Slideshow: Cherry Season in Aleppo — The Struggle For Normalcy Amid Civil War

Foreign Policy has another great but sobering slideshow, this time showcasing the plight of Syria’s beleaguered civilians, namely those in its largest and most contested cities, Aleppo. While we’ve heard much about the back-and-forth between the various warring factions, as usual, the fate of those in the middle is somewhat understated (which in some sense is to be expected, given that they’re passive elements in the grand scheme of the war, at least for the time being).

The article’s introduction puts it pretty well:

Aleppo has been under siege for over nine months — ever since the Free Syrian Army (FSA) stormed the city limits in mid-July. More than 94,000have died throughout Syria, and close to 11,000 have died in Aleppo alone. While the international community dawdles and deliberates, while each side fights for the survival of its reality, civilians here must grapple with the fact that their old lives are gone and their future lives are unknown, and that life must somehow go on between now and then.

So people adapt and cope. The blasts of mortars and artillery fire blend into the background, the threat of snipers becomes a reality to grit your teeth through as you walk home, and dark humor seeps into the daily milieu, calming nerves with a white-knuckled laughter that holds tears at bay. Groceries must be bought, money must be made, bellies must be filled, and days must have some sort of meaning.

The reality of a civilian in war is that life must be risked in order to live. Day-to-day acts can become small feats of rebellion. Risking sniper fire on the walk to work becomes not only a testament to human resilience and our ability to adapt, but sometimes a statement: You can take my life, but you can’t take my choice to live it.

I hope this vicious bloodletting ends soon, and to the benefit of the Syrian people. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely for now: the intractable nature of this grinding war of attrition, as well as the growing sectarianism, makes it difficult to imagine that even a relatively pacified Syria will be stable for long.

The World’s Most and Least Racially-Tolerant Countries

A map of the world’s most and least racially-tolerant countries. Read the methodology of the study, and its conclusion, here. The analysis was as follows:

• Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant. People in the survey were most likely to embrace a racially diverse neighbor in the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America. The only real exceptions were oil-rich Venezuela, where income inequality sometimes breaks along racial lines, and the Dominican Republic, perhaps because of its adjacency to troubled Haiti. Scandinavian countries also scored high.

• India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant.In only three of 81 surveyed countries, more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbor of a different race. This included 43.5 percent of Indians, 51.4 percent of Jordanians and an astonishingly high 71.8 percent of Hong Kongers and 71.7 percent of Bangladeshis.

• Wide, interesting variation across Europe. Immigration and national identity are big, touchy issues in much of Europe, where racial make-ups are changing. Though you might expect the richer, better-educated Western European nations to be more tolerant than those in Eastern Europe, that’s not exactly the case. France appeared to be one of the least racially tolerant countries on the continent, with 22.7 percent saying they didn’t want a neighbor of another race. Former Soviet states such as Belarus and Latvia scored as more tolerant than much of Europe. Many in the Balkans, perhaps after years of ethnicity-tinged wars, expressed lower racial tolerance.

• The Middle East not so tolerant. Immigration is also a big issue in this region, particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which often absorb economic migrants from poorer neighbors.

• Racial tolerance low in diverse Asian countries. Nations such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where many racial groups often jockey for influence and have complicated histories with one another, showed more skepticism of diversity. This was also true, to a lesser extent, in China and Kyrgyzstan. There were similar trends in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

• South Korea, not very tolerant, is an outlier. Although the country is rich, well-educated, peaceful and ethnically homogenous – all trends that appear to coincide with racial tolerance – more than one in three South Koreans said they do not want a neighbor of a different race. This may have to do with Korea’s particular view of its own racial-national identity as unique – studied by scholars such as B.R. Myers – and with the influx of Southeast Asian neighbors and the nation’s long-held tensions with Japan.

• Pakistan, remarkably tolerant, also an outlier. Although the country has a number of factors that coincide with racial intolerance – sectarian violence, its location in the least-tolerant region of the world, low economic and human development indices – only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbor of a different race. This would appear to suggest Pakistanis are more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch.

