Michael K. Busch

A Game of Craps

My review of Thomas Ricks' The Gamble appears in this month's issue of The Brooklyn Rail.  While you are visiting the site, also be sure to check out Ted Hamm's piece on his recent trip to Brazil. 

Identity and the Bomb

My review of Jacques Hymans' The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foregin Policy appears in the most recent issue of the Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations.

The Great Issues Forum: My Response to Lalami and Said's Orientalism

 

My response to Laila Lalami's post on Said's Orientalism appears today on the Great Issues Forum website.  

The first paragraph follows below:

In her essay on the scope of Edward Said's Orientalism, Laila Lalami traces the orientalist lineage of justifications of British hegemony in the 19th century to the rationale for expanded American power in the 21st. On its face, this is a valuable contribution insofar as Said is interested in examining the intimate, mutually constitutive relationship between extensions of western power in the east and the production of orientalist knowledge.

 

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Great Issues Forum: Laila Lalami on Edward Said's Orientalism

 

The Great Issues Forum kicks off its 2009 program with a penetrating essay by Laila Lalami on the scope of Edward Said's Orientalism.  The essay begins:

Notwithstanding the recent attacks against Edward Said’s Orientalism (See, for instance, Robert Irwin's Dangerous Knowledge), the book’s central argument remains fundamentally sound. To put it simply, Said argued that European imperial power over the area usually labeled the Orient was preceded, justified, and supported by a vast body of literary, cultural, and political knowledge, in the form of stories, novels, ethnographies, and essays. This body of knowledge was not based solely on empirical (and hence falsifiable) observations; rather, it was premised on the idea that the Western self was, by definition, rational, healthy, normal, and therefore superior, while the Eastern other was irrational, unhealthy, abnormal, and thus inferior. Since the self was known to be superior and the other was known to be inferior, the exercise of political power by the former over the latter was not only natural, but also a matter of ethics and responsibility. 

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Bush and Chavez

Check out this short analysis at Foreign Policy in Focus.  The text follows below:

Bush and Chávez

The rapidly deteriorating relations between the United States and Venezuela have reached a new level of tension. The two nations broke off official diplomatic channels and exchanged ambassadorial expulsions. On September 11, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez expelled U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy from Caracas, accusing the diplomat of spearheading a plot to stage a coup against him. Washington answered in turn the following day, closing communications with Caracas, and inviting Venezuelan ambassador Bernardo Herrera to leave the country. The Treasury Department salted the wounds still further later that day, freezing the assets of Venezuelan intelligence officers it accuses of aiding FARC guerillas in Colombia.

This latest round of diplomatic brinksmanship is not without precedent. U.S.-Venezuelan relations have been sour for some time now, and neither country seems keen on reconciliation. Chávez and U.S. President George W. Bush have both made a show of publicly insulting the other, and relations have frayed accordingly. To their mutual detriment, and the amusement of some observers, Washington and Caracas have largely relegated their interactions to hollow threats, ad hominem attacks and imprudent grandstanding.

Still, the most recent episode in the U.S.-Venezuelan diplomacy soap opera offers cause for concern. For one, the current moment is without precedent in the post-Cold War era as a perceptible redistribution in the global balance of power is underway in the international arena. Closer to home, both Venezuela and the United States — and their substantially weakened ruling parties — face impending national elections this coming November. The combined dynamics of transitional change at the international and domestic levels obscures once clear paths to resolving diplomatic disputes and precludes the confident prediction of likely outcomes.

Shadow of War

Compounding this uncertainty is the more worrisome shadow of war that increasingly casts a pale over U.S.-Venezuelan relations. The frequency with which the government deploys war discourse in its political propaganda is a striking feature of Venezuelan politics. Within the past six months alone, Chávez has threatened to invade Colombia, intercede militarily in Bolivia's violent secessionist squabbles, and put down future secessionist activities at home. Indeed, he has advised Venezuelans that they must prepare for the coming "people's war" for Latin America, and has warned repeatedly of impending invasion by the region's hegemonic neighbor to the north.

Any tendencies toward armed conflict that Chávez may harbor have been squarely matched by aggressive American action. Washington announced plans this May to open a military base in the Guajira region of Colombia, a territorial expanse straddling the Venezuelan border. The move sounded alarm bells in Caracas, prompting Chávez to angrily proclaim that Venezuela "will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire." In response, the United States resorted to gunboat diplomacy, reactivating its Caribbean Fourth Fleet, a unit that was previously disbanded in 1950. Upping the ante still further, the American government added a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the fleet's roster, specifically commissioned to patrol the northern coast of South America.

