Nobel winner: theories on Iraq, global warming
It might have been tempting to shrug off the Nobel Committee's announcement that one of the winners of this year's economics prize was an 84-year-old retired professor few nonacademics have heard of. But Thomas Schelling has changed your life in ways you probably don't even realize, and right now he's working on ideas that could change your children's lives. Schelling's game-theory analyses of brinksmanship led to crucial practical improvements in international relations such as the installation of a hotline between the White House and the Kremlin. His research into the irrational behavior of addicts helped persuade Congress to raise taxes on cigarettes. Other thinkers have used his ideas as the foundation of two of today's bestselling books: Freakonomics and The Tipping Point.
The twice-retired professor (he retired at age 69 from Harvard to teach at the University of Maryland for another 13 years) took an hour away from fielding congratulatory phone calls to give U.S. News his analyses of the games people and nations are playing these days. Here are excerpts:
You did a lot of work on the concept of "pre-emptive war." What do you think about the situation in Iraq?
I don't know enough. When I used to theorize about East-West intercontinental nuclear relationships, that was all very simple: You've got two parties and nuclear weapons. During the war in Vietnam, I found that I didn't want to talk too much about it because I just didn't know enough. I can say that I am somewhat in despair about Iraq. I haven't totally despaired. . . . But I don't really understand enough about the politics of the Sunnis and Shiites. I do have the impression that the U.S. has bungled the situation terribly. But what the prospects are for getting out of it successfully? I just don't know.
Given the administration's early emphasis on weapons of mass destruction, wasn't this a pre-emptive war?
No, no. Pre-emptive means the enemy is about to strike, so you strike first. Iraq was never going to attack us or Kuwait again. You could probably say that if you thought a country was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons; you might use the word pre-emption to say, "We will go in and find and destroy the weapons." You might call that pre-emptive. But I think this was mainly an effort to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Of course, they haven't found the weapons of mass destruction yet.
It is hard to know whether the administration was deluded about that or deluded itself. They wanted so badly to have an excuse, they came to believe sincerely in the weapons of mass destruction business. . . . On the other hand, I think that it is not a good idea for the United States to feel that it can just unilaterally decide to go in and pre-empt anybody who is about to get nuclear weapons. I think there is a good chance Iran will get nuclear weapons, and we have to be thinking about how we will live with that. I think that if it ever gets nuclear weapons, it will first of all guard them very, very carefully. It won't go around giving them away or selling them or anything of that sort. And I think they will quickly perceive the best use of any nuclear weapons they have is deterrence . . . to let it be known that if the United States ever starts bombing Iran, something bad could happen. But I don't think their nuclear weapons are going to become aggressive. They are going to feel these weapons are precious because they may intimidate the United States and deter the United States from doing anything drastic in Iran. And I'd like to encourage them to think that way. I also hope they will understand the importance of keeping very good custody of their nuclear weapons and not let them fall into the wrong hands. Not even let them under the control of the military, just in case the military decides at some stage to make a coup or something.
You've spoken elsewhere about the current administration's interest in developing new nuclear weapons.
My feeling is that there is almost universal abhorrence of nuclear weapons, sometimes called a taboo. It is astonishing that we have managed to go 60 years without any being used since the two that were used in Japan. The Israelis didn't use them in 1973. [Margaret] Thatcher didn't use them in the Falklands. The Soviets didn't use them in Afghanistan. There is now a very strong tradition that nuclear weapons are not to be used. And I think that is very much in the interest of the United States. If we want to produce some new kinds of nuclear weapons, we should do it as quietly as possible and not brag about it, not talk about it. We should try to make sure that Iran, North Korea, and everybody else who has nuclear weapons realize these things are pretty special. You don't go around thinking about them at every military opportunity.
You're doing a lot of writing about global warming. And some of your writing indicates the results might not be all bad.
I've always thought it was a bad thing. I got involved way before most people did. I got deeply involved way back in 1980 when I served on a National Academy of Sciences committee called the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee.
You came out against the Kyoto Treaty [which requires countries to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases].
Oh, I think the Kyoto Treaty was a flop, but that's because it was not much as a treaty. I don't think it has accomplished anything. I don't think it is going to. It was a bad idea.
Well, what should be done then?
What I have proposed is that the major industrial nations, like the U.S.A., Japan, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Israel, should all get together and think about how they might embark on a set of commitments, to actions they would take, including joint actions of research and development to improve energy efficiency and energy conservation. I don't believe that there will ever be enforceable obligations. I think it is bound to be voluntary. I tried to ask, "Have nations ever embarked on a cooperative venture as important and likely as expensive as doing something about global warming?" And my answer is yes: NATO is a superb example. In NATO, nations undertook commitments, and their commitments were to actions they would take, and for the most part they met those commitments. It is partly because of a sense of community of the nations involved. You can't get that kind of community with 185 nations. But if you could get that kind of community with the countries of the [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] and Japan, then I think after maybe five or 10 years, they would have demonstrated they were serious, and they could talk with the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, Indonesians.
So the developed world has to do it on its own first?
The idea that they would make commitments subject to sanctions is a poor one. I am impressed with the fact in the articles of the European Union, it is explicit that any nation that for three years in a row has a budget deficit in excess of 3 percent of gross domestic product is to be subject to severe sanctions. A year ago, France and Germany both completed three years in a row with budget deficits in excess of 3 percent of GDP, and absolutely nothing was done and nothing was even contemplated. Nobody is going to try to slap a tax on France or Germany, and nobody is going to threaten military invasion because they won't pay a penalty.
It sounds as if you think there is nothing that can be done right away, but it is more of a long-term . . .
A big part of it should be research and development. I would hope that a lot of that could be done through international cooperation. . . . I think it will be hard to do anything without the U.S. taking a leading role, and I think this administration was never going to. But I don't blame just George Bush. Al Gore went to Kyoto during the negotiations. After the treaty was signed, the Clinton administration just let it sit there for three years and did nothing about it. Since the Kyoto Treaty was roughly aimed at the year 2010, three years to do nothing was a lot of time to let go by. If Gore had been elected, he might have been embarrassed because he might have felt obliged to go up to the Senate and ask for ratification of the treaty. And they might have said, "If we ratify this treaty, what do we have to do? We're going to have to raise taxes, have subsidies. We're going to have to finance a lot of research and development. We're going to have to pass a lot of new legislation, regulate automobile mileage, or boating standards, and all of that." Gore would have had to say, "I don't know. Let me think about it."