Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

The prisons we build: the company we keep

In a famous experiment on sensory deprivation conducted years ago, a researcher sewed shut a newborn kitten's eye. Weeks later, when the scientist exposed the same eye, it was found to be useless. The profound lack of visual stimulation had permanently turned off that portion of the feline's brain.
Humans conduct such cruel experiments on one another all the time. Most of the horror stories we hear involve parents who abuse their children systematically over years, leaving them socially and mentally retarded in the worst way.

Such torture of innocents is easy to condemn, but when states engage in egregious acts in the name of security, rationalizations are a whole lot easier to come by.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Early column sighting: The Press of Atlantic City

+ My favorite link this week is a wicked-cool blogroll-as-periodic-table with Tom as 'Tm'.
+ Dreaming 5GW linked My own personal 5GW dream.
And referenced Tom re: 5GWarriors.
+ God is a Beer Drinker linked The readiness canard.
+ Joshua Foust continues to disagree with and link Tom.
+ Evolutionary Awareness linked Tom's definition of the Functioning Core.
+ Room 204 is a weblog for a class that's using PNM as one of their books.
+ James McCormick references Tom in a discussion of how long our people can serve in Iraq.
+ In the near future calls PNM 'new-age Manifest Destiny'.
+ Pennypack Post wonders, linking to last week's column, if Tom's committed to a blueprint for action or to Obama. [Answer: the former, and they're not mutually exclusive, anyhow ;-)]
+ Cheat Seeking Missiles references Tom while talking about globalization and Indian farmer suicides.
And a Tom-inspired post called Barbie Vs. The Mullahs.
+ NonParty Politics linked History will say on postwar Iraq...
+ Midwatch Cowboy is reading BFA, listening to Hugh's series with Tom, and linking the Brief on YouTube.
+ TM Lutas asks what role virtue plays in membership in the Core and Gap.
+ Economic Freedom linked The USG hedge fund for emerging markets.
+ Critt's doing more work combining Tom with Grazr, this time Amplifying Blueprint for Action.
+ Burgh Diaspora continues to integrate Tom's thoughts on globalization with his own distributed Pittsburgh project.
+ Someone posted the PNM Esquire article on a Spurs bulletin board. (?)
+ Keith from Indy left a comment that Tom's linked on Wikipedia's entry for Civilian Reserve Corps.
+ Giuliani for 2008 calls Tom 'an optimistic technocrat'.
+ Right Truth linked The side I've always been on (but it might have been an April Fool's joke).
+ China Law Blog linked What China will do with its money is what all people do with their money: use it to make them richer.
And also linked 6 reasons not to worry about all those Chinese men.
+ Asia Logistics Wrap linked Connectivity creates wealth opportunities but threatens homogeneity: it’s as simple as that and Go west, young Chinese!
+ There is no Second Place linked On Iranian seizure of UK troops.
+ So did Simulated Laughter.
+ Hidden Unities (with a new design, including a tagline inspired by Tom) linked Tom in reference to the SysAdmin.

Got this nice email from a participant at the recent Security Cooperation conference that I keynoted at Central Command. Very gratifying feedback to receive.

We concluded our conference this afternoon after a long week of numerous late nights. We developed country specific security cooperation plans which support our overall theater security cooperation strategy. I have been to two previous SC conferences and this was by far the most productive. What I found fascinating about this conference was how often your brief was cited. I talked to people and observed other briefings from the SAOs, the Military Departments, DOS, and USAID among others. Many of them referenced the Gap, the SysAdmin, and the DOEE just to name a few.

Your briefing helped establish a common vocabulary among the participants and I believe it provided a framework and a focus as we worked toward a truly synchronized strategy for building partner capacity throughout the theater. As you know, building partner capacity is the latest term for assisting countries, primarily in the Gap, with developing the ability to secure all of their sovereign territory and prevent the rise of violent extremists within their borders. Building partner capacity is equivalent to your concept of exporting security. We have operationalized the concept since the publication of the last QDR which coined the term. However, this is the first time I have participated in an event where building partner capacity was discussed within the context of "everything else". In our working groups we differentiated between countries with too much government and those with too little. We talked about the need to establish security as a precursor to attracting foreign investment and using CA and HA programs to improve basic services in order to improve quality of life and mitigate the factors which give rise to violent extremists. Of course, none of these are new concepts for us. What was new was that the discussions took place with a view toward "shrinking the Gap." You gave us what every good military planner needs: an End State.

In addition, at previous conferences, agencies like USAID, DTRA, and the
Surgeon's Office all briefed in plenary sessions, but few stayed for the working groups where SC activities are programmed. This year, all were there throughout due to the common belief that we must look beyond traditional security cooperation activities like exercises, FMS, JCETs, and IMET. These new players broadened the scope of SC and brought us closer to a comprehensive approach to building partner capacity. Your brief helped open all of our eyes to the possibilities these players represent.

Once again, I would personally like to thank you for taking the time to speak to us. I honestly believe that your participation set the tone for the whole conference and brought us one step closer to "a future worth creating."

It's gets a bit much when every other post or column gets interpreted as some grubby plea for attention from Dem candidates.

And it's even more laughable considering my only F2Fs have been on the Republican side!

Seriously, my expectations have always been that no Dem president could stand much of what I argue for and that only a centrist Republican (much like my man Steve) would find me palatable.

People are misinterpreting my praise for the Dems tying Bush's hands. I expect the Dems to be what they are: the opposition. I do not expect them to come up with better plans. That's not how our system works or has ever really worked. I expect Bush to come up with a better plan on the basis on the effective resistance from the opposition. I don't expect Congress to determine U.S. foreign policy.

What's so frustrating right now is that Bush was told by the Iraq Study Group what the logical way ahead should look like, and despite the showy bits here and there, he's continued to blow off their recommendations completely. I find that deeply troubling after the beating he took in the midterms, especially since the GOP hierarchy stacked the ISG deck just to make it easier.

So despite all the domestic resistance (average people are not stupid, they just know a losing hand when they see one) and the manufactured "out," Bush basically soldiers on, losing more allies along the way.

I just don't see that as sustainable. I think it puts everything good Bush has done at risk by making his entire time in office seem like an out-of-control experience (Clinton's foreign policy looks positively logical in comparison, and he used the military a huge amount, surpassed only by Bush in the last several decades).

I think that if public and the Dem opposition don't make it clear that they want Bush to fix what he's broken (Iraq) before moving on to new targets (Iran) that Bush and Cheney would move to conflate one disaster with another, and that that second disaster would achieve a tipping point globally that the first one could not--in large part because it would be viewed as America fundamentally out of control instead of playing "control" (in a gaming sense) to the global security wargame that is the Long War. Bush the Father gave off that vibe, and frankly, so did Clinton. Bush the Younger does not, and that is dangerous. As I wrote in PNM, sometimes America is called upon by history to change the rules, but that bold stroke needs to be followed by something more than just further idiosyncratic behavior. Done right, like Bush the Elder kicking Saddam out of Kuwait (unfortunately, not finishing the job), the demonstration effect can be huge (inter-state war of the classic land-grab style basically goes away. Done with a system-level appreciation, like Clinton and Co. did in the Balkans, we can give the world a huge glimpse of the necessary rule set (my A-to-Z rule set on processing politically bankrupt states is basically born from that experience). Bush the Younger likewise signaled a sense of history with his arguments for reshaping the Middle East with Saddam's toppling, but as I have argued many times, then the strategic imagination stalled. Kerry could not have done worse. I'm not sure anybody could have done worse. That's why history will judge Bush the Younger's re-election as a real disaster. Bushes are apparently good for just one term (although I have real hopes for Jeb, the one Bush who probably does have what it takes to be a good, full-service president).

So yeah, I do hope things will temporize as much as possible and that little will change between now and Jan 2009. I think anyone other than McCain who gets elected will represent a sea change and offer America a host of new opportunities to right our foreign policy quite rapidly, and I look forward to that.

But I don't write to attract that sort of attention, because I don't want that kind of job. Getting sucked back into the DC bureaucracy where your fab title really boils down to managing a whopping two or three big existing programs where you get to turn a few dials during your time . . . I interact with those people all the time and have for years, and I don't want that job.

As for trailing the great man in some White House position, I just don't have the ego for that, nor the mindset.

Having me around all the time isn't a good idea--for me or the person in question. I just don't function well in situations like that, and so nobody uses me like that--not even Steve.

So please, let's stay on topic. There's definitely a strain of people who liked me and my stuff much better when I approved of Bush's choices more, and there's definitely a strain of people who like me and my stuff much better when I disapprove of Bush's choices more now.

But for someone who's on his third presidency as a professional in this business, I'm not particularly surprised that this president wears out his welcome near the end. They all do. The guys who got them elected tend to bail about 2-3 years in, that's just the nature of the grind. Then they get people who are less connected to what got the person elected in the first place, and coordination tends to suffer. Near the end, it comes off as every man for himself, and so the criticism gets a whole lot easier because the performance tends to get a whole lot worse.

I can't cite blog entries from late Clinton or late 41 because I didn't keep all those memos and emails, so this blog gets to see this sort of stuff from me for the first time. Unpatriotic to some because we're at "war," except I don't view it that way, meaning neither unpatriotic nor really at war. That's why I spend a lot of time giving talks on trying to disaggregate war from peace, and why I argue so much for a rules perspective in this blog.

Then there's just the personal reality that I'm gearing up for another book, and the rejectionist in one's self naturally emerges in this time ("They're all wrong and thus I MUST write this book!").

Then there's just the larger reality that we're all moving on beyond Bush much earlier than anticipated, as his second term has seen him become as authority-crippled as Nixon near the end or Carter near the end.

But my optimism in the future suffers no drop due to Bush's plight. I live in the greatest country in the world, during this planet's best, deepest, and most sustained economic boom in history. But because I know what this country is capable of when our leadership in admired (like Clinton was globally), I prefer to anticipate that resumption of history in about 20 months more than to spend my days defending people and choices I no longer think represent the best we can muster.

So I'll take obstructionism for now and do my best to prepare my usual audience for the possibilities that lie ahead.

And no, I don't want to work for any commands either. I like interacting with them all.

ARTICLE: "As Its Brands Lag at Home, Unilever Makes a Risky Bet: CEO Shifts Resources To Poorer Countries; The Making of 'Cubitos,'" by Deborah Ball, Wall Street Journal, 22 March 2007, p. A1.

Great piece right out of the playbook of Prahalad.

This CEO isn't just talking China and India, but Africa and Latin America--the whole Gap.

Key line:

Unilever figures that 1.2 billion consumers will buy packaged goods for the first time by 2010--most of them in the developing world.

Each week 40k people in Asia use a washing machine for the first time.

As one section puts it, it's all about "getting there first."

Shrinking the Gap will be a private-sector-led affair. The roll of the military is to buy time, create stability and security, and help money flow.

ARTICLEL: "Silent Districts Speak Volumes On Sunnis' Fall: Insurgents Sever Area's Access to Life Basics," by Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, 26 March 2007, p. A1.

We all know that Kurdistan is stable and flourishing (the good). Most of us know the not-so-bad story of the Shiites:

The contrast with Shiite neighborhoods is sharp. Markets there are in full swing, community projects are under way, and while electricity is scarce throughout the city, there is less trouble finding fuel for generators in those areas. When the government cannot provide services, civilian arms of the Shiite militias step in to try to fill the gap.

The implied contrast, of course, is to the ugly, or the Sunni areas:

The city-scape of Iraq's capital tells a stark story of the toll the past four years have taken on Iraq's once powerful Sunni Arabs.

Theirs is the world of ruined buildings, damaged mosques, streets pitted by mortar shells and so little electricity that many people have abandoned using refrigerators altogether.

We have successfully liberated Kurdistan, and if we weren't so bent out of shape on Iran, we could argue easily that our liberation of Shiite Iraq has also gone reasonably well.

Where we failed was in Sunni Iraq, and that failure was--in many ways--preordained.

Glass-half-full says we claim our victories where we find them by pulling most of our ground troops to safe Kurdistan, continue to hunt AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) with special ops throughout Iraq, and advise the central government on how to put down the insurgency based in Sunni areas (letting the Shiite militias do their thing as necessary).

You add that up and that's not a bad showing, despite all the pointless losses on our side due to poor planning, not enough numbers and poor resourcing and execution.

But we're so binary we can't accept any partial win, and we fret incessantly that Iran "wins" when it's really Riyadh that does (and stabs us in the back rhetorically at the worst moments--thank you King-I-Am!). So we fight Iranian presence in Shiite Iraq, for all the good that will do us and for all the harm such interaction would eventually do to the mullahs back in Tehran (just watch who changes whom more, as freedom tends to infect and spread by example). And we continue to act like the insurgency is our cross to bear and ours alone (thank you again, House of Saud, for your kind words).

McCain is very right in one aspect: resistance at home is all about casualties. Lower the casualties and no matter how nasty the fight, America will be happy.

Meanwhile, we focus on locking in our gains and limiting our future burdens by getting the locals to share more responsibility.

I know, I know, that's too risky. But again, do you think Americans dying in Iraq is going to foment necessary change in Riyadh and Tehran, or is forcing both capitals to put up or shut up on Iraq going to move those balls forward faster?

There is nothing sadder than watching a superpower make a war that's not its own become its own.

We won the war in Iraq in 2003. Our ownership of the postwar mess eluded our grasp a while ago. The ISG recognized this and suggested some of the logical remedies. America, in its binary mindset, either wants the "win" or wants to admit the "loss."

Neither makes sense at this point.

OP-ED: "Many Plans, No News: Back to the past in the Middle East," by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 30 March 2007, p. A23.

This piece, showcasing Friedman's strongest skills as a regional expert, echoes a lot of my frustration with Bush:

In the Middle East today, home of the invention of algebra, a new math seems to have taken over. It is subtraction by addition. It goes like this: Add more trips to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice--who doesn't seem to have any coherent strategy--to an emotionally stale, restated Saudi peace overture to Israel, and combine it with a cynical Hamas-Fatah cease-fire accord and an Israeli prime minister so unpopular his poll ratings are now lower than the margin of error, and you'll find that we're actually going backward--way back, back to the pre-Oslo era.

Only the bad guys make history in the Middle East today. Only the bad guys have imagination and resolve. Arab, Palestinian and Israeli "moderates" are just watching. Their leaders have never been weak, and America has never been more feckless in framing clear choices to spur them to action.

We could be and should be doing better.

Then Friedman does the unthinkable: comparing Bush so unfavorably to Clinton, whose foreign policy looks better with each passing year.

Ouch! It's so good it hurts!