Note that there are many caveats to keep in mind: for example, different societies have different perceptions of race (certain social, religious, and sectarian groups may be perceived unfavorably as distinct races) or may have no concept of race at all. Similarly, there is a difference between actually liking someone of a certain race, and being willing to live near them. Many national surveys from these countries will reveal strong racist attitudes in conjunction with a begrudging ability to tolerate said races.

A Tale of Two Humanitarian Educators

Interestingly, one of these stories takes place in India, and the other in Pakistan, each being reported on within months of each other. Regardless of their location, selfless and innovative ideas like these help give me hope in humanity. I’m short on time, so I’ll let the pictures and their captions speak for themselves. Click the images to link to their original sources (Washington Post and NPR, respectively).

A makeshift school set up under a bridge in New Delhi, India. Run by shop owner Rajesh Kumar, the over 50 students, ages 4 to 14, study everything from basic reading and writing to mathematical concepts like the Pythagorean Theorem. The students sit on foam mats just yards away from an excrement pit, and are taught for over 2 hours.

After decades abroad Saeed Malik (left) returned to his native Pakistan to rectify the poor education system. He remembered talking to a group of boys, 9 to 16 years old, and finding that the majority wanted to be freedom fighters and die as martyrs, because they had nothing else to live for. “And I felt, in what way can we bring these kids back to the beauty of life, to the beauty of future, to be of value to fellow mankind and to themselves and to the country,” he says. “And I started thinking in what way can we help the children.” Malik felt books were the way to broaden children’s minds, to introduce them to a whole world of subjects, and to help build tolerance for others. But he discovered that virtually none of the public schools in and around Islamabad had libraries. Through donations from the UN and private individuals, he founded the Bright Star Mobile Library, which now serves about 2,500 children, providing a range of books in Urdu and English.

We need more stories like this to be known, especially to balance out all the cynicism and negativity that typically captures our attention (and subsequently make up the bulk of our news). Even a flicker of light in the darkness is something to be cherished.

Number 1 Gun Runner

In constant 1990 U.S. dollars. Source: 2012 SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.

In a recent report for International Studies Quarterly, political scientists Paul Midford and Indra de Soysa looked at U.S. and Chinese arms transfers to Africa from 1989 to 2006, using data collected by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. They found no statistical correlation between China and the types of regimes it supplied with weapons, while U.S. arms shipments were slightly negatively correlated with democracy. In plain English, China actually turned out to be less likely to sell weapons to dictators than America was.

“It isn’t that China is there to do good; they’re pursuing their national interest,” Midford says. “But we didn’t find any evidence that they’re trying to spread a ‘Beijing consensus’ or promote regimes that are specifically autocratic.”

The report focuses on Africa, but similar human rights concerns have been raised about U.S. weapons transfers to Persian Gulf autocracies such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, which collectively helped drive a more than 300 percent jump in U.S. arms sales in 2011 amid rising tensions with Iran.

Midford emphasizes that the report is not meant to suggest the United States prefers to sell weapons to dictators. “The U.S. is choosing to support autocrats based on a geopolitical rationale,” Midford says, “as is China.”

Source: Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy.

Prostitution

Reblogged from News on Modern Day Slavery:

Welcome to North Korea

There is little doubt that the regime in North Korea is one of the most odious and evil in human history. The level of cruelty, capriciousness, and sociopathy that characterizes this pseudo-religious totalitarian state is surreal (indeed, I dare say the villainy of NK government is almost Hollywood-worthy in how over-the-top and disturbingly cartoonish it can be).

While the exploits of its bizarre and ruthless leaders –namely the late Kim Jong-il — are well-known and the subject of many pop culture references, there are very few details about what everyday life in the regime is like. What little we know comes from either escapees, satellite images (which have captured the large network of labor camps), and the small coterie of people who manage to visit the notoriously isolationist state. Needless to say, their accounts are profoundly disturbing.

As it turns out, however, there was actually a documentary filmed in the country over a decade ago that managed to portray what conditions were like for average North Koreans. I’m not sure how this rare find managed to go under the radar, especially as it one the International Emmy award for Best Documentary — although I imagine that its release in 2001 was likely overshadowed by bigger events elsewhere in the world, as North Korea has only recently gained its level of notoriety)

Dutch filmmaker Peter Tetteroo and his associate Raymond Feddema spent a week in and around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, where most of the filming takes place. How they managed to get in there, film nearly an hour of intimate footage, and make it out is beyond me (contrary to popular belief, people to visit North Korea, although its exceedingly difficult, and I doubt such filming is allowed).

