Straight Talk

Lurking at the end of this Reuters article on potential vulnerabilities in McCain's alleged strong suit of foreign policy is this intriguing remark about McCain's idiotic plan to kick Russia out of the G8:

He also dismissed McCain's comment last October on Russia and the G-8 as "a holdover from an earlier period," adding: "It doesn't reflect where he is right now."

Matt Corley points out that this isn't quite right. As recently as March, McCain told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council that "We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia."

My guess is that the McCain adviser here is mistaken -- he knows this is a bad idea, so he'd like to think that McCain has flip-flopped away from it. But thought McCain has changed positions on a lot of issues over the years, he's been pretty consistent ever since 1999 or so on foreign policy questions -- taking the most hawkish line on every issue, seeking to ratchet-up tensions with every potential rival, etc. But if McCain has changed his mind about this, and I hope he has, he should say so clearly rather than through an anonymous quote.

Comments

He's right about Brazil and India though. China as well. After all, it's an economic summit, not a celebration of democracy.

Posted by right | June 26, 2008 9:15 AM

But Russia is the odd man out in the group. Everyone else is a "Western" country with longstanding economic and military ties and alliances with the US. It's not at all clear to me that Russia deserves to be in and not India. India has a larger economy than Russia, and the difference will only increase in the years to come. China and Brazil are also odd ones to leave out.

I don't see why Russia has to be in the G8. It's not like the G8 represents the vast majority of the world economy at the moment.

By PPP total, here is the listing of the biggest economies:

1 United States 13,843,825
2 People's Republic of China 6,991,0361
3 Japan 4,289,809
4 India 2,988,867
5 Germany 2,809,693
6 United Kingdom 2,137,421
7 Russia 2,087,815
8 France 2,046,899
9 Brazil 1,835,642
10 Italy 1,786,429
11 Spain 1,351,608
12 Mexico 1,346,009
13 Canada 1,265,838
14 South Korea 1,200,879
15 Turkey 887,964

There's no reason to have Italy and Canada on and not India and Brazil.

You're going to have to explain more fully why this is a terrible idea.

Posted by Hektor Bim | June 26, 2008 9:25 AM

You're going to have to explain more fully why this is a terrible idea.

You don't understand that throwing Russia out of the G8 is likely to piss Russia off? You don't understand why pissing Russia off unnecessarily is a terrible idea?

Posted by rea | June 26, 2008 9:30 AM

You're going to have to explain more fully why this is a terrible idea.

You don't understand that throwing Russia out of the G8 is likely to piss Russia off? You don't understand why pissing Russia off unnecessarily is a terrible idea?

Posted by rea | June 26, 2008 9:30 AM

Hektor,
Why use PPP to rank nations when considering who should be in a G8 summit. After all, the point of the summit is international trade. What does it matter how much cheaper a loaf of bread is in India than Germany.

Ranking nations by GDP using IMF numbers for 2007 gives:

United States 13,843,825
2 Japan 4,383,762
3 Germany 3,322,147
4 China (PRC) 3,250,827
5 United Kingdom 2,772,570
6 France 2,560,255
7 Italy 2,104,666
8 Spain 1,438,959
9 Canada 1,432,140
10 Brazil 1,313,590
11 Russia 1,289,582
12 India 1,098,945
13 South Korea 957,053
14 Australia 908,826
15 Mexico 893,365
16 Netherlands 768,704
17 Turkey 663,419
18 Sweden 455,319
19 Belgium 453,636
20 Indonesia 432,944

Even if Russia strictly speaiking wouldn't make the list, why kick out such an influential country just because it's a G8 and not a G11 summit?

Posted by WillieStyle | June 26, 2008 9:32 AM

Hektor,
A couple of reasons:
Russia is still much more "Western" than India or China.
Russia has much higher per capita GDP - India has a large economy but on a per capita basis it is still a very poor country.
Russia will probably overtake UK as the second largest European economy in couple of years.

Not that I have any idea of what the criteria should be for membership in the GX, altough it does seem like China, at least, should be included.

