I’ve wrote several times here that Obama’s foreign policy scares me, and Robert D. Kaplan said something along the same lines on several occasions. And as a safe Democratic state votes for a Republican in the election to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, pundits are buzzing as to what this means with regard to health care and the economy. Yet a few people are looking at foreign policy, and the conclusion by Walter Russel Mead, writing the cover story in FP, is that Obama must fix his split personality.

Like Carter in the 1970s, Obama comes from the old-fashioned Jeffersonian wing of the Democratic Party, and the strategic goal of his foreign policy is to reduce America’s costs and risks overseas by limiting U.S. commitments wherever possible. He’s a believer in the notion that the United States can best spread democracy and support peace by becoming an example of democracy at home and moderation abroad. More than this, Jeffersonians such as Obama think oversize commitments abroad undermine American democracy at home. Large military budgets divert resources from pressing domestic needs; close association with corrupt and tyrannical foreign regimes involves the United States in dirty and cynical alliances; the swelling national-security state threatens civil liberties and leads to powerful pro-war, pro-engagement lobbies among corporations nourished on grossly swollen federal defense budgets.

While Bush argued that the only possible response to the 9/11 attacks was to deepen America’s military and political commitments in the Middle East, Obama initially sought to enhance America’s security by reducing those commitments and toning down aspects of U.S. Middle East policy, such as support for Israel, that foment hostility and suspicion in the region. He seeks to pull U.S. power back from the borderlands of Russia, reducing the risk of conflict with Moscow. In Latin America, he has so far behaved with scrupulous caution and, clearly, is hoping to normalize relations with Cuba while avoiding collisions with the “Bolivarian” states of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

As Obama is pledging to make the world a more peaceful, safer place and being friends with everyone, it’s worth remembering that Carter came into the White House promising to end the Cold War. Four years later, he was supporting the resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, increasing the defense budget, and laying the groundwork for an expanded U.S. presence in the Middle East.

I speak with some level of qualification—as an underachieving law student who barely survived the nightmarish law school experience and yet managed to have a career (so far!) as a commercial lawyer—when I say that this piece in the LA Times by Mark Greenbaum is spot on. America has hundreds of thousands of lawyers, yet many tens of thousands who never find employment in practice, many thousands who were added to the unemployment roster over the past two years due to the sharp economic downturn, and yet the American Bar Assocation and numerous state legislatures are pushing to open even more law schools.

An abridged version of the article appears below. Every paragraph is basically enough to expand into an entire book chapter.

No more room at the bench
Mark Greenbaum

Remember the old joke about 20,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea being “a good start”? Well, in an interesting twist, thousands of lawyers now find themselves drowning in the unemployment line as the legal sector is being badly saturated with attorneys…

From 2004 through 2008, the field grew less than 1% per year on average, going from 735,000 people making a living as attorneys to just 760,000, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics postulating that the field will grow at the same rate through 2016… the number of new positions is likely to be fewer than 30,000 per year. That is far fewer than what’s needed to accommodate the 45,000 juris doctors graduating from U.S. law schools each year.

Such debt would be manageable if a world of lucrative jobs awaited the newly minted attorneys, but this is not the case. A recent working paper by Herwig Schlunk of Vanderbilt Law School contends that with the exception of some of those at the best schools, going for a law degree is a bad investment and that most students will be “unlikely ever to dig themselves out from” under their debt. This problem is exacerbated by the existing law school system.

Despite the tough job market, new schools continue to sprout like weeds. Today there are 200 ABA-accredited law schools in the U.S., with more on the way, as many have been awarded provisional accreditation. In California alone, there are 21 law schools that are either accredited or provisionally accredited, including the new one at UC Irvine.

The ABA has also refused to create and oversee an independent method of reporting graduate data. Postgraduate employment information generally provides the most useful facts for prospective students to study in deciding whether to go to law school.

In many cases, the data that schools now furnish are based on self-reported information, skewing the results because unemployed and low-paying grads are less likely to report back. Law schools do this because they want the rosiest picture possible for the influential rankings given by U.S. News & World Report. Despite its ample resources, the ABA has rebuffed calls to monitor the schools to get more accurate data, calling the existing framework an effective “honor system.”

Based on what happened with the accreditation task force, the ABA is not likely to force change; it is too intertwined with the law schools. ABA groups—such as the task force, which was chaired by a former dean—are stacked with school officials who have no incentive to change the status quo.

The author thinks the solution is to regulate and limit the power of the ABA in accrediting law schools, in a similar limitation on the influence of the bodies that oversea the medical profession, and maybe he’s right—although I tend to take a more cynical view and think that the complicity with the reckless expansion of the profession is far broader. (I’m looking at you, US state legistlatures!)

US President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. The president who has accomplished nothing in regard to anything has won a discredited prize—and in his first year in office, no less. The cult of the divine Obama. And for the first time ever (please correct me in the comments if I’m wrong), it appears that the prize has been given not for achievements or accomplishments, but for what the prize winner might be able to achieve in the future. It almost feels as if the world is reverting to post-Republican Rome, when the Principate Emperors were deified in life and deemed to be Gods on earth living amongst us.

