The Puffer Fish Problem

Kim Jong Un - the only fat man in North Korea.

Korea's in turmoil again and the diplomats are all a-flutter. Unfortunately, given the apparent philosophy under which our current diplomatic corps operates, we may see the situation escalate rather than improve if the Obama State Department tries its usual disastrous tactics.

The administration is fond of a tit for tat strategy of diplomacy with us being the "tat" and the tat being too little, too late. Tit-for-tat is also sometimes called mirroring. It’s a mistake to use mirroring as our primary diplomatic strategy, especially with N. Korea. Such an approach places all the power in the hands of the North Koreans.  They know now that we will only do back to them exactly what they do to us.  Kim Jong Un figures he can win a conflict like that because his people will see the US as the bad guy and rally behind him. By luring us into a retaliatory game of tit for tat, he expects to inflame North Koreans against the US by casting us as the aggressor. He assumes that his people will endure any damage we do to him.  He also believes, like the Japanese did prior to the Second World War, that Americans will not tolerate having their hands spanked, but will surrender almost immediately and give the aggressor whatever he wants. Why not? It's worked for Hamas.

Mirroring as a diplomatic strategy makes the misguided assumption that your opponent wants the same things you want. Americans want freedom and prosperity through our own efforts. North Koreans are starving,  Kim Jong Un wants the international version of food stamps. North Koreans don't have the same ideals that we do. It’s woefully short-sighted to believe they do.

A couple of  examples from history show where the politicians got it wrong by expecting their nation's rival nation-states to want the same things their own citizens wanted.

• Chamberlain wanted peace.  Hitler wanted conquest.
• The US wanted peace.  Japan wanted conquest of the Pacific.
• Queen Elizabeth I wanted open trade and competition for colonies in the New World. She was willing to divvy things up with Spain. King Philip wanted world domination.

It all led to war.

Many small dictatorships and leaders like Kim Jong Un adopt what I call the Puffer Fish Tactic when dealing with large Western democracies.  Like the puffer fish, they blow themselves up to look far larger and more dangerous than they really are in order to win concessions from their enemies.  They assume that our leaders are working from the same motivation that they are – the acquisition and maintenance of personal power.  If there is an imbalance between what motivates the two sides in any negotiation, mirroring becomes a useless negotiating tactic.

This happened to me last year with a client.  I made a proposal for a grant-writing project. The Client accepted it and then proceeded to negotiate a 20% decrease in my hourly rate and rejected my retainer fees.  I tried to accommodate the client assuming the client was interested in writing a good grant and turning it in on time.  After I went ahead and invested 30 some hours of unpaid time, the client canceled the grant and proceeded to trash me to my agency.

I thought the client wanted the same thing I wanted – the success of the grant.  I acted from that assumption.  I bent over backwards to make the thing happen, invested time and energy to insure we could hit the ground running.  My client’s motivation as it turns out was evidently not the success of the grant.  I trusted the client. The client did not trust me.  There’s nothing more frustrating than arguing at cross purposes.

The experience was not without value, however.  In my work on the feasibility part of the grant, I discovered that the grant was likely to fail.  The work that had supposedly been done had not been done. The financial capacity of the partner was limited and there appeared to be some problems with its operational history that the client was anxious to gloss over.  It appears to me the client, who said she was a grant writer, wanted to hire some help because she was in over her head. I think she had charged the lead agency for her services and needed me to turn in work so that she could turn in work and be paid for it.  It would explain, given the tiny budget of her unregistered nonprofit agency, why she was unable to pay my retainer and why she was reluctant to have me talk with the lead agency.

My purpose was saving the grant.  I mirrored her behavior based on the assumption that her purpose was the same.  Her purpose seems to have been saving her ass and that’s why my actions made no sense to her.  I was not helping her save her fuzzy butt, so she turned on me.

There is a powerful lesson there with regard to diplomacy.  The error to which the liberal left and the libertarian Ron Paul right fall into is assuming that Islamic dictators, terrorists and Islamo-facists want the same thing we do – peace and prosperity.  Ronald Reagan understood far better than any president since Teddy Roosevelt and possibly Dwight Eisenhower how to deal with evil people.  When Libya bombed an airliner full of civilians we didn’t conduct an embargo, file a protest and leave it there.  We didn’t shoot down one of their airliners.

We flew a bunch of F-111s to Libya, wiped out their air defenses, left them defenseless and bombed Muhammar Ghadafi’s house to boot.  Colonel Ghadafi shut up, quit running terrorist ops against Americans. When GHW Bush ran Iraq out of Kuwait, Ghadafi promptly apologized for the Pan Am bombing. When GW Bush overran Afghanistan and Iraq, Muhammar publicly disavowed his nuclear program and started trade negotiations with the West.

