Tuesday Open Thread

3 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. Colorado Newsline has an important story today: Not a great deal of specifics about the situation in Colorado, but about the Ogalla Aquifer generally…

   Agriculture built these High Plains towns. Now, it might run them dry As the Ogallala Aquifer dwindles, rural towns try to keep their sole water source.

   Now, the disappearing water is threatening more than just agriculture. Rural communities are facing dire futures where water is no longer a certainty. Across the Ogallala, small towns and cities built around agriculture are facing a twisted threat: The very industry that made their communities might just eradicate them….

   Today, the aquifer supports 20% of the nation’s wheat, corn, cotton and cattle production and represents 30% of all water used for irrigation in the United States.

   Depletion is forcing aquifer-dependent communities across the region to dig deeper wells, purchase expensive water rights from farmers, build pipelines and recycle their water supplies in new ways to save every drop possible.

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   1. Who was Malthus?

      The “tragedy of the commons” is that each individual benefits from taking as much as they can, with the consequence that the community as a whole is damaged. Political Economy is the mechanism for mediating who gets access to scarce resources.

      Either let the sheep over-graze, or else create (or enforce) a political solution.

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2. "If Ukraine loses, the international order will crumble". Interview between Noah Smith & Sara Paine

   Extremely Interesting and long article on the foundations of and threats to the present world order.

   The famous twentieth century historian of the West, Arnold Toynbee, wrote that “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” The Republican Party is in the process of committing suicide and its suicide threatens us all.

   …

   Noah Smith: Let's talk about some factors leading to the decline of the rules-based order that the U.S. and its allies imposed during and after the first Cold War. 

   How much did the U.S. damage the rules-based order by invading Iraq, thus encouraging countries like Russia and (possibly) China to launch their own aggressive wars of choice? 

   S.P.: There are two parts to the question: First, how much did the U.S. damage the rules based order by invading Iraq? I have no idea how to quantify such answer. The rules-based order is what survives because a preponderance of nations follow it. Bush Senior strengthened the world order in Gulf I, which concerned repelling an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He did so by careful consensus building with allies who supported and funded the war. His son damaged the world order by taking unilateral action in a preemptive war of choice against Iraq despite the profound disagreement of many close allies. How much damage? Who knows. His wars then proved very difficult to exit, gobbling up scarce resources for decades. 

   Indeed, the United States damaged itself with protracted large-scale deployments of conventional forces to distant places, to theaters surrounded by multiple authoritarian countries intent on precluding the furthering of democracy near them. They were the veto players to Bush Junior’s plans. The objective of democracy was not feasible. The opportunity costs of wasting the resources in Iraq rather than in feasible objectives at home were high—as we see in our bitter and widening social divisions. Judicious investments at home would have been preferable to expensive pipedreams abroad. 

   The second part of the question concerns whether the Iraq War encouraged Russia and China to launch their own wars of choice. Embedded in this question is the very American assumption that other countries’ actions are a function of what the United States does or does not do. Americans flatter themselves with their assumptions about their own self-importance. Russia and China are continental empires governed by rulers intent in remaining in power for life. Putin and Xi focus on the expansion of territory and personal power—objectives independent of U.S. actions. In their calculations prior to invading others, U.S. weakness is of more interest than U.S. aggression. Both accept aggression as the norm of their preferred international system—the antithesis of the rules-based system that they seek to overthrow. Putin suffered few Western penalties for his 2008 Russo-Georgian War or his 2014 invasion of Ukraine. That would be far more important to his calculations than the War in Iraq. Likewise, the outcome of the War in Ukraine would be of interest to China as it calculates the international reaction to an attack on Taiwan. 

   …

   Russia threatens Europe because its leaders aim to recreate the Soviet empire and cannot coexist with democracy. Conversely, democracies pose an existential threat to dictators. If democratic leaders win free elections, why can’t dictators? Answer: apparently their citizens do not support them. Dictators’ solution: squelch the nearest democracies—Ukraine or Taiwan for Russian and China respectively. For decades Europe tried playing nice by buying Russian energy and welcoming its dark money, but invasions came anyway.  

   There is no non-military solution to Russia. If Ukraine falls, Moldova and the Baltic States will be next and then comes Poland.

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