The reality that these types of programs have rarely had a significant impact on resolving territorial disputes has not appeared to daunt proponents of the shared economic venture as path to peace approach.  These programs have generally had a marginal effect as conflicts have either endured in spite of these programs, or more frequently these programs have failed to get off the ground because the conflict and rancor between the groups.  It is clear that, for example, joint Palestinian-Israeli tourism ventures could generate needed income, or cooperation liberalized trade zones involving Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh would help the economy of the South Caucasus, but even though the west supports programs to do these types of things, the underlying problems are more enduring.  The China-Taiwan case is an interesting example of a conflict where trade has expanded substantially in recent years, but the tensions between the two polities remains quite strong with both sides retaining strong militaries and the threat of war breaking out no less significant, despite the economic ties.

Economic ties have played in a role in promoting peace and reducing tensions, but those ties are often between two states that do not have a territorial dispute or history of ethnic tension.  For example, the increasing economic ties between China and the U.S. in the last few decades, or even between Russia and western Europe today have had this effect, but those are significantly different kinds of cases.

There are powerful incentives for doing economic cooperation type projects: the logic behind these projects is strong; while they rarely succeed they also very rarely make things worse; and perhaps most importantly, they are always of interest to funders.

The reason resolving territorial disputes and ethnic tension through economic cooperation has not worked is that this approach addresses the problem without paying sufficient attention to the causes.  The lack of economic cooperation is due to the same tensions and conflicts which are driving people apart in the first place.  Prejudice, civil wars, declaring independence and fighting over land are often bad economic decisions, but they endure because the tensions behind them are real.  Ignoring this and simply urging better economic cooperation as some kind of magic elixir is like trying to fix a broken leg by suggesting the patient go jogging.  If the patient could jog, or the two sides could meaningfully collaborate on economic projects, the problem would not exist in the first place.  Evidence from recent years has shown that in these types of cases the logic of the market does not always triumph, and that even when it does, there are rarely political spillover effects.

All of these events certainly had significant impacts on the world, or on part of the world, but focusing too much on how events like September 11th changed the world only tells one side of the story.  This is exacerbated by a media and punditry that focuses often overstate the impact of political events.  The other side of the story, that even world changing events are usually as much about continuity as change, does not get as much attention, but is also important.  Ignoring this continuity, or focusing on the changes to a degree that precludes and understanding of the continuity is a mistake.

To use a dramatic example, it has become broadly understood that September 11th changed the world, initiated a new era in global affairs and was one of those moments that bifurcate history into before and after.  In a very literal sense this is true because all events change the world in some ways, but that is not what pundits and analysts mean when they discuss the impact of September 11th.  In a more serious way, the effect of September 11th was profound.  It reoriented American foreign policy making fighting terrorism a top priority.  It was the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, raising concerns in the US about our vulnerability to future attacks and about whether or not the US was still the hyper-power it was following the Cold War.

The economic downturn which began in late 2008 was also viewed as having a similarly holistic and dramatic impact on the world.  It destroyed the wealth and retirement funds of millions, caused some economies like Iceland’s to collapse entirely while dealing a major blow to other economies including, for example, Russia.  The downturn raised enormous doubts about the international financial system as well as in the American economic model which had spread to most of the world during the two decades preceding the crisis.

This is, of course, the way we have come to understand both September 11th and the financial crisis, but there is more to the story than that.  An equally accurate way to understand September 11th is that on September 10th, 2001 there were large numbers of Muslims angry about American foreign policy, some of whom were willing to take up violence to show their anger; the U.S. was the most powerful country in the world, but countries such as China and Russia were beginning to exert substantial regional influence; the U.S. military was the strongest in the world, but had encountered challenges in fighting unconventional foes.  All of this remains true after September 11th.

In a similar vein, the global economic system before the economic crisis was characterized by risky economic behavior, troubling disparities between the wealthy and the poor, global economic inter-dependency, while Americans wrestled with huge personal debt and economic uncertainty.  While the global economic downturn made all these things worse, it did not introduce these things for the first time.

