To follow up with another data point suggesting that we're living in a world of "good enough" global governance, let's take a look at piracy on the high seas , shall we? 

You might recall that in 2009 piracy off the Horn of Africa and elsewhere was skyrocketing.  This triggered multiple policy responses by shipping companies as well as governments.  Ships started carrying armed guards on tankers as a form of deterrene.  An ad hoc and diverse group of countries formed Combined Task Force 151 to help patrol the Horn of Africa to prevent pirate attacks.  Hell, even Iran sent ships to participate in anti-piracy operations. 

So it turns out that all of these measures seem to be working.  By 2012, both press reports and official statistics  suggested that the tide had turned.  As the New York Times' Thom Shanker wrote up one U.S. Navy finding last September: 

Data released by the Navy last week showed 46 pirate attacks in the area this year, compared with 222 in all of last year and 239 in 2010. Nine of the piracy attempts this year have been successful, according to the data, compared with 34 successful attacks in all of 2011 and 68 in 2010.

How bad have things gotten for Somali pirates?  The top pirate just announced that he has retired from piracy. 

So can we chalk this up as an example of successful global governance?  I would say yes, but it's worth noting two additional points.  First, it's far from clear that activity on the water is the sole factor responsible for the decline in piracy attacks.  Events on land -- including Kenya's invasion of Somalia and Puntland's increasing "stateness" -- might have something to do with it as well.  Second, it's not only multinational sea patrols that have played a role.  If it was, then shipping companies wouldn't be mobilizing their own private navy.

Still, these actions compliment rather than substitute for each other.  The protection of shipping is one of the global economy's oldest public goods -- and it appears that after a post-financial crisis spike, there has been a useful policy corrective.  That's good enough. 

Walter Russell Mead shares my enthusiasm for the prospect of a transatlantic trade deal, though I fear he goes a bit overboard in his post: 

The mobilization towards an agreement reflects the changing landscape of global trade. If a deal emerges, it will allow the U.S. and EU more leeway to set the rules of the road for the industries that matter most to them....

This potential trade deal is also a further sign of the collapse of the movement toward global free trade. The new round of WTO negotiations is effectively dead, and a major deal between two of the world’s largest economies would be a further signal that bilateral negotiations are once again becoming the norm.

Finally, this deal shows us that the BRICs are not quite as influential as many think. A U.S.-EU trade deal is essentially a way to ignore countries like Brazil and India while crafting rules that will govern some of the high-tech industries and information-based services that play a growing role in US-EU trade.

Mead is correct to point out the advantages of the US and EU trying to craft an FTA template, particularly for the sectors they care about a lot.  Still, a few quibbles and disagreements. 

First, a transatlantic deal doesn't signal a "collapse of the movement toward global free trade" -- it signals a different pathway towards that goal.  The collapse of Doha suggests that the traditional multilateral round negotiaions are dead, but it's worth remembering that the global economy got very close to zero barriers in the late 19th century and there was nary a multilateral institution to be found.  True, the trade agreements of the 19th century had most-favored nations clauses and their 21st century counterparts do not.  Nevertheless, the political economy of trade diversion still generates competitive incentives for a growth in FTAs, thereby leading to a similar end outcome -- a world blanketed in free-trade agreements. 

Second, contra Mead, I'd suggest that a transatlantic trade deal is not a sign of US-EU strength, but rather its weakness.  There have been rumblings and trial balloons to do something like this for the past fifteen yewars, but it never really got off the ground.  The reason it never got off the ground was simple -- both Americans and Europeans were worried that any trade deal this massive would scupper the WTO system.  It would seem like a developed country effort to completely rewrite the rules of the global trading game.  Since everyone had a lot of skin in the WTO game, it didn't seem like it would be worth it. 

Two things have changed.  First, the traditional method of multilateral trade liberalization has died.  Second, while both the US and EU are major trading states, they're not quite as pivotal as they used to be.  Ironically, it's their declining (though still appreciable) importance in global trade that makes a US-EU agreement feasible now.  The BRIC economies are now sufficiently large that a transatlantic trade deal doesn't seem like an existential threat. 