In any case, this video is well worth your time. Fair warning — it’s probably one of the most disturbing things you’ll see in a while, which I doubt is surprising to anyone.

Everything You Know About the World is a Lie

As a geography enthusiast and self-proclaimed citizen of the world, I have a distinct love of maps, especially those of our planet. It’s hard to pin down exactly what I like about maps — I simply enjoy their aesthetic beauty, in much the same way that one marvels at the inexplicable beauty of art, music, or the natural world (to that end, I have a massive antique-looking map that I paid to have framed, which is placed prominently in my bedroom and which I marvel at every day).

Whatever the case may be, there’s certainly a widespread tendency, perhaps even an intuition, to view maps as utilitarian tools, and to thus treat them as a given. A map, like any tool, is something we assume to be functional and easily accessible, especially in a world of a mass travel and instant information.

In other words, rarely do we question the precision or validity of a map, especially within the classrooms in which we typically first encounter them. Few people look at a map with a critical eye, because, after all, a map is merely a projection of the world; and the world is obviously a real place that we have figured out with great precision, thanks to ubiquitous and advanced satellites and other advanced instruments.

Well, as with most things in life, it’s not that simple. Take for example, the following map, which is perhaps the most commonly encountered one the US.

This familiar classroom staple (at least last I checked) is called Mercator projection. Devised by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, it was developed specifically to assist in sea travels, which is the main reason why it’s been distorted to accommodate the imaginary lines used for navigation. This makes sense, as the first maps of the world were drawn up during the European Age of Exploration, when sea travel was both the main reason and means for mapping the world.

So setting aside the fact that most people don’t realize that this map is terribly inaccurate in its spatial arrangement, how inaccurate is it exactly? Well consider some of the following, courtesy of Wikipedia:

• Greenland takes as much space on the map as Africa, when in reality Africa’s area is 14 times greater and Greenland’s is comparable to Algeria’s alone.
• Alaska takes as much area on the map as Brazil, when Brazil’s area is nearly five times that of Alaska.
• Finland appears with a greater north-south extent than India, although latter’s is greater.
• Antarctica appears as the biggest continent in the world, although it is actually the 5th largest in terms of area.

For this reason, cartographers universally agree that the Mercator projection is ill-suited as a general reference map, although it remains in use for nautical travel. However, this over 500-year-old projection is still ubiquitous across schools and offices, often without the disclaimer about its context and accuracy. Note, I was fortunate to have been informed of its inaccuracy in class (which blew my little mind), although an alternative hadn’t been offered.

Furthermore, a variation of the Mercator has been adopted by nearly all the major online street mapping services (including Bing Maps, OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, and others), not only because it’s familiar, but also because it is apparently well-suited as an interactive world map that can be zoomed seamlessly without much distortion, thanks to Mercator’s emphasis on conformality (e.g. preserving the angles and lines at the obvious expense of landmass and arrangement.

So what’s the alternative? Well, there are several, the best known of which is the Gall-Peters Projection, developed in 1855 and 1973 by two separate individuals:

As you can see, this map shows proportions and sizes much more realistically, with quite the dramatic difference: Africa, for example, is actually twice the size of the US (although Antarctica still looks bigger than it should be). Recall the list of inaccuracies I listed earlier.

Accuracy isn’t the only issue, however: believe it or not, there are political implications to these projections as well: the Mercator map is viewed as being biased towards the mostly wealthy and Westernized Northern Hemisphere, portraying it as bigger and more geographically-central than the predominantly poorer South. To most human minds, the size of something does seem to correlate with its perceived significance (especially to children), and the smallness of already-marginalized parts of the world could be seen as perpetuating this issue (this issue was amusingly featured in an episode of the West Wing, which was probably the first time many people even became aware of its existence).

