Streetwise Professor

In the aftermath of 9-11, Bill Clinton lamented that he had been denied the chance to achieve greatness because he had presided over the benign nineties.  Barack Obama cannot make the same complaint.  He has a cornucopia of existential and near-existential crises to choose from.  A budget crisis.  A still shaky US and international economy and financial system.  The Middle East on fire from Tripoli to, most worrisomely, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (with Iran’s malign influence stoking the confrontation to an unknown extent).  The Japanese catastrophe.

But Obama is curiously–but obviously–detached from it all.  On Japan: “unshakeable (bad choice of words there) bond, blah, blah, blah. . . . FORE!”  On Libya: while Obama talks about the noose tightening on Khaddafy, in reality, Khaddafy is tightening the noose on the rebels–and that expression is likely to transform from a metaphorical description to a literal one within days.  On Bahrain and Saudi Arabia: timorous tut-tutting and fretting, mainly from lower levels within the administration.  In all of these events, a haste to defer to others, most notably international organizations.  But even when such organizations (such as the Arab League) call for action, the administration finds reason to demur.  On the budget, even Democrats in Congress have remarked upon–and criticized–Obama’s disengagement: newly elected WVA Senator Manchin said Obama had been “missing in action.”

But it’s not as if dairies are going to start to put Obama’s picture on milk cartons: he’s been doing things.  Like golfing.  Like preparing his NCAA hoops bracket.  Like fixing “No Child Left Behind” (is the subtext there “Bush screwed up everything, even when he had Ted Kennedy helping him”?).

Some have advanced the analogy between Obama and Eisenhower, who was widely ridiculed for his golf-heavy schedule and seeming detachment.   But, as historian Paul Johnson noted years ago, in fact Eisenhower was an active–and Machiavellian–leader behind the scenes.  Perhaps a generation from now (Johnson wrote a little more than a generation after Eisenhower’s presidency) historians will uncover evidence that Obama is similarly active behind the scenes, pulling strings.  But there is reason to doubt.  Prior to his presidency, Eisenhower had been a military commander responsible for the most complex and sprawling military campaign in history; his primary difficulty was managing a complex alliance beset by strong personalities and conflicting interests while maintaining the public image of agreement, coordination, and comity.  In contrast, Obama’s preparation for the presidency, such as it was, was as a state legislator and junior senator, earning in both places a reputation as someone unwilling to take stands on difficult issues while having absolutely no responsibility to manage or lead anything.  Prior to assuming the presidency, Eisenhower had more than a decade of executive experience under the most trying circumstances: voting “present” was never an option.  Obama made a career of that.  Obama never had to decide, in the gales of June 5, 1944, whether to launch the most audacious invasion in history, where the consequences of failure would have been catastrophic.  Eisenhower did.  So it is not really a surprise to me that Eisenhower was a forceful, crafty, and cagey behind-the-scenes leader.  I would be greatly surprised, based on background and past performance, if Obama is.

What’s more, it is far more difficult today for a president to act differently behind the scenes than in public, as was the case in Eisenhower’s day with its more deferential press and its less leak-driven Washington culture.  Especially with someone as narcissistic as Obama, who would surely let it be known if he were in fact shaping the world rather than letting it shape him.

Finally, the passivity is of a piece with Obama’s past public rhetoric and political positions, with their explicit questioning of American leadership and exceptionalism, their expressed desire to subsume the United States into collective international bodies, and their frequent criticism of the use of anything remotely resembling hard power.

If I am right in my analysis of Obama, at the most trying time in world history since the 1930s, a time fraught with political and economic peril, the United States is drifting along, neither led nor leading.  It’s worse than that, actually.  The administration has largely abdicated authority over the things that are properly in the executive sphere, while at the same time it has engaged in unprecedented expansion of government and executive power in areas–notably in economics–where the potential for mischief vastly exceeds the potential to make things better.  Doing too much of some things and too little of others doesn’t mean that on average you’re doing just the right amount: quite the opposite.

When stymied domestically, as Obama has been by the victories of the Republicans in 2010, presidents have historically turned their attention overseas, where they can exercise authority and discretion more independently and with less constraint.  Obama has not done that.  To the contrary, the opportunities to do so have been immense, but the more these opportunities have grown, the more he has shrunk from seizing them.

One initial reaction is to regret this passivity.  But given Obama’s background, ideology, and history, a more considered reaction is to conclude that it isn’t such a bad thing: things could be worse, and would likely be so were he to act according to his (leftist) lights.

Yes, things could be worse, but they are bad enough now.  The United States and the world are suffering greatly due to the leadership vacuum on both economic matters (most notably the budget and entitlements) and international affairs.  Yes, as Adam Smith said, there is a lot of ruin in a nation.  And yes, as I wrote in the immediate aftermath of Obama’s election, we are testing just how much ruin there is in this one.

When two historically antagonistic nations are jointly threatened by the rise of a third, aggressive one, the conventional response is for the two to find a way to resolve their disputes and join together against the new rival.

