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Waiting for Election Night

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Three weeks out from Election Day, it’s increasingly unlikely that any news event, economic development, or overall party message is going to have a major effect on the outcome.  Yes, long-planned GOTV efforts—beginning with early voters—will come to fruition, and actual events, including candidate debates, could swing close individual races.  But to an extent that would depress most candidates (who naturally tend to think their fate is in their own hands), a lot of what we are doing now is trying to predict results that are pre-ordained, and even anticipating some of the post-election debates within the two parties.

The exceptions to this predestination rule are close statewide races, for two reasons.  First, statewide candidates simply get greater exposure, if not from ads then from media coverage.  And second, gubernatorial candidates are affected to some extent by their own political dynamics, particularly if they belong to the party in power at the state level, and thus represent the “wrong track.”

The implications of the first factor are explained by PPP’s Tom Jensen in a post about Democratic prospects in House and Senate races:

I think Democrats are going to lose the House, with Republicans quite possibly picking up a lot  more seats than they even need for a majority. At the same time I think Democrats will hold  onto the Senate and that it may be by a larger margin than people are expecting, with the party perhaps holding onto its seats in places like Illinois, Colorado, Nevada, and West Virginia where the party lucked out because the GOP nominated weak candidates.

That’s a reminder that candidates matter- but they matter a lot more in Senate elections where voters really get to know them than in House elections that are much more likely to be  determined by the national tide. We’ve seen time and again in Senate races this year that the better voters get to know the Republican candidates the less they like them. But unfortunately for Democrats I don’t know that voters ever get to know the House candidates well enough for that same effect to occur.

Jensen’s point reflects past experience, as well.  In 1972, 1984, and 1990, one party made gains in one chamber of Congress while losing seats in the other.  The most famous example was in 1972, when despite the Nixon landslide over McGovern, Democrats actually gained two net Senate seats.  And even where one party has made gains in both Houses, they haven’t always been congruent in size or sweep (e.g., 1982, when the two parties broke even in the Senate even as Democrats gained 27 seats in the House).

The ideological sorting-out of the two parties may have reduced the likelihood of such variable results, insofar as ticket-splitting has become less common, particularly in congressional races.  But the higher profile of statewide races does give candidates greater opportunities to make news—or make costly mistakes—and down-the-stretch financial advantages can have a greater impact as well.

Having said all that, the precise results to be expected on November 2 remain unpredictable, not so much because of candidate behavior, but simply because an unusually large number of races are competitive.  This is particularly true in the House.  As Nate Silver explained at some length in a post on his own and others’ projections of House results:

According to just about every objective and subjective indicator, then, the number of  competitive House districts is roughly twice as high as in recent years. This is why the margin of  error on our House forecast is very wide. If the polling is off by just a little in one direction or another, it could have profound consequences for the number of seats that Republicans are likely to gain. Likewise, there are a great number of districts in which both parties have viable   candidates who could over perform or underperform the trends present in the national environment.

Why are so many races competitive? That could merit an article on its own. I suspect much of the reason is that the deterioration in the political environment for Democrats was evident  quite early in the cycle — certainly by around August or September of last year — leaving both parties with plenty of time to prepare. The fact that the Internet has made fundraising much less burdensome, and allowed name recognition to be built through a variety of “nontraditional” means, may also play a role.

With more seats in play, the odds of missing the exact post-election count go up quite a bit.  Cutting in the other direction is the fact that there is a lot more public polling data available than in the past, so projections are less likely to depend entirely on past performance or some sort of vague, thumb-on-the-scales estimates of national trends.

As Election Day approaches, the likelihood of major surprises will naturally go down.  But there are more than enough razor-close races to ensure considerable mystery on Election Night.

The President’s New Gamble

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Obama’s call yesterday for $50 billion in new transportation spending is politically risky, given public worries about government spending and debt. But if linked to a strategic and sustained strategy for modernizing the nation’s infrastructure, it could signal the start of America’s economic comeback.

Even more important than the money, however, is an Obama initiative that didn’t get as much media play: a proposed National Infrastructure Bank. It is the key not only to leveraging business capital – U.S. companies are sitting on $2 trillion in potential “private stimulus” money – but also to making sure we invest that money wisely.

The president said he would ask the lame-duck Congress next month to approve the $50 billion measure, which would front-load money that otherwise would be spread over the life of a six-year surface transportation bill.  He left little doubt his immediate goal is to goose the pace of the agonizingly slow economic recovery.

“Nearly one in five construction workers is still unemployed and needs a job. And that makes absolutely no sense when so much of America needs rebuilding,” Obama told reporters at the White House on Memorial Day. Attempting to preempt Republican objections that infrastructure spending is simply stimulus is drag, Obama noted that “Investing in infrastructure is something members of both parties have always supported.”

Maybe so, but it’s worth noting that the word “infrastructure” appears nowhere in the GOP’s 48-page Pledge to America.  What’s more, Republicans are likely to over-interpret likely midterm gains as vindication of their attacks on Obama as a big spender, so good luck getting them to vote for infrastructure in the lame duck.

That’s a shame, because spending on infrastructure is both stimulus and investment.  It could get more Americans working now, but it is also essential to building our country’s long-term capacity to compete in fast growing global markets for high speed rail, civilian nuclear energy, clean cars, intelligent transport systems and renewable fuels.

The federal government, of course, is constrained by enormous deficits and a growing national debt. That’s why we need a National Infrastructure Bank, which would structure public-private deals to fund big capital projects that can generate real economic returns. As noted by an economic analysis the White House released yesterday:

“There is currently very little direct private investment in our nation’s highway and transit systems due to the current method of funding infrastructure, which lacks effective mechanism to attract and repay direct private investment in specific infrastructure projects. … A National Infrastructure Bank would also perform a rigorous analysis that would result in support for projects that yield the greatest returns to society and are most likely to deliver long-run economic benefits that justify the up-front investments.”

