A thought struck me as I was reading the obits of jazz legend Dave Brubeck, who passed away yesterday at the age of 92.   Several accounts highlighted Brubeck's role as a cultural ambassador, through his participation in various goodwill tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department. A number of other prominent jazz artists -- including luminaries like Louis Armstrong -- were featured in these tours, which were intended to show off the appealing sides of American culture in the context of the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union. This was a Bambi-meets-Godzilla competition, btw, with the Soviets in the role of Bambi. I like Shostakovich and respect the Bolshoi, but Soviet mass culture was outmatched when pitted against the likes of Satchmo.

But here's my question: why isn't the United States doing similar things today? The State Department still sponsors tours by U.S. artists -- go here for a bit more information -- but you hardly ever hear about them and it's not like we're sending "A-list" musicians out to display the vibrancy of American cultural life. Celebrities and musicians are more likely to do good will tours to entertain U.S. troops in places like Iraq, but the sort of tours that Brubeck and others did in the 1950s and 1960s seem to have become a minor endeavor at best.

The problem, I suspect, isn't a lack of interest in cultural diplomacy or even lack of funding. Instead, I think this is an consequence of globalization. Today, someone in Senegal or Indonesia who wants to hear American jazz (or hip-hop, or blues, or whatever) just needs an internet connection. The same is true in reverse, of course; I can download an extraordinary array of world music just sitting here in my study at home. And that goes for videos of performances too, whether we're talking music or dance or in some cases even theatre. Plus, top artists tour the world on their own in order to make money; they don't need to go as part of some official U.S. government sponsored tour. And given the unpopularity of U.S. foreign policy in some parts of the world, official sponsorship is probably the last thing some artists would want.

But there may some exceptions to that rule, in the sense that are a few countries where artistic exchanges might open things up in ways that diplomats cannot. Iran isn't likely to welcome Madonna, Christina Aguilera, or Justin Timberlake, perhaps, but have we thought about an artistic exchange with some slightly less edgy U.S. performers? If table tennis could help thaw relations with Mao's China, maybe jazz, acoustic blues, or even classical music could begin to break the ice with Tehran. Iran's has a large under-thirty population that is by all accounts hungry for greater access to world culture, so this sort of exchange would build good will with the populations that will be rising to positions of influence in the future. Plus, Iran has plenty of gifted performers who might find a ready audience here. And you can send a delegation of American musicians without violating UN sanctions or having to answer a lot of thorny questions about nuclear enrichment.

Update:  In response to this post, Hishaam Aidi of Columbia University and the Open Society Institute sent me this piece, which takes a critical view of the State Department's more recent efforts to use hip-hop artists as a form of cultural outreach.  Well worth reading, and my thanks to Hishaam for sending it to me.

Is modern media -- the Internet, YouTube, Twitter, and all that other stuff -- making realism obsolete? More specifically, if the essence of realism is the hard-headed pursuit of national interests, and especially the cool and dispassionate weighing of the costs and benefits of different policy choices, then is that approach undermined when policymakers are buffeted by viral videos of tyrannical outrages (e.g., Libya in 2011, Syria today) and well-crafted online campaigns to mobilize support for benevolent intervention? If ordinary citizens can watch carnage unfold wherever it might occur, how can national leaders remain aloof and conduct statecraft in the careful and prudent way that realism recommends?

Pretty easily, I'd say, although there will obviously be a few cases where presidents and prime ministers are pushed to take action by public outcry fueled by greater access to information. But on balance, I doubt the greater ease with which information now flows around the world will have a powerful systematic effect on what leaders ultimately decide to do.

In fact, this issue is just the latest incarnation of a rather old debate. Walter Lippmann famously argued that public opinion was too fickle to be a reliable guide to policy, and that better-informed elites would have to "manufacture consent" in order to lead effectively. Realists like George Kennan used to worry that democracies were no good at statecraft because public passions would warp the conduct of foreign policy, although other scholars have argued that democracies often out-perform authoritarian states because they are better at correcting their mistakes. Social scientists have long debated whether media coverage has any systematic effect on wartime behavior, military intervention, or other foreign policy elements. Check out the seminal works of Dan Hallin, Lance Bennett, or my colleague Matt Baum for more detailed coverage of this broad issue.

Meanwhile, what about the infamous "CNN effect" (or its modern cousin, the "YouTube Effect")? This is the idea that media coverage or internet avalanches can force policymakers to act when they would rather not. Scholarly research on this question suggests that the effect is pretty modest and highly conditional: Media coverage can affect decisions when policymakers are undecided, but it rarely sways them when they have firm views on the proper course of action. And that's just another way of saying that when it is obvious that one should stay out of an ongoing conflict, a lot of lurid media footage and YouTube videos of carnage aren't going to convince national leaders to do something really stupid.

