"i believe the human psyche is based on evolution and understand nationalism as an expression of clan-based loyalty. That does not exclude the possibility that people can form bonds based on (say) internet communities, labour unions, profit motive, etc."

Well we've been saying that nationalism and clannishness was 'pre-modern' and we'll evolve past this for a while now. Nationalism was considered an ideology most fitting for the early industrialization/early capitalism period. We're far beyond that now and nationalism isn't going away. Some things are biological. We're never going to evolve out of familial relations, as much as we'll try. Humans biologically desire sex, biologically want to defend their young and those have familial bonds with, and biologically seek companionship of some kind. Internet communities and labor unions will never replace that. There's not the same feeling of closeness. Nations/clans are unique in that they are a biologic community, considered an extension of the family. Other ties can't match that.

"Putin, You suggest criminal/terrorist/exploitative/opressive groups (be they political, religious, or profit motivated) can and will take advantage of people if allowed. This is certainly a 'them' against whom we can fight."

Of the threats you mentioned, only aliens could feasibly unite the entire world. They form a tangible existential threat to everyone equally on the globe. Terrorism is much too abstract, and terrorists do not aim to conquer. These threads point to the fact that a considerable segment of the population does not think terrorists are 'their problem'. They're somebody else's problem. Fighting terrorism cannot motivate more broader, more advanced and cohesive forms of organization. That's because the enemy is generally unknown and can come from anywhere, so reacting to terrorism is always ad hoc and tries to deal with the 'latest attack'.

Drugs and the environment are even more asymmetrical in terms of who is the target. Mexico is fighting a 'war on drugs' in which they're not the consumers (generally), the Americans are. So they're considering giving up the fight, because they're on the frontlines and bearing the costs for a problem they did not create.

With the environment, what do developed countries care if the polar ice caps melt. They're not Maldives. They'll probably be fine. They have plenty of fresh water. They have plenty of arable land. Poor countries in the tropical zones will be most affected. This is not going to generate worldwide cohesion and organization.

Mexico didn't create the drug problem? Maybe if their politicians hadn't been so easily bought to begin with, the problem wouldn't be theirs.

Mexico wouldn't be on the frontlines had the anti-drug efforts in the Caribbean and Colombia not been (relatively) successful. They didn't create the demand. I fail to see what bought-off politicians has to do with demand for drugs. The problem isn't unique to Mexico, plenty of countries in the Americas got caught up in the drug war as unfortunate transit countries.

Greasing the politicians palms made Mexico the portal of choice for many years because the politicians looked the other way and let the drug lords do whatever they wanted. So now they pay the price for a lack of vigilance then.

Now, they pay the price for our cowardice in refusing to end the Drug War and move towards substance use and abuse. The criminalization of some drug use has concentrated enormous wealth, almost oil company wealth, in the hands of the most functionally violent distribution organizations, with home offices in countries where the average worker has a salary in the high peanuts, in no small part because we have pretty much always supported government of, by, and for the large landowners south of the Rio Grande.

oh come on, if we legalise drugs half our kids will turn up at school high as kites, we already went thru that in the 70s. Just because the war can't be won, doesnt mean we should not fight it. Besides, drug money provided most of the CIAs funding :)

provided = provides

Very true fiedler. It's amazing how many kids showed up drunk to my high school. If drugs were made more readily available, the same thing would happen

I don't know how anyone else feels, but if I had to choose between the neighbour I don't know and some anonymous person in India, I'd have to flip a coin. If individuals can move beyond nationalism, why not the whole society? Evidently it wouldn't be easy, and would probably require a revision of text-books and a real binding integration into a new evolution of the UN (as Putin already pointed out, it's not very likely in the absence of a binding international system of governance and justice). But the "us" / "them" construction exists everywhere you look. We won't just evolve out of it, though I take it as demonstrated that education is the best weapon. I think (as I suggested earlier) that going the opposite direction might be productive. Get people to look at their community where their voice can actually count, and issues at the national level will logically take the back seat that it deserves. Religion is another issue. Or perhaps it is exactly the same issue. It does seem that humans are always happy to take any identifiable difference as a sure sign of their own moral, racial, theological, physical superiority. *sigh*

"Greasing the politicians palms made Mexico the portal of choice for many years because the politicians looked the other way and let the drug lords do whatever they wanted. So now they pay the price for a lack of vigilance then."

You think politics in Colombia and Jamaica are less corrupt? There's palm greasing in every developing country. The simple fact remains that if there was no demand for drugs, there'd be no drug war. Wealthy drug users bear most of the blame for people getting blown up south of the border. Stop your irresponsible habits.