An infrastructure bank, along with new public seed capital and a third element of the Obama infrastructure initiative – merging the many stovepiped “modal” transportation funding streams so public dollars can be used strategically – begin at last to push the economic debate in a constructive direction.  The two great challenges America faces now are reviving our economic dynamism and shrinking a massive overhang of public debt. To meet them, the Obama administration needs to fashion an ambitious, “cut and invest” strategy aimed at slowing health care and entitlement spending generally, and using public dollars to leverage massive private investment in productivity-enhancing infrastructure.

That’s why President Obama should press ahead with his infrastructure plan, despite the political fallout from the midterm election. If Republicans want to frame the economic debate as a choice between more tax cuts and rebuilding the common foundations of American prosperity, so much the better. That’s one progressives can win.

Photo credit: Center for Neighborhood Technology

Neither the Left Nor the Right Gets It

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The night that President Obama won the presidency, I was distracted by a looming deadline for New Republic piece I was already writing warning the left not to misinterpret the election results.  Democratic Congressional victories were primarily the result of voters continuing to grow sour on the way Republicans ran the House and Senate.  Obama’s victory owed its magnitude to the financial crisis and McCain’s response to it.  Essentially, I warned that the 50-50 Nation was alive and well and that moving too aggressively could backfire.

The piece was largely ignored at the time, but it is looking pretty good today.  Democrats successfully enacted landmark health care legislation, shepherded the financial system through a harrowing period when fears of another depression were widespread, passed an enormous stimulus package, and pushed through financial reform.  In the process, the deficit soared to worrying levels, unemployment continued to rise, the government became the owner of FannieMae and FreddieMac and part owners of the automobile companies, the economy limped along, and public opinion turned against them.

In a sure sign that in its own way, the left is as out of touch as the conservative tea party activists, liberals lamented the supposed timidity and corporate-coziness of the Administration, and the base grew depressed.  This despite the unprecedented scale of federal spending and intervention into the workings of the economy, the near death of health care reform (the biggest progressive victory since Medicare’s enactment), and loss of support among independents and moderates.  Progressives thought they had a mandate for aggressive change.  Apparently they still don’t realize that they didn’t.

Ironically, one of the left’s leading pundits, E. J. Dionne, argued in a sharp book in the 1990s called They Only Look Dead that the way to understand the 1992, 1994, and 1996 elections was to view the first two years as a period of liberal overreach and the second two years as a mirror image on the right.  Despite all the evidence that the country is even more closely divided today, liberals such as Dionne cannot see the same dynamic of partisan overreach playing out over the past decade.  But it was there during the Bush years on the right, and it has been there over the past two momentous years on the left.

Yes, the economy is surely the driving force behind voter dissatisfaction with Democrats, and Obama was damned if he did (spend hundreds of billions to avoid a depression) and damned if he didn’t.  But health care was supposed to be a game changer—if voters were so keen on a massive disruption of the health care sector, as progressives have argued for twenty years now, why hasn’t this trumped the economy?  The electorate is fundamentally moderate and as poorly served by liberals who want to circumvent that moderation as by tea-party conservatives who are convinced Obama is a socialist Muslim foreigner.  It will be interesting to see which party—if either—gets it between now and 2012.

This article is cross-posted at No Labels.

Photo credit: Hyokano

When National Security Means Energy Independence

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This post is the fourth in a series about the Progressive Military

The smell that will always take me and many other vets back to the old Army days is diesel exhaust fumes.  When you spend many years of your life rolling around the muddy trails of military training areas in 5-ton trucks or the bumpy roads of Iraq and Afghanistan in armored Humvees, the smell brings on instant nostalgia.  It is my hope, and the hope of many senior military leaders, that our next generation of servicemembers won’t know that smell because they won’t be using oil.

There is widespread agreement by institutions on all sides of the political spectrum that energy independence, security, and planning for the repercussions of climate change must be addressed.  Former CIA director James Woolsey has called this “the first war since the Civil War that America has funded both sides.”  However there is still opposition, mostly from the GOP Congressional minority, to taking real comprehensive steps.  Their opposition to a comprehensive energy and climate bill, such as the American Power Act, has stifled momentum on the issue.  Too many in Congress want to ensure nothing get done on the issue for quite a while.

Despite Congressional impasse, the military is looking at the issue from top to bottom and pushing forward.  The Army is investigating using the safflower as a biofuel and began its Fuel Efficiency Demonstrator (FED) program to develop new vehicle technologies in response to battlefield calls for the need to reduce the number of dangerous convoys that use and transport fuel.  The effort doesn’t extend solely to vehicles and equipment; it also extends to the power grids on it installations at home and downrange.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, strongly committed to the issue, has promised that the Navy and Marine Corps will get less than half of its power from fossil fuels within ten years.  As far as new energy and combat power are concerned, the electric hybrid ship USS Makin Island and the hybrid-fueled FA-18 “Green Hornet” fighter jet have already made their maiden voyages.  The Navy is also committed to making all of their installations energy self-sufficient by 2020.

Not to be outdone, the Air Force has developed an A-10 “Thunderbolt”, a ground attack aircraft, that also runs on a biofuels mixture and plans to test at least three other aircraft models this year.  This is a significant development as the Air Force is the military’s top energy consumer.  On the ground, Langley Air Force Base has installed a geothermal energy system as part of the Air Force goal to reduce its energy consumption 20% by 2020.

The Pentagon has begun to “wargame” the consequences of climate change that the military may be called upon to address.  As resources become scarce, it may lead to conflicts on several continents.  U.S. bases may be threatened by rising sea levels.  It may also lead to conflict between allies and destabilize stable states and further ruin already shaky ones.  It is also no secret that American dependence on oil from unstable regions leaves us vulnerable every time there is a hiccup in the supply caused by unrest or terror attacks.

There may be continued debate as whether we have already or will reach “peak oil”, whether the alarms raised about “foreign” oil are an overreaction, or, most of all, whether climate change is actually happening at all.  The U.S. military doesn’t seem to be willing to take the chance that these things aren’t or won’t happen.  In the words of energy security advocate and retired Army Chief of Staff General Gordon Sullivan, “We never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”

If Congress and the American people trust the military to keep them safe, hopefully they will trust the military on energy independence and climate change.  General Anthony C. Zinni, retired U.S. CENTCOM commander, has said, “We will pay for this one way or another.  We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today . . . or we will pay the price later in military terms and that will involve human lives.”