There's another reason why the greater transparency that modern media provides does not produce a systematic shift towards intervention and away from realpolitik. Although seeing horrible events live-and-in-person triggers our sympathies and may mobilize activists, it also creates a powerful and vivid impression of just how much of a mess a given society might be. While reinforcing our sense of outrage, in short, such images also highlight the costs and dangers of getting involved. On balance, therefore, the greater availability of images and other unmediated information might even make ill-founded interventions less likely.

Furthermore, political leaders of all kinds still prefer to conduct a lot of their business in the dark, especially when the use of force is concerned. Iran and China have tried to make it hard for outsiders to hear about domestic crackdowns, and North Korea remains the poster child for a society that does its best to prevent outside scrutiny. But let's not forget that democratic leaders sometimes prefer to do the nation's business in the dark. Dick Cheney never did tell us who was on that energy task force of his, and the Obama administration still refuses to talk candidly about drone strikes and special forces operations. And remember that infamous Wikileaks video of an Apache helicopter killing a Reuters journalist in Iraq? Those images didn't do anything to encourage public support for the war effort, which is perhaps one reason why the U.S. government launched an all-out assault on Wikileaks itself.

Bottom line: The ubiquity of information and the growing ability to see far-flung events for ourselves is undoubtedly having some impact on what we (think we) know about the world, and in some cases may push undecided policymakers in surprising directions. And as I've noted before, the leaders of powerful countries like the United States may be particular vulnerable to such pressures, in part because they've convinced themselves that they have a responsibility to "lead" and in part because the U.S. is so powerful that it is sometimes hard to remember that we can't do everything. But on the whole, the globalization of information doesn't free national leaders from the need to think first and foremost about what is in their own country's interests, and thus to weigh costs, risks, and benefits carefully. In short, realism is not dead.

Apart from a few brief sojourns at various think tanks, I've spent most of my professional life in the academic world. Seven of these years were spent helping run various programs, first as deputy dean of social sciences at the University of Chicago and later as academic dean here at the Kennedy School. I have one child in college and another heading there in two years. You can therefore assume I have a certain professional and personal interest in the whole business of higher education.

Which is why I find discussions of how technology might transform this whole enterprise quite fascinating. It's hard not to read such articles and wonder how my own job might change in the years ahead, and to reflect on how I think it ought to change. I have not studied this issue in detail, so what follows are some purely impressionistic observations, based mostly on my own experience.

1. I think there's no doubt that the traditional model of the academic lecture is headed the way of the dodo. I say that with a certain wistful regret, because I enjoy lecturing and like to think I'm fairly good at it. But it's hardly an efficient mode of information-transmission, and there are plenty of studies suggesting that students don't learn particularly well in this sort of passive "I-speak-while-you-listen-and- take-notes" experience. Lecturing of the old-fashioned sort can be entertaining and inspirational, but real learning requires students to engage and wrestle with the material instead of just hearing some older person declaim about it.

2. Given that top-flight faculty are among any college or university's scarcest resources, having them stand in front of a handful of students and talk is especially inefficient, and all the more so in basic introductory courses. In other words, you probably don't want Nobel Prize winners teaching basic statistics, Economics 101, or even Intro to Biology -- especially when there may be lots of less renowned people who are actually better at doing that. But you do want students to have the opportunity to interact with the most brilliant minds, to argue with them, to see how they do their work, and to be inspired by their example. And that means creating different sorts of educational experiences (seminars, workshops, mini-courses, etc.) rather than just one.

3. Information technology is making it possible to transmit educational content at almost no cost; you can put course materials on the web and stream lectures to anyone with an internet hookup. This is what MIT is doing now, and it doesn't seem to be discouraging people from wanting to attend full-time and pay full-freight. There are also online teaching programs that might do a better job of teaching basic materials (such as introduction to microeconomics, statistics, calculus, etc.) than that old model of the single lecturer with a chalkboard and a pile of notes. This suggests that we ought to be thinking of ways to use faculty rather differently -- in more interactive and personal modes--where hands-on attention, genuine inspiration, and pedagogical ability can produce big payoffs, while using online tools to deliver basic factual or technical content.

4. I suspect that in the near future we are going to see a lot of experimentation with new forms of higher education, reflecting the fact that these institutions in fact serve many purposes other than merely transmitting knowledge/skills to students. One reason MIT can make its content available for free is that students understand there is a difference between watching lectures online and actually being in the class, being on the campus, and being immersed in the broader in-person environment. In the United States, at least, universities and colleges also provide a relatively safe space for making the transition from adolescence to adulthood. They are environments where young people can meet future spouses of similar class or social backgrounds, have lots of arguments with peers and with their professors, and get a lot of preconceived notions challenged. For many young people (though not all), college is about a lot more than just what they learn in class, which is one reason parents are willing to pay through the nose to make that whole experience possible.

What I'm describing here, of course, is the traditional model of a liberal arts education, and it's hardly the only model out there. Other institutions (e.g., commuter colleges, junior colleges, vocational institutes) serve somewhat different educational functions and are already organized differently. My guess, therefore, is that changes in information technology and the overall globalization of information and education is going to produce an explosion of innovation over the next few years. The traditional four-year university/college won't disappear, but it will be coexisting and competing with a lot of other models.

