Robert D. Kaplan, the neocon’s neocon, admits that it’s time to throw in the towel on Afghanistan in an op-ed in the New York Times:

No other country in the world symbolizes the decline of the American empire as much as Afghanistan. There is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy — facts that Washington’s policy community has mostly been unable to accept.

While many American troops stay behind steel-reinforced concrete walls to protect themselves from the very population they are supposed to help, it is striking how little discussion Afghanistan has generated in government and media circles in Washington. When it comes to Afghanistan, Washington has been a city hiding behind its own walls of shame and frustration.

I won’t analyze the op-ed in detail but I would like to highlight a few passages.

The total cost of the war could reach as high as $2 trillion when long-term costs are factored in, according to Brown University’s Cost of War Project. All that to prop up an unstable government that would most likely disintegrate if aid were to end.

which is exactly what anyone who actually knew anything about Afghanistan was saying in 2002. Afghanistan cannot support the sort of military structure we are building for it and they will never be capable of defending their own borders. Since those borders were drawn by the English, why not leave it to the English to defend them? There is a barely defensible argument for retaining a small, lethal force in Afghanistan with a mission of counter-terrorism but none whatever for a mission of counter-insurgency.

It did not have to be like this. Had the United States not become diverted from rebuilding the country by its invasion of Iraq in 2003 (which I mistakenly supported), or had different military and development policies been tried, these forces of division might have been overcome.

or, in other words, blame it on Bush. Sorry, Mr. Kaplan. The blame belongs solidly on those who wanted the U. S. to occupy Afghanistan in the first place, e.g. you. Afghanistan would not have been less warlike or less divided. The last conqueror to successfully pacify Afghanistan was Alexander and he did so by settling a population there. Which brings up another important fact: the people who actually fight America’s wars have no interest in the sort of American Empire you have espoused.

According to the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, there was simply too much emphasis on the electoral process in Kabul and not nearly enough on bread-and-butter nation building — in particular, bringing basic infrastructure and agriculture up to the standards that Afghans enjoyed from the 1950s until the Soviet invasion of 1979.

because Pakistan is such a good example of a country in the region that has become a peaceful liberal democracy. This is a free flight of fancy. I wonder if it’s occurred to him that Pakistan was one of the reasons for our failure in Afghanistan? Advice from Pakistanis about Afghanistan is questionable at best. And dare I mention that the ongoing acts of terrorism in Afghanistan made the sorts of programs he envisions futile? For every school or road built there were 100 terrorists ready to blow them up or burn them down.

Can anyone cite an example of that strategy having been effective anywhere but in Germany, Japan, and South Korea? Those societies are much more cohesive than Afghanistan ever was. The real past in Afghanistan was one in which only Kabul and its immediate environs experienced “the standards that Afghans enjoyed” prior to the Soviet invasion.

Do we owe it to the Afghan people to stay? Not if the ideals that we claim to represent appear unachievable. Spending billions and stationing thousands of troops there with no end in sight to stem a deepening chaos is simply not sustainable policy.

But that policy hasn’t just been invented in the last few years. It was the policy from the outset and a foreseeable outcome as soon as we put “boots on the ground”.

I think that those who say that some show of force was necessary in the aftermath of the attacks in 2001 are, sadly, correct. However, the political leadership simply did not have the stomach for the level of airpower that would have been necessary to accomplish the objective of rooting the Taliban and Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan.

The editors of Bloomberg use their last editorial of 2018 to promote nuclear power:

Nuclear accounts for almost 60 percent of emissions-free power in the U.S., and when plants shut down, utilities mostly turn to fossil fuels to fill the void. More than one-third of the country’s plants, representing 22 percent of total nuclear capacity, are either scheduled to close or at risk of closure within the next five to 10 years, says a new UCS study. This could lead to a 4-6 percent increase in carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035.

Nuclear power is expensive, and it’s under pressure from market forces — notably, the falling price of solar and wind power. Then why not simply let it lose market share to those safe, clean fuels? Because wind and solar can’t immediately fill the gap. They still account for less than 8 percent of energy produced in the U.S. (nuclear is 20 percent). It’s crucial that their growth displaces coal and natural gas, not nuclear.

In addition wind and solar require backup power, either nuclear or fossil fuel. I’m not sure how one can reconcile taking steps to reduce climate change and opposition to nuclear energy.

especially about the future.

I’ve basically given up making year-end predictions. Events are either completely obvious (the press will continue to whine about Trump) or impossible to predict accurately (will we enter a recession?). The closest thing I have to a prediction is that I don’t believe that the new Democratic House will distinguish itself.

Who will be the next mayor of Chicago? Probably Bill Daley, a discouraging thought. I don’t even have a solid idea of who my next alderman will be. I’m thinking of starting a neighborhood club to talk about it and learn how my neighbors are thinking.

Please make your predictions for the coming year here.

According to Brookings the incoming Congressional freshmen will be the most educated:

and the least experienced:

in Congressional history.

