~Point One: Complex problems are hard to solve~
In a world where wars are being fought between nongovernmental groups (drug cartels, insurgencies, fundamentalist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, etc.) the major powers of the globe need to rethink how to achieve meaningful and sustained victories rather than short term (politically advantageous) victories.
The thing about the sort of victories that I believe the United States and Europe need to focus on is that they require a huge investment upfront, which is exactly the kind of investment elected officials are — more often than not — unwilling finance. The “global economic downturn,” or whatever today’s economic woes are being called now, make such an investment even less likely.
In other (my own) words: In order to establish a period of time where citizens of the West and the world will be more secure requires that the West take on complex problems that don’t have any silver bullet solutions. Said complex problems will take a lot of time, energy, and money to solve.
A recent FPIF review of the book The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon, by Mary Kaldor and Shannon D. Beebe has convinced me that, at the very least, other people are thinking about this as well. The review states…
According to Kaldor and Beebe, the West needs a paradigm shift in how it views security when contending with global crises and terrorism. They argue that because poverty, limited political rights, or threats of physical violence drive insurgencies and violence, the United States and Europe should not emphasize “defeating enemies,” but rather prioritize the economic, political, and physical needs and rights of people, namely human security. Then and only then will the West achieve a truly sustainable security for itself and countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq.
The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon is a guide for Western policy-makers and activists on how to form what the authors call global civilian-military “engagement brigades,” which would specialize in enhancing physical security and political and economic development. These brigades would be deployed to conflict zones to implement a multilateral human security approach, as opposed to the conventional unilateral military response.
As I talk about these ideas with people who I work with many of them say that this is a “good idea” but that it has “never been tried before.” That simply is not true. Taking the longer and initially more expensive road which seaks to create human security by developing the economy and infrastructure of struggling nation states has not only been tried, it has worked remarkably well.
From the Wikipedia article on the Marshall plan that helped Europe recover after being ravaged by WW II…
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the primary program, 1947–51, of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for the countries of Europe. The initiative was named for Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan. Marshall spoke of urgent need to help the European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947.[1]
The reconstruction plan, developed at a meeting of the participating European states, was established on June 5, 1947. It offered the same aid to the USSR and its allies, but they did not accept it.[2][3] The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. During that period some US $13 billion in economic and technical assistance were given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. This $13 billion was in the context of a U.S. GDP of $258 billion in 1948, and was on top of $12 billion in American aid to Europe between the end of the war and the start of the Plan that is counted separately from the Marshall Plan.[4]
The ERP addressed each of the obstacles to postwar recovery. The plan looked to the future, and did not focus on the destruction caused by the war. Much more important were efforts to modernize European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models, reduce artificial trade barriers, and instill a sense of hope and self-reliance.[5]
By 1952 as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels; for all Marshall plan recipients, output in 1951 was 35% higher than in 1938.[6] Over the next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented growth and prosperity, but economists are not sure what proportion was due directly to the ERP, what proportion indirectly, and how much would have happened without it. The Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level—that is, it stimulated the total political reconstruction of western Europe
Unfortunately people don’t really understand the Marshall pan as well as they think they do. Be that as it may, it remains a strong data point in the arsenal of people who, like me, argue in favor of making the investments necessary to create human security.
~Point Two: The problem is the voting public~
When human security is not a priority and things go wrong people are often very quick to place blame on the shoulders of our elected officials, and sometimes that is indeed where they blame should be placed. However, sometimes the blame needs to be placed on the shoulders of a greedy short sighted voting public.
Here is an analogy for you. Picture the United States as a company. The President is a CEO of sorts and the Congress is a bunch of department heads/managers. The voting public are the shareholders. Let’s say the CEO and the department heads say to the shareholders, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a plan that will create long term profits, but in order to get those long term profits we will need to lose money in the short term.”
I believe when something like this goes down what tends to happen is the shareholders say, “Did you say lose money? FUCK THAT SHIT! Dude, you are such a fucking asshole. In fact you’re so much of an asshole that we need to seriously consider firing you.”
~Point Three: Thinking long term needs to be **the** subject of public discourse~
Outside of the ivory tower, no one really talks about long term thinking. Why is that? Seriously, it is not a rhetorical question.
Regardless of the answer, I believe that it is the responsibility of the intelligentsia, the wonks, and new media types to bring up thinking’s merits as often as humanly possible.
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