Photo credit: US Army Africa

The Heartland’s Political Future

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Our final regional roundup for the stretch drive involves the Midwest, defined as states from Ohio and Kentucky west to the Great Plains. There are six Republican Senate seats up this year, though one race – South Dakota — is uncontested and the GOP has long held huge lead in two others – Iowa and Kansas. Ohio has recently slipped out of the competitive range with Rob Portman holding regular double-digit leads over Lee Fisher, and Roy Blunt has opened up a pretty steady lead over Robin Carnahan in Missouri. The closest race for a Republican seat is in Kentucky, but Rand Paul seems to have stabilized his campaign and now has a small but steady lead over Jack Conway.  One Democratic Senate seat is gone, in North Dakota, where Gov. John Hoeven has a vast lead, and another is virtually gone, unless Brad Ellsworth soon makes up some ground against Dan Coats.  Illinois is a real crapshoot, with recent polls showing a dead heat between Democrat Alex Giannoulis and Republican Mark Kirk, with a persistently high third party/undecided vote.  So it’s looking like a net gain of two to three Senate seats for the GOP in the Heartland.

Nine governorships are up in the region, six currently held by Democrats. Of those, Kansas is a lock for a Republican takeover, and GOP candidates have large and steady leads in two others – Iowa and Missouri. In Ohio and Illinois, Republicans are currently favored, but hold only single-digit leads; both races have tightened recently.  And Democrats have an excellent chance of picking up a gubernatorial seat in Minnesota, though Tom Emmer has narrowed Mark Dayton’s lead lately.  If there is a region-wide or national GOP wave larger than current polls indicate, the Midwest could give Republicans a net gain of four or five governorships.

But it’s in House races that the Midwest could have its greatest impact.  At present, according to the Cook Political Report, there are seven Democratic-controlled House seats in the region Republican candidates are currently favored to win — one each in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin and two in Ohio; nine more Democratic seats that are tossups — one each in Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, South Dakota and Wisconsin; and two each in Illinois and Ohio.  Another six Democratic seats are less vulnerable but could be lost in a national landslide.  That’s 22 competitive races for Democratic-held House districts, and the only prime Democratic target is Mark Kirk’s open House seat in Illinois.  Democrats are in many respects paying the price for banner years in the region in 2006 and 2008.

Remember the Cole

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The following is an excerpt from an op-ed in the LA Times:

America forgets Oct. 12 as seamlessly as it remembers Sept. 11. Ten years ago today, 17 U.S. Navy sailors were killed and 39 injured in an Al Qaeda attack against the U.S. destroyer Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen. The Cole was relatively defenseless during a 24-hour refueling stop when suicide operatives pulled alongside in a small, explosive-laden boat and detonated a charge, ripping a 40-foot hole in the hull.

Though the lessons from 9/11 will be debated for years, Oct. 12’s message is succinct. It is best summed up by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James T. Conway: “Energy choices can save lives on the battlefield.” The armed forces are searching for next-generation green energy technologies because they provide power at the point of its consumption, which decreases the military’s need to resupply with carbon-based fuels.

But there’s a huge problem: Renewable energy technologies, to which Conway refers, aren’t being developed fast enough. One solution is an “innovation fund,” housed in the Pentagon, to help companies bridge the gap between the test lab and the battlefield. Such a fund would use public dollars to leverage private money, scaling up the most promising clean-energy projects. And if a green technology revolutionizes how the military powers itself, that idea might one day power the rest of us too.

Read the full column at the LA Times.

Government-Run Healthcare

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This post is the third in a series about the Progressive Military

The wounds from the healthcare debate in America are still fresh.  There are many in the GOP Congressional minority that would see the healthcare bill repealed, and there has been much scare-mongering about a government-run healthcare system – that patients will be lost in the bureaucracy, they’ll lose control over their health decisions, the quality of care will suffer, and the costs will be tremendous.

If the Veterans Administration healthcare system is an example, those fears are overblown. The military’s government-run healthcare system is not just good in the field, it’s good at home as well and shows that government can do healthcare.

I was a customer of 100% government-run healthcare for eight years.  I visited the emergency room, received all my shots and checkups, got my wisdom teeth pulled, and received my prescribed medication all without being killed or turned away by some bureaucrat.  I received the same level of care everywhere, whether in Missouri, Washington, Germany, or Iraq.  And not just me, my family as well.  I’m not alone.  There are over 1.4 million Americans on active duty in the U.S. military.  If you include their family members, retirees, and those receiving Veterans Administration benefits, the number swells to over 9 million Americans already actively receiving government healthcare.

Active duty troops and their families use the 532 active military medical facilities nationwide and enroll in TRICARE, which is the military’s government-run healthcare system.  Reservists called to active duty over 30 days are covered as well.  For retirees, TRICARE fills the gap for what Medicare doesn’t cover.  CHAMPVA gives the same coverage to family members of disabled or deceased service members no longer serving and gives them access to Veterans Administration hospitals.  The Veterans Administration system (VA) coverage has changed from serving only troops with service-connected disabilities to serving all veterans based upon need.  There are over 24 million Americans eligible for VA medical benefits at over 1000 facilities nationwide, 9 million of which are over 65.

It’s a well-known fact that the traumas caused on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan lead, by necessity, to innovations in trauma care.  As an Iraq war veteran, I saw this in action personally with our combat medics, especially when they patched me up after suicide car-bomber hit my vehicle head-on.   The military health system also develops medical technology, techniques, and procedures that can be used in the civilian world.

The Army’s National Trauma Institute, in cooperation with several universities, collects data from wounded soldiers to identify what can be done to improve their first-response treatment and will help not only on the battlefield, but in civilian hospitals as well.  The military is making an exemplary push to digitize medical records in order to make them easier to search through and transfer between locations, not to mention saving money.  This idea was picked up in the new healthcare legislation.