That’s how you negotiate with evil men and evil governments.

There isn't anything else that works.  The Libertarian policy on defense and foreign policy is wrong-headed.  It's basically the same policy as the liberal left.  It presumes "they" want what "we" want.  If you pay attention at all to history, you'll quickly see that this is not true.

• We wanted peace and free trade, the Japanese wanted to rule the Pacific and Asia.  The result -  Pearl Harbor.

• Neville Chamberlain wanted peace and assumed Hitler did too.  Result - the Anschluss, blitzkrieg, Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain.

• America wanted to restore nations and have peace and free trade and Russia wanted to "bury" us.  The result - almost 50 years of Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

• We assumed China wanted peace and would work out its own government.  Chairman Mao wanted to run China according to his own peculiar ideology.  Result - the Great Leap Forward and hundreds of millions dead.

• We want peace and free trade and the libs (both kinds) assume the Islamic world does too.  The beating heart of Islam wants the coming of the Caliphate and the submission of all nations to Shariah Law (read it, it's in the Koran).  The result - repeated attacks on Israel, terrorism and the political expansion of the Muslim world in every corner of the globe.

If our global neighbors were like us, we could stand down our armies and cuddle up together behind our borders without fear.  Unfortunately as more than a billion people discovered too late to save themselves in the 20th century - not everyone out there loves peace and free trade.

That's just how it is.  The diplomatic tactic of tit-for-tat or "mirroring" only gives a tin-pot dictator like Kim Jong Un a tool for manipulating the United States into a conflict of his choosing.  If we do that all over the world, we get another Cold War and buy time for the lunatics out there to rebuild their strength.

Reagan had the right idea.  Don't mirror.  Do as Sean Connery told Kevin Costner in the movie "The Untouchables", "If they come at you with a knife, you bring a gun.  If they send one of your men to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue."

The Chicago Way turns out to be an effective diplomatic tool as demonstrated in Libya and with the ending of the Cold War. As a great power we're really the only ones on the planet who can maintain any sort of peace. Really, we're the only ones who can do it, and if God gives you a job, you shouldn't refuse it just because it is hard.

Much as many of us hate the idea of a Pax Americana, what's the other choices?  A Pax Russia? A Pax China? Worse yet, a Pax Islam?  When Islamist say their religion is a religion of peace, they are talking about the kind of peace that Napoleon, King Philip, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, the Caesars and all the rest wanted. No ten-toed steel and clay United Nations is ever going to be able to insure peace. Their soldiers don't carry loaded weapons and they wear helmets that make them easier to see. How's that going to work?

© 2014 by Tom King

The Umbrella Men

Diplomacy Always Triumphs Over Action (Our Ideology Says So)

Pay no attention to those masked Russian soldiers with very large guns.
They're not really in Ukraine. President Obama has used his magic diplomacy!
We may expect unicorns and universal healthcare any minute now.

In 2008 Sarah Palin predicted that a wishy-washy response to Russia's invasion of Georgia would only encourage them to invade Ukraine next. The liberal press piled on her for that calling her a dim bulb and telling her not to worry her pretty little head about that because Obama's wise diplomacy would prevent that from ever happening. Now that the Russians have invaded Ukraine, the liberal self-appointed pundits claim that diplomacy is actually working despite appearances to the contrary.

One self-styled pundit said that threats of violence never work with Russia and that the Cold War ended, not because of Reagan's tough stance with the Russkies, but  because of "diplomacy".  Yeah, right - diplomacy in the form of more US military power than the fragile Communist Soviet Union's smoke and mirrors economy could keep up with. Diplomacy, they say, is actually working because President Obama is the smartest president ever and because, according to our ideology, diplomacy works. Diplomacy, they say, if done properly by a Democrat administration, works. The liberal punditry have said it works, therefore it must be working (again, despite evidence to the contrary).

Me? I think Palin was right.

© 2014 by Tom King
Sarah Palin image © Gage Skidmore
Russian soldiers © Daily Caller

Making Peace With Wolves - An Aesop Fable

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“WHY SHOULD there always be this fear and slaughter between us?” said the Wolves to the Sheep. “Those evil-disposed Dogs have much to answer for. They always bark whenever we approach you and attack us before we have done any harm. If you would only dismiss them from your heels, there might soon be treaties of peace and reconciliation between us.” The Sheep, poor silly creatures, were easily beguiled and dismissed the Dogs, whereupon the Wolves destroyed the unguarded flock at their own pleasure.

