US Foreign Aid

A high school friend has started a spirited conversation on his Facebook wall with the following statement:

Before our "leaders" in Washington (and I use that term loosely) raise the debt ceiling, here's a thought: Let's stop all the aid money to foreign countries. It's time we kept it for ourselves, at least for awhile.

My response (slightly modified from the original):

I understand [this] sentiment over foreign aid; what he's saying is nothing new. I remember people making the same argument when I first went to college in the early 80s. So I went to the university library to look up the numbers and realized then that the occasional furor over foreign aid was never going to resolve issues with the federal budget. For example, in FY2009 (the last year for numbers that I've seen) total US foreign aid was just under $45 billion. Sounds like a lot. But out of the entire FY 2009 US budget ($3.1 trillion), it makes up only 1.45%. Foreign aid is really the proverbial drop in the bucket, and always has been.

The problem with trying to remove foreign aid is that it magnifies certain problems in other countries and limits the US government's ability to influence foreign policy. Foreign aid is split into two basic categories, military and economic assistance. Remove military assistance, for example, and all those "lily pads" the US military has set up in other countries will be closed by the local governments. Military assistance is often viewed by other countries as a form of rent for the US's military presence in that country. Remove economic assistance and you've begun to destabilize other countries,' economically and socially, often to the US's detriment (e.g., narcotics control and anti-terrorism efforts are classified under foreign aid). Remove any foreign aid, and you've lost a political poker chip, perhaps permanently. Countries won't necessarily do the US's bidding, especially if foreign aid has been removed. (The presence of foreign aid at least acts as a "leash" to help regulate what other countries do.)

Personally, I would prefer to look elsewhere for solutions to solving the budget. For example, the US spent $687 billion on the US military in 2010. The second ranked country, for military expenditure, was China at $114 billion. In fact, the US outspent countries 2 through 21 combined. Secondly, Americans are going to have to realize that US tax rates are low compared to other countries; Americans are under-taxed. According to one economic study, as a percentage of GDP, the US pulled in 25.6% of tax revenues (in 2003), whereas the G7 countries other than the US pulled in 33.9% and the OECD countries other than the G7 countries pulled in 34.7%. If you want the federal government to get its fiscal house in order, you're going to need to pay higher taxes.

[I want to add that I do understand that cutting the US military budget will bring about its own set of consequences, just as cutting the US foreign aid budget would. However, given the size of the military budget's bloat, it's an obvious place to start cutting back. When even the Teabaggers recognize the need to cut back on military spending...]

National Service

Thomas Ricks at Foreign Policy suggests that, instead of re-instituting a military draft, the US government create a three-option national service program:

The military option. You do 18 months of military service. The leaders of the armed forces will kick and moan, but these new conscripts could do a lot of work that currently is outsourced: cutting the grass, cooking the food, taking out the trash, painting the barracks. They would receive minimal pay during their terms of service, but good post-service benefits, such as free tuition at any university in America. If the draftees like the military life, and some will, they could at the end of their terms transfer to the professional force, which would continue to receive higher pay and good benefits. (But we'd also raise the retirement age for the professional force to 30 years of service, rather than 20 as it is now. There is no reason to kick healthy 40-year-olds out of the military and then pay them 40 years of retirement pay.)

The civilian service option. Don't want to go military? Not a problem. We have lots of other jobs at hand. You do two years of them -- be a teacher's aide at a troubled inner-city school, clean up the cities, bring meals to elderly shut-ins. We might even think about how this force could help rebuild the American infrastructure, crumbling after 30 years of neglect. These national service people would receive post-service benefits essentially similar to what military types get now, with tuition aid.

