In the early hours of Sunday June 12, 2016, a madman perpetrated the mass murder of 49 people in a nightclub considered a safe space for Orlando’s LGBT community. 

Politicians quickly went into gear to exploit this tragedy to push their own agendas. Glaringly silent on the civil rights of LGBT communities, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz repeated their calls to ban, deport, and more aggressively prosecute Muslims in the wake of this attack. As if Muslims in America are not already selectively targeted in counterterrorism enforcement, stopped for extra security by the TSA at airports, and targeted for entrapment in terrorism cases manufactured by the FBI. 

Other politicians reiterated calls for Muslim communities to fight extremism purportedly infecting their communities, all while ignoring the fact that domestic terrorism carried out by non-Muslim perpetrators since 9/11 has had a higher impact than the jihadist threat. Asking Muslim American communities to counter violent extremism is a red herring and a nonstarter. 

In 2011, the White House initiated a countering violent extremism (CVE) program as a new form of soft counterterrorism. Under the rubric of community partnerships, Muslim communities are invited to work with law enforcement to prevent Muslims from joining foreign terrorist groups such as ISIS. Federal grants and rubbing elbows with high level federal officials are among the fringe benefits for cooperation, or cooptation as some critics argue, with the CVE program. 

Putting aside the un-American imposition of collective responsibility on Muslims, it is a red herring to call on Muslims to counter violent extremism. An individual cannot prevent a criminal act about which s/he has no knowledge. Past cases show that Muslim leaders, or the perpetrators’ family members for that matter, do not have knowledge of planned terrorist acts. 

Hence, Muslims and non-Muslims alike are in the same state of uncertainty and insecurity about the circumstances surrounding the next terrorist act on American soil. 

CVE is also a nonstarter for a community under siege by the government and private acts of discrimination. CVE programs expect community leaders and parents to engage young people on timely religious, political, and social matters. While this is generally a good practice for all communities, it should not be conducted through a security paradigm. Nor can it occur without a safe space for honest dialogue.

After fifteen years of aggressive surveillance and investigations, there are few safe spaces left in Muslim communities. Thanks in large part to mass FBI surveillance, mosques have become intellectual deserts where no one dares engage in discussions on sensitive political or religious topics. Fears that informants and undercover agents may secretly report on anyone who even criticizes American foreign policy have stripped mosques from their role as a community center where ideas can be freely debated. Government deportations of imams with critical views have turned Friday sermons into sterile monologues about mundane topics. And government efforts to promote “moderate” Muslims impose an assimilationist, anti-intellectual, and tokenized Muslim identity. 

For these reasons, debates about religion, politics, and society among young people are taking place online outside the purview of mosques, imams, and parents. 

Meanwhile, Muslim youth are reminded in their daily lives that they are suspect and their religion is violent. Students are subjected to bullying at school. Mosques are vandalized in conjunction with racist messages.  Workers face harassment at work. Muslim women wearing headscarves are assaulted in public spaces. Whether fear or bigotry drives the prejudice, government action and politicians’ rhetoric legitimize discrimination as an act of patriotism.

Defending against these civil rights assaults is consuming Muslim Americans’ community resources and attention. Worried about their physical safety, their means of livelihood, and the well-being of their children in schools; many Muslim Americans experience the post-9/11 era as doubly victimized by terrorism. Their civil rights are violated by private actors and their civil liberties are violated by government actors—all in retribution for a criminal act about which they had no prior knowledge, and which they had no power to prevent by a criminal with whom they had no relationship.

To be sure, we should not sit back and allow another mass shooting to occur without a national conversation about the causes of such violence. But wasting time debating ineffective and racialized CVE programs is not constructive. Our efforts are better spent addressing gun violence, the rise of homophobic violence, and failed American foreign policy in the Middle East.

We all have a responsibility to do what we can to prevent more madmen from engaging in senseless violence that violates our safe spaces.

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post.

Editor’s Note: Admission rates this year are at an all-time low, while anxiety about the college admission process remains high. Carol Graham and Michael O’Hanlon write that an Ivy League degree does not necessarily determine happiness or success.

This year's college admission process in the United States was by most measures tougher than ever. Only about 5 percent of applicants were accepted at Stanford and many admission rates at other schools were comparably daunting. Meanwhile, our nation's teenagers are exposed to a background of noise about America's supposed economic decline, which would seem only to increase the pressure to get a head start on that declining pool of available high-paying and highly satisfying careers. In the Washington, D.C. area, this sense of malaise was compounded this year by a spate of suicides at a prestigious local high school, with the common thread reportedly being a sense of anxiety about the future among the teenagers.

Of course, some of this story is timeless, and reflects the inevitable challenges of growing up in a competitive society. But much of it is over-hyped or simply wrong. We need to help our college-bound teenagers maintain a sense of perspective and calm as they face what is among life's most exciting but also most stressful periods. As two proud Princeton grads, we recognize the value of a high-quality education and the social and professional networks that come with an Ivy League degree. But we also know from intuition and experience that a similar kind of experience is achievable in many, many other places in our country, fielding as it does the best ecosystem of higher education institutions in the history of the planet. And increasingly, there is a strong body of research to back this claim up.

Higher Education Is Important

First, though, it is worth noting one incontrovertible fact: higher education is important. Sure, there can be exceptions, and some people may not have the opportunity at a given point in life to pursue either a two-year or four-year college degree or graduate education. But it is a reality in America's modern economy, due to trends with globalization and automation. Those with college degrees continue to do better than previous generations in this country; those without have seen their incomes stagnate or even decline on average for a generation now, as our colleague Belle Sawhill has shown. Another Brookings colleague, Richard Reeves, cites evidence that college graduates have higher marriage rates, higher wages, better health, greater job security, more interesting work and greater personal autonomy.

However, where you go to college matters less than if you go, by any number of measures. This is not to say it is unimportant. But whether you are interested in happiness while in college, satisfaction later in life or even raw monetary income, the correlation between gaining a Harvard degree and achieving nirvana is less than many 18-year-olds may be led to believe.

Begin with the question of happiness--a new and scientifically measurable arena of social science. It turns out you can learn a lot about how happy people are by asking them, and then applying common-sense statistical methods to a pool of data. For one of us, this has been the focus of research for over a decade. While money matters to happiness, after a certain point more money does not increase many dimensions of well-being (such as how people experience their daily lives), and in general, it is less important than good health or fulfillment at the workplace, on the home-front and in the community. Happier people, meanwhile, tend to care less about income but are more likely to value learning and creativity. And they are also likely to have more positive outlooks about their own futures, outlooks which in turn lead to better labor market and health outcomes on average.

An Atmosphere For Success

Yale or Amherst graduates are no more likely to find happiness than those who attended less prestigious schools. A new Gallup poll, inspired largely by Purdue president Mitch Daniels, finds that the most important enduring effects of the college experience on human happiness relate to personal bonds with professors and a sense of ongoing intellectual curiosity, not to GPA or GRE scores.

