I think that Robert Kaplan gets a few things wrong but most things right in his recent musings on why there’s so much anarchy around the world. Let’s start with what I agree with.

The most important observation he makes is that institutions matter:

Here we come to the key element. The post-colonial Arab dictators ran moukhabarat states: states whose order depended on the secret police and the other, related security services. But beyond that, institutional and bureaucratic development was weak and unresponsive to the needs of the population — a population that, because it was increasingly urbanized, required social services and complex infrastructure. (Alas, urban societies are more demanding on central governments than agricultural ones, and the world is rapidly urbanizing.) It is institutions that fill the gap between the ruler at the top and the extended family or tribe at the bottom. Thus, with insufficient institutional development, the chances for either dictatorship or anarchy proliferate. Civil society occupies the middle ground between those extremes, but it cannot prosper without the requisite institutions and bureaucracies.

That isn’t limited to the Arab world. The Soviet Union as a matter of policy tried to pound down any institutions other than the Communist Party, the military, and the KGB. They were largely successful but two institutions eluded them: organized crime and the Orthodox Church. No wonder that when the Soviet Union collapsed largely taking the Communist Party with it the remaining institutions controlled the creation of the economy and the state that followed it. Even less is the wonder that Russia is now headed by former KGB.

China has much the same problem and when the Chinese Communist Party loses control of the country as will inevitably happen, the institutions that will remain—largely families, organized crime, and the military—will be in a position to control the outcome.

Consequently, I fully agree with this observation:

The real question marks are Russia and China. The possible weakening of authoritarian rule in those sprawling states may usher in less democracy than chronic instability and ethnic separatism that would dwarf in scale the current instability in the Middle East. Indeed, what follows Vladimir Putin could be worse, not better. The same holds true for a weakening of autocracy in China.

Now onwards to the observations of his with which I disagree.

First, I think most of the world has always had anarchy. It’s not a new development. In particular there’s a broad swathe of territory from the Bosporus to the Hindu Kush in which there have never been strong states other than for very short periods if at all.

My second criticism may sound like a quibble but it’s more than that. States don’t have identities:

With feeble institutions, such post-colonial states have feeble identities. If the state only means oppression, then its population consists of subjects, not citizens. Subjects of despotisms know only fear, not loyalty. If the state has only fear to offer, then, if the pillars of the dictatorship crumble or are brought low, it is non-state identities that fill the subsequent void. And in a state configured by long-standing legal borders, however artificially drawn they may have been, the triumph of non-state identities can mean anarchy.

People have identities. When people have identities, expressed through institutions like tribes and religion, that oppose the formation of strong states, they won’t have strong states.

And I disagree with his conclusion:

The future of world politics will be about which societies can develop responsive institutions to govern vast geographical space and which cannot. That is the question toward which the present season of anarchy leads.

Because identity and institutions matter the future of world politics will be about how the rest of the world deals with the large areas of ungoverned and ungovernable territory.

Here’s some saber-rattling from John Bosco at the National Interest on the subjects on which I touched yesterday, China’s provocative actions on its periphery and our apparent inability to articulate clear objectives. Mr. Bosco recommends that the president take up one of the pens he’s mentioned recently:

The president should take that same pen and draw a red line across the Asia Pacific region in response to China’s threats of force in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea. The line would also transverse the Korean Peninsula at the 38th Parallel.

Then he needs to pick up that phone and enlist the cooperation of America’s regional allies—Japan, South Korea, Australia, Philippines—as well as friends and security partners like Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia. He should assure them of Washington’s commitment to maritime and aviation security in the region and seek their material and diplomatic support for that common good.

China’s leaders, and some U.S. commentators, will charge provocation. But such a presidential declaration will ultimately avoid conflict by affirming freedom of navigation and flight as a unifying theme in the regional and international order that has existed for over six decades.

It would not be the first time a U.S. leader drew a line on the map of Asia. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and General Douglas MacArthur, supported by President Harry Truman, did it in early 1950 to declare U.S. strategic resistance to Communist expansion. Unfortunately, their defense perimeter did not include South Korea or Taiwan. Beijing and Pyongyang saw not a red line but a green light, and the Korean War erupted.

I don’t think that’s any more in our interest than carrying so much of the water for our putative European allies has been but I strongly suspect I’d be out-voted on that.

The editors of the Chicago Tribune tell the bald and sad truth:

Emanuel didn’t excavate the deep debt chasm into which City Hall has descended. But his administration has tumbled into the same habits as his predecessor. Chicago pols and public officials have grown accustomed — addicted, really — to the easy borrowing that lets them survive the next election without telling taxpayers the truth: We are consuming more in services than we’re collecting in revenue, and that foolishness has got to stop.