Frankly, I thought the news story that Obama had won was a joke at first glance. But it actually doesn’t surprise me all that much—as I wrote about the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007:

That Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on encouraging world governments to tackle global warming shows how much a leftist joke the post-Cold War Nobel committe has become. (Not since Arafat (1994) Jimmy Carter (2002) has the prize been such a big joke.)

Looks like I need to revise that blurb, and in future it will read, “Not since Arafat (1994) Jimmy Carter (2002) Al Gore (2007) Barack Obama (2009) has the prize been such a big joke.”

All of this being said, I must admit that it was a pretty crap year for peace. The other potential winners discussed in the press were pretty lackluster people—Zimbabwe’s prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident, and an Afghan women’s rights activist. Was their someone better to choose? In a year when peace has taken a back burner to everything else, perhaps not.

Famous movie critic Roger Ebert has a bone to pick with the history behind X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a Fox movie that came out in theaters last weekend, and which is a story about the origins of the Marvel superhero Logan/Wolverine and his conflict with his half-brother Victor/Sabertooth. The two men are mutants with healing powers that slow, or even stop, aging, and the opening scenes show them fighting in wars across the last two centuries of American history.

Their story starts in “1840—the Northwest Territories of Canada,” a neat trick, since Canada was formed in 1867, and its Northwest Territories in 1870. But you didn’t come here for a history lesson. Or maybe you did, if you need to know that Logan and Victor became Americans (still before they could be Canadians) and fought side by side in the Civil War, World War I, World War II and Vietnam. Why they did this, I have no idea. Maybe they just enjoyed themselves.

Yeah, as I just got finished saying elsewhere, Hollywood is very disappointing when it comes to accuracy, especially when considering that it would take such minimal effort to get it right.

Igor Panarin, dean at the Foreign Ministry’s school for future diplomats, former spokesman for Russia’s Federal Space Agency, and a regular on Russia’s state-guided TV channels, has predicted the collapse of the United States next year.

Panarin predicts six autonomous states, which would be under the influence of neighboring or distant regional powers. Specifically, he believes this will be the California Republic, the Texas Republic, Atlantic America, the Central North American Republic, with Alaska reverting to Russian control (Panarin has also publicly stated that the sale and purchase of Alaska in the 19th century was only a lease), and Hawaii probably going Japanese. (No word on what would happen to the Marshall Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Isles, etc.)

Sound unlikely? It sounds even more unlikely when you visualize the map, as I’ve done below:

Taking this analysis at face value for a mere moment, my immediate questions are: would a desire by the peoples of Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia to be together with southern kin override the revulsion to be governed by Mexicans? Would a Mormon rebellion try to unite the Mormons living in Utah (controlled by China), and Idaho (controlled by Canada)? Would Washington and Michigan push to join their neighbors and be governed by Canada? Would the high proportion of Hispanics in the California Republic ultimatly lead to more influence by Mexico than China?

Some of those questions show how outlandish Panarin’s view is, and how unfamiliar he is with American cultural geography (if the breakup was based on something such as the nine nations of North America, I might take this a little more seriously). But Panarin has been predicting this type of American implosion for years, and only recently have the gloomy economy given his predictions more public attention, especially in Russia where he appears on TV regularly. Indeed, Panarin as of last month now believes the date of this crackup will be next year .

We may call this blog Coming Anarchy, and we’re generally concerned about the future stability of the world, including the United States. But Panarin’s predictions are far too outlandish to be taken seriously. In fact, his analysis is nothing short of ludicrous. He bases his prediction on factors that include the financial crisis (sounds plausible), the recession (yup, it ain’t pretty), and moral decline (eh?) such as school shootings (random violence a cause of national implosion?) and rampant homosexuality (ahh, now we know what type of person we’re dealing with). Once that’s disclosed, this type of prediction speaks for itself as what it is—a traditionalist and paternalist fear of the world that believes things are always getting worse, and the certain belief that it will lead to inevitable decline.

But beyond that, Panarin’s vision of the future sounds like it comes from a Russian. Russia is the major country that splintered apart in the 1920s, 1990s, and is widely believed to be a candidate for fracturing in the near future. And speaking of Russia’s break-up in the 1920s… I’ll be back with more on this very, very soon.

Following on this post of last month, I’ll give JPY500 to anyone who can tell me what this recent statement by the Yukio Hatoyama, Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Japan, means:

We want to move away from U.S. dependency to a more equal alliance… We are only looking for an equal relationship, which we believe the U.S. also prefers.

DPJ supporter Tobias Harris believes this is not an anti-US statement, and I think he’s probably right. He also thinks that the Obama administration will create a post-Clinton/Bush Japan alliance that is focused solely on joint security declarations. But then we had this gem from DPJ leader Ozawa

If Japan is prepared to take care on its own issues that are relevant to itself, then there is no need for the United States to forward deploy to such an extent in Japan.

Here also, we’ve got a quote that could have a dozen meanings. It was widely condemned by ruling LDP officials and even US diplomats, as it is believed to call for Japan to be more independent. But the same vague statement could also be seen as a conservative’s call for a less restrictive constitution regarding Japan’s limitations on having its own military. Which is it? And what would Ozawa and the DPJ actually do if their motley crew of socialists, right-wingers, and free market liberals actually came into power? The chances are increasingly likely that we’ll find out in a few short months.