America can provide this kind of stimulation and this kind of experience at thousands of its institutions of higher learning. To be sure, elite universities, with their higher percentage of dedicated and outstanding students, create an atmosphere that can be more motivating. Yet it can also be much more stressful. Students at somewhat less notable institutions may need a bit more self-motivation to excel in certain cases, but they may also find professors who are every bit as committed to their education as any Ivy Leaguer and perhaps more available on average.

It is true that networks of fellow alums from the nation's great universities are often hugely helpful to one's career prospects. But a surprising number of institutions in our country have such networks of committed graduates, professors and other patrons. And while Harvard grads may be a dime a dozen in a place like D.C., those hailing from somewhat less known or prestigious places arguably watch out for each other even more, compensating to a large extent for their smaller numbers.

Even on the narrower subject of financial success, the issue is not cut and dried. Sure, the big and prestigious universities tend to be richer, and their graduates on average make more money. But much of that is because the more motivated and gifted students tend to choose the elite schools in the first place, driving up the average regardless of the quality of education. For the 18-year-old who was just turned down by his or her top couple of college choices and having to settle for a "safety" school, it is not clear that this turn of fate really matters for long-term financial prospects. Assuming comparable degrees of drive and motivation, students appear to do just as well elsewhere. In 2004, Mathematica economist Stacy Dale compared students who willfully went to less prestigious schools with their cohorts at the most prestigious universities and showed little discernible income differential.

America is blessed by a wonderful new generation of young people; as parents of five of them, we see this every day. Maybe those of us who have been through some of life's ups and downs need to work harder to help them take down the collective stress level a notch or two. No graduating child should be unhappy because they are going to their second or third choice of college next fall. With the right attitude and encouragement, they will likely do well—and be happy—wherever they go.

Change is a complicated thing in Cuba. On the one hand, many Cubans remain frustrated with limits on economic and political opportunity, and millennials are emigrating in ever rising numbers. On the other, there is more space for entrepreneurship, and Havana is full of energy and promise today.

The island’s emerging private sector is growing—and along with it, start-up investment costs. Three years ago, Yamina Vicente opened her events planning firm, Decorazón, with a mere $500 in cash. Today she estimates she would need $5,000 to compete. New upscale restaurants are opening: Mery Cabrera returned from Ecuador to invest her savings in Café Presidente, a sleek bistro located on the busy Avenue of the Presidents. And lively bars at establishments like 304 O’Reilly feature bright mixologists doing brisk business.

Photo credit: Richard Feinberg.

Havana’s hotels are fully booked through the current high season. The overflow of tourists is welcome news for the thousands of bed-and-breakfasts flowering throughout the city (many of which are now networked through AirBnB). While most bed-and-breakfasts used to be one or two rooms rented out of people’s homes, Cubans today are renovating entire buildings to rent out. These are the green shoots of what will become boutique hotels, and Cubans are quitting their low-paying jobs in the public sector to become managers of their family’s rental offerings.

Another new sign: real estate agencies! Most Cubans own their own homes—really own them, mortgage-free. But only recently did President Raúl Castro authorize the sales of homes, suddenly giving Cubans a valuable financial asset. Many sell them to get cash to open a new business. Others, to immigrate to Miami.

WiFi hot spots are also growing in number. Rejecting an offer from Google to provide Internet access to the entire island, the Cuban government instead set up some 700 public access locations. This includes 65 WiFi hot spots in parks, hotels, or major thoroughfares, where mostly young Cubans gather to message friends or chat with relatives overseas.

Economic swings

2015 was a good year for the Cuban economy, relatively speaking. Growth rose from the disappointing 2 percent in recent years to (by official measures) 4 percent. The Brazilian joint venture cigarette company, Brascuba, reported a 17 percent jump in sales, and announced a new $120 million investment in the Mariel Economic Development Zone. Shoppers crowded state-run malls over the holiday season, too. 

Photo credit: Richard Feinberg.

Consumers still report chronic shortages in many commodities, ranging from beer to soap, and complain of inflation in food prices. Alarmed by the chronic crisis of low productivity in agriculture, the government announced tax breaks for farmers in 2016. The government is already forecasting a slower growth rate for 2016, attributed to lower commodity prices and a faltering Venezuelan economy. It’s likely to fall back to the average 2 percent rate that has characterized the past decade.

Pick up the pace

Cuban officials are looking forward to the 7th Conference of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) in mid-April. There is little public discussion of the agenda, however. Potential initiatives include a new electoral law permitting direct election of members of the national assembly (who are currently chosen indirectly by regional assemblies or by CCP-related mass organizations); a timetable for unification of the currency (Cubans today must deal with two forms of money); some measures to empower provincial governments; and the development of a more coherent, forward-looking economic development strategy.

[T]here are now two brain drains: an internal brain drain, as government officials abandon the public sector for higher incomes in the growing private sector; and emigration overseas.

But for many younger Cubans, the pace of change is way too slow. The talk of the town remains the exit option. Converse with any well-educated millennial and they’ll tell you that half or more of their classmates are now living abroad. Indeed, there are now two brain drains: an internal brain drain, as government officials abandon the public sector for higher incomes in the growing private sector; and emigration overseas to the United States, but also to Spain, Canada, Mexico.

The challenge for the governing CCP is to give young people hope in the future. The White House has signaled that President Obama may visit Cuba this year. Such a visit by Obama—who is immensely popular on the island—could help. But the main task is essentially a Cuban one.

Richard Feinberg’s forthcoming book, “Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy,” will be published by Brookings Press later this year.

A recent article in The Guardian caught my eye: “Report accuses government of increasing inequalities in developing countries by financing academies at the expense of state schools.” The report, conducted by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, was an attack on U.K. aid money being linked to private education providers since the rapid increase in such schools may be contributing to sub-standard education. In particular, they cited the U.K. government’s investments in the Nairobi-based and for-profit Bridge International Academies.

I’ve worked on private education extensively throughout my career and do not believe there is anything wrong with private schools, but in this particular case I couldn’t agree more. But to be clear, it’s the funding strategy that’s the problem.

Private schooling is on the rise in a number of poor countries, and Pakistan—where my education research is focused—is no exception. The majority of these schools are no longer the elite institutions of yore, but low-cost alternatives fighting for survival in a highly competitive environment. These schools have mushroomed in response to increased parental demand and poor public alternatives, but also to the greater availability of teachers in the local labor market.

More importantly, research increasingly demonstrates that there is absolutely nothing wrong with private schools. There's a summary of this research available here; specific examples on India (more here) and Pakistan are also available.

Some key are takeaways from this research are:

• Private schools charge low fees (about $1 to$2 a month in Pakistan).
• The quality is almost certainly higher compared to government schools in the vicinity.
• At least in Pakistan, there is no significant segregation between public and private schools in terms of parental wealth, education, or caste.
• The most significant barrier to attendance in low-cost private schools is not cost—it’s distance. Put simply, there just aren’t enough of them around.