Posted by MS | June 26, 2008 9:40 AM

Obama might be in a position to jettison his genteel approach to McCain's candidacy. He has a healthy lead in most polls. How much of the electorate intending to, or strongly leaning towards, voting for Obama would be lost by labeling McCain the addle-brained, flip-flopping liar that he is? Buy 15 minutes of prime time coverage on the major networks (you have a few hundred million dollars, do something worthwhile and impactful with it for Christ's sake) and detail in easy to understand language what a duplicitous, grandstanding Alzheimer's case he is. The man can't even operate a computer! Can he still brush his teeth or wipe his own ass? Take off the fricking gloves and quit fucking around! Don't accord the man any more respect and deference than a common liar deserves. Also, Obama has to figure out a way to finesse this war hero aura. Yeah, he sat in jail and was tortured. It was courageous, patriotic, painful and a sacrifice for his country. Kudos! However, it doesn't especially qualify you to run the nation and 35 years later shouldn't dictate kid gloves in a political campaign. Obama isn't claiming he's more qualified to endure solitary confinement in a jungle hellhole. Somebody wants to drag that out of the attic it merits a big, fat (diplomatic) STFU and let's get back to the issues.

Posted by steve duncan | June 26, 2008 9:45 AM

Gee, if only there was a group of people- who maybe even got paid for it- whose purpose in life was to ask questions of Presidential candidates

Posted by MikeN | June 26, 2008 9:49 AM

The British have been pushing to expand the G8 to include five new states - Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

But note that this includes China, another country that the McCain NeoCons would like to start a cold war with.

It is really hard to avoid the fact that McCain really does love wars. His people would like a new war with Iran and to return to a diplomatic freeze with China and Russia.

What they miss is the fact that Europe and the rest have no interest in supporting that policy. If the US goes down that path it will go alone.

McCain's warmongering looks very similar to that of France under de Gaulle - using brutal methods to fight a dirty colonial war while trumpeting the imperial triumphs of the country which all the while is losing rather than gaining influence.

Posted by PHB | June 26, 2008 9:50 AM

"We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia."

And once again, McCain jumps immediately to the aggressive, "in your face" option. It's no wonder he mocked Obama's views on talks and diplomacy. McCain simply doesn't believe in them. Talks to him are "we speak, you listen and obey." To paraphrase a line from "Coupling" (the hilarious British version, not the wretched American attempted remake), "you have the diplomatic politics of a Viking attack."

Do we really want yet another 4 years where confrontation precedes actual understanding of the situation?

Posted by LFC | June 26, 2008 9:52 AM

I would argue that India is about as "Western" as Japan at this point.

I agree that unnecessarily pissing off Russia is counterproductive, but I don't see why keeping Russia in and China out isn't also counterproductive (to China). Russia isn't democratic and everyone knows it, and it isn't even in the WTO, largely because it makes a point of pissing off its neighbors unnecessarily, like Georgia.

Either the G8 is a club of the big economic powers, or it is a club of the big democracies. But right now it isn't either. The inclusion of Russia in the G8 made sense when Russia was at least attempting to democratize (though largely failing), but now that Russia has chosen an adversarial foreign and economic policy, either it will have to leave eventually or the G8 will become moribund.

Posted by Hektor Bim | June 26, 2008 9:59 AM

The "G8" has pretty much outlived its purpose. It started as a summit of the seven leading US-aligned economic powers during the Cold War, and then added Russia in an effort to integrate them into the Post-Cold War global economy.

To serve any useful purpose, this group should be expanded to represent the current leading economies and important regional powers. At minimum: China, India, South Korea, Brazil, and Australia. You could also make a case for South Africa, Turkey, Mexico, and Indonesia. There's no good reason to exclude Spain.

But kicking any country out would just be a pointless provocation. And if it's just going to be a clique summit with membership based on Cold War nostalgia instead of actual economic relevance, then you might as well disband the organization completely.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 26, 2008 10:08 AM

After all, the point of the summit is international trade. What does it matter how much cheaper a loaf of bread is in India than Germany. - WillieStyle

That is exactly what matters in re. international trade. The reason why off-shoring works is that a loaf of bread is cheaper in India than in Germany ... so you don't need to pay an Indian worker as much as you do a German worker. Eventually, the economic growth caused by off-shoring should trigger inflation in India and depress wages in Germany and, once equilibrium is reached (*), these price descrepencies won't be an issue. But until then, the inflation in India will have horrendous social and economic costs as will the wage depressions in Germany.