Developing....

Since moving to Foreign Policy, this blog has primarily been devoted to world politics, global political economy, and American foreign policy.  I don't know if I've ever blogged about gun control and gun violence (though I confess I've been enjoying my Twitter exchanges with Second Amendment absolutists immensely). 

Now if that peroration seems like a windup for a big "we must do something about guns" post, you're going to be disappointed.  Sure, from what I read, there's a clear correlation between gun ownership and crime, but it's far from clear that most of the policies on the table will do a whole hell of a lot to put a dent into that correlation. 

However, with the Obama administration gearing up for an ambitious set of policy proposals, and with the gun lobby gearing up to fight those proposals, I do have one useful policy suggestion.  If the White House is smart, they will take, verbatim, Kevin Drum's suggested policy proposals for eliminating lead from our nation's homes and topsoil. 

Now, if you think that sentence was a massive non sequitur, I'd encourage you to read Drum's outstanding Mother Jones essay on the surprisingly robust connection between lead poisoning and violent crime, as well as his follow-up blog posts.  Despite understandable and initial skepticism, even skeptics seem persuaded by the causal link.  [Where's the international relations hook?--ed.  This hypothesis holds when using cross-national evidence as well.] If the goal is to reduce violent, horrific crimes, then reducing lead exposure is a crucial part of the solution. 

The brilliant thing about adding this to the menu of policy proposals is that I suspect it would actually amass broad-based support.  Environmentalists will like it for obvious reasons, as will advocates of urban politics.  Parents will love it because they know lead is bad for you.  Policy wonks will love it because, well, the social science seems pretty rock-solid.  The best part, however, is that groups like the NRA would likely support it as well -- because it makes them seem reasonable.  In the wake of Sandy Hook, an awful lot of commentators have been saying things like "it's not just about guns," with a reference to meantal health or violence in the culture.  The causal evidence linking lead poisoning to gun violence and violent crime would appear to be far stronger than the stuff on popular culture.  So it would be smart politics for the NRA to endorse those measures. 

It's pretty rare nowadays to come up with a policy solution that doesn't run into some partisan divide -- but this lead poisoning issue would seem to be the exception.  I hope both the Obama administration and Congress exploit the opportunity. 

One of the points I was trying to make in my CFR working paper on global economic governance is that the system, while far from perfect, did in fact prevent the worst from happening.  That might sound like lowered expectations, but anyone who knows anything about the history of global governance would appreciate that this would represent a significant upgrading from past centuries. 

I bring this up because of this maddeningly-short-on-detail New York Times front-pager by Eric Shmitt and David Sanger on what went down when the Syrian government inched closer to using its chemical weapons stockpile: 

In the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.

Within hours President Obama was notified, and the alarm grew over the weekend, as the munitions were loaded onto vehicles near Syrian air bases. In briefings, administration officials were told that if Syria's increasingly desperate president, Bashar Al-Assad, ordered the weapons to be used, they could be airborne in less than two hours — too fast for the United States to act, in all likelihood.

What followed next, officials said, was a remarkable show of international cooperation over a civil war in which the United States, Arab states, Russia and China have almost never agreed on a common course of action.

The combination of a public warning by Mr. Obama and more sharply worded private messages sent to the Syrian leader and his military commanders through Russia and others, including Iraq, Turkey and possibly Jordan, stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation. A week later Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the worst fears were over — for the time being.

Now if you read the whole thing, it's entirely unclear exactly who communicated to whom and whether these messages were planned and coordinated in advance -- though it reads like it was. 

But this episode, again, seems like an example of the great powers making sure that the worst-case scenario -- for them, at least -- did not transpire.  Now this might seem like small beer compared to the appalling loss of life in Syria and the discomfiting tolerance the Obama admiinistration has with the status quo.  Still, compared to, say, the interwar period of 1919-1939, or the Cold War deadlock from 1945-1990, it's not nothing either.  Clearly, the great powers do seem pretty invested in the idea of keeping the Syrian civil war limited to Syria and not allowing it to consume the entire region. 