Smaller events such as the end of apartheid, the Color Revolutions, the Georgia-Russia war or both recent wars in volvinb Israel are often described as having a game-changing effect regionally, but it is more frequently the case that these events change everything and change nothing.  Following Israel’s wars in 2006 and 2008, for example, negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel were very difficult, Palestinian anger contributed to a constant terrorist threat facing Israel, Israeli politics were highly polarized and most of the world, other than the U.S., viewed Israel as a pariah.  This had all been true, for years, and would have almost certainly have remained true had the war not happened. The same type of story can be told about the other events as well.

The point here is not to argue that nothing ever changes; that is not the case.  The recent wars involving Israel have made the problems worse, but that is more a difference of degree than of kind.  The global economic downturn has had effects that are extremely far-reaching and unprecedented, but is simultaneously a continuance of the economic problems much of the globe has faced for decades.

Sometimes, however, events need to be viewed not in terms of what they change, but of what they do not change.  In the next years if Iran gets nuclear weapons, domestic instability grows in China or more European economies collapse, the analysis will instantly focus on how this has changed the political world and the challenges we face.  That is the natural reaction, but it is not always the most useful or balanced one.  Continuity is less exciting, but it is equally important and often provides a more useful approach to understanding events.

It may take years for the west to recover from the current economic crisis as chronic unemployment may become the new reality for many of these countries.  The promise of economic growth and opportunity which has been a defining characteristic of the post-Cold War period is, at least for now, becoming a thing of the past.  This new reality will inevitably have a major political impact as people will become increasingly frustrated with government’s inability to solve problems and to inevitable cuts to government services.  New parties and angry social movements, like the Tea Parties in the U.S., may emerge; and racial and ethnic tensions will likely increase perhaps coalescing around anti-immigrant policies.

The broad turmoil which this will cause for the western democracies will be serious, but it should be seen in a broader context.  The next few years will be tough for the world’s major democracies, but they may be worse for the world’s non-democratic regimes.  Keeping non-democratic regimes running smoothly also requires resources, economic growth and stability. However, when these are not in place, it is often more difficult for authoritarian regimes to manage the consequences and the corresponding voter anger.

The sovereign democracy model of Putin’s Russia, for example, was premised on a tradeoff of liberty for order as Russians weary from the turmoil of the 1990s prioritized economic growth and a strong state over the nebulous promise of democracy.  Similarly, the social contract of the state corporatist regime in another post-Communist country, China, was based on, among other things, the promise of economic growth and expansion.  Throwing incumbents out of office, holding colorful and angry demonstrations, and making vicious, public and personal attacks on the country’s leadership, however, are not options in China, Russia or other similar countries.  This leads to weaker accountability in these systems as leaders can fool themselves more easily into thinking that voter anger is not aimed at them.

One of the interesting aspects of the current economic crisis in the U.S. is that while American economic strength, and accordingly, economic power is waning, no other country is really poised to fill the void.  The only country that might be able to do this is China, but China’s economy is deeply tied to that of the U.S.  Additionally, while China could emerge as the world’s next superpower, it is also possible that the Chinese economic bubble could burst or that domestic instability could undermine China’s potential.

While little solace can be taken in the notion that times are rough all over, it remains true.  As bad as things are in Europe and the US, when the global economy begins to recover, it may be that the west has survived better than the rest of the world.  This counterintuitive view is obscured by our own myopia, but it may turn out to be true.  The crisis in the west is one of economics and politics, but not really one of regime and governance.  The same cannot be so clearly said for the rest of the world.

Ricks essentially argues that sticking to the timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq which Obama presented early in 2009, of pulling out 10,000 troops a month beginning around May, would be a mistake and endanger whatever progress is being made in Iraq this year, particularly around the elections.  Ricks is concerned that if this plan is implemented “just as Iraqi political leaders are struggling to form a new government, American military leaders will be distracted by the myriad tasks of supervising major troop movements. On top of that, the deeper the troop withdrawals go, the more potentially destabilizing they will be.”

Ricks’ analysis exposes, and reflects, one of the fundamental truths about U.S. involvement in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad-withdrawing today will be very, very difficult, but withdrawing tomorrow will be harder; and, of course, withdrawing the day after tomorrow will be harder still.  This is a very disempowering situation as there is no good time to withdraw and postponing decisions, or action, only makes it worse.