If there is a cheaper and better alternative to public schooling, shouldn’t we encourage children to shift and thus improve the quality of education for all?

Perhaps. But when the rubber from these well-intentioned aid policies hits the road of rural Pakistan, Kenya, or Ethiopia, a very different sort of model emerges. Instead of supporting private schooling, donors end up supporting private schools (or at best private school chains), which is an entirely different action with little theoretical backing. In fact, economic theory screams that governments and donors should almost never do that.

Donors say the problem is that the low-cost private school market is fragmented with no central authority that can be “contracted with.” No one has a good model on how to work with a competitive schooling sector with multiple small players—ironically, the precise market structure that, according to economics, leads to efficiency.

In reality, I suspect the problem goes deeper. Most low-cost private school owners don’t do well at donor conferences. They don’t know how to tell compelling human-interest stories about the good they do. But what they are excellent at is using local resources to ensure that their schools meet the expectations of demanding parents.

The first is a problem of accountability. Public schools are accountable, through a democratic system, to citizens of the country. Private schools are accountable to the parents. And donor-funded private school chains are account to the donors. While both citizen-led accountability and direct accountability to parents have problems, they are grounded in centuries of experience. It’s unlikely that donors in a foreign land, some of whom can’t visit the schools they fund for security reasons, can do better than either citizens or parents.

The second is a problem of market structure. When one private school or private school chain receives preferential treatment and funding, without allowing other private schools to apply for the same funds, the donor is picking winners (remember Solyndra?). The need for private schools as an alternative to government schools is insufficient justification for donors to put their thumbs on the scale and tilt the balance of power towards a pre-identified entity.

In a recent experiment, my colleagues and I gathered direct proof for this assertion. We gave untied grants to low-cost private schools with a twist. In certain villages, we randomly selected a single private school for the grant. In others, we gave the grant to every private school in the village. Our preliminary results show that in villages where we gave the grant to a single school, the school benefitted enormously from an increase in enrollment. Where we gave the grant to multiple private schools, the enrollment increase was split among schools. But only in the villages where we gave the grant to every school did test-scores for children increase.

What happened? When a single private school receives the grant, knowing that the other schools cannot react due to a lack of funds, they engage in “customer poaching” to increase their profits at the expense of others. Some have argued that Uber’s recent fundraising is precisely such an effort to starve competitors of funding.

When you equally support all private schools, customer poaching does not work, and the only way to increase profits and generate returns is to increase the size of the market, either through higher overall enrollments or through new quality offerings.

The first strategy supports pre-identified private schools and concentrates market power. The second, by providing opportunities for all private schools, improves education for children.

Sure, some private school chains and schools are making positive impact and deserve the support they can get. But funding such schools creates the wrong institutional structures and are more likely to lead to disasters than successes (Greg Mortensen and 3 cups of tea, anyone?).

In general, the Government’s responsibility towards the education of children is two-fold:

• Alleviate the market constraints that hold back private schooling without favoring one school over the other—letting parents decide who succeeds and who does not.
• Support and improve public schools to provide an alternative because there will always be children who cannot enroll in private schools, either because they are too expensive or because they are too far away, or because they don’t offer the instruction “basket” that some parents want.

In short, foreign aid should play no part in supporting private schools rather than private schooling.

Once upon a time, long ago, the development industry was fixated on measuring aid from richer to poorer countries. They called it ODA, standing for Official Development Assistance. For decades this aid has been codified, reported, and tracked, mostly by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (DAC/OECD), a club of advanced economies. In advance of the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank, the DAC announced that ODA has risen by 6.9% over 2014 levels to 132 billion dollars, a record amount. Importantly, ODA increased even after stripping out funds spent on refugees.

The United Nations has established targets for ODA—like the famous 0.7 percent of national income—which have taken on legendary status as benchmarks of national generosity. Only six out of 28 DAC countries met this target last year: Denmark, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Some institutions and lobby groups remain fixated on ODA, but many development actors now reject it as flawed. A major theme of the Spring Meetings is how to move beyond ODA and expand other forms of financing for development. ODA is, among other things, symptomatic of a charity perspective, rather than investment; inappropriate for South-South cooperation; and unable to capture the big new landscape of public-private links. What’s more, it is riddled with self-serving quirks like scoring numerous flows—the cost of university places in donor countries, and administrative costs of aid agencies—that never reach developing countries.

Perhaps the most telling weakness of ODA is that emerging powers like China and India see little merit (and arguably, some residual stigma) in this concept and, therefore, will not report on that basis to a club to which they do not belong. As their share of the world economy and their interactions with other “developing” countries continue to grow, this means ODA will inevitably start to represent an ever smaller share of official financing for development.

TOSSD stands for Total Official Support for Sustainable Development. The idea, still being fleshed out, is to have a universally accepted measure of the full array of public financial support for sustainable development. TOSSD should differ from ODA in at least three ways:

• First, it should take a developing country perspective rather than a donor country perspective. So it should cover the value of all funding for development that is officially supported, from pure grants to near-market loans and equity investments, as well as guarantees and insurance.
• Second, it should measure cross-border flows from all countries, not just the rich members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.
• Third, it should include contributions to global public goods needed to support development, like U.N. peacekeeping and pandemic surveillance.

There are many complications behind any international attempt to define and track such a huge range of activities. Some are technical, but can probably be resolved with enough goodwill and professionalism. So, for example, we can debate how to establish whether and how official support to private investors changes their behaviour, delivering “additional” development results compared to a situation without that support. In the end, sensible solutions and workarounds will be found.

More difficult are a couple of politically sensitive challenges, which at the same time underlie the value of reaching consensus on a new measure. How far, for example, should the new measure recognise indirect spending on global public goods? Take for example public research on an AIDS vaccine that could lead to prevention of millions of deaths in developing countries. Right now, this would not count as ODA because the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries is not its main objective.

We tend to think that consideration of globe-spanning benefits like these, which do not fit the simple mould of money crossing borders, is an essential feature of a new measure of development finance. However, it will need to be bounded sensibly, not least because of underlying suspicions that the countries that are today most likely to deploy such tools, and claim them as a large part of their distinctive contribution, are among the “old rich”—though that could change quickly. We suggest that spending on a defined list of global public goods should be included, perhaps those that support Agenda 2030, such as U.N. peacekeeping or a global research consortium like GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

A second potentially divisive issue, already alluded to, is how to value non-monetary flows, like technical assistance, and in a fair way across countries. We think it would be a powerful positive signal for international cooperation if even modest contributions by low- and middle-income countries are recognised, celebrated, and valued according to the contribution being made, not the cost of providing the assistance. The assistance provided by professionals from developing countries (think Cuban doctors) should be measured at the same prices as assistance provided by professionals from rich countries. Some form of purchasing power parity equivalence would need to be defined and used.