In no way should this be taken as a shining moment for global governance, but it does suggest that there is some governing and policing going on, no matter how suboptimal the level.  In much of the social sciences, there's a focus on constrained optimization and maximization.  What's going on in global governance right now highlights the "constrained" part of that equation more than anything else.  Still, compared to some who argue that we operate in a world where no one is powerful enough, perhaps it would be more accurate to phrase it differently.  Formal and informal global governance structures still perform some important tasks at preventing worst-case scenarios from metastasizing, be it in security or economics.  Call it "'good enough' global governance" -- it's not a new world order or anything, but it's also not as chaotic or dysfunctional as many pundits proclaim.

What do you think? 

As President Obama moves towards nominating former GOP senator Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense, and as Republicans gear up to try and totally unhinge themselves defeat him, it seems like a good time to follow up on my Foreign Affairs essay on how badly the GOP has screwed the pooch on foreign policy.  Let's start by addressing some critical feedback. 

Ben Domenech wasn't all that impressed with my essay, as he explained in his newsletter: 

Drezner’s problem is that Republican foreign policy has largely become bipartisan, so the critique is one that is more of tone than policy details: the grandstanding of the Romney campaign, its single-minded endorsement of unrestricted Pentagon spending, and the simplicity of its bullet point approach to issues. But these are critiques of a campaign and a candidate who wished to contrast without offending in every policy arena, not simply the foreign policy space – it’s unfair to assign this as due to an entire party’s approach to foreign policy.

A few thoughts here: 

1)  I'm not sure Domenech read the whole essay, because while I certainly talked about the 2012 campaign, I talked a fair amount about the previous decade of GOP foreign policy, and it's not pretty. 

2)  What Domenech doesn't seem to get is that the "single-minded endorsement of unrestricted Pentagon spending, and the... bullet point approach to issues" don't just apply to the Romney campaign -- it applies to the overwhelming bulk of GOP elites that weigh in on foreign policy.  That sentiment perfectly captures the essence of the 112th Congress, not to mention the "Defending Defense" initiative put together by conservative think tanks.  Actually, in some ways the congressional wing was worse because of the anti-Muslim hysteria, though to its credit that is an area where the GOP really does seem to be making some strides.   

3)  Saying that my critique is "one that is more of tone than policy details" shouldn't make the GOP feel any better.  Because the GOP didn't win either the presidency or the Senate, tone and rhetoric are pretty much all Republicans can control on foreign policy.  Oh, sure, Congress has some power, but it's largely a negative one -- they can say "no" to the president from time to time.  The problem is that when they do this they either look like know-nothings or paranoids. 

So the rhetoric actually matters for the GOP, because that's all anyone -- voters and wonks alike -- are gonna imbibe from Republicans for the next four years.  Now this sets up an genuinely unfair challenge to the GOP:  they'll be tarred with extremist statements made by the fringiest of the fringe.  That said, the party leadership can improve its brand by taking the occasional stand if some back-bencher strays too far off the reservation (as occurred when a few idiots questioned Huma Abedin's loyalty). 

4)  Both Domenech (and Seth Mandel in Commentary) argue that because Obama has suceeded by co-opted the successful aspects of the GOP's foreign policy, Republicans can't be in that much trouble.  The trouble here is which parts Obama co-opted, and how the GOP has reacted to that.  Republicans used to have a pretty big tent on foreign policy -- realists, internationalists, and neocons galore.  Bush 43's second term was pretty pragmatic and neocon-free, and that was what the Obama team co-opted.  I'm honestly not sure that today's GOP is as keen on these kibds of foreign policy worldviews.  The reaction to Chuck Hagel's possible nomination, for example, or the tenor of Danielle Pletka's Foreign Policy musings on the GOP, suggest that despite a decade of monumental f**k-ups, neocons still rule the GOP roost.  Which means that leading GOP spokespeople on foreign policy no longer embrace the aspects of GOP foreign policy traditions co-opted by Obama.  Or to put this another way:  ask yourself if any of the viable 2016 GOP candidates for president would appoint someone like Bob Gates to be Secretary of Defense. 

