything be done? Perhaps we need to pull together a corporate board for America. Its membership would be comprised of individuals who each side hates the most but who don’t currently hold political office. The so-called conservatives could identify their bete noires, perhaps Tim Cook, Oprah, Bill Gates. The so-called liberals could name theirs: the Koch Brothers, Peter Thiel, Peggy Noonan. The job of the corporate board would not be to make policy but simply to issue statements that they can all agree to. And when they can’t come to an agreement on a policy question–say health care, they issue a document that dispassionately lays out the most important areas of disagreement.
I’m being completely silly in making this suggestion. My only point is to demonstrate how unhelpful, in fact disastrous, our current partisan political process has become. And how difficult it is to come up with an alternative.
Ideology is the enemy of common sense. And the competition for political power has become a destabilizing arms race. It is long past time to demobilize. But no one knows how.

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Posted in Change, Democracy, Future Thinking

The Trump Civil Servant

Posted on January 23, 2017 | 1 comment

Two controversies this inaugural weekend led me to reflect on the challenges for federal employees during the incoming administration of President Trump: the retweets by the official twitter account of the National Park Service and the content of President Trump’s speech at the CIA. Both were wrong for largely the same reason: they injected partisanship where it does not belong: in the execution of the duties of federal government employees.

The issue of political activity by federal employees is the subject of rather important legislation–the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibits almost all federal employees from engaging in most forms of political, partisan activity. Of course, when a new administration takes office, the directions and policies of cabinet departments will change, and civil servants are expected to carry out these new policies whatever their previous and/or personal views.

In the case of the National Park Service, its twitter account retweeted comments that had partisan implications, one comparing the size of inaugural crowds, and the other criticizing changes in the content of the White House web site. Although defenders of the Park Service would say the comments are innocuous, they really weren’t. They were not-so-subtle digs at the incoming Trump administration and as such just plain inappropriate. In fact,  the Park Service has been prohibited by law since 1995 from estimating crowd sizes at events on the National Mall, in part because these estimates can become politically controversial.

The same general principles–federal civil employees should not engage in partisan political activity during work hours–can help us think about President Trump’s visit to the CIA on Saturday,. The fact of the visit is not a problem–but the content of the speech was a disaster. The President had no business suggesting that CIA employees overwhelming voted for him. A CIA officer’s personal views should have no bearing on the performance of her duties. I know this is a high bar and, in reality, impossible to reach. Cognitive science has shown that no human can be a perfectly objective being. But the future of intelligence activities in democratic societies depends upon every employee striving for this goal.

US law stipulates the federal employee oath of office:

An individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services, shall take the following oath: “I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” This section does not affect other oaths required by law.

(Pub. L. 89–554, Sept. 6, 1966, 80 Stat. 424.)
The first commandment for federal civil servants it to uphold the US constitution, but there’s a lot of squishy room for interpretation in the phrase “faithfully discharge the duties of the office…” I think most Americans would think that it means execute the law regardless of your personal preferences and follow the policy wishes of the US President and members of Congress, as long as they are legal and constitutional. All new administrations are challenging for civil servants. But I expect this transition to be particularly tumultuous given that President Trump intends to depart radically from the practices of previous US governments across a broad range of issues. To avoid government crises, both the incoming administration and the civil service will need to exercise good judgment and benefit from a lot of luck. Seriously…a lot of luck.

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Posted in Democracy, Government Performance, Leadership, Nature of Federal Workers, Organizational Dynamics

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Calling Republican Candidates

Posted on December 15, 2011 | 1 comment

Culled from Headlines:

Mitt calls Newt Zany

Newt calls Romney Liberal

Newt calls himself a Real Politik Wilsonian

Bachman calls Newt Frugal Socialist

Paul Calls Bachman an Idiot

Paul calls Newt an Idiot

Paul calls Perry a Cheerleader

Paul calls Romney Stupid

Paul calls Santorum Stupid

McCain calls Paul Hitler Appeaser

McCain calls Romney Flipflopper

(Putin calls McCain nuts)

Romney calls Himself Middle Class

Huntsman calls Romney Well-Lubricated Weather Vane

Perry calls Romney Fat Cat

Bachman calls Perry Naive

Perry calls Cain Brother

Cain calls Perry Insensitive

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We’re All in the Same Bathtub

Posted on October 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

When I was much younger, 34 years ago, I ended up having to take Economics 101, 102 before I could start graduate school. I was in the DC area, poor (in the way college kids are poor, which is different from how struggling families are poor), and so I enrolled at Prince George’s Community College. The professor, whose name I can’t remember, was a smart fellow, an engaging teacher, and clearly quite conservative in his economic and political orientation. It was fun and I learned a lot.