Killer ending:

The Bush team reminds me of someone who buys a rundown house that comes with remodeling plans by Frank Lloyd Wright, but insists instead on using drawings by the next-door neighbors. You get what you pay for. Or what you don't pay for.

Awesome piece.

ARTICLE: "In Aceh, New Governor Works To Draw Investment to Province," by Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal, 29 March 2007, p. A10.

Aceh and the Christmas Tsunamis remain the best SysAdmin effort of late.

Irwandi Yusuf was in jail when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis struck Aceh. Today, he is trying to stimulate foreign investment and establish a model government in the Indonesia province.

After escaping from his cell when the wave hit, the former reber strategist was elected Aceh's governor in December. The elections were possible after Indonesia's national government in 2005 signed a peace accord that ended a 30-year guerrilla war for independence, granting Aceh a large degree of autonomy.

Best CPX (command post exercise) I ever did was with Pacific Command in the mid-1990s on a humanitarian relief op focused on Aceh that simultaneously dealt with the difficulties of a separatist movement (yeah, the very same one!). It went nowhere as well as the real op went, and yet, it's that kind of training and planning that allowed PACOM to be ready when it needed to be, so I feel a tiny pride in being a small cog in that enormous wheel (a huge command, a huge exercise).

What's so fascinating here is how our military played such a crucial up-front role and how quickly and well the whole scenario got to what really matters: attracting FDI. That the former rebel strategist is now governor is just too cool for words. Beating your enemy is one thing, but co-opting him is much better. Better for you, better for him, better for business.

ARTICLE: "In Iraq, an Army Officer Battles to Open a Bank: Military Shifts Fight to Local Politics; Gunfire Outside Hall," by Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal 29 March 2007, p. A1.

Another stellar piece by Jaffe, who I--in my complete bias--consider the best reporter out there on military change.

Killer bit on "war within the context of war" yielding to "war within the context of everything else":

For decades, the U.S. military has defined warfare as separate from politics. When politics failed, war was necessary and the military took the lead. The attitude was one of the after-effects of the Vietnam War, in which the Army told itself that it had lost because politicians prevented the general from fighting the war they longed to fight.

"After Vietnam, we redefined officers as nothing but warrior-trainers," focused on teaching soldiers how to operate increasingly sophisticated weapons systems, says Lt. Col. Dough Ollivant, an Army strategist in Baghdad who has helped shape the current surge strategy. "We had a very restricted view of warfare."

The story itself revolves around a colonel's persistent effort to reopen a bank branch in a bad part of town.

Like I said in BFA: the Iraq war changes nothing in the U.S. military, but the Iraq postwar changes everything.

ARTICLE: Yemeni women sign up to fight terror, By Ginny Hill, BBC News, 2 April 2007

From another friend in CENTCOM: a description of successful security cooperation.

The kicker? Adding women to the mix was the Yemenis' idea.

A real problem when you create Africom: you split the Red Sea community when, in that part of the world, water connects rather than divides.

ARTICLE: DoD Removes Six Countries From Imminent Danger Pay List, By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service, March 30, 2007

A sign of integration toward the Core. Imagine--if you're anyone but John McCain--how far we remain from this goal in Iraq.

ARTICLE: The Right Has a Jailhouse Conversion, By CHRIS SUELLENTROP, New York Times Magazine, December 24, 2006

Point taken: some politicians are willing to deal with the tough subject of prison/incarceration reform.

Thanks to Eddie for sending this.

Why shouldn't Congress have a foreign policy of its own?

Hell, Bush doesn't have any.

I myself have pursued my own since Katrina.

So I say to Nancy on her road to Damascus: "you go girl!"

Hilarious to hear Cheney decry the "self-described strategists on the Hill."

If we had any real ones in this administration, he'd never hear a peep out of any of those guys and gals.

Ahmadinejad gets "dumb" and cuts a deal with London, and he may have just tossed away his chance to get Bush impeached and out of office before he is.

I think back to the depths of Clinton's administration and I was never this embarrassed over our standing in the world. That was just nonsense. This is just pathetic.

And it's such a waste of historic opportunities. That's what gets me the most.

Bush seems unable to define a victory, so he leaves it to the Dems to define a loss. As I said earlier, neither judgment makes sense, but such is the state of our leadership.

My kingdom for triangulation!

That was never in question.

The real question is, Will it last at all beyond where we concentrate troops?

All the concentration of troops does is approximate the actual desired peacekeeping presence we should have had there all along.

But it's like the light antibiotics coming late, when only the chemo will work. It's almost just enough, and it's way too late.

The ISG report was a gift from the gods to Bush and he didn't even bother to look that horse in the mouth.

ARTICLE: "Poorest Nations Will Bear Brunt As World Warms: Preparation Disparities; Wealthy Countries Spend Billions on Themselves, Millions on Others," by Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, 1 April 2007, p. A1.

The non-surprise is--of course--that the equatorially-centric Gap will suffer far more than the temperate-heavy Core (both north and south).

Best quote:

"Like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic. A much higher fraction of passengers from the cheaper decks were lost. We'll see the same phenomenon with global warming."

So says Henry I. Miller, from Hoover.

The subtitle on the jump page is too obvious for words:

Those responsible for carbon buildup are best able to adapt.

Duh! It's called development, and it beats poverty across the board: in good times, in marginal times, in bad times.

Obvious answer? Develop the Gap.

Best "flow" argument yet:

Robert O. Mendelsohn, an economist at Yale focused on climate, said that in the face of warming, it might be necessary to abandon the long-standing notion that all places might someday feed themselves. Poor regions reliant on unpredictable rainfall, he said, should be encouraged to shift people out of farming and into urban areas and import their food from northern countries.

Big trick, of course, is that urban migration typically triggered when rising ag productivity pushes people off rural lands.

One thing is for sure: our classic definitions of resilience will change.

EDITORIAL: "The China Tariffs: Another too-clever-by-half protectionist gambit," Wall Street Journal, 2 April 2007, p. A16.

We're now saying China's economy is "evolved" to the point where tariffs make sense because we can track government influence in a way that we can't with true nonmarket economies.

True enough.

More true: this is a job for the WTO, where our complaints should be pursued, not in some unilateralist Congressional move.

Shame on the Dems for this one. And shame on Bush for repeating the same nonsensical thinking that led, as this editorial points out, to the pointless 2002 steel tariffs.

All we accomplish by such acts is to weaken the Doha Round talks.

Some of our favorite sites linked to Tom's recent post, The side I've always been on. I'm going to run them down now instead of waiting until Sunday.

+ New Yorker in DC: The side we should always be on
+ ZenPundit: Recommended Reading
+ et alli: So Fine I wish this essay were mine

Also, that post has drawn 18 comments so far. So if you haven't checked them out yet, you should.

ARTICLE: US helps fight against Abu Sayyaf, By Nick Meo, BBC, 2 April 2007

A good example of reducing the future battlespace. Best sort of pre-emption.

Now, Robert Kaplan would call this all special ops, but it's a more distinct breakdown between the secret stuff done by serious SOF and the civic action done by largely reservists which gets characterized as SOF because of institutional affiliation but in truth is classic, non-classified and out-in-the-open SysAdmin.

Despite assumptions, the two tend to be kept quite isolated from one another for a lot of obvious reasons.

Thanks to Pete Johnson for sending this.

ARTICLE: Biometric cash machines bring joy, By Amarnath Tewary, BBC, 3 April 2007

Maany Peyvan writes:

Speeding transactions to the poor while eliminating wage skimming by corrupt
contractors. No word on how fingerprints are used, other than ID. You've
mentioned this many times; first I'd heard of it in print.

This was and is an easy breakthrough that speaks to the utility of any connectivity technology that gets past literacy as a requirement.

ARTICLE: The Unlikely Frontrunner: Is the GOP in for a Rudy awakening?, by Andrew Ferguson, The Weekly Standard, 04/09/2007, Volume 012, Issue 29

Foreign policy excerpt:

The question of temperament is particularly pertinent given the great stress Giuliani's supporters place on his possible leadership in the war on terror. Every activist I spoke with at CPAC who supported Giuliani told me they did so because of their certainty that when it comes to America's jihadist enemies, the former mayor will, in the words of one eager young CPAC delegate, "kick butt and take names." And kill them, too, presumably. It would be a great irony--and perfectly in keeping with the traditional illogic of Republican electoral strategies--if Republicans determined that foreign policy was the premiere issue in the 2008 election and then nominated a candidate who, like Giuliani, has no official foreign policy experience at all.

Giuliani spends a good deal of every stump speech stressing the need for America "to stay on offense" in the war on terror. His precise conception of that war, and his approach to foreign affairs in general, is harder to pin down. To the extent that he's amplified his view of the terror war, it seems much closer to the economic determinism of the moderate realist school than to the notorious butt-kicking strategy of the neoconservative warrior class. Indeed, he says the "war on terror" is itself a misnomer; he prefers the term "the terrorists' war on us," which does sound rather more defensive.

"Americans hate war," he recently told the Churchill Club, a gathering of Silicon Valley executives. "We're at war because they want to come here and kill us, not because we want to go there and kill them. We want to do business with them. We would love to have them all wired and part of the Internet buying American products, and then we'll buy their products. And then we'll have the kind of issues we have with China and India, like we used to have with Japan. But those are good issues to have. That's America, that's what America is about."

In the end, he says, victory in the terror war may come down to commerce. "Technology has transformed the world," he told the executives. "Part of the way we're ultimately going to win the war on terror is through that technology. We're going to win the war on terror because, yes, we have to be militarily strong, we have to consider defending ourselves, but ultimately we overcome terrorism when those parts of the world that haven't connected yet connect to the global economy."

Consider China, he said. "China has plugged in. It's still a dictatorship, and they have to overcome that. But they've plugged into the global economy. If you think of where the terrorists are coming from, those are places that haven't plugged in. Ultimately economic freedom pushes you to political freedom. . . . We need to be strong, we need to be determined, but we also need to connect as many of these [Middle Eastern] countries as possible to doing business with us, to being connected to the Internet with us."

Kick butt, take names, and then make sure they have hotmail accounts.

I sort of like the description of Rudy's foreign policy vision being from the economic determinist wing of the realist school. I've never considered this sort of vision to be anything other than highly realistic.

Thanks to Patrick Brogan for sending this.

ARTICLE: N Korea envoys 'keeping children', BBC, 3 April 2007

Hmmm. Makes you wonder about what else is escaping Kim's control right now in the DPRK.

I do think Kim's end will be like Ceausescu's--sudden and swift.

Thanks to Michael Griffin for sending this.

Tehran makes its point, gets its attention, and now seems reasonable and merciful in comparison to the West and local crazies.

In the end, a pure PR exercise and another example of Iran's proxy warfare against our proxies--just like last August.

No harm, no fouls, no progress.

Just more disrespect for the post-presidency of Bush.

ARTICLE: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, by Steven Pinker

Nice article on a point I've been making in my brief going back to 1996: the further you go back in history, the more per capita violence you find--pure and simple.

This is a good examination of that grand historical trend. I'm not sure I buy the notion that we soft scientists needed some biologist to clue us in. After all, Pinker's conclusions are based on data from "soft" fields like poli sci that have been compiled for decades. People just like absolute numbers more than relative ones.

Still, every bit helps when you fight the hype.

Thanks to Nathan Machula for sending this.

OP-ED: In Fear Of Chinese Democracy, By Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, April 4, 2007; Page A13

A wonderfully pinheaded piece by Meyerson, who hasn't written anything good in years. In it, he displays the typical American manner of defining freedom purely in political terms while ignoring its economic roots. Plus, like most Americans, he wants his revolution now, despite the 750-million or so still living in poverty.

Pick up the pace China! Rich Americans don't see enough chop-chop!

Ask your average American their definition of freedom and they'll pick Starbucks over political pundits any day.

Thanks to Roland Dobbins for sending this.

I'm giving the brief at U Alaska. Believe it is open to the public.

ARTICLE: BORROWED IDEAS: Malaysia Transforms Rules For Finance Under Islam: In a Lesson to Arabs, Asian Bankers Mix Religion, Modernity, By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2007; Page A1

I wrote about this in BFA (or maybe it was PNM). Malaysia's pioneering Islamic finance in a very cool way.

Thanks to Ian Rhodes for sending this.

Juneau, on a beautiful day. If you like mountains and shoreline, this place is Maine on steroids.

Juneau, capital of Alaska, accessible only by air.

Ad in Juneau paper.

OP-ED: Jobs and Immigrants, April 4, 2007; Page A14

More solid evidence of how immigration serves our economic development.

Thanks to Tyler Durden for sending this.

... was my Mom's cousin, once-removed (or my cousin, twice removed), Michael J. Heney.

He built the first trans-Alaskan railroad, and his feat inspired several books and one Hollywood movie, according to his Wikipedia entry.

Here's the bio from the White Pass & Yukon Route historical cite (which cites his birthplace incorrectly).

Cool beans is the fact that both a glacier (Heney Glacier) and a mountain range (Heney Mountains) are named for him in Alaska. I flew over the mountain range this morning, going from Anchorage to Juneau.

Inside the family he was known simply as "M.J."

Not to be outdone, his cousin and my grandfather, Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame inductee Gerald Clifford, now also has his own Wikipedia entry.

Just to finish the trifecta, here's the one for my other famous cousin, twice-removed (paternal grandfather's cousin), Maj. Gen. George Barnett, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. We've got a beautifully framed, color copy of his official USMC portrait in our formal living room, along with a sketch of his famous DC socialite wife in our dining room. His cermonial rifle, a Winchester 03, given to him by the Corps upon retirement, hangs in our kitchen in a glass box.

I'm all bragged out.

ARTICLE: Iraq's economy: The Kurdish region seeks more foreign investment, the Economist, Apr 4th 2007

No need to add to Keir's analysis:

Excellent article from the economist of Kurdistan. Highlights while things are still not great they are getting better. Reads like the analysis of many developing countries: booming construction, weak infrastructure, underdeveloped financial markets. Good sign about the good in Iraq. Westerners can travel unaccompanied, compare that to Baghdad!

Keir Lauritzen

Except to note that one of our biggest challenges in this Long War will be learning to accept that almost all of our victories will be partial ones. If we weren't so damn binary as a society in our approach to strategic issues, life would be a lot easier.

Suffice to say, the grand strategist learns to love ambiguity. It's written into the DNA code of any real visionary. As Art Cebrowski liked to say: "Plant the flag downrange and then turn your forces loose. Don't tell them how, just give them the vector."

Looks like Tom will be speaking in Anchorage tonight.