Now, it's possible that the next GOP president will campaign as a neocon and govern as something else.  But doing that means that Republicans are sticking with a brand that, as I pointed out here and in Foreign Affairs, will cost them votes. 

For the past few decades, the GOP triad to victory was low taxes, wedge social issues, and advocating for a robust foreign policy.  Each of those three legs is now in jeopardy.  Public opinion favors higher taxes, the right has lost the culture wars, and the public now trusts Democrats more than Republicans on foreign policy.  Unless and until the GOP faces these realities, and figures out some new path forward beyond "REAGAN!", it's dooming itself to be the doppelgänger of eighties Democrats. 

Domenech accuses me of lacking a clear way forward.  I don't think that's true, but I will acknowledge that the primary point of my essay was to get the GOP to admit that it has a problem.  If Mitt Romney's campaign proved anything, it's that creedal passion isn't enough to win on foreign policy -- there actually has to be some policy content.  As to the way forward, I like James Poulos' suggestions in this post. 

Look, I get that this seems like a thankless exercise.  Talking about foreign affairs when you're out of power is a frustrating and abstract task.  On the other hand, one reason the GOP is out of power is that its loudest voices don't sound terribly reasonable when it comes to world politics.  This is the challenge it has to face for the next four years. 

So yesterday there was a fun little Internet rebellion against this Susan Adams write-up in Forbes about the least stressful occupation for 2013: 

University professors have a lot less stress than most of us. Unless they teach summer school, they are off between May and September and they enjoy long breaks during the school year, including a month over Christmas and New Year’s and another chunk of time in the spring. Even when school is in session they don’t spend too many hours in the classroom. For tenure-track professors, there is some pressure to publish books and articles, but deadlines are few. Working conditions tend to be cozy and civilized and there are minimal travel demands, except perhaps a non-mandatory conference or two. As for compensation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for professors is $62,000, not a huge amount of money but enough to live on, especially in a university town.

Another boon for professors: Universities are expected to add 305,700 adjunct and tenure-track professors by 2020, according to the BLS. All of those attributes land university professor in the number one slot on Careercast.com’s list of the least stressful jobs of 2013....

The other thing most of the least stressful jobs have in common: At the end of the day, people in these professions can leave their work behind, and their hours tend to be the traditional nine to five.

Let's take a brief pause here so the academics in the crowd can recover from either A) throwing things at their computer screen; or B) melting to the floor in puddles of uncontrollable semi-hysterical laughter. 

Now let's immediately concede that Adams -- as she later admitted as much in an update to the post -- knows next to nothing about the life of an academic.  Almost every specific claim in the quoted paragraphs above about the life of a professor is either wildly inaccurate or radically incomplete.  For some pointed rejoinders, see here and here and here.  Also check out the #RealForbesProfessors hashtag on Twitter.  Indeed, this whole kerfuffle mirrors this old Marketplace exchange that I had with my Fancy-Pants Brother Who Used to be an Investment Banker/Hedge Fund Manager.  What's annoying about the Forbes column is the clear lack of understanding that outworlders civilians people who are not academics possess about our profession. 

Now, that said, and despite Adams having very little clue about the nature of my job, could it be that Careercast is onto something?  Even if it's wrong about every little thing, is it wrong about the big thing?  Dan Nexon points out the following: 

Most tenured and tenure-track professors enjoy:

Some modicum of administrative self-governance;

Their own office, complete with a door that shuts and locks;

Generally flexible deadlines;

Tremendous flexibility in how they allocate their time;

Spending most of their time engaged in ideas and activities that they enjoy; and

The ability to spend significant time in situations in which power asymmetries favor them.

 These factors more than counterbalance the negatives.