In the unlikely event that violence erupts, Venezuela will be materially well-equipped. Chávez has focused considerable state funds on a bonanza of military buildup. From Russia alone Venezuela has purchased fighter jets, submarines, attack boats, helicopters, armored vehicles, and surface-to-air missiles, not to mention hundreds of thousands of guns and other assault weapons. The Chinese and Iranians have also done their part, kicking in a radar defense system and scores of rocket-related weaponry. In total, the International Institute for Strategic Studies finds that Venezuela's current annual military budget compares regionally only on a per-capita basis with that of Chile during the height of Pinochet's power.

Complicating matters further, Russia is back on the scene, directly asserting influence over regional politics. As international alarm at Russia's incursions into Georgia this past month reached fever pitch, Moscow quietly negotiated a joint military maneuvers agreement with Chávez regime. In addition to future naval exercises and increased information sharing, Caracas invited the Kremlin to send a pair of nuclear-capable bombers to dock on Venezuelan soil. While the planes are not equipped with nuclear weapons, the significance of these developments is clear. "It is a warning. Russia is with us," Chávez announced. "We are strategic allies. It is a message to the empire. Venezuela is no longer poor and alone."

Armed Confrontation Unlikely

The good news, however, is that the chances of armed confrontation are virtually none. Each side simply has too much to lose. Despite the bluster and machismo coloring rhetoric issuing from both sides, Venezuela and the United States have maintained robustly harmonious economic relations. In return for cut-rate oil prices, Washington has gladly assumed the mantle of chief sponsor of Venezuelan oil. With its closest political allies all located half a world away, Caracas has had little choice but to rely on the United States for the great majority of its exports. Were Chávez to cut off sales to his U.S. trade partners — as he has repeatedly threatened to do — the move would certainly cost Caracas dearly.

With less to lose in this futile horn-locking, the United States ought to carefully measure its response to Chávez's goading. The White House has successfully dismantled positive public opinion toward the United States in Latin America during its tenure, a period that has witnessed a rising tide of governments wary of U.S. engagement. Indeed, Washington has played torero to Chávez's bull-in-a-china-shop style politics for too long. U.S. antagonism merely strengthens the Chávez government, a regime desperately in need of popular support as its contradictions and shortcomings become increasingly evident.

Instead of playing tit-for-tat with Chávez — a game that traditionally diminishes American prestige and influence in the region, Washington might consider a strategy of cautious engagement with Caracas. Though unlikely, the White House could responsibly offer to a return to normalized relations with Venezuela in the name of regional security. Were Chávez to accept such an offer, the United States would have effectively neutralized his claims of aggressive American imperialism. Were Chávez to refuse, his diminishing credibility would further erode.

Despite its disastrous diplomatic resume thus far, the White House is presented with a rare chance to gain the upper hand in its relations with Caracas. With falling oil prices, and his government's pledges of progress unfulfilled, Chávez finds his room for maneuver greatly confined. Notwithstanding his recent rant against the imperial "yanquis," Chávez indicated as much in an uncharacteristically modest statement designed for international consumption. "We don't have any other plan, it was only a strong diplomatic gesture," he said. "Only the United States can change our…relationship."

The Bush administration and its successor government — whether it's an Obama or a McCain administration — should seize on this observation and the opportunities it offers. Otherwise, the next four years of U.S.-Venezuelan relations will resemble the previous eight: a period marked by rancor, suspicion, and missed opportunities.

"What's Happening to America?" Series

I am spearheading a new series in the CUNY Advocate this fall.  The introductory essay that I penned was sent out to an extensive list of the nation's brightest academics, public intellectuals, teachers, social activists and writers, along with a short list of questions to be answered.  The response thus far has been extraordinary.  For our inaugural forum, I am proud to announce that The Advocate published essays by three of the world’s leading authorities on American politics and culture. In her opening essay, France Fox Piven offers the exciting prospect of a significant realignment of American electoral politics in the wake of our November election, a realignment that could render future regimes vulnerable to progressive social movements. But movements for meaningful change, as Peter Hitchcock usefully reminds us in his essay, will undoubtedly crash into the walls of inertia that have come to characterize our country’s economic and political life. If these walls are successfully torn down, credit will certainly be due in large part to our country’s youth, a segment of our population Henry Giroux forcefully argues are increasingly reared on punishment and fear. Together, the three authors combine to deftly illustrate an America at the crossroads of crisis and possibility, a country suffering derailed democracy, and ripe for reconstruction.  The Piven, Hitchcok and Giroux essays can be viewed here.  Any feedback, contributions or suggestions for improvement are welcomed and greatly appreciated.  There'll be plenty more to come...