The uniformity of the military medical system also pays dividends in health safety against epidemics and pandemics, as exhibited by the fast and nearly-comprehensive immunization rate of soldiers against H1N1.  Achieving such rates quickly among the civilian population would be improbable.  I and many other soldiers are also vaccinated against diseases many in the civilian population are not anymore, namely small pox and anthrax.  Our troops also get the flu shot at the beginning of every flu season.  The military was the first to test the effectiveness of flu nasal-spray vaccinations compared with shots to reduce the use and cost of needles.  This is done not just for their health, but also to save the system from having to pay more money for sick sailors and airmen later.

The military is devoted to preventing disease, illness, and injury not only because it they take troops off the field, but they also cost the system money.  The U.S. Army Public Health Command and similar organizations in the other services are devoted exclusively to this mission.

If you contrast a system that has an interest in seeing that you to stay healthy because it saves them (the government) money with a system that makes money when you are sick, (insurance companies, HMOs) one can see that a pinch of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  A similar government system implemented nationwide would save people money, improve their health, and save lives.  If universal government-run healthcare is good enough for the troops, it’s good enough for us all.

It’s true the system is not perfect. There have been scandals surrounding military healthcare, such as the living conditions for recovering troops at Walter Reed Medical Center and veterans groups (some of which I am a member of) constantly push for improvements to the VA system.  But in general the quality of military healthcare is very good, and proof that government-run healthcare can indeed work.

Photo credit: US Army Africa

The Military and Innovation

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This post is the second in a series about the Progressive Military

My buddy Jon Gensler is smart.  Way too smart.  Besides being a West Point grad and serving as an Army battle Captain in Iraq, he has also found the time to take on a joint M.A. from Harvard and MIT.  He’s like a mad scientist that instead of working on killer robot chickens, works on solutions to our energy problems.  I just like to hear him talk about projects that a generation ago would have been on Buck Rogers or Lost In Space.  He didn’t come from some science fiction convention though; he spent the summer at the DoE’s ARPA-E.  The good news is he’s not alone.

ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency- Energy, is the Department of Energy’s vehicle for focusing on spurring new, ‘outside-the-box’ energy ideas.  Among them are programs to develop long-life, low cost batteries for electric vehicles, to harness microorganisms to produce liquid fuels without petroleum or biomass, and ‘carbon capture’ technologies that will prevent carbon monoxide from coal plants entering the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.

What makes ARPA-E different is that it is focused on taking large research risks that may have big payoffs while keeping an eye on real prospects of success.  ARPA-E just received its first $400 million budget as part of the Recovery Act in 2009.  It isn’t the only such agency and the model isn’t actually a new one.

ARPA-E is based on DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was created 52 years ago in response to the Russian launch of Sputnik.  What began as a space and nuclear technology research agency later turned to counterinsurgency technologies in Vietnam is now an organization dedicated to the research and development of innovations that give the U.S. military an edge on the battlefield today.  DARPA research led to guided missiles, stealth technology, and the unmanned aerial drones now in use worldwide.

DARPA and ARPA-E are praised as models that are ‘lean’ on bureaucracy and focus on high-risk, high-reward ideas within a relatively small budget.  What is also interesting about them is that they highlight the fact that the military and the government can drive innovation.  This pays dividends not only for our energy needs and national security, but for our economy as a whole, since the private sector tends to build on these innovations

Many claim to have invented the internet, but ARPAnet was the true beginning of today’s World Wide Web.  DARPA also invented GPS and speech translation technology, among others innovations the use of which have generated billions of dollars in profits for private firms in America and worldwide.  Imagine a day at the office without the internet or shipping and logistics without GPS. The ideas that ARPA-E is currently working on have as much potential to make just as large an impact.

Today many private firms are not willing to take research and development risks, especially in our current economic state.  While others cut, DARPA has continued to innovate no matter the political or economic climate using the same model since my father was born.  The breakthroughs expected at ARPA-E are coming at a time when many companies are drastically cutting their R&D budgets.  Through fat and lean years for America, the DARPA model has been a successful example of the military and the government driving innovation, and all on a ‘shoestring’ budget of less than $500 million annually.

‘Thinking outside the box’ has become a motto in American business.  No matter how much out-of-box thinking the private sector does, it is still limited by the ‘box’ of profit.  DARPA and ARPA-E are able to think outside of even this box. Their motto is more akin to the British Commandos: ‘Who Dares, Wins’.  It is important for the government to continue to fund such programs because it can do so independent of the economic climate. DARPA and ARPA-E show that government can spur innovation in a lean, streamlined, and cost-efficient manner, can think ‘outside the box’, and can spur economic growth in the private sector while giving our troops an edge in the fight.

Photo credit: US Army Africa

Blair: Fight Extremist Narrative

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Some Democrats tune out Tony Blair not only because he backed the invasion of Iraq, but because he committed the unpardonable sin of articulating the case for war far more convincingly than George W. Bush.

That’s too bad, because Britain’s ex-prime minister has some important things to say about the conflict formerly known as the “war on terror.” On this issue, in fact, the Obama administration could use a dose of Blairite clarity and candor.

Blair was in New York this week to accept the “Scholar-Statesman” award from The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In his acceptance speech, he argued that the United States and the “civilized world” must combat not just al Qaeda, but also the extremist ideology that inspired the 9/11 attacks:

“I do not think it is possible to defeat the extremism without defeating the narrative that nurtures it. And there’s the rub. The practitioners of the extremism are small in number. The adherents of the narrative stretch far broader into parts of mainstream thinking.”

This inconvenient truth highlights a critical vacuum in U.S. counterterrorism policy. While the Obama administration has ramped up the military campaign to oust al Qaeda from Afghanistan (and pound its sanctuaries in Pakistan), it has been less successful in checking the spread of the Islamist doctrine, which casts Muslims as victims of western oppression and disrespect.