Heck, in Jamaica they let cartels run half of Kingston. But yet the Caribbean has declined as a major transit point. Thank goodness for better radar.

"Or perhaps it is exactly the same issue. It does seem that humans are always happy to take any identifiable difference as a sure sign of their own moral, racial, theological, physical superiority. *sigh*"

People desire self-esteem. Group identity in a national community provides that self-esteem people crave, partly because each nation is 'unique' in some way. Also ties to nations and biological communities gives people a sense of transcending death, filling a void left by the overall decline of religion. If you're part of a nation, you can be sure to be part of something that live on after you die. Your life is tied to the glory of your nation.

It's a powerful idea that I don't think can ever be vanquished.

"When, did the 'balance of power' not result in the first world war? Ok, in realistic terms it destroyed much of Europe and the rest of the world (apart from China-Japan) i htink largely gained, in the long term from the decline of Europe."

When countries fail to understand the balance of power, they court disaster. Germany failed to realize that Russia was stronger than its performance in the Russo-Japanese war seemed to indicate. The result was a long stalemate and a bloody war. But the system still worked. It was predictable. People understood their roles. There were certain rules that were followed by and large. People could deal with each other, even their enemies. In fact enemies could often turn into allies in the next great conflagration. In the current world all of this is in flux. The wars aren't really fought between countries. It's sort of a hybrid law enforcement/military asymmetrical combat situation everywhere. It's very unpredictable and rules are out the window.

"In a sense this idea of working together with your neighbouring countries is largely a european phenominum, surely due to the two wars of last century. Whereas US policy is heavily changed because of the Cold War, which i guess i don't know enough about to suggest it's direction... ""

But some of the biggest advocates of scrupulous adherence to international law and respect for the UN are countries in the developing world of Asia, Africa, Latin America. International law keeps them from getting run over. They're the ones usually calling for global or multilateral solutions to problems.

+1 Putin on the drugs / corruption response. If there were any justice in the world, Mexico and the rest of the producer societies would have benefited handsomely from a controlled and taxed market of so valuable a natural resource. Instead, the US has strongarmed them into turning themselves into battlegrounds with cartels.

"Well we've been saying that nationalism and clannishness was 'pre-modern' and we'll evolve past this for a while now. Nationalism was considered an ideology most fitting for the early industrialization/early capitalism period. We're far beyond that now and nationalism isn't going away. Some things are biological. We're never going to evolve out of familial relations, as much as we'll try. Humans biologically desire sex, biologically want to defend their young and those have familial bonds with, and biologically seek companionship of some kind. Internet communities and labor unions will never replace that. There's not the same feeling of closeness."

As for a 'evolving past' nationalism, i don't think we've had enough time for biological evolution to get past this 'clan-ish' attribute, on the other hand social development is much faster and i DO think there are strong ideas which can substitute for the idea of nationalism (while taking advantage of the same biology)

What mcbry suggests is a more community focused democracy, which i think could very easily change our view of whats important and massively weaken nationalism.

On the other hand i do beleive that while democracy has it's place, not all scales of organisation are suitable/successful for direct or representative democracy.

It is possible to use other systems which work better to organise different sized groups. And the 'cult of democracy' - if you want to call it that - often blinds us to the weaknesses inherent in a democracy.

I don't know/can't tell you what these scales are. Perhaps direct democracy in your local school district, but beyond that i don't know...

"some of the biggest advocates of scrupulous adherence to international law and respect for the UN are countries in the developing world of Asia, Africa, Latin America." - obviosuly because, as you stated, Internatioanl law keeps them from getting run over. This is a nation acting in it's own interest - so there's no surprise there, people/groups are able to act in 'their own interest'.

I'm glad you all know better than students what is in their interest when it comes to drug laws.

Massive decriminalisation and addict treatment in portugal has reduced addictgion rates and probably lowered use. The money saved on enforcement can be thrown at treatment - even without regulation and taxation at the point of sale...

How is the balance of power (an unstable militrary build up) in Europe more secure than Community? If one of the powers which is in the balance happens to develop nuclear weapons then the balance is suddenly shattered.

All other things being equal perhaps the balance of power would provide security, but given that you can replace militrary spending with police/anti-terrorist spending, on average you get smaller conflicts which don't spiral out of control.

As putin pointed out, you still get criminal/terrorist actions/conflict.
(internally in europe there are multiple terrorist organisations fighting for sovereignty - and several other groups agrueing against european integration) How much of this can/will be resovled peacefully? with the renegotiation of borders, treaties and devolution of powers to local government?

I don't know but it is almost certain that there will not be another europe wide militrary conflict.

