Sixty thousand dead in a strategic context

The latest UN count of Syrians killed in the ongoing war lists 59,648 dead from March 15th 2011 to November 30th 2012 according to a conservative survey, with the actual number expected to be greater. This puts the rate of killing in Syria higher than in the two worst years of the Iraq Body Count figures for the Iraq war, 29,026 for 2006 and 25,280 for 2007.

Update: IBC figures don’t include confirmed military casualties. From icasualties.org, Coalition military deaths in 2006 were 873, and in 2007 were 961, giving minimum totals of 29,899 killed in 2006 and 26,241 killed in 2007.

If one compares the figures as daily averages, these Iraq minimum counts showed a daily average of 82 people killed per day in 2006, and 72 people killed per day in 2007, while the UN report shows an average of 95 people killed a day in Syria over the entirety of the conflict. If one looked only at 2012 in Syria the average would be higher as the killing escalated significantly, particularly from April onwards.

US military figures given for insurgents killed in Iraq were 3,902 in 2006 and 6,747 in 2007, but these likely have some overlap with IBC figures for civilians. Taken at face value they add 11 killed on average per day in 2006 for a total of 93 per day, and 18 per day for 2007 for a total of 90 per day, still lower than the daily average for Syria.

Both the UN count for Syria and the Iraq Body Count numbers are minimum counts, which do not include the missing or the unreported. In another example, when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia prepared its 2010 estimate of the death toll in the 1992-95 Bosnian War, it arrived at a list of 89,186 unique death records, the minimum number, but the undercount was estimated at 15,546 resulting in the total number of casualties of 104,732. See report here (PDF). Even this added margin doesn’t include excess deaths: indirect casualties caused by the disruption and destruction of war. The number of deaths resulting from the war in Syria will already be much higher than 60,000.

Making the comparison between the rate of killing in Syria now with the rate of killing in Iraq in 2006-07 might give some sense of scale. It also raises the question of whether a US led military intervention in 2012 might have reduced the killing, or whether such an intervention in 2013 might effectively reduce the killing. The numbers of course can’t give an answer, but they can call into question any expressions of certainty that US intervention is doomed to make things worse.

With the rate of killing higher than that seen in Iraq, and the minimum count of people killed already two-thirds of the minimum count for the Bosnian War, with the war being fought across NATO’s southern border, why is there still no sign of decisive intervention by the US and allies?

The cold horror of this war from a strategic view is that the further it goes without US involvement, the greater are the losses inflicted on rival powers (Iran, Russia) at the lowest cost to the US, at least until it reaches a point where diminishing returns on the war’s effects on rivals are outweighed by rising dangers to US allies. Prior to that point, if the US intervenes it assumes associated risks, military economic and diplomatic, and lets rivals like Russia off the hook to cut their losses and blame the consequences on ‘imperialists’.

The strategic problem is that the point where rising dangers exceed diminishing returns, where intervention may become preferable for the US, could be hard to identify before it’s already passed. And the more damaged the physical, social, and psychological fabric of the country and its people, the harder it will be to build a stable and safe neighbour for NATO and the other US allies bordering Syria.

In the meantime hundreds of people will continue to be killed every week, and they will weigh lightly in the US and NATO’s strategic balance.

Added: a detailed article from FP magazine dated March 2012 on Patrick Ball, the statistician primarily responsible for the UN’s new Syria report.

Also, Jeff Weintraub considers the implications of comparing Syria and Iraq.

Liberté ou la Mort

There was a story in the paper last week about the discovery of a copy of Haiti’s Declaration of Independence from the original printing in 1804, found in the British National Archives by Julia Gaffield of Duke University. Their website has more details on the document, including a full translation.

The declaration came after over a decade of war in the French colony of St Domingue, from the slave rebellion of 1791, through the rise of Toussaint L’Ouverture as their leader, fighting against the slave-holders and the French Republic in the war with Spain, then after the abolition of slavery in 1794 on the side of the Republic against Spain and Britain, then against internal rivals for power, and finally against Napoleon as the Emperor sought to reintroduce slavery to the island. In 1803 Toussaint L’Ouverture died imprisoned in France, as the more radical Dessalines led the war of independence in St Domingue.