Blair believes western efforts to blunt the force of the extremist narrative by apologizing for policies, such as support for Israel, are counterproductive. They undercut rather than fortify the position of Muslim moderates, and they provoke a backlash from western publics against what’s seen as pandering to extremists.

Although he was too diplomatic to say so, Blair’s call for confronting the extremist narrative head-on challenges current U.S. policy.

President Obama has wisely retired the “war on terror” language he inherited from his predecessor. As Reza Aslan has noted, Bush’s relentlessly martial rhetoric lent credence to the idea that the United States was locked in a “cosmic war” with Islam. By narrowing the focus to al Qaeda (and its Taliban protectors in Afghanistan), Obama has sought to reassure both foreign and domestic audiences that the United States is drawing careful distinctions and not making unnecessary enemies.

So far, so good. But even if we demolished what’s left of al Qaeda tomorrow, our problems wouldn’t be over. Its ideology already has migrated to affiliates in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, which have adopted the same gruesome tactics of suicide bombers and mass casualty attack. And while their victims are mostly Muslims, as Blair noted, too many in the Muslim world seem sympathetic to their narrative of victimhood, if not their methods.

This ambivalence was captured perfectly by one of a group of Somalians from Virginia captured in Pakistan. He said, in effect, we’re not terrorists, we’re jihadists come to help our fellow Muslims defend themselves against western aggression.

So Tony Blair is, as the Brits say, spot on. To reduce the threat of terrorist attacks, the United States must wage a two-track fight. One is the military campaign to disrupt and destroy al Qaeda. The other should be a “whole of government” effort to counter the extremist narrative. I’ll have more to say in future posts about its key elements, but it starts by engaging directly with Muslim publics and by firmly rejecting the false premises of the extremist story.

Photo credit: Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Stop the Madness: The New Politics of Stunts

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On the heels of the controversy about this week’s perhaps terror alerts in Europe, I reflected on a recent experience with the very real costs of what you might call the terrorist-hysteria complex.

Two weeks ago, I was in Afghanistan on a U.S. government-sponsored mission to observe the Parliamentary elections on Saturday, September 18th. The day before, I sat on the balcony of our guesthouse and watched a dangerous drama unfold just outside. Our security guards strung a black curtain along our balcony rail to block prying eyes. Through two of the panels, I watched as a member of the Afghan National Police crouched behind a wall of olive-green sandbags about a hundred feet away and aimed his automatic rifle at a curve in the road to the right.

We were in Panjshir, a valley about two and a half hours north of Kabul. At that moment, a mullah up the road was leading a protest at an elementary school in response to the burning of a Koran by by two men in Tennessee named Bob Old and Danny Allen. (This was different from Terry Jones, the Florida preacher who canceled his burning.)

You probably never heard about the Tennessee story. When you watch the video, it’s mind-blowing that these two characters somehow animated events oceans away. But seven thousand miles away, amped up both by a local hair-trigger media and Afghan opportunists looking to stir up trouble, Bob Old and Danny Allen — names we will almost certainly never hear again — created real danger and real expense.

On the mission with me were two security professionals from the UK and the U.S., two Afghan security men, a translator, and my partner, all funded by a U.S. aid agency and U.S. taxpayer dollars. We were supposed to be out in the field, interviewing government officials, asking probing questions about the quality of the election, the depth of the rule of law. I should have been helping to determine whether the billions of dollars and gallons of blood our warfighters have poured into Afghanistan is worth it.

But we instead spent the day stuck in our guest house, pawns in the mad world of stunt-driven politics. There was a striking parallel between the stunts back in America and the Taliban’s efforts in Afghanistan. Both were aimed at controlling the actions of millions through discrete acts of violence. Both take advantage of the nexus of blogs, a 24-hour news cycle, and political opportunism. And both have real consequences not only on our perception of reality, but on policy.

Read the entire article in the Huffington Post.

What’s Progressive About the U.S. Military

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

This post is the first in a series about the Progressive Military

It has now been nine years since the 9/11 attacks, and since that day the average American has heard an awful lot about the military.  We are fighting extremism worldwide and still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yet many progressives remain uncomfortable with the military, often assuming that it is a conservative organization because political conservatives are so eager to identify themselves with our troops.

This is a series about how the military is a more progressive organization than many people give it credit for. It will help progressives better appreciate the many ways that the U.S. Military operates and accomplishes progressive goals. It is also aimed at conservatives who implicitly trust the military and might see issues like climate change, healthcare, economic opportunity and energy policy as vital issues.

The military is a more progressive organization than many give it credit for and it is my hope in this series of articles to do just that.

Despite the daily attention to military issues, it is striking to me how little those who never served in the military know about it.  After I was already in the Army a few years, my father, who retired after 23 years of military service, met a friend of mine.  He told him that I was at Fort Lewis and went up to Seattle on weekends.  He was surprised and asked, ‘you mean they let them out?’

Since 1975 only around one percent of the population has worn the uniform.  Many have family members or friends who served, but this only gives them a bit more than the basic knowledge the majority of Americans have.  For most, opinions and attitudes toward the military are developed by the news media, TV shows, and movies.  Many of our elected leaders, despite their claims to the contrary, have little more knowledge than the general population and surprisingly few of them have served themselves though they make very important decisions involving the military every day.  Though others have claimed it falsely, there are only four Iraq war veterans in Congress.

This, however, doesn’t seem to keep them from claiming to speak for the military.  The debate about the Iraq ‘surge’ and the debate about the future of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2008 election prompted many on the right to claim ‘you can’t support the troops without supporting the war.’ I served in Iraq and Kuwait during these debates.  I didn’t support the war in Iraq, but I fought as hard as I could in it every day, receiving a Purple Heart in a suicide bombing.  I served with others who did support it and did the same.  Servicemembers do their duty no matter their personal opinion.  Anyone claiming to presume that they know what servicemembers believe doesn’t understand the concept of duty.