Yes, stopping the deficit spending that Chicago’s rising debt obscures someday will require a radical downsizing of the city payroll, an unsettling end to some services and outsourcing of others, a stark rise in taxes, or all three. Those slashes will inflict inconvenience, and in some cases hardship, on Chicagoans.

As me auld mither used to say “grasp the nettle”. What are Chicago’s politicians doing instead?

Of course, for many years Detroit was not today’s broke and broken Detroit. Msall again: “Detroit politicians made choices based on short-term political benefits rather than the long-term welfare of their city.”

Think on that as Chicago aldermen decide whether to authorize another up-to-$900 million in bonds backed by property taxes — and to double, to $1 billion, the amount of short-term bank money that City Hall can borrow to raise cash.

It’s time to grasp the nettle.

In decreasing order of confidence:

• “X today presented evidence…”
• “X today said he was in possession of evidence…”
• “An unnamed person said she was in possession of evidence…”
• “This newspaper has received evidence…”
• “X today told this newspaper that evidence exists…”
• “An unnamed person told this newspaper that evidence exists…”
• “Evidence exists…”
• “Evidence exists…” (followed by a disclaimer from the newspapers ombudsman)

For background see this column by James Taranto at the WSJ.

Remember those old cartoons they used to have in the newspapers? How many things can you find wrong with this picture? Maybe they still have them.

How many things can you find wrong with this statement:

On a conference call with reporters, a senior administration official said the change in worker behavior due to health care access reforms found in the Affordable Care Act was not a surprise.

“To put that in context, I have no doubt that if we eliminated Social Security and eliminated Medicare, there would be many 95-year-olds that would choose to work more hours than they’re working today just so they could survive, feed themselves and have health insurance,” the official said.

That statement was made in response to reporters’ questions about a CBO report which, probably to no one’s surprise, found that the PPACA would result in a lower labor force participation rate, slower growth, and a higher budget deficit than previous projections had suggested.

I’ve been seeing a lot of kvetching about U. S. policy with respect to Syria over the last couple of days. There are good examples of the genre here and here.

IMO our handling of the entire question suffers from a lack of clear objectives. In 25 words or less please state our objectives with respect to Syria.

Megan McArdle considers the problems with the PPACA’s “demonstration programs”: the administration’s analysts don’t seem that interested in analyzing the results.

I don’t have a great deal to say about this but I wanted to open this question up for discussion. China has, probably, more territorial disputes than any other country in East Asia, possibly in the world. It has territorial disputes with all of its neighbors, notably Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, and the Philippines. How do you think China’s neighbors would react to an aggressive and expansionary China?

There’s a bit of internecine warfare going on over shouldering the blame for the problems with the PPACA:

In an interview on Fox News’ “The Kelly File,” Lanny Davis, White House special counsel to former President Clinton, said Democrats — including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) — should take ownership of their mistakes on the healthcare law.

“Nancy Pelosi should say that — we messed up…We have to take ownership,” Davis said, indicating that admitting fault is the first step to fixing the Affordable Care Act.

I think there are a number of ways of viewing this remark, including a Clintonista taking aim at a senior member of the progressive Congressional caucus, preparing the battlespace for the party squabbles to come in 2015 and 2016. However, as they say success has many fathers…

While we’re on the subject of denial, I don’t usually quote Ed Rogers here but his column today is on point:

It is painfully obvious that many Democrats think the best political tactics for dealing with the numerous Obamacare problems are to ignore them, hide them or otherwise deny they exist. Democrats just keep insisting that folks are signing up and “glitches” are being fixed.

These two stories suggest that the Democrats hope Obamacare fatigue will set in and voters will begin to simply shrug as the problems become part of American life, that Obamacare will become another government-supplied annoyance for which no one is responsible and no one is to blame. The problem is that voters can’t just learn to ignore the calamity that is Obamacare because health care and health insurance are vital to the life of every American.

IMO there are several alternative explanations for the, frankly, lousy roll-out of Healthcare.gov and the attendant wobbly knees on the PPACA more generally:

1. This is typical of the debuts of new programs, healthcare programs in particular. I’d like to see that quantified, particularly in comparison with the beginnings of Medicare Part D and the Medicare system more generally. My impression is that while this might not be comparing oranges with apples it might well be comparing truckloads of apples with apples.
2. The objectives of the PPACA were primarily political. It achieved its political objectives already so who cares whether its administered well?
3. The main objective of the PPACA was to move the Overton Window. That was accomplished when it was enacted.
4. The Obama Administration was uniquely incompetent in its handling of Healthcare.gov and the PPACA more generally.
5. The incompetence of the handling of Healthcare.gov and the PPACA more generally were characteristic of today’s Democratic Party which is much better at proposing Big Government solutions than administering them.

I think there’s an element of truth in all of those explanations but I lean towards #4.