Lastly, this is going to be a painful process. Universities are filled with brilliant and innovative people -- as individuals -- but they are also incredibly conservative institutions (not politically, but in the sense of being wary of change). As a former Harvard president reportedly said, "trying to change the curriculum is like moving a graveyard." Faculties don't like having to retool and alumni and other stakeholders often have powerful emotional attachments to traditional ways of doing business. And the older and more successful a university is, the more impervious to change it is likely to be.

Plus, coming up with new educational models is hard to do if you're already working pretty hard teaching the existing program. But there's no stopping this sort of Schumpeterian "creative destruction," and I'd hate to be working for the educational equivalent of Polaroid -- a brilliant and innovative company that proved unable to adapt to a rapidly changing technological frontier.

Now if we can just get universities out of the business of running semi-professional athletic teams...

I'm in New York today, to appear at a symposium at the Open Society Institute. We'll be discussing Evgeny Morozov's new book Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, and I'm looking forward to hearing how Evgeny and the other panelists view the recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere. If you're so inclined, you can watch a live-stream of the event here.

I won't be blogging from the road on this (short) trip, but I would also call your attention to Thanassis Cambanis's piece on the case for a more restrained U.S. grand strategy that appeared in the Ideas section of the Sunday Boston Globe. Most of his attention is on the recent writings of Barry Posen, John Mearsheimer, and Andrew Bacevich (deservedly so), though he does drop in a brief reference to yours truly. My only question is: Why does he think I'm "ornery"? Acerbic, maybe; judgmental, perhaps; but "ornery"?   :-)  

There's been a lot of thoughtful reaction already to the appalling shooting in Tucson, much of it focusing on what it says about the polarized state of American politics and the violent and overheated rhetoric that has been a staple of right-wing political discourse over the past decade or so.  I don't have anything deeply profound to add to this discussion, but I do want to offer two thoughts.

First, when something horrific like this happens, we can only hope that we learn something from an otherwise awful event. In my course on the causes of war, I tell students that learning valuable lessons from the history of human conflict is a way to make the losses suffered in war worth something; it is a way of at least partly redeeming the sacrifices that others made. The greatest benefit we could derive from the Tucson madness would a lot of genuine soul-searching within our political establishment, and especially among the pundits and media figures who have made hateful and violent rhetoric a key part -- and in some cases, the only distinctive element -- of their discourse. And frankly, I don't know what's worse: when politicians use extreme and demonizing rhetoric to advance a political agenda, or when media figures use hateful and violent rhetoric merely to make a buck. If this tragedy helps delegitimize such behavior, and restore some measure of civility to our political discourse, we will all have gained something from a tragic and senseless event.

Second, those of us who do some or all of our work in the blogosphere should do some soul-searching ourselves. Rhetoric in the blogosphere is a lot more combative and even violent than what you'd typically read in your local newspaper, or what you'd read in a scholarly journal. And this isn't just a monopoly of the political right: You can find some pretty hot language coming from bloggers on the left as well. Bloggers like to use verbs like "demolish," or "eviscerate" when discussing those with whom they disagree, as in "Smith offers a new justification for the war in Afghanistan, and Jones shreds it here." Or we get into heated exchanges that degenerate into name-calling and various forms of character assassination.  Sometimes editors make this worse by going for edgy or combative headlines to titillate readers and drive up page-views. Edginess is part of what makes the blogosphere entertaining, I guess, but is it also contributing to the coarsening of our political values and the erosion of any sense of shared identity, humility, and common humanity?  And don't get me started about the flame wars that occur in the "comments" sections, where people exploit anonymity to voice all manner of vile accusations.

I've tried to avoid that sort of thing in my own postings, but I suspect you could find a few places where I went further than I should have. So as we mourn the victims, hope for the survivors, and reflect on what this says the state of our country at this moment, let's spend some time looking in the mirror. Words matter, people, and if we are all going to be part of a public conversation, we owe it the society of which we are part to conduct it in a spirited, frank, but civil manner.  Or we will reap what we sow.

Postscript: I'm leaving for an extended trip to Southeast Asia today, to attend some meetings at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and to give a series of lectures there and in Vietnam. It's my first visit to the latter country, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity. Blogging will be erratic while I'm on the road, although I'll try to squeeze a few posts in when I can.

Yesterday I learned that one of my posts-to be specific, my thoughts on the Cordoba House/Park 51 controversy -- is a finalist for 2010 Prize in Politics from the internet aggregator website 3Quarks Daily.

The winners will be chosen by journalist and writer Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harper's, and announced on Dec. 21. I'm grateful to anyone who mentioned me during the nomination period and I feel honored to be among the finalists. I will now start preparing my "concession" post for Dec. 22.

See 3Quarks Daily nominations here.

I am traveling a lot this week -- first to D.C. and then to Toronto -- so blogging is likely to be light through Friday. Before I head off to get poked and prodded by the friendly TSA personnel at Logan, I thought I'd leave you with a hypothetical to ponder, inspired by the latest WikiLeaks releases.