 - Aesop

 Creative Commons: Some rights reserved by tonynetone

Aesop understood this principle more than 2.600 years ago and yet apparently highly educated politicians still want to send away the dogs and trust in the promises of wolves. Aesop told a second story (below*) with the same theme. He must have thought it important to tell the story twice.

 - Tom

Creative Commons: Some rights reserved by slightly everything

 * A HORSE SOLDIER took the utmost pains with his charger. As long as the war lasted, he looked upon him as his fellow-helper in all emergencies and fed him carefully with hay and corn. But when the war was over, he only allowed him chaff to eat and made him carry heavy loads of wood, subjecting him to much slavish drudgery and ill-treatment. War was again proclaimed, however, and when the trumpet summoned him to his standard, the Soldier put on his charger its military trappings, and mounted, being clad in his heavy coat of mail. The Horse fell down straightway under the weight, no longer equal to the burden, and said to his master, “You must now go to the war on foot, for you have transformed me from a Horse into an Ass; and how can you expect that I can again turn in a moment from an Ass to a Horse?”  

- Aesop

Should We Fear Bin Laden as a Martyr?

There has been a lot of hand wringing since last night's announcement that Navy Seals had stamped "Paid" to Osama Bin Laden's account in a daring raid on his palatial million dollar home in Pakistan. Many pundits fear a wave of righteous outrage from Muslims and a wave of violence against us. After all, we well remember our own outrage and anger following the martyrdom of 3,000 Americans on 9/11.  The question is, will this unite the Muslim world against us.

T.E. Lawrence (yes, THAT Lawrence), in his book "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom", Lawrence points out that the Arab culture, indeed that of most of the middle-east is a tribal culture centered around strong-man leaders. Americans do not always appreciate how that dynamic works in the Middle-East. We often project our own values and beliefs upon the cultures of Persia and Arabia and Asia. It has, in the past, led to grave mistakes in dealing with those nations at whose base those cultures inform diplomatic and military behavior.  We are not alone in misjudging other cultures. They also fail to understand us because they see America through the prism of their own culture.

Japan made that mistake in WWII. They assumed (being a strong-man culture) that because Americans loved peace that we were cowards and that a hard knock would discourage us and lead us to capitulate. Hitler arrogantly assumed (as a strong man in a strong man culture) assumed we would join the strong side or at the very least stay out of it. Only Admiral Yamamoto, who understood Americans better than his colleagues, realized the mistake Japan had made when he said, "We have wakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."  Bin Laden really thought that 9/11 would cause America to flee the Middle-East in terror of his self-proclaimed holy war. Imagine his shock when he was rousted out of his cave!

We continually confuse our enemies by our ferocity in battle and by our magnanimity in the aftermath toward our defeated foes. America responds to the martyrdom of our own with stubborn, fierce and overwhelming force. Next to the kind of all-out war America wages when it is angered, jihad is an anemic temper tantrum!

When a middle-eastern strong man is brought down, his followers tend to fade into the woodwork until another strong man comes along. Osama Bin Laden was a figurehead, yes, but as long as he remained alive, ordering attacks, however insignificant, against America, he was a unifying figure. His ignominious death will weaken Al-Quaeda.

Someone compared Al-Quaeda to a Hydra, the mythical multi-headed beast of Greek mythology that would sprout two heads for every one you cut off.  This is not a perfect analogy. In strong man cultures, the lopping off the primary head does result in the rise of others, however, it also sets off a struggle for pre-eminence among the heads, often resulting in one head biting off the other.  The best way to combat such a system is to keep lopping off the primary head, leaving the little heads to fight among themselves for position.  This spreads confusion and chaos among the followers who tend to follow the man even more than the cause, however, loudly they proclaim their loyalty to the cause. Lopping off the primary head is a very effective technique for fighting strong-man cultures. There will inevitably be a power struggle in Al-Quaeda for pre-eminence. If we go after the next strong man, we will soon have the new strong man in hiding and reduced in effectiveness. At the same time the strong man will bet afraid to let another become too powerful lest that lieutenant replace the strong man.

With American armies or even governments, the followers will continue to come after you with or without the leader because in American culture, it is the cause that is pre-eminent and not the leader. In times of peace we may fight ad nauseum among ourselves, but make us angry, attack us and give us a cause to focus on, and we come after you relentlessly.

