Tico Thinking

When I was 12 and 13 years old I lived (with my parents) in Costa Rica. The experience helped me deal with other cultures and ways of doing things, and often led to interesting discussions.

Why do we have to stand in line for everything, and why do you need six notarized forms and two passport-sized photos for any interaction with the government? Wouldn't it be easier to do only wait in one line?

Oh, that's gringo thinking.

Why don't they actually fix the potholes instead of just filling them with gravel?

That's gringo thinking.

Why doesn't the United States buy fewer tanks and fighter planes and spend the money on schools?

Silly, that's tico (as Costa Ricans are known) thinking!

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof seems to have discovered the same thing on his recent visit to Costa Rica, and names that choice as a primary reason why ticos are the happiest people.

What sets Costa Rica apart is its remarkable decision in 1949 to dissolve its armed forces and invest instead in education. Increased schooling created a more stable society, less prone to the conflicts that have raged elsewhere in Central America. Education also boosted the economy, enabling the country to become a major exporter of computer chips and improving English-language skills so as to attract American eco-tourists.

I’m not antimilitary. But the evidence is strong that education is often a far better investment than artillery.

Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons: Haven't I Refuted This Before?

Seymour Hersh has an article in The New Yorker asking the tired questions of whether Pakistan's nuclear weapons are safe from capture by al-Qaeda or the Taliban. He asserts that because militants have attacked well-defended Pakistani military facilities, other well-defended facilities, including nuclear locations, could be in danger.

If I'm not mistaken a well-defended U.S. military facility, Fort Hood, was just attacked by someone with insider knowledge of security and facilities, but that doesn't mean that anyone outside of Hollywood screenwriters think U.S. nuclear facilities are likely to be attacked or captured by militants. Indian Maoist naxalite militants have attacked government facilities, but no one worries publicly about the security of India's nuclear weapons. Hersh argues that components are most vulnerable when they are being moved. Hmm, you mean like when nuclear parts are accidentally flown across the country, or mistakenly delivered to Taiwan? Didn't the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force get fired for those mistakes not too long ago? Let's discuss reality here.

Once again, yes, Pakistan's government is unstable. President "Mr. Ten Percent" Zardari may well be forced out of office in the next six months, but that may well lead to increased stability in Pakistan, not less. The Pakistani military is considered a common player in Pakistani society and politics, and is perhaps the most stable element. The nuclear warheads are stored and secured separately from the triggers and the delivery systems, and the Pakistanis have developed extensive nuclear security systems.

If anything Pakistan seemed more unstable back in May, when the Taliban had famously crept within 90 miles of the capital, Islamabad. The New York Times ran a piece quoting various experts as saying the nuclear stockpile was safe. What has changed since then other than Sy Hersh decided this was a good sensational story to write? He dismisses all the expert opinions he finds that run contrary to his view, because "are Pakistan's nuclear weapons safe? Yes" would be a pretty boring article.

I imagine I or someone like me will have to refute some sensationalist account about terrorists and Pakistan's nuclear weapons every six months or so for at least several years to come. Of course it's a valid concern and one that should not be ignored, but it is also unlikely, and Pakistan should be given credit for protecting its arsenal.

Management Consultant as Foreign Affairs Columnist?

Foreign Policy blogger and Tufts professor Daniel Drezner went to a management consultant conference and shared his top ten tips, both on his blog and Twitter. All I could think of was how it sounded just like 90% of Thomas Friedman's columns.

4) In Every Coversation with a Client, Mention Your Last Trip to China. This is tricky, as you have to be casual about it, while still drivng home the point that you are intimately familiar with the world's fastest-growing market. Here are some possible ways to get this point into casual conversation: "I was talking to one of our clients in Shenzhen On Monday, and...""I was sunbathing in Chengdu a week ago...""When I went bass-fishing in Chongqing last month...""A funny thing happened when I went to a cockfight in Harbin on Tuesday....""If, like me, you ever find yourself in Tianjin biting the head off of a live chicken...." ...

6) Use Factoids To Distract Amaze Your Audience. To drive home a point that might encounter pushback from the audience, be sure to snap off a statistic that seems related to your point. For example, if you're trying to convince your customers that Western Africa is a more promising market than Western Europe, you can say, "Did you know there are more live births in Nigeria than in W. Europe?" Some other possibilities:"Did you know that in Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for any distance less than 30 miles?""Did you know that the most popular first name in the world is Muhammad?""Did you know that the first product to have a bar code was Wrigleys gum?""Did you know that Jedi is an official religion in Australia?"

7) Put a Modern Spin on Old Cliches. Example: "To paraphrase Keynes, 'In the long run, we're all liquefie-- I mean, we're all liquid.'"

The Times' Afghanistan Round-Up

Once again the New York Times decided to follow my lead, this time doing a review of "is Afghanistan worth it" stories. Check it out, if only for comparison's sake.

Define "Win"

Yesterday the New York Times called for General Stanley McChrystal, bound for Afghanistan once he dodges the Senate shrapnel, to be asked tough questions. It doesn't seem like he's getting them. Today on the Hill he said the war in Afghanistan was winnable. But did any senator ask him what a win would look like? Of course not. 

Game 6 was winable for the Cleveland Cavaliers (if LeBron had decided to play while not on Ambien). I know what that means. But you don't win a war, and especially not a counterinsurgency, by having more points than the other "team." What is a win in Afghanistan? A thriving democracy with a strong economy? All the Taliban dead? A 300,000 person Afghan army capable of controlling the whole country (and the tax revenue to support it)? Without defining the term, saying the war is winnable is just a good sound bite. 

