First Strike Capabilities

I agree with Matthew Yglesias' general tenor here, but I find this part strange:

Simply put, a scenario in which the United States possesses an effective ability to shoot down a Russian or Chinese ICBM threat would be completely intolerable in Moscow or Beijing. It would, in effect, give the United States a viable a threat of a nuclear first strike. Neither Russia nor China is going to let that happen. Instead, they'll spend money on building up their nuclear arsenals in order to maintain their deterrent capacity. Thus, at great cost to the Unites States, to Russia, and to China we'll be back at the status quo. But beyond the monetary cost, the large buildup in Chinese nuclear capabilities that would result from this situation would force India to engage in a nuclear build-up of its own. And that, in turn, would force Pakistan to follow suit. This large increase in the global stock of nuclear weapons would, of course, imply an increase in the odds of a nuclear accident or the loss or theft of nuclear material. At the same time, a nuclear buildup of this sort might create incentives for Iran to reinitiate its nuclear weapons research program.

In truth, the U.S. already has massive first strike capabilities against China or Russia (or anybody else), and the U.S. already has started building up and modernizing its nuclear arsenal. Neither Russia nor China responded to this by starting a news arms race; those countries still have too many domestic problems which take priority to spend untold billions on weaponry which would still be decades behind the U.S.

Second, India and Pakistan have their own reasons for building and maintaining a nuclear arsenal which have nothing to do with the U.S. or China, and they will continue to stand-off against each other no matter what we do.

Third, N. Korea and Iran weren't persuaded by calls to nonproliferation in the past, nor were they encouraged to pursue nuclear weaponry because of American expansion of arms. Indeed, their programs were begun and expanded during the period of time when the U.S. was dis-arming.

The Nonproliferation Treaty is essentially dead in the water, and that's a shame. Resuscitating it is possible, with the U.S. and Russia on board, but there's no guarantee that the NPT will have any serious deterrent effect in any case. McCain's policy is overly simplistic and uninspired -- as usual -- but it's not as disastrous as Yglesias is claiming it is.

Medvedev's Rhetoric

He's talking up liberalism and reform, but which emerging leader doesn't? It's nice that he's not merely repeating Putin's lines of defiance, but a great deal of skepticism is still in order.

“Medvedev in this speech and in previous speeches has been enunciating liberal themes, and that’s encouraging,” said Cliff Kupchan, a director at the Eurasia Group, a global risk consulting firm based in Washington and New York.

“But we have to remember that this entire campaign is being run by Putin, and Putinism — broadly meaning a large state role in the economy and an assertive foreign policy — is not going to change soon, because Putin is not going to leave the scene.”

The Return of Price Controls

Daniel Gross notices that price controls have gotten more popular recently, even in non "anti-market" states like Russia, China, and Argentina. Gross' conclusion:

Price controls, food subsidies, greater state control of the economy, a governor named Romney running for president. It seems like 1967, not 2007. And of course, price controls create powerful disincentives for people and companies to invest in the sort of production capacity that could, in time, create the sort of competition that would help bring prices under control. This isn't a good time to invest in a cattle farm in Argentina, a cheese plant in Russia, or a gasoline refinery in China. If the price controls continue much longer, these economies could see the revival of another distressing factor that defined socialist economies in the 20^th century: rationing.

Price controls are always enacted by desperate politicians trying to save their own skin. They are never enacted for economic reasons. For very short periods of time, they can (sort of) work, but this success is always very short-lived. Politicians don't care, because they are usually out of office by the time things get really screwed up. But citizens should care very much, because they always have to live with the aftermath.

It's a shame that these lessons will have to be re-learned. But it appears that that's what's going to happen.