There's an old joke that Chris Rock used to make-- since he bought a gun, he doesn't need to work out anymore.

Same goes for the Gulf Arab oil kingdoms. No need to build a real army (they might launch a coup) - just go buy a bunch of fancy weapons from the Americans. They're fun to play with, and it makes them feel secure. And if there's any real problem, the Americans will be there in a jiffy, a la Kuwait circa 1991.

Check out FP.com's photo essay here.

Money quote:

For Beijing, business is not about business -- it is about politics. This is clear from the way Beijing treats both domestic and foreign businesses. China initially welcomed foreign investment because the ruling Chinese Communist Party desperately needed capital, technology and management expertise to revive China’s moribund economy in the wake of the disastrous Cultural Revolution. In their political calculations, private Western capital was preferable to private domestic capital because a strong indigenous business community might have the potential to support social and political forces that would challenge the rule of the party. As a result, Beijing has treated foreign capital much more generously than the domestic private sector. Many important sectors, such as banking, financial services, petrochemicals, energy exploration and automobile production were opened to foreign investors but not to domestic private firms.

While favouring foreign capital over private domestic capital, Beijing has also maintained its bottom-line: it will not allow foreign firms to control and establish a significant presence in what it considers strategic sectors, such as telecom services, banking (foreigners are passive minority investors at best) and energy.  Above all, no private capital -- foreign or otherwise -- is to be allowed into the sector most critical to regime security: the media. 

Today, flush with $2.3 trillion in hard currency, China no longer has the same need of foreign capital and its government has readjusted its economic policy accordingly. Because state-owned enterprises are both national champions and political patronage machines (the Communist Party can reward its loyalists with lucrative appointments in these state-owned firms), Beijing’s policy now clearly favours them over both domestic and foreign capital.

As for Google, it has committed a double offense. Its search technology poses a clear and present threat to the party’s regime security, while its capacity to dominate the Internet search business would deprive China of its own national champion, Baidu (which, although a private business, is easier to control).

“The regime in Beijing is more stable than any alternative government that can be formed in China. Let us assume that the students had carried the day in Tiananmen [Square] and they had formed a government . . . What kind of China would they have today? Something worse than the Soviet Union. China is a vast disparate country;there is no alternative to strong central power.”

– Lee Kuan Yew, First Prime Minister of Singapore

The Asian economies are moving from a capital and labor intensive industrial phase into an information and technology intensive one. Many experts have acknowledged that this new economic world requires guaranteed freedom of information and creativity. These things are possible only in a democratic society. Thus Asia has no practical alternative to democracy; it is a matter of survival in an age of intensifying competition. The world economy’s changes have already meant a greater and easier flow of information, which has helped Asia’s democratization process.”

- Kim Dae Jung, former President of South Korea

Azar Gat, Foreign Affairs (June 2007)

Money Quote:

"China and Russia represent a return of economically successful authoritarian capitalist powers, which have been absent since the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945, but they are much larger than the latter two countries ever were. Although Germany was only a medium-sized country uncomfortably squeezed at the center of Europe, it twice nearly broke out of its confines to become a true world power on account of its economic and military might. In 1941, Japan was still behind the leading great powers in terms of economic development, but its growth rate since 1913 had been the highest in the world.

Ultimately, however, both Germany and Japan were too small -- in terms of population, resources, and potential -- to take on the United States. Present-day China, on the other hand, is the largest player in the international system in terms of population and is experiencing spectacular economic growth. By shifting from communism to capitalism, China has switched to a far more efficient brand of authoritarianism. As China rapidly narrows the economic gap with the developed world, the possibility looms that it will become a true authoritarian superpower."

Transparency International recently released its annual Corruption Perception Index. You can access the full report here and an interactive corruption map here.

The Bottom Five Most Corrupt Countries:

176 (tie). Iraq
176 (tie). Sudan
178. Myanmar
179. Afghanistan
180. Somalia

The Top Five Least Corrupt Countries:

1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
3 (tie). Singapore
3 (tie). Sweden
5. Switzerland

Update: The BBC recently published an extremely interesting article on corruption in Afghanistan. Money quote:

"The Bertelsmann Foundation, one of the sources for the conclusions of Transparency International, said: 'Corruption is endemic to all state functions (police, judiciary) and is seen as a usual form of business transaction; even ministers were involved in land grabs. Corruption is additionally interlinked with the opium business. Thus, bribery is invested on a massive scale to undermine efforts against the drug economy.'"
Read the full article here.

It is clear that the recent Afghanistan election was marred by rampant fraud. The entire purpose of having an election in Afghanistan was to reestablish the government's legitimacy in advance of a renewed counter-insurgency campaign. Instead, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, aware that his support was dwindling, stuffed ballot boxes in order to guarantee victory.  Instead of renewing the current regime's legitimacy, he undercut it further.  Thus, for American interests, the election was a complete failure.

In many ways, this is symptomatic of a larger problem.  It is ridiculous to have a national election where the central authority only has control over the northern section of the country.  The rest of Afghanistan is controlled by the a mixture of the Taliban and assorted warlords (with no clear line separating these two "groups").  In such a situation, what else can a leader do but cut deals with local warlords?  Without functioning tools of government, Karzai has to rely on the most base institution: patronage. And it is a short and easy descent from buying warlords to stuffing ballot boxes (if it is a descent at all).

Titu Maiorescu, the brilliant Romanian statesman and literary critic, described a similar situation in his home country at the turn of the 20th century. 

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