Michiko Kakutani calls Fukuyama's new book "tough-minded and edifying."

In "America at the Crossroads," Mr. Fukuyama questions the assertion made by the prominent neoconservatives Mr. Kristol and Robert Kagan in their 2000 book "Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy" that other nations "find they have less to fear" from the daunting power of the United States because "American foreign policy is infused with an unusually high degree of morality." The problem with this doctrine of "benevolent hegemony," Mr. Fukuyama points out, is that "it is not sufficient that Americans believe in their own good intentions; non-Americans must be convinced of them as well."

That's where the General Memetics Corporation comes into the picture.

Fukuyama writes:

"Bureaucratic tribalism exists in all administrations, but it rose to poisonous levels in Bush's first term. Team loyalty trumped open-minded discussion, and was directly responsible for the administration's failure to plan adequately for the period after the end of active combat."

NYT Review of 'America at the Crossroads,' by Francis Fukuyama

A concise distillation and sober analysis of a veritable mountain of evidence about pre-war Iraq, based on official documents and recordings, eyewitness testimony, and other interviews.

A special, double-length article from the upcoming May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, presenting key excerpts from the recently declassified book-length report of the USJFCOM Iraqi Perspectives Project.

U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) commissioned a comprehensive study of the inner workings and behavior of Saddam Hussein's regime based on previously inaccessible primary sources. Drawing on interviews with dozens of captured senior Iraqi military and political leaders and hundreds of thousands of official Iraqi documents (hundreds of them fully translated), this two-year project has changed our understanding of the war from the ground up. The study was partially declassified in late February; its key findings are presented here.

...

As far as can be determined from the interviews and records reviewed so far, there was no national plan to embark on a guerrilla war in the event of a military defeat. Nor did the regime appear to cobble together such a plan as its world crumbled around it. Buoyed by his earlier conviction that the Americans would never dare enter Baghdad, Saddam hoped to the very last minute that he could stay in power. And his military and civilian bureaucrats went through their daily routines until the very end.

Only slowly did Saddam and those around him finally seem to realize that they were suffering a catastrophic military defeat.

Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside

I previously mentioned that Francis Fukuyama had a new book on the way. A certain someone said they were looking forward to it. FYI, it's now on sale everywhere.

Francis Fukuyama’s criticism of the Iraq war put him at odds with neoconservative friends both within and outside the Bush administration. Here he explains how, in its decision to invade Iraq, the Bush administration failed in its stewardship of American foreign policy. First, the administration wrongly made preventive war the central tenet of its foreign policy. In addition, it badly misjudged the global reaction to its exercise of “benevolent hegemony.” And finally, it failed to appreciate the difficulties involved in large-scale social engineering, grossly underestimating the difficulties involved in establishing a successful democratic government in Iraq.

When I read that, I couldn't help but see it as yet another unfortunate missed opportunity for the General Memetics Corporation.

Fukuyama explores the contention by the Bush administration’s critics that it had a neoconservative agenda that dictated its foreign policy during the president’s first term. Providing a fascinating history of the varied strands of neoconservative thought since the 1930s, Fukuyama argues that the movement’s legacy is a complex one that can be interpreted quite differently than it was after the end of the Cold War. Analyzing the Bush administration’s miscalculations in responding to the post–September 11 challenge, Fukuyama proposes a new approach to American foreign policy through which such mistakes might be turned around—one in which the positive aspects of the neoconservative legacy are joined with a more realistic view of the way American power can be used around the world.

America at the Crossroads | Francis Fukuyama

In an op-ed in today's Washington Post, Mousa Abu Marzook, a political spokesman for Hamas, explains their victory in the recent elections. Can we take this seriously?

Alleviating the debilitative conditions of occupation, and not an Islamic state, is at the heart of our mandate (with reform and change as its lifeblood).

A new breed of Islamic leadership is ready to put into practice faith-based principles in a setting of tolerance and unity.

We do desire dialogue.

The Post describes the author thusly:

The writer is deputy political bureau chief of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). He has a U.S. doctorate in engineering and was indicted in the United States in 2004 as a co-conspirator on racketeering and money-laundering charges in connection with activities on behalf of Hamas dating to the early 1990s, before the organization was placed on the list of terrorist groups. He was deported to Jordan in 1997.

Note, as well, that "Paradise Now" has been nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

What Hamas Is Seeking

This list is always good for a few gems.

These are the ideas that, for better and worse, helped make 2005 what it was. You'll find entries that address momentous developments in Iraq ("The Totally Religious, Absolutely Democratic Constitution") as well as less conspicuous, more ghoulish occurrences in Pittsburgh ("Zombie Dogs"). There are ideas that may inspire ("The Laptop That Will Save the World"), that may turn your stomach ("In Vitro Meat"), that may arouse partisan passions ("Republican Elitism") and that may solve age-old mysteries ("Why Popcorn Doesn't Pop"). Some mysteries, of course, still remain. For instance, we do not yet have an entirely satisfying explanation for how Mark Cuban, the outspoken Internet mogul and NBA owner, came to be connected with three of the year's most notable ideas ("Collapsing the Distribution Window," "Scientific Free-Throw Distraction" and "Splogs"). That was just one surprising discovery we made in the course of assembling the issue. In the pages that follow, we're sure you'll make your own

The Year In Ideas 2005

Over dinner a few weeks ago, the novelist Lawrence Naumoff told a troubling story. He asked students in his introduction to creative writing course at UNC-Chapel Hill if they had read Jack Kerouac. Nobody raised a hand. Then he asked if anyone had ever heard of Jack Kerouac. More blank expressions.

