...sudden summits organized outside the scheduled mandatory meetings. To be sure, the current crisis demands intensive cooperation and adjustments on top government levels, but repeated performances by leading politicians on the European stage for the benefit of their domestic publics does not benefit crisis solutions. Vague communiqués at the end of these performances do not contribute to the creation of confidence among Europe’s citizens. As soon became clear, the cold shoulder for the Hungarian prime minister did not just come from the member states of Western Europe, but also from East Europeans who wanted to make it known that they did not appreciate being lumped together with the Hungarians. So, no Iron Curtain or, for that matter, one made of more supple material separating East from West was anywhere to be seen. The Czech premier Mirek Topolanek, European Union president for the first half of 2009, spoke reassuringly about a European Union that very clearly would not leave anyone “in the lurch”. Presidents and prime ministers talked about solidarity, but left it that the need and supply of aid would be evaluated on a case by case basis, and that aid already offered would be re-examined. The conference did highlight...

...of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance to implement precisely those adjustments that the career officials hope can return them to that wonderful status quo that existed before the unpleasant developments of the last ten years. They will not see that the undesirable situation of today has come about through their own half-a-century-old status quo policies. Without any true external supervision, these bureaucrats are not forced to remember that it actually is a policy they are trying to hang on to; something that could be (and ought to be) replaced by new priorities. Whatever went wrong, Japan’s bureaucrats cannot acknowledge that this could have followed from any bureaucratic mistakes. Because they are not required to explain what they are doing, and because self-preservation has consequently become their overriding priority – one equated with the preservation of an orderly society – the most powerful bureaucratic clusters have strengthened their ‘immune systems’ to a point where effective political interference for giving them a new direction would require their partial destruction. [Before the coming to power of the Minshuto no group has] ever emerged with the political wherewithal, the imagination and, especially, the courage to undertake that patriotic action of undoing Yamagata’s legacy....

...members. Keiretsu companies own each other. Power is diffuse to a point where accountability is practically non-existent. The fact that no one is ultimately in charge of the keiretsu clusters, and that no one person or company is ultimately responsible for them, makes them sufficiently amorphous to permit industry-wide bureaucratic guidance. For purposes of industrial policy-making the government bureaucracy and business bureaucracy are completely entangled. Guidance does not emanate directly from government ministries, but is channeled mostly through the intersecting organizational structure of industrial federations. Sometimes dominated by one or a couple of giant corporations, these federations monitor and control all industrial sectors, coordinate production plans in specific sectors, help with collective technology acquisition, and give direction to Japanese industrial development at the highest levels. They can block projects of huge companies for all manner of non-economic reasons. What they decide on behalf of groups of companies has the force of law. Their high officials are usually retired bureaucrats from government agencies in whose bailiwick the association plays a role. Since Japan does not have an independent judiciary, and denial or refusal of membership means virtual exclusion from the economic mainstream, all Japanese companies fall under the extralegal jurisdiction of...

...reduced the national product roughly by half, reduced life expectancy, and vastly increased the suicide rate. Further back in history, before neoliberalism made its appearance, we have the dreadful example of a Germany bled to a point of desiccation that made room for the biggest and most destructive false populist of the 20th century. The political knowledge of the putative experts amounts to next to nothing in situations as the one today. Whereas they may sometimes vehemently disagree with each other about best possible solutions, their approach to the subject stays within ideologically determined conceptual boundaries, and excludes radical policies inspired by the recognition that a new, independent, centrally coordinated and directed European financial system is called for, something that will give the euro a credible political basis, and something that fulfills the implicit promises of protection to those member states that have joined the euro zone. At first sight Japan appears not to belong in the list of areas threatened by an ideologically inspired epidemic. Its economic system is not organized in a way resembling that of the United States or European countries, and is run by a funny kind of capitalism whose incentive structures only partially overlap with...

...the investigation that the opposition in parliament has wanted is not what it is getting. During the parliamentary debate in the week that has just ended, the Social Democrats were meek, but the opposition on the left as well as the right side of the Dutch political spectrum was up in arms. What Balkenende has agreed to comes down to a compromise. The opposition wanted a parliamentary investigation, the most effective weapon available to elected representatives to get to the bottom of a questionable political matter. What they are getting is a commission presided over by a former president of the highest court (W.J.M. Davids), which will produce a report in November. Balkenende says that the current financial crisis demands the utmost from his government, and that his commission will settle the questions over Iraq, which will take away the confusion and unrest. The suspicion is widespread that Balkenende is engaged in a cover-up. The commission is a creature of the the prime minister, and it meets and hears witnesses behind closed doors. A parliamentary investigation, by contrast, is public and hears witnesses under oath. The leftist Social Democrats who agreed to silence about the matter in exchange for a...

...and in uniform, who mostly came to prominence under George W. Bush, have been elaborating counter insurgency theory to put in their handbooks, and to accompany the explanations that come with instructions to field commanders. Known collectively as COIN, this is what is supposed to enable McChrystal to turn things around before Obama begins withdrawing in July 2011. It includes creating things that Afghanistan never had before: A centralized government with a large army to impose its authority. This is to be accomplished through a threefold expansion of the army supposedly loyal to Karzai, and training of an Afghan police force. Also, it calls for economic development assistance, and making the government less corrupt, and seducing Taliban fighters to switch sides, while trying to assassinate those who do not feel like doing that. Oh yes, and it also includes protecting Afghan civilians. This is to be done with 30.000 more soldiers and roughly an equal number of civilian and para-military contractors, who are raking in fortunes and themselves have become an interest group. We must remember that these COIN notions are hatched and launched in the same intellectual ambience in which notions of markets creating spontaneous social order, and democratization...