***

There is reason to believe that the United States is plumbing the depths of moral and political crisis. The easy response to this claim pins the blame squarely on George W. Bush, and his crooked cronies in the White House. And yet, upon further reflection, the Bush administration seems more a symptom than a cause of the crisis.

Put plainly, our national life has been swept up in its own failures and weaknesses. Our menu of problems should cause concern. To begin with, the rhetoric through which issues of national import should be debated has been whittled to its most base elements, then distorted through the phony prisms of patriotism and national security. Hopes for the resurrection of a meaningful civil rights movement have been likewise suffocated, as the country resists gay marriage, and continues its tradition of segregation behind the mask of public education. Meanwhile, our economy slouches ever-closer to recession while at the same moment millions rush out with their stimulus package buy-offs to purchase iPhones and other momentary satisfactions. And in the international realm, the country’s foreign policy has abdicated any responsibility to future generations, and opted instead to become an adjunct of corporate interests.

Of course, there are millions of citizens who do not consider the present moment worrisome, who are comfortable with the fruits of their American experience, who view the United States as the defender of opportunity, democracy and the exercise of freedom, who regard the idea of moral-political crisis as alarmist, extremist. Many more regard our current condition as the concluding chapter in the nightmare that has been the Bush presidency. They see the last eight years as a bump in an otherwise acceptable historical trajectory. For these observers, the American system–our political methods and institutions–will correct any errors that may have been committed at the ballot box in years past.

Yet throughout the country, the sense that people are frustrated and fed-up has grown palpable. The call for urgent change has been sounded, and people — young and old — have responded. Barack Obama’s groundbreaking presidential run is evidence enough. And still, the demand for change rippling through our nation somehow rings hollow. The question of “change who?” is clear enough. But equally important, and perhaps more challenging, questions have received less attention. Change what? Change where? How?

The Advocate seeks to initiate an intelligent, considered, and provocative debate on these issues. In this, we are not without precedent. Concerned about the direction of national life, and understanding that they stood at a pivotal moment in the country’s history, the editors of The Partisan Review queried prominent intellectuals in ‘67, encouraging responses to a series of questions seeking to understand “What’s Happening to America?” The responses received in 1967 offer a brilliant, often disturbing, glimpse into an America about to be hurled into chaos the following year. That America looks awfully similar to the one we have now.

The turbulence of 1968 marked a proud moment for the American left, but set the country on a course that produced the politics of today. In the words of Michael Walzer, writing in a recent issue of Dissent, 1968 “changed American culture for the better in many ways. But it did not produce a sustainable politics; its institutional legacy is virtually nil. In fact, it contributed to forty years of rightward momentum…Next time, we have to do better.”

With all due respect to Professor Walzer, “next time” is now.

With a reverent nod to the past, and a hopeful eye on the future, we issued a call-to-arms for provocative, informed debate to many of the nation’s brightest, most exciting minds. Needless to say, this call was broadcast across the political spectrum, and we have received a tremendous response. Over the course of this coming semester, if not longer, The Advocate will publish the thoughts of public intellectuals, academics, social activists, and of course, students motivated by the following agenda of suggested questions to focus productive discussion.

1. Does it matter who is in the White House? Or is there something in our system which would force any president to act as any other?

2. What role, if any, do public intellectuals play in American life?

3. Must the American intellectual or artist adapt him or herself to mass culture? If s/he must, what forms can this adaptation take? Or, do you believe that a democratic society necessarily leads to a leveling of culture, to a mass culture which will overrun intellectual and aesthetic values traditionally embraced by American intellectuals and artists?

4. Where in American life can artists and intellectuals find the basis of strength, renewal, and recognition as our new century progresses?

5. What is the biggest open secret in American life?

6. Where do you think our foreign policies are likely to lead us?

7. What, if any, issues do you feel deserve more attention from Barack Obama and/or John McCain in their bids for the presidency?

