Do States Ally Against the Leading Global Power?

The latest issue of International Security came yesterday. It's a beauty. I was impressed since a few long-established scholars have articles, and I'm looking forward to reading Helen Milner et al., "The Center Still Holds: Liberal Internationalism Survives." The rest of the selections look great as well, and the timing's perfect since I'm starting up my Fall 2010 World Politics class next week.

Best of all, the lead article from Jack Levy and William Thompson is an instant classic: "Balancing on Land and at Sea: Do States Ally against the Leading Global Power?" I finished reading it Sunday afternoon. My specialty, back in the day, was international theory on balancing and alliances. My 1999 dissertation focused on "under-balancing" in interwar Europe. It's a topic that still gets a good amount of attention in the literature, but I've fallen far behind by this point (and I have no aspirations to jump back into that scholarship for publication). Mostly teaching this stuff nowadays, which I obviously enjoy.

In any case, Levy and Thompson have the most comprehensive review of the research on balancing and alliances that's available. All up to date of course, but going way back as well. (It was amazing to see Inis L. Claude, Jr., Power and International Relations, 1962. One of my undergraduate professors used to joke that he thought it was Claude Inis, and I used the book in my research. Funny how those memories come back.) The central problem for balance of power theory today is its failure to explain why no great power coalition of states has formed to balance the dominant position of the United States in the international system. I always get a kick out of reading the theoretical literature, since its abstracts away from current debates. For example, we keep hearing repeated announcements that the U.S. is declining as the globe's "hegemonic" power --- Glenn Greenwald cheered that possibility the other day --- but there is no new hegemon on the horizon, not even close, so even as the U.S. "declines" the demand for the American provision of international public goods will remain as high as ever. As Levy and Thompson indicate, not only has international theory failed to explain why no balancing formation against the U.S. has emerged, but that the dominant "land-based" explanations in the literature can't explain unrivaled American preponderance in an age of global mastery of the international commons. More specifically, the U.S. is the preeminent ocean-going power in world history, and where previous theories focused on continental land-based great power competition, with the history of European international relations as the central database, America's profile as the preeminent naval power providing security for trade and markets means that traditional causes of balancing behavior may not be applicable to the U.S. case. (There's reduced threat perception among potential adversaris, since the U.S. seeks no territorial conquests at the periphery).

With that, let's hear it from the authors:

Our basic argument is that alliance behavior and other forms of strategic interaction are different in the global system than in continental systems. States’ highest priorities are to provide for their territorial and constitutional integrity. The greatest threats to those interests come from large armies that can cross territorial frontiers, seize and occupy territory, take or destroy resources, depose political leaders, and impose new political structures and social systems. Dominant continental powers devote their resources to building armies that facilitate the defense of their frontiers and the expansion of regional territorial empires. They pose threats to other great powers as well as to less powerful states, and other great powers often respond by forming defensive alliances, building up their own military capabilities, or both.

Maritime powers have smaller armies, fewer capabilities for invading and occupying, and fewer incentives to do so. They pose significantly weaker threats to the territorial integrity of other states, particularly to other great powers, but greater threats to each other than to leading land-based powers. All of this reduces the incentives of land-based powers to balance against the leading global maritime power, even if the maritime leader is considerably stronger than all the rest. Thus, in 1915 Norman Angell addressed the issue of “why the world does not fear British ‘marinism’ and does fear German militarism” by arguing that “‘marinism’ does not encroach on social and political freedom and militarism does.”

Maritime power is not based on navies alone, but also, as Alfred Thayer
Mahan recognized, on economic strength, and the leading sea power is usually the leading economic power in the global system. This is as true of the United States today as it was of Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Indeed, the principal reason maritime powers develop their navies is to protect and expand trade, just as the principal reason land powers develop their armies is to protect and possibly expand territory. Leading sea powers also create international regimes to protect their positions of economic and naval dominance. They have evolved into leading air and space powers since the twentieth century, thereby technologically updating the means by which they control “the commons” so critical to predominance in the global system. Thus the distinction is not just between land-based military power and seabased naval power and the different threats imposed by armies and navies, but even more important, the larger distinction between the threats posed by territorial hegemony over land and people and by economic hegemony over markets. Economic dominance does not necessarily require political control, certainly not over other great powers, as Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher recognized in their concept of the “imperialism of free trade.” Political leaders and their peoples may resent both the lack of fair access to distant resources and markets and poor terms of trade, but these resentments pale in comparison to the threat of physical invasion and imperial dominance posed by land-based hegemons.

Unlike land-based empires, dominance in markets and on the seas does not generally involve infringements on the territorial sovereignty of other leading powers in more developed areas, and sea powers have historically shown little interest in getting involved in territorial disputes on the continent. The classic illustration is Britain. As balance of power theorists have long recognized, Britain’s primary interests lay in expanding its markets and investment opportunities overseas. Its primary interests on the European continent lay not in increasing its power and influence, but only in preventing any single state or combination of states from gaining control of a disproportionate amount of the resources on the continent, which could then provide a basis for challenging Britain’s maritime dominance. This is the classic role of the offshore balancer, which many attribute to the United States with respect to both Europe and Asia in the contemporary system.

Given these differences between the perceived threats associated with naval and economic dominance, on the one hand, and regional territorial hegemony, on the other, we expect high concentrations of land-based military power to generate counterbalancing coalitions of other regional great powers, but we do not expect high concentrations of sea power to have a comparable effect in generating counterbalancing coalitions against the leading global power. In fact, given the public goods often provided by leading economic states, we argue that high concentrations of sea power are likely to be associated with a lower likelihood of balancing by continental great powers, and that great powers are more likely to ally with predominant sea powers than to ally against them. Great powers ally with predominant sea powers to secure military or diplomatic support against threats posed by the dominant land power or another traditional rival, gain economic benefits by associating with the leading economic power and the global system it has helped create, or reap a share of the spoils from being on the winning side of an anticipated war.

Readers can just plug in the United States as the hypothesized model case and you'll get the picture.

