The Quantitative Peace

Obama's New Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

Things have been fairly quiet here---all of us here at QP have been pretty busy with the end of the year and the onset of summer.  Anywho, I came across this article today and wanted to offer a few quick comments.

Obama has named Admiral Mike Mullen's replacement as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as is often a general trend, a Democrat  has appointed an Army officer.  General Dempsey was actually just named to be the new Army Chief of Staff after General George Casey.  

I don't really have too much to say about this appointment, but I'm curious about this appointment in the context of Obama's having named Petraeus and Panetta a few weeks to to two very important posts.  I don't really know much about Dempsey to be honest, but shy of asking Admiral Mullen to stay on I'm surprised that Petraeus wasn't chosen for this post.  As I've said previously, being a good commander doesn't necessarily mean that Petraeus will make a good CIA director.  

That said, I reiterate that I don't know much about Dempsey's career, aside from the fact that he has experience in the middle-east region as deputy and then acting commander of central command.  In any event, I assume that the Obama administration wants to appoint someone that is in sync with the trajectory that the current team has been pursuing.  As near as I can tell, the administration's relationship with Mullen has been a harmonious one, so I can't imagine that his replacement will be much different with respect to his attitudes on military spending, troop withdrawals, etc.  

This CNN article has a bit more than the BBC on the reasons why current vice-chairman James Cartwright didn't get the top job.  These may be valid reasons, but there really isn't much of a precedent for this happening anyway.  Richard Myers and Peter Pace both served as vice-chairman before being promoted to chairman, but aside from these two appointments there is nothing to give one cause to assume that this would be the case.  Now, it may be the case that Cartwright has a "special relationship" with the administration that would lead one to believe this, but the CNN article suggests that this was probably not going to happen, and that it has been pretty apparent that this wouldn't happen for some time now.  That said, the vice-chairman as an office has only been around since the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, so insofar as these top national security positions are concerned, it's still a young post, and such norms may develop in the future.    

Libya Update

A quick update on goings on in Libya.  

US Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman visits rebels in Benghazi.  Members of the rebel "organization" have apparently been invited to open offices in Washington DC.  The article also discusses the deployment of attack helicopters by France and the UK to Libya to directly assist the rebels.  

Similarly, the EU has apparently also opened offices in Benghazi.    

Evolution, Secrecy, and Bureaucracies

This sort of reminds me of this.  Really one passage in particular, I suppose:

We tend to marvel at the Darwinian perfection of organisms now, saying 'this must have been highly selected for, it's a tuned and sophisticated machine'.  In fact, it's a mess - there's so much unnecessary complexity.

Bear with me.  The preceding passage is from an article I found on the BBC regarding flaws in proteins that are believed to be linked to more complex biological structure emerging.  While not directly related to Walt's post on bureaucracies, the passage quoted above just sort of struck me as appropriate.

Walt's basic argument is that America's foreign policy, being one that he generally describes as imperialistic, could not be sustained without a large and complex bureaucratic organism that can manage foreign policy activity.  These bureaucracies, Walt argues, are more prone to secrecy because it makes the perpetuation of American foreign policy easier.  Basically, secrecy allows bureaucratic actors to pursue their own policy preferences and use the tactics and strategies that they want to use.  Without secrecy the public may find out about the reprehensible policies that bureaucrats are employing and put a stop to it.

Like the preceding passage, Walt's argument seems to assume that the functions of the bureaucracy are finely tuned and selected for because they better enable the bureaucracy to do its job.  The first mistake here is treating the national security bureaucracy (as he refers to it) as a monolithic entity that controls foreign policy.  Indeed, one of the core elements of bureaucratic politics theory is the existence of multiple bureaucratic agencies, all with their own particular mission/mandate, and that are often "competing" with one another to influence the direction of foreign policy.  These theoretical models often focus on the individuals within these bureaucratic agencies, arguing that membership in a particular agency, previous experience, and one's rank within the organization all determine views and preferences.  It may be more appropriate to say that these factors partially shape preferences, and partially determine the extent to which an individual can pursue their preferences.  The "previous baggage" component suggests that preferences are partially determined by factors other than an individual affiliation with a particular agency.  Nevertheless, bureaucratic politics theory assumes that these individuals will seek to enhance their own standing and, as a result, the standing of their organization within the broader organizational context (i.e. the Pentagon/DOD will try to maximize its influence within the broader foreign policymaking community).    