Here’s my question. Is that good, bad, or will it make no difference? My vote is that it will make no difference for a simple reason. The performance of the Congress is based less on the rank and file and even less on incoming freshmen than it is on the Congressional leadership and the incoming Congressional leadership will have concentrated the most power in its hands than in any Congress in recent memory. It’s also the oldest leadership. Most of the leaders of the incoming Congress can remember when Truman was president.

In his Wall Street Journal column this morning Walter Russell Mead says that the biggest losers this year have been China’s Belt and Road Initiative:

After Beijing forced Sri Lanka to hand over control of its Hambantota port facilities for 99 years to satisfy its debt late in 2017, this year saw China’s most important BRI targets cancel existing agreements (Malaysia), demand better terms (Pakistan) and scale back projects (Myanmar). Chinese ties to South Africa’s Gupta family (widely blamed for facilitating the corruption of former president Jacob Zuma) and other corrupt figures have contributed to a more skeptical view of Beijing’s intentions across Asia and Africa. The pushback has only begun. China’s debt-trap diplomacy will face more obstacles in 2019.

the United Kingdom:

The United Kingdom slowly twisted in the wind in 2018, unable to negotiate an acceptable European Union exit package or to make up its mind what to do next. At year’s end the future of Brexit is as uncertain as it was 12 months ago. None of the available options—accept the EU’s offer, crash out of the EU in a “no deal” Brexit, hold a second referendum, or give up and remain in the EU—command a parliamentary majority. Within living memory Britain was one of the world’s leading powers and its parliamentary system lauded as the most successful model of democratic governance. At the start of 2019, British prestige and power are touching new lows.

Emmanuel Macron, president of France:

The French president, whose 2017 election animated hopes of a “new political center” in the West, had a horrible year in 2018. His problem wasn’t merely that his poll numbers plummeted or that “yellow jacket” protests forced him to make an embarrassing public apology and roll back some of his agenda. The theory of his presidency failed in 2018.

and Mohammed Bin Salman:

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia managed to keep his job in 2018, but otherwise the year was a nightmare for him and his country. Staging the brutal murder in Istanbul of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may have been intended to deliver a message to the Turkish leader, a Saudi rival. Instead the Turks outplayed the Saudis and dripped out one damaging revelation after another as the Saudi public-relations machine struggled to contain the fallout. Saudi prestige bled further as the kingdom’s war in Yemen wrought havoc on civilians.

but the biggest loser was the liberal international order:

The biggest loser of 2018 was the post-Cold War system that the U.S. and its closest allies hoped would shape global politics. The idea was that liberal democracy, market-based economic systems and the rule of law would spread from the West into the postcommunist East as well as into the Global South. International institutions would increasingly replace the anarchic competition of states by developing rules-based approaches to issues from trade to climate change.

Great powers like Russia and China never liked this approach, seeing it as a thinly disguised form of U.S. hegemony and a threat to their illiberal political systems. The aspiration for a liberal world system has faced growing headwinds for many years; in 2018 it buckled further under stress.

Even Japan, long a zealous upholder of the rules-based order, exited the International Whaling Commission; Russia solidified its hold on southeastern Ukraine; China fortified its artificial islands in the South China Sea; the U.S. flouted WTO procedures in pursuit of what the Trump administration calls “fair trade”; and one country after another failed to comply with its commitments under the Paris climate agreement. A modern Voltaire might quip that the old system was neither liberal nor international nor an order, but its absence will be felt if it disintegrates.

I think that Britain’s problems are less a result of Brexit than of the British authorities’ undemocratic recalcitrance in following the will of the people. Indeed, that’s a common theme in the political stories of 2018. Liberal democracy is highly desireable unless, of course, it results in freedom or democracy in which case never mind.

It’s too early to tell whether MBS was a winner or loser this year. We just don’t know enough about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s internal politics to make an assessment. He may well have been a tremendous winner and the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi may have been instrumental in that victory. Or he may be a loser. We just can’t tell.

And the post-Cold War system being a loser is old news. That has been obvious for at least 25 years. It was obvious that it had failed in 1999 when NATO planes bombed Yugoslavia without Security Council authorization but I could point to any number of other events including German reunification, the adoption of the euro, China’s failure to live up to the commitments it made to join the WTO, and any number of others as evidence of the failure. The liberal international order’s acme was marked by the Gulf War and it’s been going downhill ever since.

Picking the biggest winners is harder. Nancy Pelosi is an obvious candidate as is Chinese President Xi Jinping. Who or what else?

From The Star Claire Munde reports that Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta is reassuring Kenyans that China will not take over the Port Of Mombasa:

Propaganda. That is how President Uhuru Kenyatta has described reports that the Port of Mombasa could be taken over by China if Kenya defaults on paying its loan for the SGR.

“The issue of the take over of Mombasa Port by China is pure propaganda. We are ahead of our payment schedule for the SGR loan and there is no cause for alarm,” Uhuru said.

The President spoke on Friday during a round table discussion with journalists.