From The Black Jacobins, by C.L.R. James, Chapter 13:

On November 29th Dessalines, Christophe, and Clairveaux (Pétion was ill) issued a preliminary proclamation of independence, moderate in tone, deploring the bloodshed of the previous years. On December 31st at a meeting of all the officers held at Gonaïves the final Declaration of Independence was read. To emphasise the break with the French the new State was renamed Haiti.

And:

The first draft of the proclamation handed to Dessalines at the Congress was rejected by him as being too moderate. The second, which met with his aproval, struck the new note, ‘Peace to our neighbours. But anathema to the French name. Hatred eternal to France. This is our cry.’

Typophiles will note that the document was set in a French typeface designed by Firmin Didot.

Throughout C.L.R. James’s book runs an account of the interactions between principle and pragmatism, so much so that the book could be a response to The Prince, though Machiavelli is never mentioned. In parts the book is as much argument as history. It all seemed very relevant to some of the conversations over at Bob’s place, on idealism versus realism, and on Orwell, nationalism and patriotism.

My attempt at a concise conclusion:
- Pragmatic realism is necessary in the most idealistic fight.
- Realistic understanding of international relationships must look not just at governments’ views on national interest, but at entire societies and the shared and conflicting interests they contain.
- Nationalism, as Orwell used the word, interferes with such understanding.

I also have something inconclusive and less concise to say on all this, but it will have to wait, if I can keep it in mind at all that is.

Extra: Haitian history on the radio, from PRI’s The World.

Extra extra: Abu Muqawama strives for a more realistic realism: On the Relative Strength of Horses.

‘Liberty or death’. . . somebody, I can’t remember who, said something like: ‘It’s not or death. It’s always and death.’

Politiken’s Mohammed cartoons settlement

Danish national daily newspaper Politiken “has reached a settlement with the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, apologising for the offence the Mohammed cartoons have caused.” The settlement was negotiated with Saudi Arabian lawyer Faisal Yamani, representing eight Muslim organisations. Here is Politiken’s version of the story in English and in Danish, and the Associated Press account.

Danish politicians from across the spectrum have criticised Politiken’s action. Defenders of the paper argue that it has made no concession on the right to publish, and that previous expressions of regret for hurt feelings had been issued by Jyllands Posten, the paper that first published the cartoons, and by former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The current PM focuses his concern on the point that Politiken acted in response to a threat of legal action, and that it had broken ranks with other Danish papers in its response.

Politiken’s move is opposed by all other Danish dailies, according to Ebbe Dal of Danske Dagblades Forening, the Danish daily newspapers’ organisation. Since autumn of last year, a number of daily papers have been in communication with the lawyer Faisal Yamani. According to DDF, he has threatened legal action should the papers fail to apologise for publishing the Mohammed cartoons.  DDF is supporting those newspapers that don’t wish to make a settlement.

Journalisten.dk reports that there is also disquiet amongst a number of Politiken journalists. Following an internal meeting,  Politiken’s editor Tøger Seidenfaden said “The debate was actually not much different than in wider society. Some think it’s brilliant, and some think it’s less than brilliant.”

See also Francis Sedgemore, who writes an obituary for Politiken.

Earlier posts on this topic here, and here, and so on.

Reset

WASHINGTON: A high-level bipartisan commission recommended Monday that the Obama administration reach out to Russia in a number of ways, by letting “bygones be bygones” and giving them “whatever they want” and asking if there’s “anything else” we can do.

Or something like that.

Promoting democracy?

In the IHT last monday, Obama rethinks the goal of democracy-building:

His Inaugural Address a few days later was in sharp contrast to Bush’s four years ago. Where Bush called the spread of freedom the central goal of American policy, Obama made just passing reference to those who silence dissent being on “the wrong side of history.” Indeed, his secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, outlined a policy of the “Three D’s” - defense, diplomacy and development. The fourth D, democracy, did not make the list.