"I guess I've always known that many students are just taking my course to get a requirement out of the way," Naumoff said.

In our increasingly complex world, the amount of information required to master any particular discipline -- e.g. computers, life insurance, medicine -- has expanded geometrically. We are forced to become specialists, people who know more and more about less and less.

In this frightening new world, students do not turn to universities for mind expansion but vocational training.

When was the last time you met anyone who was ashamed because they didn't know something?

Lack of curiosity is curious

"Without a change on the level of ideas, any reconciliation of Islam and democracy is not going to come about.

Unless you fight out that battle on the plain of ideas and say it is perfectly legitimate to have a more liberal version of religion, then I think ultimately you will have long-term problems having genuine democracy in a Muslim country.

We should not minimise the fact that there is a conflict of ideas at the present, not with Islam as a religion but with particular interpretations of Islam."

There are some interesting quotes from Fukuyama in here, unfortunately spun together by a reporter who is trying to push him into a partisan pigeonhole. I don't think Fukuyama is a neoconservative any more then I think he is a democrat. His thinking is driven by observations and not ideaologies.

On a somewhat unrelated tangent, it strikes me that the fundamental problem with ideaologies is that people have a tendancy to prefer ideas that are philisophically pure to ideas that that actually work well for people in practice. This is because philiophical purity is easier to accept then messy reality with its endless caveats. Once you've got an ideaology you can reach a conclusion on any issue based on how that ideaology informs you to think about the matter rather then based on the actual realities of the matter itself. This fallacy seems the core problem at all ends of the spectrum. It infects communists, fundamentalists, and libertarians alike. Most idealogical (and partisan) commentators frame their points of view as "the other guy's ideology doesn't work in practice, so we should prefer the most pure form of my ideaology." In order to move past this we must get people to observe that ideaologies don't work. In order to do that, there must be a word for the ideaological fallacy. What is that word? Does anyone here know?

Francis Fukuyama: The acceptable face of the neo-cons? | Al-Ahram Weekly | Profile

Read your Neal, you geek!

It's not every day that Neal Stephenson writes an op-ed.

In the spring of 1977, "Star Wars" wasn't famous yet. The only people who had heard about it were what are now called geeks.

Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out

This book was published in March by Brookings Press. Excerpts from the first chapter:

Movable type presses were available in China as early as the eleventh century, but they were little used and had essentially no influence. The European invention of the printing press transformed Europe because Europe was ready to be transformed.

We are now, potentially, at a similar turning point. Information technology may once again be poised to transform politics and identity. If the print revolution made possible the nation-state system and eventually national democracy, where might the digital revolution lead us? Can it help us create new, and possibly better, ways of running the world?.

This is an idea that I have a lot of interest in.

The Coming Democracy: New Rules for Running a New World

] Last year, another Brookings economist, Charles Ferguson,
] argued that perhaps as much as $1 trillion might be lost
] over the next decade due to present constraints on
] broadband development. These losses, moreover, are only
] the economic costs of the United States' indirection.
] They do not take into account the work that could have
] been done through telecommuting, the medical care or
] interactive long-distance education that might have been
] provided in remote areas, and unexploited entertainment
] possibilities.

This article oversimplifies this issue by focusing too much on the executive. There are cultural, infrastructural, and economic differences between the United States and places like Japan and South Korea which have a far greater impact on broadband development in those regions then federal policy. This is not "Bush's fault."

However, the Clinton administration clearly provided leadership in this area, and that leadership was clearly useful, and the Republicans are clearly less interested in telecommunications policy.

The question that I have is, where are the applications? What do my friends in South Korea do with their high speed internet access? They download movies off of p2p networks. This is not the kind of application that is likely to spur trillions of dollars in GDP. It IS possible to overbuild infrastructure.

They've got it. What are they doing with it? Broadband is not a core capability. It is a means to an end. Once you can clearly demonstrate the ends that Japanese can reach, that we cannot, you'll have a compelling arguement for serious government leadership. This arguement skips over this matter as if it was a forgone conclusion. It is not. Someone on this board knows what these applications are. Maybe I ought to be tracking down these brookings reports.

It is also wrong to say that US has always led this race. The US was about 10 years behind the French in development of basic network information services like email and behind nearly everyone in the development of good mobile phone service. The US has a slow tech adoption rate and is very cautious about moving forward. Getting the internet to happen in the US was like mice trying to get an elephant rolling down a hill.

In 1990 it was obvious to me, even as a kid, that I wanted a digital network connection in my house that plugged into my computer. It was obvious to me what I'd do with it. It is not obvious to me what I'd do with 40 megs a second in my house ('cept possibly cancel my colo contract). I promise its going to be obvious to me long before its obvious to the FCC.

Down to the Wire