The authors take balancing theory to a new level, but simplify it as well (since there's been so many emendations to the main propositions over the years it's kinda ridiculous). Sea power is essentially a whole different class of capabilities, and when a state is both preponderant and benign, counterbalancing alliances are unlikely to form. The empirical tests of this research is innovative and rigorous (including regression analysis.) And I got a kick out the concluding discussion, since Levy and Thompson save a good deal of firepower for Stephen Walt, who is perhaps the most important "realist" scholar working in this literature today, and I respect him much less nowadays, since he's become one of the biggest academic Israel-bashers on the scene.

The article's free to download in PDF, so knock yourself out on some top-flight political science research.

Hiroshima - Nagasaki, August 1945

A haunting documentary, from 1970. The filmmaker, Akira Iwasaki, was Marxist:

Hiroshima, on that day, there was no panic, only ghastly stillness, the quiet of death. People moved slowly along the roads like ghosts covered with dust and ash who fell dead as they walked. By the river people were bleeding from their faces or hands and died without weeping. People trapped under fallen houses called patiently, meekly, "Help, if I may ask." In Hiroshima on that day, half the doctors were killed. At the hospitals between three and ten thousand people came each day for help, and each day, 2,000 of them died. They were buried together, because there were too many to bury separately.

As readers know, I don't doubt for one second that the atomic attacks on Japan were necessary and saved lives. I'm not immune from the sentiments of peace activists, however, especially the Japanese who lived through the holocaust. That said, Amy Goodman interviewed the filmmakers, and as always, it's extremely fascinating to see once more how the United States is portrayed by the communist left as evil incarnate. See, "Film Suppressed: The US Government Hides Hiroshima Nagasaki Footage For Decades."

Billions to Terrorists: Palestinian Corruption and Humanitarian Aid

Via Caroline Glick:

Racial Blackmail Doesn’t Work Anymore

I may have posted this video before. Mostly, I just love John Nolte's discussion, "Dallas Tea Party Hits Back at Janeane Garofalo (and MSNBC) … Hard":

For decades now, we’ve watched lying, sanctimonious, superior, left-wing celebrities step into the political arena to sling their toxic nonsense without ever having to face an opponent. We’ve also watched lying, sanctimonious, superior, left-wing race baiters win the day with an equally toxic divisiveness and the hollow promise of ”just give in on this one and we’ll stop calling you racist.”

Well, no more. We know who we are, we know who the real racists are, we know this president and congress are both stunningly incompetent, and we can’t wait to vote.

So out of ideas is the other side — which is perfectly represented by MSNBC and Garofalo — that the Dallas Tea Party was able to effectively ridicule and expose their breathtaking hypocrisy and intellectual bankruptcy using only their own words.

Racial blackmail doesn’t work anymore. The left is losing the last play in their playbook and in the immortal words of the boss: “You can go to hell.”

Colour My World

Listened to it this morning on The Sound LA. I'd forgotten about it, but according to Wikipedia, "'Colour My World' became a popular 'slow-dance' song at high school proms and university dances during the 1970s." Yep. That pretty much nails it:

As time goes on,
I realize
Just what you mean
To me
And now,
Now that you're near,
Promise your love
That I've waited to share
And dreams
Of our moments together
Color my world with hope of loving you

Activists Rally to Free WikiLeaks Traitor Bradley Manning

Not just any activists, of course. We've got an ANSWER/Code Pink two-fer. For a long time I didn't think they cooperated. Jodi Evans stayed across the street at last October's Afghanistan protest on Wilshire. I didn't ask why, but perhaps she thought even ANSWER was a bit too much. But since Code Pink is known to raise "humanitarian" assistance for terrorists, I guess those distinctions don't matter. Uncle Jimbo was there, so get the inside scoop from the front lines. Obviously, Bradley Manning deserves Jack. All of this by now has blown the lid off of WikiLeaks' "journalism" cover. Maybe one of these days some folks in what used to be known as the objective press might actually side with the good guys on this stuff:

RELATED: "Let's Try Bradley Manning for Treason."

The Muslim Hijacking of Ground Zero

This Ground Zero controversy is shaping up as a defining political and security issue in American politics, timed perfectly for the 9th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I've commented previously at length. It's to the point that folks left and right are talking past each other and it's doubtful a whole lot of additional commentary will win the day with either side. Two of the best analyses were offered by Dan Senor and Thomas Kidd. At bottom is a roundup of opinions. Note though that if the proposed Mega Mosque at Ground Zero is defeated, we can mark it down not so much to the opposition but to the bad faith and dishonesty of the developers themselves. There are two key reports out pointing to a degree of secrecy and deceit that is surprising for a project that's widely touted on the left as about "building bridges." Why lie and obfuscate if this is such a great project, so obviously in the public interest?

The first piece is at New York Post, "Half-baked mosque: Developer owns only part of site." (Via Memeorandum.) The piece notes that Daisy Khan, the wife of mosque-builder and jihad-sponsor Imam Rauf, has denied knowledge that one of the two buildings on location is owned by Con Edison. According to the article, "Rep. Peter King, who opposes the mosque, said the developers seemed to be "operating under false pretenses'."

The second piece, which is even more breathtaking, is Claudia Rosett's at Forbes, "Further Travels of Imam Feisal." As reported by Rossett, Imam Rauf is "about to embark on a nearly month-long swing through the Middle East, with plans to visit Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar." This could well be considered a routine goodwill visit to the region, and not a Persian Gulf fundraising drive for the Ground Zero Mosque. The problem is that Imam Rauf's tour is actually a junket sponsored by the U.S. State Department, and apparently no one at Foggy Bottom wants to talk about it:

At the State Department, which presumably will be spending taxpayer money on Rauf's tour, I have yet to receive confirmation or any other information about his program, despite three days of my repeated requests by phone and e-mail. Apparently it is taking a while for State's Bureau of Public Diplomacy to get "clearance" to release any details of this particular public outreach effort, though Rauf's wife says it has been in the works for months.

All this comes at a moment when Rauf and his partners in New York are preparing to raise $100 million to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero. A Manhattan Landmarks committee gave the necessary approval on Aug. 3 to tear down the old Burlington Coat Factory building already purchased for $4.85 million by a real estate developer partnering with Rauf. That building is so close to Ground Zero that on the morning of the Sept. 11 attacks parts of one of the hijacked planes damaged its roof. On that lot, the Islamic center project is now cleared to roll forward, once the money rolls in.

