The German Economic Miracle (?)

I remember the hype back in the 1980s and 1990s regarding the reported ascent of the German and Japanese economies--how it seemed they were edging the U.S. out of the number one spot. I remember, too, how that talk faded during the '90s amid fuss over globalization and the New Economy, and how supposedly the Eurosclerotic Germans with their unaffordable welfare states, and the rigid Japanese, were missing that train as such dynamic firms as Enron were, in Thomas Friedman's words, "discovering the equivalent of cyber-oil."

Of course, that hype faded in its turn (even as it remained the conventional wisdom), but the appraisal of at least the German economy became less harsh as it turned out to be, after all, a global champion in manufacturing exports (doubling the share of these in its GDP in 1990-2009, and outdoing the four times' larger U.S. to become number one in the world), and weathered the Great Recession better than just about anyone else, and laid down the law in the European economic space it dominated. (It was also far from trivial to the essentially neoliberal commentariat that its government increasingly embraced their preferred theories, not least in the Hartz IV labor reforms, cheered by the economically orthodox, not so cheered by, you know, actual working people in Germany or anywhere else.)

Naturally one hears, from time to time, reference to not just the country's successes of the present, but those of its past, touching in particular on its recovery from the Second World War, which they are quick to chalk up in a vaguely racialist way to German propensity for hard and attentive work, and to the home-grown variant on neoliberal, supply-side economics, "ordoliberalism."

Of course, as is always the case, the reality is more complex than this morality tale so beloved of those observers who like to talk about "culture," and the virtues of hard work and right-wing economic prescriptions--as I was reminded when researching Geography, Technology and the Flux of Opportunity (principally about Britain's economic history, of course, but its premise was that what the country's rivals did mattered, making Germany's ascent part of Britain's own story).

The reality is that before the war Germany had been the world's number two industrial power for decades, substantially due to the opportunities afforded by its unique geographic position in nineteenth century Europe (and the ways in which it improved on them through conquest, especially in the Franco-Prussian War, not least its scoring the continent's richest industrial territory as spoils).

Moreover, catastrophic as World War II was for the world, and for the tens of millions of Germans killed, maimed and rendered homeless or even stateless, and virtually all the rest whose lives were stunted or scarred by the experience, German industry did relatively well for itself. In the 1930s and 1940s German industry gorged itself on military spending and the spoils of war to such a degree that even after the losses of wartime destruction and post-war occupation and confiscations the German industrial base was still ahead of where it was pre-war. In itself that would seem to have been enough to lay the foundations for German industry's leap into the "Fordist" era, while it did well, too, out of the post-war, which is to say, the early Cold War in which it was all too clear that a strong Germany was far more useful to the Western alliance than a weak one. The result was astonishing debt relief; the Marshall Aid that compensated for confiscations by the Allies and enabled its trading partners to afford its products; and the very light defense burden it bore compared with America, Britain, or even France; along with the massive stimulus of America's military Keynesianism in the Korean War period and after. (Far from insignificant, too, was German capital's finding the country awash in cheap labor with all those millions of ethnic Germans expelled from the East refugees in the West, and millions more guest workers come north from the shores of the Mediterranean. Oh, and an undervalued currency, too.)

All that made the miracle possible, a miracle that it must be remembered was only one miracle among others in that period. (There was an even more spectacular Japanese miracle, after all, and great leaps on the part of the Italians and French and even Soviets in these decades, while the U.S. economy, the biggest and richest of all, went on exploding.) And like all the rest the German miracle was running its course by the 1970s, Germany like all the others slowing down as post-war boom turned to post-post-war bust. Still, starting out in a different place Germany's advance put it well ahead of the rest of the European pack (and save for the U.S. and Japan, the world pack) at a moment when the terms of the race changed profoundly. (The market got crowded, the rate of profit fell, the rate of growth slowed, and the neoliberal turn delivered an age of anemic growth indeed.) That left rather little room for anyone to make up the distance, perhaps especially within the framework of the European Union whose consumption of German goods has been so crucial to its success.