Here's the question: How much difference would it really make if all these "private" diplomatic meetings were public? Suppose there was no such thing as a "private" diplomatic meeting or a back-channel discussion. I can easily imagine that world leaders wouldn't like it very much -- but how much would world politics change if all these conversations were held in public so that people could see and hear what was being said?

I don't have a firm answer on this issue, but one possibility is that this hypothetical situation would pose a much bigger problem for authoritarian leaders than it would for democratically elected ones. If an autocrat knew that their conversations would all be public, they wouldn't be able to say one thing in private and then say something else when speaking on the record. And that means that some of them might have to adopt positions that were more in accordance with their populations wishes, particularly if their hold on power was tenuous. It would all be on the record. By contrast, a democratic leader would just have to take positions that they felt would appeal to their electorate, which isn't such a terrible idea on its face.  

Of course, there's a downside here: you'd get a lot more posturing, and maybe even diplomatic rigidity, as leaders of all kinds tried to show that they were tough bargainers. And public opinion is a fickle thing, and you wouldn't want leaders to be nothing more than weather vanes mouthing whatever their latest poll told them to say. It's also likely that some diplomatic conversations would be empty and stilted, because nobody wanted to talk about anything serious in the full glare of open disclosure. But diplomatic problems still need to get solved, and a world of full disclosure might actually force leaders of all types to explain the realities behind their decisions a bit more, and educate the population when public opinion was off-base.

But my real question remains: Would it really make that much difference? Would a world of "open covenants, openly arrived at" (to use Wilson's phrase) really be that different than the world in which we live today? And aren't all those people who are now defending the importance of diplomatic confidentiality really saying that there is a lot of information that our leaders have to keep from us, or else the world will all go to hell? 

George Orwell once wrote: "In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." I thought of that line as I tried to sort through my reaction to the latest set of releases by Wikileaks, consisting primarily of detailed action reports from Iraq. My question is: Are we better off having an organization exploiting the viral potential of the internet in order to make public information that government officials would prefer to keep secret?

On the one hand, it doesn't thrill me to see individuals inside the national security bureaucracy take the classification process into their own hands and decide to leak large quantities of information. As much as I admire the courage of a whistle-blower like Daniel Ellsberg, government agencies can't operate without a certain degree of discipline and there's always the danger that someone will leak material that isn't just political embarrassing but actually contains information that might put us at greater risk. There's also the obvious concern that leaked information might expose people who have been helping us in places like Iraq or Afghanistan (although Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has acknowledged that earlier Wikileaks releases did not in fact compromises sensitive information or methods). Still, I think some secrets need to be kept, and that belief makes it hard for me to see Wikileaks' activities as an unalloyed good.

But several other considerations override these concerns, and lead me to conclude that, on balance, Wikileaks is performing a valuable service. To begin with, official outrage at Wikileaks' activities is more than a little disingenuous given the frequency that top officials leak classified information when it suits their political purposes. If former Afghan commander Stanley McChrystal can successfully tie a president's hands by leaking a confidential report calling for more troops, then why shouldn't others use Wikileaks to share information that they believe the public ought to know? And as long as senior officials try to advance their political agendas by sharing inside information with sympathetic journalists in off-the-record "background" briefings, it is hard for me to feel outrage when their subordinates decide that the information to which they are privy deserves a wider audience.

Furthermore, we live in an age of "universal deceit," when it is hard to trust anything someone in the national security world tells you. From the very moment that the Iraq War was conceived, for example, top U.S. officials deployed a vast array of disinformation and deceit -- supposedly based on top-secret intelligence information -- to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein posed a mortal threat to U.S. national security. Nor were they the first leaders to lie to the American public. And the lies continued well in to the war, as former Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Ellen Knickmayer makes clear here. (H/T to Glenn Greenwald, whose own posts on this topic are well worth reading).

As Eric Alterman and John Mearsheimer have both documented, it is clear from the historical record that all governments lie for a wide variety of reasons. But unless you're willing to believe that the people in charge are always right and that their lies are therefore justified (and if you think that, you haven't been paying attention), you ought to be in favor of any mechanism that brought more facts to light.

It is also increasingly clear that the U.S. taxpayer is funding a vast array of clandestine activities of which they are only dimly aware, and whose value they have been asked to take almost entirely on faith. If some of these activities are misguided, then not only will we get stuck with the bill, but we are paying for activities that could be making us less secure.

Furthermore, if we have no idea what our government (or that growing army of private contractors) are really up to, then Americans won't understand why other countries may not like us very much. If we don't know about all the bad stuff we're doing, we'll think they hate us for "what we are" instead of "what we do." As I've noted before, Arab or Muslim hostility to the United States really shouldn't be a mystery, given the policies that the United States has adopted towards many of these societies over the past several decades. Do you really expect Iraqis to be grateful that the U.S. invaded their country and set off a civil war in which hundreds of thousands died and millions became refugees?

