Recent Realpolitik Articles
This is why the soft left always fails against Etonians
Some people are unhappy that an Eton entrance exam asked candidates to write a speech justifying the shooting of protestors. Their disquiet reflects the discomfort the soft-headed left feels when confronted with the cold hard facts of life.
It is no accident that the question follows a passage from Machiavelli.
What we're seeing here is that Eton – the training ground for our future leaders rulers – instinctively understands the nature of power, whereas its soft left critics have always been simperingly naive about it. I mean this in five senses:
1. Political power rests, ultimately, upon force and violence. Plan A for the ruling class is to govern by consent. But there is a plan B.
2. Power comes with risks. If you give bosses power over companies, there's a danger they'll extract wealth for themselves at others' expense. If you give bankers' power over the economy there's a danger of damaging financial crises. And if you give guns to some people and not others, there's a danger people will be killed*. This is something New Labour never really understood. In creating so many new criminal offences and bolstering the power and self-importance of the police, it thought it was acting out of good intentions but was – to take only the latest example of many – merely giving them licence to bully old ladies.Good intentions are not enough.
3. Power depends upon mechanisms. The question rulers must ask is: what tools do we have to exercise our will? Eton knows that one such mechanism is force. Again, though, social democrats have long been naive here. One reason why New Labour was cringingly deferential towards bosses was that it thought that "leadership" was a magic which enabled things to get done, and that the secrets of such ju-ju were known by a priestly elite of "business leaders". But that naivete was nothing new. Back in 1931 a Labour government was replaced by a coalition government which promptly left the gold standard, prompting one Labour politician to bewail "Nobody told us we could do that." Both episodes betray social democrats' ignorance of the tools of power. But Eton's examiners know what the tools are.
4. The role of bad faith. The examiners are not asking for a philosophical defence of killing protestors, but for a speech. The difference is that political speeches need not be true or sincere. The legitimation of power rests partly upon lies and half-truths.
5. Who, whom? Lenin got it right. Power is about who does what to whom? Eton's examiners know that their charges will be the "who" and the rest of us the "whom."
A great thinker – well, greater than most on the non-Marxist left – once asked: "what chance have you got against a tie and a crest?" None at all, given that they know what power is whilst the soft left is just wimperingly emotive.
* I nearly wrote here that there's a risk that power will be abused. But when people speak of the "abuse of power" they often mean what they mean when they speak of "drug abuse" – the routine use of it.
Woolwich: Be warned, this is the calm before the storm
The current mood is that of sombre reflection, calls to ‘carry on as normal’, anger at the killers themselves and a broad understanding that all Muslims should not be blamed for what happened on Wednesday.
This consensus won’t last long. Within a week, maybe even less than that, it will start to break down.
1) ‘Carry on as normal’
The likelihood of this happening is perhaps at zero. There have already been calls by John Reid (and encouraged by Jack Straw yesterday) to revive the Snooper’s Charter. Of course, Reid is the security industry salesman in the House of Lords so his calls is predictable, but what of the Parliamentary Labour Party? This is the time Ed Miliband should flash his pro-civil-liberties credentials, but I suspect he will be thwarted once again by Yvette Cooper’s department.
The Lib Dems may hold their nerve but it’s very likely Theresa May will revive the Snooper’s Charter and claim events like Woolwich justify it.
2) ‘All Muslims are not to blame’
By the weekend and almost certainly by next week, we’ll see a revival of editorials (led by Melanie Phillips) asking a variation of Why Do British Muslims Hate Us? We might even go back to 2005 territory when these sorts of editorials were at their peak. The English Defence League and their demonstrations this weekend will certainly keep the topic in the public eye.
There is a lot of money to be made by sensationalising and blaming all Muslims – and a lot of press commentators will certainly try. Some politicians too will be unable to resist this temptation. It won’t start immediately but will last the longest.
3) ‘Carry on as normal’ – Part 2
It’s been constantly repeated in the press today that the authorities knew of the Woolwich Butcher before Wednesday. Why should this come as a surprise?
I would hope they are tracking ALL the men when attend Anjem Choudhary’s rallies. The question is whether these men should be arrested before they commit a crime, and the answer is clearly no.
I’ve warned before that Al-Muhajiroun were a dangerous group and supported proscribing them, but I don’t believe the authorities should arrest people who haven’t committed any crimes. Neverthless, I expect the government and the press to push for a crackdown on protests anyway.
4) ‘All Muslims are not to blame’ – Part 2
The political implications are harder to ascertain. The English Defence League will gain popularity and will no doubt use this to ramp up their demonstrations.