The libertarian opt-out. There is a great tradition of libertarianism in this country, and we honor it. Here, you opt out of the military and civilian service options. You do nothing for Uncle Sam. In return, you ask for nothing from him. For the rest of your life, no tuition aid, no federal guarantees on your mortgage, no Medicare. Anything we can take you out of, we will. But the door remains open -- if you decide at age 50 that you were wrong, fine, come in and drive a general around for a couple of years.
(When The Rich Abandoned America -- and What That Has To Do With Defense)

In general, I don't have a problem with this. Both South Korea and Singapore, where I've lived, have compulsory national service for young men, and in both countries the system seems to work well. (Malaysia also has a national service, but I've gotten the impression that the system may be somewhat dysfunctional. If a national service is implemented it needs to be applicable to everyone; for example, if the above system was used, everyone who is not exempt for certain reasons would have to pick one of the three options.)

South Korea provides for a civilian service in addition to a military service. Those men who chose the civilian service have several options to chose from. The most visible option chosen was that of the police force, in which the young men would work as a foot patrol officer. I also knew a guy who did his civilian service working as a prison officer.

Singapore also has a civilian service in that the men can join either the police force or the civil defense force (fire/ambulance services). The men are also required to continue their service as reservists after their two years of active service until the age of 40 (or 50, depending upon their rank)

Both countries have penalties for not performing national service. In South Korea, I remember a case of a pop musician who had avoided his national service and had left the country to go on tour. When he returned home, he was refused entry back into the country.

The thing that really strikes me about this proposal is that none of it, including the "libertarian opt-out," is really new. Robert Heinlein had his own libertarian opt-out when he wrote Starship Troopers in 1959. In the novel, if a person didn't serve in the military, he was allowed no voice in the running of the government (i.e., through voting). Personally, given the laxity of Americans to vote in elections to begin with, I don't think that penalty goes far enough.

Foreign Policy: Sulfur Mining in Indonesia

Foreign Policy magazine has a very interesting photo essay on sulfur mining at the Indonesian volcano of Kawah Ijen, located on the eastern end of the island of Java.


The crater lake at the bottom of the caldera is so acidic that it can dissolve fingers and clothing. The sulfur is mined for use in cosmetics, gunpowder, and (surprise) anti-acne soap. The miners make a mere pittance of $0.05 for 1 kg (2.2 lbs.), which works out to about $11 per day. However, local farmers make only $1.65 per day, so the lure of "big money" is strong despite the many health problems miners suffer from. Those problems include bloodshot eyes, teeth eroded to stumps due to the acidic conditions, wheezing, allergies, sore stomachs, and damaged knees. Local people and agriculture have also suffered from the sulfuric pollution.

Be sure to view the rest of the photo essay as there are eight other pictures that are of interest.

John Gray: A Shattering Moment in America's Fall From Power

I thought I'd take a few minutes to write up some commentary about John Gray's essay that I posted a few days ago.

In fact, if there is any period of history that recent American history reminds me of, it is that of Louis XIV:

Louis' numerous wars effectively bankrupted the State (though it must also be said that France was able to recover in a matter of years), forcing him to incur large State debts from various financiers and to levy higher taxes on the peasants as the nobility and clergy had exemption from paying these taxes and contributing to public funds. Yet, it must be emphasized that it was the State and not the country which was impoverished.

When John McCain said on September 14th that "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," there is some small truth to that. The ability of the American economy to rebound, pay off its debts, repair its infrastructure, and put its people back to work is strong. But as John Gray points out in his essay, the United States' ability to influence other governments has weakened dramatically. A creditor nation holding the debt of a debtor nation is like a leash on a dog: the creditor nation limits the ability of the debtor nation to do what it wants. The U.S. has long practiced this tactic to its own benefits over the decades (I wrote about this in a term paper when I was working on my MBA), but now a number of nations either have the potential to use the leash on the U.S. (e.g., China and Russia) or feel emboldened to thumb their noses at America (e.g., Venezuela).

The only way out of this situation is for America to pay their debts through lower government spending and (much) higher taxes, and to reverse its current accounts balance from a negative into a positive. "Declaring bankruptcy" by defaulting on its debt is not an option. That, in fact, would be a death sentence for the Republic. America must humble itself by reforming the government and financial sectors away from its predator state greed. This "humbling" is going to be extremely painful economically and politically, but it must be done; the alternative - other nations leading the U.S. where they want America to go - will be even more painful.

From The Guardian:

Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.