The Founding Fathers thought that separation of powers and an independent press would ensure accountability, and but it's not as if Congress were performing rigorous oversight over all these activities, engaging in spirited debates over the merits of military intervention, or forcing either this administration or the last one to justify what it is doing overseas. The mainstream media hasn't exactly covered itself with glory over the past decade either, despite some isolated bright spots that subsequently disappeared down the memory hole. And lord knows that few, if any, of the architects of our recent foreign-policy debacles have been held accountable in any meaningful way.

Realist that I am, I believe that human beings are more likely to misbehave if they think they can shield what they are doing from public view. For that reason, I also believe that democratic societies are more likely to adopt better policies when information is plentiful and when government officials cannot determine which facts are available to the public and which are not. Because its primary function is to make more information available on issues that concern us all, I therefore conclude that what Wikileaks is doing is on balance a good thing.

Given the great power at the United States' disposal, I want the people running foreign and defense policy to know that what they are doing might be exposed to public scrutiny. I want them to think twice about whether the policies they are pursuing are defensible on either moral or practical grounds. I wish we'd known the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, or that we'd known the truth about Saddam's WMD (and his non-existent links to al Qaeda) before we invaded. And I'm glad we're finding out more about the Iraq War now, because that knowledge might help us avoid similar quagmires in the future. And if our elected officials, their appointed representatives, and a politicized and co-opted media won't tell us what we have a right to know, then I guess I'm glad that Wikileaks will.

Postscript: Contrary to FP colleague Peter Feaver's view, I don't think the documents offer that much help to defenders of the so-called "surge." No one denies that violence went down after the surge began, and those who discount the impact of the surge concede that the additional troops and new tactics played some role in that development. The new releases also confirm that changes within Iraqi society were also critical; i.e., violence also declined because Iraqis were war-weary and because prior ethnic cleansing had eliminated the mixed-sectarian neighborhoods where much of the prior violence had occurred.

The new releases also confirm that Iran was meddling in Iraq and backing some of the insurgents. This is not news, of course, and Iran's behavior was hardly surprising, given its obvious interest in trying to influence the shape of post-Saddam Iraq. Moreover, the U.S. is hardly in a position to accuse anyone of "interfering" in Iraq, given what we started in 2003. But this not-very-stunning "revelation" doesn't mean the surge was a success, because it didn't end Iranian influence in Iraq any more than it led to political reconciliation among the various Iraqi factions (who still can't manage to form a government). Once the United States had dismantled Saddam's Ba'thist and predominantly Sunni regime, Iraq's Shi'ites were bound to be more powerful and Iran's influence was bound to increase. (Too bad the Bush administration didn't think about that possibility before the war!) The surge didn't reverse that trend, and so the new revelations don't demonstrate that it was anything more than a tactical success whose long-term achievements remain very much in doubt.

Today I want to call your attention to two on-line debates, each dealing with an important issue on contemporary world affairs.

The first is an extremely interesting back-and-forth between Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan, on the question of whether President Obama was correct in authorizing the CIA to kill several U.S. citizens (including Anwar al-Awlaki) who is believed to be actively aiding al Qaeda in Yemen. You can read the various posts here, here, here, and here, and each links to useful comments from other people as well.

One sign of the quality of their exchange is that I found my own views shifting back and forth as I read each one. In the end I think Greenwald has the better of the argument -- at least so far -- but that may well be because it's closer to my own prior views. I don't really believe Obama's decision puts us on a slippery slope to totalitarianism, but I do think there is a genuine danger in allowing any president the authority to order the killing of a U.S. citizen without due process.

I am also deeply leery of the increasingly widespread use of the "state secrets" doctrine to defend executive actions from public scrutiny, simply because I do not trust people not to abuse their authority in the absence of accountability. Moreover, the "state secrets" doctrine is a powerful tool for threat-mongering ("trust me, if you knew what we know, you'd be really, really scared"), and keeping people terrified is a good way to get them to go along with all sorts of foreign policy foolishness.

But read their exchange and make up your own mind. And kudos to both of them for conducting it in a spirited but civil fashion.  (UPDATE: Sullivan has a new reply to Greenwald and others here.

The second debate I can't resist plugging is a Bloggingheads conversation I did last week with Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation. The topic is "AfPak Dilemmas" and it is mostly a discussion about conditions in the region and the proper course for U.S. policy. Peter and I have different views about the nature of the challenge we face in Central Asia, and about the merits of continued military involvement there. Those disagreements are clear in our conversation, but we had an excellent exchange of views and some of you may find it enlightening.

CNN has fired senior editor Octavia Nasr for tweeting that she was "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah ... One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot." Fadlallah was one of the spiritual leaders of Hezbollah, and regarded by the U.S. government as a terrorist. Nasr subsequently clarified that she was referring to Fadlallah's "pioneering" positions on womens' rights (among other things, he issued fatwas condemning honor killings and affirming the right of women to protect themselves from domestic abuse), and she expressed regret for trying to address a complex issue like this in a brief tweet. But in a gutless decision that brings it no credit, CNN has shown her the door.

