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The Nuclear Power: The Revenge Mao Now Both Sides of the Shia By Ross Terrill
WILSON By Martin Walker
The WILSON QUARTERLY SURVEYING THE WORLD OF IDEAS QUARTERLY THE GLOBAL RACE FOR KNOWLEDGE THE GLOBAL
The Global Race for KNOWLEDGE Is America Losing? Autumn 2006, Vol. 30. No.4
AUTUMN 2006 $6.95 ($9.95 CAN) Hillavy Rodham Clinton Polarizing First Lady Gil Troy "The Hillary Clinton that emergesfrom Troy'sbook is not a caricature, but a real person, possessingvirtues and flaws,living a life marl NEW IN PAPERBACK The Pentagon and the Presidency Civil-Military Relations from FDR to George W. Bush Dale R. Herspring "A must-read for anyone interested in the critical national security issues that our nation will face in the next decade."--H. R. McMaster, commander of the Third Armored CavalryRegiment in Iraq and author of Dei·clicrio,lof Dirty 384 pages, 27 photographs, Paper $19.95 ~ University Press of Kansas Phone 785-864-4155 · Fax 785-864-4586 · www.ka nsas press.ku.edu Strategiesof TheToothptlste of immortality Dominance TheMisdirection ofU.S. I~ ElemBrHankiss ForeignI>olicy ~BB~ "Themagic of Hankiss's exposition isfound in &Edward Haley a~rrsas~ hiscapacity to elevateche small things inro their fol·e2uo,zibyLer H. Hnmilton larger,sometimes cosmic symbolic meanings. I-Iis "Thebasic theme isimportant and styleis that ofa virtuoso, often valid, Haley has gathered a lot of playful, almost al- good material, and the concluding chapterisexcellenc. waysinsightful and ~· --a~,isBohlen, former Assistanc convincing.Heis a shrewd observer Secretary of Stare for Arms Control, U.S.Department ofScate andinterpreter of life." In a criticaloverview of U.S. foreignpolicy since the end of the --Neil Smelser, ColdWhr, P. Edward Haley draws surprising connections between Universicyof keyelements of GeorgeW. Bush'sforeign policy and choseof his California, predecessor,Bill Clinton. Haley further shows how these elements I ~~W#Sl~m~i~rp~ Berkeley inboth cases produced disastrous results, and he proposes an airer 524.95poperbotk nativerhar is constructiveand tolerantbut not amorally"realistic." 522.95poperbotk TheWoodrow Wilson Center Press and The Johns Hopkins University Press 1-800-537-5487 · www.press.jhu.edu· 20% c~iscollntto Wilsoi2CenrelAssoci(ltes The WILSON QUARTERLY AUTUMN 2006 volume xxx, number 4 The Wilson Quarterly Published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars FEATURES www.wilsonquarterly.com 16 The Revenge of the Shia | By Martin Walker For centuries, members of Islam’s Shia sect lived under the heel of the rival Sunnis. The Shia’s rise from oppression may prove to be the greatest of all the upheavals shaping the Middle East today. DEPARTMENTS Mao Now | 22 By Ross Terrill 2 EDITOR’S COMMENT Thirty years after his death, Mao Zedong is already a fading folk memory in China. But China—and the West—must grapple with 4 LETTERS the real Mao before his damaging legacy can be laid to rest. 13 FINDINGS 29 THE GLOBAL RACE FOR KNOWLEDGE: Turn-of-the-Century Terror IS THE U.S. LOSING? Middle-Oxford America’s universities are the envy of the world, but the world is racing to catch up. Everybody now recognizes that Virtual Elephants knowledge is a key to economic growth. Our authors take a Keystroke Diplomacy hard look at the strengths and weaknesses of the American university, and at efforts to close the gap in China, Germany, 69 In ESSENCE and India. Iraq’s Disappearing Oil Trading in Dreams The New Ivory Tower | By Christopher Clausen The Music of the Spheres China’s College Revolution | By Sheila Melvin If Found Innocent, Try, Germany: The Humboldt Illusion | By Mitchell G. Ash Try Again India: Tiny at the Top | By Philip G. Altbach 91 CURRENT BOOKS Why the Liberal Arts Still Matter | By Michael Lind Paul Maliszewski on the 20th century’s greatest forger 59 NUCLEAR POWER: BOTH SIDES David Lindley on string theory Foreign energy supplies are more insecure than ever, and Eric Weinberger on the murder alarm over global warming is growing. As public debate that transfixed Holland about the option of nuclear power revives, so do the questions. Brief Reviews: Victor Navasky, Robert J. Samuelson, Roy Reed, Nuclear Power Is the Future | By Max Schulz David Macaulay, Richard Restak, Lauren F. Winner, Eric Nuclear Is Not the Way | By Brice Smith and Arjun Makhijani Jones, and others ON THE COVER: Photographic illustration from Veer.com. Design by David Herbick. 