You can see it in the way America's dominion has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity. Yet the setback of America's standing at the global level is even more striking. With the nationalization of crucial parts of the financial system, the American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated. In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced the American orthodoxy. China in particular was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are currently going bust. How symbolic yesterday that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.

Despite incessantly urging other countries to adopt its way of doing business, America has always had one economic policy for itself and another for the rest of the world. Throughout the years in which the US was punishing countries that departed from fiscal prudence, it was borrowing on a colossal scale to finance tax cuts and fund its over-stretched military commitments. Now, with federal finances critically dependent on continuing large inflows of foreign capital, it will be the countries that spurned the American model of capitalism that will shape America's economic future.

Which version of the bail out of American financial institutions cobbled up by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is finally adopted is less important than what the bail out means for America's position in the world. The populist rant about greedy banks that is being loudly ventilated in Congress is a distraction from the true causes of the crisis. The dire condition of America's financial markets is the result of American banks operating in a free-for-all environment that these same American legislators created. It is America's political class that, by embracing the dangerously simplistic ideology of deregulation, has responsibility for the present mess.

In present circumstances, an unprecedented expansion of government is the only means of averting a market catastrophe. The consequence, however, will be that America will be even more starkly dependent on the world's new rising powers. The federal government is racking up even larger borrowings, which its creditors may rightly fear will never be repaid. It may well be tempted to inflate these debts away in a surge of inflation that would leave foreign investors with hefty losses. In these circumstances, will the governments of countries that buy large quantities of American bonds, China, the Gulf States and Russia, for example, be ready to continue supporting the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency? Or will these countries see this as an opportunity to tilt the balance of economic power further in their favor? Either way, the control of events is no longer in American hands.

The fate of empires is very often sealed by the interaction of war and debt. That was true of the British Empire, whose finances deteriorated from the First World War onwards, and of the Soviet Union. Defeat in Afghanistan and the economic burden of trying to respond to Reagan's technically flawed but politically extremely effective Star Wars program were vital factors in triggering the Soviet collapse. Despite its insistent exceptionalism, America is no different. The Iraq War and the credit bubble have fatally undermined America's economic primacy. The US will continue to be the world's largest economy for a while longer, but it will be the new rising powers that, once the crisis is over, buy up what remains intact in the wreckage of America's financial system.

There has been a good deal of talk in recent weeks about imminent economic armageddon. In fact, this is far from being the end of capitalism. The frantic scrambling that is going on in Washington marks the passing of only one type of capitalism - the peculiar and highly unstable variety that has existed in America over the last 20 years. This experiment in financial laissez-faire has imploded.While the impact of the collapse will be felt everywhere, the market economies that resisted American-style deregulation will best weather the storm. Britain, which has turned itself into a gigantic hedge fund, but of a kind that lacks the ability to profit from a downturn, is likely to be especially badly hit.

The irony of the post-Cold War period is that the fall of communism was followed by the rise of another utopian ideology. In American and Britain, and to a lesser extent other Western countries, a type of market fundamentalism became the guiding philosophy. The collapse of American power that is underway is the predictable upshot. Like the Soviet collapse, it will have large geopolitical repercussions. An enfeebled economy cannot support America's over-extended military commitments for much longer. Retrenchment is inevitable and it is unlikely to be gradual or well planned.

Meltdowns on the scale we are seeing are not slow-motion events. They are swift and chaotic, with rapidly spreading side-effects. Consider Iraq. The success of the surge, which has been achieved by bribing the Sunnis, while acquiescing in ongoing ethnic cleansing, has produced a condition of relative peace in parts of the country. How long will this last, given that America's current level of expenditure on the war can no longer be sustained?

An American retreat from Iraq will leave Iran the regional victor. How will Saudi Arabia respond? Will military action to forestall Iran acquiring nuclear weapons be less or more likely? China's rulers have so far been silent during the unfolding crisis. Will America's weakness embolden them to assert China's power or will China continue its cautious policy of 'peaceful rise'? At present, none of these questions can be answered with any confidence. What is evident is that power is leaking from the US at an accelerating rate. Georgia showed Russia redrawing the geopolitical map, with America an impotent spectator.