The preview article headline annoys me: Hawk rethinks the war in Iraq: BARNETT: Former U.S. military strategist to speak at UAA.

After that, the article's actually pretty good, with some good usage of the weblog (which I always like).

The author says he tried to interview Tom by phone this week (Tom?) and that Tom teaches at the University of Tennessee (not precisely), but otherwise, it's pretty good. I'll copy it for you below.

Four years ago, former Defense Department strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett -- who'll lecture on global affairs tonight at UAA -- heartily endorsed Bush administration plans to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein.

His reasons for doing so had less in common with Bush's originally stated purpose for the invasion -- to seize Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and disrupt its purported ties with the terrorist group al-Qaida -- than with the president's later rationale of spreading democracy in the Middle East.

As Barnett argued in an influential March 2003 Esquire magazine article ("Let me tell you why military engagement with Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad is not only necessary and inevitable but good"), it wasn't the most powerful nations in the world that America had to fear; it was some of the most dispossessed. It wasn't Russia or China; it was the "disconnected" Third World nations that weren't part of the global economy and refused to play by global rules.

And if they had leaders, such as Hussein in Iraq or Kim Jong-il in North Korea, who were preventing their citizens from joining the "functioning core" majority of nations in the

West, those leaders needed to be removed -- by us if by no one else. He warned that it wouldn't be easy.

"As baby-sitting jobs go, this one will be a doozy, making our lengthy efforts in postwar Germany and Japan look simple in retrospect," Barnett wrote in his article, which he later expanded into a book, "The Pentagon's New Map" (2004), that became popular with military leaders. "But it is the right thing to do, and now is the right time to do it."

Four years and $600 billion in U.S. war spending later, with more than 3,200 dead American soldiers, even former supporters of the Bush doctrine of waging "pre-emptive wars" are beginning to wonder: Is the U.S. Treasury really such a bottomless well? Aren't their limits to America's all-volunteer Army?

In his subsequent book, "Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating," published in fall 2005 -- 2 1/2 years into the war -- Barnett criticized the Bush administration for bungling the peace in Iraq (by cutting expenses and failing to send in more troops, among other things), though he still saw other opportunities around the world for "core" nation-building, ideally this time with more multilateral support.

A review of that second book in Publishers Weekly, however, described it as "an unconvincing brief" for more U.S. interventionism, wherein "American and allied troops -- a 'pistol-packing Peace Corps' -- could, he contends, undertake an ambitious schedule of regime change, stabilization and reconstruction in Islamic countries and as far afield as North Korea and Venezuela."

Responding in his blog, Barnett dismissed the critique as "a truly pinheaded review" that missed his central point -- that we now live in a post-9/11 world that forces us to cope with new exigencies.

"I have to get used to this sort of review, which is essentially the anti-Bush doctrine/anti-neocon/anti-Iraq review," he wrote then. (Efforts to interview Barnett by telephone this week weren't successful.)

But in his most recent blog postings, Barnett -- who now teaches at the University of Tennessee and writes a nationally syndicated column -- seems to have evolved as well.

"On second thought," he wrote Monday, writing in support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's scheduled trip to Syria, "why shouldn't Congress have a foreign policy of its own? Hell, Bush doesn't have any. ... So I say to Nancy on her road to Damascus: 'You go, girl!' Hilarious to hear Cheney decry the 'self-described strategists on the Hill.' If we had any real ones in this administration, he'd never hear a peep out of any of those guys and gals.

"I think back to the depths of Clinton's administration, and I was never this embarrassed over our standing in the world."

Daily News reporter George Bryson can be reached at gbryson@adn.com.

LECTURE: Thomas P.M. Barnett will speak at 7 tonight in Room 101 of Rasmuson Hall at UAA. It's free and open to the public.

OP-ED: Mahmoud's 'Gift': The right way to exploit any fissures in the Tehran regime, Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2007

This is an ahistorical argument.

Countries we talk to and open up with trade have been changed--even radically transformed--by that process (USSR, China), while countries that we sanction and isolate and do not talk to remain strong in their authoritarianism (Cuba, North Korea).

Connectedness works. Just ask Vietnam.

But hardliners, despite such evidence, love to argue otherwise.

When Iran has a moderate president, the WSJ says, "don't negotiate anything." Ditto for when it has a hardliner president.

But Nixon did go to China, over the WSJ's harshest protests, and look what it did for our side.

If engagement worked with the most significant sponsor of international terrorism ever (the Sovs), then why is it so amazingly uncalled for with the Iranians?

Ah yes, I forget, now we remember the Sovs as all reasonable thugs, even cuddly, rather bumbling bears.

China's an even better case in point at the time when Nixon decides to go: complete nuthouse (Cultural Revolution just wrapping up) and a whacked-out leader (Mao) who said nuclear war would be cleansing, so bring it on you paper tiger!

Funny how history works like that.
We remember none of the positive changes when it comes to hyping the current threat.

I see people's lips moving here but hear Tel Aviv and Riyadh doing the talking.

I believe in wars of choice. I just like to make the decisions for myself.

Like Dave Petraeus heading into Iraq in 2003, I have to ask, "Tell me how this ends?"

Because if it does not end in jaw-jaw, then it ends in war-war.

ARTICLE: NECC Establishes Maritime Civil Affairs Group, By Kieshia Savage, Fleet Public Affairs Center Atlantic, 4/3/2007

A nice sign. One thing I learned in Africa, to my amazement, is how much of civil affairs stuff is naturally maritime in developing countries.

Thanks to Bill MIllan for sending this.

Goofy title that misses the entire thrust of my work.

Journalist never bothered to talk to me, despite my several attempts to set up a phonecall. One thing I learned early in my career: never underestimate the laziness of journalists. But frankly, it was like pulling teeth with this guy.

As for the content of the piece, hmmmm. How about I read the review on Amazon and maybe yesterday's post and call it a day?

Seriously, I don't rethink the war, I rethink the postwar. If I predicted several months before the war (remember, I write PNM the article in December 2002) that the postwar in Iraq is a going to be a doozy, and far harder than mega-jobs in Japan and Germany, how does this guy interpret that I "rethink the war"?

Such precision in language only matters if you want to further understandings instead of just agendas.

No one inside the defense community calls me a "hawk"--just the opposite in fact. Typically, I find such casual misidentifications with a certain whimsy, but you have to get off your ass and actually talk to me to gain such a pass. Yes, this guy's "attempts" were unsuccessful, but it wasn't because I was hard to reach, it's because he just didn't make the effort. If he had offered parenthically, "I just didn't put in the effort to actually talk to this guy, so I'm stitching bits and pieces that fit my predisposed opinion of him from his site," then I would have said, honesty in advertising.

Update: Editor's note: But, hey, they've got that article at the top of their Life page today, with a link here to the weblog, so that's a good thing. Welcome Alaskans!

Other interview was some Juneau teenager (junior) who had used my work in her school project and just wanted to chat on the phone. Since she put in a bit more effort than our professional journalist from Anchorage, she got 50 minutes (good warm-up for me last night), because that's how seriously I treat such inquiries.

Spoke at the University of Alaska-Anchorage in a really nice auditorium-style classroom. AV was solid, and great crowd of over 100. A bookseller was moving both books (paper) out front, so I signed a bunch before heading in and setting up.

I was a little tired and a little out of sorts (I'm speaking at 2300 my time, remember), but you can always feel an audience's desire for the material, and this one had it (far more than the laid-back Juneau crowd the night before), so they just pull the energy out of you and whenever you feel your effort flagging, you lock you eyes on somebody you can tell is really into your delivery and they just keep you strong. Simply put, if you want it good, you get it good, no matter how I'm feeling. You just cannot disrespect an audience that's making that effort to remain focused and engaged.

The only trick was that I really needed to project in this room, so the throat got a good workout, but unlike in Juneau the day earlier, I didn't speak that much earlier in the day, so my voice didn't falter.

Went long on slides (almost 60), because I just had that inkling beforehand that these guys would desire more, so I talked a solid 1:45.

Then the questions flowed and we went another solid hour, which was a bit surprising given the lateness of the hour (after 9pm). But, save for one protest statement that was a bit off-topic (autism), they were really thoughtful and well-delivered and pushed me quite a bit.

I notice two burly guys in work clothes that break in on the place about 20 minutes in. You could just sense these two had driven a long way to get there and had rushed the entire way.

As soon as they sat down on my far left, I was immediately drawn to them. You just sense the intensity of the listening.

Well, they had driven for hours at high speeds to make the talk, one of them being a 31-year special operations naval vet who had participated in Desert One with Pete Schoomaker. This guy also recently just lost a son in Iraq.

Following the talk, which included two very solid questions from these guys that indicated they've read me intensely and get on a truly high plane, we end up talking for a while outside (they're threatening to drive to Fairbanks today to see the show all over again tonight), I was carrying a signed map poster (thanks to old friend Steff, I have about 280 of them now in my bedroom closet, so I've been bringing them to talks and giving them away like it's my command coin or something) and because the expected retired flag big-name didn't show up, I gave it to this vet who was really thrilled to get it.

It was a nice ending to one of my best nights of talking ever.

Lunch yesterday with senior players from the Insititute of the North and the Denali Commission. Fascinating problems (the relocation of tens of thousands of indigenous people who live on the coast up north) and fascinating possibilities (the opening up of the artic circle will make Anchorage an amazingly well-placed hub in the global economy [like that mythical town where the guys got stuck in "O Brother Where Are Thou?" Anchorage is a geographical oddity that seems to be 9 hours by air from every major city in the world]). To that end, done right, Alaska can become a model for adjustment to climate change. People up here sense that possibility and want to make it happen.

Me? Definitely a column, maybe more.

Tom got these questions by email and answers them here (in bold):

Hello Dr. Barnett,

I heard you for the first time on the Hugh Hewitt show. I listened to the series of interviews you did and I am currently reading The Pentagon?s New Map. I am really taken by your positive view of the future. I am also currently looking at getting my masters degree and making a career change. I am particularly interested in grand strategy and working to shrink the gap. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions?

What makes a good grand strategist?

You have to find almost anything interesting and worthy of study. You need to be a horizontal thinker by nature.

What kind of educational credentials are most useful?

Study languages. Do a small amount in a number of languages as opposed to a long time in any one. Most grand strategy involves arbitraging concepts between domains, so translation skills are essential. You want to be able to master new languages at high speeds.

Where do you think the most exciting jobs expanding the core will be in the next few years?

Translating between technology and policy.

What is the most important piece of advice you have to give?

If you're not someone who loves anticipating events as opposed to experiencing them first-hand, don't go into this business. Also, get married and have kids.

And never turn down a chance at public speaking.

Thanks for your time,
AE
Champlin, MN

POST: Not, Decidedly, a 20th Century Arms Race

Good blog post by Wiggins on rising small-ship, littoral capacity development in Asia.

Like my PNM story on the Indian Fleet Review, any serious survey of global naval developments comes to the same conclusion: no one is building a Leviathan) blue-water navy and everyone (including us, in secondary sense) is building a SysAdmin-style close-in littoral capacity.

Our ability to steer and influence this trend is huge (we stay hub, they work spokes), if we pursue mil-mil training as much as we can.

ARTICLE: Dutch Soldiers Stress Restraint in Afghanistan, By C. J. CHIVERS, New York Times, April 6, 2007

Good piece by Chivers, who's former military-gone-journalism and who occasionally writes for Esquire (Warren thinks he's a water-walker). Restraint is everything in peace-keeping for two reasons: 1) to want to create local capacity, not do it for them, and 2) your real goal is the overall reduction of violence, even at the costs of increased risks to your own guys and maybe not going kinetic on every bad guy out there (remember, they will grow them faster than you can kill them).

Dutch, like the Brits are super solid on this. I got a chance to chat some up just exiting Afghanistan while in Crete (they go there for R&R). Like the Brits and Canadians and Aussies, these guys are very impressive, very smart, very talented officers.

They can teach us much.

Thanks to motoole125 for sending this.

In many ways, Volume III should be subtitled "The Pentagon's New Man," because that's the aim of creating the next generation of grand strategists.

Got that idea from reader Brian Hertzer.

Tom got this nice email from a recent attender:

Dr. Barnett- Read the blog on the Anchorage lecture. Very accurate - I did want more and totally "got it". Amazing PowerPoint. As a teacher, I can appreciate the tiring aspect of public speaking but you did well (I'm feeling it myself today). Well done in handling the lone off-topic question. I learned quite a bit and truly appreciate you coming up here. The war college never should have fired you :) All the best to you and your family.

It was at Fairbanks, at the university.

After flying up Friday morning from Anchorage on Alaska, I spent rest of day having great lunch with senior academics (former Vietnam SOF and former Naval submariner), then working out, then going two hours with host Mike Sfraga's geography seminar class, which read PNM and had a lot of good questions. Talking it through with the students, I realized--yet again--how crucial it was for me to finish and complete PNM with BFA. Everything that was missing in PNM gets explained in Blueprint.

Talk last night was to about 250 in a big, beautiful auditorium. I went about 110 on the brief and then did a lengthy Q&A that I enjoyed a lot.

Then I signed books outside the hall. Then a cocktail with a small group of university leaders and two of their kids. Then to bed at 0030 to get up at 0430 and begin the long march home.

People are very nice up here and very appreciative of your making the trip, so I was very glad I came.

I look forward to further dialogue with locals on what Enterra can do on port security in places like Anchorage. I think Alaska has a huge amount of future economic potential in this globalizing world, and I'd love to be part of making that happen.

ARTICLE: "Piracy Move On China Seen as NearPiracy Move On China Seen as Near," by Edmund L. Andrews, New York Times, 7 April 2007, p. B1.

Unlike the previous threat of tariffs, this time the administration speaks of lodging a formal complaint with the WTO on China's continued piracy of stuff like DVDs.

Fair and fine and it should be pursued vigorously.

ARTICLE: "As Africa Hungers, U.S. Policy Slows the Delivery of Food Aid," by Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, 7 April 2007, p. A1.

I've written before about this Congress-protected iron triangle of food producers, food transporters and aid groups.

This story just makes you want to scream at the greed of it all.

For two years Bush and Co. try to change this insane law that says only food grown by Americans and shipped by American vessels with American crews and distributed by American charities can be used for foreign food aid.

So despite the people going hungry right now in Zambia and USAID being more than happy to buy food aid locally--as in, right in Zambia when the harvest was bountiful this year--USAID cannot do so because of this law.

Also because of this law, our food aid will likely be held up in terms of delivery for as long as six months. So people will die needlessly, according to Oxfam. Maybe 50,000 in the next half year alone.

The Bush administration says American taxpayers could feed an additional million more Africans if Congress just changes this idiotic law.