Rauf's wife is Daisy Khan, now coming under fire for her "ignorance" of Con Ed's half-ownership of Park Place. And Rossett continues on why the State Department tour is problematic:

In May the English-language website of Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Rauf, in a London interview, had said his Islamic center will be financed by donations both from Muslims in the U.S. and from Arab and Islamic countries. Asked recently how this might work in detail, Kahn said she doesn't know; all plans are still in flux while a new entity to handle the Islamic center project "is being formed."

To some of the defenders of this project, such specifics don't matter. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week said he doesn't care where the $100 million comes from; he sees it as none of the government's business. If the only criterion here is that Rauf and his partners comply with the minimum due diligence and disclosure required by law, Bloomberg has a point.

But to a great many Americans, it quite likely does matter where the money comes from. For one thing, there is always the potential for the preferences of big donors to sway the behavior of nonprofit ventures. Countries such as Saudi Arabia are not known for full-throated support of American values and freedoms.

For another, the current uproar over the project is testimony all by itself that to many Americans, the site of the World Trade Center is freighted with symbolism. That may not always register as a matter of law, but it does matter. Ground Zero is both the geographic and symbolic heart of the attacks in which Islamist terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, murdered almost 3,000 Americans.

Of those 19 terrorists, 15 were from Saudi Arabia and two were from the United Arab Emirates; the others were Egyptian and Lebanese. If Rauf wishes to raise money from the part of the world that raised these terrorists, especially from Saudi Arabia or the UAE, then within normal constraints of U.S. law, he is entitled to do so.

But if Rauf's aim is truly, as he says, to build bridges, reach out and promote harmony in America, then punctuating his Ground Zero project with a summer swing past fonts of Islamic oil money seems an odd way to go about it. With emotions rubbed raw among some families of Sept. 11 victims, with arguments boiling over the "bridge-building" project Rauf himself set in motion, it would seem far more fitting for him to spend his time in America, answering, not least, the many questions he has repeatedly deflected about the money.

Damn straight.

It's going to take more reporting like this for these facts to sink in among the jihadi-enabling MSM. These questions are worth investigating, but the debate is completely polarized, just as we saw with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ("the system worked") and Major Nidal Malik Hasan ("he was just, sort of, a religious nut").

Meanwhile, I've borrowed the title of this post from Daniel Greenfield, "The Muslim Hijacking of Ground Zero":

Islam doesn't just hijack planes, it hijacks the things that mean something to people. The great cities of the world are littered with relics of the Muslim occupation of their sacred places. Jerusalem, Delhi, Constantinople and Alexandria all testify to the Muslim predilection for taking over other people's sacred places, and turning them into mosques. It wasn't enough for Muslims to conquer Jerusalem and subjugate its inhabitants. No, they also had to take the holiest place in Judaism and build a mosque on top of it. Similarly it wasn't enough for them to conquer and rename Constantinople, they also had to turn the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. These are not exceptions to the rule. In Asia, the Middle East and Europe, there are numberless examples of the same thing ...

Ground Zero is not only the central point of the Muslim massacre of 3000 people. It is also the central point of the memory of that massacre. The area is the place where people come to remember what happened. To see, to hear and to pay tribute to the dead. Which is exactly why Muslims are determined to hijack it for their own purposes, with a highly visible mosque and their own 9/11 museum that will feature a radically altered version of history. What they are after is the equivalent of putting up a Holocaust Revisionism museum outside the Holocaust museum ...

At Ground Zero, all Americans realized that Islam was an inescapable question that they must grapple with. It is a powerful symbol. And symbols are dangerous. People will fight and die for symbols, as they will not for cold hard facts. It is why the left has tried to hijack it using the IFC. They failed. Now where they failed, the Islamists intend to succeed. And just as the IFC was backed by Bloomberg, so too the Ground Zero mosque is being backed by Bloomberg. It's why the media and liberals are shouting down all criticism of the Ground Zero mosque. Islam and the left both want to suppress the real history of September 11. They want Americans to forget who did it, and instead feed them excuses about "American foreign policy" and of course those omnipresent Jews, who are really to blame for it all ....

The Great Lie told and retold over and over again for the last 9 years, is that Islam was not responsible for 9/11. That lie has been repeated over and over again. It has permeated our culture. It has filled our media. The politicians have echoed it. Books and articles are written that treat it as something every reasonable person understands. Islam had nothing to do with 9/11. Not a damn thing.

The Ground Zero mosque is that lie made flesh. It is that revisionist history given physical form, turned into brick and mortar, steel and cement, raised up to the sky, to look down mockingly on the Ground Zero construction site itself, and the people who come there to reflect and remember. It mocks their memories. It mocks the dead. Its arrogance is the same as that of the Muslim burners of the Great Library of Alexandria, of Hanan Ashrawi claiming there was no Jewish connection to Joseph's Tomb, or Anwar Al-Awlaki, who had advised the 9/11 hijackers, telling reporters after the attacks that Islam opposes terrorism. It is an act of beheading, not of flesh, but of identity. It takes a blade and saws at the neck of a culture, cutting off its head through lies and deceit.

Powerful.

I can't add to that, but see also:

* "Ground Zero Mosque Would Desecrate the Memory of 9/11 Victims."

* "Dishonest Imam Rauf in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar for Ground Zero Mosque Money."

* "A Muslim victim of 9/11: 'Build your mosque somewhere else'."

* "Dershowitz vs. Hanson on the ADL and the Ground Zero Mosque."

* "Why won't the Left defend Christians as fiercely as it defends Muslims?"

RELATED: At NYT (FWIW), "Battles Around Nation Over Proposed Mosques."

The 'N-Word is November' — Black Conservatives at National Press Club

I just picked this up at Villainous Company:

I can't recommend this enough. About 3/4 of the way through I found myself watching with tears running down my face.

They were tears of pride, and oddly, hope. To the extent that there is something called the black community, they should be proud to embrace Americans like these.