The example that immediately comes to mind is France and Britain in the face of a rising, obstreperous Germany in the early-20th century.  France and Britain/England had been adversaries for centuries.  Starting with the Hundred Years War (or 1066, if you prefer), the two nations were at war for a good part of the succeeding years, culminating in 1815.  During this time, these countries fought some of the first truly world wars, the Seven Years War, the Wars of Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars.  Although the 19th century was relatively quiescent, the countries still viewed each other as their most likely enemies.  As late as the Fashoda Incident of 1898, war between the two countries was a real possibility.

But the rise of Wilhelmine Germany threatened both countries.  So, in 1904 the countries put aside their centuries of hostility and began to cooperate in defense planning.  Soon the countries entered into a formal alliance.

For a second example, Communist China and the US were enemies from 1948 on.  The two countries fought to a bloody stalemate in Korea, 1950-1953.  But they put aside their differences to cooperate against the USSR, starting with Nixon’s trip to China in 1972.

This article argues that Russia and Japan fear a rising China.  That makes sense.  What would also make sense is for Japan and Russia to find ways to reach an accommodation over issues that divide them.  The most notable of these divisive issues is the Kuriles.  But instead of toning down the confrontation, Russia in particular is ramping things up with the Japanese.  It has greatly elevated the rhetoric over the islands, and heightened the profile of the dispute with high level visits to the islands by Medvedev and Defense Minister Serdyukov.  It has just announced plans to greatly increase the armaments on the islands, including S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems adn Bastion mobile coastal missile system with Yakhont supersonic anti-ship missiles. The Japanese have responded with some animosity, and there have been outbreaks of popular anti-Russian protest in Japan (including a tragicomic flag burning incident).

If Russia is truly concerned about China, this course is insane.  The wiser course would be to explore a rapprochement with Japan involving some sort of deal on the Kuriles and cooperation on other economic and defense matters (e.g., North Korea). If Russia truly fears China, picking a fight with Japan is not just pointless, it is counterproductive.  Putting aside long term distrust and disagreements would not be easy, but worth the effort: instead, the distrust and disagreements are being aggravated.

Another explanation that has been advanced to explain Russia’s sudden interest in the Kuriles is that it is really motivated by a fear of the US, particularly the fear that Russian ballistic missile submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk are vulnerable to US attack.  The Kuriles are a barrier to the Sea, and placing a strong defense there would protect the Russian boomers lurking behind them.

This is also insane.  In terms of prioritizing threats, especially to the Russian east, Russia should rank China higher.  Again, a more reasonable geopolitical strategy would be to find common ground with the US in dealing with a more powerful and assertive China.  But that would require the Russian political and military leadership to banish the American bugbear from their minds.  Given the complex that afflicts virtually the entirety of said leadership, that’s not going to happen.

What explains this insanity?  I’m open to suggestions.  Some possibilities include:  This is just a consequence of political rivalry inside Russia in the lead up to the election, with Medvedev trying to establish a reputation as a guardian of Russian interests.  Or, it is just a reflection of deep insecurity combined with a sense that Russia does not have the means to address the main problem–rising Chinese power.  Or that Russia is trying to send a signal to China by getting into a spat with the Japanese.

The explanation is unlikely to be straightforward, because Russia is not taking the more conventional, straightforward course in this matter.  If China is indeed its main anxiety, especially in Asia, it would be hard to come up with a worse way of addressing it.

In the years after the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Russia (along with Prussia and Austria) set itself out as the enforcer of stability and the enemy of liberalism throughout Europe.  Russian anti-revolutionary actions climaxed with the crushing of the Hungarian Revolt in 1848 under the heels of tens of thousands of Russian boots.  Russia also crushed an uprising in Wallachia.

Russian fondness for the “stability” of authoritarian rule apparently has passed from Alexander and Nicholas to their modern day imitators.  Yesterday Igor Sechin, arguably Putin’s closest ally, blasted Google for its role in catalyzing the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt:

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s deputy blamed Google Inc. in an interview published on Tuesday for stirring up trouble in the revolution that ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.

“Look what they have done in Egypt, those highly-placed managers of Google, what manipulations of the energy of the people took place there,”Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin told the Wall Street Journal.

Such strong comment from one of Putin’s most trusted deputies is a clear signal of growing concern among Russian hardliners about the role of the Internet in the unrest which has swept across the Arab world.

One can hope the last sentence is true, that is, that uneasily lies the head that wears the crown.  (And no, I don’t mean Medvedev.)  I have my doubts, but know that Putin is likely to err on the side of caution.  As I’ve written many times, he at least intuitively understands that mass protest and revolution require overcoming a coordination problem.  This is why he is so intent on controlling the traditional media, cracking down on even the smallest opposition protests, and encouraging the atomization of Russian society.  A demonstration of the coordinating potential of the internet and social media may lead him and his minions to recalibrate their strategy of atomization.  It will be interesting to see whether the siloviki change their approach to the internet, which has been until recently relatively hands off.  I would anticipate an attempt to shape, constrain, and monitor the internet along the lines of what is done in China.  (Funny story.  One time while teaching in China I attempted to reach SWP–but the Great Fire Wall prevented me from doing so.  I was so flattered.)