In any case, the Gall-Peters projection is hardly the only contender — indeed, it’s the subject of much controversy (well, at least among cartographers). The increasingly popular Mollwiede projection, developed in 1805 and popularized in 1857, adds a pseudo-cylindrical shape to the projection developed by Gall-Peters. Then there is the Robinson projection, a personal favorite of mine, and the projection used for the cherished world map in my room. It was devised by Arthur Robinson in 1963 as a compromise between conformality (represented by Mercator) and spatial accuracy (as seen in Gall-Peters), and was adopted by the National Geographic Society for general purpose maps…at least until 1998, when the NGS decided to switch over to the Winkel tripel projection.

The Robinson and Winkel tripel projections, respectively.

Indeed, there are literally dozens of different map projections spanning a variety of types, properties, purposes, and intentions. A personal favorite of my friend, fellow blogger, and geography buff Alex, who writes for Scribbles and Rants, is the Dymaxion or Fuller map. This unusual specimen projects the world onto the surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions, thus displaying Earth’s continents as “one island,” or nearly contiguous land masses. The arrangement heavily disrupts the map in order to preserve shapes and sizes. See for yourself:

Strange but ecumenical.

Ultimately, there really is no such thing as the perfect map, given that each projection is attempting to transplant something that is roughly-spherical into a two-dimensional space. Something will always be lost, which is why most cartographers make a point of warning that rectangular maps shouldn’t be relied upon as an accurate representation of Earth.

In fact, a couple of a decades ago, a number of geographic organizations adopted the following resolution:

WHEREAS, the earth is round with a coordinate system composed entirely of circles, and

WHEREAS, flat world maps are more useful than globe maps, but flattening the globe surface necessarily greatly changes the appearance of Earth’s features and coordinate systems, and

WHEREAS, world maps have a powerful and lasting effect on people’s impressions of the shapes and sizes of lands and seas, their arrangement, and the nature of the coordinate system, and

WHEREAS, frequently seeing a greatly distorted map tends to make it “look right,”

THEREFORE, we strongly urge book and map publishers, the media and government agencies to cease using rectangular world maps for general purposes or artistic displays. Such maps promote serious, erroneous conceptions by severely distorting large sections of the world, by showing the round Earth as having straight edges and sharp corners, by representing most distances and direct routes incorrectly, and by portraying the circular coordinate system as a squared grid. The most widely displayed rectangular world map is the Mercator (in fact a navigational diagram devised for nautical charts), but other rectangular world maps proposed as replacements for the Mercator also display a greatly distorted image of the spherical Earth.

In short, everything you know about the world is a lie. Don’t trust what the maps tell you!

Jokes aside, it’s fascinating  how much goes into something as seemingly mundane and taken-for-granted as maps. I suppose the same can be said of many disciplines and developments. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying such maps should be discarded or banned — it’s all about being cognizant of their flaws and peculiarities. As I noted at the start of the post, there is still something very beautiful about the portrayal of the world.

A Timeline of the Iraq War

Unbeknowst to most Americans, today is the 10th anniversary of the launching of the Iraq War. In recognition of this sober and increasingly forgotten observance, ThinkProgress has published a great timeline of the Iraq War that recounts all of the details of this understated conflict from beginning to end (including its somber consequences).

It’s remarkable how far removed most of us are from that conflict, even a decade later. Even I’ve had to remind myself that it was going on, and technically still lingers in some form or another (as it likely will for some time). Of course, the same amnesia and apathy does not apply to the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who took part (or their families), and especially to the millions of Iraqis who have been killed, maimed, traumatized, and exiled by the subsequent breakdown in society. Needless to say, the social, economic, and political consequences will likely remain both sides of this conflict for generations (albeit in different ways and degrees).

But given that it’s a busy day at work, I’ll keep my own musings brief. Please feel free to share your own reactions, thoughts, and opinions. At the very least, try to (re)familiarize yourself with this dangerously misunderstood and forgotten war.

The World’s Most Prosperous Countries

Measuring the prosperity of entire nations is no easy feat. The amount of data and research required is vast, and there are always concerns about methodology, subjectivity, and even conflicts of interest. Luckily, many different organizations – ranging from think-tanks and institutes, to publications and and nonprofits – have taken up the task, therefore providing us with a rough aggregate to work with.

