WhirledView

Comment Policy

by Cheryl Rofer

WhirledView has acquired a stalker-troll who followed me over from a discussion board I left. I banned his home IP a while back, after a couple of personal attacks. But he's taken on another name and has been using proxies. So, reluctantly, we will be moderating comments for a while.

We have deleted very few comments over our almost five-year history. All we require is common courtesy. TypePad has taken care of making sure that our commenters are human or at least sentient.

I apologize for this inconvenience. Comments will be approved and published as soon as possible.

The First Hundred Days: Threats in the Age of Obama - Updated 5/3/09

by Cheryl Rofer

Ah, the obligatory 100 days post!

But I’ve got a WhirledView/ Michael Tanji twist to put on that. Those of us who contributed to Mike’s Threats in the Age of Obama (which you can buy from Nimble Books or Amazon) are trying to answer the questions

* what did you get right in THREATS?
* what did you get wrong?
* what was a surprise?

So far, I see that ZenPundit has posted his evaluation.

Update (5/3/09): Other authors' posts now up:
Tanji
Shane Deichman
Dan at TDAXP
ubiwar
Sam Liles
Mark Curtis
Adam Elkus

Decreases in nuclear arsenals are always going to come slowly, as the result of negotiations to keep things balanced, so that nobody panics to give us a worse situation than we started with. Sam Nunn likened moving toward zero to climbing a mountain in the clouds. You know the summit is there, but you can’t see it or the entire route from here.

Deterrence Makes Me Crazy

by Cheryl Rofer

The idea of deterrence is that if a country is (or looks) strong enough, other countries won’t attack it. That’s easy enough to understand, and it makes a certain amount of sense. Animals use deterrence, by puffing up and standing their hair on end to make themselves look bigger, and, if that fails, by engaging in behaviors to convince the other how undefeatable they are. A certain amount of readiness, posturing and whatever works can avoid an encounter that could cause real damage.

After the world contained enough nuclear weapons to destroy it, deterrence became more attractive, essential even. The prospect of destroying the earth was the ultimate deterrent.

For theorists of nuclear war, deterrence was the sine qua non. Under what circumstances could it break down? What kind of war might that provoke? What about the rest of the world? The two big nuclear powers shielded their allies from each other in what came to be called “extended deterrence,” the big player might bring nukes in if their clients were attacked. That layered on more complexities in deterrence theory. It led to deploying nuclear weapons to allies, some of which remain in Europe.

If we are to move toward a goal of no more nukes, we have to consider extended deterrence as well as the regular kind. A common objection to decreasing the numbers of nuclear weapons is that they are a deterrent. It seems to me that deterrent requires something that is deterred, but it is often used as I used it in the previous sentence, deterrent period. If pressed, I suspect that those who say such things would say that nuclear weapons deter wars, perhaps that they deter the world-engulfing sorts of wars the twentieth century made famous. Or that they deter the use of nuclear weapons by other nations.

This is where deterrence starts to make me crazy. We have nuclear weapons because they deter. The evidence for deterrence is that there have been no nuclear attacks since 1945. But there are many other things that nuclear weapons did not deter. Nuclear arsenals did not prevent problems for the big two nuclear powers in Chechnya or off the coast of Somalia. Or Georgia, or Iraq or Afghanistan. So what is it that nuclear weapons deter?

Turkey and the Armenian Question: That was then, this is now

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On Friday afternoon April 24, traffic was slower than normal on Washington's Massachusetts Avenue in front of the Turkish Embassy. Across the street, some 25-50 demonstrators waved Armenian flags, shouted angry slogans and held up home-made placards demanding that the Turkish Government recognize as genocide the massacre of Armenians that began in 1915. It was as if those tragic historic events had happened just yesterday. I saw two Greek – not Cypriot - flags in the smallish crowd but no reasons stated for Greek participation.

The Armenian opposite numbers stood on the sidewalk in front of the Turkish Embassy waving Turkish flags and carrying signs proclaiming that what had happened to the Armenians was part of a larger civil war occurring in the then crumbling Ottoman Empire and not a deliberate campaign by the Ottoman rulers or the Turks, the Empire’s successors, to eradicate all Armenians.

Last year the US Congress came within inches of championing the Armenian view on this still firestorm of an issue.

That was last year

Torture: Two Issues

by Cheryl Rofer

Caitlyn raises a point that has bothered me for some time: what of the torturers? I suppose they react to their experiences in many ways. Frank Snepp says that he’s still haunted by what he did as an interrogator in Vietnam. Tony Lagouranis came out in 2005 and said that he had been involved in torture. The two of them seem to be living relatively normal lives, although with burdens they’ll probably never be able to put down.

But what of others? Do they feel guilt or are they looking for more ways to feel as omnipotent as they did when they completely controlled another life? Did they volunteer or were they required to do what they did? Did they object or quietly manage to find a way to another assignment? How many of them are back at home in the United States? Do their families know? How do they deal with telling them or not?

All questions. I have no answers.

A Gift for Pakistan and the Women of Pakistan

Finishing Line Press has just published my collection of poems Indus Suite, which is now available at www.finishinglinepress.com and  www.amazon.com.  Regrettably (except for an extract serving as a blurb on the back cover) there was no room for the introduction that Pakistani poet  Fahmida Riaz so kindly and generously wrote when this collection was first coming together.  Here is that "Forward," word for word.  PLS

 The Indus Suite poems were written in Pakistan.  They are interwoven in the years of Patricia Sharpe=s sojourn in Karachi and my friendship with this amazing woman, who was then an official at the American Consulate in Karachi. [We'd first met twenty years before, when I was a Fulbright Professor teaching American Literature at Punjab University in Lahore. PLS] 

How did I become her friend, when I have never had even a nodding acquaintance with anyone belonging to the diplomatic community?  Neither before nor after her.  (This unconscious striving to keep a respectful distance must be mutual!)  And yet I went to her so often, sought her company so frequently while she was here that I was sometimes the first reader or listener of these poems.