I wrote quite a bit during the crisis about the coordination problems inherent in any mass anti-government activity.  Interestingly, one theory about the lack of revolutionary activity in Russia in 1848 while the rest of Europe was exploding was that the tyranny of distance and the tyranny of the secret police combined to prevent coordination.  No doubt then, and today, the relative inertness/passivity meant and mean that achieving coordination was/is harder in Russia than elsewhere.

For an interesting take on the role of the internet in facilitating coordination and facilitating revolution, take a look at this article which sets out Daron Acemoglu’s views.

The earlier mini-post on Gorbachev prodded me to write a post I’d been planning to do for the last several days but which kept getting put to the bottom of the file.

The post idea came from this cutting and incisive analysis by Yuri Maltsev, an economist who was on Gorbachev’s reform team until leaving for the US in 1989.  Reading it reminded me of my contemporary views on Gorbachev.

I liked him a lot.  Not for the same reason that sent so many in the West into gorbasms.  No, I didn’t like him because he was a new, sophisticated, westernized Soviet leader whom the US could work with.  I liked him because it was clear to me that he was a Sorcerer’s Apprentice whose “reform” efforts were accelerating the collapse of the USSR.  It was evident that his understanding of economics was laughable, and that his attempts to tinker around the edges of the planned economy while retaining a belief in a Leninist core was the best way to exacerbate the internal contradictions (to steal a Marxist phrase) of the Soviet system.  He ripped at the bailing wire and duct tape that was so prevalent in the Soviet economy, not realizing that it was all that was holding the contraption together.

It was, in short, a good thing to have a Useful Idiot on the other side–especially since he was in charge.

Maltsev goes into detail about the idiocy of the Soviet economic system, and  about how Gorbachev’s economic ignorance–rooted in his firm Leninist beliefs–led him to careen from disaster to disaster.  Maltsev’s description of the effects of the ban on alcohol sales is priceless, and the rest of the piece is good too.

And for those who have the impression that Gorbachev was a humane idealist, I suggest you read William Odom’s The Collapse of the Soviet Military, which makes it clear that Gorbachev was more than willing to use force to preserve the USSR, and did it in the Baltics, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia.  Moreover, Odom shows how duplicitous Gorbachev was in his attempts to conceal his role in these actions.  Odom also delves into Gorbachev’s ambiguous relationship with the plotters of the August, 1991 coup.

It is my impression from my reading and talking to Russians that the modal impression of Gorbachev in Russia is that he was a CIA plant.  How very Russian.  Such views are understandable, I guess, because it is quite plain that Gorbachev was indeed the author of the demise of the Soviet Union at that time: it would have died eventually, but he certainly accelerated the collapse.

But whereas Russians are disproportionately are prone to view things in conspiratorial terms, and almost always ascribe result to intent, I think Napoleon’s statement “never ascribe to malice, what can be explained by incompetence” is quite appropriately applied to Gorbachev.  He didn’t intend to destroy the USSR.  But his incompetent attempts to save it did just that.

Lastly, it is more than a little ironic to read Gorbachev criticize Putin’s vanity.  Not because Putin isn’t vain–ha!–but because if there were ever a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this is it.  But that vanity too had its salutary effects, because it encouraged him to plunge ahead on his creatively destructive course.  I often wonder whether Thatcher and Reagan, who praised Gorbachev repeatedly, did so out of legitimate conviction, or because of a shrewd judgment that by doing so they were empowering and encouraging the man that would destroy their most dangerous adversary from within.

Those who think that China’s massive investment in high-speed rail should be emulated here (now who would that be?) should find this report sobering (but probably won’t):

China’s Ministry of Railways has racked up more than $200 billion in debt, government auditors say, partly because of aggressive expansion of the country’s high-speed rail network. Experts say high ticket prices mean many of the trains on the new Wuhan-Guangzhou line run empty. Those questions are even more pertinent now with the revelation this week that the railways ministry under Mr. Liu’s stewardship has run up debts possibly in excess of 2 trillion yuan, or roughly $303 billion.The Global Times, citing a report from the National Audit Office, said in its Wednesday edition that China’s Ministry of Railways was 1.3 trillion yuan in debt in 2009, with 854.8 billion yuan in short-term debt and 448.6 billion yuan in long-term debt. The paper quoted Zhao Jian, a researcher at Beijing Jiaotong University, as saying that “the debt had at least reached 2 trillion yuan by now, and the interests of those debts have grown too large for the government to afford.”

Some experts say those debt levels are unsustainable, even for a government accustomed to running up massive infrastructure tabs, given that many of the country’s high-speed rail links are having trouble making money.

The country already has built a high-speed rail network that as of November last year stretched 7,531 kilometers, according to the ministry. By 2020 China plans to expand the network to stunning 16,000 kilometers. Yet it’s not clear whether there’s sufficient demand to support all the construction. A senior Beijing-based executive for a foreign high-speed train producer that has transferred technology to Chinese train-set makers says that on many high-speed rail routes, such as the one linking the southern city of Guangzhou and the central city of Wuhan, some trains run “nearly empty.”