New York Times Editorial on India

Someone at the Times' editorial board must be reading my blog. They published an editorial today calling for India to step up to its responsibilities as the world power they are striving to become.I've I've been saying that for some time now. The article appropriately calls for India to examine how its posture is viewed in Pakistan, and communicate better, especially about its activities in rebuilding Afghanistan. 

India has played a constructive role in helping rebuild Afghanistan, but it must take steps to allay Islamabad’s concerns that this is a plan to encircle Pakistan. It should foster regional trade with Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Easier said than done of course. It's all well and good for the Times to call for India to initiate arms control talks with Pakistan and China and reach out for a solution on Kashmir. Israel should find a way to make peace with the Palestinians too, but it's just not that easy. Yes, India needs to step it up. But how about an article echoing my point about how focusing on Pakistan keeps India from achieving greatness? Follow me there, New York Times. 

Tri-Lateral Meetings in DC This Week

Zardari's motorcade passed me in downtown DC last night, presumably on their way from the White House to the Bidens' place for dinner. I'd love to be in the room knowing what is really being discussed on the inside, and if all the parties are indeed hopeful and helpful. I have my doubts. I thought this quote from the New York Times was particularly telling:

The other reason why no one wants to talk too much publicly about what the United States wants Pakistan to do is that there is a real difference in the way that the two countries view the insurgency in the western part of Pakistan. While Americans see this as an existential threat to the Pakistani government, Pakistanis look at things differently.

“This situation has been going on for decades,” one Pakistani official explained on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. “These people have always tried to impose Shariah law in the tribal areas.”

The article ends on a hopeful note:

His comments came just after a senior Obama administration official said that the administration believes the Pakistani government is finally starting to come around to the American way of thinking about the nature of the Islamist threat to the Pakistani government, further underscoring the disconnect between the two governments.

We shall see if Pakistan is really starting to come around, or stringing the United States along and doing just enough to ensure that it gets more and more money. 

How Relevant is Diplomacy Anymore?

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman normally has approximately four ideas that he rotates through for his columns (the Middle East is a complicated place; the world is flat/globalization is good; green energy is good/let me tell you about this cool invention I saw; buy my latest book), but occasionally he actually takes the time to write a thought provoking column, in this case "In the Age of Pirates" on the role and success of formal diplomacy in an age of non-state actors.

I agree with his main point, that a more realist approach is needed, that countries like Iran and North Korea, as well as groups like pirates and terrorists, will primarily respond to hard power inducements. As he puts it,

The only thing that could change this is a greater exercise of U.S. and allied power. In the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan, that power would have to be used to actually rebuild these states from the inside into modern nations. We would literally have to build the institutions — the pulleys and wheels — so that when the leaders of these states pulled a lever something actually happened, and the lever wouldn’t just break off in their hands.

And in the case of the strong states — Iran and North Korea — we would have to generate much more effective leverage from the outside to get them to change their behavior along the lines we seek. In both cases, though, success surely would require a bigger and longer U.S. investment of money and power, not to mention allies.

However, I disagree with him that diplomacy is no longer useful or effective. Unilateral solutions will not work for any of the cases he mentioned. Strong diplomacy is needed to build coalitions of reluctant allies in order to solve those world-threatening problems. Furthermore, great and emerging powers, including Russia, China, India, and Brazil still need the high-level engagement Friedman dismisses as a Cold War relic. Big issues like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 2010 review conference require multilateral diplomacy of the highest order.

The problem is not the inefficacy of diplomacy in the modern era, the problem is not enough diplomacy and not enough cooperation.

My Letter to the Editor of the NYT

Since the New York Times continues to believe that it comes up with its ideas all by itself, without any help from me, it refused to publish my letter to the editor about their editorial, "Watershed Moment on Nuclear Arms." Luckily for me, and you, I have this blog, so I can publish it myself:

To the Editor:

I wholeheartedly embrace your call in Wednesday’s editorial [“Watershed Moment on Nuclear Arms”] for setting a goal of reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 1,000 deployed warheads by 2012. But that move can be made unilaterally in the Nuclear Posture Review, due by the end of the year, without any reduction in our deterrence capabilities. A replacement for START could be discussed concurrently or subsequently, but the announcement of the move need not wait for negotiators. The reduction would send a powerful message not just to Russia and nuclear aspirants like North Korea and Iran, as you mention, but establish the United States as a credible leader in the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world as we move toward the 2010 conference to renegotiate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and attempt to create a solution that includes nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

Robin J. Walker

Washington, DC

The New York Times Expands On My Argument, Again

Maybe I should start a Colbert-esque "Who's Ripping Me Off Now" bit, except then Colbert could do a segment on how I'm ripping off his segment. Also, it always seems to be the New York Times ripping me off, so that would get old. No sooner do I write a post than a week or so later the Times writes a whole article or editorial on it.

This time it's a preview article from the NYT Magazine asking "Can Pakistan Be Governed?" It's a good article full of interesting anecdotes, but they take nine pages to argue what I discussed in one blog post, "Dearth of Pakistani Leadership."

In short, President Zardari is corrupt, incompetent, self-interested, and weak. Former Prime Minister and curent opposition leader Sharif is a populist who blows in the winds of a country who's people hate the United States. Army Chief Kayani could either be the savior of the country, or its worst enemy, since he is the former head of ISI. Chaudhry seems smart, committed to democracy, honest, and principled, having stood up to both Musharraf and Zardari and united a good deal of the population behind him (including Sharif for as long as it is politically convenient). Could the United States help him move up from Chief Justice to President, or does he have skeletons in his closet too?