As UKIP have recently moved away from focusing on Islamist extremism to the EU and immigration, they won’t immediately benefit from any backlash to Muslims. But I suspect UKIP are having discussions now on what outrageous things they could say to take the limelight and start a bandwagon. It’s in their nature. The question then is whether the Conservatives will follow or condemn them for being outrageous.
Obviously I don’t approve of any of this. But I can see it happening in the coming weeks. This is merely the calm before the coming storm.
Israel’s desperate gamble is likely to backfire
The massive shelling of Gaza by Israeli forces, which they say is in retaliation for rocket fire from Hamas, has predictably led to everyone in the western world assume their traditional positions. I don’t want to argue about which side is right or wrong, because clearly the world is starved of that debate.
Yesterday the Jerusalem Post published an outrageous op-ed by former PM Ariel Sharon’s son, Gilad Sharon, arguing that for a “decisive conclusion” to this crisis, Israel needs to assume it citizens are “not innocent” and needs to “flatten all of Gaza”. There is even a comparison to the US nuclear strike on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WW2.
I’ll come back to the madness of the proposals later, but Sharon is right on one point: Israel is out of options. The latest attack on Gaza is a desperate gamble and the country’s die-hard supporters in the West need a different approach to secure the country’s long term future. There are two key reasons I say this.
First: Hamas has developed longer-range rockets. This means hit targets further and with more accuracy, placing even the citizens of Tel Aviv under the threat of rocket attacks. Hamas’ increasing military capability was spearheaded by Ahmed al-Jabari – the man that Israel assassinated, kicking off the latest conflict. The New York Times explains:
The commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, had shifted Hamas’s low-grade militia into a disciplined force with sophisticated weapons like Fajr-5 rockets, which are named after the Persian word for dawn and have significantly increased the danger to Israel’s major cities. They have a range of about 45 miles and are fired by trained crews from underground launching pads.
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Under Mr. Jabari, Hamas also developed its own weapons industry in Gaza, building long-range rockets as well as drones that they hoped to fly over Israel just as Israeli drones roam the skies of Gaza, sowing fear in its population.
Israel says it is readying a ground force because it wants to take out these long-range rocket pads. I believe that. I just don’t believe this is possible in the medium term. Hamas will immediately build more and continue with its strategy, with help. Israel also believes that taking out top commanders will make Hamas think twice. This is even more naive: it didn’t happen when Israel assassinated Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and it won’t work now. In fact, every time Israel attacks Hamas is strengthened and local support rises.
Second: the Arab spring has hugely changed the area. This is especially true of Egypt, which won’t stand around letting the IDF kill large numbers of Palestinians like Hosni Mubarak did. They have already watched by as 100s of Egyptian activists poured into Gaza this week with medical supplies. If the situation gets worse that trickle will turn into a flood and Israel won’t achieve its goals either. It is unlikely to want a full-scale military conflict with Egypt.
The Arab Spring also strengthened Hamas’ ties with other Arab states, simultaneously loosening Iran’s hold. This means Hamas has gained political legitimacy – the exact opposite of what Israel has been trying to achieve (now you know why Israel also opposed the toppling of Hosni Mubarak).
Unlike past years, the surrounding Arab leaders won’t want to sit by and watch Israel massacre more civilians: not just because the governments have changed, but because inaction could fuel uprisings against them. That rubicon has been crossed.
All this gives Israel very limited time. It is gambling that hitting Hamas with overwhelming force may dissuade it from more rockets attacks in the near future. This is why Gilad Sharon is advocating extreme overwhelming force. The Israeli establishment has become so myopic that the only options under consideration seem to range from retaliation to extreme action.
But neither would not work because it is more likely that Hamas will want to escalate warfare and engage Israel more permanently. Israel would become even more weakened and isolated, with peace even further away. It’s survival would be under even more threat.
There is only one way out of this in the long term for Israel: to break the cycle. Establish a long term cease-fire; stop the illegal settlements; start talking to Hamas; work towards confidence building measures and eventually negotiate a treaty.
If Israel’s supporters in the West want to see the country prosper and survive, they must recognise the dead-end it is currently in and call on it to push in a new direction. Otherwise they too will become complicit in the carnage that is likely to follow.
Could China’s new leader change its relationship with the west?
by Jack Torrance
Rising star of the Chinese Communist Party – Xi Jinping – will take the initial steps towards becoming Paramount Leader of China this month.
As the country looks set to overtake the USA as the largest economy on the planet during his ten year term it’s worth considering what his reign will mean for China’s relationship with the west.
The most striking thing about Xi Jinping isn’t his plan for the future of China. It’s that virtually nobody knows what it is.
This is owed to the nature of China’s succession process, which forgoes the campaigns, manifestos and leadership debates which have preceded the US presidential election which also takes place this month.
For this reason it is difficult to anticipate the impact Xi’s reign will have on Sino-western relations. But there are some clues of what is to come.
