Two Party System

Democracy (as understood in the Western concept of the word) has existed in all kinds of ways and institutional constructions. All of these constructions have included the idea that one of the fundamental rights of the citizens was to organize themselves in political structures conveniently called "parties". Gathering of people interested in the same ideas, as well as vehicles for the personal ambitions of some, parties have always been a fixture of democracy (and even of many non-democratic regimes). The European institutions recognized this too and parties exist at the European level, even though they have some difficulty to be recognized by the EU polity.

This said, there are fundamental differences between the party set up in the different democratic countries. In some countries, they are simple associations of citizens, with little more difference with a sport club than their objectives. In others, they are an integral part of the institutions, with a status well apart from other groups of citizens. Another major distinction between party systems is simply their number in a a given country. Some countries have essentially a two party system (to simplify, 'left vs. right"), some have a three party one and many if not most have a multiple party system. It would be extremely disingenuous to pretend that these difference have no effect on the political institutions and the political life of a country. On the contrary, these differences actually contribute to define the institutions and are in turn defined by them. But, unlike the constitution of a country, the party set up is rarely or never fixed. This can have tremendous and unexpected effects.

Let's take a couple of example. The USA, for instance, have a two party system, very rigid and highly integrated in the country's institutions. Parties there are in no way ordinary associations, but there is simply little political life outside of the Republican and Democrat parties. The United Kingdom recently evolved from a quasi two party system to a theoretical three party one. Although we could argue that the UKIP is a 4th player, it weighs too little in the country's institutions to seriously threaten the Tories, Labour and LibDem hold on power. France, Germany or the Netherlands are all multiple party set up, at least to a point. While the weight of the different Dutch parties can be reasonably considered as truly variable, France and Germany both have a very dominant right and left parties (UMP and PS in France, CDU-CSU and SPD for Germany). But even in France and Germany, smaller parties can and do actually play a role, would it only be the "king maker" one between the dominant right and left formations.

It is interesting to see that the current massive global crisis which has struck the Western world has affected the political life of these countries very differently, depending on their party set up. Netherlands has reacted to the crisis in a fairly classic way. The balance between the 15 various parties has been strongly modified, but in the end the power didn't change hands much. The crisis first brought a centre government (Labour, Christian Democrats and Conservative), then a slight sway to the right (Christian Democrats, Conservative and National-Populists) as electors blamed the first post-crisis coalition for its inefficiency. In general, it was a typical answer of a multi-polar system: it was easy to adapt because the multiple choices meant mutilple solution and easy adaptation to the new reality. The down side of this greater adaptability of course is that it gave access to power to a fringe party. This can typically not happen in a two or three party system.

In the USA, the strength or rather sheer weight of the two parties is so huge that a crisis can only make the power change from one party to the other. The crisis (amongst other factors) contributed to Obama's victory and did put the Democrats in power. However, their relative inability to tackle problems quickly and the fact that the crisis lasted longer than they thought did bring Republicans a victory in the House after only two years. It is fairly clear for an external observer that the US bipolar system has the advantage of stability. But it is also fairly obvious that it suffers greatly, as a downside, of its rigidity. Outside of the two main parties, there is no room for political power. One can have influence without them, but not exercise power. It also means that the US institutional system has too much inertia and is unable to give a speedy and adequate answer to a major crisis. The result of this is what we can observe on our TV screens: besides the Republican and Democrat parties, citizens organize themselves in a series of alternatives. Originally, the Libertarian organisation had this role, but we now see also the Tea Party, the Occupy Wall Street organisation, the Coffee Party, and so on. Obviously, the American institutions being what they are, these organisations can only exist in reference and interdependence with the two traditional parties. They are opposed to them, yet they are forced to ally with them to exist in the political landscape and not only in the streets.