This easily leads to the conclusion that the U.S.  should have begun withdrawing troops years ago.  However, at no given moment was it a good time to do this.  It also leads to the more obvious conclusion that the U.S. should not have walked so cavalierly into this war in 2003, but neither of these conclusions are useful now.  One lesson which can be drawn is that waiting for the right time to withdraw troops from Iraq is not a realistic option.  There are no good times to withdraw, only bad or worse times.  Because of this circumstance, at any given moment a good argument, like the one Ricks made, can be made against withdrawing.  Accordingly, there will be no moment in 2011 or 2012, just as there was no moment in 2007 or 2008, when withdrawing from Iraq will be easy and will not jeopardize whatever gains have been made, or are about to be made there.

Thus, at any given moment, the best option is to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, but because there are always such immediate and negative consequences for doing that, it is easy to postpone this decision.  Another possible option would be to recognize that the effort in Iraq cannot realistically be achieved in a few more months or years and to prepare for a longer commitment in Iraq or as Ricks puts it “30,000 to 50,000 United States service members in Iraq for many years to come.”  This approach is also flawed because even a longer commitment would be far from a guarantee of success and because it is hard to imagine the American people supporting an essentially open-ended commitment in Iraq that could be measured in decades, not months, As Ricks’ analysis shows, perhaps inadvertently, while the decision in Iraq is not easy, it is clear.

]]> http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/2010/02/26/still-choosing-between-bad-and-worse-in-iraq/feed/ http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/2010/02/19/getting-it-right-in-iran-and-ukraine/ http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/2010/02/19/getting-it-right-in-iran-and-ukraine/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:50:09 +0000 Lincoln A. Mitchell http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/?p=386 The recent election in Ukraine seems, at first glance, to have little in common with the 2009 election in Iran.  The former was a relatively orderly election which was viewed as both free and fair leading to a transition of power in Ukraine, while the second was a flawed election leading to widespread demonstrations, a violent crackdown and an Iranian regime relying more heavily on coercion to maintain its grip on power.

These two elections were, however, among the most important foreign elections which have occurred since President Obama came into office.  In both cases the administration responded to these elections and their outcomes very well, revealing a thoughtful and effective, if low key and understated approach to some of the less visible, but still important, foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.  In both cases, the approach was consistent with the overall Obama approach which, in a major reversal from the Bush administration, prioritizes outcomes over bluster.  This is a frustrating way of doing foreign policy, but in both Ukraine and Iran, it was the right way.

During the demonstrations following the Iranian election, the administration did not make any high profile statements, sufficiently low that, not surprisingly, Obama was criticized for failing to show enough solidarity with the courageous Iranian protestors or for being explicit enough in his comments about Iran.  This kind of a gesture would have made many in the U.S. feel good, but probably would not have brought Iran any closer to democracy.  By keeping a relatively low profile for the U.S. during this period, Obama allowed the focus to remain on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian election.  In short, Obama’s actions made sure the story was about Iran, not about the U.S.  Ahmadinejad is, of course, still in power and his regime is growing more repressive, but it is also growing weaker.  Throughout the Bush administration, Ahmadinejad was always able to deflect domestic criticism by getting in a high profile fight with the U.S.  Obama is making this more difficult, which will likely make it harder of Ahmadinejad to hold onto power over the next few years.

The U.S. approach to the Ukrainian election, through the whole election period was the right one and demonstrated a commitment to process with regards to election and a concrete rebuttal to those who believe that the U.S. only supports democracy when it means electing pro-American governments.  The new Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, is far closer to Russia and far less enthusiastic about further integrating Ukraine into the west than either his predecessor or the woman he defeated in the runoff.  The administration could have worked harder to help defeat Yanukovich and elect Yulia Timoschenko, sought to present the inevitable election problems in Ukraine as evidence that the elections were not free and fair, threatened policy consequences for Ukraine if Yanukovich won, or supported Timoschenko’s claim that Yanukovich’s victory is illegitimate.  However, any of these actions would have been ineffective, further undermined U.S. credibility and made it more difficult for the U.S. to work with the new Ukrainian government.

President Obama has certainly made foreign policy mistakes, but he has also set a different tone that, in the disparate cases of Iran and Ukraine, has been the right one.  The administration has understood that one of the lessons of the last ten years is that democracy is about processes not electing leaders and that a fairly elected leader who is not enthusiastically pro-American is still a leader with whom we can and should work.  Another lesson has been that from Iran to Venezuela, one of the best ways to shore up domestic support for an unpopular leader is to rhetorically attack that leader in Washington.  By avoiding this very tempting pitfall, Obama has weakened Ahmadinejad more than any inspiring speeches about freedom ever could have.  In Iran, Obama made a tough but right decision.  In Ukraine the decision was a little easier, but in either case it should be recognized that the administration got it right.