In 1957, two intrepid Westerners traveled from Tokyo to Alaska by amphibious jeep, and lived to tell the tale. One half of the duo published a book on the trip, titled Once a Fool.

You can read large excerpts of the book on Google books and you can buy the book at a major discount at Amazon.com. But e-books has the best excerpt:

In 1957 Japan-based journalist Boye Lafayette De Mente joined Australian adventurer on an amphibious jeep named “Half-Safe” on an ocean-crossing journey from Tokyo to Anchorage, Alaska that took precisely four months, and resulted in their incredible experience being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. (Gas for the jeep was carried in a large torpedo-shaped tank behind the jeep.) Enroute, the two encounted Russians, fish nets, a wall of water, the gas tank, sea lions, whales, each other, and were lost for three weeks. The aftermath of the trip continued for some 40 years. This is De Mente’s intimate account of the journey.

Machiavelli’s Cat has a fun post that plainly points out the macroeconomic consequences of protectionism, following on the heels of the “Buy American” provisions that were added to President Barack Obama’s $820 billion stimulus package.

In sum, the stimulus package is focused on infrastructure projects, which means a coming demand for steel and iron. But the stimulus “Buy American” provisions ban the purchase of foreign steel. So US companies get an advantage but not selling in a competitive market—but what does that mean?

For many economists, this means that those companies will become structurally uncompetitive, as they won’t have to undergo the same rigorous competition as others. When the US eventually opens its market again (as it most likely will), those companies will be seriously disadvantaged, even if they’ve survived in the short-to-medium term, something many other companies will not have. (US infrastructure projects may also become more expensive, since the projects won’t be paying competitive, market-rates for their raw goods.)

In terms of international prices for steel and iron, we can expect them to decrease, making other countries’ infrastructure projects more affordable. While many companies will suffer because of the lack access to the US market, many will survive. These companies will be efficient, having weathered a very tough time, and very competitive.

In the long run, preferential treatment to US companies will create inefficiencies in the system, and delay the US’ transition to the new economy.

Two of America’s strongest allies, Japan and Australia, have issued a warning to Washington that this could lead to a retaliatory trade war. And on top of both the macroeconomic risk outlined above, and the damage to relations with important allies, need I also remind you that this is how the Great Depression got started? The Smoot-Hawley Tarrif Act, passed 8 months after the Stock Market Crash, was vigorously opposed by more than a thousand economists, Henry Ford, and the chiefe executive of J.P. Morgan. More than 30 countries lodged formal protests with the Department of State. Is history repeating itself? I hope not, but have fears for the worst.

Prior to Obama being elected, I wrote that his foreign policy “scares me,” referring specifically to North Korea. Vice presidential candidate Biden said that Obama would be “tested” in his first year in office. Kaplan wrote that, if elected, Obama would have to send a message that, “I’m not Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton… I’m not the candidate who had a tepid response to the Russian invasion of Georgia.”

This is all relevant because over here in the Far East, there is intelligence that North Korea is on the brink of firing a ballistic missile, possibly towards Japan, and possibly towards the United States. The goal? Analysts say it is meant to intimidate conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and grab the attention of President Obama.

Before the election, this was Obama’s stance on North Korea, according to CFR:

President-elect Obama advocates for developing an “international coalition” to handle nuclear North Korea, calls the Six-Party Talks “ad hoc,” and says he supports “sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy.” In a September 2008 presidential debate, Obama said a lack of diplomatic engagement with North Korea led the country to significantly increase its nuclear capacity, and said the Bush administration’s eventual reengagement with the regime led to “some progress.”

Within weeks of Pyongyang’s October 2006 nuclear test, Obama appeared on Meet the Press and said the United States had no leverage over North Korea because of Washington’s refusal to hold bilateral negotiations. He also clarified a passage from his book Audacity of Hope (in which he posed the question “Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma?”) and said he did not consider invading the communist country an option to resolving the nuclear issue.

In May 2005, Obama named North Korea as one of the “biggest proliferation challenges we currently face.” Obama has called for the strengthening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea “that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.”

Obama said in September 2008 he believes the United States needs a missile defense system in part because of the nuclear threat North Korea poses.

Pyongyang knows exactly what it is doing. It knows the US watches its activities with spy satellites. It knows there are ROK and Japan intelligence units with sources in the country. It knows that Obama became president on an anti-Bush mandate. And it’s goal here is to act with its typical brinkmanship, and try to get something in exchange. In other words, Obama is being tested—just two weeks after his inauguration.

Marmot expects Pyongyang is trying to push Seoul out of the six party talks (relations between Pyongyang and Seoul are at present pretty darn bad) and push Obama into “bilateral mode.” All this will give Obama the chance to show the world what he means by “sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy.” I had no clue what he was talking about then, and am no closer to understanding how those rules would apply to this situation not that we have a hard fact pattern. And frankly, while I’m no sore loser, I still think McCain had it right.

Because it’s all explained real simple right here.