As for the downside of reduced militrary within Europe resulting in less stability outside of Europe. It is possible, though the EU has been making various regional stability pacts with it's neighbours to help improve it's own security. I can see such a thing being at least moderately successful.

I also know the European nations contribute to many UN peace-keeping missions, (partially as a way of keeping the militrary in practice in case there is a war)

"I'm glad you all know better than students what is in their interest when it comes to drug laws.

Massive decriminalisation and addict treatment in portugal has reduced addictgion rates and probably lowered use. The money saved on enforcement can be thrown at treatment - even without regulation and taxation at the point of sale..."

Not really true.

“Portugal keeps on being the country with the most cases of injected drug related AIDS (85 new cases per one million of citizens in 2005, while the majority of other EU countries do not exceed 5 cases per million) and the only one registering a recent increase. 36 more cases per one million of citizens were estimated in 2005 comparatively to 2004, when only 30 were referred ” (EMCDDA - November 2007).

- Since the implementation of decriminalization in Portugal, the number of homicides related to drug use has increased 40%. "Portugal was the only European country to show a significant increase in homicides between 2001 and 2006."
(WDR - World Drug Report, 2009)

"With 219 deaths by drug 'overdose' a year, Portugal has one of the worst records, reporting more than one death every two days. Along with Greece, Austria and Finland, Portugal is one of the countries that recorded an increase in drug overdose by over 30% in 2005".
(EMCDDA – November 2007)

The number of deceased individuals that tested positive results for drugs (314) at the Portuguese Institute of Forensic Medicine in 2007 registered a 45% raise climbing fiercely after 2006 (216). This represents the highest numbers since 2001 – roughly one death per day - therefore reinforcing the growth of the drug trend since 2005.
(Portuguese IDT – November 2008)

- “Behind Luxembourg, Portugal is the European country with the highest rate of consistent drug users and IV heroin dependents”.
(Portuguese Drug Situation Annual Report, 2006)


- Between 2001 and 2007, drug use increased 4.2%, while the percentage of people who have used drugs (at least once) in life, multiplied from 7.8% to 12%. The following statistics are reported:

Cannabis: from 12.4% to 17%
Cocaine: from 1.3% to 2.8%
Heroine: from 0.7% to 1.1%
Ecstasy: from 0.7% to 1.3%.
(Report of Portuguese IDT 2008)

- “There remains a notorious growing consumption of cocaine in Portugal, although not as severe as that which is verifiable in Spain. The increase in consumption of cocaine is extremely problematic.”
(Wolfgang Gotz, EMCDDA Director - Lisbon, May 2009)

- “While amphetamines and cocaine consumption rates have doubled in Portugal, cocaine drug seizures have increased sevenfold between 2001 and 2006, the sixth highest in the world”.
(WDR - World Drug Report, June 2009)

Also, for a case closer to home, marijuana-related crime has risen significantly since 'de-criminalization' was implemented in Massachusetts.

http://thecrimereport.org/2010/11/16/pot-related-trafficking-violence-rises-after-ma-decriminalization/

Even if de-criminalization 'helps' in the sense that drug use doesn't increase, the problem of drug trafficking and trafficking related crime remains. In fact in most cases it increases as a result of de-criminalization (certainly did in the Netherlands and California).

It is true that drug trafficing was the problem which was identified above and that it remains under more liberal drug enforcement policies. However it was also pointed out that it was not Mexico's (in this case) fault as the drug demand wasn't curbed by drug enforcement policies in developed nations.

Now IF de-criminalization 'helps' in that sense, (which i'll admit is on shakey ground given putin's souces) then it is possible to revoke the international drug trafficing laws which are currently in force, which would help with the trafficking related crime. (like government troops going in and demanding their 21% Value added tax - cut of the drug sales... likely much easier than fighting and taking bribes... although perhaps the same effect, the money goes to fund the government instead of corrupt cops taking the bribes for personal use...)

i fear i've been reading things which say this: ""Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

and so i fear i'll have to do more research, but i'm leaning towards your evidence over this "report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank"

"Unfortunately, thorough studies on how various efforts have been implemented have not been conducted, and a causal effect between strategy efforts and these developements can not be firmly established... There are, however, statistical indicators that suggest the following correlations between the drug strategy that was implemented from July 2001, and the following developments:

* Increased use of cannabis.
* Decreased use of heroin.
* Increased uptake of treatment.
* Reduction in drug related deaths."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal#Results

Please note: the drug policy of portugal still allows for the confiscation of drugs, and a summons which may result in a fine, drug rehab treatment or community service - this is not a legalization policy.

+1 for rigorous, Ora.

There are few long-term studies. I bet if marijuana is legal and available and decent, heroin use falls.

+1 Putin for that research