But Bush's efforts to change the law the last two years were thwarted quietly by Congress and the iron triangle's lobbyists.

Tom Lantos is a key villian, calling any attempt to change the law "beyond insane," because it will kill domestic support for food aid by harming our farmers.

Move beyond your lies, Mr. Lantos.

James Kunder, acting USAID deputy is quoted in the piece as saying less than one-half of one percent of US ag exports would be affected by the law being changed.

Sound like it might be worth it to feed one milliion and prevent 50k deaths in Africa in the next six months?

And don't even get me started on how this insane law retards agricultural markets in Africa and ensures steady death tolls over the years.

Guess who gets to die first, Mr. Lantos? The orphans of AIDS victims.

Please, somebody get Willie Nelson to wail on that one.

This is Lantos and others caving in to lobbying from Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Bunge and Cal Western, which sell "more than half the $2.2 billion in food for Food for Peace, the largest food aid program, and two smaller programs," according to USDA.

Bush should go on national TV to shame Lantos and his fat-cat ag biz allies and the greedy American shipping companies and the scummy nonprofit aid groups who are all in cahoots on this moneymaker.

This is all so amazingly dishonest and immoral, it just makes me sick.

And the bit about support for food aid withering from lack of support if this iron triangle isn't served is really indefensible.

Lantos should be ashamed of himself. He needs to go on this basis alone. He's been in for so long he can peddle crap like this and still get touted by DC types as some great man on foreign policy.

Because if Lantos was half the leader he imagines himself to be, he'd both change the law and boost Congressional support for such rapid-fire response aid.

But Lantos doesn't because he's more interested in credit than actually saving lives.

And I find that shameful indeed.

Most important American ally you've never heard of

Name this country if you can:

1) Europe's largest NATO military force.

2) Loyal member of that alliance for over 50 years.

3) Booming economy, currently 17th largest in the world.

4) Fiercely secular political system.

5) Population more than 99 percent Muslim.

Read on at KnoxNews
Read on at Scripps Howard

ARTICLE: "China Reconsiders Fairness Of 'Transplant Tourism': Foreigners Pay More For Scarce Organs; Israelis Debate Reform," by Andrew Batson and Shai Oster, Wall Street Journal, 6 April 2007, p. A1.

To me, this is a shift we'll see time and time again in China: what was just fine during the initial expansion and accessing of foriegn financing becomes no longer fine as China's internal markets and consumer class and sense of pride and ambition and entitlement grow.

You'll see it in adoptions.

You'll see it in FDI.

You'll see it in M&A.

You'll see it in international organ transplants.

Yesterday it's "be my guest" and "name your price" and "we welcome you," but soon it's "these are for Chinese first" and "we have to think of our own market/people" and "these aren't for sale."

A natural evolution signalling China's ever-deepening accession into the Core and the growing maturation of its domestic markets.

China will need its own organs/babies/companies, thank you very much, and the slightly kow-towing/sleazy/uncomfortable nature of past interactions will abate.

But all these shifts are indicative of China's rising, and they all demonstrate why the alliance I seek has a "don't sell beyond" date stamped on it, and the stamp belongs to China--not us.

COMMENTARY: "Words That Sow Fear: The 'war on terror' has undermined America," by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 2-8 April 2007, p. 25.

Brezinski really dislikes Bush, and that's okay.

Bush and Co. have definitely gone overboard on the fear factor in response to 9/11.

As I wrote in BFA, the "Dirty Harry" period was normal, but we have to move beyond it. And as I wrote in PNM, the "silly season" on terror is likewise a natural phase we go through.

In both instances, Bush's second term extends the learning curve. By that I mean it delays the natural swap-out and rule-set reset that comes with a new administration born from some extensive national debate connected to an election.

That debate now ensues, and I guarantee you, whoever gets in next will promote a far less rigid climate of fear (except maybe McCain) simply because that'll be part of their sales job in getting your vote ("Life will be better under me!").

I understand Brzezinski's critique and I agree, except--much like the climate of fear itself--I think he goes overboard.

America has very little going-overboard activity going on that can't be explained by the simple fact that our ever-increasingly connected lives/economies demand it. Yes, there are many high-profile spots on the upper East Coast (where Zbig and his types live) where you can see all the extra precautions and feel all the jacking-up, but that's a tiny slice of America outside of its oversized mass media footprint.

Terrorists aren't running anything. We have a few more drills on air travel and new regs sprinkled across our lives, but most of those changes are transparent to 99 percent of us, impacting us very little.

My point? Brzezinski over-reaches here himself on fear-selling and he's engaging in the mistake common to so many strategists right now: extrapolating the future of everything from the historical blip that will be the Bush administration.

All I can say is, Help is on the way!

So lighten up a bit ....

+ Opposed Systems Design linked Violence is decreasing per capita.
+ House of Chin linked No big surprise on Iranian hostages.
+ Red Hill Kudzu linked Tom's take on the ADN article.
+ MountainRunner linked Best take on U.S. tariffs against China saying 'Barnett is a great filter for stories on China from the financial press'.
+ Dreaming 5GW linked On second thought ....
+ A Wisconsin Librarian linked The side I've always been on.
+ Field Notes linked Those who protest Nixon's trip to China...
+ Phil Windley also linked Those who protest Nixon's trip to China..., along with Plant the flag and give 'em the vector and Economic freedom trumps political freedom.
+ In Search of 2nd Tier points to Tom as an important resource on nation building and links the Brief on YouTube.
+ Strategicboard picked up Self-inflicted strategic wound for its WaPo link.
+ ZenPundit linked Q&A.
+ ka1ogm linked Beyond lies in American food aid: the dead bodies.
+ Soob finished BFA and intended to compare it to A Coming Anarchy...

More later...

ARTICLE: China's ZTE To Build Massive Wi-Fi Network For Mexico City, By W. David Gardner, InformationWeek, April 3, 2007

A little development-in-a-box from China.

Guess what kind of incumbency that creates for both the firm and Beijing?

Thanks to Andrew Fong for sending this.

May issue of Esquire just hitting stands. Halle on the cover, me just off her left hip.

As product placement goes, hard to complain.

Tom Chiarella does a very funny backwards interview with Berry (like many men, I've never quite gotten over "Monster's Ball"), in which she asks him what it's like writing for Esquire and working in Indiana.

Clearly, I'm working the wrong beat.

Speaking of which, I will blog a bit on Esquire's site in the next 48 to update the piece a bit (remember the first draft was written a while back and events do move, don't they?). Actually, I think the piece remains amazingly on target, so my post will be more an extension than updating.

Finally, A.J. Jacobs' obits on the last page are stunningly hilarious, especially the one on American "hegemony."

Esquire, to me, has never seemed stronger, as evidenced by 7 National Magazine Award noms announced recently, to include one for feature writing by Enterra Solutions employee and fellow "contributing editor" (Enterra now boasts two) Brian Mockenhaupt. After Brian's great profile of Steve DeAngelis in December, I talked Steve into hiring Brian to help tell Enterra's story in words.

Man, I've been waiting for this for 6 months! The Pop!Tech talks are finally up.

Here are the links to the .mp3 (audio) and .mov (video and audio) files. Right click on the links in the previous sentence and save to your computer. Then listen/watch.

There are, of course, many other worthy speakers on that page.

Enjoy!

ARTICLE: "U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Still Faces Hurdles," by Evan Ramstad, Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2007, p. A2.

ARTICLE: "China Plans a U.S. Spending Spree," by J.R. Wu, Stephen Yang, Zhou Yang, Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2007, p. A8.

As always happens when multilat deals slow down or stall, bilats flourish. Bilats seem to flourish in good economic times, whereas countries are more willing to place the bigger bets called for by multilats during hard economic times.

Since we're in good economic times, we're seeing the best friends cut the most logical deals. Not wild stuff, and yet very good stuff.

The proposed trade pact between the U.S. and Korea will be the biggest one since NAFTA in terms of volume.

The big thing, though, is that the deal will be perceived as giving Korea a leg up on trade with the U.S., creating competitive pressures throughout the region for others. Furthermore, like with any deal, it serves to set the terms for similar deals, so the demonstration effect can be huge.

In short, no one wants to be left behind with a market like the United States, so you see countries like China do whatever it takes to keep the customer happy. Trade deficit getting too big? Promise to go on a spending spree buying U.S. stuff.

Something like the Korean-U.S. deal could drive a lot of harmonization in Asia. If everyone, over time, falls in line with that rule set, then every nation's rule set in Asia gets further in line with one another, making a multilat deal more possible. Since the U.S. would be the harmonizing element, we're setting ourselves up not to be shut out of an ASEAN-plus process that, in previous years, was starting to look like a keep-America-out effort, so Bush striking this deal now is a big deal, assuming he can sell it to a Congress that's feeling fairly protectionist right now (watch the anger over Korea banning U.S. beef (mad cow scare)).

Still, you take progress where you can get it when the global economy is booming. Since the fear factor is low right now on lost trade (meaning protectionism is more easily indulged), political capital must be spent.

POST: Dutch Soldiers Implement Sys Admin Approach

by Steve on the Chivers/ Dutch PKO story in the NYT than I mustered previously.

Spent day writing 6500-word blog post for Esquire's site to accompany "The State of the World" piece.

Sending it off now to New York.

Not sure how long it will take them to post.

When it's up I or Sean will note here and link.

I gave three comments per each of the 16 segments, plus the title page, plus that cover!: a deconstruction, a "how it holds up" bit, and a "looking further ahead" to wrap it up.

Owed such an effort to Warren on this one, because Esquire finally upped my take for an essay of this sort.

ARTICLE: Gulf states judged most competitive, Al Jazeera

The optimistic scenario on the Middle East is that the smaller, smarter, more agile Gulf states see the writing on the wall and use the windfall this time around to set themselves up for far more than just a continued role in energy in the global economy.

The lead geese role may always seem marginal at first, then you remember Singapore and Hong Kong in Asia and you realize that big change can come in small packages.

Also, you can say this is just resource-driven stuff within the region and you'd be right. But back off a bit and realize the demand connection to Asia, remember the rising east-east financial flows and Asia's rising commodities interest in Africa, and then things like Dubai looking to become a player in African ports looks a whole lot more interesting.

Think horizontally, see the connections, recognize the progress staring you in the face.

Horizontal thinking gets you optimism, not the other way around.

Thanks to Tyler Durden for sending this.

ARTICLE: "The New Frontier: Mideast; Stocks in Persian Gulf Outpace Other Markets," by Joana Slater, Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "For Saudi Women, A Whiff of Change," by Karen Elliot House, Wall Street Journal, 7-8 April 2007, p. A1.

Watching Wall Street get more interested in "frontier markets" (I love that term) is really interesting. Most of these do not appear in global indices (good indicator of Gap-dom), but the overall trend is clear: greater transparency in local companies and more opportunities for foreigners to invest.

Big hold-up is Saudis keep foreign investment out of their companies. In general, the states there keep you out of the sacred energy sectors, so it's the other stuff that is opening up (banks, property, telecom--all nice infrastructure/connectivity-enhancing stuff).

Best recent sign? The Dutch-tulips-like bubble came and went and seems reasonably processed.

Even in Saudi Arabia, though, we find slim signs of progress. Despite being unable to drive, women are now being let into law school.

Little steps from big players, bigger steps from smaller players.

Connections to the Big Bang? Don't underestimate the sense of urgency created, or that feeling that things must change this time around or else.

ARTICLE: Spartan Buys Factories for Army Trucks, AP

Tom forwarded this commentary from a reader:

This is a company I have watched for over 10 years. I first found them when I was getting my Masters in a class to try to predict a 5 and 10 year investment outlook. Unfortunately, I never invested in them.

What Spartan does is make large truck type frames for fire trucks and motor homes (my interest back in the 90's was Boomers buying motor homes as they retire).

What we are seeing right now is a company rapidly expanding into the defense/peacekeeper market making the truck frames for bomb resistant trucks.

I think this fits your pattern of many new ways to make money from the SysAdmin role in old fashioned, hard, manufacturing industries.

ARTICLE: U.S. READY TO UPGRADE TIES WITH LIBYA, Middle East Newsline

Another reader writes in to say:

>Moving strongly into Africa... I notice oil and gas exploration (with plenty of 'gushers' found) is exploding all over N. Africa and E. Africa as well as the telecommunications and the services industries. Libya, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya...

I am teaching a current events class tonight for CAP-USAF Aux. Cadets: "East Africa's Path to Peace and Prosperity - Jobs, FDI, Connectivity, Security!" Its gonna be a blast!

I have done this type of class twice now. The Cadets perk up and get involved (even hours later they show up with thought or question after question), the parents and Senior officers slide in, participate and suggest topics for future classes. It's all based on looking at current events from the PNM point of view, simple, verifiable and believable. As a suggestion, if you were to write a "A Guide to Current Events Analysis - The Use of Horizontal Thinking" as a High School level textbook, you would create an entire new mind set in our younger people. I know you are strongly focused on the powers that be and soon will be, but a generational shift not impossible and without help - these kids are VERY confused about world affairs. Today's media and political parties, etc, do a wonderful job of keeping the kids ignorant and confused.

Tom says:

More good indication of the utility of Vol. III, which definitely will be a guide to horizontal thinking.

ARTICLE: "Who's Monitoring Chinese Food Experts?," by Nicholas Zamiska, Wall Street Journal, 9 April 2007, p. B1.

China, as it increasingly engages the world, becomes a frequent source for tainted foods, in large part because of its "loose regulations and highly fragmented food production"--doubleplusbad in a connected world.

America is testing only a tiny fraction of food shipments from overseas, and that volume grows. Hell, everyone imports more food over time, so what to do?

Know-your-customer becomes know-your-supply-chain becomes know-your-biology. You will need to track everything soon enough from cradle to grave. Not by testing at chokepoints but by auditable transparency throughout the process, with new rule sets applied throughout, subject to oversight at home and abroad--at every link in the chain. Your product's entire reputation will depend on it. It will be amazingly complex and require automation of rules throughout. Those rules and the systems that apply them will need to sense, think, respond, plus grow in intelligence. Hard coding will not suffice. Everything--but especially the rules--will need to live and breath and enjoy constant refresh.

Welcome to the age of resilience.

Every time I read an article like this, I realize Steve DeAngelis is a real genius, which is why I stay with Enterra despite all the myriad challenges of helping direct a start-up tech firm (and I barely pull my weight compared to the titanic Steve).

But like I say in my massive blog post on my just-coming-out "State of the World" piece for Esquire, I don't believe terrorists will ever run the world, because globalization's normal demands will push us all in the direction of the resiliency that Steve not only imagines but invents.

