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Lumifer comments on Open thread, 9-15 June 2014 - Less Wrong
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I was thinking of Yemen, Oman and Somalia, though now that I look at a map I see they're not technically on the Persian Gulf.
I've heard good things about Dubai, but not enough to do a serious comparison between it and other countries.
Ideally, Dubai and Singapore would both set up thalassocracies, competing in a friendly way for trade and citizens. Their cities could be adjacent to one another, kind of like Burger King and McDonalds.
Well, in practical terms "setting up" a thalassocracy in such places would have to start with landing a pretty sizeable army on the shore and fighting it out with the locals. Kinda like the US experience in Afghanistan (and the Russian experience there before, and the British experience there before that...).
"Nation-building" in the Middle East and environs has been a pretty miserable failure so far.
To be clear, I am definitely not advocating large scale military invasion and occupation. The external power would take over a tiny bit of land - say 1000 km2 - to set up a city.
Let's do a quick comparison between Yemen and Singapore:
The point is that Singaporean institutions are vastly more efficient at turning land area (an intrinsically scarce commodity) into liveable and economically viable polity.
One way to formulate the goal of political development is to attempt to maximize the number of people living under good, efficient, non-corrupt governments. The thalassocracy concept is a way of implementing that goal without major political upheaval (e.g. revolution, war, massive immigration, etc).
So, a small-scale military invasion and occupation??
The issue isn't land you will be taking over, the issue is people. Some of them (probably a lot) will not want your thalassocracy. Some of them (and in Yemen, pretty much all of them) will be adept with weapons.
You want to come into the Middle East, set up an enclave completely different (politically, culturally, etc.) from anything around it and you don't expect war? Um, may I suggest you ask the Israelis about how well it works X-/
The difference is that the US attempted to establish democracy, i.e., hand over power to the locals as quickly as possible, I believe Daniel's plan would avoid this.
The problem both the Russians and British had was interference by rival powers, the US and Russia respectively. The Russians also had the problem that the economic system they wanted to impose being dysfunctional.
I don't think it mattered what the US attempted to establish and, actually, I don't think it tried any such thing anyway.
In any case, you seem to be arguing for old-style colonialism based on crushing military superiority. Even leaving aside whether it will work in our times, I am pretty sure that's not what OP has in mind.
They held elections and put the people who got majority into positions of power.
Old-style colonialism wasn't based on crushing military superiority, during the British Raj the number of British born troops in India was a tiny fraction the the native troops. Thus the British relied on the cooperation of large numbers of Indians and Indian troops.
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that the laws of nature somehow changed over the past century?
Elections are no big deal. Mugabe holds elections, Putin holds elections, hey, even Assad recently held elections.
Yes, it was. Certainly, it wasn't just military superiority, especially once the colonies were established, and the British, for example, became masters of control through political and financial means as well. However the military strength was the underlying bedrock.
Which particular laws of nature do you have in mind?
Well, the US forces actually attempted not to rig them.
Disagree. Military strength was based on a bedrock of competent management.
Whichever laws you invoked when you said implied that "old-style colonialism won't work in our time" is a reasonable hypothesis.
No need to, the locals can do everything necessary. The US forces just provided the money and prevented the "undesirables" from playing.
I did not invoke any laws of nature. I think that in the current social, political, informational, military, etc. global environment the old-style colonialism is highly unlikely to work. No laws of nature are involved in this assertion.
Can you be specific about what you think is the relevant change?