To answer your question about sustainable counter-terrorism or to at least share my thoughts. My largest problem with the current administration is how short-term our current efforts feel. Yes, killing terrorists may take seconds, but building strong civil societies that won’t produce future terrorists takes years and decades. And this is primarily where America has failed; while our President speaks of democracy building, we are the biggest enablers of some of the worst regimes in the Middle East. Anyway, your idea about sustainable counter-terrorism is a thought-provoking one. I think it’s important to separate being anti-terrorist and pro-Western as well. I understand that people in the Middle East won’t have a favorable opinion of the West for a while, but I do believe opinions can be swayed about terrorism. In essence, the hearts and mind we often hear about isn’t zero sum as well. The simplest answer involves political empowerment and economic development that will enable a majority of the population to disengage from radicalism.

One might look at it this way – organizing things in such a way that the basic assumption is that cheap fossil energy is not inexhaustible may involve economic costs in the short run, but avoid greater costs and perhaps catatrophe in the longer run.

That is not to say that the US-Japan comparison of the relative health of those economies rests on energy alone. There are many macroeconomic factors.

But in a general way, I am not convinced that the real alternatives of the future are between growth, on the one hand, and stagnation (if we follow the advice of those who would support an environmentally-friendly retooling of the economy). It looks more like a choice between stagnation (if we make an effort to clean up, whether or not something can be done about “global warming”, the overuse of land a la Jared Diamond, etc) and disaster if the status quo is maintained.

Now, Chirol’s question – I guess that “sustainable counter terrorism” would involve strong institutions, the rule of law working in tandem with strong intelligence agencies. That is to say, good information on the one hand but doing our best to uphold people’s rights on the other hand, not being arbitrary, and allowing for mechanisms to correct and fend off injustice. We (speaking as a Canadian) have to practice what we preach, otherwise we might as well be Turkmenistan.

How has Japan’s economy done compared to ours over the past generation, again?

Well, Japan suffered a recession through the 1990s, but the social cost in that recession was minimal—unemployment remains low, consumer spending remained high throughout. Regardless, Japan’s economic problems stem from an antiquated banking and legal system and inefficient businesses propped-up by the political economy. Any attempt to connect Japan’s energy efficiency to its macroeconomic performance is at best facile, if not wholly disingenuous.

In Japan, the concentrated nature of the population makes public transportation efficient (and even profitable) and easy to sustain and maintain. Toll roads, car fees, and gasoline are expensive enough that its almost never worth driving unless you have a family of at least three people. So the country operates without everyone having to drive, and has a very sound public transportation infrastructure. And were the gasoline sky-rocket in price or the supply to suddenly be cut in half, the country would continue to function.

In the US, the very existence of suburbia is based on the premise of cheap gasoline and everyone being able to drive themselves. Were gasoline to triple in price, or the supply to suddenly be cut in half, its frankly hard to see how suburbia, and thus much of middle class America, to continue to enjoy current luxuries, as commuting to work, delivering food and supplies to distant places, and much more would cease to be possible. With almost no remaining long-distance infrastructure in the US outside of trucks and automobiles, the country is incredibly vulnerable to any constriction on gasoline supply.

Yet the oil imports to the United States are diverse, and come from the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, elsewhere in the Western hemisphere plus domestic production. Japan is more resilient in that daily life is less dependent on cheap auto fuel, but it is dependent on the Middle East (with a trickle from Indonesia and North America) and thus far more vulnerable to a regional crisis. US oil supplies are diverse enough that the country is really only doomed if there was a system-wide failure in the import/export chain of global energy supplies. I believe the numbers are that 86% of Japan’s oil comes from the Middle East, compared to 19% of the United States.

How has Japan’s economy done compared to ours over the past generation, again?