Now I don't doubt that some of these bureaucratic actors enjoy having a certain level of secrecy associated with their work, as Walt suggests.  This surely opens up opportunities to do things that would not otherwise be possible if these actors were subject to a higher level of public scrutiny.  But I think one mistake is thinking that this is all completely deliberate.  The redundancy of bureaucratic functions likely accounts for a substantial amount of the secrecy that exists in the American foreign policymaking "apparatus."  Since there are multiple organizations all competing for influence within the system there is a strong incentive to not share information with those actors/organizations that are perceived to be your competitors.  The FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and other intelligence gathering agencies are in many ways rivals when it comes to gathering intelligence.  Indeed this was argued to be a major problem in the wake of the September 11 attacks.  The solution?  Create the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to oversee much of the broader intelligence and security community.  

The result?  The CIA, who had arguably been top-dog in this field prior to the creation of the DNI is still far more entrenched in the national security bureaucracy than the newly created DNI.  This is largely due to path dependence and the fact that the CIA had 60 years to establish its own contacts and relations with other agencies.  Again we see the CIA in a position where there are strong incentives to jealously guard any agency-exclusive information in an effort to stave off the DNI's growing influence.  The CIA is therefore in a position to undertake its own operations and only report successes once they have become, well, successful.  Failures of course should never see the light of day.

Now this may sound a lot like what Walt is proposing.  However, the major difference is that a great deal of secrecy is introduced into the system as a byproduct of other actions---not because a high level of secrecy is optimal for the pursuit of some foreign policy goal.  This secrecy also exists in an intra-governmental fashion, and is not simply an issue of external transparency.  Again, as we have seen over the past few years, and as many folks have argued, the refusal to share information between government agencies has resulted in a decidedly suboptimal system for ensuring our national security.

The current bureaucratic structure has not evolved, its characteristics have not been selected for, because it is the best suited system for pursuing national security.  Certainly policymakers, while delegating substantial powers to the actors within these agencies, can face very negative consequences when bad policies or tactics are uncovered, so internal transparency is not necessarily desirable for political leaders either.  The creation of the DNI and Homeland Security have definitely increased the size of the national security bureaucracy, and have probably increased the level of secrecy in the system, but I don't think this is the intent.  These agencies were created in an effort to facilitate communication between other agencies in the system and to keep political leaders better informed.  While I don't totally disagree with Walt's assessment, I think there are probably some more nuanced organizational factors that contribute a great deal to our understanding of why we see the structures and behavior that we see.    

 

Love Triangle

It's been an otherwise quiet week here, but I just came across this article at the BBC.  With all of the dust that the killing of bin Laden stirred up between the US and Pakistan it's easy to forget the bigger picture.  Specifically, what openings (if any) does the increased tension between the US and Pakistan create for other states in the region?  

The article specifically mentions that China may be able to use this opportunity to increase its foreign investment in Pakistan.  First, I guess it's not immediately clear to me why Pakistani--US relations have to fray in order for China to increase its investment.  I suspect the overwhelming majority of US aid to Pakistan is directed at enhancing Pakistan's military and intelligence capabilities.  On the other hand, China's investment seems to be infrastructural as well as military.  Indeed, the BBC article indicates that China is Pakistan's largest supplier of arms, but does the US necessarily see this relationship as a competitive one?  In the context of the last decade or so, Chinese aid to Pakistan could certainly be seen as supplementing US efforts at bolstering the strength of Pakistan's central government.  