And if that were not clear, during her trip to Asia, she said that human rights violations by China “can’t interfere” with cooperation between Washington and Beijing on other issues. That may simply be a more honest statement of longstanding reality in the Chinese-American relationship, but it still seemed jarring.

Galrahn at Information Dissemination, also last monday, Hilary Channels Thomas Barnett. And Thomas Barnett on his own blog, Being real on China. The meat is in the comments in both those posts.

(My previous posts on TPM Barnett start here.)

Meanwhile farther north, via the comments at Terry’s place, Full-Steam Ahead on Spreading Democracy, an interview with Steven Fletcher, Canadian minister of state for democratic reform:

“I think Canada is a civilized member of the world community and this is the time that we should step up and show leadership that we care about what happens in the rest of the world, we want people to be empowered, to make the best decisions for themselves and nations to be empowered to make the best decisions for their people who live within their borders.

“And democracy is the best way to do it and Canada will do more than its fair share to empower the individuals, and therefore their governments, to ensure that the people of these countries, their quality of life is improved. And I think most Canadians would be very impassioned about this. Is there stuff to do at home? Of course, but home is also the planet Earth.”

Turning back to the article in the IHT for a closing quote:

William Inboden, a former strategic adviser at the National Security Council now at the Legatum Institute in London, said [...] Obama has the chance to rebrand democracy. His own election generated enormous good will around the world, an “incredibly profound and incredibly potent” statement about American democracy, Inboden said. And so, he said, “there’s real opportunity there.”

While I have respect for TPM Barnett’s thesis that economic interconnectivity promotes security, I believe democracy is still essential. Economic development without democratically accountable rule of law is too vulnerable to corruption and worse.

Bags of money, up for grabs . . .

. . . and Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan. Also India, China, Russia, and, um, Iran? And hard, long, difficult, challenging, and hard.

Some words from two conversations about Afghanistan on the Charlie Rose Show. From last Monday February 16th, a discussion with Milt Bearden, Dexter Filkins, Craig Mullaney and Martha Raddatz (via this SWJ post on Craig Mullaney’s new book The Unforgiving Minute), and from last Friday February 20th, an interview with Richard Holbrooke.

Recently I posted on Afghanistan and tea drinking. Here’s a tea reference that’s more to the point, in words from General Petraeus earlier this month:

A nuanced appreciation of the local situation is essential. Leaders and troopers have to understand the tribal structures, the power brokers, the good guys and the bad guys, local cultures and history, and how systems are supposed to work and do work. This requires listening and being respectful of local elders and mullahs, and farmers and shopkeepers – and it also requires, of course, many cups of tea.

That quote was used to open a radio discussion on The Brian Lehrer Show with Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl, all about counter-insurgency and Afghanistan, broadcast on WNYC February 10th, again via the Small Wars Journal.

Also on that same SWJ post, a TV interview with Tom Ricks on The Daily Show. An excerpt from his new book The Gamble, about the surge strategy in Iraq, appeared in The Times on Saturday and attracted the notice of both Mick Hartley and Norman Geras. The headline was Emma Sky, British ‘tree-hugger’ in Iraq who learnt to love US military.

Out with the family on Wednesday, we chanced upon this exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society showing Victorian photographs and drawings of Afghanistan, with a few more recent images included as comparisons. The exhibition still has a few days to run. I would have liked to have spent longer, but Dan Dare beckoned us further down Exhibition Road.

One of the photos in the Royal Geographical Society exhibition turns up in a recent post at Ghosts of Alexander, ‘Afghanisation’, a rather unfortunate neologism.

Two links to close: returning to a favourite theme, from Roland, This is “Realism”? And good news on the Canadian home front via Terry, Jonathon Narvey: Cheer The Hell Up. Of course once you start linking to Terry and his friends it’s hard to stop, but enough is enough is too much.

Loose lips

The realists find their audience - from Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal, Taliban mock West for calling Afghanistan unwinnable:

The Taliban have seized on what US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates described as “defeatist” comments made by Western officials on the ability to succeed in Afghanistan to score a propaganda victory.