On the face of it Xi seems fairly western-orientated. He has spoken about the importance of strengthening Sino-American economic ties, describing the symbiotic relationship between the two countries as “an unstoppable river”.
A recent trip to the US was well received, with Xi’s warm and engaging presence being contrasted with current president Hu Jintao. During the trip he visited Iowa in what has been seen as an attempt to reassure normal Americans that China is an economic friend.
His pro-business attitude has been widely reported and remarkably he even said: “government should be a limited government.” This position should play well, both for foreign investors interested in China’s markets and for western leaders eager to have China as an ally.
Despite this, there are a number of issues which have the potential to become contentious.
As a “princeling,” one of the descendants of those revolutionaries who founded the PRC, Xi has Marxist thought deeply ingrained in his history. He spent time as a youth working in China’s “yellow earth” rural farming communities during the Cultural Revolution.
It has been suggested that as a result of this experience Xi became “redder than red” and he has proposed to address the vast inequality currently experienced by China.
He has also been outspoken about China’s critics abroad. Western hostility to China has been increasing in recent times, particularly in the US. On a visit to Mexico, Xi berated “foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us.”
He continued: “First, China does not export revolution; second, it does not export famine and poverty; and third, it does not mess around with you. So what else is there to say?”
Regardless of his own intentions, Xi will ultimately be beholden to the political and economic realities his reign will face.
Nationalism is an increasingly important phenomenon in China, and ongoing discontent with western positions on Taiwan, Tibet and human rights could force Xi to be more assertive towards other leaders.
Similarly, a fragile global economy has the potential to drive China’s economic focus inwards, preventing Xi from engaging more with the west even if he wants to.
Is Labour finally getting to a coherent position on Europe?
Finally, finally, it looks as though the Labour leadership is edging towards a coherent position on the European Union.
Denis MacShane, presmuably with the go-ahead from Miliband, yesterday wrote a piece for Comment is Free, setting out how Miliband might use his visit to Hollande this week to set out a substantive Labour position quite distinct from Cameron’s silly rhetoric.
continue reading… »
Syria is proof we need a global arms-trade treaty
contribution by Jack Barker
For over a year the ruthless Assad dictatorship in Syria has terrorised and murdered thousands of its own people. The bodies of adults and children have been burnt and destroyed by the Assad army.
The US government has alleged that Russia is sending attack helicopters to the regime and warned that Syria’s conflict could become even deadlier. Russia has continued to insist that any arms it supplies to the country are not being used to suppress anti-government dissent.
But Russia isn’t the only one responsible for the deadly but booming arms trade- $45-60 billion arms sales are agreed each year.
continue reading… »
Even on the left, morality has its limits
Emma Burnell says that politics has to be about morality. I’m not sure, for at least four reasons.
1. Morality is weak against power. If there is any moral truth at all, it is that the mass murder of innocent civilians is wrong. But when it happens, the “international community” does nothing to stop it. Stalin’s famous sneer – “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” is true.
On a more prosaic level, a similar thing is true of bosses’ pay. A periodical fit of morality might stop one or two individuals from taking their bonuses. But a serious and systemic reduction in bosses’ pay requires a shift in the balance of class power.
continue reading… »
The other, forgotten, 9/11 tragedy
contribution by Dan Smith
“That 11 September, that lethal Tuesday morning, I awoke with dread to the sound of planes flying above my house,” wrote Ariel Dorfman in the New Statesman recently. “When, an hour later, I saw smoke billowing from the centre of the city, I knew that life had changed for me, for my country, forever”.
Dorfman – contrary to popular assumption – was not writing about New York in 2001. He was describing events 28 years earlier in Chile. Chile 1973 is the forgotten 9/11.
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Unintended consequences of well-laid plans
The overthrow of Gaddafi has led to the uncovering of evidence that the CIA colluded with him to torture their suspected opponents, among whom is one prominent rebel leader.
An apparently humanitarian policy by the west has, therefore, exposed its earlier lack of humanitarianism. Pessimists might add that this could mean that in supporting the overthrow of Gaddafi, the west has helped install a regime which has a grudge against us.
These are examples of what Edward Tenner called the revenge effect – how our actions can rebound to bite us on the arse.
continue reading… »
The Labour attack memo: important, but not in the way some think
A year after I first set out the definitive strategy for attacking Cameron and his “New Conservatism”, it looks like some within the Labour leadership may finally be inching towards something similar.
Sean Woodward’s secret strategy memo tells the Shadow Cabinet:
[T]he very terrain on which we will fight is changing……..Analysis of Tory party policy, carried out over the summer, convincingly demonstrates the Conservatives are shifting to a distinctly rightwing strategy, in both their chosen focus on issues and their solutions.
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