During one afternoon lecture, I remember Prof getting quite excited about how wrong it was for government to promulgate laws and regulations that imposed non-economic costs on businesses. How it messed up the purity of economics, I guess. At the time he was citing examples such as the relatively new requirement for companies to control pollution. Everyone in the class nodded in agreement but I decided I couldn’t let that one go. I raised my hand and noted, based on my not very commanding knowledge of economic history, that over the centuries many different “noneconomic” costs had been imposed on businesses: they couldn’t employ children just to get the cheapest labor; they couldn’t force workers to toil in unhealthy conditions; they couldn’t build cars that were firetraps. In the end, it seemed to me then and it still seems to me now, businesses are just another element in society and culture, and they essentially have no choice but to operate in accordance with whatever the socio-cultural norms are at the time. Being a business doesn’t exempt them, neither does the argument that certain costs are noneconomic. Given that currency itself is a social construct, in the final analysis all costs are noneconomic, or so it seems to me. (I know that last sentence doesn’t really make any sense, but it does accurately convey my thinking (muddy) here.)

The “occupy” events of the past few weeks and the growing discussion of Corporate Social Responsibility have reminded me of that Economics 101 class. I can’t help but think that we keep making silly distinctions about what category things fall into–such as economic vs. noneconomic, domestic vs. international, nature vs. man-made–when the rather obvious reality is: We’re All in the Same Bathtub. The “occupy” protests really are about trying to change the current social norms as they apply to business and profit. My guess is the very act of protesting is already changing those norms, but it is also probably true that the fact the protests are occurring indicates the norms are already changing.

In doing a little research for this post, I found an interesting discussion on this blog about economic and noneconomic costs in society. The following expresses what I’m thinking much better than I ever could:

Donohue-White submits (with very good reason) that every “market economy is shaped by the culture in which it exists, and, in turn, it affects the daily practices and customs of the people that comprise it.” By the rather broad term culture, she means the sum of “customs, traditions, and practices of a people.” In turn, the market exerts an influence on the culture in which it subsists, fostering particular sets of virtues or vices. Market and culture–while certainly conceptually distinct–are inextricably bound up in the concrete, practical affairs of a people. On this view, the market cannot be properly evaluated without recourse to the culture and society that shapes it AND to the impact the market has on this same culture and society. The “economic rationality” exhibited by many contemporary corporations seems to be largely devoid of the consideration of non-economic “costs,” particularly with respect to treatment of workers (wage, outsourcing, lay-offs), wealth accumulation and disregard for local and expansive tradition.

Because we’re all in the same bathtub, the argument that socially responsible behavior is not relevant to corporations or doesn’t make good business sense just falls apart.  US companies for example are already feeling the consequences of our declining education system. They can’t find the highly skilled workers they need, or at least not enough of them. Their transportation costs are rising because of the decaying transportation system. Internationally, I remember people making the argument that Somalia was not worth anyone’s attention, and so we ignored it. Ten years later, Somali pirates over the last two years have cost business $7-12 billion once you count all the related costs.

As automation and internet networks intrude into every line of business, I’m betting these changes will not only cost jobs; they will eventually shrink the size of corporations, including their profits and revenues. I can imagine a day when corporations evolve away from being primarily money-making activities to actually embracing their social responsibilities as one of the fundamental reasons for their existence. Business and government both will become less important organizing concepts for society. At first corporations will embrace greater community involvement as a clever way to market what they do; eventually I think some of these community activities may actually end up generating revenues for them and perhaps creating new types of jobs for the economy. They may no longer be profit-making entities, although they will still make money. Already I think you can see signs of this in the rise of NGO’s and other nonprofits in the world economy. Public Services International notes that NGO’s are now the 8th largest economy in the world, employing more than 19 million paid workers. The US is currently home to about 1.5 million nonprofits, with 30-50K being created every year.

Being in the same bathtub applies to the world economy as well. When the bathwater gets dirty–i.e. during the global financial crisis–everyone suffers. Until we discover sentient (and prosperous) life on other planets, we will have to find a way to make this financial system work, despite its imbalances. There is simply no other place for China, or any other country, to invest its trillions.

One final link. The latest piece in the Harvard Business Review by Rosabeth Moss Kanter powerfully discusses some of these dynamics. Money quote:

Only if leaders think of themselves as builders of social institutions can they master today’s changes and challenges.

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Turkish Insights

Posted on September 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

Today is my 8th day in Turkey, a country I had not been to until now. (I’ve had the good fortune to visit much of the world, with the exception of Latin America and Asia, which are underrepresented in my travels.) I had no idea before the trip began that this journey would be such an eye-opener. Turkey is bursting with the new energy coursing through the planet. Unlike the US and the West, which at this moment appear overwhelmed by problems of their own making and undermined by an epic clash in values—particularly in the United States, Turkey strikes you as a country optimistically committed to its future. I know Turkey has problems—after all every society has, but they do not appear to be defeating the optimism of the Turkish people.