So while the results will likely always be contentious, they’re likely to be as close to accurate as we’ll ever come (though methods are being improved upon each year). Below are some of the most up-to-date and popular indexes that purport to measure overall prosperity:

Forbes, a prominent business magazine, published a report on the world’s best countries to do business in. Nations were measured in 11 different factors obtained from 9 different sources. The countries are as follows:

1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
3. Hong Kong
4. Singapore
5. Canada
6. Ireland
7. Sweden
8. Norway
9. Finland
10. United Kingdom

The US places 12th, after Australia. This isn’t too bad, but it’s down from 10th place last year. Note how the majority of the countries at the top have such policies as high income taxation, subsidized education, and universal healthcare. The article details how some of them pull if off.

Meanwhile, the Legatum Institute, an international investment organization based in Dubai, has recently published its Prosperity Index for 2012, which is based on 89 different variables analysed across 141 nations around the world. Similar to the Forbes report, its source data includes Gallup World Poll, WTO, World Development Indicators, GDP, World Intellectual Property Organization, UN Human Development Report, World Bank, OECD, and World Values Survey. The 89 variables are grouped into 8 sub-indexes – such as education, health, and governance – which are averaged using equal weights. Their result was as follows:

1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Sweden
4. Australia
5. New Zealand
6. Canada
7. Finland
8. The Netherlands
9. Switzerland
10. Ireland

As in the previous list, the US didn’t do too badly, also ranking 12th place. But arguably, for a country of such tremendous capital, innovation, and technology, we could do better.

Finally, the World Economic Forum has released its Global Competitiveness Report for 2012 to 2013 (in case anyone is wondering, the start of each new year is when all these indexes tend to get published). According to the WEF, the report “assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens. This in turn depends on how productively a country uses available resources. Therefore, the Global Competitiveness Index measures the set of institutions, policies, and factors that set the sustainable current and medium-term levels of economic prosperity.”

The study is quite extensive, being made up of over 110 variables, of which two thirds come from the Executive Opinion Survey, and one third comes from publicly available sources such as the United Nations. The variables are organized into twelve pillars, with each pillar representing an area considered as an important determinant of competitiveness.

Because it seems to prefer dividing countries by quartiles, this list ranks the top 30 (courtesy of Wikipedia).

1.  Switzerland 5.72 (—)
2.  Singapore 5.67 (—)
3.  Finland 5.55 (+1)
4.  Sweden 5.53 (-1)
5.  Netherlands 5.50 (+2)
6.  Germany 5.48 (—)
7.  United States 5.47 (-2)
8.  United Kingdom 5.45 (+2)
9.  Hong Kong 5.41 (+2)
10.  Japan 5.40 (-1)
11.  Qatar 5.38 (+3)
12.  Denmark 5.29 (-4)
13.  Taiwan 5.28 (—)
14.  Canada 5.27 (-2)
15.  Norway 5.27 (+1)
16.  Austria 5.22 (+3)
17.  Belgium 5.21 (-2)
18.  Saudi Arabia 5.19 (+1)
19.  South Korea 5.12 (+5)
20.  Australia 5.12 (—)
21.  France 5.11 (-3)
22.  Luxembourg 5.09 (+1)
23.  New Zealand 5.09 (+2)
24.  United Arab Emirates 5.07 (+3)
25.  Malaysia 5.06 (−4)
26.  Israel 5.02 (-4)
27.  Ireland 4.91 (+2)
28.  Brunei 4.87 (—)
29.  China 4.83 (-3)
30.  Iceland 4.74 (—)

In this case, the US seems to fare much better than in the other reports, and even China – which is usually a slouch in such indexes – does relatively well.  Meanwhile, countries like New Zealand, Australia, and Norway – which had all topped the prior indexes – rank relatively low. Take that as you will.

Finally, there is much-cited Human Development Index, undertaken by the United Nations Development Programme. The HDI is composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices that ranks countries into four tiers of human development. Unfortunately, the 2012 report isn’t available yet, but rather than wait on that, I’ll share 2011 for now. It also works through quartiles, so here are the top 47 out of nearly 200 countries (again, courtesy of Wikipedia):

Norway 0.943 ()  Australia 0.929 ()  Netherlands 0.910  United States 0.910  New Zealand 0.908  Canada 0.908 ()  Ireland 0.908 ()  Liechtenstein 0.905  Germany 0.905 ()  Sweden 0.904  Switzerland 0.903  Japan 0.901 ()  Hong Kong 0.898  Iceland 0.898  South Korea 0.897  Denmark 0.895