This is a hugely contentious question. Neither of the most obvious answers, the well-organised but globally unloved OECD and the legitimate but under-resourced U.N. secretariat, are likely to be acceptable without some changes. A preferred candidate has to have a sufficiently broad group of countries prepared to self-report on even a loose set of definitions in order to get momentum. At a minimum all the major economies of the world, for example members of the G-20, should be willing to participate. It should also have the technical capacity to help countries provide information in a consistent way.

The International Monetary Fund or World Bank could be candidates—most countries already report to them on a range of data, including financial flows. The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, with its membership of many development actors and technical support, could be another. Or a new group could be created in much the same way as the International Aid Transparency Initiative. This could even be a revamped Development Assistance Committee that operates with broader support in much the same way as the OECD’s tax work has many non-OECD members participating. What is important is that the guiding principle be to measure official cross-border financial resources that support the new universally-agreed Sustainable Development Goals, and to start now and learn by doing.  Such initiatives are too easily killed by subjecting them to endless external criticism that a perfect solution has not been found.

TOSSD may be one of the least attractive acronyms on offer today. Without disrespect to its OECD authors, it will anyway have to change to something that works for all the major stakeholders, and is not visibly invented in Paris and that also encourages players who are not strictly speaking “official,” like foundations, to sign up. We tend to favor a plainer, simpler wrapper like International Development Contributions (IDC), or Defined Development Contributions (DDC). 

A recent article in The Guardian caught my eye: “Report accuses government of increasing inequalities in developing countries by financing academies at the expense of state schools.” The report, conducted by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, was an attack on U.K. aid money being linked to private education providers since the rapid increase in such schools may be contributing to sub-standard education. In particular, they cited the U.K. government’s investments in the Nairobi-based and for-profit Bridge International Academies.

I’ve worked on private education extensively throughout my career and do not believe there is anything wrong with private schools, but in this particular case I couldn’t agree more. But to be clear, it’s the funding strategy that’s the problem.

Private schooling is on the rise in a number of poor countries, and Pakistan—where my education research is focused—is no exception. The majority of these schools are no longer the elite institutions of yore, but low-cost alternatives fighting for survival in a highly competitive environment. These schools have mushroomed in response to increased parental demand and poor public alternatives, but also to the greater availability of teachers in the local labor market.

More importantly, research increasingly demonstrates that there is absolutely nothing wrong with private schools. There's a summary of this research available here; specific examples on India (more here) and Pakistan are also available.

Some key are takeaways from this research are:

• Private schools charge low fees (about $1 to$2 a month in Pakistan).
• The quality is almost certainly higher compared to government schools in the vicinity.
• At least in Pakistan, there is no significant segregation between public and private schools in terms of parental wealth, education, or caste.
• The most significant barrier to attendance in low-cost private schools is not cost—it’s distance. Put simply, there just aren’t enough of them around.

If there is a cheaper and better alternative to public schooling, shouldn’t we encourage children to shift and thus improve the quality of education for all?

Perhaps. But when the rubber from these well-intentioned aid policies hits the road of rural Pakistan, Kenya, or Ethiopia, a very different sort of model emerges. Instead of supporting private schooling, donors end up supporting private schools (or at best private school chains), which is an entirely different action with little theoretical backing. In fact, economic theory screams that governments and donors should almost never do that.

Donors say the problem is that the low-cost private school market is fragmented with no central authority that can be “contracted with.” No one has a good model on how to work with a competitive schooling sector with multiple small players—ironically, the precise market structure that, according to economics, leads to efficiency.

In reality, I suspect the problem goes deeper. Most low-cost private school owners don’t do well at donor conferences. They don’t know how to tell compelling human-interest stories about the good they do. But what they are excellent at is using local resources to ensure that their schools meet the expectations of demanding parents.

The first is a problem of accountability. Public schools are accountable, through a democratic system, to citizens of the country. Private schools are accountable to the parents. And donor-funded private school chains are account to the donors. While both citizen-led accountability and direct accountability to parents have problems, they are grounded in centuries of experience. It’s unlikely that donors in a foreign land, some of whom can’t visit the schools they fund for security reasons, can do better than either citizens or parents.

The second is a problem of market structure. When one private school or private school chain receives preferential treatment and funding, without allowing other private schools to apply for the same funds, the donor is picking winners (remember Solyndra?). The need for private schools as an alternative to government schools is insufficient justification for donors to put their thumbs on the scale and tilt the balance of power towards a pre-identified entity.

In a recent experiment, my colleagues and I gathered direct proof for this assertion. We gave untied grants to low-cost private schools with a twist. In certain villages, we randomly selected a single private school for the grant. In others, we gave the grant to every private school in the village. Our preliminary results show that in villages where we gave the grant to a single school, the school benefitted enormously from an increase in enrollment. Where we gave the grant to multiple private schools, the enrollment increase was split among schools. But only in the villages where we gave the grant to every school did test-scores for children increase.

What happened? When a single private school receives the grant, knowing that the other schools cannot react due to a lack of funds, they engage in “customer poaching” to increase their profits at the expense of others. Some have argued that Uber’s recent fundraising is precisely such an effort to starve competitors of funding.

When you equally support all private schools, customer poaching does not work, and the only way to increase profits and generate returns is to increase the size of the market, either through higher overall enrollments or through new quality offerings.

The first strategy supports pre-identified private schools and concentrates market power. The second, by providing opportunities for all private schools, improves education for children.

Sure, some private school chains and schools are making positive impact and deserve the support they can get. But funding such schools creates the wrong institutional structures and are more likely to lead to disasters than successes (Greg Mortensen and 3 cups of tea, anyone?).

In general, the Government’s responsibility towards the education of children is two-fold:

• Alleviate the market constraints that hold back private schooling without favoring one school over the other—letting parents decide who succeeds and who does not.
• Support and improve public schools to provide an alternative because there will always be children who cannot enroll in private schools, either because they are too expensive or because they are too far away, or because they don’t offer the instruction “basket” that some parents want.

In short, foreign aid should play no part in supporting private schools rather than private schooling.

Even in comfortable times, the service cutbacks and fare increases being proposed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would have sparked outrage from New Yorkers. Coming in the depths of the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, things seem that much worse.

Not that it's any consolation to frustrated New York transit riders and taxpayers, but you are not alone. Transit agencies like the MTA are reeling nationwide; all are suffering from factors at least some of which they really can't control without some legislative help.

This is not to deny the pain that could occur unless the state comes up with a rescue plan. In its 2009 budget, the agency proposes painful service cutbacks and fare increases to help cover a projected deficit of around $1.5 billion.

No fewer than 51 transit agencies around the country are in the same financial situation. For example, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority that runs Boston's smaller transit system is chewing over major service cuts and fare increases if the state doesn't help cover its $160 million deficit.

The fact that so many transit agencies are struggling may come as a surprise. After all, didn't Washington just pump a lot of money into infrastructure as part of the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? Wasn't public transit a big part of that law?