Outside the US, most people have long accepted that the development of new economies that goes with globalization will undermine America's central position in the world. They imagined that this would be a change in America's comparative standing, taking place incrementally over several decades or generations. Today, that looks an increasingly unrealistic assumption.

Having created the conditions that produced history's biggest bubble, America's political leaders appear unable to grasp the magnitude of the dangers the country now faces. Mired in their rancorous culture wars and squabbling among themselves, they seem oblivious to the fact that American global leadership is fast ebbing away. A new world is coming into being almost unnoticed, where America is only one of several great powers, facing an uncertain future it can no longer shape.

HT: Juan Cole

Foreign Policy: Thomas Friedman’s Plan for a Hot, Flat, and Crowded World

One other article I found of interest today, a short interview by Foreign Policy magazine with Tom Friedman, the NY Times columnist and author. Tom is coming out with a new book, and I thought three sections of the interview were worth bringing some more exposure: on American oil "independence" and offshore drilling, on Tom's vision of a "green revolution," and a brief discussion about the possibility of China going green before the U.S. The entire article can be read here.

BTW, that "drill, drill, drill" quotation is a classic: When I hear McCain pounding the table for “drill, drill, drill,” it reminds me of someone pounding the table for IBM Selectric typewriters on the eve of the IT revolution.

Foreign Policy: In his speech to the Democratic National Convention last Thursday, U.S. Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama promised, “In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.” Is that even feasible? Does anyone you talk to believe that’s doable?

Thomas Friedman: Well, if you just talked about oil imports from the Middle East, I think it is feasible. I don’t know exactly how he would want to get there, but I think that it is a feasible goal if you’re just talking about the percentage of our oil that comes from the Middle East.

FP: And what about drilling? Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, his running mate Gov. Sarah Palin, and President George W. Bush are implying that lifting environmental restrictions on drilling is the way to promote energy independence.

TF: Well, I think it’s patent nonsense. No one believes that somehow offshore, there’s enough oil in any near term and even the long term to provide us oil independence. It’s the wrong approach because in a world that’s hot, flat, and crowded, fossil fuels—and particularly crude oil—are going to be expensive and exhausting. Therefore the focus should be on the next great global industry: clean energy technology. When I hear McCain pounding the table for “drill, drill, drill,” it reminds me of someone pounding the table for IBM Selectric typewriters on the eve of the IT revolution.

I’m not against offshore drilling, by the way, because I believe the technology and the safety has improved far beyond where it was back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, even. What I’m against is making it the centerpiece of our energy policy. If all McCain said was, “Let’s drill, but let’s also throw everything into innovating the next generation of clean-energy technologies,” I’d say, “You’ve got it exactly right, pal.”

FP: Your new book is called Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America. What do you mean by a “green revolution” and how do we get there from here?

TF: The green revolution is about how we produce abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons, which are the answer to the big problems we face in the world today. I would point to five problems, and they’re all related: Energy and resource supply and demand, petrodictatorship, climate change, biodiversity loss, and energy poverty. They all have one solution: abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons. The search for and the discovery of a source of those electrons is going to be the next great global industry. And I think the country that mounts a revolution to be the leader of that industry is going to be a country whose standard of living is going to improve, whose respect in the world is going to improve, whose air is going to improve, whose innovation is going to improve, and whose national security is going to improve. That’s what this book is about.
Click Here!

I want a green-energy bubble. I want so many people throwing crazy dollars at every idea, in every garage, that we have 100,000 people trying 100,000 things, five of which might work, and two might be the next green Google. But I don’t want a Manhattan Project of 12 people in Los Alamos. I want it to be like the IT revolution: everyone becoming a programmer. Only in this case, it’s everyone becoming a green innovator. What IT was to the 80s and 90s, ET, energy technology, will be to the early 21st century.

FP: What conditions don’t exist right now that could create this bubble?