China in some respects is ideal for high speed rail, due to its extreme population density.  Other factors make it less ideal, at least now.  It is still a poor country, and the opportunity cost of time is too low for most people to make it rational to pay up to get someplace faster.

You can always create something gee-whiz impressive if you spend enough money on it.  The question is whether gee-whiz is worth the cost.  Many people are obviously enamored with China’s rapid development of its infrastructure, and especially with prestige projects like rapid rail.  This report suggests that regardless how technically or aesthetically impressive this investment in rail is, the economics are far more dubious.

There’s a larger lesson here.  There has been, historically, a tendency in the US to exaggerate the economic performance and prospects of rising nations.  This is particularly true for centrally planned ones, or at least those with a heavy dose of central direction of resource allocation.  It was conventional wisdom in the 1960s, and a not uncommon belief into the 1980s, that the centrally planned USSR was more efficient that the US, and would eventually overtake the US economically.  In the 1980s, the Japanese model, which involved considerable state involvement in choosing winning industries and firms, was considered by many in the US as superior to the US model.  In the 1930s, the USSR (again) and fascist economies were held out as exemplars.  Today, China has many cheerleaders to argue that things like high speed rail and other megaprojects demonstrate that the state capitalist model is superior.

The Soviet and Japanese examples should give those singing China’s praises pause.  So should an understanding of the incentive,  information, and political economy problems that plague centralized schemes.  Indeed, the experiences of the USSR and Japan provide some good case studies of those problems.

The reports about the shaky finances of Chinese high speed rail should not be surprising to those who have a passing acquaintance with relatively recent history, and an understanding of economics and political economy.  Unfortunately, all too many policymakers and pundits who hold out China as an example for the US lack both.  Megaprojects inspire a certain kind of awe.  They are superficially appealing.  But the economics, the boring old economics, is often far less appealing–or should I say usually far less appealing?

That’s especially true where the state is heavily involved.  Heavy state involvement means that the discipline of capital markets is lacking, budget constraints are soft, and resources are allocated for political purposes (prestige, corruption, the cultivation of support) rather than economic ones.  The problem is especially acute in politically unfree, secretive states like China where information about boondoggles is readily concealed, and political feedback mechanisms like voting and a free press don’t constrain profligacy and waste.

I wouldn’t be surprised if high speed rail is just one example of such profligacy and waste in China.  Again, history, and an understanding of the defects of state-directed resource allocation would suggest that this is the rule, rather than the exception.  Moreover, you’d hope that people would view seemingly awesome developments in places like China with a more skeptical eye, given the opacity of the system and the lack of independent checks on the performance of these investments.  But such a hope would, sad to say, itself reflect a failure to heed history, for such a lack of skepticism has been all too common since the times of Mussolini and Stalin.

Sergei “The Tarantula” Lavrov recently ripped the Japanese for their “undiplomatic” response to various Russian actions in the disputed Kurile Islands off the coasts of Siberia and Japan.  This is rich–even for Lavrov–given that Russian actions and words regarding the Kuriles have been in-your-face and deliberately provocative, far outside of any recognized diplomatic norm.

When this spiral of insults began some months ago, I wrote that the Russians smell Japanese weakness, and can’t help but try to exploit it.  It seems almost natural.

And I’m sure that getting back for that 1904-1905 thing only adds to the excitement.

This piece by Chatham House’s James Sherr suggests that this jackal-like instinct to attack those that the Russians sense are in decline, and against whom they harbor historic grudges, is not limited to Japan (h/t Robert Amsterdam).  Sherr argues that Russian truculence towards Britain has similar causes:

The Russian Federation, like the Soviet Union, has based its relationship with the West on two pillars: Washington and Berlin. As Moscow sees it, the UK seeks an influence out of proportion to its post-imperial importance; worse, it sometimes gets it. The UK is an Atlanticist power at the top table of the EU; Moscow wants a superpower relationship with Washington over the heads of Europe and a ‘Europe for Europeans’. This makes the UK an irritant by definition.

The tenacity of this zero-sum perspective has frustrated the desire of successive British governments to shift the focus onto new ground: trade, investment and cooperation against common threats. Far from viewing British military and intelligence services as partners in the struggle against terrorism and organised crime, Moscow views them as mainstays of British influence in NATO and adjuncts of US ‘hegemonic’ policy. Moscow would like to transform British business into Russia’s lobby and UK investment in Russia (15 per cent of the foreign total) into a security of ‘good relations’ as Moscow defines them. Issues deemed important to British business confidence – human rights and rule of law – are regarded by Moscow as ‘vulgar’ intrusions into domestic affairs.

These are differences of purpose and outlook, not obstacles to ‘normality’. To many inside Russia, Britain is cast in a hypocritical, even devious light. It is not Russia, it is argued, but the UK that has halted anti-terrorist cooperation thanks to the Alexander Litvinenko affair; the UK has given asylum to 30 individuals who Russia wanted extradited for terrorism and organised crime; the UK-hosted Nordic-Baltic summit is not about ‘economic growth, enterprise and job creation’, but another anti-Russian project.