The president said though there has been public outrage and concerns about Chinese lending, his government will continue to borrow.

“We must appreciate where we are. All these issues are just a chicken in the egg. We are borrowing to handle the huge infrastructure deficit. It is not about incurring debt but how we use it,” he said.

Two observations:

1. I’m sure that’s what the authorities in Sri Lanka were saying, too.
2. Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied.

At Commentary Abe Greenwald presents the argument for leaving significant numbers of American soldiers in Syria and Afghanstian, presumably forever:

Our troops don’t go to war for the parades. They fight to protect their country. And a serious country understands that messy wars with elusive victories still have to be fought. In this light, our military efforts in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan have been vital. What have we gotten in return for all the pain and sacrifice? Only a peaceful homeland—a strangely under-appreciated miracle in the 21st century. Like the growth and prosperity that comes from free trade, peace is taken for granted. But it’s the direct result of American success in the wars we love to hate.

He goes on to characterize opposing views:

The counter-arguments are too familiar: It’s no business of ours what happens in places like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Small improvements in the security conditions of lawless countries aren’t worth the cost in American blood and treasure.

Consider this graph:

Was Afghanistan safer in 2017, the last year for which we have statistics, than in 2008 before President Obama began his “Afghan surge”? Perhaps I’m asking too much but it seems to me that an adult policy would recognize when no progress were being made.

At RealClearPolicy Andy Smarick proposes an approach to solving the United States’s work problems:

One of the hardest things for policymakers to do is admit there is a major domestic challenge but then concede there is not a direct government fix. Most policy leaders, understandably, think in terms of policy. They see it as their job to use policy to improve lives. So non-technical challenges — those not readily responding to a shift in this tax rate or that appropriation — can rattle or even debilitate public officials.

that I think is the equivalent of trying to command the waves to recede. Bureaucrats and politicians will inevitably prefer to do nothing than to do things that fail and built into his proposal is the fact that there is no master stroke which will solve our problems and many of the programs that will be tried will fail.

And that’s why most of my suggestions are for government to do less, also an impossibly tall order. The pressure to do something is impossibly hard to resist.

Over time government programs take on lives of their own. Not only do they make up the livelihoods of those who benefit by them but they are the livelihoods of those who administer them. Illinois’s system of toll roads are an object lesson. It was obvious 30 years ago that they had transformed from a system for paying for road maintenance to a system for generating funds to pay the pensions of retired tollway authority workers and paying current tollway authority workers (who would become the retired tollway authority workers of the future). That cozy system was upset by open road tolling. Do you know who the most outspoken opponents of open road tolling were? Tollway authority workers.

There are any number of examples of programs that have no only outlived their usefulness but that produced graver problems. Aid to Families with Dependent Children originated benignly enough as a way of supporting widows and orphans. By the time it was shut down during the Clinton Administration it was primarily subsidizing single motherhood.

Today we have government programs that have outlived their original purposes by a century or more but still keep struggling on.

We don’t just need housecleaning. We need a systematic way of evaluating the performance of programs and killing off those that aren’t working. Among the programs that aren’t working are our whole immigration system, the hundreds of job training programs, and our system of trade.

I’ll leave you with this observation from the cited piece:

For decades, scholars and observers on the left and right have noted with regret that America’s “mediating institutions” have deteriorated. These voluntary associations, like community-based groups, local philanthropies, faith-based organizations, and unions, help individuals and bind communities together in numerous ways. A big part of the reason they’ve atrophied is because larger and larger entities, from the federal government to multinational corporations, have taken away or been given the work of these smaller, local bodies. If we want vigorous local associations to return, we have to catalyze their development and enable them to add value to the lives of citizens, families, and neighborhoods.

I don’t know what it’s like outside the Chicago area but I know that here many NGOs survive on the basis of government grants, receive little oversight, and, routinely become organizations primarily devoted to political organization in order to, unsurprisingly, generate more grants.

At Atlantic Graeme Wood outlines some questions in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi that make it a mystery. Here are the bullet points:

• Why kill him in the consulate—the one place in Istanbul where Saudi culpability would be undeniable?
• Why kill him with sedatives?
• Why deploy a team of more than a dozen easily recognized Saudi operatives?
• Why bring in a Jamal Khashoggi look-alike?
• Why was Saudi Arabia so ill-prepared for Khashoggi’s death?

to which I’d add why are the editors of the WaPo so intent on papering over the truth about the situation? To those bullet points I’d add a few observations:

• Saudi Arabia isn’t a Western liberal democracy. It isn’t even a Western authoritarian country.
• Saudi Arabia is a country where people are stoned to death for things that aren’t even crimes in Europe or the United States.
• There have been multiple reports that Jamal Khashoggi was a Qatari operative.
• He was certainly a supporter of a Saudi faction opposed to Mohammed Bin Salman.
• Lèse-majesté is a serious crime in many places, not just in Saudi Arabia. In traditional European monarchies it was considered a form of blasphemy.