Israel 0.888 ()  Belgium 0.886 ()  Austria 0.885 ()  France 0.884 ()  Slovenia 0.884 ()  Finland 0.882 ()  Spain 0.878 ()  Italy 0.874 ()  Luxembourg 0.867 ()  Singapore 0.866 ()  Czech Republic 0.865 ()  United Kingdom 0.863 ()  Greece 0.861 ()  UAE 0.846  Cyprus 0.840 ()  Andorra 0.838 ()

Brunei 0.838 ()  Estonia 0.835 ()  Slovakia 0.834 ()  Malta 0.832 ()  Qatar 0.831 ()  Hungary 0.816 ()  Poland 0.813 ()  Lithuania 0.810 ( 1)  Portugal 0.809 ( 1)  Bahrain 0.806 ()  Latvia 0.805 ()  Chile 0.805 ()  Argentina 0.797 ( 1)  Croatia 0.796 ( 1)  Barbados 0.793

Now, take into account that the standard HDI doesn’t factor in inequality, and the fact that many people in a given country don’t have access to the resources present. Here’s what happens when HDI is adjusted for inequality. The loss in percentage points due to inequality are also noted.

Rank	Country	IHDI	HDI	Loss (%)	Rank change
1	Norway	0.890	0.943	5.6	0
2	Australia	0.856	0.929	7.9	0
3	Sweden	0.851	0.904	5.9	5
4	Netherlands	0.846	0.910	7.0	-1
5	Iceland	0.845	0.898	5.9	5
6	Ireland	0.843	0.908	7.2	0
7	Germany	0.842	0.905	6.9	0
8	Denmark	0.842	0.895	6.0	4
9	Switzerland	0.840	0.903	7.0	0
10	Slovenia	0.837	0.884	5.3	7
11	Finland	0.833	0.882	5.6	7
12	Canada	0.829	0.908	8.7	-7
13	Czech Republic	0.821	0.865	5.0	9
14	Austria	0.820	0.885	7.4	1
15	Belgium	0.819	0.886	7.6	-1
16	France	0.804	0.884	9.1	0
17	Spain	0.799	0.878	8.9	2
18	Luxembourg	0.799	0.867	7.8	3
19	United Kingdom	0.791	0.863	8.4	4
20	Slovakia	0.787	0.834	5.7	7
21	Israel	0.779	0.888	12.3	-8
22	Italy	0.779	0.874	10.9	-2
23	United States	0.771	0.910	15.3	-19
24	Estonia	0.769	0.835	7.9	2
25	Hungary	0.759	0.816	7.0	3
26	Greece	0.756	0.861	12.2	-2
27	Cyprus	0.755	0.840	10.1	-2
28	South Korea	0.749	0.897	16.5	-17
29	Poland	0.734	0.813	9.7	0
30	Lithuania	0.730	0.810	9.8	0
31	Portugal	0.726	0.809	10.2	0
32	Montenegro	0.718	0.771	6.9	7
33	Latvia	0.717	0.805	10.9	-1
34	Serbia	0.694	0.766	9.5	9
35	Belarus	0.693	0.756	8.3	10
36	Romania	0.683	0.781	12.6	1
37	Bulgaria	0.683	0.771	11.4	3
38	Croatia	0.675	0.796	15.1	-3
39	Russia	0.670	0.755	11.3	7
40	Ukraine	0.662	0.729	9.2	14
41	The Bahamas	0.658	0.771	14.7	-3
42	Kazakhstan	0.656	0.745	11.9	5
43	Uruguay	0.654	0.783	16.4	-7
44	Chile	0.652	0.805	19.0	-11
45	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.649	0.733	11.6	7
46	Trinidad and Tobago	0.644	0.760	15.3	-2
47	Argentina	0.641	0.797	19.5	-13

Pretty interesting stuff, eh?

Looking at all these indexes – which are still just a handful of many – what patterns do you see with respect to the countries that typically rank the highest? What characteristics do they generally have in common?

Ten Great Foreign Policy Questions We Won’t Hear in Tonight’s Debate

Stephen Walt of Foreign Policy lists some great debate questions that any would-be president should be thinking about, given that they are of vital interest to both the United States the entire world.  They are the following.