That we live in a world that ridicules and demonizes men and women of such caliber strikes me as unbearably sad.

And that's Bob Parks of the National Advisory Council at the second video below:

"I think with the Tea Party, we are going to hear the 'N-word' a lot in the next few weeks and months," Parks said.

"That 'N-word' is November. And I very much look forward to hearing it."

See also, "Journalists Versus Black Conservatives":

This press conference affords us an opportunity to see something pretty rare in today’s liberal-dominated political environment: reporters asking adversarial questions.

Since liberals dominate the executive and legislative branches in 2010, and come pretty close to dominating the judicial branch, most of the “journalistic” activity we get to see in press conferences is softball questions, admiration and adulation from reporters.

But when it’s conservatives facing the questions, get ready for the kind of tough questions legend tells us reporters used to ask as a part of their job.

Get black conservatives at the podium and you’ll see downright hostile questioning. That’s what happened on Aug. 4 when several black Tea Party supporters (including some Tea Party headliners) came together at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. to refute the liberal charges of racism against the Tea Party movement.

The video starts with Joyce Jones of Black Enterprise brought up the discredited claim that Rep. John Lewis was spit on and called racist names at a health care protest in Washington D.C. several months ago. Apparently no dearth of evidence matters when the charge is “racism” against the most powerful political force ever to oppose liberalism.

RTWT.

Deadspin Editor A.J. Daulerio, at Center of Brett Favre Sexting Scandal, First Posted Erin Andrews Peephole Video Links

Robert Stacy McCain reports on the Jenn Sterger allegations, "Female Reporter Claims Brett Favre Sent Her Photos of Himself Masturbating." And CBS News has the background, "Did Brett Favre Send Nude Pix to Model Jenn Sterger?":

Fresh off making headlines for possibly ending his hall of fame career, Brett Favre is suddenly making news for something far more sensational.

According to an article at Deadspin, the quarterback may have sent a slew of graphic photos - namely shots of his private parts - to model Jenn Sterger.

Sterger, who works at the sports show "The Daily Line," allegedly received the images on her phone while she was working as a sideline reporter for the New York Jets in 2008.

Sterger claims Favre, who is married, sent her numerous graphic pictures and flirty voicemails but she rejected his advances.

The report lacks any hard evidence. Deadspin blogger A.J. Daulerio says Sterger didn't want the publicity that the story would fuel. However, she finally agreed to "go on the record with her tales of Favre's creepy cell phone stalking."

Sterger has posed for Maxim and Playboy and wrote a column for Sports Illustrated called "Confessions of a Cowgirl."

No doubt Stacy's raking in the Google in the traffic with his reporting.

What caught my attention is that it's Deadspin's A.J. Daulerio who first broke the story, and apparently Jenn Sterger claims she thought she was speaking off the record about the Brett Fauvre images. See "Deadspin report: Former New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre sent X-rated photos to Jenn Sterger."

Deadspin editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio knew his post about legendary NFL quarterback Brett Favre sending X-rated crotch shots to a sexy TV sports personality would get a lot of hits - but he says he's surprised by the number of critics who say the outrageous sports website crossed an ethical line.

Daulerio reported Wednesday that model, actress and TV host Jenn Sterger told him that Favre had sent her inappropriate and explicit pictures of his himself, but it is not clear that Sterger gave her full consent for Deadspin to use what had previously been an off-the-record account.

"What irks me a little bit is when people put us in the same category as The New York Times or you guys," Daulerio said, referring to the Daily News. "We've run rumors and innuendo from the get-go. That's what we do."

Folks might not remember, but A.J. Daulerio first broke the Erin Andrews nude video scandal in summer 2009. Sports columnist Jason Whitlock hammered Deadspin, "JASON WHITLOCK COMMENTARY: Erin Andrews Nude Video Scandal: Whose Fault?" Daulerio apologized here: "Sometimes This World Is A Horrible Place To Live."

The orginal Deadspin story is here (with Erin Andrew peephole links removed): "ESPN Lawyers Try To Smoke Out Creepy Amateur Peephole Videographer (Update)."

Truman Was Right to Drop Atomic Bomb

From Chuck Sweeny, at the Rockford Register Star:

Friday was “Hiroshima Day,” when people of the peace movement give speeches condemning the Americans who killed 140,000 people when President Truman ordered the A-bomb dropped over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and another 80,000 on Aug. 9, when he OK’d a second bomb released over Nagasaki.

They’re entitled to their opinion. But for me, Friday was “Harry Truman Day.” I am grateful to the “buck stops here” president who saved a million Americans and millions more Japanese by dropping two A-bombs.

Without Truman’s forceful action, I probably would not be here. The day the war ended in the Pacific, Aug. 15, 1945, Fay C. Sweeny, the American lieutenant who would become my father, was on the SS Monterey, a ship of the Matson Line headed to the Philippines from Europe. He had recently finished slogging through France and Germany to help end the “Thousand Year Reich.”

I have the ship’s newsletter framed in my rec room. The headline reads, “War is Over!” Dad wrote the latitude and longitude of the ship’s position when the end came. All on board knew one thing, he told me years later.

They would not have to invade Japan and die.

“Operation Downfall” was planned to start in October 1945. Dad told me the War Department estimated more than 1 million Americans would be killed or wounded. Tens of millions of Japanese would die, for they had vowed to fight to the death. This included civilians committing mass suicide, something U.S. Marines had witnessed on a small scale in their island-hopping campaign in the South Pacific.

That's fascinating. (More at the link.)

Also, from previously, "Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947.

Caroline Glick at Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Synagogue, Baltimore, MD

Caroline Glick is perhaps the very best writer on Israel and Middle East politics:

Rachel Maddow on Breitbart and Fox News

David Letterman and Rachel Maddow demonstrate beautifully how galaxies separate left and right:

RELATED: "The Other Side of Shirley Sherrod."