These are not small positives, and I, for one, revel in them every day of my professional career.  Furthermore, whenever this kind of debate comes up, I always recall my brother's look of bemusement at a Thanksgiving dinner when a colleague was bitching and moaning about staying up late to finish a paper.  This was something he had to do on a semi-regular basis when he was working on Wall Street. 

So, let's do some realkeeping here and conclude with the following true statements: 

1)  Adjunct professors who earn their primary means of income through teaching win the stress game easily, and are excluded from the points I make below. 

2)  Compared to most professions that pay a comparable or greater salary, tenured and tenure-track academics possess far greater levels of autonomy and flexibility of hours.  Not less overall work, mind you, but more ability to determine when in the day that work has to be done;

3)  There's a lot of useful sorting that takes place among jobs.  Activities that academics often find stressful -- like, you know, talking to other people -- are often viewed as less stressful by those people who do it more often.  On the other hand, things we like to do -- like, you know, writing down stuff that we think about -- others can find to be incredibly stressful.

4)  The shifting nature of the academic job market means that there are HUGE amount of stress at key moments in an academic career. If those moments go badly, well, there can be a fair amount of stress. 

5)  There's something vaguely comic about everyone trying to brag about how stressful their job is.  Personally, I blame television.  Shows like ER, The West Wing, and Scandal have glamorized the notion that killer jobs are friggin' awesome and super-sexy.  You know what's really awesome?  Doing your job so well that you can relax on a regular basis. 

Am I missing anything?  Seriously, I probably am missing something, so feel free to mention it in the comments. 

This week, there's been a rash of articles on the state of GOP foreign policy thinking, as well as some interesting and constructive responses to my Foreign Affairs essay on the same subject.  I will try to respond to some of these over the weekend -- but first I think it would be useful to talk more precisely about the claimed benefits of military power. 

One of the points I made in my essay was that Republicans need to take economic statecraft more seriously, but to be fair, this holds for the foreign policy community more generally.  The relationship between military power and economic influence is often talked about in general terms, with a lot of casual assertions getting tossed around.  But I think a lot of these assertions are wrong. 

For example, prominent American foreign policy commentators often trump the benefits of America's overseas military presence.  Danielle Pletka gets at this in her Foreign Policy essay when she says, "Americans have benefited tremendously from their involvement abroad," though she stays in generalities.  To talk specifically, how exactly does the U.S. gain economically from its outsized military footprint? 

Fortunately, we do have an attempt at an answer.  In the latest Foreign Affairs, Stephen Brooks, John Ikenberry, and William Wohlforth argue strongly in favor of "deep engagement."  They proffer a number of reasons why the U.S. benefits from current grand strategy -- but one of the more intriguing ones is that the U.S. receives direct economic benefits from its security arrangements: 

A global role also lets the United States structure the world economy in ways that serve its particular economic interests. During the Cold War, Washington used its overseas security commitments to get allies to embrace the economic policies it preferred -- convincing West Germany in the 1960s, for example, to take costly steps to support the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. U.S. defense agreements work the same way today. For example, when negotiating the 2011 free-trade agreement with South Korea [KORUS], U.S. officials took advantage of Seoul's desire to use the agreement as a means of tightening its security relations with Washington. As one diplomat explained to us privately, "We asked for changes in labor and environment clauses, in auto clauses, and the Koreans took it all." Why? Because they feared a failed agreement would be "a setback to the political and security relationship."

Now, this gets specific!!  According to this paragraph, reliance on U.S. security means that Washington can obtain better economic terms.  Sounds great!! 

Except that I don't think it's true. 

With respect to West Germany, it's certainly true that Washington was able to get Berlin to accommodate to U.S. preferences -- but only for a few years.  The Bretton Woods system ended in 1971 because the Germans finally said "Nein!!" to U.S. inflation.  So the economic benefit wasn't that great. 

The South Korea case is more intriguing, because it's present-day and there's a real, live policymaker quote there.  If a U.S. administration official asserts that the security relationship mattered, then it mattered, right? 