We Need To Talk About Geoengineering

Already the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has not only elevated temperatures and increased the frequency of extreme weather events to a disruptive, damaging degree. They have produced a variety of second-order effects which are, in turn, contributing to further warming, and the damage generally. The melting of the polar ice caps means open water where there was ice cover that had previously reflected solar radiation, and the release of methane previously trapped in permafrost, as well as directly raising sea levels. The increased droughts are killing forests that had been great carbon sinks, while the burning trees and rotting wood that result contribute yet more such emissions. And of course, there is the acidification of the carbon dioxide-saturated oceans. The most ambitious decarbonization of our energy and transport system, our industry and food production, is likely to still see positive emissions for decades to come, exacerbating the pattern.

The result is that anything remotely resembling a livable situation requires going beyond zero emissions. The two most obvious courses are negative emissions--the extraction of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere--and the management of solar radiation. Where negative emissions are concerned the most obvious courses are reforestation and afforestation, which can extend to wetlands and undersea kelp "forest" (the latter, offering the nice bonus of directly reversing one of the more worrisome consequences of warming, the acidification of the oceans), and management of the soil. Such natural means can also be supplemented by direct air capture technology, which currently operates on a small scale. Many of these options have the added benefit of generating useful products, with kelp notable as a potential source of animal feed capable of reducing the methane emissions of cattle-raising, and biofuels; while carbon recovered from the atmosphere can be converted into "buckytubes" with potentially wide applications, from computer chip architectures to large-scale construction and engineering.

Solar radiation management can be carried on through some of the same techniques, with greenery cooling the immediate area, while other methods entail the reflection of a higher proportion of solar radiation into space. One promising approach is the dispersal of silica across ice to increase its reflection of the sun's rays. More broadly, the conservation and expansion of ice cover is useful in this regard, with the thickening of ice packs through water-spraying one plausible option. Another is the construction of "cooling tunnels" in areas subject to melting, such as Greenland, and the building of sills which prevent warm water from getting underneath them. Additionally melting glaciers and ice shelves can be kept from running off into the sea with the use of walls. (And of course, anything that preserves the ice ameliorates the risk of rising sea levels.)

All this, of course, does not exhaust the full range of options. Others, many more radical (like the fertilization of the ocean with iron, or the use of aerosols to reduce the entry of solar radiation into the atmosphere) also exist. They all seem considerably riskier, but I do not rule them out, especially if the prognosis continues to worsen at the rate it has this past, exceedingly depressing decade. Still, the more modest options discussed above seem to me to offer an ample basis for a comprehensive geoengineering plan, without which any plan to redress climate change cannot be considered anywhere close to complete in the circumstances in which we now found ourselves.

Is Bernie Sanders a Socialist?

Socialism calls for the economy to be managed collectively, for the sake of the well-being of all of society's members; rather than its driving force being the decision-making of private actors pursuing private profit (what its proponents, not always coherently, call "the market").

By contrast, social democracy accepts the private, capitalist economy as its baseline, but simply takes the position that in real life markets require rules to permit them to function, and that optimal economic outcomes may come from channeling market forces; that there may be areas where markets simply do less well than alternative modes of organization, for example, in cases of natural monopoly; and that optimal social outcomes tend to require remedial action to protect the public against the harsher consequences of the market.

Thus one has regulations to protect the worker, the consumer, the natural environment; one has subsidy of various kinds; one has public services, going beyond the traditional minimum of armed forces, law enforcement, a postal service, infrastructure, to the realms of education and health and perhaps public ownership of enterprises like utilities or transport systems; one has a social safety net. Accordingly one also sees a fairly large state, supported by relatively high taxes. Still, the economy remains largely and usually private and proft-driven.

There is a world of difference between socialism as described here, and social democracy as described here. The really hardline anti-Communist may claim not to understand that difference, or make slippery slope arguments about any impurity of a capitalist society putting it on the train straight to Stalintown or somesuch. Yet, the fact remains that, whatever one makes of such arguments, they are two different social models, in their principles and their workings.