Newsweek: Don’t Give Readers What They Want

A fabulous essay at Commentary, by Andrew Ferguson:

In early May, on the evening of the day his magazine got shot out from under him, the editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, seeking fellowship, commiseration, and a platform from which he might discourse upon the larger significance of the day’s developments. Discoursing upon larger significances is one of Meacham’s particular gifts. No one was surprised then that he would seek to apply it to the unexpected news that the owner of Newsweek, Donald Graham of the Washington Post Co., was putting the magazine up for sale, with the implication that the place would be shuttered for good unless a buyer was found, and soon.

As Stewart listened, rapt and unusually smirkless, Meacham noted the explosion of journalism now available for free on the Internet. The moral that Meacham drew from this new competition, together with Graham’s announcement, was this: “If you’re not gonna pay for news, then you’re gonna get a different kind of news.” (I’m transcribing his pronunciation of “going to” in honor of his Tennessee twang, which gets folksier as his words get more portentous.)

It was an odd thing for Meacham to say, given his efforts to reposition his magazine in the media universe—to offer, that is, his own kind of “a different kind of news.” His efforts peaked last year, when he unveiled a new business and editorial plan with three main elements. He raised the magazine’s price per issue, to a whopping $6 on newsstands. He cut costs by laying off staff and by letting half his subscribers drop off the rolls. And he recast the magazine’s content for those readers who were stubborn enough to hang on. His newsweekly, he said, would no longer even pretend to offer the traditional summary of the previous week’s events, as it had been doing, with dwindling enthusiasm, for nearly 80 years. Instead, readers would find “argued essays” and “reported narrative ... grounded in original observation and freshly discovered fact.” It would become a “provocative (but not partisan)” magazine of opinion—a liberal magazine written by liberals who didn’t want to admit they were liberals.

This final reinvention of Newsweek left Meacham’s customers with a choice. They could turn to the Web and get “a different kind of news” for free, or they could go to Newsweek and get “a different kind of news” for $6 a week. He seemed startled that so many of them turned out to be skinflints.

To Jon Stewart—still rapt, still unsmirking—Meacham went on to cast Newsweek’s unhappy fate as an “existential crisis,” confusing the consequences of his own terrible business sense with a calamity afflicting the whole country. “Let me say this,” he said, portentousness rising. “I don’t think we’re the only catcher in the rye between democracy and ignorance, but I think we’re one of them, and I don’t think there are that many standing on the edge of that cliff.” Indeed, Newsweek was one of the few “common denominators left in a fragmented world.” And it’s not his fault that the denominator business isn’t what it used to be.

RTWT.

Immigration, Gay Marriage Could Define Elena Kagan's Early Tenure

From David Savage, at Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Washington — This summer, as Elena Kagan quietly moved toward confirmation to the Supreme Court, three major legal disputes took shape that could define her early years.

The justices soon will be called upon to decide whether states like Arizona can enforce immigration laws, whether same-sex couples have a right to marry and whether Americans can be required to buy health insurance. Kagan's record strongly suggests she will vote in favor of federal regulation of immigration and health insurance and vote to oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians.

What is less clear is whether she will be voting with a center-left majority that includes Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, or as liberal dissenter on a court whose five Republican appointees outvote the four Democratic appointees.

Kagan, 50, is the fourth new justice in five years. And for the first time, the high court has three women. But the ideological divide is unlikely to change much.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. form a solid conservative bloc. The liberal bloc includes Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, with Kagan now set to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired at age 90.

In the major cases that divide the court, however, the outcome almost always depends on Kennedy, 74.

Interesting piece. More at the link.

Legalizing Cocaine?

JBW's jonesin' for some kind of debate --- any debate, I guess --- but frankly it seems useless trying to respond to some effete leftist "libertarian" who at most can string together "NANNY STATE", "NANNY STATE", NANNY STATE" until you've had just about enough of that faux intellectualism to last a lifetime. Not only that, JBW's calling for the decriminalization of cocaine, which I can't see how that's going to improve society much. But hey, JBW thinks he knows everything, and apparently that includes all the things I've seen and experienced in my few decades on this Great Green Earth.

That said, just read Sandy Banks' essay at LAT, "The crack epidemic's toxic legacy." Perhaps reducing some of the harsher criminal sentencing guidelines will ease historical racial disparities (putting aside the causes), but Banks isn't going in for full-blown decriminalization, not by a long shot:

As a reporter, I spent more than 20 years covering South Los Angeles, and the impact of drug addiction was a reality I encountered with painful regularity.

Crack's reach was made plain in big, public ways: exploding foster care rolls, rising crime, overloaded emergency rooms, skid row's growing underclass.

But it hurt most to hear the individual stories that documented the drug's societal toll:

From the police officer who took a 9-year-old into custody for stealing food from a liquor store and then found that the boy was trying to feed his three young siblings. Their mom had been out on a drug binge for days.

The teacher who told me about a bright student who dropped out of Jordan High because he was tired of being teased by classmates who bragged that his mother had offered them sex for drugs.

And a social worker who had rescued a 12-year-old girl from a crack house, where she had been traded by her father for a $20 rock.

Those memories came flooding back last month when I visited the street where the accused murderer in the Grim Sleeper cases lived, and then again this week as I read Chris Goffard's skid row series and another story in The Times about the serial killers who stalked South L.A. decades ago.

More than 100 women were killed during a period, 1984-1994, in which at least five serial killers — including Grim Sleeper suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr. — stalked the streets of South Los Angeles, according to our front page story. An addiction to crack cocaine was a common ingredient.

Franklin's elderly neighbor William Harris remembers when the crack epidemic was raging three decades ago and dealers and gangbangers descended on his quiet block along 51st Street near Western Avenue.

Drug buys took place on his front lawn, murders at the apartment building on the corner. You couldn't let your children play outside, he said, or open your windows, even in the heat.

His street looks peaceful now, but the era's collateral damage remains: homes with iron gates and window bars, a converted garage where crack smokers still gather and a void in many homes left by family members — Harris' two grown sons included — who are missing and still lost to drugs.

And there is a new status quo, made evident by the glass crack pipes that are for sale and on display next to the condoms at gas stations and liquor stores.

"It's a cold attitude now, like anything goes," Harris told me. The crime and mayhem have diminished, but what bothers him most is the casual acceptance of petty crime and disrespectful treatment of "young ladies" that the epidemic spawned. "It's changed the way we feel about each other."

And that's a problem that can't be resolved by tweaking jail terms and sending inmates home.

***

Statistics suggest the epidemic has passed. Crime rates, hospital admissions, foster care rolls have all declined. The crack smokers are getting old, winding down or dying. The open-air drug markets are gone, and the rituals have moved inside.

Now, the dealer is less likely to be the gangbanger calling out from the street corner than the young, jobless neighbor who grew up watching his mother cooking crack on the kitchen stove and learned how to hustle to survive.

Crack addiction has proved to be notoriously difficult to dislodge. "There are so many triggers for relapse," said former addict and drug counselor Don Hashima. And there are so few clear paths to redemption for people hurled by addiction to society's margins.

The sentencing changes are a good first step. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the new guidelines should save $42 million over the next five years by reducing the prison population.

Some of that money should go into creating drug abuse programs tailored to the special challenges posed by crack addiction.

But more ought to go into ameliorating the social problems — damaged children, fractured families, overwhelmed schools and social institutions — that will outlast the epidemic and the addicts.

The wave may have crested and passed. Now it's time to take a look at what the tide brought in.

Be sure to check the Times' skid row series as well.

No doubt Mr. "Libertarian" JBW's down with that kind extreme pain, dislocation, and hopelessness as well.

Bill Ayers, Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist, Announces Retirement From University of Illinois at Chicago

The Hot Joints has it, and also Chicago Tribune, "Ayers set to retire from UIC":

For leaders at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the planned retirement from teaching of former Vietnam War-era radical William Ayers will be a great loss.

Never mind that, in hopes of quelling a political storm two years ago, UIC was compelled to release more than 1,000 files detailing the activities of an education reform group that brought together Ayers and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Or that the university was inundated with questions in 2001 after the release of Ayers' memoir, "Fugitive Days," where he wrote about helping with bombings of the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and other government sites.

While controversial and even hated by some, Ayers, who has served as an education professor at UIC since 1987, is celebrated on campus for his academic contributions, particularly in the area of school reforms, said UIC education Dean Vicki Chou.

Ayers was unavailable for comment Thursday. But Chou confirmed Thursday that he will retire at the end of the summer.

RTWT.

Also at Founding Bloggers.

Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947

An update to my post yesterday on the decision to drop the bomb on Japan. Glenn Reynolds' reader Josh Fagan writes:

I read Giangreco’s Hell to Pay recently. I believe it was you who linked to it a while back that made me aware of this book; and what a good book it is. It thoroughly details what it would have taken to invade the jap home islands, and left me wondering whether we could have actually ever forced them to surrender without the additional shock to their regime of using the few atom bombs we had in our arsenal against them.

Maybe give it another plug. This book certainly counters the pervasive anti-American narrative under which we exist.

And that anti-American narrative is powerful, as I've experienced with my students. It gets quite emotional even, I think from the extreme frustration some have in resisting a rational explanation to why we dropped the bomb. In any case, I hadn't heard of the book and I'm putting on my list for birthday presents.

Rule 5 Update

Hat tip to Theo Spark on the bikini babes. It looks like Linkmaster Smith's got some reserve requirements coming up this weekend, so the rest of us have to pick up the slack:

Check out Say Anything Blog for some non-hotness linkage. (Added: Proof Positive cross-posts to Say Anything.)

But as always, look for some wonderful posting at MAinfo. (Today's entry, "My Memories of Marilyn.) And, at The Point of a Gun, "Republican Scandal That's Shocking! Marcela Hoeven Bikini Scandal That Is Scandalous! And Shocking!"

**********

And be sure to visit some of other friends of American Power:

* Another Black Conservative.

* Astute Bloggers (Honorary).

* Blazing Cat Fur.

* Bob Belvedere.

* Cold Fury.

* Classical Liberal.

* Daley Gator.

* Left Coast Rebel.

* Mind Numbed Robot.

* Not a Sheep.

* Paco Enterprises.

* Panhandle Perspective.

* Political Byline.

* POWIP.

* Proof Positive.

* The Other McCain.

* Reaganite Republican (Honorary).

* Right Klik (Honorary).

* Saberpoint (Honorary).

* Serr8d (Honorary).

* Snooper's Report (Honorary).

* Stormbringer.

* Theo Spark.

* TrogloPundit.

* Washington Rebel.

* WyBlog.

BONUS: Don't forget Instapundit.

And drop your link in the comments to be added to the weekly roundups!

Who's Telling the Truth?

Andrew Breitbart on citizens' journalism (via Voting Female):

Single and Looking? Head Over to Post-Prop 8 West Hollywood

Bryan Safi's a riot!

California's Proposition 25 Would Have 'Majority Rule' on Budgets

I just finished up an essay for Pajamas Media on the top-ticket campaigns in California 2010. The piece should go live tomorrow or Monday, and I'll post it at that time. Meanwhile, I'm intrigued by Proposition 25, which would lower the legislative threshold for state budgets to a simple majority vote. The Howard Jarvis folks are squawking that the measure contains built-in hidden tax increases, and I agree that's not good. But we need some change around here. California's government sucks. I doubt either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman will make things any better. I'm interested to see how thing develop at the grassroots. We need structural reforms, so this initiative might be a place to start.

In any case, at Stateline.org:

SACRAMENTO — California’s Democratic and Republican parties both held mock bake sales last month at the Capitol to protest each other’s “half-baked” budget ideas for plugging a $19 billion deficit for the year that began July 1 without a new plan.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has installed a clock outside his office ticking off the days without a budget and the growing size of the deficit, suggested last week he might leave office in January without signing a budget at all.

While this year’s stalemate has provided colorful political theater, late budgets are practically the norm in California. Since 1980, the Legislature has met the June 15 constitutional deadline for sending a budget to the governor only five times. Only ten times has the brokering been done by the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

Many people in Sacramento have come to believe that California’s restrictive budget rules are a big part of the problem. California is one of only three states that requires a supermajority vote of the Legislature to pass a state budget (Arkansas and Rhode Island are the others). In November, voters will weigh in on Proposition 25, a ballot measure that would lower the vote threshold down from two-thirds, so that lawmakers could pass budgets with a simple majority.

Supporters say the change would help California to wrap up its budget process on time and reduce the strain on state workers and contractors who this time of year get to wondering whether they’ll continue to be paid. The current system has “strangled democracy and put the minority party in control of major decisions to manage the system,” says Dennis Smith, secretary-treasurer of the California Federation of Teachers, one of several unions responsible for getting the measure on the ballot. The League of Women Voters of California also endorses Proposition 25.

In addition to changing the budget vote threshold, the measure would dock lawmakers’ pay and daily living allowance for each day the budget is not approved. Supporters insist that the measure would not change California’s constitutional requirement that any new taxes or tax increases pass both houses of the Legislature with a two-thirds vote. But business groups and other opponents say that’s not the case.

A coalition of taxpayers and employers called Stop Hidden Taxes, sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and California Taxpayers’ Association, says Proposition 25 includes “hidden” ways to allow legislators to raise taxes as part of a budget bill with a simple majority vote. “It should come as no surprise that the special interests behind this measure would try to sneak a measure by voters that makes it easier for the state Legislature to raise taxes on Californians,” says Teresa Casazza, president of the California Taxpayers’ Association.

More at the link.

Schwarzenegger: 'Let My People Go'

Arnold delivers teh gays from slavery, at the Sacremento Bee, "Let gays begin marrying, Schwarzenegger urges" (via Memeorandum):

In an extraordinary court filing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked Friday that gay marriages be allowed to resume immediately in California after a federal ruling that the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

The Republican governor filed his brief with U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker before a Friday deadline to submit arguments on whether to continue a stay of Walker's decision against Proposition 8.

"The Administration believes the public interest is best served by permitting the Court's judgment to go into effect, thereby restoring the right of same-sex couples to marry in California," wrote Kenneth C. Mennemeier, an attorney representing Schwarzenegger, in the brief. "Doing so is consistent with California's long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect."

Christopher Hitchens Talks About Cancer

And God too (and he's not religious), on "Anderson Cooper 360":

Left/Islamist Alliance

Via STOP OBAMA 2012:

What Mosque 'Inside' the Pentagon?

For some reason leftists think they've pwned conservative opponents to the Ground Zero Mega Mosque. The title of Think Progress' post is misleading: "Reminder to critics who think a mosque is offensive to the legacy of 9/11: There’s already one at the Pentagon" (via Memeorandum):

In opposing the planned Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City, conservative stalwarts have picked up on right-wing extremists’ paranoid hysteria over the initiative.

Read the whole thing. Think Progress argues that there's a mosque "inside" the Pentagon and cites a Salon essay by Justin Elliot as the source, a post titled, "Why did no one object to the 'Pentagon mosque'?" The only problem is that there is no "mosque" at the Pentagon. Elliot cites Navy imam Chaplain Abuhena Saifulislam in an attempt to smear conservatives as unhinged hypocrites, and then Elliot got picked up by Daily Kos and then finally back over to Think Progress. Elliot's essay at Salon is also illustrated with imagery designed to ridicule some kind of irrational conservative "fears" of Islam:

This at minimum caricatures the views of Ground Zero Mosque opponents, and I'd be too generous to say Think Progress et al. are mostly just dishonest. Elliot links to an article at the Washington Times from 2007, "Pentagon observes Muslim holy month." Notice the key difference in language: The Pentagon "observes" Muslim holy month, which is Ramadan. Thus the context is the Defense Department policy of allowing sectarian services for Muslims at the Pentagon building. And that is a far cry from building a "conquest mosque" at the site where 184 people died on September 11th. The left's false analogy decontextualizes the concerns of those who perished at WTC, those who view the development of a new Islamic center as a victory monument to Islam. Such opposition is strengthened by the fact that Ground Zero Imam Abdul Rauf has ties to the Gaza flotilla and is an ideological spokesman for modern Islamic jihad.

On top of that, it's not like conservatives HAVEN'T objected to the actual construction of Muslim facilities at military installations. Imam Saifulislam, who as far as I can tell is the only Muslim cleric being cited by Salon and Think Progress, was at the center of controversy in 2006 when an "Islamic Prayer Center" was being established at the United States Marine Corps training center at Quantico, Virgina. See, "Taxpayers fund Islamic center: Prayer building on Marine base not really mosque, officials say." And note the key information at the passage:

An announcement that the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Va., has refurbished a building to be used as a prayer room for Muslim soldiers and civilians on base is a "bad signal," one critic has concluded.

The Marines announced earlier this summer that one of the buildings on the base had been repainted so that Muslims would have a place to pray and hold religious services

The new "Islamic Prayer Center" is the first of its kind on a Marine base, and "serves to express the Marine Corps' recognition of diversity among service members and the commitment to provide continued support to all Marines regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender," the base announcement said.

However, Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer said he wonders why the Marines do not seem concerned such facilities might to used to generate anti-American sympathies.

"It's going to go up as part of a testament to American multiculturalism and so on without any indication of the possibility that this could be a source of what we're fighting against," he said. "It just sends a bad signal."

At the dedication ceremony, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England praised the estimated 4,000 Muslims in the U.S. military. Joining him were leaders of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

CAIR describes itself as America's largest Muslim civil liberties group and boasts 32 offices, chapters and affiliates nationwide and in Canada. Its mission, it says, is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

However, CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, identified by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a "front group" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.

"It is sadly ironic and lost on most that the plan to dedicate the prayer center and build a new mosque was approved by military leaders occupying a building that was attacked on 9/11 – the Pentagon – where more than 100 of its occupants were killed on that day," was the conclusion of those at Homelandsecurityus.com, a private security organization.

Justin Elliot and Think Progress might want to revise their posts. Robert Spencer (along with Pamela Geller) is among the leading opponents of the New York Mega Mosque. Thus, not only is there not a "mosque" at the Pentagon, but an earlier initiative to establish a fully designated "Islamic Prayer Center" met with the same kind of opposition that we're now seeing with the Cordoba Center. I'd add as well that the same folks who protest the erection of Islamic victory mosques have stressed repeatedly their respect for freedom of religion. Imam Saifulislam's Pentagon prayer services allow Muslim service-members to worship their faith as fully protected members of America's pluralist religious order. The U.S. did not prohibit Islam after 9/11. And our armies in the field are working with Muslim populations in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world to defeat militant jihadis who kill indiscriminately, regardless of faith.

Mega Mosque opponents are asking Muslim religious leaders to exercise their rights responsibly. No one is attempting to take away those rights.

The essays at Salon, Daily Kos, and Think Progress are simply additional examples of the anti-intellectual smear tactics disguised as "debate" that are found routinely on the left. Just watch. More people will die from this kind of conservative-bashing. Talk about political opportunism. It's pretty sick.

RELATED: At America.gov, "Bangladeshi American Is First Muslim Chaplain in Marine Corps: Abuhena Saifulislam counsels troops from all backgrounds and faiths."

Added: Linked at JustOneMinute, "Geez, It's Almost As If 'The Right' Is Not Reflexively Anti-Muslim."

The Lady Gaga/Katy Perry Boobular Arms Race

From Luke Lewis, "Does Katy Perry really have to strip off to get on the cover of Rolling Stone?"

Lewis says no but I say yes, that is, if Katy Perry wants to compete in the strategic arms race with Lady Gaga. Nudity is mainstream nowadays. The latest cover of Vanity Fair features Gaga nude. Katy Perry was recently featured semi-nude on the cover of Esquire. The first conclusion of course is that this sells magazines — with the prominence of virtually no-holds-barred web publishing, dead-tree magazines are going nuclear to keep up. As for Gaga and Perry, it's a strategic (boobular) arms race, and there's a theory for that:

The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries also developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.

In the boobular arms race neither side has developed a strategy of deterrence, since the threat of mutual assured destruction has yet to appear inevitable at the top-tier of celebrity competition. But as this is an existential superpower rivalry between Gaga and Perry, second-tier stars are hoping for an arms (boobs) reduction treaty to bring the world back from the brink of boobular annihilation.

The superpowers have eschewed strategic restraint (see, "Katy Perry Strips Down for Rolling Stone: Photos From Her Sexy Cover Shoot"), and the danger of a boobular holocaust has forced the issue to the heights of transnational cooperative efforts for reductions in force and norms against boobular violence (see, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women" and "Pornography Is a Civil Rights Issue".)

A Brief History of the Bikini

Via Diana Adams.

Which gives me a chance to post a Katy Perry bikini shot:

Hat Tip: R.S. McCain.

Churchill Ordered UFO Cover-Up?

At Astute Bloggers, "EISENHOWER AND CHURCHILL COVERED UP PHENOMENAL UFO SIGHTING DURING WW2." The link's to the BBC, "Churchill ordered UFO cover-up, National Archives show":

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: "The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.

"But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill's] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid.

"The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people's religious views."

Reports of sightings of UFOs peaked in 1996 in the UK - when science fiction drama The X Files was popular.

I was trying to think of a hefty wisecrack here, but see Brain Fung at Foreign Policy, "Either the tin hats were right all along, or Churchill was as crazy as the rest of 'em." (Via Memeorandum.)

'Green Lantern'

Green Lantern is scheduled for release in June 2011.

Blake Lively stars as Carol Ferris. No doubt she'll heat up the screen (as an aerospace executive at that):

Hat Tip: Tom Cruise.

65 Years After Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima

At Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, "65 years later, survivor of first atomic bomb still has vivid memories":

UPLAND - Sumi Umemoto has no memory of the destruction that descended on her hometown of Hiroshima 65 years ago today. She was just 4 months old, a baby girl born at the dawn of the nuclear age.

Although she never saw the mushroom cloud, she definitely heard about it when she was old enough to understand.

"It was a different kind of bombing," Umemoto said. "That mushroom cloud was something different, and everybody was so scared."

The nightmare lasted long after World War II ended, and Umemoto remembers the aftermath - her blood-stained walls, the post-war hunger and countless checkups by doctors studying the effects of radiation.

Umemoto, now an Upland resident, grew up in a home more than a mile from ground zero. But on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, she was at her grandmother's house, about 20 miles away. Her father and cousin were home and both miraculously survived.
That day, Umemoto and her family became hibakushas, or survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place three days later on Aug. 9.

Hibakushas are entitled to government compensation and health care in Japan. To this day, Umemoto meets with visiting Japanese doctors in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo for physicals on an occasional basis. Her cousin, who suffered severe burns after the bomb, was worried over the stigma of radiation exposure and never applied for hibakusha status.

World leaders, including the U.S. ambassador to Japan, will mark the anniversary in the port city where the American plane dropped a 9,700-pound bomb 65 years ago. The event, claiming some 140,000 lives in the months following the Hiroshima bombing and some 80,000 more after the Nagasaki bombing, led to the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, thus ending the deadliest war in history. It forever changed Japan, bringing a pacifist identity to national discourse and its constitution.

More at the link.

Readers might recall my discussion last weekend of the case study method. (I had shown the opening scenes of "The Paper Chase" during summer school, including the part where Professor Kingsfield discusses the Socratic method). Well, for a time I organized my World Politics classes around case study analysis, and I used Carolyn Rhodes', Pivotal Decisions: Select Cases In Twentieth Century International Politics. One of the best chapters is "The Decision to Drop the Bomb on Japan." A lot of students were overwhelmed by the case studies, and I imagine that's because Rhodes' cases were extremely in-depth and rigorous, and thus required more advanced training than many entry-level students possessed. That said, there were some beefy discussions. I can remember at least one student --- and a couple of others to a lesser degree --- who basically broke down during the discussion of whether the U.S. should have used nuclear weapons to end the war. I mean, really, the discussions were almost traumatizing for some. So while the article above notes that the Japanese are perhaps the world's most pacifist people, especially with regards to nuclear weapons, some the post-'60s cohorts of neo-socialist youth have internalized tremendously strong feelings about this as well. Of course, I don't think such ideological sentiment leads to rigorous thinking, but at least those views are deeply held.

More on this at NYT (FWIW), Kenzaburo Oe, "Hiroshima and the Art of Outrage."