In a press release issued on Oct. 10 at Voice of Jehad, the Taliban’s official website, the group described the recent statements that that war in Afghanistan is unwinnable as “a hue and cry” and reiterated their terms of peace are complete and unconditional withdrawal.

Earlier posts on this topic: ‘Realists’ go home, The language of victory, and Punchline.

_

Brighter news: the Long War Journal also has an interview with US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, and Mick Hartley points to a piece by Bob Krumm, In Today’s Iraq, the Times Are Constantly Changing. But good news is no news, so Western Journalists in Iraq Stage Pullback of Their Own, from the Washington Post.

Punchline

Norm , writing about a New Statesman editorial on Afghanistan which argues that it is morally preferable to leave the foreigners to the wolves, concludes:

The New Statesman is a weekly magazine of the left.

Still waiting for the laugh. The word ‘left’ has been marked down so often, it’s only value is sentimental. If you want to impart meaning, you’ll have to find another.

_

More dark humour: Terry Glavin applies the realist solution for Afghanistan to Britain with the headline Britain’s Best Hope: Abolish the Commons, Let the Lords Rule. I suspect a number of the realists wouldn’t get it, being only too happy to agree with such a notion.

_

Related: we saw last week how words spoken in Afghanistan were heard around the world. No doubt this week words spoken in Iraq will be heard clearly in Afghanistan. What value the word of a British leader now, be they political or military?

From the interview with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki published today in The Times:

At the time Basra was not under control of the local government, but in the hands of the gangs and militias. The local government was just a screen. And didn’t have the ability to move or solve any security issue.

The British forces withdrew from the confrontation from inside the city to the area of the airport. They stayed away from the confrontation, which gave the gangs and the militias the chance to control the city. At the time we were strongly pre-occupied with Baghdad and some other provinces, therefore our presence in Basra was not strong.

But when the British forces withdrew and the situation deteriorated so badly that corrupted youths were carrying swords and cutting the throats of women and children, the citizens of Basra called out for our help … and we moved to regain the city…

And he continues, speaking  about the deal that the British cut with the militias in 2007:

Of course we were not comfortable and we conveyed our discomfort and regarded it as the start a disaster. The disaster would have materialised, if we had not made the sacrifices. Had they told us that they wanted to do this [cut a deal] we would have consulted with them and come up with the best possible decision. But when they acted alone the problem happened.

It will take a major change in thinking at a political level to recover from this. Sticking plaster missions will come unstuck. Aims short of victory equal defeat. In Afghanistan as in Iraq, final victory will come at the hands of the people. Our victory will lie in their victory. That will only be achieved by standing with them. To betray them is to betray ourselves.

Previous posts: ‘Realists’ go home, and The language of victory.

Follow up post: Loose lips.

‘Realists’ go home

At Harry’s Place: An Acceptable Dictator. Packing bags time. Pack the ambassador in the diplomatic bag, I mean.

It’s also in The Times. UPDATE: Francis Sedgemore also has something to say. UPDATE 2: Terry Glavin thinks it’s just those obscure London journals making trouble again. But then this happens.

In this information war, some on the UK side are getting quite practiced at friendly fire. How do they expect the population in Afghanistan to align with the government and the UN and NATO mission if UK diplomats and military officers actively undermine confidence? And why would the Taleban change their minds and negotiate in response to signs of weakness? This looks like a repeat of Basra. British troops deserve better leadership. Afghanistan deserves steadfast friends.

Follow up posts: The language of victory, Punchline, and Loose lips.

Illustration: realists in history by Low, a repeat appearance from this post, and found in The Complete Colonel Blimp, edited by Mark Bryant, and copyright © Low estate/Solo Syndication.

Heart of Darkness, the Core and the Gap - 5

Previous posts in the series: one, two, three and four.

As explained in earlier posts, this series is based on reading some online material by Thomas PM Barnett, his recent blog posts, some articles, and book descriptions. I haven’t read the books, and would be interested in reactions from anyone who has. Links to some of what I’ve read are to be found in the earlier posts, and more links are in the final postscript below.

This is the last in the series.