TF: Three things. One is a price on carbon, a fixed, durable price signal that says, “Carbon is always going to be this price.” Let’s just use a simple example: We put a floor under the price of crude oil that says, “Oil simply will not fall below $110 a barrel. If it does, we’ll tax it up.”

Second, we need to change the bargain we have with our electric and natural gas power utilities. Your dad was right when he came into your room and you’d left the lights on and he said, “What, do you own stock in the utility company?” He was right, because the more you left your lights on, the more money the utility made. And we need to change that bargain—this is already going on in California—so that utilities are paid by how much energy they help you save, not by how much energy they help you consume.

And third, we need a national renewable portfolio standard that says to every utility, “By 2025, you need to produce 30 percent of your electricity by renewable power: wind, solar, biomass, hydro, you name it.”

...

FP: You went to China for the Olympic Games, and I know you’ve been there many times in the past. Do you think China is serious about going green? Is China going to have a green revolution before the United States does?

TF: Every time I go to China, as I say in the book, it always strikes me that people speak with greater ease and breathe with greater difficulty. As the country grows, it gets more integrated with the world, standards of living rise, and people are able to move more and have more personal freedom. I don’t want to exaggerate it, but clearly it’s a more open place.

So, they speak with greater ease but they breathe with greater difficulty. And that’s a real tension. Right now, if you said, “Tom, snapshot today: Where’s China at? OK, choice: More growth or less pollution?” They’re going to go for more growth. Look what happened after the Olympics. They cleaned up Beijing for two weeks by shutting down factories and limiting driving. But as soon as the Olympics were over, they went back to the old system.

But you’re also getting a transition. You’re getting the birth of wind power and solar companies in China, so they’re seeing the market potential. And you’re seeing the rise of an environmental consciousness. The inertia and the momentum of the old, pure GDP system is much stronger than the green GDP system, but there is now a competition between the two.

China is hiding behind the United States, saying, “If the Americans aren’t going to do it, why should we?” When we move they will move, because we define modernity for them. They’ve copied us: our highways, our cars—the whole thing. And when we change, they will change.

"Monsters to Destroy" - How America Creates Its Own Blowback

An interesting interview with Dr. Thomas Woods on a website I've never visited before (for the obvious reason ;) ). The interview, entitled "Monsters to Destroy: Foreign Policy, Then and Now," looks at how American modern foreign policy (say, from WW1 onwards) has created severe problems (i.e., blowback) for itself by intervening in the affairs of others. What makes matters worse for Americans is that, as one blogger put it, "It’s sad when Osama Bin Laden makes more sense than Americans do." A couple of quotes:

One insight that conservatives have long had is that when you intervene in the domestic market, you always have unintended consequences. Put a price control on milk and make milk less expensive and pretty soon, you'll have shortages, because no one is producing milk anymore and the discounted milk was bought up. That's what happens.

Foreign affairs are even more likely to have unintended consequences. Woodrow Wilson did not intend to exacerbate every existing problem in Europe by intervening in World War I. But that's what he did, and he helped create the fertile soil for the rise of a hyper nationalistic party like the Nazis.

...

In the 1980s, the Ayatollah Khomeini called for a jihad against America, on the grounds that we were degenerate, had filthy movies, our women didn't know their place -- all the reasons that we've been told are the causes of the current attacks. The result was absolutely nothing. No one blew himself up. No one did anything. Khomeini issued the call and there was no interest. It was a total flop -- no one wanted to sacrifice himself on those grounds.

Then the 1990s come along, and we have Osama bin Laden. He does not make that fundamental cultural critique -- obviously, he doesn't like those aspects of American culture, but that wasn't his main critique.

His criticism is actually very specific. He says the U.S. is responsible for propping up police states around the Arab world; exercising undue influence over oil markets; showing undue favoritism toward Israel; supporting countries that oppress their Muslim minorities; basing American troops on the Arabian peninsula, and on and on.

This is the sort of thing he offers as a rationale. So while there may certainly be the potential for Islam to be violent, what sparks that fire? It's the combination of practical grievances and the Islamist ideology. Some people will do battle on behalf of an abstract philosophy, but most people will only fight and die for a specific grievance. For example, when you look at the Al Qaida recruitment tapes, they don't simply quote from the Koran. They actually show images of people killed by U.S. weapons.

