tdaxp

An interesting article, "City of Cleveland sues lenders over foreclosures.

Cleveland, a city currently with about half its 1930 population, is a good example of America's non-integrating gap: those ares within the United States generally unequipped for life in a free-market democracy.

Cleveland is both helped and hurt by being within the United States. The subprime mess, which Cleveland is suing over, is an example of this. For those who haven't paid attention to the embarrasing fiasco, the excess capital in much of the world led to very low interest rates on "variable rate" mortgage, allowing many people who would have been unable to afford a home at the time a chance to move into it. Without the safety of the American property and adjudication systems, money would have never felt safe enough to wash into Cleveland: hence, many new Cleveland home-owners.

However, Cleveland's dying for a reason, and my guess is that one of the many factors in the city's death-spiral is low general intelligence. One consequence of low intelligence is reduced ability to calculate risk, shortened time preferences, and plain foolish decision making. So instead of using the historic opportunity of cheap capital, many Clevelanders promptly blew their windfall on houses they could not possibly afford. And thus Cleveland, which if it was a country would never have been trusted with so much cash in the first place, is now saddled with debt.

So now a most-likely incompetent government of a most-likely incompetent city is suing the source of the greatest generosity to hit it in some time.

A recent post by Curzon over at Coming Anarchy includes this quote from Robert Kaplan:

Hitler and Mussolini each came to power through democracy. Democracies do not always make societies more civil-but they do always mercilessly expose the health of the societies in which they operate… The lesson to draw is not that dictatorship is good and democracy bad but that democracy emerges successfully only as a capstone to other social and economic achievements.

Indeed, and it's quite likely that Cleveland is not at a level of "social and economic achievements" that would allow it to function as a democracy, but still has an elected city government anyway.

Too bad for the people of Cleveland.

Robert Paterson thinks all is lost -- we're on the brink checkmated. (Zen has a more balanced summary.)

The cause of this suspicious death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who suffered bomb blasts and bullets. There's now a riot, possibly martial law, blah blah blah.

My question: Why is anyone surprised this happens in a Muslims country?

Broadly, most of the world "works." Aside from troublesome campesinos near the Andes and racist Pacific Islanders, if you are not in the continuous geographical Gap that stretches from the Cape of Good Hope to frontier of Russia, things are going pretty good for you. The chances of you becoming the victim of a suicide bomber, a mass rape, or good ol' fashioned genocide are remarkably small. Regularly there's really bad news from the Gap, such as a camapign of rape fully understandable by our chimpanzee ancestors or today's assassination of a talkative woman, but really, it doesn't effect our lives.



So, what next?

The Gap is actually composed of two distinct regions, an Islamic Gap in the later stages of civilizational collapse and an African Gap that never progressed far enough to collapse in the first place. We do not know how to pull off large-scale social engineering, but we do know that most of our attempts to do so have failed. So firewalling ourselves off from the Islamic Gap, doing what needs to be done while strictly limiting human migration from the Islamic Gap to the globalized core, is the best policy. Likewise, we should move away from what Muslim allies we have, as seen in American and Chinese movements away from Pakistan and toward India.

The African Gap, by contrast, needs large-scale engagement. A complete lack of inftrascuture means major opportunities -- both for profit and for power -- for those able to impose such an infrastructure.

Lexington Green, of Chicago Boyz, kindly linked to a book review on of Kurlantzick's "soft power" book by in the open thread.

My thoughts (the quoted section is from the original article):

The "flat world" of globalization, so stridently advocated by Clinton and the current presidency of George W Bush, simply did not create the improved quality of life it promised for many Third World countries."

How long has the "developing world" been "developing"? How long as the Third World waited as the global Third Estate preparing to take over?

The reason that life in the Afro-Islamic Gap sucks is that the Afro-Islamic Gap is culturally bankrupt. Europe's experiments with totalitarian fascism were stupidly imported by the Muslim world after World War II, whle sub-saharan Africa's colonial development was canceled because it cost Europeans too much money.