By and large what we in the United States are hearing described as "socialism" is just social democracy. Thus does it even go with Sanders' call for the expansion of the publicly owned electric grid on the basis of enlarged investment in renewable power in his vision of a Green New Deal. The end result would be that the American government would be the principal provider of electricity to the consumer. Yet, those who know something of the history of social democracy will remember that other states went rather further in this direction before--even post-war Britain, which far from building up a government-owned electric grid, did not hesitate to nationalize the existing one, along with the coal, gas and oil sectors (which remained government-owned until the privatizations of the Thatcher era).

Simply put, Sanders' plan in this area, and others, looks much more radical than it is because of how modest the social democratic element in the U.S. was even at its peak (the extent of regulation, the social safety net, public ownership never coming close to what was seen even in safely capitalist Europe), and because of how far to the right the Democratic Party has marched since the 1970s, especially under the Presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, a march that the party's neoliberal elite (whose stance is epitomized by Nancy "Paygo" Pelosi) are utterly intent on continuing. The result has been to pit that elite against the party's more left-leaning base, a conflict which cost the party dearly in 2016. Should the elite get their way again, it seems likely the party will pay the price yet again in 2020.

Just Out: Complexity, Stagnation and Frailty: Understanding the Twenty-First Century

Back in 2004 I published "Societal Complexity and Diminishing Returns in Security" in the journal International Security. (The journal is paywalled, but you can access a copy on my blog, here.)

The argument, which built on Joseph Tainter's thesis in The Collapse of Complex Societies, boiled down to its absolute basics, was that modern civilization was getting more complex, by and large in ways that were offering less and less benefit, leaving it more strained and more vulnerable to disruption, all as the costs of protecting it kept going up.

This sounds abstract, but there were fairly concrete ways in which this was the case. The ever-rising volume of trade, travel, communication, information production and processing show our society's increasing complexity. The profound slowdown in economic growth in recent decades, the routinization of colossal deficits, the explosion of debt, testify to a society whose resources are badly strained. And of course, the "tight coupling" of our contemporary systems, the preference for leanness in the name of "efficiency" (at the expense of resiliency) also suggested rising vulnerability. This was evident, too, in the standard deemed necessary for protection--with the old idea of nuclear deterrence giving way to an obsession with not deterring but neutralizing the abilities of "irrational" actors, which entailed such things as preventive wars and missile defense. Meanwhile, way below that threat level there was the burgeoning expenditure on law enforcement, emergency services, private security.

As is often the case with a piece of published research, it was a starting point for me rather than an end to a line of speculation, in particular the first aspect of it--the way society was getting more complex but stagnant and strained, as declining growth and rising deficits and debt suggested. One result was a more thoroughly worked out and heavily updated version of the argument in 2008 which I was releasing just as the mortgage crisis demonstrated the stagnation and frailty of the globalized, financialized, twenty-first century economy, with the paper. (You can find it here on my blog, a PDF version here at SSRN.)

Still, that was not the end of it. I returned to the same theme later, and more recently produced three papers, also published through SSRN--one offering a yet more thorough and more up-to-date version of that argument in early 2018; an accompanying piece which probed deeply into the multiple available data sets regarding post-World War II growth in Gross World Product; and finally one which endeavored to relate our economic stresses to the sharp deterioration of the "liberal international order" that respectable mainstream talking heads remark so much but do so little to help anyone understand.

My new book, Complexity, Stagnation and Frailty: Understanding the Twenty-First Century, brings this later research together in a single, convenient volume, in both Kindle and paperback editions, available at Amazon and other retailers.

Get your copy today.

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Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal: A First Take, Part I

As you are likely already aware, Bernie Sanders has released his document regarding a Green New Deal. In contrast with the resolution sponsored by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey earlier this year, which merely outlined the standards a plan of action ought to meet, but a detailed outline of the plan itself, presenting a comprehensive set of proposals.

As I write the plan has been available to the public for mere hours, and it is long and intricate, some 14,000 words. I do not claim to be anywhere near done close-reading and thinking about it, but it does seem possible to say some things regarding the plan in light of my earlier thoughts about such a Green New Deal.