Some impressions I’ve made:

Turkey is pointed toward the East and has the opportunity this century to truly optimize its natural position as the connector between the East and the West. I suspect, however, that Turkish businessmen and the Government, if forced to choose, will declare “Go East, young man.” Flying around on Turkish airlines I’ve studied their route map. Today, they fly to 14 destinations in India, China, and the rest of Asia, compared to six destinations in the Americas, 4 in the US, 1 to Canada, and an intriguing connection between Istanbul and Sao Paolo, Brazil. True, Turkish Airlines has an impressive flight network in Europe, flying to nine German cities alone, but this is almost matched by its comprehensive coverage of the ‘stans, other former Soviet Republics, and the Middle East.

Turkey is still traveling on the uphill slope of its potential curve. Turkey is edgy in a good way. Just a short walk on the streets of Istanbul reveals all the cracks and fissures in the society. For example, every possible perspective on the role of women is seen walking on the boulevards: the great majority of women dress Western but head scarves and veils are also common, particularly in Istanbul. But most people on the street seem to be happily exploring how all these different value structures can best fit together, rather than choosing to believe there is a problem. It is altogether common, for example, to see women eating together at a restaurant, dressed in the full range from Vogue magazine to village traditional. I’m not familiar enough with Turkish politics to know if this generosity of acceptance extends fully to their politicians. I suspect that it doesn’t, knowing that politics, at least in the modern era, seem to thrive more on dwelling on problems than on devising solutions. But I can’t imagine Turkish politics has yet sunk to the level of American politicians, who are now fashioning their campaign platforms around our differences.  I’ve asked our tour guides questions, for example, about Turkey’s attitude toward Greece. My questions are dismissed as silly; we’ve grown beyond that. If only the West could learn again how to grow past problems, rather than dwell on them.

Turkey, I think, is not so often discussed when we talk about Islam, politics, and the Muslim religion, but we need to focus on it (and Indonesia) more as we think about how Islam will contribute to the setting of new global norms in the 21st century. Turkey, at least, strikes me as a very positive example. On September 11th, between 8 and 9 am East Coast Time, our tour group was sitting in Suleyman’s mosque in Istanbul, listening to our guide explain Islam. About halfway through the talk, many members of our group made the connection between the date and our context, and I think many of us—but not all—were happier to be in a mosque than to be in the US at that very moment. Turkey’s Islamic identity produces some interesting nuances in its relations with China. The Turks consider the Uigers to be part of the ancestral Turkish nation; the two languages have many similarities. So when we think about how international politics will evolve in the decades to come, one mental model we need to discard is that all situations involving significant differences will involve the US. You can imagine, for example, tensions between a country such as Turkey and China developing over the question of how China treats its Muslim population.

I could list more impressions, at this point all positive. Social media seems to be everywhere, for example. But the bottom line for me and many in our tour group, including veteran financial advisers and investment types, is that Turkey is much more appropriate exemplar for the world today than the US. And that was an impression I had no expectation having when I arrived.

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America’s Government: the Worst of Both Worlds

Posted on July 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

What’s wrong with America’s government? Essentially we have evolved into a leaderless Parliamentary system, which is the worst of both worlds.

I had an extended conversation today with two individuals who are expert practitioners of American politics. I can’t say anything more specific but they know from personal experience of what they spoke. And they made the above point. Over the last two decades or so, the two parties in Congress have become ideologically fixated so there is no longer a real possibility of compromise. The most liberal of Republican members is too conservative for the Democrats and the most conservative Democrat is too liberal for the Republicans. This wasn’t always the case. The House and Senate that Baby Boomers remember, during the 1970s and 80s, witnessed a few if not several dozen Republicans and Democrats who would routinely support the other party on certain legislative issues. This just doesn’t happen anywhere near as often any more.

What essentially caused this shift? Gerrymandering districts so they are safe seats is one reason. Another is the fact that the social divide between urban/coastal America and the center of the country has become starker over the last few years. But the policies of Congressional leaders have also contributed. Check out this Washington Post story from 2004 on Dennis Hastert declaring that legislation would only be brought forward if a majority of the majority party supported it–a philosophy that inherently prevents compromise and disrespects bipartisanship.

Parliamentary systems work because the leader of the majority party becomes the Prime Minister. No compromise is necessary because you always have the votes. Of course, our system doesn’t work that way. The President is elected separately and has almost no ability to influence the actions of an ideologically fixated opposition party, which sometimes is also a majority party. (And of course the President’s own party is ideologically fixated.)

So there you have it. Compromise becomes almost impossible because for compromise to work best you need the Democratic and Republican Parties to have some overlapping political territory. The end game right now is about scrambling to have the Senate and House pass separate bills so that the two can be resolved in Conference, where some compromises are possible. But even this maneuver may become less feasible over time if Congress continues to polarize.

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