This, at least, is how the election has been portrayed in most  media.  A narrative has been created that the elections of 2004 and 2010 represented swings in the Ukrainian electorate signaling the beginning and end of the Orange Revolution.  An alternative narrative has also emerged claiming that Yanukovich’s victory is evidence of the success of the Orange Revolution.  Alternation of power through fair elections, as Ukraine has just experienced, is, after all, a defining characteristic of a democracy.

However, there is a considerably more plausible, if less dramatic, explanation of the events of the last decade or so in Ukraine.  Perhaps Yuschenko’s narrow victory in 2004 and Yanukovich’s similarly narrow victory this year are part, not of a cycle of revolution and counter-revolution, or of a consolidation of democracy, but simply stages of Ukraine’s slow and bumpy post-Soviet history.  In this view, Yuschenko’s victory in 2004 reflects a process of  regime development of which Leonid Kuchma’s presidency, which began in 1994, is also part.

In other words, maybe the Orange Revolution never really happened at all.  Obviously, the events on Kiev’s Maidan in late 2004 happened, leading to Yuschenko’s becoming president, but it is possible that in the excitement of the moment, too much was read into these events.   The victory in December of 2004 by a former prime minister under Leonid Kuchma over Kuchma’s sitting prime minister may simply not have been the pivotal and revolutionary moment which it looked like at the time.  Rather, it may have been another stage in Ukraine’s continuous path from Soviet republic to something else.

Taken as a whole the transition from Kuchma to Yuschenko to Yanukovich, represents as much continuity as change.  More accurately, neither the events of January 2004, as dramatic and symbolically laden as they were, nor the governance of Yuschenko were lasting turning points for Ukraine which demarcate a clear break with the past.  There were, of course, differences in the coalitions which elected these three presidents as well as the goals, policies and governance of Kuchma and Yuschenko.  Yanukovich will also differ in this respect from his predecessor, but these differences occurred within a regime which, while far from entirely static, has remained somewhat consistent throughout these years.

Ukraine, while having become more free and democratic since 2004 remains a semi-democratic country where corruption is widespread, rule of law is erratic and government power is abused.  Nonetheless, since the Orange Revolution, the freedoms of assembly, speech and media have become stronger and perhaps even entrenched.  Yanukovich will have a hard time reversing this, or dramatically shifting Ukraine’s development or foreign policy strategies.  Like his predecessor, Yanukovich will be bound by a divided electorate and parliament.  In this regard, it is wrong to say the Orange Revolution was a success or failure, but clearly its impact and transformative power were overstated from the beginning.

The events of the last few months in Ukraine confirm that the defining characteristic of all the Color Revolutions, Rose in Georgia, Orange in Ukraine and Tulip in Kyrgyzstan, was that they were neither colors nor revolutions.  Roses and Tulips are flowers and Orange is a fruit, but all three are plants of some kind.  More seriously, none of these were revolutions, as Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to not having made substantial strides towards democracy in recent years, are, like Ukraine, defined as much by their similarities to the previous regime as by their differences.  All three of these events were another iteration of a longer process, but the phrase “Plant Iteration”, while more accurate, does not have the same ring as Color Revolution.

]]> http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/2010/02/09/is-the-orange-revolution-over-or-did-it-never-happen/feed/ http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/2010/02/03/a-bad-week-for-china-and-the-us/ http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/2010/02/03/a-bad-week-for-china-and-the-us/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:33:12 +0000 Lincoln A. Mitchell http://thefastertimes.com/foreignpolicy/?p=376 This has been a very interesting week or so for U.S. China relations.  During this time, internet censorship, the Dalai Lama, Iran, and arms sales to Taiwan have been at the center of the interaction between the two countries.  It seems the relationship has come quite a distance since the fall when President Obama traveled to Asia and outlined the import of China to the U.S.