This will be a government job only in the creation of rules. Their implementation will be more a private-sector affair. Companies will do it because it's good for business and it'll become the only way to stay in business in a connected world.

This is the ultimate pre-emption strategy: the systematic elimination of vulnerability.

Anything you can do, I can counter faster. I can track anything better than you.

Not a day's work, but a societal evolution.

Winning the Long War will be mostly non-kinetic, and everyone will do their part in a mobilization as profound but far more transparent than anything the greatest generation pulled off.

We are just beginning to see the winning strategy emerge, and it will be grander than anything enunciated--much less pursued--before.

It's cool to live in a home you design. It's cool to live in a world you make resilient.

It's amazing that in a time when so many feel powerlessness, real power is lying all around, just waiting for you to pick it up and wield it.

ARTICLE: "A Lonely Road Home For Commuters: How Longer Drive Exact Social Costs," from The New Yorker (16 April), cited in "The Informed Reader," Wall Street Journal, 9 April 2007, p. B5.

Long commute times in your car are a connectivity killer. If you've ever endured an extreme commute (more than 90 minutes) it's a mind-killer on wheels. Books-on-CD help, but thinking time is compressed.

The hardest time in my life was when I drove so much in Northern VA, not just the killer commute but the anywhere trip that always dragged into an hour or more.

Bob Putnam, an old prof of mine at Harvard, says "every ten minutes of commuting results in 10 percent fewer social connections."

He's right. People do tend to undervalue such losses.

Honestly, that's why I do so much better flying everywhere, because I work so much on planes and in airports and actually drive so little (really, only with my family). When I'm home, I honestly don't work that much.

Still, I don't pretend my life doesn't take its toll in all directions. You try to balance things out. You calculate your larger obligations to the world versus those to your family, and if you're somebody who lives by your wits, you fence off that thinking time like it's the most valuable asset you possess after your family.

ARTICLE: "India's Edge Goes Beyond Outsourcing," by Anand Giridharadas, New York Times, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "Vermont Becomes 'Offshore' Insurance Haven," by Lynnley Browning, New York Times, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "Seeking a Fix, by Russian Satellite: A Challenge to America's Global Positioning System," by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 4 April 2007, p. C1.

Interesting trio describing globalization's irresistible forces.

India, in a flat world, redefines the question of reasonably accessed labor pool.

So what must be the U.S. response?

It must make parts of America, wonderfully fungible in the form of these things we call states, into competitive images of the competition, and thus the sourcecode of globalization itself is increasingly recast in the form of the once-student, now master--the global rule set that none control but some can at times lead in terms of new definitions.

We clearly did that on GPS for a long time, but we naturally attract competition in that process (GLONASS revived!), and so the great game simply enters another phase.

ARTICLE: 3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar': Bush Seeks Overseer For Iraq, Afghanistan, By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post April 11, 2007; Page A01

Wow! Can it get any more obvious?

The White House begging retired 4-stars to assume a "war czar" role that will focus on winning the peace and--apparently, given all rejections to date--be anything but a czar (our skill at picking oxymoronic names knows no bounds).

The obvious goal?

Somebody to supersede and transcend the obviously under-powered, unambitious, overwhelmed and wholly dysfunctional interagency leadership process currently mismanaged by a senior National Security Council staff member (as anonymous as they come), whose departure, along with just-finished strategic reviews, is the declared bureaucratic trigger for the search.

Yeah, right!

But just as clear as the administration's desperation to get some unity of action across Defense, State, and USAID through unity of command in some new SECEVELSE, is its continuing unwillingness to really invest this putative "czar" with any real power (thus, the turn-downs).

Bush wants the "man on the white horse" (Iraq-the-System-Perturbation continues to roil our system almost as much as the Middle East), but hasn't made the leap of logic to the full department.

But look at how the pain drives movement to the obvious conclusion?

Pascuel, who ran the first wee little office in State that OSD launched across the Potomac cynically (Feith) a while back in a transparent and futile attempt to toss that tar baby in somebody else's lap, says the search for a man isn't the answer, fixing the bad policy is.

Well, duh!

But the search for the man is really only the tip-of-the-iceberg expression of the growing bureaucratic impulse to create a funding/power center of gravity in the system to transcend the clearly broken IA process, which the president owns second-hand through the NSC, which in this administration remains weak to Cheney's Veep (by design).

Why this search can come to no good end, of course, is because Cheney's power remains just enough intact to convince those being asked to take on the job to realize it's a doomed position.

Still, it's stunning to see the administration reach so baldly for this inevitable fix.

DoEE is coming all right, right on schedule--the schedule of failure and pain and political desperation.

Yes, yes, the SysAdmin force/function is a pipe dream all right--until you recognize the nightmare won't end without it.

ARTICLE: "Malaysia Transforms Rules For Finance Under Islam: In a Lesson to Arabs, Asian Bankers Mix Religion, Modernity," by Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, 4 April 2007, p. A1.

My favorite reformation-to-watch on Islam from Blueprint, laid out beautifully in this story.

Malaysia asks for Arab help in floating Muslim bonds back in 2001. All but one bank says no.

Then Malaysia pioneers the form.

Now banks in the Mideast have copied and new financial connectivity flows.

The clash always precedes the convergence.

Now Islamic bonds and financing approach one trillion $USD in holdings, so this oil boom transforms, thanks to Malaysia.

"Malaysia is the catalyst for change," says PWC's main guy in this sector.

For centuries, religious and cultural knowledge streamed from the Middle Eastern core to the Muslim periphery, as converted peoples in the South and Southeast Asia adopted the Arabic script, traditions and mores.

But now, increasingly sophisticated Muslim communities such as Malaysia are beginning to influence the Arab heartland, offering a vivid example that an embrace of the global economy can coexist with Islam.

Now if we can get those uppity Muslim women in North America, it'll just be those pokey Europeans who'll need to uphold their end of the bargain.

You remember the argument from BFA: religious reformation in North America, economic reformation led by lead geese in East and South Asia, political reformation with mainstreaming of Islamist parties in Europe, and the Middle East middle-ages.

Time is on our side, connectivity our ultimate weapon.

OP-ED: "Showing Mugabe the Door," by Peter Godwin, New York Times, 3 April 2007, p. A23.

The question, as the author argues, is not how to talk Mugabe out of power, but how to talk New Core South Africa into forcing Mugabe out.

Standing behind both of them, of course, is China.

So how do we get both players happy with a Mugabe-gone outcome? How do we incentivize that structure: the post-Mugabe southern Africa?

You can push or you can pull.

We all know which way requires more effort.

ARTICLE: "To Woo Afghan Locals, U.S. Troops Settle In: Tactic Wins Friends, Isolates Insurgents, But Boost Casualties," by Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal, 9 April 2007, p. A1.

The long lonely grind of counter-insurgency is pure SysAdmin.

How so?

You can't call this small-unit embedding with locals particularly Leviathan.

No, this building of virtual forts among settlers who've lived there for centuries is manpower-intensive and technology/firepower-light: "an intimate style of warfare."

The military rejoins society because society is what we're fighting over, not territory: the inevitability of the Leviathan's crushing firepower is replaced by the SysAdmin's persistence of will.

The Yanks aren't just coming over there. The Yanks are never leaving. We stay until you join the world.

It is lonely, dangerous duty, dancing with wolves. It does take you back ...

"Persistent presence," not "persistent raiding," says the profiled colonel. Our troops in these isolated, mini-forts never do anything "without asking the elders first," says a local cop, obviously impressed.

The SysAdmin's most important tactic is simply modeled behavior.

Got a call today from the PR firm that Esquire uses. I interact with them only when I publish something.

It was an 1130 call saying CNN wanted 15 minutes in studio to comment on the "war czar" thing, but I had to do it by 1530 to generate a soundbite--yes, that hated word--that would run several times tonight.

It wasn't possible for me here in DC. Morning at Pentagon interviewing somebody for next Esquire piece and then afternoon at State Department being interviewed for a "State 2025" project Secy Rice is pursuing. The blue-ribbon group includes Gingrich (he's everywhere!), Pickering, etc. The staff has interviewed Scowcroft and others of his level, now me (admittedly flattering).

Why I got asked by State matters to me: on the basis of my writings and briefs (my elderly handler said a retired general friend of his sent him a CSPAN DVD).

How I get the offer from CNN (from a very nice guy there who's been good to me in the past) intrigues me less: the PR company just pushed me. They don't push last week, no invite. They push this week, invites comes. My comments are important this week because CNN reminded that I exist (no issue with CNN, as they're all like this--save Kudlow, who really does read the blog). The PR guys push this week only because Esquire asks.

I'm not being asked to express my thinking, but to comment on current events. The article's content is meaningless, just its timing. I am to take such opportunities to make myself a go-to media guy. Good for career and all.

Except, whenever I go on TV just to comment instead of to unveil, it feels pointless.

I don't want to be famous, I want to be influential. Influence comes with ideas, not appearances. Appearances are the little-mind killer: you tend to get stupider with each one. Visions and grand strategy don't parse out in soundbites.

Yes, I want to make Esquire happy, but I also want to give it the best consistent product over time.

And I do that by remaining true to the visionary's track.

Visionaries don't comment and grand strategists don't opine. They reveal. They construct. They inspire. They shape.

Talking heads fill time.

I don't want to fill time.

Call it right-sizing my career for maximum trajectory and distance, not height.

I'm also feeling lazy, I guess. Too little sleep last night cause of early flight, plus Vonne and I caught "Grindhouse" last night. Unlike critics, we liked Rodriguez's "Terror Planet" even more than Quentin's "Death Proof" (also great).

Good excuse, though. Flat Daddy only goes so far with the kids (Flat Daddy no pitch with Son #2, nor train for the mile with Son #1).

Flat Hubby is a complete non-starter.

Though a Fathead of Favre in the garage would be cool.

Tom got a nice email today.

I'm finishing up your book, the PNM, and I have to say that you've made a huge fan out of me. Tremendous book. You've really opened my eyes in a number of areas. It's the only book that I've read on national current events that really is a roadmap to a better future. It's very logical and very defining.

Then the author asks, in short, 'How do you get average Americans to care about integrating the Gap?'

Tom says:

The prototypical person who will care deeply on Gap will be those who see the direct market/sales opportunities. Some found in Old Core, bulk found in New Core.

That bulk cares primarily out of greed, not compassion. I trust that greed, and discount our compassion.

What Europe did to us in 1800s is what we did/do to Asia since WWII and it's what the New Core will end up doing to the Gap (biq question is whom China focuses on, because demographically, they're furthest up curve).

Vision is about connecting the equities, not the empathy.

More email. This one said:

Here's an article from Reason about how a lot of economic activity in low-income America is not connected to the larger economy. Made me realize we have to develop new rule sets to bring disconnected communities into the American economy.

Tom says:

Caboose-braking is basically when politicians/leaders realize and fear/anticipate/respond to unrest from disconnected populations.

ARTICLE: "India's list of demands may scuttle nuclear deal: U.S. had hoped to rein in nation's atomic program," by Barbara Slavin, USA Today, 12 April 2007, p. 11A.

ARTICLE: "Inspectors may return to N. Korea: Richardson: Pyongyang wants its frozen funds," from wire reports, USA Today, 11 April 2007, p. 11A.

India's now demanding to be allowed to continue testing nuclear weapons and the Americans (those gun control nuts--on the international level, that is) say that threatens the Bush administration's deal to recognize the reality that India's a nuclear power (33 years after the fact--whoo hoo!) and allow India to buy American civilian nuclear technology (boy, that's gotta worry the Russians ...).

Sokolski from MIT, one of the dying breed of old Cold War types who still believes in global gun control, says India's being "greedy."

Bullshit.

India's being Indian. What else do you expect? Three decades after the fact, they don't care for Washington telling them what they can and cannot do with their nuclear force.

I mean, we tell everyone to screw off every time they ask for us to stick to ABM or cut a deal on space and basically anything else we want to do with our nukes and missiles, so why do we expect anybody else to do differently?

Good God man! That's the whole point of getting nukes in the first place!

Since promising this much derided deal a while back (derided by the true believers, not anyone truly in touch with reality), India's displayed the temerity of actually taking steps to improve its nuclear force (we never do that, rest assured) and getting friendlier with Iran (with India's energy reqirements doubling in a generation, whattaya think that's all about?).

I told the State 2025 people yesterday that if State is still working nuclear proliferation then, it'll only confirm my sense that State remains a perfect bureaucratic entity to conduct US foreign policy in the 20th century.

Meanwhile, North Korea's delaying already on the first, most meaningless goal of the freeze deal. Big surprise.

Pyongyang wants its bribe up front, says Richardson.

Wow, we really needed his diplomatic savoir faire on that one.

America's monomaniacal focus on means over motivations continues apace. So exciting to have the realists back running things!

ARTICLE: Darfur Collides With Olympics, and China Yields, By HELENE COOPER, New York Times, April 13, 2007

Anonymous reader sends with gentle--and fair-reminder that I slammed the hypocrisy of Hollywood (though I did not cite, I was thinking of Mia Farrow's "genocide Olympics" WSJ op-ed) in declaring China the big hold-up on Darfur, when I believe less in sanctions or denying connectivity and investments to promote change and more in direct action by capable players to stop such genocide.

Why? Sanctions have the nasty historical habit of enriching elites, killing the poor, and leading to no positive change.

Disconnectivity is just the flip side of sanctions: we make a disconnected country more disconnected and wonder why violence continues.

In my original post, I didn't say it was bad or wrong to pressure China, or that it wouldn't work. My real charge in the post was our hypocrisy in somehow making China the external villain of note when everyone knows that if America organized a mulitinational military presence (hell, just our air cover like with the Iraq no-fly zones), the killing could definitely be stopped (or severely reduced) now and not at some distant future when Sudan's exacerbated disconnectedness would only ensure its further suffering. Whereas if America chooses not to participate and leaves it to the vaunted UN, you can just plain forget about any serious remedy.

Making China enemy #1 on Darfur on the basis of its interactions with Sudan is a cop-out--intellectually and morally. Truth is, China limits our liability there by keeping the rest of Sudan doing better economically and by giving ourselves a convenient punching bag for our own inaction (Hollywood has--go figure--no desire to advocate a U.S. military intervention in this current "anti-war" environment).

Having said all that, to whatever extent Ms. Farrow, in her continuing fine work for the UN, helped motivate China, however weakly, to push Sudan a bit rhetorically, I think that's great. The more China connects to the world, the more it should be held accountable for whom it associates with.