Why are they making those tapes if there's no connection between U.S. foreign policy and what the terrorists are doing? It just doesn't make sense.

Some of the comments were also interesting. One man asked, "What about Beirut?" (Meaning, the 1983 bombing of the American and French barracks in Beirut.) One very good response was:

Heeding the advice of then-national security adviser Robert McFarlane, President Ronald Reagan authorized the USS New Jersey to fire long-distance shells into Muslim villages in the Bekaa Valley, killing civilians and convincing Shiite militants that the United States had joined the conflict.

On Oct. 23, 1983, Shiite militants struck back, sending a suicide truck bomber through U.S. security positions and demolishing the high-rise Marine barracks. “When the shells started falling on the Shiites, they assumed the American ‘referee’ had taken sides,” Gen. Colin Powell wrote about the incident in his memoirs, My American Journey.

Antonio Rappa on Oil

I've been reading off and on a book by Antonio L. Rappa entitled Globalization: An Asian Perspective on Modernity and Politics in America (published 2004). Rappa is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Much of what Rappa writes on oil in this passage ties in with what Kevin Phillips wrote in his book, American Theocracy.

I really can't understand why some people earnestly believe that the US is interested in the Middle East for altruistic reasons such as human rights, non-oil trade, or Mediterranean tourism. American troops were not trying to keep the peace in the Sudan, the Republic of Congo, East Timor, or Kashmir. The reason is because these places do not produce sufficient quantities of oil for export to make them sufficiently attractive and worth the trouble of establishing diplomatic relations, economic, social and cultural exchanges, and military assistance. Inasmuch as the US is interested in preventing war from breaking out between China and Taiwan because of the gross amount of investments that it has in both countries, there is a similar reason why the Middle East peace process appears to be a never-ending story. American foreign policy is always dictated by its national interest. And the national interest of the MNCs and Military Industrial Complex that control much of American life is "oil." ... [T]he only reason why the US is so interested in the Middle East is oil. Oil sustains American neoliberal globalization. Let's not pretend it is because of democracy, to protect Israel, to ensure the safety of Americans, or to promote free-trade or world peace. These are only secondary objectives. The US State Department knows full well that without oil, the entire US economy will collapse, and the American Dream will implode. This is a fact. The two Gulf Wars were ostensibly about removing dictators like Saddam Hussein. The Shah of Iran and his troops committed similar atrocities when they were in power (similar to the Russians before glasnost and perestroika; and now that the "Russian mafia" seems to be in charge of many areas, rather than state or the KGB). The real reasons are the oil fields beneath Basra in Southern Iraq. There are three types of crude oil [Basra Regular, Basra Medium, and Basra Heavy] that Saddam and his henchmen hid under the desert. Some analysts say it is between 5-7 per cent of total world production per day. Others say the figures are much higher, perhaps high enough to solve American oil problems for the next quarter of a century. There are also sufficient oil and natural gas reserves in that region to make anyone want to invest in a stable and democratic-loving Iraq.

...

An American national interest in the Middle East or in the Straits of Malacca or in China and Taiwan is really about protecting America and Americans. These and many other places serve as important and strategic locations for ensuring the smooth flow of American goods and services. Let's call a spade a spade. The main reason why America seems to be here, there and everywhere is because it is safeguarding the American way of life, perhaps the American Dream, and certainly not merely for human rights assistance or aid for natural disasters.
- pp. 109-10

What Makes a Muslim Radical?

Interesting, brief survey on the Foreign Policy website by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. The differences between "moderate" Muslims and "radical" Muslims are extremely slight. This doesn't surprise me in the respect that comments aimed at the "radical" Muslims or "Islamists" I often find to be rather offensive and, yes, I do consider myself to be "moderate." Non-Muslims should be much more tactful when talking about Islam and the Muslim world (a point lost on many Americans). The last survey question asked, What else can the West do to improve relations?, I actually agree with both answers.