And yet, the recent debate on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ centered on conservatives claiming troops don’t want to worry about sharing their ‘foxhole’ with a homosexual.  Our troops haven’t dug ‘foxholes’ in quite a while.  This comment exhibits an opinion based on the stereotypical swaggering, macho draftee of Hollywood films.  The truth is our all-volunteer military today is made of service members that see themselves as military professionals.  They have an opinion about the matter, but once the decision has been made they accept it and won’t be distracted, especially in combat, by such trivial matters as the sexual orientation of their squadmate.  This professionalism was previously exhibited when the military desegregated, despite opposition.  Sixty years later, troops of all colors and genders serve well beside one another.

A closer look at the policies and culture of the U.S. military today shows that it is more progressive than many traditionally think.  There are many lessons progressives can draw on from today’s military, and conservatives’ trust of the military on national security issues should translate to trust on other issues.

The military healthcare system shows that government can do big healthcare well and efficiently; it leads the way on addressing energy independence, efficiency, and the repercussions of climate change; despite its size and controversies, it has shown real commitment to providing economic opportunity; and it has an culture of innovation and learning, among other examples.  It is my hope in this series of articles to point out where the military is exhibiting progressive thinking and what lessons we can draw from the military.

Photo credit: US Army Africa

Will This Call For High-Speed Rail Spending Be Ignored?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

America’s transportation infrastructure is enfeebled, Washington’s transportation policy is broken, and we need to start building fast trains.

While that might be old news to readers of Progressive Fix, what is news is who’s saying it this week: Samuel Skinner, Secretary of Transportation under George H.W. Bush, and Norman Mineta, DOT Secretary under George W. Bush, were co-chairs of a conference at the University of Virginia behind a new report making this case. Mary E. Peters, Mineta’s successor under Bush, and a smattering of ex-DOT undersecretaries filled out the roster of 80 transportation experts.

Describing government spending on transportation as woefully underfunded, the report estimated that between $134 billion and $267 billion more is needed each year from now to 2035 to make U.S. roads, rail, and air transportation competitive with other countries.

The report lamented the “pork and political opportunism” in the current transportation reauthorization act, SAFETEA-LU, and advocated the setting up of core national priorities for transportation such as high-speed rail networks.

“High-speed rail has the potential to provide a fast, efficient and integrated alternative to driving and flying,” the report said. The best approach for genuine high-speed rail would be rights of way separate from existing freight lines – a policy strongly advocated by PPI (see here and here).

A major increase in the federal gas tax, which has remained unchanged at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, would help pay the bill for getting America’s transportation systems back to state-of-the-art standards.

Derailing High-Speed Rail

 

The group’s “call for action” comes at a time when Republican leaders have steered the GOP in a completely different direction. Extending the Bush tax cut has become their top national priority. The White House’s plan last month for $50 billion in infrastructure spending on highways and rail was met with open contempt by House Republican Leader John Boehner.

Several state races are shaping up as tests of whether President Obama’s higher-speed rail initiative can survive Republican hostility. In Wisconsin and Ohio, Republican candidates for governor have called federal stimulus money awarded for train improvements a major waste of taxpayer funds.

Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, has launched a website called notrain.com. He’s ahead in the polls, as is John Kasich, the former House Republican who vows to kill a $400 million federal stimulus project to link Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati by rail if elected the next governor of Ohio.

The anti-rail contagion has spread to New Jersey, where Republican Gov. Chris Christie is threatening to scuttle a train tunnel to Manhattan – and forfeit $6 billion in pledged funds from the federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – citing concerns of large cost overruns.

Christie yesterday postponed his announcement of whether he will back out of the agreement to build the tunnel – which would create 6,000 long-term construction jobs – in part so that he could campaign for other Republicans in the Midwest.

In California and Florida, where full-scale high-speed train networks have been awarded federal stimulus grants, GOP candidates are suggesting that they would delay or disrupt the projects.

Meg Whitman, running as the Republican candidate in California, says the state cannot afford “at this time” the costs associated with new high-speed rail. Rick Scott, Republican candidate for governor in Florida, has jumped on the same bandwagon, questioning whether the state can afford a rail line between Orlando and Tampa that has been awarded $1.25 billion in federal stimulus money.

Ironically, the current governors of California and Florida, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist, gained office as Republicans and have been big rail supporters. “To say ‘now is not the time’ shows a very narrow vision,” Schwarzenegger’s communications chief told the New York Times in response to Whitman’s tepid support for California’s rail investment.

The Eisenhower Model

“We’re going to have bridges collapse. We’re going to have earthquakes. We need somebody to grab the issue and run with it,” Mineta told reporters on Monday.

His earnest tone, delivered at the Rayburn House Office Building, was at odds with the anti-tax, anti-government vitriol coming from those of the same political stripe occupying nearby offices.

Advocates of infrastructure spending must offer specific data and concrete examples of the damage that continued underfunding of transportation projects could inflict on America’s standard of living and economic security. A starting point would be America’s dangerous overdependence on gasoline coming from unstable or hostile foreign countries. Add to this the lost productivity for U.S. drivers stuck in traffic jams, which the Mineta-Skinner report estimated at $87 billion in 2007, or $750 for every driver.

And consider that our population is expected to grow by 90 million in the next 40 years. These citizens will need to move, and high-speed rail is cheaper to build and causes much less environmental damage than new highways and airports.

A role model for such educational outreach is Dwight Eisenhower. The Republican president launched the Interstate Highway System by articulating a vision of top-quality roads benefiting all citizens and secured bipartisan support in Congress. It was part of his crusade to win the Cold War.

There’s a new battle out there – in the form of competition from emerging economic powerhouses like China, which plans to spend over $1 trillion in the next 10 years on a comprehensive 220-mph train system. While China builds its future, many of our politicians welcome gridlock as a way to wrest short-term partisan gains.

Photo credit: aussiegal

How to Understand the Chinese Military

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Next week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will sit down with his Chinese counterpart, General Liang Guanglie, in Hanoi.  Relations between China and the US – at least militarily – have been frosty recently after the US inked an arms deal with Taiwan. This meeting would suggest that no matter how upset either side becomes, each realizes that their long-term interests are better served by dialogue, not confrontation.