112 PORTRAIT The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A Slice of Woodrow Wilson Autumn 2006 ■ Wilson Quarterly 1 The WILSON QUARTERLY EDITOR’S COMMENT EDITOR Steven Lagerfeld Compared to What? MANAGING EDITOR James H. Carman SENIOR EDITOR Judith M. Havemann A cynic, it’s said, is a disappointed romantic, so I suppose I qualify LITERARY EDITOR Sarah L. Courteau EDITORS AT LARGE Ann Hulbert, James Morris, as a cynic about the American university. From the show trials of Jay Tolson political correctness to the mundane rites of academic guildsman- COPY EDITOR Vincent Ercolano ship, it’s been one heartbreak after another. It has long seemed to CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Daniel Akst, Stephen Bates, Martha Bayles, Linda Colley, Denis Donoghue, me that the American university is the General Motors of the Max Holland, Stephen Miller, Walter Reich, Alan Ryan, Amy E. Schwartz, Edward Tenner, Charles knowledge economy, a comfortable oligopoly ripe for ruin. Townshend, Alan Wolfe, Bertram Wyatt-Brown But it’s always necessary to ask the simple question, Compared RESEARCHER Rebecca J. Rosen BOARD OF EDITORIAL ADVISERS to what? And despite the university’s many imperfections, our K. Anthony Appiah, Cynthia Arnson, Amy Chua, cover articles on the global race for knowledge leave American Robert Darnton, Nathan Glazer, Harry Harding, Robert Hathaway, Elizabeth Johns, Jackson higher education looking pretty good in relative terms—vigorous, Lears, Seymour Martin Lipset, Robert Litwak, Wilfred M. McClay, Richard Rorty, Blair Ruble, diverse, adaptable, and productive. Peter Skerry, Martin Sletzinger, S. Frederick Starr, Philippa Strum, Martin Walker Much of today’s anxiety about the university concerns FOUNDING EDITOR Peter Braestrup (1929–1997) America’s ability to produce enough engineers, scientists, and BUSINESS DIRECTOR Suzanne Napper other specialists to supply the knowledge economy. Closer CIRCULATION Cary Zel, ProCirc, Miami, Fla. The Wilson Quarterly scrutiny makes those worries seem exaggerated, though not com- (ISSN-0363-3276) is published in January (Winter), April (Spring), July (Summer), and pletely unfounded. It ought to concern us just as much that we are October (Autumn) by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 producing too many mere specialists—too many narrowly (or Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004–3027. Complete article index available online at under-) educated graduates who are unprepared to think as www.wilsonquarterly.com. Subscriptions: one year, $24; expansively as true “knowledge workers” must or to participate two years, $43. Air mail outside U.S.: one year, $39; two years, $73. Single copies mailed upon request: fully in democratic life, and too many academics who are unwill- $8; outside U.S. and possessions, $10; selected back issues: $8, including postage and handling; outside ing to venture beyond the confines of the academy to the larger U.S., $10. Periodical postage paid at Washington, D.C., and additional mailing offices. All unsolicited world of the public square. manuscripts should be accompanied by a self- In his essay on p. 52, Michael Lind proposes that we look one addressed stamped envelope. MEMBERS: Send changes of address and all subscrip- step down the ladder, at the American public high school, for reme- tion correspondence with The Wilson Quarterly mailing label to Subscriber Service, The Wilson dies to some of the university’s shortcomings. High school is known Quarterly, P.O. Box 420406, Palm Coast, FL among education specialists as the black hole of the American edu- 32142–0406. 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Robert Graves tells them Title Name Date with great verve and flair, from Ariadne and the BLOCK CAPITALS PLEASE Address Minotaur to the manacling of Prometheus; Jason and the Golden Fleece to the birth of Aphrodite. ‘Immensely readable’ Wor th City State Zipcode FREDERIC RAPHAEL $87.50 Please allow 21 days for delivery. Applications subject to approval. Send no money now. BD7X95 LETTERS IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA Dakota’s cities where new immigrants while Fargo has not yet become one of Congratulations to the WQ for are mainly to be found. As in Iowa, the Blair Ruble’s “mélange cities,” it has its fine collection of essays on immi- increase in the number of Hispanics— become a much more diverse and inter- gration, “Us and Them: Immigrants in mainly from Mexico but also from esting place in terms of food, dress, lan- America” [Summer ’06]. As a histo- Guatemala, Colombia, El Salvador, and guage, celebrations—in a word, cul- rian of rural America, I found Stephen other Latin countries—has been espe- ture. At every North Dakota State Bloom’s “The New Pioneers” particu- cially great. Between 1990 and 2000, University graduation nowadays, when larly interesting. total numbers rose by about 60 per- I hear a Sudanese graduate serenaded It is perhaps not as extraordinary as cent. Even more impressive was the with enthusiastic ululation from female we might think that new immigrants nearly 65 percent increase in the pop- relatives in the crowd, I am reminded would be drawn to the rural Midwest. ulation of Asian immigrants, many of that this is not the North Dakota I came After all, the Midwest and the Great whom fill an increasing number of jobs to 32 years ago. Plains were largely settled by European as university instructors, physicians, David B. Danbom immigrants who were able to create and software engineers at Microsoft’s Author, Born in the Country: A History of