The continued horror of life in the gap is not because of the Washington Consensus, or Bill Clinton, or even the Iraq War: the continued horror of life in the gap is a reflection of life during most of human history: nasty, brutish, solitary, and short. The Gap, that prison of billions of persons, is the true whore of the world: capable of taknig cash, incapable of love.

After America crushed the final attempts of Europe to give a damn about life in the Gap, Gap elites have profited by taking cahs from this or that foreign power in exchange for some fleeting commodity. During the Cold War, the customers were Washington and Moscow and the good was whether or not to put the meaningless word "People's " before the meaningless word "Republic" in their country's name. Now the situation has chnaged to selling raw physical materials: coal, tin, etc. Not an improvement.

China has moved into the US's and USSR's roles of paying with few questions asked. That's a sign of Chinese power (compared to Deng's first international act, say, which was to purchase feed-grade wheat to feed starving Chinese), but also a sign of China's weakness (playing for nickles and dimes). America's larger goal is to end history on her terms.

The United States is arrogantly accustomed to peace, having driven her early neighbors (Britain, France, Spain) from her neighbors and long ago establishing military hegemony over Canada and Mexico. Now the US extends the reach of capitalist peace under American protection from western Europe and Japan (end of World War II) to self-sustaining capitalist peace for all of Europe and all of the Pacific Rime (now). The material benefits to nearly everyone are obvious. America's profit is that she manages to stop the rise and fall of states, unlike Britain in the 19th century, France in the 18th, Turkey in the 17th, Spain in the 16th, or the Empire in the 15th. No more wars or rumors of wars, for the first time since the Pax Romana.

Now that's soft power.

Chirol of Coming Anarchy has done great work on domestic application of the work of Thomas P.M. Barnett ("Pentagon's New Map (PNM) Theory"). In three now-famous posts

• Domestic PNM Theory,


• Case Study in Domestic PNM Theory, and


• Case Study in Domestic PNM Theory II

Barnett himself (commenting on an excellent article in Reason) note that caboose breaking, "voting more populist candidates into office in democracies (e.g., India's Congress Party) to political unrest and violent protest in authoritarian states," "is basically when politicians/leaders realize and fear/anticipate/respond to unrest from disconnected populations."

An early American attempt at caboose-breaking the country's Gap was the Great Society, succeeding in driving up Gap unemployment and fatherlessness to record highs. Another attempt, affirmative action, was nearly a textbook case of how to teach racial resentment and divisiveness.

Now that another wave of agitprop is subsiding - a failed lynching in North Carolina and a "high-tech" one on the air. - one might except a second wave of this. Obvious possibilities might include zero-sum transfers of wealth, property, and position (a Jackson / Sharpton plan). However, considering that the most popular black candidate yet produced in America is the descendant of slave-owners but not American slaves, the political possibility of that seems unlikely. Another, different, take woudl be attempt to overload America's gap with feedback in the hope of forcing a deeper change. Yet inciting riots is dangerous, and not the risk.

That takes us to the most obvious form of Gap-shrinking that can be expected in the near-future in America: nothing. Those who power makes them important feel outrage must less than those who are powerless, and thus little can be gained from Imus or Mangum agitprop. Life will continue, with those in America's core living good lives, and those in America's gap not.

Note: This is a selection from Redefining the Gap, part of tdaxp's SummerBlog '06

Attempts to find empirical proof for Barnett's Core-Gap hypothesis have increases since I first attempted operationalizing the gap. Coming Anarchy has looked at Euro-Canadian troop deployments and FP's failed state index, ZenPundit ponders metrics, Curtis looks at ways to skin the Gap, and Sean Meade, Tom Barnett's blogger-in-chief, is paying attention.

Now I am prepared to release my own results:

We are at War with Africa and Islam

"The Wave Theory of Core and Gap," by David, The Glittering Eye, 28 March 2006, http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=1870 (from ZenPundit).

"When the Chinese were our friends...," by Tom Barnett, Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog, 4 April 2006, http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/003131.html.

"In Pictures: French Protests," BBC News, 4 April 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4876616.stm.