The talks take place as China is attempting to consolidate a sphere of influence over the South and East China Seas. It’s likely that China views these areas as part of an “anti-access/area denial” strategy.  Beijing realizes that its military couldn’t prevail in a conflict against the United States, but by controlling these strategic bodies of water, it could deny American access to them in the event of conflict over Taiwan.

The good news is that your buddies at PPI are all over it.  We’ve teamed up with Mike Chase, a professor at the Naval War College and fellow at the Truman National Security project, to produce a policy memo on China’s anti-access/area denial strategy.

He seeks to answer the following questions:

  • How and why did China’s approach shift in this new direction?
  • What are the most potent anti-access and area denial capabilities in Beijing’s arsenal?
  • And what are the implications for U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region?

He concludes:

Beijing responded by increasing its defense budget, deploying conventional ballistic missiles across from Taiwan and working on a variety of capabilities intended to target American aircraft carriers. In short, Beijing embraced technologies designed to limit America’s access to critical battlefield areas.
[…]
An AA/AD strategy has limits. Though AA/AD raises the barrier on a decision to use force, once a decision to use force is made, China could not count on prevailing quickly or at low cost.

Then, he offers the following recommendations for US policymakers:

  1. Developing new military capabilities like long-range carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicles and new operational concepts like “Air Sea Battle”—an emerging concept that the military is studying to sustain power-projection in AA/AD environments.
  2. Ongoing diplomatic attention to decreasing tensions within the U.S.-Sino relationship over the Taiwan and South China Sea issues.
  3. Increased attention to the global commons of cyber and space. America must continue to develop defensive and offensive capabilities to ensure network continuity in case of an information offensive, and practice operating without the full range of cyber and space assets.
  4. Sensitivity to China’s sensitivities. Perhaps most important, attempts to strengthen deterrence must be carefully calibrated so that they will not inadvertently fuel China’s worst fears about U.S. intentions, which would only risk further exacerbating the mutual strategic suspicion that is already threatening to make one of the most important bilateral in the world a rocky one.

But don’t take my word for it, read the whole enchilada here.

Not in Our Backyard: China’s Emerging Anti-Access Strategy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

 

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has enjoyed an unparalleled ability to project military power around the globe, as the world’s leading superpower.

But in recent years, potential U.S. rivals have invested in weapons systems and strategies that challenge America’s ability to project such global power. It is part of an “anti-access and area denial” (AA/AD) approach based on operational concepts and military capabilities that deter, delay, or disrupt U.S. military power projection. An AA/AD strategy works not by threatening to best America in a direct contest, but by preventing U.S. military engagement in the first place.

China’s strategists may not use the same terminology as their American counterparts, but there is ample evidence to suggest that Beijing is becoming AA/AD’s leading proponent. Beijing now has capabilities that could dramatically raise the costs of U.S. military intervention in areas vital to national interests, especially Taiwan and the South China Sea. As strategic analyst Andrew Krepinevich observes, “Since the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996…China has moved to shift the military balance in the Western Pacific in its favor by fielding systems capable of driving up the cost of U.S. military access to the region to prohibitive levels.”

While China might not have the capability to sink an American aircraft carrier (or want to because of the risk of escalation), it might cause enough damage to achieve a “mission kill,” preventing air sorties from the ship and forcing it out of the conflict zone. In theory, the threat of this kind of attack would cordon U.S. aircraft carriers so far away from a Chinese theater that their operational and strategic effectiveness would be greatly diminished.

The growing threat to U.S. aircraft carriers—perhaps the greatest symbol of America’s power projection capability—is but one example of China’s military modernization and strategic pivot since the mid-1990s. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is increasingly capable of posing a credible threat to Taiwan and raising the potential costs of U.S. military intervention in a regional conflict.

How and why did China’s approach shift in this new direction? What are the most potent anti-access and area denial capabilities in Beijing’s arsenal? And what are the implications for U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region?

Download the entire memo.

Internet Wars: A Who’s Who Guide

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Back in the day, there were no protesters outside corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, no one had a position on net neutrality because no one knew what is was, and technology journalists were breathlessly trying to keep pace with new technologies and companies instead of holding forth on civil rights and liberties or network engineering protocols.

But ten or 15 years in the life of the Internet is a long time.  The Internet is the transformative phenomenon of our time and its role in our lives raises serious questions about who the Internet “belongs” to, whether it is used for good or ill, what are its technological limits, and what role government has as arbiter of its future.  The debates on these and other questions has become passionate and shrill, generating more heat than light at times.  A person trying to follow the debate might need a field guide to sort through the wide array of groups and their philosophical or economic orientation.  Allow me to offer up this breakdown, the details of which are spelled out in “Who’s Who in Internet Politics: A Taxonomy of Information Technology Policy,” a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

In the report, ITIF lays out the following eight categories:

Cyber-Libertarians – Think of them as the original “netizens” and purists who believe the Internet should be governed solely  by its users that and “information wants to be free.”  Privacy and piracy will take care of themselves by the individuals who make up the organic and living Internet and not by government. Groups include the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Social Engineers – Mostly liberal, they see a lot of good in the Internet as an education and communications tool but they worry about the “digital divide,” privacy, net neutrality, and a concentration of power by both government and major corporations.  These issues could erode the Internet’s capacity to be a tool for good for all.  Among groups are the Benton Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology, Center for Digital Democracy, Civil Rights Forum on Communication Policy, Consumer Project on Technology, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Free Press, Media Access Project, and Public Knowledge, and scholars such as Columbia’s Tim Wu, MIT Media Laboratory’s David Reed, academics at Harvard’s Berkman Center (among them Larry Lessig and Yochai Benkler).

Free Marketers – Unleash the entrepreneurs! This group views the digital revolution as the great third wave of economic innovation in human history and a dynamic and liberating force that the government should mostly keep out of it. Groups include the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center, the Pacific Research Institute, the Phoenix Center, the Progress & Freedom Foundation, and the Technology Policy Institute.