relatively isolated ethnic communities Fargo facility. Rural America (1995) that sometimes endured for three or North Dakota’s immigrant profile is Professor of History four generations. My father was born in also shaped by an aggressive refugee North Dakota State University Stanton, Iowa, an overwhelmingly relocation program undertaken by Fargo, N.D. Swedish community. The Lutheran Lutheran Social Service. Over the past church there conducted services in 35 years, LSS has sponsored substantial Swedish until the end of World War II, numbers of refugees from nearly two Stephen Bloom suggests that at which time my grandmother—born dozen countries, most of whom have towns and industry could not survive in Iowa of immigrant parents—refused been settled in the Fargo area. The without the foreign influx, which is to attend any longer because services in result is that Fargo, a city of about required by the native exodus. In fact, English were “not religion.” Her reac- 90,000, now includes about 6,000 the appearance of foreign workers in tion reminds us—as we are reminded refugees. Of these, approximately 2,200 the 1970s predated the departure of by Peter Skerry in his WQ essay, are Bosnians, 1,000 are Vietnamese, native workers. Plains towns did not “Mother of Invention,” and by Jon 900 are Somalis, 900 are Sudanese, need those workers at that time; native- Gjerde’s book Minds of the West and 500 are Kurds. born Americans did all the jobs in (1999)—of the ambivalence of immi- The growing presence of refugees in meatpacking and other industries. But grants toward the United States and the city has been marked by some fric- when the federal government quadru- American culture. tions. The public school system has pled annual legal immigration and Like rural Iowa, rural North Dakota struggled to educate large numbers of allowed illegal migration to expand is on a downward demographic trajec- ESL students, who speak nearly 50 sep- even faster, some corporations had tory, but it lacks the poultry and meat- arate dialects, and there have been cul- enough surplus manpower to bust packing plants that would draw large tural clashes, particularly over gender unions and slash wages, benefits, work- numbers of immigrants. It is in North expectations and female equality. But ing conditions, and safety, leading to wage depression throughout the Plains LETTERS may be mailed to The Wilson Quarterly, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. economy and driving away native work- 20004–3027, or sent via facsimile, to (202) 691-4036, or e-mail, to [email protected]. The writer’s telephone number and postal address should be included. For reasons of space, letters are usually edited for ers. Without the immigration of for- publication. Some letters are received in response to the editors’ requests for comment. eign workers, meat [ Continued on Page 6 ] 4 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2006 TheThe fastestfastest wayway toto learnlearn aa language.language. Guaranteed. Guaranteed.™ Finally, a different approach that has millions of people talking. Using the award-winning Dynamic Immersion™ method, our interactive software teaches without translation, memorization or grammar drills. Combining thousands of real-life images and the voices of native speakers in a step-by-step immersionimmersion process,process,our programs successfully replicate the experience of learninglearning youryour first language. Guaranteed to teach faster and easier than any other language product or your money back. No questions asked. 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The quality of both sound and graphics was first rate.” The Boston Globe LETTERS [ Continued from page 4] processing and oth- mer ’06] was thorough and engaging, Finally, India faces the classic er industries would still be providing it did not sufficiently address three cru- pigeonholing dilemma, in that it derives middle-class lifestyles for the sons and cial aspects of India’s rise. much of its economic success from only daughters of the Plains, and the towns The first of these is India’s environ- one sector: information technology. would be without the various social mental problem. A recent edition of While IT is no doubt a dynamic area, issues and costs Bloom describes. The Financial Times analogized India’s whose importance appears primed to Assimilation indeed looks formida- rapid urbanization to Great Britain’s grow in the decades to come, I am ble, considering the diminished sense of period of industrialization in the 19th unable to think of any developing econ- national identity of native-born Amer- century. The scale of dislocation that omy that has achieved long-term, sus- icans and the more diverse cultures of this process engenders, however, is sure tainable growth on the back of one immigrants. But I am optimistic. to be several orders of magnitude industry. India, then, must tap its peo- Research suggests that if new immi- higher in India’s case, if for no other ple’s creativity and branch