By these remorselessly geopolitical standards, Britain’s influence is shrinking, not growing. The Deepwater Horizon and Lockerbie affairs have damaged the special relationship with the US. The UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review has gutted the capabilities that monitor Russia’s expanding naval and air activity in Britain’s northern waters. And, the savaging of the BBC Russian and Ukrainian services has further diminished Britain’s profile. Russians are acutely aware of their economic deficiencies relative to the UK. But they are increasingly less impressed by the UK’s ability to convert economic strength into political influence.

The irony, of course, is that Russia’s power–and most notably its military power–is contracting.  Outside of nuclear weapons, whatever influence it wields is disproportionately dependent on energy directly (as a means of blackmail or reward) or indirectly (to finance its military).  As the financial crisis demonstrated, reliance on a single lever of power like energy is as much of a source of vulnerability as of strength.  Moreover, its demographic problems, the associated manpower problems in the military, and the pathetic stabs at “reforming” its armed forces mean that Russia hardly has the ability to venture abroad to find new dragons to slay.  Preying on the declining may seem like enjoyable sport, but if you’re declining yourself–and indeed are fundamentally weaker and with a bleaker future than those you are trying to exploit–such adventurism is likely to culminate in disaster.

Recent Wikileaks disclosures reveal the disdain in which NATO military observers hold Russian capabilities.  Recent US military strategy appraisals almost completely ignore the Russians, dismissing them with a mere two sentences.  Given the quite obvious weaknesses, a more rational, considered policy would focus on addressing more pressing needs, and not on chasing imperialist fantasies in attempts to recapture past–and almost wholly imagined–glories.  But that would require the leopard to change its spots.

Russian history often seems like a succession of self-inflicted disasters.  It is on its way to adding to the list.

The Obama administration released its budget proposal today.

To reprise an expression from the Reagan years that Democrats routinely used to greet every one of his budgets: DOA.

This is not a remotely serious proposal.   I don’t know what color the sky is on the planet where this was formulated, but it ain’t the same as what I see out my window.  There is no recognition whatsoever of the existential fiscal situation the country now faces.  “What, me worry?” doesn’t even come close to describing this.  No spending restraint whatsoever.  Projections of large tax increases and large revenue increases that will never–never–be realized.

The budget is chock-full of silliness, like a vast increase in funding for the Department of Education.  (Motto: “There’s No Problem We Can’t Make Worse With More Money!”)  Or especially the high speed rail boondoggle.  “High” is right.  The only thing that is missing in the administration salesmanship of this turkey is Robert Preston returning from the dead to perform a reprise of his role as the Music Man.  This is a con of the first order.

Apparently, the administration is attempting to reincarnate the budget showdown of 1995, in which Clinton regained his political balance by forcing a budget battle with the Gingrich-led Republicans.

If that’s indeed the case, it is typical Bourbon learned nothing-forgotten nothing reasoning.  The situation now is so different from from 1995.  So different.  Economically–not even close.  Orders of magnitude different–literally, when it comes to the deficit and debt.  Politically–again, not close.  Yes, there was a firestorm in 1994, but this pales in comparison to 2010, and what is happening now.  Clinton could do a passable imitation of a fiscal conservative–Obama isn’t even trying.  Clinton was blessed in the enemy lottery; Gingrich’s bombast, egotism and overreaching the election mandate played right into the President’s hands.  Today’s Republicans seem to have learned from Gingrich’s mistakes, and are not tied to a figure with historical pretensions and delusions of grandeur.  Fighting the last war is seldom a good idea, especially when conditions are so radically different.

Moreover, it is disappointing in the extreme that Obama is responding to such a serious situation by playing small-ball (but mega-dollar) politics, rather than exhibiting  real leadership.  Not that I’m surprised, but even given my very low expectations it is rather discouraging to see a good swathe of the political class–with Obama at its head–proceed as if this is just about their political fortunes, rather than about the nation’s future.  Many Republicans in the House and especially the Senate are not much better, but even there the business-as-usual types are getting some pushback and are responding.  And you should never expect leadership from the legislature in any event.  All Presidents–including this one–talk about leadership.  Not all of them exhibit it–this one most conspicuously, and most conspicuously now.

The contrast between the atmosphere in Washington, and in the White House in particular, and many of the states is stark and telling.  Newly elected governors like Ron Johnson Scott Walker in Wisconsin are manning up.  Texas is proceeding with dramatic, not to say draconian, budget cuts to close the fiscal gap.  And it’s not just Republicans.  Andrew Cuomo in New York is grabbing the bull by the horns.  Hell, even Jerry Brown in California is acting more like an adult than Obama.  When Jerry Brown appears more tethered to reality, you are truly out there.

Obama’s unrealism and Bourbonism means that he is unlikely to prevail in this budget battle, and that he will not be able to leverage it into a political gain.  But that’s cold comfort, for the time lost in this pointless contest is extremely costly.  The time for action is now, but time’s a wasting.  Rome is afire, and Obama is fiddling.  I needn’t tell you who is going to get burned.

I just finished a marvelous history, James Hornfischer’s Neptune’s Inferno, a chronicle of the naval battles for Guadalcanal.  Most histories of the Guadalcanal Campaign focus on the grueling, bloody struggle between the US Marines (later augmented by Army units) and the Japanese defenders of the island.  But the US Navy actually suffered 4 times the number killed as the Marines and Army groundpounders.