Needless to say, the double-standard here is both remarkable and distressing. As Juan Cole noted this morning, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki openly praised Fadlallah after the latter's death, and in terms far more lavish than Ms. Nasr used. Al-Maliki is the democratically-elected leader of Iraq and supposedly a U.S. ally; does his praise for Fadlallah mean that we shouldn't say anything positive about him either?  

More importantly, plenty of American journalists and politicians have shown "respect" (and in some cases, fawning admiration) for various world figures with hands far bloodier than Ayatollah Fadlallah -- including Mao Zedong, Ariel Sharon, the Shah of Iran, or even Kim il Sung -- but it didn't cost them their jobs. And let's not forget that plenty of American journalists treat our own leaders with plenty of deference and "respect," even after the latter have launched unnecessary wars in which tens of thousands have died or authorized the torture of detainees. And as Josh Marshall notes over at TPM, getting fired after a successful twenty-year career over a 140-character tweet "just doesn't seem right."

This incident is also distressing because CNN was essentially caving into a black/white, us vs. them, good vs. absolute evil view of the world. Because the United States had labeled Fadlallah a "terrorist," expressing any sort of positive comment about him was a firing offense. But the real world is more complicated than that: people who support some good things sometimes embrace bad things too, and we ought to be able to acknowledge and "respect" them for their positive actions while recognizing and condemning their errors or flaws. Nasr is correct to have expressed regret for having tweeted on a subject that requires more nuance, but her firing will only reinforce the simplistic stereotypes that already prevail in mainstream political commentary. (For a more nuanced appreciation of Fadlallah's positive and negative contributions, go here.)

Mind you, I'm not defending Fadlallah's views on terrorism or Nasr's ill-advised tweet. But CNN's spineless response to this incident strikes me as one more reason why mainstream journalism is increasingly seen as morally bankrupt and why the blogosphere is slowly taking over.  

Am I the only person -- well, besides Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Poulson -- who thinks the "cyber-warfare" business may be overblown? It’s clear the U.S. national security establishment is paying a lot more attention to the issue, and colleagues of mine -- including some pretty serious and level-headed people -- are increasingly worried by the danger of some sort of "cyber-Katrina." I don't dismiss it entirely, but this sure looks to me like a classic opportunity for threat-inflation.

Mind you, I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of shenanigans going on in cyber-space, or that various forms of cyber-warfare don't have military potential. So I'm not arguing for complete head-in-the-sand complacency. But here’s what makes me worry that the threat is being overstated.

First, the whole issue is highly esoteric -- you really need to know a great deal about computer networks, software, encryption, etc., to know how serious the danger might be.  Unfortunately, details about a number of the alleged incidents that are being invoked to demonstrate the risk of a "cyber-Katrina," or a cyber-9/11, remain classified, which makes it hard for us lay-persons to gauge just how serious the problem really was or is. Moreover, even when we hear about computers being penetrated by hackers, or parts of the internet crashing, etc., it’s hard to know how much valuable information was stolen or how much actual damage was done. And as with other specialized areas of technology and/or military affairs, a lot of the experts have a clear vested interest in hyping the threat, so as to create greater demand for their services. Plus, we already seem to have politicians leaping on the issue as a way to grab some pork for their states.

Second, there are lots of different problems being lumped under a single banner, whether the label is "cyber-terror" or "cyber-war." One issue is the use of various computer tools to degrade an enemy’s military capabilities (e.g., by disrupting communications nets, spoofing sensors, etc.). A second issue is the alleged threat that bad guys would penetrate computer networks and shut down power grids, air traffic control, traffic lights, and other important elements of infrastructure, the way that internet terrorists (led by a disgruntled computer expert) did in the movie Live Free and Die Hard. A third problem is web-based criminal activity, including identity theft or simple fraud (e.g., those emails we all get from someone in Nigeria announcing that they have millions to give us once we send them some account information). A fourth potential threat is “cyber-espionage”; i.e., clever foreign hackers penetrate Pentagon or defense contractors’ computers and download valuable classified information. And then there are annoying activities like viruses, denial-of-service attacks, and other things that affect the stability of web-based activities and disrupt commerce (and my ability to send posts into FP).

This sounds like a rich menu of potential trouble, and putting the phrase "cyber" in front of almost any noun makes it sound trendy and a bit more frightening. But notice too that these are all somewhat different problems of quite different importance, and the appropriate response to each is likely to be different too. Some issues -- such as the danger of cyber-espionage -- may not require elaborate technical fixes but simply more rigorous security procedures to isolate classified material from the web. Other problems may not require big federal programs to address, in part because both individuals and the private sector have incentives to protect themselves (e.g., via firewalls or by backing up critical data). And as Greenwald warns, there may be real costs to civil liberties if concerns about vague cyber dangers lead us to grant the NSA or some other government agency greater control over the Internet.  