I previously asserted here that any plan worthy of serious consideration must abide by four principles, namely scale, global thinking, pragmatism, and equity. This plan appears to abide by all four of them. The authors realize that serious action means nothing less than the production of 100 percent electricity from renewable energy by 2030, the fuller decarbonization of the energy and transport sector, and an overhaul of agriculture, which will not come cheaply, but will require that World War II-level effort of which so many speak but which few seem to actually understand. The plan acknowledges that the U.S. must do its part to solve the problem of climate change, but cannot do it alone, acknowledging the need to enlist the cooperation of the other major governments, and the revision of trade agreements, while aiding less developed nations in making the transition. Its authors do not hesitate to speak of the necessary means for carrying out such action, however squeamish orthodox opinion may be about them--going beyond pious talk of "supporting research" or somehow inducing business to do the job to public construction and ownership of the needed power capacity (via the Power Marketing Associations). And it is certainly attentive to equity, not only between rich countries and poor as acknowledged above, but in regard to working people who risk dislocation in the energy transition because of the sectors in which they happen to work; and the responsibility of the fossil fuel sector for the "externalities" it has generated.

All of that has naturally got my attention.

Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal: A First Take, Part II

As noted in my previous post, I was impressed by the extent to which Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal acknowledged those important principles of scale, global thinking, pragmatism, and equity. What does it really consist of, however?

The centerpiece of the plan is a shift to renewable power as the basis of the energy and transport systems of the country (and it is on this aspect of the plan that I will focus here). The plan specifically envisions a massive, rapid expansion of electricity production capacity, combined with a "smart grid"; the electrification of homes and businesses currently using oil and gas for such purposes as heating; and transport fleets, the latter with the help of grants for trade-ins for individuals, school districts, transit agencies, and trucking, and the funding of a user-friendly charging infrastructure. (The plan also includes a substantial investment in electrically powered public transit and high-speed rail; the weatherizing of buildings, which will entail the construction and modification of a great deal of housing stock.)

As renewable energy production increasingly meets the country's energy needs, the plan also curbs fossil fuels production and consumption, with the latter sector paying significantly toward the progress of the former. The elimination of Federal fossil fuel subsidies (including the massive military expenditures devoted to protecting oil supplies and transport routes, far vaster than the official subsidies) and divestment from overseas fossil fuel project financing, the penalties for violations of environmental laws that the crippled regulators from the Reagan era forward failed to collect, taxes on polluters, and suits against the oil industry (like those against the tobacco companies) will provide much of the funding for the transition--which will, over time, substantially pay for itself. The most obvious reason is that the Power Marketing Associations will build and operate much of the renewable energy-based power generation capacity, and collect the revenue--making this an investment by the government, rather than mere expenditure. However, there will also be the economic boost from rising income tax revenue (and falling social safety net payouts) due to the colossal stimulus of the plan, which it is intended will create 20 million jobs.

Alongside all this, the environmental destructiveness of the fossil fuel production that will continue as the shift is carried through will be minimized, with the plan explicitly calling for bans on offshore drilling, fracking, mountaintop removal coal-mining, and the import and export of fossil fuels, and on new fossil fuel infrastructure permits on Federal land. It also calls for the repair and clean-up of existing fossil fuel infrastructure, both that in use and that which has been abandoned, to minimize its negative effects. Beyond these objects the plan will also see government enlargement of recycling efforts, not least to minimize the resource consumption required by the construction of renewable energy-production systems.

In considering all this the plan is notable for its comparative technological conservatism--its emphasis on the use of existing, proven technologies. However, it also acknowledges the areas where further research and development will be required, or helpful, specifying programs in the areas of energy storage; the decarbonization of shipping and aviation; and the production of alternatives to petrochemical-based plastics. Notable, too, is the extent to which it addresses other problems related to this transition, and to coping with climate change, including more general redress of an infrastructure which must be made more efficient and resilient, from the supply of potable water to the supply of broadband Internet (here, too, public ownership will be part of the plan), the strengthening of firefighting capabilities, the expansion of Brownfield and Superfund cleanup, and the protection of public lands.

Considering all this I must admit that I was impressed by not just the scale of the program, as previously acknowledged here, but also its comprehensiveness, its audacity, or its rigor, not a single thing so far striking me as obviously infeasible or even implausible given what I know of the issue, whether in regard to its aims or the means for realizing them. No plan previously presented by a national figure even begins to compare with it in any of these respects--and whatever I make of the details as they continue to appear, and we all continue to study them, I think I will still think what I do now, that finally we are starting to see some real acknowledgment of just what this job will take.