Viewed individually, all of these issues are complicated and speak to legitimately different views between the U.S. and China.  Secretary Clinton’s speech following Google’s decision to leave China due to internet censorship raised important points about freedom of information and the need for American companies to be able to operate freely in China.  President Obama should be able to meet with whomever he wants.  Iran is a brutal regime which would be a great threat to whatever regional stability exists in the Middle East if it were to acquire nuclear weapons; and Taiwan is a longtime ally and supporter of the U.S.

Similarly the Chinese view on all these issues should be taken seriously and is not anything new.  China has sought to monitor and limit the internet since it was invented.  Chinese views on Tibet and Taiwan have been essentially consistent for decades; and China has never shared the concern about Iran and its weapons program that is so acute in Washington.

The events this week are perhaps simply the result of poor timing, or not thinking the timing through at all.  Pushing China to support a stronger position on Iran at almost the precise time that newly planned arms sales to Taiwan are announced does not seem like a wise strategy.  This was, perhaps deliberately, shown very clearly by the print version of the New York Times which showed articles reporting on both of these things next to each other on the same page of the newspaper.

While the issue of timing is unfortunate, it is probably less significant that the bigger issues of the likelihood of more of these types of issues arising in the near and mid-range future and of the seeming absence of a clear theory guiding China policy by this or any other recent American administration.  U.S. policy towards China in the last week or so was simultaneously confrontational, oblivious, principled and beseeching.  This is an unlikely recipe for success.

Given the import of the ties between China and the U.S., which is the most critical and complex bilateral relationship for both countries, there is a strong need for a policy that is more cohesive and consistent.  This will not be easy as the U.S. and China will continue to have strong disagreements on matters relating to freedom and human rights, remain economic competitors and still need each other for both global political and economic success.  The U.S. cannot afford to push China too far and make the relationship one of hostility, but on the other hand cannot give in to the demands of the authoritarian regime in Beijing.

Striking a balance of this sort is never easy, and will become more difficult as China becomes more powerful and begins to more aggressively seek global political power commiserate with its economic power.  It is possible, if quite unlikely, that bringing all these issues to the fore together was part of a clever and still unexplained strategy for seeking balance.  However, if this was not part of a strategic effort, the need for thinking this through remains acute, because there will only be more weeks like this past one in the future.

The reality is that both candidates will have to continue the extremely difficult task of balancing a divided country between Russia and the west while trying to reenergize an economy which has been badly hurt by the global economic downturn.  It is very likely that the winning candidate will not have a sufficient mandate, or enough votes in parliament, to quickly change the course of Ukraine.  Moreover, the electorate is sufficiently polarized, hence the need for the runoff between these two candidates, that no president will be able to abandon the west in favor of Russia, or do the reverse.  Additionally, in recent years, Timoschenko’s western orientation has become more equivocal as she too has sought to improve Ukraine’s relations with Russia.

Speculation about who will win the election, and how that person will govern, can overshadow the democratic advances Ukraine has made since the Orange Revolution of 2004, particularly when contrasted with Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, the other two post-Soviet countries to have Color Revolutions in the last decade.  All three Color Revolutions were, at the time they occurred, hailed as democratic advances, but Ukraine is the only one of the three countries that can accurately be said to have experienced greater democratization since those dramatic events.  According to Freedom House, for example, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have the same level of democracy as they did before the Rose and Tulip Revolutions, while Ukraine has become more democratic that it was before the Orange Revolution.

Politically, Ukraine remains a divided country with Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions strong in the eastern part of the country and Timoschenko far stronger in the west.  Nonetheless, these divisions are being worked out, to some extent, in a democratic context.  This is not to suggest that the election in Ukraine is simply a democratic election between two candidates with different views.  There is legitimate fear among many in the west that a victory for Yanukovich would slow down or halt the democratic advances the country has made in the last few years.  Additionally, in Eastern Ukraine, which includes the industrial base of the country, the Party of Regions has put a strong patronage system in place, one with a few echoes of the old Soviet regime.  The party has, for example, relied on close ties between local government, industry and the Party of the Regions to ensure that it is able to be involved in the distribution of jobs and economic opportunities.  This, not surprisingly, also includes occasionally intimidating supporters of other parties, threatening them with losses of livelihood and similar lower level forms of harassment.  During elections, fraud is still more common in the east than in the west of the country.