 Mr. President, Governor Romney:

1. You have both pledged to end the war in Afghanistan by 2014. But the Taliban has not been defeated, there are no peace negotiations underway, the Afghan army remains unreliable, attacks on U.S. and NATO forces by Afghan soldiers have been increasing, and the Karzai government is still corrupt and ineffective. Given these realities, was the decision to send nearly 50,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009 a mistake? What could we have done instead, to avoid the current situation?

2. Gentlemen: Neither of you ever served in the U.S. military. Governor Romney, you have five grown sons, and none of them has ever served either. President Obama, you have two daughters, one of whom will be eligible to enlist in four years. Have either of you ever encouraged your children to serve our nation by enlisting in the armed forces? If not, why not?

3. Both of you claim to support a “two-state” solution between Israel and the Palestinians. But since the last election, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has increased by more than 25,000 and now exceeds half-million people. If continued settlement growth makes a two-state solution impossible, what should United States do? Would you encourage Israel to allow “one-person, one-vote” without regard to religion or ethnicity — as we do here in the United States — or would you support denying Palestinians under Israeli control in Gaza and the West Bank full political rights?

4. Gentlemen: Is the United States doing enough, too little, or too much to address the threat of climate change? If you are the next president, what specific actions will you take to deal with this problem?

(Follow up: Both of you favor increased domestic energy production through new technologies such as hydraulic fracking.  But won’t lower energy prices just encourage greater reliance on fossil fuels and make the climate change problem worse?)

5. Governor Romney, President Obama: Do you agree with former president George W. Bush’s claim that terrorists want to attack America because they “hate our values?” Do you think some terrorists hate us because they angered by what they see as illegitimate U.S. interference in their own countries?

6. Do you believe Japan has a valid claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands? If the current dispute between China and Japan leads to a military confrontation, what would you do?

7. Both of you are men of faith, and your religions both teach that all humans are fallible. If so, then U.S. leaders must have made mistakes in their handling of foreign policy, and maybe even committed acts that were unjustifiable and wrong. Are there any other societies who have valid reason to be angry about what we have done to them? If so, how should we try to make amends?

8. The United States has the world’s strongest conventional forces and no powerful enemies near its shores. It has allies all over the world, and military bases on every continent. Yet the United States also keeps thousands of nuclear weapons at the ready to deter hostile attack.

Iran is much weaker than we are, and it has many rivals near its borders. Many U.S. politicians have called for the overthrow of its government. Three close neighbors have nuclear weapons: Pakistan, India, and Israel. If having nuclear weapons makes sense for the United States, doesn’t it make sense for Iran too? And won’t threatening Iran with an attack just make them want a deterrent even more?

(Follow up: You both believe all options should be “on the table” with Iran, including the use of military force. Would you order an attack on Iran without U.N. Security Council authorization? How would this decision to launch an unprovoked attack be different from Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941?

And finally, an individual question for each candidate:

9. Governor Romney, when you visited Great Britain last summer, you were criticized for saying that there were a number of “disconcerting things” about Britain’s management of the Games. Yet the Games turned out to be a splendid success. How did you get this one so wrong?

10. President Obama: if you could go back to 2009 and begin your term over, what one foreign policy decision would you like to take back?

Sadly, it’s unlikely any of these issues will be raised, due the typically vacuous and PR-focused nature of presidential debate. That’s as much the fault of the American people as it is the media spinsters and politicians. After all, how many average citizens take a sincere interest in these topics? How many of them bother to learn anything about them?

Granted, the economy is understandably the central concern on everyone’s mind. But we’ve always been a rather insular society, with negligible cultural penetration from overseas and little interest in what goes on outside our borders (despite the global ubiquity of American culture, and a long history of foreign intervention around the world, the overwhelmingly majority of Americans don’t even have passports).

There are many complex reasons for this psychological and cultural isolation, including the fact that we’re so large a country – both geographically and demographically – that we feel like a world onto ourselves. But ultimately, if our government, often with our tacit or explicit consent, is going to be deeply involved in various foreign affairs, we’ve got the responsibility to at least be informed about it – and to hold our leaders accountable.