8. What, in general, do you think is likely to happen in the United States during the next presidential administration?

Venezuela's Upcoming November Election

This short commentary, outlining the prospects for likely outcomes in the other November election, that of Venezuela, appears in World Politics Review. 

Nikolas Kozloff on China in Latin America

Check out Nikolas Kozloff's response to my review of his book Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left.  He elegantly lays out an analysis of China's potential impat on Latin America in both the near and long terms. 

The Argentine Workers' Movement Reviewed

My extended review of the Lavaca Collective's Sin Patron appears in the latest issue of the journal of New Politics.  Download the pdf. 

Brooklyn Rail Review of Kozloff's Revolution!

Another, slightly longer, stab at reviewing Nikolas Kozloff's Revolution! South American and the Rise of the New Left appears in this month's edition of The Brooklyn Rail.

Review of Nikolas Kozloff's Revolution!

My short review of Nikolas Kozloff's Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left has just been published by PopMatters. 

Hugo Chavez and the Oil Elite

The second part of my two-part look at Venezuela and its oil-fueled Bolivarian Revolution appears in this month's Advocate. 

And It Keeps Going, and Going, and Going...

My review of Josph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' The Three Trillion Dollar War appears in this month's edition of The Brooklyn Rail.   

Revolution in Venezuela?

The first installment of my two-part look into Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution appears in this month's Advocate.  The second segment will be published in May. 

Seizing the Means of Production

A short review of mine, on the Argentine facotry expropriation movement, appears in this month's edition of The Brooklyn Rail. 

Uribe, Chavez, Dirty Bombs, Oh My!

It's certainly touching to see this week's UN forum on disarmament being hijacked by Hugo Chavez and Alvaro Uribe's race to the looney bin.  As if the breaking of international law, followed by threats of more international law-breaking weren't nutty enough, now the Uribe administration is claiming that FARC guerillas have been planning to build dirty bombs for detonation within Colombian territory. 

While I'm pleased to report that this latest episode of fearmongering absurdity did not issue from the lips of our own dear leader, I'm aghast at the prospect that our Colombian allies have resurrected the use of patent nonsense in their chest-thumping matches with Mr. Chavez. 

A dirty bomb?  I mean, really. 

Not as widely reported (probably because it seems mundanely quaint next to stories about nuclear warfare) is news that Mr. Uribe plans to file claims against Mr. Chavez in the International Criminal Court for funding his FARC buddies across the border.  Fair enough, but why now?  Economic ties between the guerillas and Chavez have long been presumed and accused. 

What's also not being addressed is the fact that any ruptures in trade between the warring siblings will be temporary.  Neither side can afford to break off their increasing economic interdependence.  Recent oil deals between the two sealed their mutually determined fate with an expensive black goo.   

Nevertheless, if Simon Romero of The New York Times took a moment to put on his reporter's cap, he might find reason to suggest that all these goings-on have their roots in the state politics playing out in Colombia.  (You know I have to holler at my boy).  While John Mearsheimer and his realist henchmen might argue otherwise, domestic politics contribute directly to foreign policy decision-making in Caracas and Bogota.  As I suggested on this site over the summer, recent negotiations between the Colombian state and their insurgent foes scattered throughout the jungle increasingly stand to benefit Piedad Cordoba, the Colombian Senator with ties to both Chavez and the FARC.  While the FARC has been increasingly brought back into the political fold with the guiding hands of Cordoba and Chavez, Uribe looks irrelevant and weak. 

Romeo's piece over the weekend on Cordoba pointedly highlights the fact, labeling "the woman with the turban" Colombia's Public Enemy Number One.  One scratches their head, then, when one considers that Romero's formidable skills as an investigative reporter-not to mention his standing as all-around smarty pants when it comes to Latin America-did not lead him to connect two and two together.  Could it be that Colombia's audacious violation of Ecuador's sovereignty was ill-considered political machismo on the part of a government increasingly labelled impotent?

Regardless, Colombian motivations do not excuse Chavez's flirtation with madness.  If he's serious about making something of his Bolivarian revolution, Hurricane Hugo needs to get a grip on reality, and stop using Colombia as a battleground for rhetorical proxy wars with the maniacs running Washington.  That crew will soon join the unemplyed masses, and Venezeula-US relations will necessarily change (no matter of who takes over the Oval Office).  The tone of this new relationship will be determined in large measure by Chavez himself.  But he doesn't need to wait until January 2009.  The president of Venezuela can start sending signals to DC right now that he's ready, willing, and able to act as the regional leader he professes to be.  Otherwise he'll go down as nothing more than the latest in a long line of Latin American caudillos.   