The narrative itself is gripping, but the book raises some broader issues that have meaning beyond the narrow confines of The Slot.  Here are a few at random.

One relates to my earlier blog post on the fate of Enterprise XO Capt. Honors.  In that post, I mentioned that the characteristics that advance careers in peacetime are all too often positively detrimental in wartime commanders. Hornfischer’s history provides many examples of that phenomenon.  Many captains and flag officers at the beginning of the campaign, men who had been comers in the pre-war Navy, were tested and found sorely wanting in the crucible of battle.

Sometimes the critical weaknesses were psychological.  For instance, the commander in the South Pacific, Admiral Ghormley, was not mentally or psychologically suited to the stresses of a fluid, desperate campaign against at redoubtable and skilled enemy.

Other commanders were ineffectual because of their traditionalism, and the resulting blindness to the potential of new technologies, most notably radar.  The courage of Admiral Callaghan at the Night Battle of November 12-13 is beyond cavil, but he completely wasted his only advantage over the Japanese–radar–by his deployment (with radar equipped ships at the rear of his line), his choice of flagship (the San Francisco, his old command did not have the most advanced radar like that on the Portland), and the resulting confusion in communications as Callaghan tried to get information from the radar-equipped ships.

In contrast, the next night, Admiral Willis “Ching” Lee won a virtually single-handed victory in USS Washington because of his flawless use of the ship’s radar.  Lee was a close student of ballistics and gunnery, and unlike most of his peers he had understood the potential of the new technology of radar and mastered it.  As a result, Washington became the only battleship to sink another (the Kirishima) in WWII.

Another fascinating aspect of the book is how it makes plain the differences between sea and land combat.  Hornfischer points out that in naval combat, in contrast to modern land warfare,  the highest commander runs the same risks as the lowest rating.  Indeed, given the exposed nature of the bridges where captains and admirals stood, they were arguably at greater risk.

There are other differences.  Land warfare is often long stretches of tedium punctuated by horrific minutes of violence.  But this was even more extreme in the naval battles off Guadalcanal.  The Marines and soldiers ashore, and their Japanese adversaries, were under some risk almost continuously, but the sailors were in mortal danger for mere minutes.  The Friday the Thirteenth battle, for instance, raged for a mere 40 minutes.  But what minutes they were.  The intensity of the violence that occurred in those brief moments is hard to comprehend.  Massive shells crashing into small ships with horrific explosions.  The unexpected explosions of torpedoes that ripped ships into pieces.  Even one’s own guns wreaked havoc on one’s own ship: the concussion of the firing guns, especially the 8″ cruiser batteries and 16″ battleship guns, knocked men off their feet, knocked some senseless, and knocked about the interior spaces, strewing equipment everywhere.

And so many ways to die.  The sailors faced some of the same risks as the men ashore–death by small arms or artillery fire.  But they faced others.  Drowning.  Scalding.  Asphyxiation.  And burns.  The number of flammable things on a ship almost defies numbering: explosive shells, powder, ship fuel, the fuel and fabric of scouting planes, torpedo fuel, paint, solvents, cooking oil and fat, and even mattresses and bedding and life preservers.  Fighting fires is deadly difficult, because the best way to fight one kind of fire can be the worst to fight another. For a ship, the explosion of a shell or a torpedo is often the beginning of a trip to hell, rather than the end.

And yes, sharks too.  They killed hundreds of Americans in the waters of Guadalcanal: no doubt they killed hundreds of Japanese too. After a Japanese submarine torpedo demolished the USS Juneau as it limped away from the apocalyptic night action, many observers thought that no one could have survived the horrific explosion.   But many did, only to die over the following days of exposure, madness–and sharks.  (The Sullivan brothers, all five of them, died on the Juneau.)

The story of Guadalcanal also illustrates the aphorism that amateurs talk tactics, but professionals talk logistics.  All of the cataclysmic naval battles were part of a broader campaign to supply troops on the fetid jungle island or to deny the enemy the ability to supply his troops.  Both sides were fighting at the very end of their logistical tethers, thousands of miles from their home bases and hundreds of miles even from their forward facilities.  In the end, American logistics were barely enough, and Japanese logistics fell short.

In the end, it was a close run thing.  The Americans prevailed, but just.  In its own way, this was as miraculous as Midway.  At Midway, though, the miracle took about five minutes to complete–the time it took for American SBD Dauntless dive bombers to turn three carriers into burning hulks.  At Guadalcanal, the miracle took six months to accomplish.  In that time, an American fleet that was tactically and technologically and numerically inferior to an enemy that had won numerous smashing victories held on by its fingernails before prevailing.  It survived numerous mistakes–from the beginning at Savo to near the end at Tassafaronga.  It prevailed more by a bloody minded refusal to accept defeat than by smashing its enemy decisively.  It was a victory of will and courage and logistics, rather than tactical or operational virtuosity. It was a victory of survival.