While both set up have their advantages and disadvantages, I have to say that I find the US system extremely dangerous. When, in a democratic society, citizens feel so estranged towards traditional politic organisations that they have to get down to the streets to get heard, something can go very wrong. Democracy's principle is to give legitimacy to the government by having the citizens feel represented by it. The two party system inadequation, rigidity and slow answer to crisis put this democratic basis into jeopardy.
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Security Council

So yesterday, Russia and China vetoed a very mild United Nations resolution including sanctions threats on Syria. The resolution was a typical concoction by Western countries, aimed at the Syrian military regime. Nothing too harsh, mind you, not just to appease Moscow and Beijing, but also for reasons linked to the complex Syrian internal mix-up as well as the regional maze of interests. Yet, this is hardly a typical Eastern fault. A no less reasonable request by a Permanent Observer non-member (the Palestinian Authority) to get full membership is most likely to be rejected by a similar veto by the USA (at least). In both cases, it is not the resolution in question which is at fault, and said resolutions do not even go against the interests of the vetoer. Their writers made sure they removed anything seriously threatening from them. No, in both cases, the veto is more a matter of affirming or confirming supremacy in the global order. In both cases, while the European Union has been involved (and despite its two veto powers in the Security Council), its absence of common Foreign policy prevented it to have any significant say.

This underlines two things: the catastrophic layout of the EU institutions is costing it its own interests and the Security Council of the UN has long passed its own utility. It is an outdated system, with outdated rules which are not even fairly representing a balance of powers any more. In the EU case, it is an unfortunate case of shooting its own feet. The member states have been so busy clipping the wings of the common institutions, that they are now consistently hurting their own local petty interests, just because they can't ever have time to agree on any matter. Even in the rather successful Libyan affair, the effort was mostly NATO related and centered on two member states (the UK and France) backed by an external party (the USA). In the UN case, the problem is older, but not deeper. The United Nations has textual ambitions of being an organisation promoting peace and people's rights. It has turned up, being a status quo freezer, systematically promoting the interests of the Security Council permanent members, at the expense, sometimes, of their own populations.

I could say it is time for changes, but I highly doubt it will happen any time soon.
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Thou Shalt Not Kill

Dear readers,

If the Senate hearings of Sonia Sotomayor weren't in full proceedings, the other piece of news which would be on top of the US and not just international press would be the new Cheney scandal. Apparently, Dick Cheney would have prevented or delayed disclosure of a CIA program to send assassination teams against specific Al Qaeda targets. The whole problem is not the killings, from a legal point of view, but the hiding of the program from the Congress Intelligence Committee. I am not going down this road, because it is frankly of little interest (except if it leads to a Cheney indictment, but I am not holding my breath).

What I am more interested about are the assassinations themselves. First, a bit of irony... Since when did the CIA stop killing people? I mean the right people in the wrong place... or the other way around. ;-) I mean, what is their usefulness if they can't blow up a couple of self designated bad guys (and a bunch of civilians in the process)? You see, the problem is that the CIA switched from a traditional ground operational procedure (practised by nearly all countries and secret services on the planet, regardless of the regime) to the quasi exclusive use of drones. The unmanned aircraft went to be seen as the panacea when in need of safe removal of an annoying terrorist / freedom fighter / politician and so on. This led to the nearly daily use of MQ-1 Predator and later MQ-9 Reaper drones on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in Yemen and in Iraq (and probably a couple of other places).

However, and apparently (if we must believe Leon Panetta, the current CIA chief), the "new" assassination program began just after 9/11. Although the CIA is covering itself by saying it was never made operational, one can legitimately have some doubts. What could have taken them eight years? I know the US intelligence community is in dire need of Middle-East specialists, Arabic speakers and so on, but still, it took less time for the NASA to put someone on the moon... And it is not like you need these guys to be in constant contact with the enemy either.