   

Breaking News: Hugo Chavez Stirs Political Controversy!!!

Congratulations to Simon Romero of the Times for getting back to work on reporting news from Latin America.  Our man in Havana, Bogota and Caracas apparently decided to take a break from scouring the region for meaningless tidbits of cultural oddity in order to lick his finger and gauge the direction of political winds stirring through Venezuela.  His latest dispatch blows the doors off the received wisdom concerning Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Turns out, Chavez is politically controversial! 

...this country's economic and social problems have become so acute lately that President Hugo Chavez is facing an unusual onslaught of criticism, even from his own supporters, about the management of the country.

An "unusual onslaught of criticism"?  Romero seems to have missed the defining characteristic of Chavez's tenure over the course of the last decade, namely its success under duress.  Chavez has never possessed "unquestionable authority" as Romero would have it, nor has political opposition to the Chavez regime at any point been "unthinkable."  Had Romero done a little homework on the president's rise to power, he would know that dissent from the leftist ranks in reaction to chavismo is hardly a new phenomenon.  Indeed, the tension between chavistas and those opposing the current administration sits at the heart of political developments in Venezuela since 1998. 

It's hardly surprising, then, that Romero fails to acknowledge the very dilemma he inadvertently points out involving the demands on the Chavez administration, and its political program under the banner of Bolivarian socialism.  Quoting one poor Caraceno dissatisfied with the president ("I cannot find beans, rice, coffee or milk"), Romero notes that food scarcity continues to animate the growing concern among the poor that the government is not doing enough for its citizens.  Yet at the same time, Romero also notes that Chavez's promise to punish national food distributors caught hording groceries has "stirred deeper anxiety" among Venezuelans concerning state intervention into the private market. 

And there you have it, folks.  On the one hand, Chavez and company have been using the state as a means to ensure more equitable distribution of wealth, power and rights among the populations, which infuriates "the halves" in Venezuelan society.  Therefore, and on the other hand, Chavez must carefully navigate the choppy waters of elite power politics so as not to instigate the critical mass that would result in his ouster from government.  This, needless to day, frustrates the "have nots" at society's lowest rungs.

What's most interesting, and satisfying, about Chavez's populist Bolivarian revolution, however, is the degree to which he places faith in the ballot box.  Which brings me to another point about Romero.  I'm skeptical of the underlying logic driving his analysis of the Chavez regime.  Somehow he assumes that Chavez's recent defeat at the polls on the issue of executive power expansion is a sign of political instability.  On the contrary, it looks to me as if the popular checks on Chavez's rule suggests a strengthening of the democratic process there.  Concerns (some of which I share) abound surrounding Chavez's dictatorial impulses.  Yet it bears pointing out that Chavez has largely constructed his movement through regularized popular votes.  His willingness to test the limits of popular toleration of power concentration should not be alarming given his refusal to resort to state coercion to get his way.  Of course, none of this discussion finds its way into the Times.  Apparently, the powers that be in New York are content to run roughshod over the very complexities that render politics not only interesting, but critically important.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Romero ends his piece by throwing his hands in the air.  Appropriately enough, the final word is given to a young man named Jesus, who remarks with absolutely no trace of irony, "This situation will be fixed by no man.  Only God." 

Well in that case, I suppose I would prefer to read about drunken, transvestite bull-fighters. 

Plan Colombia and the American War on Drugs in Latin America

My piece outlining America's other failed war, that on drugs in Latin America, appears in this month's Advocate.

Sierra Leone 08 en Vivo

I'd like to direct attention to a new blog maintained by a former student of mine, Mario Patino.  An exceptionally talented young person, Mario is currently working in Sierra Leone for Forum of Consciousness, a post-conflict reconciliation outfit serving local communities throughout the country.  Mario will be there as a Colin Powell Center Fellow throughout the spring semester while wrapping up his senior year at The City College of New York, and plans to document his experiences online.  Check it out.

Response to Chavez Article

My response to Martin Burke and Elham Seyedsayamdost's article on the questionable embrace of Hugo Chavez by the U.S. "Left" appears in this month's issue of The Advocate.