The First Review is In! (The Military Techno-Thriller: A History)

My book The Military Techno-Thriller: A History hit the market earlier this month.

Fuldapocalypse Fiction has just reviewed it, and I am pleased to say its assessment of the book has been favorable.

Its review praised the book's history of the field as a "multi-century tour de force" of "not only the books themselves but also the cultural context behind them," even as it manages to be "both long enough to be . . . and short enough to be easily readable, making it the best of both worlds." Altogether Fuldapocalypse rated it

an excellent book that examines an overlooked genre through a variety of interesting perspectives in a highly readable way. I cannot recommend The Military Techno-Thriller: A History enough for fans of the genre.

That's very high praise from any source--and the more meaningful because so much of his characterization of the book ("long enough to be comprehensive . . . and short enough to be easily readable, making it the best of both worlds") is exactly what I aimed for.

It's the more meaningful, too, for having come from this blog specifically. As a longtime reader (and fan) of Fuldapocalypse Fiction, and the affiliated Coiler's Creative Corner--both of which I regard as must-reads for those interested in military techno-thrillers, action-adventure ficion, and related thriller genres across the media spectrum from print to gaming--I have consistently found the author a deeply informed, incisive and tough (but fair) critic of work in the field.

The Regime Change Fantasists

Those who flatter themselves that they are statesmen, looking at a regime they hate and want to overthrow, always imagine that it is just so much rotting wood which a swift kick would bring down, with the population subsequently welcoming them as liberators, making it easy and cheap for them to do as they please. They never imagine that the regime they so dislike may nonetheless command its people's loyalty, rallying them round the flag in a time of national crisis (even as they count on exactly that in their own country); that given a choice between an indigenous government, even one they would like very much to change, and the foreigners dropping bombs on them or marching into their streets with ideas of their own about how they will live, they will commonly choose the former rather than the latter (even as, again, they count on exactly that same inclination in their own country).

This is called "extreme stupidity." History is littered with its disastrous results. And its prevalence (such that the neoconservatives whose stock in trade this is are back) is a reminder, if any were needed, that politics is not a meritocracy, that those in charge are never the "best and brightest" as their fawning courtiers tell them and the world, but careerist mediocrities who picked their parents well, and played the filthy game of getting ahead slightly better (or at least, with a little more luck on their side) than the other careerist mediocrities who made up the competition.

The Cheap and Easy Option Never Is

I have recently written here regarding the discussion of some hypothetical scenarios regarding U.S. military action against Iran. As appeared to be the case at first glance, and still more at second glance, Iran's size and population, its fragmented geography, its high level of urbanization and the distribution of its urban centers, and the lack of convenient entry points, as well as its relative demographic cohesion, make any attempt at invasion or occupation of the whole country a task difficult in the best of circumstances, and implausible on account of the sheer scale of the force required for it. (Instead of the hundred thousand troops who occupied Iraq, or the two or three hundred thousand who might be available in the event of a full mobilization of the reserves and National Guard, two or three million would be required--figures implausible outside a world war-like draft.)

That reality leaves the air and sea options. It would be relatively easy for the U.S. to neutralize Iran's air force and navy, while its ballistic missile forces appear to be of quite limited practical offensive capacity. At the same time its less conventional anti-ship capabilities, and its anti-air capabilities, if possibly more formidable than those of other recent U.S. opponents (especially if there proves to be some truth to the larger claims made for its indigenous systems), seem unlikely to make a prolonged U.S. air campaign and blockade against the country infeasible (even if they may take a toll heavier than the very light ones of past air campaigns). The U.S. could quite easily cut off Iran's trade, and inflict heavy damage on its armed forces and its economy.

Still, all these years later, there remains no substitute for ground forces in achieving regime changes through military means--while the prospect for blowback is considerable, and not solely through the most obvious sympathizers Iran has. A prolonged campaign of this kind will test the tolerance of the international community broadly, and not least, the patience of neighboring Russia, whose non-intervention cannot be counted on. The result is that the seemingly "easy" air-sea option is not so easy after all. It just about never is.