Setting aside democracy

There are points in Thomas PM Barnett’s writing where the main impression is one of arrogance. The basic premise of it being imperative for Core states to expand globalisation throughout Gap states, by force if necessary, seems at odds with principles of self-determination, of national sovereignity, at odds with proud histories of independence struggles throughout the post-colonial world. That TPM Barnett suggests a continuity between 19th and 20th Century imperialism and 21st Century globalisation doesn’t help, nor does his focus on nation states rather than populations and individuals. With a rationale of focusing on strategy and leaving tactics to others he gives the impression of an impersonal, uncaring, unprincipled, amoral and inhumane view of the world.

Yet the aim of his grand project is humane and moral - an end to war through the expansion of economic interdependence, and along the way a fight against poverty, against disease, and against the murderous fanaticism that thrives in the Gap.

Much of what I’ve read of his writing - granted a small portion of the total - seems derived from two cases: The threat that emerged from an isolated, underdeveloped, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and China’s success to date in integrating a undemocratic state into the global economy. The result is a theory which sees global development as the United States’ primary strategy against external threats, and regards the promotion of democracy and universal human rights as of lesser importance, even as a potential threat to the primary strategy.

To play the naming game, one might characterise TPM Barnett as a neo-realist, someone who regards certain principles as appropriate to be set aside in pursuit of victory. There are a number of differences between this neo-realist and the old-school realists of the Cold War. TPM Barnett has a different enemy in view, he does not view containment as strategically viable, (though I presume it remains a tactical option,) and he doesn’t define success as victory for the American nation, but as victory for the American economic system.

I think the downgrading of democracy and universal human rights in all this is an error, and a strategic error as well as a moral one.

An undemocratic leadership can’t claim a legal mandate for its actions, as whatever law it follows is not accountable to the population. So however much the population may participate in economic development, the legal status of much of that development will be in doubt. Sustainable economic globalisation depends on having a stable legal basis on which to operate.

An undemocratic leadership is able to plunder national wealth with impunity, in which case economic benefit will no longer serve to maintain the support of the population, and as repression can only achieve so much then some other unifying idea is needed, popular choices being nationalism, racism, religion, class warfare, and so-called anti-imperialism. None of these is amenable to deeper global economic integration. (TPM Barnett seems to see economic benefits in religion, but I am unconvinced. If some religions appear to have greater economic benefit than others, this suggests to me that perhaps it isn’t the religious aspect of the religions that are beneficial, but cultural aspects of those particular religions.)

As TPM Barnett places contemporary economic globalisation (Globalisation III in his terminology) in a narrative that begins with 19th and 20th Century colonial imperialism (Globalisation I) and continues with the Cold War period (Globalisation II), I think it’s worth considering the issue of democracy and universal human rights in connection with the failures of those earlier periods of globalisation.

The empires of Globalisation I proved unsustainable as whatever economic benefit they may have brought colonised populations were outweighed by demand for national liberation, while undemocratic client states of Globalisation II were vulnerable to extreme corruption, political violence, and totalitarian ideology sold under the brand of anti-imperialism. Most of the problems of the Gap states, from the prime example of Afghanistan on, are legacies of the failures in Globalisation I and II to see democracy and universal human rights as essential elements in sustainable global economic integration.

Where they continue to follow the models of Globalisation I and II, the current governments of Russia and China hinder the success of Globalisation III. I have in mind not just the invasion of Georgia, and the Russian government’s attempt to maintain a sphere of influence through economic and military threats, but also its unhelpful semi-alliance with Iran, and in the case of the Chinese government, its dealings with Sudan.

In emphasising the need for economic development to combat violent political extremism, TPM Barnett would seem to be in line with contemporary military counter-insurgency thinking, but counter-insurgency theory sees the population as the territory, not the state leadership. When TPM Barnett allows his strategic viewpoint to restrict him to seeing the world in terms of nation states, he loses sight of populations and the complexities of their motivations. Those motivations are more complex than pure economics, as illustrated by the fact that Al Qaeda emerged from wealthy Saudi Arabia.

As I understand it, successful counter-insurgency depends not just on military force and economic development, but on empowering populations by providing military security, political power, economic development, open communications, and legal accountability. All are essential and interdependent, and any prioritisation is tactical and temporary.