Third, this is another issue that cries out for some comparative cost-benefit analysis. Is the danger that some malign hacker crashes a power grid greater than the likelihood that a blizzard would do the same thing? Is the risk of cyber-espionage greater than the potential danger from more traditional forms of spying? Without a comparative assessment of different risks and the costs of mitigating each one, we will allocate resources on the basis of hype rather than analysis. In short, my fear is not that we won't take reasonable precautions against a potential set of dangers; my concern is that we will spend tens of billions of dollars protecting ourselves against a set of threats that are not as dangerous as we are currently being told they are.

I hasten to add that this isn't my area of expertise and I may be completely wrong about it. What I would really like, therefore, is for an objective, blue-ribbon commission to look carefully at this question. Here's a possible example of what I have in mind, but I can't tell how reliable its conclusions are likely to be. Why? Because I can't tell how many of its members are people with a stake in the outcome. Makes me wish somebody like Richard Feynman was still around to chair it. 

Last week a colleague who has been facing repeated and unfair attacks in the media and the blogosphere (for making arguments that cut against the conventional wisdom) sent around an email asking a number of friends and associates (including me) for advice on how to deal with the attacks. Having been smeared in similar fashion myself, I circulated a list of the lessons I learned from my own experience with "grabbing the third rail." A few of the recipients thought the list was helpful, so I decided to revise it and post it here. If any readers are contemplating tackling a controversial subject -- and I hope some of you will -- you'll need to be ready should opponents decide not to address your arguments in a rational fashion, but to attack your character, misrepresent your position, and impugn your motives instead. If they take the low road, here are ten guidelines for dealing with it. (The advice itself is politically neutral: it applies regardless of the issue in question and no matter which side you're on.)

1. Think Through Your "Media Strategy" before You Go Public. If you are an academic taking on a "third rail" issue for the first time, you are likely to face a level of public and media scrutiny that you have never experienced before. It is therefore a good idea to think through your basic approach to the media before the firestorm hits. Are you willing to go on TV or radio to defend your views? Are there media outlets that you hope to cultivate, as well as some you should avoid?

Are you open to public debate on the issue, and if so, with whom? Do you plan a "full-court" media blitz to advance your position (an article, a book, a lecture tour, a set of op-eds, etc.), or do you intend to confine yourself to purely academic outlets and let the pundits take it from there? There is no right answer to these questions, of course, and how you answer them depends in good part on your own proclivities and those of your opponents. But planning ahead will leave you better prepared when the phone starts ringing off the hook and there's a reporter -- or even someone like Bill O'Reilly or Jon Stewart -- on the other end. Don't be afraid to listen to professional advice here (such as the media office at your university or research organization), especially if it's your first time in the shark tank. It's also a good idea to let your superiors know what's coming; deans, center directors, and college presidents don't like surprises.

2. You Have Less Control Than You Think. Although it helps to have thought about your strategy beforehand, there will always be surprises and you will have to think on your feet and improvise wisely. Sometimes real-world events will vindicate your position and enhance your credibility (as the 2006 Lebanon War did for my co-author and myself), but at other times you may have to explain why events aren't conforming to your position. A vicious attack may arrive from an unexpected source and leave you reeling, or you may get an unsolicited endorsement that validates your views. Bottom line: life is full of surprises, so be ready to roll with the punches and seize the opportunities.

3. Never Get Mad. Let your critics throw the mud, but you should always stick to the facts, especially when they are on your side. In my own case, many of the people who attacked me and my co-author proved to be unwitting allies, because they lost their cool in public or in print, made wild charges and ad hominem arguments, and generally acted in a transparently mean-spirited manner. It always works to your advantage when opponents act in an uncivil fashion, because it causes almost everyone else to swing your way.

Of course, it can be infuriating when critics misrepresent your work, and nobody likes to have malicious falsehoods broadcast about them. But the fact that someone is making false charges against you does not mean that others are persuaded by the malicious rhetoric. Most people are quite adept at separating facts from lies, and that is especially true when the charges are over-the-top. In short, the more ludicrous the charges, the more critics undermine their own case. So stick to the high ground; the view is nicer up there.

4. Don't Respond to Every Single Attack. A well-organized smear campaign will try to bury you in an avalanche flurry of bogus charges, many of which are simply not worth answering. It is easier for opponents to dream up false charges than it is for you to refute each one, and you will exhaust yourself rebutting every critical word directed at you. So focus mainly on answering the more intelligent criticisms while ignoring the more outrageous ones, which you should treat with the contempt they deserve. Finally, make sure every one of your answers is measured and filled with the relevant facts. Do not engage in ad hominem attacks of any sort, no matter how tempting it may be to hit back.

5. Explain to Your Audience What Is Going On. When refuting bogus charges, make it clear to readers or viewers why your opponents are attacking you in underhanded ways. When you are the object of a politically motivated smear campaign, others need to understand that your critics are not objective referees offering disinterested commentary. Be sure to raise the obvious question: why are your opponents using smear tactics like guilt-by-association and name-calling to shut down genuine debate or discredit your views? Why are they unwilling to engage in a calm and rational exchange of ideas? Let others know that it is probably because your critics are aware that you have valid points to make and that many people will find your views persuasive if they get a chance to judge them for themselves.