Yes. The stimulus package provides $8.4 billion to be spent on transit this year. That's a helpful shot in the arm to metropolitan transit agencies that Washington ordinarily relegates to second-class status. And the MTA will receive the largest portion of this money: more than $1 billion. Even by today's standards, that's nothing to sneeze at.

But how much will it really help? Federal rules in effect since 1998 stipulate that this money can be spent only on capital improvement projects and not to finance gaps in day-to-day operating expenses.

Surely there is no transit service without capital - the buses, trains, tracks and other facilities that make the system run. However, operating costs - which are generally about twice as high as capital expenses for the largest transit agencies - cover the salaries of the workers who keep the system running, as well as the debt contracted to pay for capital projects.

So as the federal government aims to put Americans back to work on shovel-ready, temporary construction jobs, transit agencies are looking at the likelihood of laying people off from stable, permanent positions.

Why the disconnect?

The response in Washington is predictably stubborn: Recovery money cannot be used for operating expenses because operating is not a federal role.

You would think that the pressure of this policy would lead to transit agencies that are self-sufficient - where passenger fares pay the full costs of operating the system.

But large metropolitan transit agencies generally "recover" only about one-third of their costs from subway riders and about one-quarter from bus passengers. The MTA has the highest cost-recovery ratio among all subway operators - its fares pay for two-thirds of operating costs.

For large bus systems, the MTA's New York City Transit ranks second only to New Jersey's in terms of the share of operating costs paid for by riders. The Long Island Rail Road is the seventh among the 21 commuter rail systems in the country, recovering from fares close to half of its operating costs.

So what should be done to close the MTA's budget gap?

For one thing, lawmakers in Albany need to recognize that the state contributes a lower proportion of the MTA's budget from its general revenue than other states provide to their transit agencies from general revenue. In New York, about 4 percent of all the MTA operating costs are covered by the state budget; in other states, transit agencies are getting closer to 6 percent.

Raising state general fund support to national levels would be a good place to start helping the MTA.

Another idea is to get Washington to help. Not in doling out more money, but in stepping aside and empowering metropolitan agencies to spend their federal money in ways that best meet their own needs.

Specifically, the federal rules could be changed to allow transit agencies to spend their transit capital stimulus dollars on operating expenses. Certainly, agencies have capital needs as well, but particularly in these stressful economic times they should have the short-term flexibility to use those federal dollars to meet their immediate problems.

Over the long term, some form of federal competitive funding for operating assistance also might provide the right incentive - or reward - to states and localities to commit to funding transit.

Based on their level of commitment, metropolitan agencies, localities and states that legislatively dedicate a stable stream of funds could potentially receive federal operating assistance, perhaps as a matching grant. The federal government would be helping those who help themselves.

The New York metropolitan area cannot afford to have a transit system that is hampered from operating at its fullest and most efficient potential.

An extensive transit network like the MTA provides important transportation alternatives to those who have options and basic mobility for those who don't. It can help mitigate regional air-quality problems by lowering overall automobile emissions and slowing the growth in traffic congestion.

It also can provide economic benefits by creating development opportunities around transit stations and help enhance regional economic competitiveness as an important and attractive metropolitan amenity.

Such a functioning network plays a fundamental role in attracting highly skilled labor and talent, which we know is so important in 21st century metropolitan America.

The gruesome theatrics of the Islamic State (IS) captivate the world’s attention, instilling fear in the public from Los Angeles to Paris to Beirut. Yet while arrests are made in Europe and airstrikes continue in Raqqa, Americans ignore developments on another worn-out battlefield: Afghanistan.

Afghanistan faces numerous crises in 2016 that could rock the country and threaten U.S. security investments. The United States still has 10,000 troops stationed in the country. It must take decisive action not to supply vast numbers of troops or massively increase spending, but instead abandon inadequate policies before something catastrophic occurs. These must be more than incremental policy changes that merely stave off disaster for the interim, as this would compound the seriousness of each crisis. After traveling to Afghanistan in October 2015, we have identified key security risks and steps the United States can take to forestall disaster.

In 2015, Taliban violence resulted in more Afghan civilian, police, and military casualties than in any year since U.S. and NATO forces began fighting in Afghanistan. More fighters, better weapons, and new tactics made the 2015 Taliban offensive their most effective yet, with a recent attack in Parwan province that killed six U.S. soldiers serving as a terrible reminder of this grim reality. Next year, the Taliban will aim to take provincial cities, pounce on Kandahar, and spread fear through spectacular attacks. A major Taliban offensive following this year’s fierce assault is almost certain. Indeed, as a recent Department of Defense report describes, the security situation in Afghanistan has grown more precarious over the last year.

The Afghan army has done its best to counter the Taliban assault. Afghan forces retook Kunduz and pushed back serious Taliban offensives in other cities, including Ghazni. While attrition is high due to soldiers overstaying leaves, desertion, and Taliban threats to soldiers’ families, recruitment of new forces has exceeded losses. Yet, strong ground forces cannot compensate for inadequate air support, modern intelligence capabilities, well-functioning logistics (to maintain vehicles and keep essential supplies available), and higher-order assistance for Afghanistan’s still-nascent security institutions. The United States must help fill these critical gaps while maintaining its promises to complete these critical, but unfinished, programs. The United States must also amend the very restrictive rules of engagement that currently limit air support capabilities, and restore intelligence assets that have been withdrawn. Stronger battlefield intelligence capabilities are essential, as we learned after the tragic bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz. More effective air attacks and improved intelligence could seriously disrupt Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban is no longer the only threat to stability in Afghanistan. The influence of the Islamic State is growing, as it recruits more extremist Taliban members and brings in fighters from non-Afghan communities, including Uzbeks and Pakistanis. These IS-inspired groups challenge the new Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who seeks to cement his leadership after the years-long deception over the death of his predecessor, Mullah Omar. The Taliban fragmentation and competition from IS, especially prominent in the provinces of Zabul and Nangarhar, have led to increased violence, including the recent beheadings of minority Hazaras. The renewed violence reduces already slim hopes for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan.

The United States and NATO must intensify actions against IS in Afghanistan. Like al Qaeda, the group must be a priority target for air and counter terrorist missions. Now is the time to destroy it. At a minimum, coalition forces must restrain the growth of this hostile force before it becomes a significantly larger threat.

Afghanistan is undertaking a unique experiment in elected government. Nearly 70 percent of the electorate voted in 2014, despite threats from the Taliban to kill or mutilate anyone who did so. However, the results were clouded by accusations of widespread fraud. After an extended political impasse, the United States brokered a peaceful settlement and a power-sharing agreement between the two contenders in the run off. The National Unity Government (NUG) was formed with Ashraf Ghani serving as president and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, as chief executive officer.