The US has a very obvious agenda with respect to Pakistan, and I'm not so naive as to believe that there aren't concerns over rival sources of external influence making it more difficult for the US to acheive its goals.  That said, I'm not so sure that China's goals might not be very similar.  Sure, the Chinese are probably trying to increase their own regional power bloc, and cozying up to Pakistan is a natural way to increase Chinese power vis-a-vis India, but the Chinese government is probably no more eager to see the government in Pakistan collapse than the US government is.  In the short term, such a collapse would potentially create some serious problems for the Chinese in securing their western borders.  Any such collapse could very well devolve into a protracted conflict that could easily spill over into China's territory.  In the long term, this sort of collapse puts a nuclear powered state on China's borders into some potentially very unfriendly hands.   

Is this a place where there is some potential for the US to scale back on its commitments with less cost than we might initially think?  I think the immediate reaction is to view the situation in terms of dyadic relations between the US and Pakistan.  But viewed in the broader regional context, is it possible that the US is (sort of) indirectly helping China shirk what would otherwise be a greater burden to their own government but acting as if the burden is all ours?  I know many pundits, politicians, and policy wonks (just one example here) have warned against cutting aid to Pakistan as it would have disastrous effects, but could it be that cutting aid to Pakistan would not really harm the US' interests in the region that much?  Indeed, could it be possible that US strategic interests are actually enhanced by such a move, as it may prompt the Chinese to take a greater share of the burden for ensuring that Pakistan remains stable, thus occupying more of their resources and attention?

I'm not a regional expert, so it's certainly possible that I'm missing something.  Thoughts? 

Quick Word on Elite Actors

Dan Drezner has the most recent in a line of posts discussing the role of elites vs. masses in policymaking (See Drezner for links to the other posts in the series--they're worth reading).

I don't really have much to add to the pile here--these are some pretty smart folks and they've said a lot of good things already.  I just have a couple of thoughts:

1. With respect to Drezner's question, "who are the elites?" I think they tend to encompass both the policy mandarins and the lobbyists/special interests.  In fact, the line in this area is quite blurred.  I've been spending a great deal of time over the past year dealing with these sorts of actors in my own work, and the in-and-outer reputation is definitely not exaggerated by any means.  Certainly there are a lot of careerists who never leave Washington, but there are just as many folks who hop from policymaking to private/corporate leadership and back again.  In the 1930s and 1940s a lot of the bureaucrats shaping American foreign policy came from long stints in corporate or legal America--something that still happens today, although there is some greater variance with respect to the backgrounds of these sorts of people.  The point here is that the when identifying elites the line between public and private sectors may not be all that accurate.  That said, I do think we need some sort of criteria with which to define inclusion into the group--otherwise it's impossible to discuss them and their role.  
2. I also agree that IR generally doesn't have a great sense of how policy issues interact with one another to shape decisions.  We control for the influence of security-related issues in our regression models that examine the impact of economic interests on foreign policy decisions* but this doesn't really tell us a lot about how and when these two areas "compete" with one another, so to speak.  Rather, all we're getting from coefficients in these models are the average effects of each category/variable, and it's entirely possible that their relative influence shifts over time in response to different environmental factors--whether they be domestic or international.  Drezner doesn't talk about this specifically, but I think that's sort of what he's getting at when he discusses the possibility that elites act on behalf of special interests in some situations, but push back against them in others.  
3. A single, united elite?  Nope.  I also agree with Drezner regarding the notion that these elite actors we often discuss are far from being a single cohesive group with homogeneous preferences.  And I think it's here that Drezner raises one of the more difficult aspects of the elite-mass discussion--specifically, that public opinion can be both a cause and consequence of elite actions.  After the recent death of bin Laden, many pundits began speculating as to whether or not national security was off the table in the 2012 elections, but former Powell protege Lawrence Wilkerson had the following to say in response to this question:

Well, I hope so.  I doubt it, though, because my Republican party will make that issue a big one, and they will find plenty of room to attack in, and create that room if it‘s not there.  After all, we‘ve got Rush Limbaugh out there making the most absurd statements you could possibly imagine about this incident. 

This certainly seems to indicate that the party leadership is aware of its own ability to shape the broader narrative.  I also think one of the most surprising things about this event was just how quickly it became politicized.  This really shouldn't surprise me, but it did.  Either way, this sort of addresses Drezner's point about when elites get along and when they don't.  If there is an electoral gain to be had, elites seem to have no problem creating an issue where the public may perceive none.    

Just because I've spent so much time dealing with the early Cold War period lately, I'll whip out another tried and true example--the Marshall Plan, although remembered as this valiant American effort to ensure peace and prosperity, was really pushed on a reluctant public by elite political actors.  Congressional leadership was certainly divided on this issue at the outset.  In fact, nothing about the half-decade after World War II was obvious to the American public.  Many people still considered Russia to be a wartime ally well beyond the point where most elite policymakers became convinced that cooperation was impossible.

To go back briefly to the first point above regarding the backgrounds of elite actors, I also think this sort of information is important because it sheds some light on when elite preference will converge/diverge.  This is far from a perfect indicator, but it's possible that this sort of professional and geographic information can shed some light on the factors that shape the individual preferences of elite foreign policy actors--at least for those who do not offer up votes on a regular and public basis.  Gelpi and Feaver have a piece that gets at some of these dynamics with respect to previous military service and the use of force.  I like to think that my current work will help to further this line of research, but only time shall tell I suppose.    

*  Regarding the point above, this distinction between economic and security is something that is very very blurry, and I'm not entirely convinced the two ever really exist as exclusive entities.  

  

Poker is a game of skill

The New York Times (this may cost you one of your monthly alloted articles) reports on a new article by Levitt and Miles that argues that poker is a game of skill and not a game of chance.  The policy-relevant implications for the study deals with legalization - several prohibitions against poker are codified with terminology that prohibits gambling and randomized lotteries while allowing for skilled based gaming. The authors track a set of known players from the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP).  The study indicates that "good" poker players do get returns on their tournament buyins (seen as an investment) while the unknown players are more likely to lose money during the event.  The data includes 57 tournaments that run during the course of the WSOP (there are several side tournaments besides the main event).

Naturally, for those who are concerned about the endogeneity between the tracked players and their 2010 performance, the players are picked based on pre-2010 WSOP data - they were either ranked highly previous to the tournament (in poker magazines or online) or did well at the 2009 WSOP.  Naturally, if poker was entirely based around randomization, your previous performance ought to have no influence on your next tournament. For those of us who are poker players, the results should not be too surprising; however, having evidence of skilled players doing well should be reassuring.  Perhaps, also, it will allow us to hear less bad beat stories (stories about opposing players getting lucky against the story teller).

As an aside, footnote 10 indicates who not to be at the WSOP: "The biggest loser in the 2010 WSOP paid in $252,000 in entry fees, but earned only $24,000 in prize money."

Abstract:

In determining the legality of online poker – a multibillion dollar industry – courts have relied heavily on the issue of whether or not poker is a game of skill. Using newly available data, we analyze that question by examining the performance in the 2010 World Series of Poker of a group of poker players identified as being highly skilled prior to the start of the events. Those players identified a priori as being highly skilled achieved an average return on investment of over 30 percent, compared to a -15 percent for all other players. This large gap in returns is strong evidence in support of the idea that
poker is a game of skill.

The NBER paper can be found here.

 

Linear Time and Games

I am glad to see someone has taken the opening episode of Deep Space 9 and created a clip of one of the more theoretically interesting segments of the episode.  Granted, this was uploaded 4 years ago, but I had not come across a short version of the clip until now. 

I watched the show when I was in middle/high school and had the opportunity to rewatch it all the way through when we picked up the complete series a few years ago.  While the longer story arcs are compelling and the show gains some decent steam in the 4 and 5th season, much of it is not digestable for a class (unless I am teaching "The Politics of Star Trek"). Unlike traditional Star Trek series (Original, ST:TNG), much of the better stories are not episodic.

The clip features Commander (not quite a Captain yet) Sisko explaining to wormhole aliens the utility of living in linear time - the aliens experience time simultaneously.

 

 

With the proper context, this can make it into a game theory lecture.

 

Aid to Pakistan

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy has a piece up regarding the changes to US-Pakistani relations that may be coming out of this week's events.  Rogin is specifically discussing the debate in Congress over cutting military assistance to Pakistan.  Clearly this discussion has a long way to go, and the article indicates that significant divisions are emerging in both houses of Congress over what the appropriate response is. 

More below...

Body Fat and American Presidents

On last night's episode of The Colbert Report, Colbert interviewed Amy Farrell, Professor of American Studies and Women's and Gender Studies at Dickinson College, and author of the newly published book Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. Here is an excerpt from the summary of the book on Amazon:

"Tracing the cultural denigration of fatness to the mid 19th century, Amy Farrell argues that the stigma associated with a fat body preceded any health concerns about a large body size. Firmly in place by the time the diet industry began to flourish in the 1920s, the development of fat stigma was related not only to cultural anxieties that emerged during the modern period related to consumer excess, but, even more profoundly, to prevailing ideas about race, civilization and evolution. For 19th and early 20th century thinkers, fatness was a key marker of inferiority, of an uncivilized, barbaric, and primitive body. This idea—that fatness is a sign of a primitive person—endures today, fueling both our $60 billion “war on fat” and our cultural distress over the “obesity epidemic.”"

During Farrell's interview, she discussed the fat stigma in the context of the American presidency. She suggested that nowadays the fat stigma makes it difficult for an overweight person to win the US Presidency. So I was curious if body weight has influenced Presidential elections in the last hundred years. To see if this is the case, I decided to compare the bodyweights of successful Presidential candidates to the bodyweights of unsuccessful candidates, and assess whether there is a systematic bias against larger candidates. However, I was concerned about whether this was a good way to assess body weight's influence. If parties are strategic, they will both choose candidates that appear healthy and thin, eliminating the effect of body weight. Hence I decided to also compare the body weights of candidates overtime to see whether candidates have gotten thinner, assuming that if body weight mattered, parties would choose thinner candidates.

In order to measure a Presidential candidate's weight, I used the body mass index (BMI). BMI is a measure of body fat based on height. High values indicate someone is overweight for their height, while low values indicate someone is underweight for their height. I used data collected by the New York Times to calculate every Presidential candidate's BMI from 1896 to 2008. I post the data below. Yellow boxes in the table indicate who the heavier candidate was.

First, although there seemed to be a systematic bias against heavier Presidential candidates from 1912 to 1984, that bias seems to have disappeared. The heavier Presidential candidate has won five out of the last six elections. Second, Presidential candidates on average did get thinner after the 1920s. However, ever since, the average BMI has seems to have held steady, fluctuating around the 25 mark. These observations suggest that weight may have played a role in Presidential elections throughout the 20th century, as Presidential candidates became thinner and thinner candidates usually won elections. Furthermore, nowadays weight may still play a role in elections, as Presidential candidates remain to be relatively thin. However, weight's role may have diminished as heavier candidates have been able to win in the last 20 years. (Obviously these differences are based on observation only- it would be interesting to see if the observed effect of weight on winning office held up in a large N statistical analysis).

 

  

 

 

A bit more on Messrs. Y.

I previously wrote a bit about the document released a few weeks ago by Colonel Mykleby and Captain Porter.  Well here is a NY Times article (a brief one) on the issue.  I suspect the quick references to Bin Laden were added after this article was essentially finished, but there's probably more room here to discuss how the timing of Bin Laden's death with alter this article's impact.  I also think it's interesting to see, as the article indicates, that these officers have a fairly broad vision underlying their article.  The article itself was pretty broad/vague, but getting to hear more of their thoughts suggests that there are indeed particular policies that these guys would put forward as possible solutions to the problems they cite in the original article.