6. The More Compelling Your Arguments Are, The Nastier the Attacks Will Be. If critics can refute your evidence or your logic, then that's what they will do and it will be very effective. However, if you have made a powerful case and there aren't any obvious weaknesses in it, your adversaries are likely to misrepresent what you have said and throw lots of mud at you. What else are they going to do when the evidence is against them?

This kind of behavior contrasts sharply with what one is accustomed to in academia, where well-crafted arguments are usually treated with respect, even by those who disagree with them. In the academic world, the better your arguments are, the more likely it is that critics will deal with them fairly. But if you are in a very public spat about a controversial issue like gay marriage or abortion or gun control, a solid and well-documented argument will probably attract more scurrilous attacks than a flimsy argument that is easily refuted. So be prepared.

7. You Need Allies. Anyone engaged on a controversial issue needs allies on both the professional and personal fronts. When the smearing starts, it is of enormous value to have friends and associates publicly stand up and defend you and your work. At the same time, support from colleagues, friends, and family is critical to maintaining one's morale. Facing a seemingly endless barrage of personal attacks as well as hostile and unfair criticisms of one's work can be exhausting and dispiriting, which is why you need others to stand behind you when the going gets tough. That does not mean you just want mindless cheerleaders, of course; sometimes allies help us the most when they warn us we are heading off course.

One more thing: if you're taking on a powerful set of opponents, don't be surprised or disappointed when people tell you privately that they agree with you and admire what you are doing, but never say so publicly. Be realistic; even basically good people are reluctant to take on powerful individuals or institutions, especially when they might pay a price for doing so.

8. Be Willing to Admit When You're Wrong, But Don't Adopt a Defensive Crouch. Nobody writing on a controversial and contested subject is infallible, and you're bound to make a mistake or two along the way. There's no harm in admitting to errors when they occur; indeed, harm is done when you make a mistake and then try to deny it. More generally, however, it makes good sense to make your case assertively and not shy away from engaging your critics. In short, the best defense is a smart offense, even when you are acknowledging errors or offering a correction. For illustrations of how my co-author and I tried to do this, see here, here, and here.

9. Challenging Orthodoxy Is a Form of "Asymmetric Conflict": You Win By "Not Losing." When someone challenges a taboo or takes on some well-entrenched conventional wisdom, his or her opponents invariably have the upper hand at first. They will seek to silence or discredit you as quickly as they can, so that your perspective, which they obviously won't like, does not gain any traction with the public. But this means that as long as you remain part of the debate, you're winning. Minds don't change overnight, and it is difficult to know how well an intellectual campaign is going at any particular point in time. So get ready for an emotional roller coaster -- some days you might think you're winning big, while other days the deck will appear to be stacked against you. But the real question is: are you still in the game?

The good news is that if you have facts and logic on your side, your position is almost certain to improve over time. It is also worth noting that a protracted debate allows you to refine your own arguments and figure out better ways to refute your opponents' claims. In brief, think of yourself as being engaged in a "long war," and keep striving.

10. Don't Forget to Feel Good about Yourself and the Enterprise in Which You Are Engaged. Waging a battle in which you are being unfairly attacked is hard work, and you will sometimes feels like Sisyphus rolling the proverbial stone endlessly uphill. But it can also be tremendously gratifying. You'll wage the struggle more effectively if you find ways to keep your spirits up, and if you never lose sight of the worthiness of your cause. Keeping your sense of humor intact helps too; because some of the attacks you will face are bound to be pretty comical. So while you're out there slaying your chosen dragon, make sure you have some fun too.

Yesterday, the New York Times online service hosted a "debate" about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, in response to the leaking of commanding general Stanley McChrystal's memo stating that more troops were necessary to avoid defeat. Unfortunately, the six people they asked to debate the issue (Gretchen Peters, James Morin, Vanda Feldab-Brown, Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, and Kori Schake) all seemed to be open supporters of the U.S. military commitment there. So when asked "how should additional troops be deployed? What types of specialized personnel are needed now?" none of the Times's chosen panel responded by saying "more troops are not the answer." In short, the six panelists managed to avoid the real question that President Obama (and the nation) faces: should the United States increase its presence in the hopes of reversing the situation, or should it cut its losses and get out? Would it really have been so bad to have at least one genuine skeptic of the war included among the respondents?

DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images

Andrew Sullivan replies to my query yesterday as to how far he is willing to take his recommendation that Western governments not recognize Ahmadinejad as Iran's president:

My point was about not recognizing now. As to the future, we have to see what it brings. A day is a long time right now in Iranian politics. So let's take this one day at a time for now."

Fine by me. And his blog has been a fascinating read since the election, not least for his spirited debunking of a lot of foolish neoconservative posturing on these events.