Military solutions alone cannot solve all of the country’s woes, as the electorate’s participation and the elected officials’ ability to govern are as critical to a stable state as a strong security apparatus. Now, at a time when insurgent attacks need a strong response and the government needs to stop its internal wrangling and start delivering services to civilians, the NUG finds itself politically distracted. Ex-president Hamid Karzai and mujahedeen leaders continue to undermine the government in an attempt to spur its collapse. These attempts are little more than a naked power grab that, if successful, would usher in months of political paralysis while the victors squabble over the spoils of power. This would be disastrous, at a time when insurgent attacks need a strong response and the government needs to start delivering services. The United States and other coalition nations must voice strong opposition to all efforts to change the constitution through a Loya Jirga or the scheduling of early elections. Without first reforming the electoral system, another massively fraudulent election will surely follow. Quiet opposition will be taken as willingness to see the NUG undone.

Despite some positive developments, the Afghan government is losing popular support. More and more Afghans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Thousands of Afghans are fleeing the country, and along with them goes the potential for economic growth. Crime and insecurity in the cities contribute to this brain and asset drain. Stakeholders in Afghanistan must demand governance improvements from the NUG – including opposition to vicious ethnic discrimination and power abuse, which the Taliban exploited in Kunduz – that the Afghan people crave. The government should focus on increasing effective anti-criminal and anti-corruption policing in the major cities, such as Kabul, Herat, and Jalalabad. This would require significant government action against some major power brokers. Additionally, a concerted foreign advisory effort with the police is needed to improve civilian security. These actions require vigorous U.S. and international backing.

Doubts are growing about the United States’ and NATO’s commitment to long-term support for Afghanistan. While President Barack Obama’s decision to retain major security hubs in Afghanistan was a step in the right direction, this progress was undercut by the planned force reductions at the end of 2016. In a worsening security environment, Afghans fear being abandoned by their international partners. To rebuild confidence, a U.S.-led NATO review of conditions on the ground and a demonstrated willingness to fill major gaps, such as air support, would counteract this sense of abandonment.

Not all is gloom. Unlike Karzai, who blamed the United States for most of Afghanistan’s problems and refused to move against massive corruption, Ghani remains committed to reform. There is progress in revenue collection, enforcement action against fraud in Kabul Bank, and some members of the new cabinet are making progress in less visible but important reforms like speeding business licensing and settling land titles. Unlike in Syria and Iraq, militias do not yet dominate either politics or the battlefield. Actions are still available to minimize the looming crises. But planning and decisions are needed now, not after the crises explode.

This piece was originally published by Foreign Policy. 

2016 is shaping up to be a potentially critical year for Afghanistan. ISIS is rising there, the Taliban is gaining ground, the stability of the Afghan government is deteriorating by the day, and national elections are coming in October. The US, China, Pakistan, and the Afghan government are currently holding talks aimed at bringing the Taliban to the table to try negotiate an end to the war.

Of those countries, it's Pakistan that is the most significant. Pakistan has probably the most influence of anyone over whether those talks will succeed in getting the Taliban to agree to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement with the Afghan government. But there's a lot more going on with the peace talks that are perhaps the country's best or only remaining hope.

To understand how this works and why it matters, I spoke to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution and an expert on Afghanistan. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length.

Jennifer Williams: Could you start by just explaining how Pakistan has been involved in the conflict between the Taliban and Afghanistan historically?

Vanda Felbab-Brown: That goes back to the creation of independent Pakistan, with issues having to do with the Pashtun minority in Pakistan, which is also the majority population of Afghanistan, and irredentist claims by Afghan Pashtun politicians, as well as the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States, who at different times supported either Pakistan or Afghanistan and played the two against each other.

Then you have the Taliban emerging in the 1990s, and Pakistan fully supports the Taliban: They help equip it, they provide intelligence, advisers, and during the Taliban era when they ruled country, Pakistan is one of only three countries that recognize the Taliban regime.

They continued supporting the Taliban throughout the past decade, and US-Pakistan relations became very fraught and complicated. It's never been easy. Pakistanis sometimes use the expression that the United States treats Pakistan like a condom: uses it when they need it then discards it when they are finished with it. It's a fairly common saying in Pakistan, especially in the military. So there is a sense of betrayal on the part of the United States, untrustworthiness, that it's an exploitative relationship on the part of the US toward Pakistan.

I should also say that Pakistan has long supported many Islamic extremist groups as part of its asymmetric policy toward India, and some of these groups have now mutated, or they slipped Pakistan's full control.

Even with respect to the Afghan Taliban, there is a lot of support from the Pakistani state intelligence services and military to the Afghan Taliban. At the same time, Pakistan has been under enormous US and international pressure to act against them, and so they will take the occasional action against the Afghan Taliban as well. But those actions are mostly seen as halfhearted, incomplete window dressing.

JW: So what role is Pakistan playing today? I know that they just had the four-party talks and that Pakistan has been insisting that these talks take place in Pakistan. Are they trying to speak for the Taliban?

VFB: I'm not sure that it's a fair characterization that they are speaking for the Taliban. Certainly the Afghan government, including in the latest talks, often insinuates or alleges that Pakistan speaks for the Taliban. But they clearly do not.

The relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan is hardly smooth and perfect. Many members of the Afghan Taliban deeply resent the level of Pakistani interference, even as the group has been supported by Pakistan. There is a lot of Afghan Pashtun nationalism also among the Taliban that deeply resents the influence and attempts at control by the Pakistani state.

Part of the key issue in the relationship is that although Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban, and although it has historically supported other extremist groups, it does not have perfect control. And arguably, its control is diminishing. And so they posture, they do their double game. They want to appear strong, and so they posture that they have much greater control than they have, but at the same time they deny that they have any nefarious role.

In reality, they are playing both sides against the middle, and they often have much less capacity to control and rein in the extremist groups, including the Afghan Taliban, than many assume. The widespread criticism of Pakistan is one of its duplicity and its nefarious activity and its lack of willingness to act against the Afghan Taliban. Those are true, but they are also coupled with limits to their capacity. They are riding a tiger that they cannot control fully.

So they have been hosting these four-way talks that involve them, the US government, the Afghan government, and the Chinese government. The Afghan government is desperate to achieve some sort of negotiated deal with the Taliban. It feels under tremendous pressure, the military is taking a pounding from the Taliban, and the government lacks legitimacy.

The US has similar views on the notion that the way out of the predicament in Afghanistan is a negotiated deal. The Chinese also like the idea. They have their own influence in Pakistan. China would very much like to say that they finally achieved what the US failed to do over the past decade, that they will bring peace to Afghanistan, and that they will do it by enabling the negotiations.

Pakistan is responsive to China. Their relationship with China is much stronger than their relationship with the United States. They often tell the US that China is their old friend, that China is the country that hasn't betrayed them, unlike the United States. China has promised massive economic development in Pakistan at $40 billion. The Pakistanis often say to the US that the Pakistan-China relationship is "greater than the Himalayas and deeper than the ocean." Very flowery.

JW: What's the relationship like between the Afghan government and Pakistan today?

