Nightcap
Should Japan defend Taiwan? Kiyoshi Sugawa, Responsible Statecraft
Me: is this part of the Japan-US alliance? If so, then “yes” it does. But this also highlights a big problem that alliances have historically faced: what happens when one partner doesn’t want to uphold its end of the alliance? Historically, the reneging partner (A) leaves, and that’s it. The other partner (B) could then go to war with A, and that has happened, or B could lick its wounds and move on. This creates chaos. Federal union can eliminate free riding, reneging, and uncertainty that’s long plagued alliances and other confederations. Union dampens (but does not eliminate) the effects of faction by restraining them via constitutional bargains that take place in a congress.
Intelligence and science fiction Eric Schliesser, Digressions & Impressions
The new libertarian elitists Farrell, Mercier, & Schwartzberg, Democracy
Me: a Leftist critique of libertarians. As is often the case with Leftists, they do a great job of bringing a problem to light, but a terrible job of offering up solutions (or, honestly, identifying the source of the problem). First of all, being skeptical of democratic governance doesn’t make you an “elitist.” C’mon guys. Secondly, libertarians want less democracy, not no democracy. I know Brennan likes to poke the bear, but he does that to elicit responses like the one linked to above.
Big, if true, but probably not as big as he’d like it to be @anders_aslund, Tweet