Moderates – Unabashedly pro-IT, they see the Internet as this era’s driving force for both economic growth and social progress and they believe a light touch from government is useful in helping the Internet reach its potential.  “Do no harm” to limit to IT innovations but also “actively do good” is their mantra. Examples of moderates include the Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, ITIF, and the Stilwell Center.

Moral Conservatives – These groups see the Internet as an often smutty and dangerous place teeming with pornographers, gamblers, child molesters, terrorists that only government can keep at bay. They pushed for passage of the Communications Decency Act and Child Online Protection Act, Internet filtering in libraries, and worked to push legislation to ban online gambling.  Examples are groups like the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family, and around the world with countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and other religiously conservative nations that seek to limit activity on the Internet.

Old Economy Regulators – This group believes the Internet should be regulated in the same way that government regulates everything else. Otherwise, you have chaos and inequities.  Examples of this group include law enforcement officials seeking to limit use of encryption and other innovative technologies, veterans of the telecom regulatory wars that preceded the breakup of Ma Bell, legal analysts working for social engineering think tanks, as well as government officials seeking to impose restrictive regulatory frameworks on broadband.

Tech Companies & Trade Associations – Software and communications giants, Internet start-ups, and the groups that represent them, these tech interests tend to believe that regulation can be both advantageous and detrimental, depending on their particular business model.  They also advocate policies that are good for the technology industry or the economy in general. Examples include IBM, AT&T, and Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems and Microsoft, and recent phenomena in the market such as Google and Facebook, as well as trade associations like the Information Technology Industry Council and the Association for Competitive Technology. They delve into trade, tax, regulatory, and other public policy issues from a bottom-line perspective rather than a philosophical basis.

Bricks-and-Mortars – This group includes the companies, professional groups, and unions that use the Internet but also see it eroding the old-economy and face-to-face business transactions and they struggle to hold back the tide. These include both producers and distributors and middlemen (such as retailers, car dealers, wine wholesalers, pharmacies, optometrists, real estate agents, or unions representing workers in these industries). The long running battle over taxing Internet sales illustrates their struggle.

Of course, individual groups defy rigid characterization.  For example, Moral Conservatives might find themselves on the same side of an issue as Social Engineers.  Also, consensus is often elusive in trade associations as member companies often have complicated interrelationships or niches in the market.  However, whether you lean more toward advancing the interests of the individual or society as whole, see government regulation as generally useful or harmful, or are wary of the Internet’s influence or enthusiastic about it is useful to understanding where various groups stand.  You might need Venn diagrams to fully understand the Internet policy landscape when surveying issues such as piracy, net neutrality, intellectual property rights, and Internet sales taxes.  (An unusual pursuit, to be sure.)

One common theme in all these groups is that they almost certainly believe they are advocating sound policies and doing the right thing for individuals and for society – as incomprehensible as that might seem to those from an opposing organization.  In some cases, their passion for their beliefs makes for a good sound bite in a news story.  The societal destruction by a government that is scheming to implant chips in our heads is an easier story to sell than an explanation of how packets are sorted on broadband networks. And this is dangerous.

Internet and technology debate is being politicized and degraded.  And misguided and ill-informed debates lead to misguided and ill-informed policies. We have enough of people vehemently opposing bills they haven’t read or crafting policy from bumper stickers and making caricatures of opponents.   The Internet’s transformation is really just beginning so people in government, the media, and the public at large need to refine and update their understanding of the philosophical issues, the players, the economic realities, and societal issues as stake.  Wherever you come down on a range of tech policies – whether you carry placards outside of Facebook’s offices or decide to get an engineering degree to figure out net neutrality – it is essential to understand the political and policy landscape that didn’t exist just 20 years ago.  And now you have a map.

Photo credit: Stefan

To Oppose or to Propose?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

France, 15 of September, 2010. The Pension Reform passes in the National Assembly after months of struggle. The obstruction instigated by the left parties leads to one of these cinema-like scenes when the right-oriented President of the Lower House (Bernard Accoyer) decides to suspend the debates, prompting call for his resignation by the Socialists – when not accusing the current government of fascism and a putsch.

The issue of reforming the pension system is in itself a subject of concern for all aging western democracies. France has an almost completely repartition-based system where working citizens contribute a percentage of their wages to the retirement pensions of the previous worker-generation. No need to explain that with the population pyramid, every developed country is facing nowadays, fewer young workers will have to pay for a “papy-boom” generation that is living longer and longer.

But what is also at issue here is the behavior of the opposition party, this vital nerve of every democracy, which faces the “to oppose or to propose” dilemma: How to make needed concessions without having them considered as surrender of principles?

After years of failed attempt at reforms, the French government has proposed extending the retirement contribution years and postponing the retirement age from 60 to 62  by 2018. Even if the Socialists officially accept lengthening the retirement contribution years, they fight against the loss of the symbolic legal age at which you can chose to quit work. The extreme left wing, for its part, is simply denying the reality of the age pyramid: They definitely want to “freeze the counters” up to 40 years of contribution, arguing that people deserve to experience healthy retirement years and that their departure would leave more work to the next generation.

The Socialist opposition clearly decided to apply the “opposing for opposing” strategy, which not only works against their interest, but also prevents any possibility of constructive democratic debates leading to a meaningful compromise.

Such an attitude makes the opposition seem unconstructive and static. At best, it only strengthens the extremes which seem to give voters a clearer choice – even if often extravagant. In the long haul, it weakens democracy not to have opposition parties willing and able to be serious partners in debate and deliberation.

Moreover, crying wolf at every proposition from the party in power turns the opposition into background noise citizens no longer bother to pay attention to. Consequently, it gives the governing party a freer hand in proposing and implementing policies — an opportunity the current French Government did not miss when passing bills against minorities without facing any reaction worthy of being called opposition.

Ultimately, it is up to the voters to reject opposition merely for the sake of opposition, and the extremism it builds. This is not always easy. Strong opposition can provide the appeal of moral clarity and righteous indignation. But it leads nowhere productive. Hard choices are ahead, but they only get harder when opposition parties take on a reflexive opposition stance and make compromise impossible.

Photo credit: marcovdz