VFB: The crucial man there really is the Pakistani chief of the army staff Raheel Sharif; no relation to [Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif. I think that there is sort of goodwill and motivation right now, even on the army staff — but that is juxtaposed with, again, the limits of control even the chief has. With almost clockwork regularity you have a round of negotiations in Pakistan or you have a meeting between Raheel Sharif and [Afghan President Ashraf] Ghani, and the next day a bomb goes off in Kabul and people die, or the Indian consulate is attacked.

All those ploys are meant to destroy any beginning of a more positive relationship and have been very effective in subverting the process. The same goes on between Pakistan and India. Meanwhile, Ghani is taking an enormously risky strategy with respect to the negotiations. It's vastly unpopular in Afghanistan, and many, many Afghans hate Pakistan and blame it for all of their troubles.

They use Pakistan as the explanation of everything that ever goes wrong in Afghanistan. And the Pakistanis are responsible for a lot, but there's much, much blame and responsibility that lies on Afghan politicians and Afghan people.

So Ghani's outreach and engagement with Pakistan is extremely unpopular. He's spending an extreme amount of political capital, and does not have support from his partner in the government, Abdullah Abdullah, and the northern Tajik factions that hate Pakistan with great vitriol. So the more Pakistan is unable to deliver things like the Haqqani network, reducing or stopping its attacks in Kabul, the more politically impossible for Ghani the process will be.

JW: So what does that mean in terms of the stability of Afghanistan's unity government?

VFB: The unity government is extremely strained. "Unity" it isn't. The Pakistani negotiation angle is just too big for the strain. It might be strategically important. It might be a very significant element in getting any negotiation going, but it's also extremely politically costly, and the longer it doesn't produce anything, the more politically costly and unsustainable it will be.

In October, there are supposed to be parliamentary elections and district elections in Afghanistan, and, more important, this loya jirga [a national assembly of Afghan elders]. And unless there is some sort of major breakthrough by the summer, a lot of the negotiations and political process with both the Taliban and Pakistan will be put on ice, because it will just be politically impossible in the context of the loya jirga and the elections.

So they really have until the summer to make some sort of breakthrough, and then you will have months of morass and extreme political instability in Afghanistan, but it will also not be conducive in any way to improving either the relationship with Pakistan or the negotiations.

JW: How does Pakistan fit into the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan? What's the relationship there? And how might this affect the peace negotiations?

VFB: The rise of ISIS-Khorasan is one of the most interesting developments. It complicates the negotiations for the Taliban. They oppose the negotiations, and they're a big problem for Mullah Mansour and those who want to negotiate. They enable defections, make them easy, and make them costly.

At the same time, it is interesting because ISIS does not have the same linkages to Pakistan that the Afghan Taliban had, even though ISIS includes many defectors from the Taliban. They quite specifically reject what they call the "yoke" that Pakistan has put on the Afghan Taliban, and they call the Afghan Taliban leadership traitors because of the close relationship with Pakistan.

Moreover, ISIS-Khorasan also has quite a few members of various Pakistani extremist groups like Lashkar-e Taiba and members of TTP [Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan]. So there is also a lot of resentment and hostility toward Pakistan.

I think the rise of ISIS might make Pakistan be cooperative to some extent, but on the other hand, I think it will also reinforce in the mind of many Pakistan security controllers that it's important to cultivate the Afghan Taliban as friends against the bigger danger of ISIS.

JW: Now that ISIS-Khorasan has directly targeted Pakistan, the consulate in Jalalabad, do you think Pakistan will take action?

VFB: I think they'll take action against ISIS and groups like Tehrik-e Taliban. I don't think it will produce more resolve to go after the Afghan Taliban. That's my view. Others are hoping that they will finally accept the realities and really believe that they have to fight all of the insurgents, all of the terrorists, and that they cannot differentiate among them. I am not persuaded that that will, in fact, happen.

JW: So what does this all mean for the prospects for peace? Are you hopeful at all?

VFB: I think the peace negotiations are important, but I am skeptical that anything will happen quickly.

I think that if by summer the Taliban has been willing to join the negotiating table, that will be an important breakthrough, but nothing will be agreed. The summer will be very bloody, and then there will be the political [wrangling] associated with the loya jirga and the elections.

In my view, even if the Taliban comes to the negotiating table, we are looking at years of negotiations, and certainly no breakthrough before 2017 and likely much longer.

And so the question is whether we, the United States, are prepared to stand by with Afghanistan for that long and whether the Afghans will have the resolve. So it's really important that the military and the police fight as hard as they can, because the weaker they fight, the more they defect, the more intimidated they are, the more brain drain that flows from Afghanistan, the stronger the Taliban is viewed and the more intransigent they will be in the negotiations. Now the negotiations will be very much about the military battlefield as much as they will about what's happening at the table for a long time.

This interview was originally published by Vox.

The U.S. military will carry out a major modernization of its strategic nuclear forces in the 2020s.

It will cover all three legs of the strategic triad.

Much of the planned program makes sense. The long-range standoff (LRSO) — a new nuclear-armed cruise missile to outfit strategic bombers — does not.

The primary reason for the modernization program is that many US strategic weapons systems are aging out, and American policy is that, as long as there are nuclear weapons, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and robust nuclear deterrent.

The Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines will begin to hit the end of their service life in the late 2020s, and the Navy will need new submarines. Submarines and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) make up the most survivable leg of the triad, and they carry the bulk of deployed US strategic warheads.

The service life of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) runs out in 2030. The Air Force seeks a replacement ICBM. At a minimum, keeping an ICBM leg of the triad would require another life extension program for existing Minuteman III missiles.

As for the air-breathing leg of the triad, the Air Force wants to procure 80 to 100 B-21 bombers. Plans are shrouded in secrecy but reportedly will incorporate stealth features and advanced electronic warfare capabilities to allow the aircraft to penetrate contested air space. The Air Force is also modernizing the B61 nuclear gravity bomb for use on strategic bombers.

It is not clear why the United States will need to replace 400 deployed ICBMs on a one-for-one basis, particularly as the Air Force several years ago was prepared to go down to 300. A force of 200-300 ICBMs would suffice and result in significant cost savings. Likewise, one can challenge the requirement for 12 new ballistic missile submarines, as opposed to nine or 10.

The biggest question, however, arises over the LRSO, with a projected cost of $20 billion to $30 billion. The Air Force originally developed nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) in the 1970s because the B-52 — then the mainstay of the strategic bomber fleet — presented a big target for adversary radars. That would make it hard for the aircraft to penetrate air defenses. A B-52 armed with ALCMs could remain outside of radar range and release its cruise missiles.

The B-2, with its stealth features, was designed to restore a penetrating capability. The Air Force plans to use stealth and electronic warfare capabilities to give the B-21 a penetrating capability as well. If these bombers can defeat and penetrate air defenses, that makes the LRSO redundant. (Moreover, unlike in the 1970s, the Air Force today has very capable long-range conventionally armed cruise missiles that provide a standoff capability for bombers.)