* Anyway, we don't want equilibrium to be reached, do we? Unless we are sliding to the economic equilibrium of global feudalism (which is ultimately, IMHO, what large portions of the right, including -- judging by what he said about Romney and his general militarism -- John McCain, want), before we reach equilibrium, the economy will change and grow, which is generally good, but will thus maintain the economic disparities which cause off-shoring to be beneficial to global capitalists (and, per Ricardo, to economies at the national level) but disastrous to those who suffer from job losses, inflation, etc.

Of course, for pointing this sort of thing out (that an on-average-benefit isn't a benefit for everyone -- if Bill Gates and 5 of us are in a room and he earns $10 while each of us loose a dollar, the room benefits on average, but it hurts most of us individually) is gonna get me labeled as a protectionist tantamount to Pat Buchannan ...

Posted by DAS | June 26, 2008 10:15 AM

I would argue that India is about as "Western" as Japan at this point. - Hektor Bim

And more "Western" in some ways that Russia.

Oh yes ... and what LaFollette Progressive said. Of course, if the neo-cons and their ilk had been a bit more receptive to Russia's "advances" about nuke decommissioning (rather than spending their time hounding Clinton about his bimbo eruptions), we wouldn't have to worry so much about pissing off Russia (btw, the neo-cons' answer to Iran's energy woes is to make them dependent on Russia, WTF? give Russia more power? I thought they wanted Russia to have less power ... but then they want to be "aggressive" toward Iran even as they armed it 25 some years ago and gave it the prize of removing Saddam Hussein ... what nuts! I bet with so many "mexed missages" they make lousy parents!). But Michael Moore pointed this out, and he's fat, so I guess we can ignore this like everything else he's been right about ...

Posted by DAS | June 26, 2008 10:21 AM

Plus, if you kicked Russia out of the G8 and added Brazil and India you'd have 9, not 8. No way that'd work for the G8. The man obviously cannot count!

Posted by matt (not the famous one) | June 26, 2008 10:26 AM

I think his idea to do this to the G8 is needlessly antagonistic-- but I don't know that I would oppose an organization comprised solely of "free nations." The G8 and WTO are trade-focused, NATO is military focused, and the UN by its nature need to include everybody. There doesn't seem to be any organization that would limit its membership to nations with legitimate governments and be able to pursue that end.

One hopes that such an organization would possess moral force both worldwide (for example, with regards to speaking on Zimbabwe), and in constraining its members from undertaking aberrant practices such as torture.

Posted by Anthony Damiani | June 26, 2008 11:56 AM

I have noticed a slight change in McCain's rhetoric this summer. I think that he is picking up the vibe that war is not so popular anymore after close to six years of it. Hence the use of the word "peace" and trying to emphasized "diplomacy" to eliminate the Iran nuclear program. I don't think his fundamental temperment has changed, but I do think that the politician in him is driving him to more reasonable despite himself.

Posted by rickstersherpa | June 26, 2008 1:44 PM

I think the metric for the G8 is exports, not raw GDP. India and Brazil may have large GDPs, but they are relatively insulated from the world economy.

Here's the list of top exporting nations, courtesy Wikipedia:

1 Germany
2 People's Republic of China
3 United States
4 Japan
5 France
6 Italy
7 Netherlands
8 Canada
9 United Kingdom
10 South Korea
11 Russia
12 Belgium
13 Singapore
14 Mexico
15 Spain

The list of leading importers is almost identical, the most important difference being that the U.S. is at the top. I'm not sure I would have expended the G7, but there's no good enough reason to kick out Russia now. For all the bluster, Russia is still more like a regular Western country--in terms of its economy and sociology--than is China or India.

Posted by jlw | June 26, 2008 2:32 PM

The British have been pushing to expand the G8 to include five new states - Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

But note that this includes China, another country that the McCain NeoCons would like to start a cold war with.

It is really hard to avoid the fact that McCain really does love wars. His people would like a new war with Iran and to return to a diplomatic freeze with China and Russia.

What they miss is the fact that Europe and the rest have no interest in supporting that policy. If the US goes down that path it will go alone.

McCain's warmongering looks very similar to that of France under de Gaulle - using brutal methods to fight a dirty colonial war while trumpeting the imperial triumphs of the country which all the while is losing rather than gaining influence.

Posted by PHB | June 26, 2008 6:46 PM