Ask any foreign-policy expert how the West will know it is winning the war on terror, and the likely response will be, “When the Islamic world rejects radicalism.” But just who are Muslim radicals, and what fuels their fury? Every politician has a theory: Radicals are religious fundamentalists. They are poor. They are full of hopelessness and hate. But those theories are wrong.

Based on a new Gallup World Poll of more than 9,000 interviews in nine Muslim countries, we find that Muslim radicals have more in common with their moderate brethren than is often assumed. If the West wants to reach the extremists, and empower the moderate Muslim majority, it must first recognize who it’s up against.


Religion
Religion an important part of your daily life
Radicals: 92%
Moderates: 91%

Attended religious service in last 7 days
Radicals: 56%
Moderates: 59%*

* Difference is statistically insignificant given the +/- 3% margin of error.

Because terrorists often hijack Islamic precepts for their own ends, pundits and politicians in the West sometimes portray Islam as a religion of terrorism. They often charge that religious fervor triggers radical and violent views. But the data say otherwise: There is no significant difference in religiosity between moderates and radicals. In fact, radicals are no more likely to attend religious services regularly than are moderates.


Education
Primary school or less
Radicals: 23%
Moderates: 34%

Secondary school through university
Radicals: 44%
Moderates: 38%

Income
Low or very low income
Radicals: 22%
Moderates: 31%

Above-average or very high income
Radicals: 25%
Moderates: 21%

It’s no secret that many in the Muslim world suffer from crippling poverty and lack of education. But are radicals any poorer than their fellow Muslims? We found the opposite: There is indeed a key difference between radicals and moderates when it comes to income and education, but it is the radicals who earn more and who stay in school longer.


Where do you expect to be in the next 5 years?
Worse off
Radicals: 7%
Moderates: 7%

Better off
Radicals: 53%
Moderates: 44%

Whenever a suicide bomber completes a deadly mission, the act is often attributed to hopelessness—the inability to find a job, earn a living, or support a family. But the politically radical are not more “hopeless” than the mainstream. More radicals expressed satisfaction with their financial situation and quality of life than their moderate counterparts, and a majority of them expected to be better off in the years to come.


Most admired aspects about the West
Western technology (top response for both groups)
Radicals: 30%
Moderates: 31%

Liberty/Democracy/Freedom of Speech (second-most common response)
Radicals: 22%
Moderates: 22%

The war on terror is premised on a key question: Why do they hate us? The common answer from Washington is that Muslim radicals hate our way of life, our freedom, and our democracy. Not so. Both moderates and radicals in the Muslim world admire the West, in particular its technology, democratic system, and freedom of speech.


What can the West do to improve relations?
Respect Islam (top response for both groups)
Radicals: 39%
Moderates: 36%

What else can the West do to improve relations?
Radicals (Refrain from interfering or imposing its beliefs and policies): 17%
Moderates (Economic development/Jobs): 22%

What, then, separates a Muslim moderate from a Muslim radical? Although almost all Muslims believe the West should show more respect for Islam, radicals are more likely to feel that the West threatens and attempts to control their way of life. Moderates, on the other hand, are more eager to build ties with the West through economic development. This divergence of responses offers policymakers a key opportunity to develop strategies to prevent the moderate mainstream from sliding away, and to check the persuasive power of those who would do us harm.

Note:
Respondents who said 9/11 was unjustified (1 or 2 on a 5-point scale, where 1 is totally unjustified and 5 is completely justified) are classified as moderates. Respondents who said 9/11 was justified (4 or 5 on the same scale) are classified as radicals. The data for this poll were obtained during 2005-06 from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Approximately 1,000 in-home interviews were conducted in each country. The sampling mix of urban and rural areas is the statistical equivalent of surveying each nation’s adult population, with a statistical sampling error rate of +/- 3 percent.

John L. Esposito is professor of religion and international affairs and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Dalia Mogahed is executive director of Muslim studies for the Gallup Organization. They are working on a forthcoming book titled, Can You Hear Me?: Listening to the Voices of a Billion Muslims, to be published by Gallup Press in September 2007.