We are a very different people from those with whom we contend in the Middle-East. When we kill a hated enemy, we prepare his body for burial according to his religious beliefs and bury him in Muslim fashion with respect.  When they kill our people, they hang their bodies from bridges. When our soldiers mistreat prisoners, they are prosecuted. When their mistreat prisoners, it is posted on the Internet.  We are an honorable people. Our enemies sense of honor is very different. We see it with Al-Quaeda. We saw it with how the Japanese behaved toward prisoners in WWII.  Both cultures have a highly developed sense of honor, but it is very different from ours. We must take it into account.

Bin Laden's "martyrdom", while it may inspire some short term reaction among Bin Laden's admirers, it will more likely dishearten them than anything. An Arab writer in Newsweek almost ten years ago, suggested that if America wanted to win friends in the Middle-East, it needed to win.  Winning is the only thing Arabs respect. Conciliation and concession are inevitably seen as week.

The extermination of Osama Bin Laden is a big one in the "W" column for the U.S.. If we move from strength to strength we win friends. Remember that in the wake of the U.S. defeat of Saddam Hussein, hundreds of Iraqi newborn boys were named George Bush. The instinct to revere strength is instinctive in that culture.

If President Obama continues his strong posture in the Middle-East in the wake of Bin Laden's elemination, even if he only does it to win re-election, that will be a good thing. It may buy us time to win friends there. It may open a window for Christians in that region to win a brief respite. Who knows?

I think mainstream Arabs and Persians will see Osama Bin Laden, not so much as a martyr, but as a loser, grown weak and hiding in his million dollar mansion, caught lounging in his waterbed by the relentless special operations forces of the United States of America.

While it is inappropriate for a Christian to rejoice in the death of any man, we may rejoice that we have silenced the voice that ordered so many half starved Arab boys and girls to strap explosives around their thin waists and to blow themselves up in peaceful marketplaces, killing people who never did them any harm. An evil is gone from the world. Other evil men will rise to take his place, that is certain, but America is watching and the Joint Special Operations Command stands ready.

Hooah!


Tom King
 Tyler, TX

Did Some Good Come Out of Wiki-Leaks

One thing Wiki-leaks recent document dump may have inadvertantly done is blown away the liberal fiction that the United States has acted the bully in the Middle-East all this time and that our presence is not wanted in the region.

As it turns out, apparently the leaders of the surrounding Arab nations are just as creeped out by folks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saddam Hussein as Western nations.  Arabs, as has been pointed out by historians and as many Arab commentators themselves have explained, the Arabs are basically businessmen. The political aspirations of tyrant powers like Iraq and Iran are destabilizing to the region. An unstable Middle-East is bad for business and many local Arab diplomats have, apparently, expressed their concern about Iran's leadership over the years, even to the point of suggesting the U.S. "cut off the head of the snake". 

Sadly, these concerns have all been expressed in private. Publicly, the leadership of Iran's neighbors have been conspicuously silent all these years. Liberal pundits and politicians have seized on this silence to criticize Republican presidents for becoming militarily involved in the region.  What has not been revealed clearly before the recent Wiki-leaks dump is how heavily the more peaceful Arab nations of the region depend on U.S. military might to back their own security.

They'd never say it, but secretly, I bet many Arab leaders (and a significant portion of the U.S. diplomatic corps) would really love it if Israel would bomb the heck out of Iran's nuclear facilities. That way the threat would be eliminated and everybody could blame the Israelis for "over-reacting" and make the the villains in the piece.

It appears from Wiki-leaks, that the U.S. understands how to play Islamo-politics better than most liberal pundits would ever admit.  The name of the game for the Arab nations in that volatile region is to get the U.S. or Israel to slap around the local bully-boys, while they register "official' disapproval for our actions. They are like the kids on the playground that won't challenge a bully for fear of attracting his attention to themselves.

In a region where people blow themselves up and you with them if you make them mad, it's little wonder local Arab leaders avoid criticizing thugs like Ahmadinejad, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar. It's a good way to get yourself personally blown up.

Business people can't do business if you blow them up.  So a practical businessman wants to avoid that sort of thing and as we all learned on the playground in elementary school, the best way to avoid drawing the attention of bullies is to either remain silent or laugh at their jokes. Everyone is always relieved when the teacher shows up to enforce the rules.

Anti-American Wiki-leaks founder, Julian Assange, may have inadvertantly helped America in posting all those documents.  If that's the case, you can bet the documents will soon "disappear" or be universally ignored.  Can't have United States policy proved to have been correct, now can we? I'll bet old Julian is really unhappy about that.


Tom