In the Second World War, China was our ally:

In this global war on terrorism, she is again.

"Gap and Seam China in Pictures," by Dan, tdaxp, 26 June 2005, http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/06/26/gap_and_seam_china_in_pictures.html.

"Unseen Japan," Mainichi Daily News, 28 June 2005, http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/contest/2005/05/unseenjapan/winners.html (from Riding Sun).

China may be Gap...

or Seam...



but Japan is Core



Connect. Become rich. Make life magical.

"Underneath the Chinese 'Miracle' - Photographs," India-Defence, downloaded 26 June 2005, http://srirangan.net/india-defence/node/310.

Tom Barnett often talks about the "Gap" and the "Seam," those regions that are either poor and unconnected or trying to climb out of the mud. SriRangan was kind enough to post an album documenting life in Seam and Gap China

But some offer hope...



View the entire set

"India’s role in rebuilding Afghanistan: In spite of hurdles imposed by Pakistan, India has played a meaningful role in Afghanistan," The Acorn, http://opinion.paifamily.com/index.php?p=1247, 14 February 2005.

"Regarding the CIA’s soothsayers: The CIA’s predictions for India and Pakistan cannot simultaneously come true," The Acorn, http://opinion.paifamily.com/index.php?p=1248, 15 February 2005.

In spite of hurdles imposed by Pakistan, India has played a meaningful role in Afghanistan

The Acorn has two posts contrasting India and Pakistan. India is a responsible player spreading connectedness, despite Pakistan's efforts

New Delhi currently spends around $100 million on various projects and $70 million on the reconstruction of a 213-kilometer road from Zaranj to Delaram in Afghanistan. This ‘new silk route’ road is the result of a project between India, Iran and Afghanistan to develop trade with Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The route will utilise the Chabahar port in Iran to send goods to Afghanistan and to Central Asian countries. New Delhi has gifted three Airbus aircraft along with crew to support Arian Afghan Airlines, and more than 270 Indian buses currently ply in Kabul, Kandahar and Herat. In 2002, 18 Afghan judges and lawyers were trained at the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi. An IT specialist has been deputed to the Afghan government. In the foreign minister’s office in Kabul, a local area network with Internet access via an Indian company has been set up while Afghan bureaucrats are being trained in the use of computers.

Three Reserve Bank of India officials were deputed to the Central Bank of Afghanistan in July 2002. A team of 30 Indian doctors treats thousands of patients every week while $4 million has been allotted for the rehabilitation of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health. New Delhi will gift 300 vehicles to the Afghan National Army once Pakistan allows their transit. Pakistan allows Afghan exports to India via Wahga, but not vice versa. Thus, every day, a large numbers of trucks cross Wahga carrying dry fruit and carpets but return empty. No country is spending in Afghanistan as much as India, except for the United States, which spends $900 million annually. So far, India’s efforts in Afghanistan have the backing of the United States and Russia. Indian analysts say India’s interests are two-fold: it does not want the Taliban to resurface; and it wants the new Afghan security structure to be free of anti-India elements

Pakistan, meanwhile...

But, contrary to the Bush administration’s belief, the possibility of an implosion in Pakistan is very much real as long as its army retains control. There any so many rifts and divides in Pakistan that a fundamentally hamfisted dictatorship cannot heal or reconcile. Pakistan needs national reconciliation and the steady, irreversible return of the army to its barracks.

Until that happens, Pakistan will remain the borderline about-to-fail state that we have become used to. Unfortunately, foreign policy in America and New Delhi is doing nothing to veer away from this unhappy path. If the current equations continue, India can, without doubt, continue to register healthy economic growth, but Pakistan will remain a Damocles’ sword hanging over its head.

Consider that the Army is the only respected and stable institution in Pakistan, this is not good news.



Pakistan is an imaginary state. It's east is an extension of India while the west is made out of pieces of Balucistan and Pashtunistan. Pakistan is a nuclear state with a rogue intelligence service. Dealing with Islamabad's failures is a great problem of our times.