into new gration is reduced to traditional num- reason than its population. According areas if it is to succeed. Unfortunately, bers for at least the next 20 years, we to the United Nations, India is set to it cannot initiate this process without can expect to see an assimilation of this overtake China as the world’s most pop- implementing some intellectual cor- recent great wave of immigrants that is ulous country by 2045, with 1.5 billion rectives: In particular, India’s educa- as successful as this country achieved people. Massive inflows of labor to its tional institutions have heretofore with the great wave of eastern and cities are polluting India’s air, contam- focused far more on theory than they southern Europeans before the 1920s. inating its water, and poisoning its fish- have on application. According to a The fundamental problem of the pres- eries. Although standard paradigms of June 2005 report of the McKinsey ent wave of immigrants is in the raw development economics posit that eco- Global Institute, only 25 percent of numbers of people involved. nomic progress can occur independ- India’s engineers can compete in today’s Reducing annual immigration ently of environmental reforms, India’s global economy. numbers to the traditional quarter- current condition suggests otherwise. I hasten to note that I am neither a million level (down from nearly two At such point as environmental condi- cynic nor a naysayer. I believe, like most, million legal and illegal immigrants of tions interfere with individuals’ ability that India has great promise and wish recent years) would not only do wonders to function normally, labor productiv- for it to succeed. However, any state- for the immigrants now here, but would ity and, accordingly, economic output ment of its potential must come along- provide great new opportunities for will decline. side an acknowledgment of its peril. native-born Americans who have been Second, socioeconomic disparities For while India is properly proud of its left out of our current economic system are likely to widen as globalization con- economic achievements, it will have to (such as the 40 percent of black men tinues. While a narrow segment of address the aforementioned issues if it who do not have a full-time job). Both India’s population accrues benefits from seeks to continue its present success. “us and them” would benefit. increased trade flows and multinational Ali Suhail Wyne Roy Beck penetration, hundreds of millions are Fredericksburg, Va. Author, The Case Against Immigration (1996) sinking further into poverty. India’s President, NumbersUSA wealthiest states possess five times as Education & Research Foundation much aggregate income as its poorest Martin Walker presents a Arlington, Va. ones. Of the roughly one billion indi- cogent analysis of India’s growing viduals across the world who sustain strategic cooperation with the United themselves on less than $1 per day, 36 States. India has begun to break in last- INDIA’S UNCERTAIN percent live in India. In order to fathom ing ways from the legacies of state FUTURE the severity of this problem, consider socialism that characterized Jawaharlal While Martin Walker’s assess- that between 1995 and 2003, approx- Nehru’s vision of modern India in the ment of India’s economic trajectory imately one million Indian farmers 1940s. India in the 21st century is a [“India’s Path to Greatness,” WQ, Sum- committed suicide. nuclear nation that holds joint mili- 6 Wilson Quarterly ■ Autumn 2006 LETTERS tary exercises with the United States and has embraced economic liberal- ization. Walker’s analysis captures U.S. policy shifts in recognition of these changes and provides some fascinating details of George W. Bush’s own inter- est in making such shifts. India is poised to emerge as a key player with global geo-political significance, a role it has long aspired to, even in the era when it attempted to shape global pol- itics as leader of a nonaligned “third force.” However, India’s success, as Walker rightly notes, will depend as much on its own domestic policies and politics as it does on international strategic arrangements. On the domestic front, the most pressing question at hand is how India will address its internal political chal- lenges, which include the persistence of significant socioeconomic inequalities that pose challenges to the promised benefits of liberalization and the con- tinued strength of Hindu nationalist organizations that contest India’s long- standing secular traditions. There is no better example of these challenges than the case of the 300 million–strong middle class that scholars and public commentators alike hold up as the ÿ ÁÂ Ã embodiment of India’s potential great- ness. In reality, this middle class rep- ÿ ÿ ÁÂÿ ÃÂ ÂÄ Á resents both India’s promise and its potential pitfall. India has indeed been ÿ changed by the rise of a new highly visible and politically assertive middle ÿ class that supports both the push ÁÂ ! " # toward economic reform and India’s $ % % % &