If, on the other hand, the stealth of the B-21 will be compromised in the not-too-distant future, then one has to question the wisdom of spending $60 billion to $80 billion — and perhaps more — to procure the B-21. If we believe the B-21 would soon encounter problems penetrating air defenses, scrap that program. Buy instead modified Boeing 767s, a variant of which will serve as the Air Force’s new aerial tanker, and arm them with the LRSO.

The Air Force’s evident attachment to the B-21 suggests, however, that it believes that the aircraft will be able to defeat adversary air defenses for some time to come. That means that the LRSO would add little capability to the US strategic force mix.

If one were to argue for the redundant capability provided by the LRSO, the number of new ALCMs that the Pentagon proposes to purchase — 1,000 to 1,100 — is difficult to understand. Even allowing for extra cruise missiles for test purposes, the number seems excessively high.

In its 2010 annual report to Congress on implementation of the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty (SORT), the State Department advised that, as of Dec. 31, 2009, the United States had 1,968 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads. That figure captured the actual number of nuclear warheads atop SLBMs and ICBMs plus the number of nuclear bombs and ALCMs at air bases for use by bombers.

On June 1, 2011, a State Department fact sheet showed the number of deployed US strategic warheads as 1,800 as of Feb. 5, 2011, when the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) went into force. A Dec. 1, 2011, fact sheet provided a more detailed breakdown of US strategic forces. It stated that, as of Sept. 1, 2011, the United States had 1,790 deployed strategic warheads and 125 deployed strategic bombers. Like SORT, New START counts each warhead on a deployed ballistic missile as a deployed warhead. But New START counts bomber weapons differently from SORT. New START attributes each deployed bomber as one warhead, regardless of the number that it can carry or the number of weapons that may be at bomber bases.

The 125 deployed bombers on Sept. 1, 2011, would have counted as 125 under New START’s deployed strategic warhead total. Reducing 1,790 by 125 yields 1,665 — the number of deployed warheads then on US SLBMs and ICBMs.

Comparing the SORT and New START numbers is a bit of an apples-and-oranges comparison, but it gives some idea of the number of bomber weapons at US strategic bomber bases. Unless there was a dramatic increase in the number of warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs between the end of 2009 and September 2011 — and there is no reason to think that there was — comparing SORT’s 1,968 figure (end of 2009) to the 1,665 deployed warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs (under New START counting rules in September 2011) suggests some 300 nuclear bombs and ALCMs were at bomber bases. The B-2s would have been armed with bombs, which indicates a maximum of 200-250 ALCMs. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) also estimates that there are about 300 nuclear weapons at strategic bomber bases, of which 200 are nuclear-armed ALCMs. FAS believes an additional 375 ALCM airframes are held in reserve.

This comparison raises the question: Why would 1,000-1,100 ALCM airframes be needed to support a couple of hundred deployed ALCMs?

The United States should sensibly modernize its strategic deterrent, particularly in a time of tight defense budgets. The case for the LRSO is demonstrably weak, especially for the planned size of the program. The LRSO should be shelved.

This piece was originally published in Defense News.

The videos showing an unruly scene in and around Brookings last Thursday during the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan make for distressing viewing. The incongruity of what occurred—think Trump security meets Turkish nationalism—invites introspection about how scholarly institutions manage appearances by controversial leaders.

There are legitimate criticisms to be made of the Turkish government in general and of Thursday’s security detail in particular. But lost in the melee—and in the past year of terrorism, arrests, and media closures—is the message that Erdoğan most needed to convey.

Dramatic changes in the geopolitical neighborhood now present the most serious challenge to Turkish territorial integrity since the founding of the Republic. With the aid of Western intervention, the wars in Iraq and Syria accomplished more for the Kurdish cause than decades of terrorism and negotiation. Since the addition of a second stronghold in Syria to the de facto Kurdish territory in northern Iraq, Turkey is paying a price for conflicts not wholly of its own making.

It is not quite a century since European armies last seized Ottoman territories or supported national Kurdish independence from Istanbul. Whether or not now is the moment an autonomous Kurdish state takes legal form, the model is being proven nearby under Western protection. It does not make things easier that this time it is not Western countries’ intention to hurt Turkey’s national interests. Adding insult to Erdoğan’s injury, in 2015 the Kurdish cause met unprecedented support among urban elites around Turkey—and the United States and Europe—for a political party (HDP) that spoiled Erdoğan’s institutional ambitions by denying him a supermajority in parliament.

The Turkish president is criticized for allowing feelings of personal betrayal to color his strategic relationships—for example with Israel and Syria—yet many in the U.S. foreign policy community also now react to him emotionally. Because their high hopes were dashed after Gezi Park and the Gülen scandals, he can do no good again. This fuels Erdoğan’s outrage: Turkey gets no respect for its current role absorbing waves of refugees or for “taking the fight to terrorists.”

Erdoğan alienated Western allies with a take-no-prisoners approach in domestic politics and bears some responsibility for the government’s disastrous relationship with the country’s two major dissident groups—one ethnic (Kurdish) and one spiritual (Gülenist). But that should not relax similarly robust democratic expectations of these groups’ own political behavior, and the impression of such a double standard is at the root of the Turkish president’s annoyance. The suicide bombs and illegal wiretaps his country endured have failed to capture the American imagination. Instead, he perceives friends who would tie his hands as he defends the rule of law against terror and treason.

The Turkish government should be discouraged from abusing executive power, squelching dissent, or other acts of overzealous majoritarianism and break the cycle of retaliation against political opponents. But it is bizarre to equate the Turkish president with former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez or Russian President Vladimir Putin: Turkish democracy is battered but not yet sunk, and its government is still not a strategic opponent—it remains a NATO member in accession talks with the EU.

The Brookings incident is said to have exposed the regime’s true colors and thin skin, and to emblematize how polarized and undemocratic Turkey has become in the last decade. But a lopsided and illiberal democracy also preceded AKP rule: a quarter century of single party rule followed by four military coups in as many decades, with strict limits on free speech and religious exercise. American enthusiasm for democratization in the region must include a commitment to remain constructively engaged when the spring recoils and conservative parties win power—including those who appear to abuse that power—through exactly this kind of visit.

Because last week’s scene unfolded in the same auditorium where a younger Erdoğan appeared as a promising democratic leader years ago, it is fair to ask which was the real one. He who walked down the aisle with files on 57 imprisoned journalists in March 2016? Or the Erdoğan who arrived in government with dossiers on negotiations with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, opened talks with the Alevi religious minority, and established a ministry for European Union affairs?

Critics now say that was all just a show and diversionary tactic that have finally given way to his true attitudes towards the proverbial “tram of democracy.” But with friends who are deaf to some of Turkey’s legitimate concerns it is fair to ask what may now be an academic question: Is President Erdoğan an ex-liberal who simply got off the tram, or was he mugged by reality while on board?