I read them or listened to them in silence and wonderment.  There is something inexplicable about them.  Something that defies all notions of keeping one=s distance, remaining aloof, or minding one=s own business. 

I have marveled at them because these poems could have been writtten by a Pakistani.  A sane Pakistani who loved this land and grieved for it.  They could be written by me.

Did I write them, too?  I can see lines from my own poems echoing in hers.  Of course, Patricia never read them.  They are all in Urdu, which she could not read.  Nor did I even read them out to her.  Translating them into English would have been a bother.

But when I read in ACover Up@

You who dare

to hide my handiwork

in windowless rooms,

in coffin-like cells,

and call yourselves

protectors--O

you brain dead

jailors of body and soul,

who

gave

you

this brief

to suffocate daughters and wives

                  for the crime of being female......

I marvel at her passionate involvement and think of my own poem AChadar aur Chardivari@ (AChadar and Four Walls@)

Sire, what shall I do with this black chadar.

Why do you bestow it upon me,

                            your Grace?

Swine Flu: It's Early Yet

by Cheryl Rofer

By now, you've heard or read something about swine flu: numerous cases in Mexico, a few cases being identified in other countries. It's really early to know how this is going to go. It's a good thing that the US government (Public Health Service? Could the media inform us?) and the World Health Organization are seeing this as a potential pandemic so early in the game. That means they're gearing up to follow the cases, do extra laboratory work, all the things they need to do to keep track and give us the information we need, along with getting the vaccine and drug manufacturers ready in case they're needed.

The numbers, even in Mexico, are still small. But the precautions being suggested are good ones any time. So cover your coughs and wash your hands.

It could turn out to be nothing much, as did the great swine flu scare of 1976. But there's no way to know that this newish virus, already recombined from old ones, won't recombine again to produce something worse.

Websites with good information:

Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Science Insider

Effect Measure

And in case you're wondering about that H-number-N-number designation, here's an explanation.

Yale Richmond’s From Nyet to Da (4th edition), Book Review Essay

By Patricia H. Kushlis

It’s good to see that Yale Richmond’s book From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia has recently been released in its updated fourth edition. This book, first published in 1992, was designed as a practical guide for Americans interested in conducting business with the newly created Russian Federation as well as other parts of the Former Soviet Union.

What has kept From Nyet to Da from descending into obscurity is that it retains much of its original usefulness. First, not only was it written by a well respected practitioner who spent a substantial part of his US professional career as a negotiator on cultural and educational affairs with the then Soviet Union and learned firsthand how to reach agreement with the Soviets but also because the advice it contains is just plain useful for various kinds of US-Russian negotiations. Moreover, the book is written for the lay person with an interest in Russia as well as the first time negotiator who needs to make use of the advice immediately if not sooner.

Understanding Cultural Differences Is Imperative

What Richmond does best is to 1) explain the importance of understanding cultural and historical differences and nuances when negotiating with Russians; 2) describe these differences by comparing and contrasting American and Russian cultures highlighting how our respective cultures influence our respective negotiating behaviors – so this book should be useful to Russians interested in dealing with Americans too; and 3) provide practical suggestions for reaching successful outcomes.

Along the way, Richmond includes real life vignettes as well as updated data on Russian economic, demographic, geographical, political, legal and social conditions to help provide needed context for the negotiator.

When in Moscow, speaking the vernacular helps

I completely agree with Richmond when he describes the importance of speaking and understanding Russian when negotiating in the country – or the rest of the CIS. It does matter to the outcome. When in Rome, as the old adage goes, do as the Romans do – and speaking the language is a major part of the story. Language study is not just learning and stringing words, phrases and sentences together. Languages are loaded with subtle and not-so-subtle cultural meanings that are crucial for understanding how others think and live.

It’s a sad commentary on American education that the number of American students of Russian has continued to decline since the end of the Cold War. This problem, however, is not just a lack of interest on the part of American youth, rather I think it is more closely related to the downturn in US government funding for programs on and research about this huge part of the globe.

A point of disagreement

Where Richmond and I disagree, however, is with his observation that small talk is necessary to precede successful negotiations with Russians. Even in 1978-80 when everything I did as educational exchanges officer in Moscow involved some level of negotiation – from helping our exchangees get approval for study trips outside of Moscow to participating in the educational exchanges subgroup of the 1979 US-USSR Cultural Agreement negotiations as a member of Richmond’s team. I did not, however, encounter the need – or even the interest – in small talk on the part of the Soviet government officials with whom I dealt.

Whereas, I certainly found the need to speak and understand Russian. This was the language in which we conducted business face-to-face and also by telephone. Even after ten months of intensive training at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, it still took several more months in Moscow for me to bring my skills up to a comfortable level of communication.

This is not to say that I disagree with Richmond when he advises first time visitors to Moscow, for instance, to arrive with names and contact information of trusted Russians to meet or to take the opportunity to see as much as possible of the “real” Russia. These are excellent ideas even though, as he points out, personal safety has become a far greater consideration than in earlier days. Yet in the end, it’s those unique personal experiences which mean exploration well beyond the hotel, dorm room or apartment that make it the fascinating country that it remains.

Yale Richmond, From Nyet to Da: Understanding the New Russia, 4th edition, Intercultural Press, 2009.

WhirledView review of Yale Richmond’s Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008.