We just have to guard against the hypocrisy of pretending that America itself can somehow shame other states out of their inaction or indirect enabling of such mass violence when we ourselves seem unwilling to discuss our own, more muscular approaches (to include the provocative idea of using Blackwater or other security corps to achieve a better situation in Darfur).

Yes, feel free to shame all involved, but when you shame others from your own glass house, watch the verbal bricks.

We have to be realistic about what it will take to stop Darfur. It'll take outsiders, with lotsa guns, to stop that.

And to keep it stopped, we'll have to connect Sudan to something besides China on oil, because disconnecting Sudan from China on oil won't stop the killing. Indeed, absent some larger military response that we inevitably participate in (notice how, when we don't show up, hardly anyone else shows up, or must we rerun the tape on the Balkans, Congo, Rwanda again?), disconnecting Sudan further is likely to increase the mass violence. Indeed, this small diplomatic victory proves my point: China's connectivity is the very reason Ms. Farrow's perceived achievement could be achieved (and yes, I think reporter Cooper is somewhat reductionistic here, because there's a lot of other things going on recently in both East Africa and between the U.S. and China, and they all count): no China investment, no leverage. So pressure Beijing to engage yes, but not to disconnect. Pressure them to be constructive, but please avoid the self-righteous hypocrisy (Did I miss the "genocide Oscars" this year--or any previous--with all the blood diamonds worn by more actresses than I can name, or does that get a bit reductionistic? How about the "Abu Ghraib World Series"? Or the "Iraq Mess Super Bowl"?).

Still, hats off to HR activists everywhere for wanting to do something or anything on Darfur. Just check your conscience at the door if the discussion can never broach U.S. military action.

Hell, check your Africom at the door.

But yes, I do admire Ms. Farrow for her work and her passion.

ARTICLE: The Kosovo Conundrum, By Peter Beinart, Time, Apr. 12, 2007

Nice piece by Beinart. Reminds us that we've done this regime-toppling better in the past.

It also reminds us that expecting fake states to survive such an intervention is a bit unrealistic.

So yeah, Joe Biden's largely right--right now.

Thanks to Kilngoddess for sending this.

OP-ED: "The World Bank, Stuck in the Mud," by Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post, 13 April 2007, p. A17.

Great piece.

Begins by noting how Bush has wasted a lot of great opportunity:

After Sept. 11, the world launched the Doha round of trade talks, which was supposed to help developing countries; now Doha has fizzled. After Sept. 11, there was hope for more humanitarian interventions; now the Iraq syndrome undermines the Western will to intervene, even in the extreme case of Darfur. The most lasting impact of Sept. 11 on the West's attitude toward development is perhaps a negative one. Opponents of immigration have been handed a convenient argument, with the result that workers from poor countries may have fewer legal opportunities to earn paychecks in rich countries and send money home.

Then there is the aid story [goes on to talk about how the G-8 promises at Gleneagles haven't been met].

The West's financial retreat is a policy retreat, too, because an alternative patron of poor nations is emerging in the form of China ... [and] China cares little for controlling corruption.

Indeed.

So Wolfowitz is mired in personal scandal and the WB is thus sidelined.

Terrible timing for the Gap, more evidence of Bush's early post-presidency--by extension.

An America that cares in pol-mil terms, combined with a China willing to invest, and you almost have a full-service, principled superpower for the Gap.

But when we opt out or let ourselves get bogged down in Iraq in our go-it-our-own-way-ism, it's just China's mercantilism and the West's moral outrage.

My, what a useless combination.

OP-ED: "A Power Outage At the White House," by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 13 April 2007, p. A17.

OP-ED: "The Surge: First Fruits," by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 13 April 2007, p. A17.

Bush reminds me less and less of Reagan and more and more of Carter, meaning no matter who wins in Nov. 08, we're in for a serious regime change in Jan. 09 and simultaneous morale upgrade of huge proportions.

I can't wait for it to be morning in America again.

But as I write in the May Esquire, if Bush can declare some semblance of victory--however finessed--in Iraq (and Krauthammer's piece is a nice half-glass-full rendition of acceptable-"victory"-in-the-making), anyone who wins the White House will be greatly in his debt--or, perhaps better to say, in Dave Petraeus' debt.

Even a partial win earns Petraeus serious consideration as Chairman, and when that happens, the world will instantly be a better place..

No question, as the Ignatius and Mallaby pieces make clear, that the world wants us back come '09, so if Bush's Carter-like myopia gets us something we can call "a job salvaged" on 20 Jan 2009, then let the Nixonian rehabilitation begin!

OP-ED: "Why Imus Had to Go," by Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 13 April 2007, p. A17.

First off, excluding Dionne's confusing piece, I've now cited 4 of the WAPO's 5 op-eds from today. Very solid.

I like Robinson a lot and have for a while. He is very incisive in this piece:

For young black hip-hop artists to use such language to demean black women is similarly deplorable--and, I would argue, even more damaging. But come on, people, don't deceive yourselves that it's precisely the same thing. Don't pretend that 388 years of history--since the first shackled African slaves arrived at Jamestown--never happened. The First Amendment notwithstanding, it has always been the case that some speech has been off-limits to some people. I remember a time when black people couldn't say, "I'd like to vote, please." Now, white people can't say "nappy-headed hos." You'll survive.

If Robinson was trying to stab me right in my logic center, all I can say is, "Bullseye!"

I never got Imus' appeal myself. He averaged about 60 words an hour, after all the commercials and music and side-kick banter and his slow drawl were added in, and those words always struck me as pretty boring.

But I know a ton of people who totally grooved on him, and now we'll all just move on--just like history did on Imus a while ago, thank God.

ARTICLE: High Costs Lead Navy to Cancel Lockheed Coastal Vessel, By Renae Merle, Washington Post, April 13, 2007; Page D04

Excerpt:

The contract cancellation also reflects an environment of budget tightening as the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to rise, industry analysts said. Over the last few years, "it's been such a permissive budget environment, programs got away with failures for longer than they should have," said Brett Lambert, a defense industry consultant. "That is changing. The realities are coming home."

More proof that extended interventions are bad for force structure spending--an inescapable reality.

Thanks to Peter Johnson for sending this.

ARTICLE: "McCain Calls War 'Necessary and Just,'," by Michael D. Shear, Washington Post, 12 April 2007, p. A1.

Is just plain sad.

It's like the guy is working out some demons from another life.

I think the war was "necessary and just."

I also think the way we've screwed up the peace is unnecessary and unjust--to both our troops and Iraq.

We're locking ourselves into self-destructively small boxes with this language.

We won the war.

We've struggled to segue that clear victory (Saddam's regime is gone) into a stable peace that makes our pull-back from combat serve as something other than the expected trigger for further--and perhaps expanded--mass violence.

We have that definition in Kurdistan. Our combat troops should increasingly pull back to that venue.

We are close enough on the Shiite south, and no, Iran's not gonna to run the place any more or less depending on what we do now. Iran will have influence there, but Iraq's Shiites didn't wait so long for this moment of autonomy to hand it over to the Iranians. In the end, a relatively free and functioning Shiite Iraq will "ruin" Iran more than vice versa.

The Sunni-based insurgency, plus al Qaeda Iraq remain as serious-but-getting-somewhat-better-with-the-surge problems in Sunni Iraq and around Baghdad. These sources of instability both regularly cross swords with Shiite militias, which we're also working in the surge.

Those problems, no matter how the surge goes, I just don't see America owning forever, because I don't see trying to do so as being a particularly realistic or winning strategy. So long as we're there, we remain everyone's target, and that just delays the fight (Sunni v. Shiia, both straight-up and as proxies for regional wannabees Saudi Arabia and Iran) that needs to happen and ultimately will happen anyway, largely because Iraq the central government can't/won't control it and because we can't stop it with the troops we are willing to commit.

Can we quiet Iraq with the surge? Somewhat. Can we make it last? Doubtful.

If Bush hadn't done so poorly in attracting allies--both old and new--for the postwar, we might have been able to obviate that fight, but this administration did do poorly there, creating the inescapable dynamic we now need to rethink.

I mean, what's the finishing line we're defining now?

Strategically speaking, we truly don't have a dog in that Sunni-Shiia fight, as we proved for years during the Iran-Iraq war (we supported Saddam, but--quite frankly--we were cool with both sides losing as they did). I mean, it doesn't really benefit us particularly to choose sides. Frankly, if forced to choose I go with the Shiia, partly out of guilt (from post-Desert Storm) and partly out of revulsion that I'd otherwise be choosing to align myself with al Qaeda (Sy Hersh's point).

But McCain seems to have lost all such perspective and I'm not sure anymore what "war" he sees us winning or losing.

ARTICLE: "A Growing Mystery as China Amasses Foreign Currency," by Andrew Batson, Washington Post, 13 April 2007, p. D8.

China reports a massive and somewhat hard-to-explain boost in its US currency holdings: all of a sudden at $1.2 trillion.

Best guess? China did a swap of a very large sum sometime in 2006 and just now brought the money home.

In a swap you simply trade currencies with some other money's holder, promising each other to return the money at some time in future. It's used to hedge against sudden shifts in valuation (like swapping your money for gold if you fear something spooky up ahead).

If just a swap, that tells us nothing. If that much extra money came in (like $50B that's hard to explain), then that is truly unsettling.

Bigger point: the lack of transparency overall on Chinese monetary regulation and general reporting. China's getting too big to be that opaque. Bad for us, bad for them, bad for business.

A good example of reality that's China freedom deficit is less dangerous to us than its rules deficit. Too many rules on politics, not enough sensible ones on markets.

Met Rudy Giuliani yesterday in NYC. I and two other experts brought in by campaign to discuss issues of importance for two hours.

It was a serious privilege for me, and I was seriously impressed by the Mayor.

I signed his pretty beat-up paperback copy of PNM (the guy marks up a book just this side of Brian Lamb) and asked if I could send a copy of BFA.

Too late, I'm told.

That man is a serious reader, and I'm happy to be included in what I'm sure is a very large mix.

Got nice autograph for budding prosecutor son Kevin.

Taped about 20-25 minutes (not sure how much they use) with Liane Hansen today at 3pm at local WFYI public TV station in Indy. Kevin listened in on a second pair of headphones. He's still digging his Rudy G. autograph addressed to him by name.

Here's the site for the show.

It'll air at 8-10 EST and we'll link to the online archive later in the day.

ARTICLE: Sunni Factions Split With Al-Qaeda Group: Rift Further Blurs Battle Lines in Iraq, By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, April 14, 2007; Page A01

This story seems to confirm the growing sense that Sunni insurgency groups are distancing themselves from al Qaeda. Like in the NW tribal areas of Pakistan, AQI uses a lot of extreme violence to try and establish itself as THE going concern, but because they're all for going after Shiia and because they're not interested in some negotiated withdrawal of American combat troops from this particular field of battle (no Americans, no jihad), the Sunni insurgents finally begin to realize how their how-does-this-end?-interests clearly diverge.

But yeah, comprehensive solutions become exponentially harder to achieve.

AQI wants Sunniland to remain in flames, because that gets jihad right next door to the House of Saud--the true target.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't mind that short-term outcome for Sunniland, because it forces a fish-or-cut-bait reality upon the Saudis.

Me? Again, I would pull back most of my combat troops to Kurdistan, leave sufficient trainers and SOF to keep up the train-up of Iraqi central gov forces and the kill/capture of AQI, and I'd provide all logical logistics and C2 and air power assets to the same.

I'd work to grow grass in Kurdistan and Shiia Iraq and I'd keep up the weed control effort in Sunniland, and I'd take 2 outta 3 for now and narrow the discussion from "Iraq" to the Sunni areas and Baghdad.

The maximal, get-it-all-stable-right-now-definition just isn't going to happen. That part of the postwar we just plain lost, so now comes the time for partial victories, because the Big Bang is logically match play, so we have to learn to collect our holes as we win them--just like in the former Yugoslavia.

LETTER: General Petraeus' Letter to Soldiers (14 Apr 07) (pdf)

Clearly, Petraeus is really unhappy about the leak, and that's pretty reasonable.

The General knows he's asking a lot--and getting a lot--from his troops.

I think it's more than fair to cite the progress, especially given the costs, but we're haunted by Dave's famous question, "Tell me how this ends."

I know Petraeus has a path in mind. The question is, What combo of Bush's stubbornness and the Dems' pushback gets us--and Petraeus--the window of opportunity we need for what must come next in Iraq's evolution from unitary dictatorship to federated something-else?

Remember, most federations don't stand up with all their members on board at the start.

Nixon and Deng: two architects of our globalized world

Pope John Paul II hurtles toward sainthood in the Catholic Church, while Ronald Reagan achieved that ideological status long ago in the hearts of American conservatives. Both are judged by many historians as decisive figures in the West's Cold War victory over the socialist bloc.

While not denigrating the contributions of these two great men, let me submit that two other figures loom far larger as architects of the socialist bloc's transformation from vaunted global menace to valued global market: Richard Nixon and Deng Xiaoping. Yes, I know I'm talking about Watergate's "criminal-in-chief" and the real "butcher of Tiananmen," but neither leader's political sins compare to their absolutely pivotal roles in history.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Multiple links per weblog edition

+ ZenPundit linked Vol III subtitle.
+ And linked Searching for the Secretary of Everything Else.

+ MountainRunner linked CA is even more maritime in the Gap.
+ And linked Best take on U.S. tariffs against China saying 'Barnett is a great filter for stories on China from the financial press'.
+ And referred to the SysAdmin in his review of Hard Power.

+ A Most Serene Republic talked about Tom's hope after watching the video from Johns Hopkins.
+ And picked up BFA.
+ And talked about Tom as cartographer and his use of 'Non-Integrating Gap'.

+ Phil Windley linked Those who protest Nixon's trip to China..., Plant the flag and give 'em the vector, and Economic freedom trumps political freedom.

Single links soon...

Here's the transcript, made available, according to the site, because of "intense interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

When I speak from the center, they call me Barnett. When more from the right, it's Bartnett (bit harsher), and then the more supplicating Burnet when my inner lefty speaks.

I know that's a lot of coding, but it's crucial and I wouldn't ask NPR to employ it if I didn't think it was useful.

More seriously, I'm never happy with transcripts. I'm a bit of an elliptical talker, and while that can be engrossing to the ear, it doesn't come off so well on the posted page.

Show was entitled "The Middle East and U.S. Policy."

Go here for the audio.

I had a question about Turkey that they cut, unfortunately. Maybe another question or two (like where I explain the three fights I reference), as well.