Naval warfare gets short shrift, compared to the land campaigns of WWII.  Midway and Pearl Harbor and to a lesser extent the Battle of the Atlantic against Nazi submarines get most of what attention is directed to naval combat.  But all but forgotten campaigns like Guadalcanal were as decisive, and make fascinating reading on both operational and human levels as well.

I have only a couple of quibbles.  Although Hornfischer does not shy from criticizing the judgment of combat commanders on both sides, he seems to shy away from an analysis of the actions of Admiral Callaghan on 13-14 November.  Yes, Hornfischer criticizes Callaghan’s dispositions, his failure to use radar, and the defects in his communications.  But he does not render a judgment on Callaghan’s launching of his force into the midst of Abe’s huge bombardment fleet.  Was it a reckless, insane gambit?  Was it the result of Callaghan’s failure to plan in advance?  (He made no plan.)  Or was it the only way that an inferior, undergunned, thrown together force with a few heavy cruisers could have turned back a task force with as many cruisers, more destroyers, and two battleships?

Hornfischer seems to be following in the footsteps of Samuel Eliot Morrison, who in the Navy’s official history hailed Callaghan’s intrepid bravery, but did not delve deeply into the wisdom of the way he fought.

Hornfischer also does not discuss the role of US submarines in the campaign.  In some ways, that’s fair, because the US submarines played virtually no role.  But why not?  Hornfischer does not say.  Japanese submarines played a crucial part.  They sunk the carrier Wasp and the Juneau.  Their mere threat in “Torpedo Alley” affected American operations.  Why didn’t the US provide a symmetric threat to Japanese fleet operations?

Elmer Potter’s Sea Power (dubbed “Z Power”–“Z” as in zzzzzzzz by generations of USNA Midshipmen) attributes this to fear of friendly fire incidents.  Maybe so.  But deployments between Guadalcanal and Rabaul and Truk would have posed limited risk of fratricide.  One elderly US boat–the S-44–did sink a Japanese capital ship outside of Rabaul.*  What could several more modern Gato-type fleet boats have done?  Could they have disrupted Japanese operations as effectively and efficiently as a few Japanese I-boats did American operations? This deserves some discussion, which Hornfischer does not give.

But as I said, these are mere quibbles.  This is a fantastic book that serves as a fitting tribute to the Americans who fought, and who died horrific deaths and suffered grievous, gruesome injuries, in the narrow waters of Ironbottom Sound.

I have always felt humbled and awed when I step into Memorial Hall in Bancroft Hall at Navy, knowing what I did about the sacrifices made by the men memorialized there.  Those feelings will only be more intense when I return, after having read Neptune’s Inferno.  For the book makes plain how all the failings in command–which are ubiquitous in war–were redeemed by the tenacity and courage of average men who really had no business winning–but did.

* To give you an idea of the antiquity of S-boats, my grandfather served on a K-boat, USS K-2 in 1921.  He tells of watching the sea trials of the newfangled S-boats.  As I recall, in one story, the K-2 was detailed to follow an S-boat undergoing trials to provide assistance in case the newer vessel needed it.  And it did: the K-2 had to tow in the S-boat on one occasion.

With the ink barely dry on the START Treaty, Russia is warning the US on missile defense:

The treaty doesn’t prevent the U.S. from building new missile defense systems, but Russia has warned that it reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if the United States significantly boosts its missile shield.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov reaffirmed Monday that a buildup in the U.S. missile defense capability would prompt Moscow re-consider its obligations under the New START treaty.

“If the U.S. increases the qualitative and quantitative potential of its missile defense … a question will arise whether Russia should further abide by the treaty or would have to take other measures to respond to the situation, including military-technical measures,” Ryabkov said, according to Russian news agencies.

The US takes the view that START does not constrain its ability to pursue missile defenses.

Does not! Does so! Does not! Does so! Does not!  Does so!  Always the hallmark of a well-crafted treaty. Somehow I don’t think this one meets Bismarck’s criteria.

The Russians keep flogging the idea of a truly joint defense system, but this makes little sense operationally, strategically, or politically for NATO and the US.  The Russian desire to ensnare US efforts in a joint system over which Russia will have a veto appears to be fears that the Dr. Strangeloves in the Pentagon are pining for the fjords:

Russia’s top brass has convinced the Kremlin that by 2020, the NATO missile defense system would be able to intercept any Russian nuclear missiles fired at the United States along a North Pole trajectory. According to this theory, NATO will try to hide its ships equipped with Aegis missile defense systems in the Norwegian fjords. Therefore, the argument goes, the Kremlin must convince NATO to sign a legally binding agreement promising not to deploy missile defense systems on any territory over which Russia’s nuclear missiles would travel.

The 2020 nightmare date appears to be based on this time line from the US Missile Defense Agency, which sets a goal of 2020 for providing the SM-3/Aegis system with capabilities against ICBMs.  (Earlier versions are are capable against medium and intermediate range missiles–MRBMs and IRBMs.)  Although here it appears that the SM-3/Aegis ICBM capability will be land-based, rather than seaborne.

