The View from Right Field

What Are We Going to Do in Afghanistan? And When Are We Going to Decide?

Things are not going well in Afghanistan.  Back in February, General John W. Nicholson, U.S. commander of the international forces in Afghanistan, said that he needed “a few thousand” more troops to reverse what he called a “stalemate” (which may have been an optimistic view of the situation).

On June 13, it was reported that Donald Trump had given Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to decide whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and how many to send.  (Several weeks later, however, it was further reported that the President’s National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, had sent a follow-up memo saying Secretary Mattis would need White House approval before sending more than 3.900 extra troops.)

Governing by Twitter

George Orwell advised that, in the words of Timothy Garton Ash, “we should be especially critical of our own side – precisely because it is our side.”¹  In that spirit let me comment on some of Donald Trump’s recent Twitter storms.  Before I do that, however, let me say that I really don’t consider Donald Trump to be on my side or me to be on his.  I did not vote for him last November (as I said, I voted for Estonia), but he did run on the Republican ticket, and he sort of claims to be a Republican, so some might claim we are on his side.  Plus, I did, from time to time, have some criticisms of his predecessor, so it would be inappropriate for me to fail to criticize President Trump at least some of the times it is appropriate to do so.²

I am going to pretty much skip over President Trump’s apparent attempt to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign by publicly criticizing him on Twitter.³  Other than to ask how President Trump thinks he is going to get any good candidate to ever, ever, ever accept a positon in his administration when he treats the first senator to support him this way.  It is hard enough to attract the kind of people we need into public service today, without the President doing this.

If the #Cubs Make the Postseason, Who Will Be this Year’s Jason Hammel?

During the regular season last year, the Cubs had five good starters: Jon Lester (19-5, 2.44), Jake Arrieta (18-8, 3.70), Kyle Hendricks (16-8, 2.13), John Lackey (11-8, 3.35), and Jason Hammel (15-10, 3.83).  But, given the way the schedule works, you only need four starters during the postseason.  So when the Cubs made it to the playoffs last year, something had to give.  One of the starters had to put aside.  Not only that, but given the differences between starting and relieving, the Cubs decided that the fifth starter, the one they would not be using in the postseason, would not be sent to the bullpen.  He wouldn’t be on the postseason roster at all.

Jason Hammel was the one who was set down last year and was not even on the playoff roster.  But Jason understood and took it well.  He did not grump or complain.  (Here and here.)  He rooted for the team and wound up getting a World Series ring, which he deserved for all he did during the regular season.

Break

I'm on a short break.  I'll be back the end of July.  

Why Isn’t the Economy Following the Rules?

It is said that economists are better at explaining why something happened in the past than predicting what will happen in the future, which is good because they are lousy at the latter.

It also means that maybe, five or ten years from now, economists will be able to tell us why the number of jobs today keeps growing while wages seem to be stuck.  And why inflation is staying so low while global economies are growing.

Both of these are contrary to the rules that economists have been telling us.  Which means that maybe the rules are changing.  And that maybe we’ll find out why these things are happening and what the new rules are – five or ten years from now.

#Cubs Get Jose Quintana

With the Cubs acquiring Jose Quintana, does that mean our slogan next year (if Kyle Hendricks is injured again) will be “Lester Quintana, Then rain on mañana.”  (See here.)

Dealing With North Korea: Richard Nixon-Style

Failing with respect to North Korea is a pattern with recent presidents.  Bill Clinton signed an Agreed Framework with the father of Kim Jong Un.  North Korea violated it.  George W. Bush seemed to be getting a little somewhere with financial sanctions, but then we backed off in order to open negotiations with North Korea.  The negotiations didn’t work.  Neither did Barack Obama’s strategic patience. 

On the other hand, if one of the reasons North Korea is developing nuclear weapons is because they are a little paranoid, then I am not sure all of the Trump administration's threats and tweets are helping the situation.  If we’re not careful, we might scare Kim Jong Un into doing something first, which would not be good.  Please understand I am not saying we shouldn’t do anything.  I’m just saying that maybe we could do it a little more quietly.

“Free Societies” Versus “Fear Societies”

I recently came across a copy of an interview with Natan Sharansky¹ from 2011.  Mr. Sharansky talked about the demonstrations that were going on at the time in Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, and Egypt.  (Remember the Arab Spring?  It had about as much success as the 1968 Prague Spring.)

In the interview, Mr. Sharansky explained the difference between what he calls “fear societies” and “free societies”:

“‘The reason people are going to the streets and making revolution [in these Middle Eastern countries] is their desire not to live in a fear society,’ Mr. Sharansky says.  In his taxonomy, the world is divided between ‘fear societies’ and ‘free societies,’ with the difference between them determinable by what he calls a ‘town square test’: Are the people in a given society free to stand in their town square and express their opinions without fear of arrest or physical harm?”

Barack Obama and the Return to Afghanistan

Here’s something I noticed just before the Fourth of July:  On June 29, Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO announced, after meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, that NATO would be sending additional forces back to Afghanistan to provide training for Afghanistan’s special operations forces and air force.

What was different this time, however, was this (from The Wall Street Journal):

“Mr. Stoltenberg refused to put a timetable on the 16-year-long Afghanistan war.

‘I don’t put timelines on war, it is that simple, war is a fundamentally unpredictable phenomenon.  Every effort to create a pat answer to that is probably going to fail,’ Mr. Mattis said.  ‘You can’t say I got tired of it so I am going to come home and wonder why you get hit again.’”

Illinois Has a Budget, But Does It Have a Plan?

Illinois has a budget and everybody has sighed a sigh of relief (well, not everybody, but lots of people).  Taxes are up.  Some changes were made, I guess (whether the changes constitute the kinds of changes that Illinois needs for the long run is something I don’t know; we’ll find out).  The budget is probably good for the state universities, and it will help social service providers finally get paid, which is good.  But while it’s a budget, it’s not a plan.

It pays bills for a year, but does it provide a way to pay off our bills – and keep them paid off?  Does it do anything to solve the issue of the sustainability of Illinois’s public pension systems?  Bottom line, will it make Illinois the kind of state that people want to move into, rather than out of?