The following weblogs mentioned Tom's Pop!Tech talk:

+ The Pop!Tech Blog
+ kottke.org
+ Hot soup in my eye
+ pamc
+ designverb
+ Community Mobilization
+ Savory Times
+ dan collier

OP-ED: Resolve to Be Ambivalent, By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, New Yokr Times, April 15, 2007

What I've been saying for a while in posts and two columns (utility of split government and the difference between commitment and dedication): Bush and Cheney have the twin problems of telegraphing their punches and then sticking to their guns when the fight's moved on.

More ambivalence (adjust now or get screwed later--same difference to globalization's march) and more self-confidence (time is clearly on our side) would be most welcome.

It's time to stop waging the Big Bang under the--self-imposed--worst strategic circumstances.

ARTICLE: Why I Declined To Serve, By John J. Sheehan, Washington Post, April 16, 2007; Page A17

Good version (the three levels) of what I was trying to describe in the NPR interview about overlapping processes.

I don't plan to write on it per se in Vol III except to explore its practicality in more depth, so this would be helpful.

Any and all material welcome!

OP-ED: "What's Left for the IMF? Developing countries are increasingly eschewing the Fund's 'help,"' by Adam Lerrick, Wall Street Journal, 13 April 2007, p. A13.

Decent piece that starts well by describing how New Core economies have grown past the currency crises of the 1990s (yet another global trend that was to last forever--except it didn't) and thus don't need IMF help anymore, but then ends weakly by suggesting the IMF sell off its gold to self-finance now that it's no longer in the business of being the '"lender of last resort."

Much like the World Bank, the IMF is facing an identity crisis in Globalization IV (2001 and counting) and struggles to reinvent itself.

But with post-conflict and post-situations dotting the Gap, why not refocus on that needy bunch?

Or Goldfinger can sell off his stock and call it a millennium ...

ARTICLE: "In Brazil, a Deadly Bug Spurs a Stem-Cell Project: In a Debated Study, 1,200 Patients Will Get Their Own Marrow," by Antonio Ragalado, Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2007, p. A1.

Fascinating piece on how Brazil pioneers stem-cell therapies for Chagas disease (you've probably never heard of it unless you donate blood; it involves an enlargening of the heart) that involve shooting them right into arteries.

Here's the underlying reason:

For Brazil, a developing country of 190 million people, the stem-cell study is a bid to develop affordable treatments. Unlike pricey medecines that poor countries can't afford, there's no patent on bone marrow and the infusions don't rely on foreign technology.

One doc calls it a "poor man's cell therapy."

Most new rules from New Core states can be described thusly.

Brazil isn't the only country doing this. America, Finland, Denmark, Austria and Poland are also listed in the piece, but what's interesting is how its project targets a disease that mostly afflicts the poor through bites by face "kissing bugs."

Think about Brazil's push on cheap AIDS triple-cocktails and fighting America's cotton subsidies in the WTO and you see the pattern.

ARTICLE: "Matsuzaka Comes Home to a Far East Reunion," by Jack Curry, New York Times, 12 April 2007, p. C16..

Matsuzaka faces Suzuki in the continuation of their battle: Ichiro, arguably one of the greatest hitters in MLB histoy, has never fared well against Daisuke.

Oh yes MLB's turning Japanese!

More Asianification of America's pasttime, but it's so poetic and so representative of the overwhelmingly positive influence the U.S. had on Asia's rise over the past half-century (reduced by some vertical thinkers solely to the Vietnamese war).

This story reminds me of what I wrote about the NBA in BFA: both went east and south for new talent, or primarily to the New Core. The NBA went more Sov bloc east, while MLB went more Far East.

Either way, the result is the same: a truly international sport.

ARTICLE: "Moment of Truth," by Jerry Adler, Newsweek, 16 April 2007, p. 45.

A Harvard oceanographer is lambasted in a torrent of emails for saying he doesn't believe in worst-case scenarios for global warming, not because he doesn't believe the data, but because "we can't be that stupid."

Makes sense to me.

This dialogue of hyping-to-trigger-delayed-action is an old one on the subject of the environment. The "boiling frog" must be induced to jump, so goes the logic.

And yet we see the same, slow-but-steady change pattern on subject after subject (drunk driving, smoking, recycling, etc.): teach the children well and within a generation's time, they end up teaching society on the subject.

Everyone thinks it's the weighty tomes, but frankly, it's the kids stories.

If you've visited a kindergarten lately (I had one last year and 1-to-maybe-2 to go), you know what I'm talking about. If you watch a lot of Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network or PBS, you know what I'm talking about.

Note to self: lotsa kids help your grand strategic vision.

Here's the kicker line from the piece:

"Suddenly CEOs were expressing genuine concern about this issue, not just, 'Can you get these people off our back?'" Over and over again [activist Paul Hawken] heard a variation on the same story: CEO's daughter comes home from college and says, Dad, we can't be that stupid.

Indeed, this is the vignette I hear over and over again from congressmen on China once the daughter comes back from her MBA-summer-abroad in Shanghai.

And the children shall lead ...

And I get more psyched to write Vol. III.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: "Crackdown Galvanizes Foes of Putin: Arrests, Beatings of Protesters May Unify Kremlin Opponents Ahead of Presidential Elections," by Alan Cullison and Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2007, p. A4.

Honestly, if I were to say read one column and one column only in the MSM, it would be the WSJ's "Politics & Economics." Since I don't always label it so, you probably don't realize that I cite it far more than anything or anyone else.

Great piece here that shows Putin's heavy hand on politics inevitably engenders resistance. For a while, the rising incomes and investments will keep most off the playing field, given the tumultuous 1990s, but those memories will fade and as economic confidence rises, so too will political demands for freedom.

It probably won't happen this election, but quite possibly during the administration of Putin's successor.

Good stuff to see, even better to track.

Don't worry. I keep all the 2x2 matrices in my head now.

That's what I want to teach in Vol. III.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: "Violence Beyond Baghdad: Once-Peaceful Towns Pay Price of Security Push," by Philip Shishkin, Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2007, p. A6.

Excellent piece that puts our dilemma on full display: to bring stability we need to crack down on both Sunni and Shiia militias, but taking that fight to both takes the fight to more peripheral towns previously spared suh violence.

The end result too often? We piss off locals and often end up uniting Sunni and Shiia to fight us instead.

Thus the definitions of "winning" and "losing" must be recast, yes?

Google tipped me off to this post from yesterday on Islamic Forum by thezman, one of the IF Guardians.

The answer: 'taking out opponents of "Globalization" (Islam) and making the M.E safe for Israel'.

Man, I missed that.

The same post points to the famous C-SPAN video from Tom's presentation at the NDU in June 2004, broadcast Labor Day weekend, now uploaded to Google Video. It doesn't take a writing analysis to guess that thezman uploaded it.

He recommends watching it until his readers have it memorized so they know what the 'Global Elites' are planning.

I guess it's good to have it up on Google Video...

in Honolulu at Pacific Special Operations Command's annual regional conference.

See if you can spot the reproducible strategic concept:

ARTICLE: In a Major Step, Saudi Arabia Agrees to Write Off 80 Percent of Iraqi Debt, By Steven Mufson and Robin Wright, Washington Post, April 18, 2007; Page A18

Nice move by the House of Saud, but in keeping with their tendency toward limiting their involvement to treasure only, there's only so far they can go with this approach.

My prediction? You won't have real Middle Eastern piece until the Saudis start spending blood too.

Thanks to Vonne for sending this.

OP-ED: An errant push for democracy first: In Iraq, the U.S. has failed to heed Woodrow Wilson’s lesson of self-determination. Instead, dysfunctional borders merely cement foreign policy failures of the past, By Ralph Peters, USA Today, April 18, 2007

Brilliant bit by Peters to remind us of the sequencing here. Democracy, simply put, doesn't come first, self-actualization does. If nations feel unbirthed or aborted by history, there's no hope in pushing democracy prematurely.

Fake states to real states, then democracy becomes possible, if driven by connectivity that empowers the masses.

ARTICLE: Culture War, By Azar Nafisi, New Republic 13/4/07, Apr 17, 2007

What this reinforces to me is how similar Iran today is to late Brezhnevian USSR, especially the bit about the main preoccupation of the population being day-to-day survival in depressing economic times.

As a revolution fails ever more pervasively at home, you always see more soaring revolutionary rhetoric abroad and more expansive--but equally as ineffective--efforts at fomenting political change abroad. This is the history of Cuba under Castro and it becomes the inevitable history of Venezuela under that buffoon Chavez.

In the end, the soft-kill connectivity option is far more powerful than we realize, given the internal weaknesses.

Economic connectivity for the masses is the best route to marginalizing political elites.

Don't believe? Then you're just another blind guy feeling up the Chinese elephant.

Thanks to Lexington Green for sending this.

ARTICLE: Russia Plans World's Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska, By Yuriy Humber and Bradley Cook, Bloomberg, April 18, 2007

Interesting. I heard the bridge concept when up in Alaska, but the tunnel seems--if you can believe it--more feasible given the tough seas (ever watch "Deadliest Catch" on A&E?).

With arctic ice melting due to global warming, the intermodal ties between America (meaning Alaska) and Russia will skyrocket in the next quarter-century.

This--pun intended--is just tip of the iceberg.

Thanks to Joseph Gallagher for sending this.

+ It's so basic and trite, and yet I found the same thing to be true about 95 percent of Gappish Alaska: simply put, the Gap has few good maps. The Gap does not know what it does not know. The original transparency is a good map, and for much of the Gap, there are no good maps.

When I say "maps," I mean any map that charts anything. You can't figure out how much you're losing until you realize what you have.

+ BTW, I was brought to PASOC to talk about the future of interagency ...

And yeah, the DoEE is a real concept because it addresses real needs.

You want traction?

Doesn't get any more real than these operators when it comes to the Long War.

Travel all the way to HI to speak for only 30 mins and do 30 Q&A?

Well, the audience is the leadership of Special Ops Forces throughout Asia, to include the Chinese again for only second time, so that's enough influence-spreading to justify the trip in itself.

But the real pay-off (beyond the numerous side conversations) is to sit through the two-dozen 4-minute report-out PPTs delivered by the team leaders from the break-out groups populated by all these SOF officers from around Asia. It's one big brainstorming dump from the world's most talented military officers on a host of interagency and international issues.

Got several columns and a bunch of ideas for Vol. III. An incredibly privileged learning experience, for which the price of entry was--quite naturally--my own teaching session.

My brief (only 12 slides) was well-received, meaning I got about 90 percent of the questions from the audience on my 3-person panel. But I also got into a yelling match with a very angry American official from the Office of Secretary of Defense/Special Ops and Lower Intensity Conflict, and since SOLIC is sort of Special Ops's civilian masters, I sort of bite the hand that feeds me (this gig at least).

Oh well, if I burned an OSD bridge this late in an administration, it's not so bad. If it is, then PASOC simply won't invite me back a third time.

Still, I don't consider it a good talk if somebody ain't pissed off enough in the audience to blow their stack ....

Still, it was weird to see a USG official lose it like that in an official forum. I felt embarrassed for the guy.

USAID guy who chaired my panel sees me out of suit at end of conference and spurts out, "Hey, you're in your merc-wear!"

My reply: "When I'm with the mil, I just try to blend in!"

What is merc-wear?

Black slacks (special travel pants), black nylon T, and khaki multi-pocketed sleeveless vest over--oh so very Blackwater.

I've actually dressed like this for years on the road: the equivalent of a woman's basic black dress and a utilitarian overcoat. You're never quite too-under-dressed but you're also ready for just about anything.

But I had to laugh. It took a USAIDer to make that connection visually for me.

ARTICLE: Message-Minded Admiral Ditches 'Long War' Phrase, By RICHARD LARDNER, The Tampa Tribune, Apr 19, 2007

To me, downshifting the language is a mistake. It's an attempt to seek short-term morale relief while appeasing the popular desire to not engage in long-term involvement in the region. To me, that was Abizaid being honest with the American public and casting the conflict in decades-long terms while avoiding the "global" moniker, which I always found hyperbolic.

There's always the impetus to change things when you assume command: it displays your decisiveness and makes your stamp. But the problem is that we need more consistency than course changes in this lengthy process, and the surest sign that the Americans are--once again--coming up with some new definition of grand strategy for this conflict is reaching for a new name.

I honestly think this just makes us look bad, like we're chasing the "strategic communications" victory more than anything else. Then again, it's the mass media nature of the coverage: there has to be a new tag line every couple of months.

But if I'm a local in the Gulf, this sounds like the Americans are no longer in this for the long haul, and so I start hedging even more. I wonder if that dynamic isn't more damaging than the PR-implications of the old phrase.

I guess what worries me most is the sense that the Bush administration, in okaying this shift, is basically abandoning the concept of a grand strategy for the region. I worry that it reflects the breakdown in coordination across the government and that it's now every slogan for itself.

But that may just be the pessimist in me after a red-eye.

MIDDLE EAST REPORT: Iraq and the Kurds: Resolving the Kirkuk Crisis, International Crisis Group, 19 April 2007

Kirkuk is a wildcard I mention in the "State of the World" piece. This is a solid description of the issue and its potential impact on Iraq and the region.

Thanks to sbahadir for sending this.

Mom leaves me message on cell: the famous "Under the Bridge" column of the Boscobel Dial, my hometown paper, is wall-to-wall excerpts from my "State of the World" piece in the May issue of Esquire.

To you, nothing.

To me, priceless.

Happens just as my Mom is trying to sell her house (I spent three years of HS there) and move to the Twin Cities to live with one of my sisters. When that happens, it won't much matter if I can't go home again. There just won't be a home there.

So I'm glad I worked in this lifetime achievement quasi-award while Mom was still there, getting the Dial.

Not sure if I'm live or taping, but it's Bob Edwards, and it's XM (which we get and love in both our Hondas).

Talking "State of the World." He's on 133.

Then I disappear until COB Monday, when I owe Warren the draft of my next piece for the July issue.

I plan on pulling out some hair... but also getting it done.

Glad to be back from Hawaii. I really don't want to see any of the world for a while...

My trip to Hawaii was a hard one because I started out with a double-ear infection. When I got back I thought I was doing well, but then woke up today with a pretty vigorous sinus infection and I'm realizing the antibiotic I'm using just ain't doing the trick.

But . . . I did drag myself out of bed just in time to have my wife drive me to the local rock radio station where I taped the segment with Edwards. I was in an intense fog throughout, but seemed to perform well enough to make the producer inquire about my next piece for Esquire.

It'll air Monday, they say. Have no idea how long I went.

Meanwhile, I'll go see my doc and work hard to get myself in shape so I can churn out a first draft of this next article over the weekend/Monday. I am in survival mode.