While the Party of Regions has used some undemocratic means to bolster their popularity in the eastern and southern parts of the country, they also enjoy a legitimate base of support as well.  The party’s more pro-Russian position reflects the views of many in the east of the country where warm feelings towards Russia are strong and many ethnic Russians live.  The corresponding coolness of the Party of Regions towards strong Ukrainian nationalism also resonates well with voters in Eastern Ukraine.  For much of the time immediately following the Orange Revolution, the Party of Regions was also able to point to solid economic growth in the eastern part of the country.  This, of course, changed substantially with the global economic downturn in late 2008.

Ironically, the continued presence of Yanukovich and his Party of the Regions as a political force in Ukraine, although on the surface representing an obstacle to democracy because of the nature of that party’s rule in the eastern part of the country, may be one of the reasons Ukraine has democratized more since its Color Revolution than either Georgia or Kyrgyzstan has since theirs.  The strength of the Party of Regions made it impossible for Ukraine to develop the one party, or strongman, systems which emerged in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan beginning in 2004-2005.  Because the Party of Regions remained politically relevant and, in the eastern part of Ukraine, even dominant, neither of the parties of the Orange Revolution, Yulia Timoschenko’s Block Yulia Timoschenko (BYT) or Viktor Yuschenko’s Our Ukraine could emerge as the sole locus of political power in Ukraine during the last six years.

The failure of the Orange Revolution to completely overrun the previous administration and political regime has therefore been both a facilitator and limiting factor for Ukraine’s democratic development beginning in 2005.  Unlike in Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, after the Color Revolution the defeated candidate did not slink away to either to political obscurity or to Moscow when his efforts to steal the election were thwarted.  Instead, Yanukovich remains, while not always a force for democracy, an important political leader in Ukraine-and perhaps its next president.

The contrast between the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in Northern California, known for amongst other things disrupting the World Series that year, and the events in Haiti demonstrate this.  The Loma Prieta earthquake which occurred in a wealthy country in a region prone to, and therefore prepared for, earthquakes led to less than a hundred deaths.  While the number of fatalities in Haiti is not yet known, there will be at least a few hundred times that many deaths in Haiti.  Lastly, because Haiti is a small country located in an island, it has only one airport and shares a border with only one country.  Thus, while Haiti is very close to the U.S., it is still logistically difficult to move supplies and relief workers there quickly and efficiently.

Although it is clear that the cost of the earthquake in lives, infrastructure and economic growth for Haiti will be devastating, the response to the disaster in Haiti by governments, multi-lateral bodies, private charities and individuals has been heartening.  Countries from all over the world, and multi-lateral organizations, have offered valuable assistance.  Private contributions, notably from the U.S. have also been substantial.

International assistance following a natural disaster of this sort is not new.  Many of the same actors provided support to the victims of the Tsunami in 2004.  It may, however, become more common in the next decades.  Unusual weather events will likely be one of the first impacts of climate change which will be felt.  Although the event in Haiti was an earthquake with no likely connection to climate change, the general pattern of a devastating natural disaster occurring in a country that has already had more than its share of misfortune which will both cause immediate tragedy and perhaps set that country’s development back years may become more common.

It seems that this could lead to several outcomes, but two are perhaps the most likely.  The first is that as time goes by and these events become, tragically, more common, the wealthy countries, and international organizations will become more expert at providing assistance and coordinating their efforts.  This would be a great development which would lead not only to more effectively helping the victims of these tragedies, but also to better communication and cooperation between powerful and wealthy countries.

The second scenario is that disaster fatigue, or something like it, begins to occur among the governments and populations of wealthy countries.  Mobilizing to help Haiti after this earthquake is the decent, right and human thing to do.  Millions of ordinary citizens have reached into their pockets to try to help the people of Haiti, but if these catastrophes begin to occur more frequently, this compassion may become in shorter supply.  People may, instead of seeing assistance of this kind as simple human compassion, see it as some form of international welfare.  In this case, the hateful and bizarre rantings of people like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson, which have met with criticism almost across the political spectrum, may not be so unwelcome in a few years.  If the second scenario occurs, not only will it reflect a triumph of insensitivity over decency, but it will make the first years of climate change even more disruptive and costly.

Undoubtedly the next decade develop in ways that are extremely difficult to anticipate, but the five issues mentioned above are not all that remote.  They may be too far off to focus on right now, but they are also too likely to for policy makers to ignore altogether.