While TPM Barnett’s writing has much to offer, his Core and Gap model seems too crude and too shallow to me. The future of the world is not just in the hands of its current leaders. With advancing communications, populations are more powerful than ever, and their world is not so neatly divided by borders between nation states, much less by TPM Barnett’s border between Core and Gap.

Postscript one: Globalisation 55 BC

Thomas PM Barnett begins the story of globalisation with 19th Century colonial imperialism. Joseph Conrad looks back even farther. His Heart of Darkness opens not in the Congo, but in the mouth of the Thames, as darkness falls and friends in a boat wait for the turning of the tide. It is one of these, Marlow, who has the tale to tell. Before talking of African colonies, however, he speculates on the Romans who came empire-building to Britain.

‘And this also’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth.’

He continues -

‘I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago - the other day . . . Light came out of this river since - you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker - may it last as long ass the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine - what d’ye call ’em? - trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries - a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been, too - used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here - the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina - and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages - precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in the wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay - cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death - ’

There is more, speculation about other Romans, the decent young citizen come north to mend his fortunes after too much dice, feeling the utter savagery of alien Britain closing round him, the mystery ‘in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.’

‘He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination - you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.’

How to survive such a challenge? Marlow continues, expressing first a criticism of Rome that he later makes of Europe’s ventures in Africa, a charge that today’s anti-imperialists level at globalisation, that the venture is purely one of narrow self-interest.

‘They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to . . .’

The question of idealism versus rapaciousness, and of how much of the idealistic rhetoric of colonialism was sincere, is a theme that runs through Heart of Darkness. The character with the highest ideals in the book is Kurtz, and it is he who falls farthest as his belief in his own words carries him beyond the boundaries of civilisation. Well, perhaps they were the wrong ideals. Heart of Darkness becomes increasingly vague as Conrad and his alter ego Marlow approach the book’s subject.

At the time Conrad wrote that the Romans were ‘no colonists’ he couldn’t know how short-lived Europe’s empires of the time would be compared with Rome’s over four centuries of rule in England. Even so, their ideas lasted longer than their rule, so his emphasis on the idea holds. There is a parallel here with TPM Barnett’s notion of success being victory for American ideas rather than for the American nation.

Postscript two: These Romans are crazy

The most important texts on Roman imperialism are of course the Asterix books written by René Goscinny and drawn by Albert Uderzo, set in the year 50 BC and concerning a small village of indomitable Gauls resisting Roman rule. Of these, Obelix & Co. from 1976 is particularly relevant to economic globalisation as a counter-insurgency strategy, telling of how Julius Caesar’s adviser Caius Preposterous, fresh out of the Latin School of Economics, tries to conquer the Gaulish village, not through force of arms but by engaging them in trade.

Caius starts buying menhirs from Asterix’s best friend Obelix, introducing the Gaul to the concept of currency and encouraging him to expand his business by employing other villagers in order to step up production. Some villagers are jealous of Obelix’s success and set up menhir production businesses in competition with him. For a time the strategy is a success as Gaulish attacks on Romans cease, all of them being too busy making money, and Caius markets the menhirs as luxury goods in Rome allowing him to turn a profit - but not for long.

Caius obviously wasn’t a good student at the LSE as his strategy leads to a menhir bubble as Roman producers enter the market, undercutting the price of imported Gaulish menhirs. The result is a financial crisis as the Imperial Treasury is overexposed in menhirs when the bubble bursts. Even worse, Obelix loses interest in business when he finds that there isn’t much interesting to spend his money on, Caius having overlooked the option of exporting desirable goods to the Gaulish village. Finally, Obelix’s village competitors are furious when they discover the market for their menhirs has evaporated, and as they haven’t diversified their businesses they instead go back to bashing Romans. In the romantic, anti-imperialist, anti-urban world of Asterix and Obelix, happiness is staying in the Gap.