Well.... no.  We need to compare KORUS with something equivalent to provide a frame of reference.  If security really mattered that much, then the Korea-United States free trade agreement should contain terms that are appreciably more favorable to the United States than those contained in, say, the Korea-European Union free trade agreement, which was negotiated at the same time.  This is a great test.  After all, the U.S. is the most important security partner for South Korea, whereas the only thing the European Union could offer to Seoul was its large market.  So if Brooks, Ikenberry and Wohlforth are correct, the U.S. should have bargained for much better terms than the E.U.  Right?

A Korean analysis of the two agreements, however, do not reveal that result: 

[T]he United States has more favorable treatment in meat and vegetable products and transportation, while the EU has better treatment in processed foods, chemicals, and machinery. The large difference in outcomes in animal and animal products between the KORUS FTA and the Korea-EU FTA can be ascribed to the the reflection of greater sensitivity of the Korean market in this sector in the Korea-EU FTA compared with the KORUS FTA. Therefore the EU received a less favorable tariff reduction schedule than the United States in this area. This is true in the areas of raw hides, skins, leather, and furs, and transportation.

We have the opposite case, however, in the foodstuff sector: the many differences in Korean tariff liberalization schedules in the U.S. and European FTAs could be a result of the reflection of the EU positions, which preferred earlier tariff eliminations on many items in the Korea-EU FTA. This is also true in the manufacturing sectors such as hemicals and allied industries, plastics and rubber, textiles, and machinery and electrical products.

In (slightly) plainer English, the U.S. got better terms on the export sectors it cared about more, and the E.U. got better terms on the export sectors it cared about more.  Both agreements are comprehensive in scope and contain roughly similar terms across most other sectors.  Indeed, both the Congressional Research Service and U.S. Trade Representative's office acknowledge the basic similaritry between the deals, as well as the areas where the Europeans did better.  So, in other words, America's ongoing security relationship with South Korea did not lead to any asymmetric economic gains. 

Now, this is not to say that there are no economic benefits to America's forward military presence.  There are other arguments out there, and they should also be evaluated.  My point here is simply to cast a skeptical eye on claims that America's overseas military presence pays for itself in the form of geopolitical favoritism.  Because I don't think that's true.   

You know, as 2013 dawns, there's a brewing debate about whether America is now just a "mediocre" country.  As a long-run optimist about the America's future, however, I'm pretty dubious of the mediocrity argument.  There are too many areas where the United States excels in to write the country off:  high tech, higher education, Hollywood, and so forth. 

Of course, these strengths are meaningless in foreign policy terms unless the American government can wisely and adroitly deploy them when necessary.  Consider, for example, this story from Yonhap about whether Ri Sol-Ju, the first lady of North Korea, has had a baby: 

An apparent loss of weight by Ri Sol-ju, the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, fueled speculation in Seoul Thursday that she may have given birth.

A government source, who declined to be identified, said images on the Korean Central TV Broadcasting Station showed a slimmer Ri watching a live New Year's performance with her husband and other high-ranking dignitaries.

He claimed local experts who saw the footage of the first lady speculated that, judging by the weight loss, she may have given birth recently.

This claim was based on the contrast between the latest images taken on New Year's Day and those released in mid December. Pictures of Ri taken last month showed her face looking puffy and there was a noticeable swelling in her midsection.

Here's the photos related to the story: 

All I can say is, I hope that the salient U.S. intelligence agencies -- the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and, of course, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- bring in America's leading experts on the "baby bump."  And by leading experts, I'm talking about the analysts who populate stories in People, Us Weekly, Star Magazine, Perez Hilton, and the National Enquirer on celebrity baby bumps.  Because I will not stand idly by while one of America's greatest strengths -- our unparalleled advantage in celebrity tabloid journalism -- stands on the sidelines when this pressing question about one of the biggest threats to stability in the Pacific Rim persists. 

[Really, isn't the U.K. the unparalleled leader in tabloids?  I mean, they invented the term "baby bump"!--ed.  They've been weakened by internal scandals and distracted by Kate Middleton.  It's America's time to shine!!!!]