Other countries, as I mentioned, have done this for decades: the Russians had and still use special units and killers abroad, while the French have killed or attempted killing their enemies abroad, when deemed feasible. The United Kingdom SAS assassination squad became famous when they slaughtered a couple of unarmed IRA operatives in Spain in broad daylight. The Mossad revenge killing of PLO terrorists after the Munich Olympics has been made a movie. So why not the USA? I suspect there is a certain reluctance in the USA (despite the extreme violence of its society itself) to engage into what the American mentality considers dirty stuff. It's like sex on TV, swearing in children programs or showing tits at the Super Bowl: you just don't do it. After Second World War, the USA were even in the process of dismantling all their war time intelligence operations (not just the special force units), such as the OSS, before the reality of the Cold War pushed them to create the CIA.

Anyway, I personally believe that murder is always unethical. However, I consider (but I would be happy to be proven otherwise) that politics, especially international one, can not be entirely ethical. It is a sad fact of humanity that some people are such remorseless killers that they would wage war on the most peaceful states, only to make their point, kill, rape and genocide, just name it... Most of these are of the ideological type, which means there is simply no reasoning them at all. In the long term, they will get back at you. This is why most decent countries (including the liberal democracies) have used assassination as a latest resort, usually to avoid more carnage. It is not considered pretty, it is not considered honourable and neither is it considered moral. But it is a lesser evil, one you carefully plan to be able to staunchly deny it later.

I think it could have saved a lot of trouble to the USA and the entire world, if this CIA program had been implemented a bit more seriously (providing that the necessary legal information of the Congress had taken place). Instead of invading Iraq (probably the stupidest adventure ever attempted by the USA and UK) or dragging into lengthy and costly operations in Afghanistan, a series of killings, based on sound intelligence, could have improved the situation tremendously. And even if it wouldn't have helped, at least it should have been tried, before engaging in a double war with hundreds of thousands of victims on all sides.

In comparison, I will let you with this little piece of French nastiness in Pakistan. I know all parties involved have denied anything of the like, but the fact is that a couple of Pakistani admirals have been knee capped and the fact is also that the ISI has been known to play for both sides for at least 20 years. The fact is also that French services are known to absolutely always avenge their guys, a way or another. The Syrians learned it the hard way in the Bekaa in the 80's. You don't make war in tutu...

Libertas lies, Libertas lies, Libertas is American

Dear readers,

I have been away for a while. Sorry about that. I'll try to be more regular, although I would make no promise. This post is a reaction to something I noticed while recently using Google Reader.

I was reading feeds from Slate, the Democrat's US news website when I realized what was the advertisement joined to each post (provided by Google Ad and in Dutch). Because it was about politics, Google Ad automatically displayed an animated ad by Libertas, the Irish party turned pan-European. The ad more or less says: "If you wanted to have a say in the new EU constitution, Brussels says NO. Sign the Libertas petition".

So I would like to help a little bit the persons who might have seen his ad and got confused by it. First, I would like to point out one lie spread by this ad: that the currently discussed treaty is a Constitution. It is pretty clear that the previous project, which had some constitutional aspects to it, was shelved. The current one remains only a treaty between sovereign nations. I personally regret it, but that's the way it is. So the ad is misleading already about this. Secondly, it is a fact that Brussels (i.e. the European Commission or the Parliament) has no say in how countries ratify such treaties. This is down to each country's specific constitution. For this reason, saying that Brussels says no is a pure lie. The ones who say no are the member states, which have always been wary about letting "Brussels"becoming too democratic, because it might stop them from haggling together, away from the citizen's watch.

So Libertas is lying. Again. No real wonder for this obscure party, born from the ambition of an Irish businessman, Declan Ganley. Ganley has pan-European ambitions, a paradox for this very Americanized new politician. He claims to want a more democratic Europe, a claim dispelled very quickly once you have a look at Libertas website, which recycles al the old anti-European themes, falling in the most basic populism and demagogy.

Hence the title of my post, inspired by one of old War-time BBC French speaking slogans aimed at the occupied France. "Radio Paris ment, Radio Paris ment, Radio Paris est Allemand". Libertas funds and backing is indeed tightly linked to Ganley's personal fortune, born from very good business in then Bush led USA. Republicans have notoriously been fearing a too powerful Europe. No wonder they might have helped an initiative aiming at undermining European affirmation.