One shouldn’t think from this that Goscinny was always a reflexive anti-establishment satirist. My favourite story of his is the Lucky Luke version of Jesse James, drawn by Morris. In it he takes apart the fantasy of Jesse James as Robin Hood. In his version Jesse is inspired by Robin of Sherwood to take up crime, but once he has his hands on some loot is troubled by the notion giving it to the poor. His brother Frank has the solution: they take it in turns to be poor so they can pass their swag back and forth, keeping it in the family.

Postscript three: Related links

A collection of reactions to Tom Barnett, mainly with regard to his comments on the Russian invasion of Georgia, gathered by blogger Fabius Maximus. I haven’t had time to follow all of them.

Some Barnett blog posts on preferring market-led economic penalties over military responses to Russian actions in Georgia: By all means vote with your dollars, August 14th, Hit ’em where they is, August 28, Georgia ‘opportunity’ cost: $8B, September 4th, Russian backlash adds up, September 15th, More evidence, September 18th.

More Barnett on Russia: The limits of authoritarianism, and Putin’s limits, September 25th. Barnett sees rule of law as essential, but seems to regard economic consequences as the best corrective for unlawful rule, not democratic accountability.

Some Barnett posts on democracy: Some truly bad thinking, August 4th, and Immature democracies are dangerous, August 19th - note the article linked to in that post cites a death toll figure very much out of date. Finally from August 20th a post praising an article by Spengler in Asia Times Online, Americans play Monopoly, Russians chess, which begins:

On the night of November 22, 2004, then-Russian president - now premier - Vladimir Putin watched the television news in his dacha near Moscow. People who were with Putin that night report his anger and disbelief at the unfolding ‘Orange’ revolution in Ukraine. “They lied to me,” Putin said bitterly of the United States. “I’ll never trust them again.” The Russians still can’t fathom why the West threw over a potential strategic alliance for Ukraine. They underestimate the stupidity of the West.

And further on continues:

The Russians know (as every newspaper reader does) that Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili is not a model democrat, but a nasty piece of work who deployed riot police against protesters and shut down opposition media when it suited him - in short, a politician in Putin's mold. America’s interest in Georgia, the Russians believe, has nothing more to do with promoting democracy than its support for the gangsters to whom it handed the Serbian province of Kosovo in February.

Again, the Russians misjudge American stupidity. Former president Ronald Reagan used to say that if there was a pile of manure, it must mean there was a pony around somewhere. His epigones have trouble distinguishing the pony from the manure pile. The ideological reflex for promoting democracy dominates the George W Bush administration to the point that some of its senior people hold their noses and pretend that Kosovo, Ukraine and Georgia are the genuine article.

Charming.

A rather more enjoyable article Barnett linked to: Babble Rouser, a Forbes piece on Denis O’Brien, a mobile phone entrepeneur specialising in developing countries, from the August 11th issue.

On neocons versus realists, neo or otherwise, Barnett linked disapprovingly to this piece by Robert Kagan from the Wall Street Journal of August 30th on Russia and Georgia, and on contemporary realists and neoconservatives. The comments on Barnett’s post lead me to a Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria on Obama, ‘the true realist’, July 19th, and Who’s more realistic: McCain or Obama? from September 14th.

A couple of recent related articles not linked to by Barnett: from the IHT, Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski on negotiating the missile defence deal, September 23rd, and on Russia’s challenge to European strategic thinking, September 26th.

Also, the BBC’s Bridget Kendall interviews Mikhail Saakashvili, September 27th. He too points to the economic consequences for Russia, which he asserts were much worse than those for Georgia. There will be no new cold war, he says, as Russia is politically isolated and much weaker than the old Soviet bloc. He says that Georgia can’t defeat Russia with tanks, but that there are two political systems in competition here, and he sees Georgia on the winning side. He believes the appeal of democracy is depriving the undemocratic Russian government of international allies. Russia needs to modernise, he says.

An indication of the distance Russia still has to travel to modernise politically: war trophies on show, and remembering Putin’s first day as president - handing out hunting knives to Russian soldiers in Chechnya.

FIN.

Romulus and Remus illustration from the Times Higher Education Supplement, 1994.

Obelix and Co. copyright © 1976 Goscinny/Uderzo. Translators: Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge.