Can an organization such as Daesh (aka ISIS, ISIL) actually be legitimate? If you subscribe to the school of thought on legitimacy that says it is a subjective social phenomena (in the eyes of the beholder) versus a normative concept, then yes it is possible. Some otherwise nasty and brutish regimes have legitimated their power to their followers and risen to rule for lengthy periods of time and withstood powerful rivals to do so. The importance for a political actor (i.e., a state or non-state actor like Daesh) is that legitimation of its power produces resilience of the regime. Legitimated powers can ‘take a licking and keep on ticking’ at a relatively lower cost in resources. But legitimating one’s power takes positive and costly actions in what you say, what you do and what you produce for the polity. Positive actions are the words, actions or outcomes that the actor says, does or delivers. Costly positive actions are ultimately about limiting the dominant actor’s power in some meaningful and lasting way – the subordinate party wants to be sure the dominant party isn’t a tyrant-in-waiting.

Earning the right to rule versus seizing it and maintaining it via coercion or payoffs for cooperation takes a relatively longer time to execute but is a more economic form of rule and a more stable form of rule. There are three basic conditions that need to be present for an organization to legitimate its power and, as a result, earn the right to rule. The acquisition, exercise and transfer of power is legitimated when it is conforms to society’s body of rules for governing social interaction; that these rules are justified by the shared beliefs of that society; and, finally, that these are subject to some form of consent of the governed. None of these conditions requires Jeffersonian democracy to be true. Tribal laws and customs, for example, have also served as the basis for justifying the rules of society for certain complex societies.

Legitimating power is a conscious and strategic set of actions by the political actor. It takes more substantive actions and it takes time. Some otherwise thoughtful writers have tended to conflate the notion of private outcomes (e.g., victory in combat), good marketing (e.g., appearing to govern) or the oppressive acts of a rival organization or state (Maliki in Iraq and Assad in Syria) with the positive and costly actions of an organization that is legitimating its power. Daesh is not legitimated because the Iraqi state is oppressing Sunnis. Daesh is not legitimated because it ‘appears to govern’ in Mosul and Raqqa. Daesh is not legitimated because it captured Mosul and continues to harass many cities in northern Iraq. Daesh is not legitimated because it has announced affiliates in the Sinai, Libya or Yemen.

Daesh seized control of territory in northern Iraq and eastern Syria through a combination of deception (in Syria while recovering from the US/Iraqi counter force actions in 2008-2011), brutal coercive force (2013 in Syria vs. al Nusra and other rebel forces and Iraq in 2014-2015) and, self-interested exchanges with local tribal forces in Iraq (2014-2015). None of this – including any military competencies that they exhibit – constitutes a legitimated power. If recent assessments about the ultimate goals of Daesh are directionally accurate, the organization has little or no intention of seeking to legitimate its power to any constituents other than those that are already committed to the apocalyptic vision it has for the future of the world.

Daesh has provoked the majority of the Middle Eastern region to bring counterforce against it. It is still hard to imagine Iran cooperating with the US and local Sunni-dominated regimes to defeat this organization (even if there are coalition members who continue to undermine the ultimate purpose of this coalition). Even Iraqi Sunnis who may have harbored the notion that Daesh was a lesser evil than the post-2003 era of Shia ascendance, now seem to be concluding that was a bad decision. Daesh is an illegitimate power and will fail because it has not made the positive and costly actions to produce the organizational resilience that is the product of power legitimation.

In the US, the ruling crisis in the Ukraine has triggered a series of accusations against the Obama administration from its political rivals– once again, the lack of resolve of the Obama Administration to use the considerable power of the US to deter aggression is destabilizing world order and damaging the reputation of the USA as a world leader. As House Intelligence Committee chairman, Mike Rogers, recently said: “I think Putin is playing chess and I think we’re playing marbles.” To some, the handling of the Ukraine matter is just one in a long line of missteps or appeasements to tyrants that, in comparison, makes Jimmy Carter look like a veritable strong man. Given the potential importance of how others in the international system perceive the words and actions of the leaders of the US, I want to take closer look at the evidence underlying a few competing hypotheses on what best explains the causes of the current crisis in the Ukraine. Do the causes lie in the weak resolve of the Obama administration? That is, are the current aggressive actions of tyrants a function Obama’s failures to clearly deter their prior aggression? Or are the likes of Putin, Assad and the Iranian leadership simply irrational actors who are unable to be deterred short of war; i.e., ‘playground bullies’ only know one response – equal and opposing force? Or are there structural forces at work that involve the inevitable balancing of power in the international system that any one country – even a superpower – can only hope to limit its worst effects?

Any one or more of these hypotheses could be in play all at the same time but for analytic purposes I think it is helpful to pull them apart to better understand how the real causal mechanisms are at work. I see the world – and especially great power politics in the 21^st century – not as black and white as some Athenians did in the 5^th century BC. There are a variety of lenses through which one can translate the inner workings of the international system and neorealism is but one of them. There are others that account for the role of ideas and international institutions as well as mankind’s primal nature. Consequently, I am inherently suspicious of the Manichean and often reductionist claims of self-interested politicians who seek to maintain or gain political office. While there is always a kernel of truth in what they may offer as an apparently convincing argument, I am concerned that they do not pay enough attention to the pitfalls of their own confirmation bias. You are hereby invited to check me on that in these and any other posts. Silly of me perhaps, but I actually believe that there is an objective truth out there somewhere.

Approach – Multiple Posts

Over the course of a few posts I will lay out three hypotheses and then unpack some findings (albeit fewer at this time) for each and, in the final post, I will attempt to draw some conclusions based on the overall available evidence. This analysis is done from the viewpoint of a political scientist versus an individual voter or political strategist for a candidate in the 2016 presidential election. I realize that some of the statements being made in the media are motivated by the political aspirations of candidates and/or a desire to demonize an enemy and deflect blame for any actual or perceived policy mistakes. I am less interested in that conversation than I am about the underlying causal mechanisms at work as it relates to the political science of international relations. What can we learn from this set of experiences that can better explain the true causes of Russia/Putin’s actions?

Hypothesis 1: The ‘Wages of Weakness’[1]

The first hypothesis states that the primary explanations for the aggressive actions of Putin in the Crimea are to be found in the weaknesses of Obama and his administration. As Rumsfeld once said: “Weakness is provocative.” Obama’s naïve sense of how the Hobbesian world of geopolitics really works has led him to foolishly appease known aggressors such as Putin and Assad and made the world less safe for itself, its allies and democracy in general. Hard-nosed authoritarians like Putin and Assad have taken his measure and see him as indecisive and lacking the resolve to bargain hard or ‘stand and fight’ for important ideas and long-term allies. They perceive that he is both easily duped by ‘cheap talk’ and, based on his actions/inactions, lacks the resolve to back up his commitments to aid his allies or to forcibly respond to breaches of key international norms or agreements (e.g., the use of chemical weapons in Syria) or how to deal with revisionist powers like Iran as it maneuvers its way to becoming a nuclear power. The authoritarian leaders translate these signals and perceive Obama and the US as ‘all hat and no cattle’.

A good example of those that line up with this hypothesis include notable Republican Senators (McConnell, McCain, Rubio, Cruz) and prominent public intellectuals such as Charles Krauthammer who has been one of Obama’s more stern and persistent critics. He is proponent of the neorealist school of thought in international relations. Along with John Mearsheimer, I see Krauthammer as one of the primary spokesman for the role of realpolitik in the conduct of international affairs.[2] Krauthammer recently noted that the ‘wages of weakness’ of the Obama administration is what allowed Putin to be so bold as to invade and occupy the Crimea within days of the collapse of the Yanukovych government. Krauthammer specifies a set of missteps that the Obama administration has made since 2009 that demonstrate the weakness and lack of resolve by the President  – and which, he believes, led to Putin’s aggressive actions in the Ukraine. Lets take a look at a couple of the more compelling data points in the Krauthammer piece see if there is any credible alternative explanation to the way that Obama’s critics have framed them.

Missile Shields

One of the more important pieces of evidence cited by Krauthammer and others involves the unilateral concessions by Obama on the ballistic missile shield agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic in 2009. To get a sense for the context of that decision I read Robert Gate’s[3] account of it in his recent book, Duty as well as a few other relevant sources that address the current status of missile defense in the EU. Gates is widely known as a hardliner when it comes to Russia and the former USSR but in 2007/2008 he saw the relationship with Russia as ‘badly managed’ since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. He viewed the absorption of many of the former Soviet countries into NATO on the heels of German reunification as unnecessarily provocative and dangerously dismissive of a weakened but proud old foe (more on that in the discussion of hypothesis 3 later). From what I can tell, Gates and other reasonable people disagreed at the time about the viability and wisdom of many aspects of the anti-missile agreements, including the commitment of the Polish and Czech governments to what the US was willing to offer. Apparently the Polish government was in a losing battle domestically with regards to the anti-missile deployment – the country was split on wanting it. This emboldened the Poles to ask for more than the Bush government was willing to give in security capabilities. Gates summarized the state of negotiations with the Poles and Czechs as: “Our presumptive partners for missile defense in Europe were stiff-arming us” (Gates 2014: 153 – 167).  The nature of the interceptors contemplated at the time would have been relatively useless against Russian missiles because they were to be geared for interception of Iranian weapons that would be detectable due to launches from greater distances (the Russians didn’t believe that story then or now – any anti-missile systems in eastern Europe were presumed to be there to weaken the Russian arsenal). As it turns out, however, it appears that the US maintained its commitments to the missile shield but in a different form and one that may have even been more stabilizing from a diplomatic standpoint. I am not a weapons expert but based on what I have read so far, the security commitment to Europe is intact with respect to the missile shields envisioned in 2008/2009 and there is chatter that suggests Russia believes the Iran narrative was a feint by the Obama administration to divert Russian attention. But who knows? And that is the point. There are all kinds of feints and disinformation that cloud the ability of any government actor to accurately perceive the intentions of any other government actor. The study of perception and misperception of signals was a Cold War staple. Political scientists have tried to understand how that phenomenon actually operates for decades[4] – given all the ‘snowflakes of data’ floating around, it can often be hard to tell the signal from the noise.

From my point of view, I also believe that it is appropriate and reasonable for a government to debate threat priorities (e.g., are Iran’s ballistic missiles more of a threat to us/our allies than Russia’s?) and place its scarce resources where it best meets the need. There are, of course, politics involved. It seems that Obama wanted to lower the appearance of a Cold War for a variety of reasons that include politics, economics and military logic (which sounds less like marbles and more like three-dimensional chess). The former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, seems to believe that Putin and the Russian leadership are ‘menaced’ by Obama and the EU – they see the nefarious meddling hand of the West – and maybe even more so the US[5] – successfully prying away the Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence. We can argue with the choices made by the government but, based on the limited evidence I have gathered (there is always more that could shift the conclusions) the argument would be less about Obama’s appeasement of the Russians and more about where you want to place your long term missile shield bets. This seems to be more about the limits of defense spending along with a differing set of views about where the greatest threats lie.

Cuts in Defense

Another important piece of evidence that is used to support this hypothesis is the Obama administration’s proposed dramatic cuts in the defense budget while Iran, China and Russia double down on their military investments. After a decade of war and pressing domestic challenges this is not necessarily a surprising development. In fact, given the commitment to a more technology-based approach vs. personnel-based approach for US security forces this may be the best outcome for the military. The paring of the US Army budgets at the expense of the other branches has been a long-term process since the advent of nuclear weapons. Tank battles are fewer and further between. Land wars with massive armies of occupation are fewer and further between. We will find out if this is the right move when we fight the next war. In the meantime, the reduction in military spending is inevitable – especially as it relates to personnel related costs (including training). It seems to me that our enemies would be hard-pressed to translate the new budget (still orders of magnitude larger than all of our rivals combined) as a lack of resolve. I am not sure where this will end up but the various chiefs of the military branches are masters at managing to maintain funding for important programs. This budget proposal seems to be more about managing scarce resources and retooling for a new threat environment that mandates force projection (naval platforms) and ‘stand-off intelligent killing platforms’ (i.e., drones) versus personnel-intensive land armies. It is a point of view about how to achieve the national security objectives of our country. Machines versus humans? Drones and floating ballistic missile launchers and special forces versus armies of occupation? To me, that is the heart of the argument versus glib references to head counts in the Army that will be below pre World War II levels.

Preliminary Conclusions

Based on this quick analysis, I remain unconvinced that hypothesis 1 best explains the causes of Russia’s action in the Ukraine/Crimea. There is too much ‘noise’ in the missile shield matter and defense matters to make such a bold claim. There are plenty of other decisions to look at more closely (e.g., Obama’s famous cheap talk on the ‘red-line’ for use of chemical weapons by Syria, Netanyahu’s claims about the weakness of Obama emboldening the Iranian’s nuclear ambitions) that could move me on this but I defer that for further analysis and discussion in future posts. For now, however, I think we move on to look at Hypothesis 2 (irrational actors).

Amr Mousa was a leading candidate for president with about 6 months to go before the elections. The voters ultimately, however, chose two very different candidates: the ‘regime’ candidate, Ahmed Shafik and the Islamist candidate, Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Given the overthrow of the Mubarak regime and the surprising (to me, at least) neutrality of the military leadership at the time, I would have expected a centrist candidate to show better. What happened?

Based on conversations with friends and colleagues in Egypt (Cairo primarily) who are knowledgeable of the campaign strategies of various candidates (mostly centrist), a variety of factors were involved. As you might expect, some were about what the Mousa campaign did or didn’t do and others were about their rivals’ actions as well as the macro situation in Egypt after the overthrow of an authoritarian government. With respect to Mousa campaign, they could have done a better job of branding themselves to the voting public. They didn’t create a language or a brand for the centrist candidates as a group – the liberal/civil society brand – and didn’t do enough to prevent the overall narrative in the campaign from polarizing to ‘regime’ candidates vs. Islamist candidates. They also let those who truly occupied those poles (e.g., SCAF) discredit those who took up the voice of the revolution like Amr Mousa had done. They needed to do a better job of setting the terms of the debate. In the end, the voice of the revolution splintered among the centrist candidates.

Beyond that, there were structural factors at work. The overall security situation deteriorated. There were relatively more car thefts and robberies than Egyptians were used to since the end of the Mubarak regime. It is not that they were high on an absolute level but they were high relative to their prior experience. Some suggest that this permissive environment was intentional on the part of the SCAF and its allies but the level of civil disorder Egyptians experienced was not unusual in the wake of the collapse of a long-standing authoritarian regime. This logically helped the law and order candidate, Shafik, in that the hard line message played well to Egyptian equivalent of the ‘silent majority’ (Hizb Khadana or the ‘party of the couch’). The other structural reason was the fuel crisis. There were scarcities of petrol for auto use and, perhaps more significantly, butane for use in cooking by those living in informal housing. Many Egyptians live in informal housing and the political impact of the fuel crisis was reflected in the relative decline of appeal of centrist candidates as a group. You tend to naturally care less about higher level needs like the freedoms of individual rights when the basics are not assured.

The sense I get from my friends and colleagues is cautious optimism. SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood will joust with each other for control of the legislative and executive powers of government while the centrist politicians regroup and organize for future elections. The fact that there is a belief that future elections will be held is, in itself, a positive sign. My colleagues all agree that trying times are ahead but that there is no returning to the Nasserist model of government that derailed Egypt in the 1950s.

Ok, I have not posted for a while and I come out with a nerdy piece. Sorry about that. Hang in there, I will be returning to more case-based matters soon. I needed this one to set up some pieces to follow.

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Most reasonable people in this country think of Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Josef Stalin in the same vein. Bad men with bad intentions who committed heinous crimes against humanity. Under no circumstances would we think of them, their regimes or their political power, as legitimate. But one of the hallmarks of a legitimate accession to power is via competitive elections. All of these men were elected in some form or another by either popular vote or by vote of the people’s representatives. Hitler is the classic case of abuse of the democratic process to gain power and then set up a dictatorship. Many reasonable and rational Germans were convinced that Hitler’s power was legitimate (at least prior to Stalingrad). We tend to ascribe a universal standard when we use that word to describe something or someone as legitimate. It is a black and white case – someone or something is either legitimate or it is not.

But my research tells me that there is an entirely different way to view this phenomenon of legitimacy. One that is subjective and quite fluid. Legitimated power is in the eyes of the beholder and not based on some universal norm. We Americans like to think in terms of universal norms but clearly there are many that disagree with us when we use terms like democracy, justice and legitimacy. For that matter, we disagree with ourselves (think of the screaming counter parties at your basic tea party vs. lefty event).

OK, strap on your nerd hats. Here is the vocabulary I have derived from many brilliant scholars before me about Legitimacy and legitimated power. This will be a useful backdrop to the pieces that will follow on from this post.

Legitimacy is a form of relational logic by which the subordinate actor chooses to obey a dominant actor absent coercion or immediate payoffs for one’s self interest. In my research, Legitimacy is a source of an actor’s interests in the context of a social exchange.

“A legitimate rule or institution [or organization] is one that has been internalized by the actor’s own sense of its interests and its identity (Hurd 2007:41).”

When power is legitimated it acts as a constraint on the power of the dominant social actor and facilitates a “thick” trust-based social exchange between dominant and subordinate.

Further, legitimated power is:

“Power that provides the grounds for obedience on the part of the subordinate to it, because of the normative force that derives from rules, from the justificatory principles underlying those rules and from actors expressing consent.” (Beetham 1991: 101)… “Legitimacy is the generalized perception or assumption that actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions” (Suchman 1995: 574)

 

Although Legitimacy is an inherently normative concept as applied in my research, it is crucial to the operation of large-scale social mobilization whether for good purposes or bad (Hurd 2008:34). Legitimated power can be used by angels and devils alike.

The uprising in Syria grinds on into its 18th month. What was once hailed as a shining example of the Arab Spring, now has devolved into a grimy, ugly civil war – another blood-soaked display of the under-gunned rabble of noble insurgents seeking to throw over a ‘coup-proofed’ tyrant and his henchmen. We have all the usual international players weighing in. The impotency of the United Nations efforts is on display to the watching world. You do not have to be John Mearsheimer to feel exasperated by that charade. In addition, as the US presidential election campaign rhetoric heats up, the rivals of Obama have framed his response to the Syrian crisis as evidence of his indecisiveness. Russia and China have been vilified in Western circles for supporting Bashar al Assad, the ophthalmologist turned dictator of Syria. Whether or not the UN mission is flawed (likely), Obama is indecisive (likely) or the Russians and Chinese are obstructing Western political initiatives (likely), the Syrian opposition appears to be a very disorganized movement – a high risk partner if there ever was one. They are making the erstwhile Libyan resistance look downright organized and efficient. In today’s NYT, a piece ran on the election of a new leader of the (main?) opposition group, the Syrian National Council.

I excerpted the following to highlight how the philosophy of a revolution by committee looks and sounds:

The ideal leadership of the council is not through one person — because no one is elected and has actual legitimacy,” said Bassma Kodmani, a member of the executive committee. Until such time as there are free elections in Syria, she said, the choice of the president of the council should be made by consensus….

“The revolution does not want to see a big leader, or one individual who leads everything,” Ms. Kodmani said. “Personalization leads to polarization…

Still, critics both in the wider membership of the council and outside the group said Mr. Sieda had emerged as the consensus choice precisely because he represents no one, either inside Syria or out. Both the Muslim Brotherhood and liberals in the council concluded that he did not pose a threat or provide an advantage to any bloc within the council, they said, but for the same reasons he will have little real authority, and the bickering will continue.

The Muslim Brotherhood, especially, does not want a strong person, neither someone with political strength nor a strong personality,” said Hasan Kasem, a young liberal activist.”

 

This is how a failing revolutionary organization thinks. From my readings of revolutionary (or resistance) leaders past and present including Washington, Mao, Guevara, al Banna, bin Laden, Yassin, Nasrallah, I don’t get the impression that this is how they would have mobilized the masses to overthrow their oppressors. I am no devotee of the ‘charismatic leader’ cult of leadership, but if half of what this article suggests is true, the Syrian opposition holds little promise for any strategic partners from the West.

In my research, I test a variety of variables that serve as drivers of organizational legitimacy for insurgent movements such as the Syrian National Council. They would fail miserably on the level of professionalism factors – innovation, efficiency, cohesion. They initiated the uprising in the hopes of peacefully resisting the tyrant. Paraphrasing Reuel March Gerecht (and hearing echoes of Bismarck’s Realpolitik): “When hard power meets soft power, hard power wins – at least in the short term.” Noble but likely (and sadly) misguided. They are an organization in disarray and create serious doubts in the minds of the prospective investors (i.e., the US, European nations, friendly Arab countries or foes of Syria) or prospective followers.

If the US or any other power decides to get involved in Syria, they will need to be ‘all in’ since the nascent resistance organization appears to be unable to overcome its debilitating differences to be of much help. Assad is a man intent on holding on to power at all costs including the destruction of his nation.

Adam Gallagher of Carnegie recently posted a piece on the role and promise of non-violent resistance in the Palestinian Territories. It strikes an intriguing chord for observers and students of violent resistance movements – hunger strikes, sit-ins, boycotts of manufacturers of goods that enable the economic blockade of the Territories. Non-violent resistance calls to mind some pretty charismatic figures in world history including Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They died violently but their movements made notable achievements against powerful foes through their work and the work of their followers.

Can non-violence really be an effective strategy in such a tortured case as the Palestinian Territories? Ceasefires have come and gone between Hamas and Israel. The more cynical  see them simply as ‘reloading’ periods for Hamas and other actors (e.g., Islamic Jihad) that have not renounced violence as part of its resistance to Israel. I have read of hunger strikes making a difference in the troubles in Northern Ireland, but in Palestine? After so many years of pain and suffering? I am skeptical but this bears closer inspection and more thoughtful research. First on my list will be an intriguing work by Wendy Pearlman on violence and non-violence in Palestine.

Hamas is a party on the edge of the political system of the Palestinian Territories in which it operates. It is viewed by most in the West as ‘beyond the pale’. Hamas is ideologically at odds with Fatah, its chief rival, with regards to how best to lead and represent the best interests of the Palestinian people in the international arena. It seeks an Islamic state based, to the extent possible, on Sharia law. Its pledge to annihilate Israel and its persistent use of violence against Israel – with a disproportionate amount of its targets being “soft” and civilian – has justifiably earned it a reputation as a political outcast, a party on the edge. Yet the international community’s withdrawal of financial aid and Israel’s routine and harsh economic and military countermeasures against Hamas seem to be unable to deter Hamas and its followers. The organization is now over 25 years old and is nothing if not resilient. It is bloodied but unbowed.

In 2006, Hamas shocked itself and the world when it defeated Fatah in national elections. Independent observers credit its victory to a well-managed political campaign by an effective and savvy political party who knew how to work its grass-roots support (surprisingly in the major cities of the Territories). Voters thought Hamas had a better platform to meet the basic needs of the Palestinian people – get rid of corruption in government (be the anti-Fatah), effectively engage Israel in much-desired peace negotiations and address the dismal economic conditions of the Territories.  But that victory brought little peace for Hamas and the Palestinian people. Internecine warfare between Hamas and Fatah and splinters from Hamas (e.g., Salafist Jihadi groups) still threaten the coherence of the group and its ability to effectively govern. Fatah and Hamas have repeatedly failed to overcome their differences and form a national unity government and are now out of position to exploit an opening to negotiate with a more coherent Israeli government.

Hamas is a party that has demonstrated its bona fides as a democratic movement even if it is in the ‘cat and mouse’ style suited to the semi-authoritarian environment it exists within. Talk of Islamist movements as inherently anti-democratic are misguided and off the point, some even having a hint of old-fashioned Orientalism. Hamas’ challenges are less about illiberal skeletons in their closet and more about moving beyond the grinding power struggles with Fatah to finally form a unified front to engage the Israelis politically. Hamas is no stranger to ideological debates. They have overcome their resistance to participating in the political process – now finish the job. Hamas is no Hezbollah militarily nor does it have the logistical advantages of its Shia ally vis-a-vis Syria and Iran. It cannot hope to coerce Israel to the bargaining table based on its military prowess. Hamas needs to double down on what it knows best how to do – mobilize the grass-roots support and find the common ground to unify the Palestinian factions. Hamas on the edge will lead nowhere good for the Palestinian people and its Israeli neighbors.

It is only appropriate that I make my first official post for this blog on (the day before) JFK’s birthday – what would have been his 95th. I have been fascinated with the person of John F. Kennedy since I was a young boy. I was raised in a typical Roman Catholic household by parents that took pride in the election of the first Irish-American Roman Catholic president in the history of the US. Like most Americans, I grieved his murder on November 22, 1963 even though only 8 years old. The Mother Superior entered our 3rd grade classroom to tell us the sad news that he had been shot, then later that he had been killed. He was now a martyr for the cause. Irish know something about martyrs. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, reacted to President Kennedy’s death. ”I don’t think there’s any point in being Irish if you don’t know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess that we thought we had a little more time.” Even now, with all of the revelations of his indiscretions, Kennedy is still meaningful to me. Especially now as I commence the second half of my life as a researcher of social movements.

The inspiration for this blog and my research interests in political science, is JFK’s now famous speech in Los Angeles in the summer of 1960. In his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the president of the United States he states that:

“…the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won; and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier… the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats…The New Frontier is here whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus. It would be easier to shrink from that new frontier, to look to the safe mediocrity of the past, to be lulled by good intentions and high rhetoric…That is the choice our nation must make — a choice that lies between the public interest and private comfort, between national greatness and national decline, between the fresh air of progress and the stale, dank atmosphere of “normalcy,” between dedication or mediocrity.

All mankind waits upon our decision. A whole world looks to see what we shall do. And we cannot fail that trust. And we cannot fail to try…”

In this blog I want to add my modest contributions to the research and discussions about the struggle of a variety of social movements – mostly violent ones – that are seeking to open their own new frontiers.The mission that JFK spoke of was for the USA to emerge as a truly great power in the international arena: to rival the USSR as a nuclear power and as an alternative to how to organize society, to confront centuries-old racism and bigotry domestically, to confront ignorance and complacency in our country. JFK stood for ideas that were intended to be transformative but he knew they would be costly. He so famously said in his inauguration speech in 1961: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Big ideas usually cost a lot and their payoff is even less certain. Nonetheless, he implored us – and we generally listened – “we cannot fail to try.”

I have chosen to import the logic and intent of JFK’s words into a very different context – the world of revolution, civil war and insurgency – in places and contexts that may or may not have meant much to Kennedy. Some of you who read this blog, maybe most, will have difficulty with this linkage. I would ask your indulgence and read along and engage in a friendly exchange about the issues at hand and then render your judgment. Your feedback can only make this conversation better. Let’s see how it goes.