Manhattan

Dear readers,

Sorry for yesterday. I didn't post because I was in bed with a terrible back ache. As an apology, I would like to treat you today with a series of pictures: Manhattan.

I think this is a great set by famous Russian blogger Drugoi, on LiveJournal. It shows New-York in a very refreshing and different way. The eye of the beholder, they say...

Tax and economy

Dear readers,

Thanks to Kathy Gill, from US Politics, I ran into this excellent series of charts by Karmanaut. While these charts and the discussion on the blog specifically refer to both current US candidates tax plans (and are therefore doubly irrelevant for this blog), I think they are extremely interesting from an other point of view.

These graphs show that the understanding and perception of any economic policy are extremely difficult for the general public and biased by journalists often poor understanding of both mathematics and economics. Mathematics and particularly statistics are not a trivial thing. They are a tool to describe our reality and ultimately, in this case, to base politics. However, statistics can be presented in very different ways because they weight a specific indicator in function of various factors. If you weight the population factor, you end up with a graph about uneven population distributions, which is politically loaded. If you weight the contribution factor (to taxes or the economy), you also get a politically loaded graph.

This comes from the very weird way our perception works: if we see a phenomenon as affecting one group more than any other, we tend to unconsciously perceive it as being unfair. It takes an effort of the mind to realize that such inequality might very well be a good thing for the whole society (and therefore for all its constituent groups in the end). It might even be fair, ethical, good policy. There is no way to know, unless you understand the background behind the graph itself.

Global dominance and military strategy

Dear readers,

I was struck today by a report on CNN about the current situation of military operations in Afghanistan. Amongst news of massive killings of civilians, due to indiscriminate air strikes in the Helmand province, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, warned the NATO forces that it was reaching an intolerable level. The analyst interviewed in this context explained that NATO commanders in Afghanistan have admitted that they have not enough troops on the ground to do the job. They have to call air strikes even when they suspect civilian death are likely to occur. They simply can't send soldiers to assault the place themselves.

On top of the humanitarian aspect, this calls a serious strategy issue. In the traditional American (and NATO) strategic thinking, global military dominance can only be reached if the USA are able to fight two medium intensity conflicts at the same time and still keep enough reserves to hold the national "sanctuary". Afghanistan and the Iraqi wars are medium intensity conflict, meaning that NATO or US forces there are fighting a guerrilla rather than classic forces. And despite this, it is pretty obvious for observers that NATO and US forces are unable to end these conflicts in a satisfactory manner. I am not even speaking about winning, as this word has little significance in guerrilla warfare. It seems that the USA especially (but most NATO countries have a similar or even worse problem) simply don't have enough men anymore to win two wars simultaneously. Or even to win only one of them.

This is not just a question of numbers, I believe, but also of the type of equipment used as well as the tactics on the ground. It is very difficult, if not simply impossible to win a guerrilla war without actually occupying the ground with infantry. The problem is of course also geographic. Sustaining important forces in countries such as Afghanistan or Iraq is a logistics nightmare. Afghanistan especially has extremely high mountains and an unforgiving climate. Both countries have large desert areas as well as relatively densely populated cities. The latter are also battlefields which actually demand very high concentration of infantry forces. All in all, it seems that if the Afghanistan conflict could probably have been dealt with alone by NATO, the insistence of the USA and UK to also attack Iraq have proved disastrous for both operations. Even a conflict were it would have been relatively easy to win hearts and minds such as Afghanistan (where NATO forces enjoyed a relatively high level of popular support) is now more and more difficult to win.

There might be a point in a not so far future where NATO and the USA will have to evacuate both places. It would have been the demonstration of the French proverb: "qui court après deux lièvres n'en attrape aucun". Or in English: "who hunts two hares catches none".