Funding the Sixth-Generation Fighter?

Some years ago I took up the subject of the sixth-generation fighter aircraft.

I discussed what features are thought likely to distinguish such an aircraft. (Think artificially intelligent, hypersonic, armed with directed-energy weapons.) I also considered whether these as yet hypothetical planes might or might not actually appear within the predicted time frame--the late 2020s or 2030s.

I offered three reasons to be skeptical of this.

1. The turn from great power conflict to small wars, making quite different demands.
2. The rate of technical progress may be too slow to allow for the kind of aircraft imagined in that time frame (perhaps in itself, perhaps relative to other, more dynamic fields).
3. Economic stagnation may leave air forces unable to afford such aircraft.

It would be difficult to deny that great power conflict has resurged since I first wrote that piece (in 2010).

There is also more bullishness about technical development now than then. How many of the really relevant technologies will emerge remains open to question. Even where artificial intelligence is concerned expectations now seem more moderate as compared with a couple of years ago--while as the research into hypersonic weaponry shows, anything like a truly viable, multirole, production aircraft capable of hypersonic flight remains quite some way. I would not bet on such aircraft being anywhere near ready for service in the 2020s. Still, it seems to me precipitous to wholly rule out at least the technical possibility of such aircraft for a full generation.

However, the third reason, the matter of cost, seems at least as significant as ever.

Consider what came of the fifth generation of fighter. The Europeans decided not to bother, making do with the "generation 4.5" Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale. The Japanese, Russians, Chinese only belatedly pursued programs. And even the U.S. Air Force, initially intent on 750 F-22s, cut back its order by three-quarters, making do with a mere 187 operational jets.

One can attribute much of this to the end of the Cold War, admittedly. The Russians and Chinese did not have the resources--the former because of economic collapse, the latter because if fast-growing, they were still relatively cash-strapped, and (wisely) prioritizing economic development. This let the U.S. and its allies take it easy there, the more so as they had other priorities in an age of sluggish growth and intensifying economic competition, and in which, at any rate, small wars seemed the principal concern.

Still, as noted earlier, if the Russians and Chinese only belatedly fielded their own systems, they did so all the same, and in an international scene that had grown much more aggressive in comparison with the 1990s. However, after developing the Sukhoi-57 the Russian government decided to hold off on actual production. This may seem understandable given Russia's attempting here to fund superpower capacities (cutting-edge aircraft production) on rather less than superpower resources (even in PPP terms, its GDP is about 20 percent that of the U.S., the European Union or China). Still, in the face of what American policymakers regarded as a more aggressive scene, the Pentagon has opted to buy brand new F-15s (upgraded, but still F-15s, and not even stealthy "Silent Eagles" either) to fill out its ranks. There has been much argument over the rationale, with many downplaying the question of cost savings--perhaps, too much so, in light of the uncertainty involved in the eventual cost of the more advanced F-35, and for that matter, the fate of the program more generally. (Production has only scarcely begun, a mere four hundred of those thousands of intended units rolled off the line to date, while criticism of the high cost and questionable performance of the aircraft continue.)

In short, even the fifth generation of jets has proven prohibitively costly. It seems a certainty that, if they do prove technically feasible, a sixth generation of fighters will be much more costly than these--the billion dollar fighter upon us if the trend holds--without necessarily offering value for the money (other systems might prove a more efficient way of doing whatever job is at hand), or the resources being there even if they do. (Our economies have been a stagnant for a decade now, and could easily remain so, while one does not have to incline to the more apocalyptic visions of climate change to see that worse may be in store here.)

Indeed, thinking of the talk of sixth generation fighters I am reminded of other high-tech roads not traveled, like the '50s-era visions of ultra-fast, ultra-high-flying, ultra-long-range shooting superjets (YF-12, F-108) that should ring very familiar to anyone who has actually considered the things a sixth generation fighter is supposed to do (be a hypersonic, near-space jet with longer-ranged missiles and even "frigging laser beams"). Instead fighter design traveled a more conventional, less spectacular, but arguably more practical course. So does it seem likely to do again.