And the irony is just too much.  Remember just why the US shifted its focus to Aegis/SM-3: in deference to previous Russian hissy fits, the US decided to terminate its plans to deploy land-based ABM systems in Central Europe (Czech Republic and Poland), and replace this system with a sea-based system that would not require the use of radars that would peer into Russia.  (SecDef Gates denied the change was a response to Russian complaints about the Czech-Polish bases: let’s just say that Gates’s denial was taken with massive amounts of salt.)

A Czech-Polish-based system would have posed absolutely no threat to Russian ICBMs on a polar trajectory.  None.  But the Russian military is now afraid that the replacement will. Careful what you ask for, guys.

But it’s more likely that the Russian military is just reprising its well-practiced Roseanne Rosannadanna “It’s always something, if it’s not one thing it’s another” routine (at about the 3:14 mark).

Speaking of START and hissy fits, Senatorial fossil Richard Lugar threw one about it, this time defending the treaty against Tea Party attacks:

I’ve got to say ‘Get real’. I hear Tea Party or other people talking about they were against START. If you want to get into START, let’s talk about it, but realistically as Americans, not as some Republican renegade. [I’m] trying to take warheads out of Russia so they won’t hit Indiana.

Uhm, except this START doesn’t take any warheads potentially aimed at Gary (or anywhere else in the US) out of Russia.  Don’t believe me.  Consider the statement of someone whose opinion really matters, Russian Defense Minister Serdyukov:

In Moscow START III is viewed as essentially a technical agreement to preserve a credible nuclear deterrent against the US by forcing the Pentagon to downsize its nuclear arsenal to help Russia maintain a balance and contain a dangerous opponent. During ratification procedures in the Duma, Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, announced: “It is a very useful treaty –it allows us to significantly increase our [nuclear] armaments, while the Americans will have to cut theirs.”

Read that last piece again: “It is a very useful treaty –it allows us to significantly increase our [nuclear] armaments, while the Americans will have to cut theirs.”  Yo, Dick: doesn’t sound like the treaty is getting any missiles out of Russia.  To the contrary.

START, in other words, is aptly named.  It isn’t the end of anything.  It’s just the beginning–the start–of a new round of squabbling and dispute both between the Russians and the US, and within the US.

Back in September I wrote a post that quoted a story claiming that the air traffic controller on duty when the aircraft carrying Polish President Kacyzinski and 96 other high-level government officials crashed had retired three days after the crash, and that the Russian government claimed that it was unable to find him.  (How convenient.  And how amazing it would be that in a state like Russia with its relative lack of mobility and intrusive police and security presence that a government employee could disappear when he would be an essential material witness in an investigation with international implications.)

That story is of particular interest today given this report from Stratfor (h/t R):

Russian air traffic controllers failed to warn the crew of then-President Lech Kaczynski’s plane that they were off course shortly before crashing in 2010, Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller said Jan. 18, AP reported.

Here’s the AP report:

Russian air traffic controllers failed to warn the crew of Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s plane that it was off course shortly before it crashed last year in Russia, Polish investigators said Tuesday.

Interior Minister Jerzy Miller –who heads a Polish panel investigating the crash –made the claim nearly a week after the release of a Russian report that laid the blame squarely on the Poles.

. . . .

Miller said that Russian controllers consistently told the crew that the plane was on the correct course to land _ but the aircraft was actually flying 70 yards (meters) below the level where it should have been. He said it was also 80 yards (meters) off course just seconds before it crashed close to the airport.

“The controller should not be telling the crew that they are on the right course while they were off course,” Miller said. “There is no information at all from the control tower to the crew to tell them that they are not on the right path to descend.”

Miller presented parts of the recorded conversation between the crew and tower coupled with a video animation of the descent.

In the recording the tower tells the crew that all airport systems are on and ready.

Note that the Poles will not absolve the flight crew:

The Polish commission is to publish its findings in February and Miller said it will be even tougher on the Poles who were responsible for the flight.

But the Poles will demand that the Russians identify any errors made on the Russian side:

However, Polish officials insist that Moscow address whether any mistakes might have been made by Russian officials.

Good luck with that.

It would be very interesting to learn what happened to the controller.  Did he really retire?  Did he really disappear off the face of the earth?  (Anybody have him in the dead pool?)

I don’t know for certain, but in light of these Polish accusations, the  curiously timed “retirement” and unknown whereabouts of the controller are a matter of considerable importance.   Has anybody seen any subsequent reporting on this subject, either supporting or debunking the story?  If it is true, it would cast serious doubts on the Russian account.  If it is not, what has he had to say?  Were the Poles allowed to question him?

Regardless of the truth of the retirement/disappearance story, there is a yawning gap between the Russian narrative and the Polish one.  The Russian narrative places all the blame on the Poles–most notably on the deceased president.  The Polish narrative assigns blame to both the Poles and the Russians.  (Likely, both conditions–errors by the Russian controllers and foolhardy flying by the Poles–were necessary for the crash to occur like it did.)

Recently Poland and Russia have made steps towards something of a rapprochement; the recent deal between Poland and Gazprom is one example of that.  Will a dispute over the crash impede that warming trend?  That remains to be seen.  But Russian actions with respect to the handling of the crash forensics should serve to remind the Poles that with the Russians, “reset” often resembles Lucy resetting the football.