TELEVISION: "Cartoons With Heart ... and a Little Mandarin," by Michael Davis, New York Times, 15 April 2007, p. AR32.

You can always spot the future, in demographic terms, by watching children's TV.

The first glimpses of the rising Sino quotient are generated by Chinese Americans operating in our mass media. Amy Tan's PBS series about the "Chinese Siamese cat," called "Sagwa," was a ground breaker.

Now we have "Ni Hao, Kai-lan!" (or "Hello Kai-lan!) from a second-generation Chinese woman who--none too surprisingly--writes about what she knows: her bicultural childhood. The show will start in August.

The rise of the Chinese-American role model comes just in time for this father of a Chinese-American household. Vonne Mei is always captivated by Chinese faces in mass media (you have no idea how big "Mulan" can be when there's so little out there to grab a hold of).

Vocabulary will be a big part of this show, basically tutoring kids in beginning Mandarin. This just follows the rising trend of kids taking Chinese in primary and secondary schools, which in turn will generate a flood of tertiary school training within a generation.

But understand this: these opening bids by Chinese-Americans will inevitably be overwhelmed by a flood of such efforts coming out of China itself in coming years, especially in animation, where China sees how effectively Japan and South Korea export their mass media in anime and video games.

Meanwhile, the creator of "Kai-lan" hopes the series will have a "special resonance for the estimated 60,000 girls in the United States who have been adopted from Chinese orphannages," or what I called in BFA a small army of Tiger Woods-like powerhouses soon to be released upon American society (go figure, as they all live in mid-to-upper-income families where most are single kids of older parents who will spare no money on their success). The Chinese-American girl who voices the lead character has a bio exactly like Mei Mei's (left on doorstep in infancy and adopted by American couple at 8 months).

Rest assured, Vonne and I will make the same over-the-top effort with Mei. I like to say that we have four "single," all of whom share the same problem: they have three siblings.

Now, at least, Mei Mei will have some of the same role-model opportunities that the other three have long enjoyed.

As I often say in my brief, I've got one Asian kid and three kids turning Asian.

ARTICLE: Defying a Clan Code of Silence on Unspeakable Crimes, By ISABEL KERSHNER, New York Times, April 20, 2007

The honor killings stuff isn't new to us. It's just something we got rid of a long time ago because it's so phenomenally backward and inefficient and medieval.

Traditional Muslims who hold on to this practice do so because it's a basic way for males to dominate females--pure and simple.

As modernity creeps into traditional societies--here, the proximity of Israel is the trigger--the ancient rule set is revealed in its barbarity and increasingly condemned by those parts of society who have moved on.

Here, you get the classic yin-yang on Israel though: its very presence perturbs the Arab system and yet those within that community who see the extreme injustice want hated Israel to be the progressive agent of change.

After decades of both that plus constantly being attacked and threatened with destruction for its "evilness," it's not hard to see why Israel builds a wall.

And yet the wall won't bring the necessary change, but delay it.

That's why I vote for anything that keeps the board in play. That's why I still support the decision to topple Saddam. But that's also why I want something far more imaginative outta Bush than just variation after variation on "staying the course" on Iraq.

Thanks to Dan Hare for sending this.

Whew!

That took longer than expected!

Got nice email today from editor of series, Royce Flippin. I make into this year's issue, just barely getting in under the wire with "State of the World" in the current issue of Esquire.

I got in 2005 with my "Mr. President" piece and in 2006 with the "Chinese Are Our Friends," so this makes 3 years in a row.

Very nice honor, glad to accept it on behalf of Esquire.

ARTICLE: "Singing the Praises of a New Asia: Lawrence Summers Finds a Theme and a Receptive Audience," by Heather Timmons, New York Times, 19 April 2007, p. C5.

I let the great man (I am an unabashed fan) speak for himself (as paraphrased and quoted:

[telling hundreds of execs] that most of the action on global warming needed to "take place in the developing world."

The industrial world was responsible for much of the problem, he said, but most of the solutions must come from the developing world, where emissions are growing the fastest and infrastructure is still unbuilt. The developing world should be compensated and supported for taking actions "in the interest of all," he said.

Other themes he sounded:

... that growth and changes in Asia are the most important thing to happen during our lifetimes, that the United States and Europe have not yet appreciated the impact of these changes and that the global imbalances from the United States' current-account ... could have severe consequences.

Or present someone with "severe" opportunities that dovetail nicely with his advice on global warming responses:

In Beijing this January, he asked hundreds of economists and policy makers at a Global Development Network conference to consider the fact that $2 trillion from developing Asia invested in United States Treasury bills, was making a "zero real return." Imagine instead, he said, "all the opportunities in these countries for productive investments."

The big shift comes on investment flows, in part in response to rising energy infrastructure requirements, and therein lies the best and most logical response plan: take advantage of Asia's build-out to create infrastructure most appropriate to CO2 savings, and then use those resulting companies (the build-out will be so vast that a roll-up season--meaning lotsa mergers and acquisitions--ensues in global construction and transportation
and energy (and any infrastructure-determined industries) and those new behemoths will spread these new technologies to the Gap in coming decades.

Our job? Encouraging such developments with the creation and spreading of the best possible rule sets.

POST: The PooBahs Speak

Krepenevich is one smart guy, and these are some great recommendations.

I've said for a while now that the force structure changes last because it takes time for the operational experience to pile up and force change in training, then doctrine, then scenarios for planning and then finally in acquisitions.

Very good stuff to see start unfolding.

Thanks to Brad B. for sending this.

POST: Barnett from PopTech!(sic)

(Yo, Phil. It's 'Pop!Tech'. I know, funny place to put an exclamation mark ;-)

I just finished watching Thomas Barnett’s talk from PopTech! I like reading Barnett, but watching him is another thing altogether. He’s a very good presenter and very entertaining. If you want a gentle introduction, watch the video. I don’t think the audio would do this talk justice.

There are some other talks on that page that look pretty interesting. Friedman is always good—I had breakfast with him one day at the Governor’s mansion when I was Utah’s CIO. I heard Juan Enriquez at the Governor’s mansion during the Olympics and read his then new book, As the Future Catches You. His latest is a look at a possible future of the US.

Sometime I’d like to have a relaxed conversation with Barnett. I think he’d be very interesting to just hang with for a bit. That’s maybe one of the best, overlooked perks of being governor: the convening power that allows you to spend time with interesting folks and learn from them.

In my never-ending search for links to Tom, I found these two humorous ones:

+ First, I found this picture (courtesy of searchmash):

Heck, even the title of the picture, PNMarsupial, is funny.

Came from the post Tom Barnett is a Killer Possum!

(It's all an elaborate mashup with The Truth Laid Bear's weblog ecosystem.)

Not sure it's entirely complimentary, but...

+ The second one is more from the 'What in the world?' department. This weblog is dedicated to monitoring NPR for 'rightwing, pro-government, and corporate bias'. The sidebar says s/he wants 'responsible' public radio. Apparently, this is what do you do when NPR isn't left enough for you. (You know, short of moving to... I don't know where...)

So, I give you Twister for the Twisted (complete with photoshopped Twister images!). Here's a little taste: 'Or maybe Twister for mass murderers. Liane Hansen talks with imperial wunder-boy Thomas Barnett about US foreign policy.'

Wacky.

+ A Wisconsin Librarian linked The side I've always been on.
+ Flit(tm) linked Searching for the Secretary of Everything Else.
+ And linked India plans on enjoying membership in the big boys' club.
+ Most Serene Republic linked First Kaplan, now Boot wants a Department of Everything Else.
+ And linked Speaking on Interagency today...
+ China Redux linked The China threat I always worry about.
+ ZenPundit linked Last week's column.
+ So did Heritage Tidbits.
+ postpolitical linked My "a-ha" on the Settling the West analogy/metaphor.
+ Nick Guariglia mentioned Tom and the SysAdmin.
+ Dave Porter promotes learning Chinese, with Tom as inspiration.
+ Outside the Beltway linked Bush's post-presidency means we all move on.
+ Ben and Faye's Eurasian Adventure mention Tom and his position on China.
+ Live from Zion says PNM is amazing.
+ Civil War Bookshelf thinks this weblog is 'frivolous to the point of being unreadable' but does interact with the material.
+ Being a former debater briefly, I think this debate weblog recommending reading Tom's weblog for material is fun.
+ House of Chin linked No big surprise on Iranian hostages.
+ American Republic Online linked On second thought ...
+ CP mentioned Tom WRT the environment.
+ One Cosmos mentioned Tom WRT Islam.
+ N=1 linked Plant the flag and give 'em the vector.
+ Cheat Seeking Missiles linked The Big Bang is match play.
+ Kicking Over My Traces linked Allegation: what Tom says 'war' in the ME is REALLY about.
+ And linked Dancing with wolves in Afghanistan.
+ Hidden Unities linked Beware hypocrisy on Darfur, China.
+ Federated Thinkers Union linked The theory of peacefully rising China.
+ In Search of 2nd Tier linked The Brief on YouTube
+ An Assembler's blog has a pretty extensive post on Tom.
+ A SVC Alumnus' Blog linked Rudy is speaking my language.
+ There Is No Second Place linked India plans on enjoying membership in the big boys' club.
+ What the Heck was I Thinking!? thought the Bush Admin search for a czar for Iraq and Afghanistan sounded like the SEVEVELSE.
+ ProgressNow Action quotes Tom's presidential advice from the new Esquire piece.

Glancing blows without any more commentary:

+ SupportImus.org
+ memeorandum
+ Beautiful Horizons
+ Haselwood Library
+ ClearCommentary.com
+ Cyberhillbilly
+ Illinoisans in Support of Mitt Romney for President in 2008!

Now I'm caught up for real!

+ Pride of place to Critt, for sure, for helping me gather up what others have said about DoEE (or the like). Comments from the Conversation Base page feed the Grazr at the wiki (but you do have to click on a feed in the left pane to get results to the right (Anton! ;-)).

+ The Scribe quoted the NPR interview.
+ So did Northern Gleaner.
+ So did Green Coffee.
+ So did Prairie Weather.

+ The World 2 Come linked Tom's Pop!Cast talk.
+ So did Garrick Van Buren.
+ So did Savory Times.
+ So did dan collier.

ARTICLE: Iraq oil reserves estimate increased, ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 20, 2007

Shocked to discover there's so much more oil in Iraq than previously known!

ARTICLE: "Pentagon Invites Kremlin to Link Missile Systems: A Package of Incentives; U.S. Offer Cooperation on a Defense Project Based in Europe," by Thom Shanker, New York Times, 21 April 2007, p. A1.

First off, strategic missile defense has never worked and shows no signs of working.

Second, this is just an attempt to keep that Cold War program chugging along, sucking up billions, by spreading the wealth.

Third, this is about pork barrel for East Central Europe to bind them to our strategic stance.

Fourth, how can I talk about integrating the Middle East to the world while simultaneously trying to wall it off? Why does rejecting bin Laden's offer of civilizational apartheid somehow translate into offering strategic apartheid in the meantime?

Fifth, Russia doesn't need any protection from Iranian missiles any more than Poland or the Czech Republic do.

This is nothing more than the Defense Department's biggest case of Waste, Fraud and Abuse masquerading as a diplomatic initiative. This has nothing to do with bringing peace to the Middle East or shrinking the Gap and everything to do with keeping defense contractors happy along with their Hill sponsors.

No one is going to strike anybody else with a missile in this day and age, because it's traceable and will lead to massive retaliation. Anyone who wants to blow off a nuke will smuggle it in, not loft it all obvious-like over the borders of several states.

This Reagan-era myth persists only because so much money is to be made on it.

Tell me, who's more likely to nuke Poland based on past history? Israel or Iran? How many millions of Persians were exterminated in Poland?

This is just cynical teet-sucking of the past, instead of serious dealings with the future. Shame on everybody for peddling this.

ARTICLE: "China's Automakers, With Beijing's Prodding, Show Alternative-Fuel Cars: An unexpected array of hybrids as well as hydrogen power," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 21 April 2007, p. B3.

Here's what I wrote in BFA:

China’s emergence as a manufacturing superpower is already resetting rules throughout the global economy in commodity markets, and its vastly expanding transportation needs, both on the ground (cars) and in the air (airline industry), have the potential to push the Core as a whole in much needed directions of technological innovation. You want to get to the hydrogen age? China’s your best bet, not America. China’s huge growth in automobile traffic over the coming years will push it ever faster toward a tipping point on air pollution, in addition to ratcheting up its dependency on foreign sources of oil to a frightening degree. Neither condition will come about in the United States to anywhere near the same degree. Most important, because China’s in the process of creating a car culture and not recasting one, it’ll be far easier for China to choose the alternative pathway of introducing hybrids and ultimately hydrogen fuel-cell cars far earlier in its growth trajectory. The fact that China will soon represent the world’s largest car market can trigger changes in car cultures the world over, including the United States, making the Core’s transition to the hydrogen age all the faster.

Here's the wow opening to this article:

Chinese automakers, under pressure from the government to produce more fuel-efficient cars, unveiled an unexpectedly broad array of prototypes for fuel-cell cars, gasoline-electric hybrid cars and electric battery cars at the Shanghai auto show on Friday.

The variety and sophistication of the cars showed a striking improvement not just since the last Shanghai auto show two years ago, when Chinese automakers demonstrated scant technological innovation, but even in the months since the Beijing auto show last November.

Universities and technical institutes across China have started advanced vehicle propulsion research programs, combining strong government financial backing with China’s growing ranks of skilled engineers.

China, worried about severe air pollution and rising dependence on imported oil, has already imposed more stringent fuel economy standards than the United States — although not as strict as the semi-voluntary standards in the European Union.

China plans to tighten its standards considerably next year. It has raised its consumption tax to as much as 20 percent on gas guzzlers, while cutting it to 1 percent for cars with small fuel-sipping engines. And it is studying the possibility of tax incentives for buyers of hybrids.

Multinational automakers like General Motors and Volkswagen have begun cooperating closely with Chinese joint venture partners on the development of hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles. Larry Burns, G.M.’s vice president for research and development, said the company was in talks with a Chinese joint venture partner on sharing hydrogen fuel-cell technology as well.

Xu Liuping, the chief executive of Changan Automobile in Chongqing, said the Chinese auto industry was hard working to save energy.

“The speed will be accelerated because available energy supplies are dwindling and because of the environmental protection aspect,” Mr. Xu said in an interview at the Shanghai auto show.

Later, GM's Rick Wagoner says China "may very well be the first country to develop a broad-based fuel-cell infrastructure."

I know, I know. It can never happen . . . until it does.

Necessity is the mother of invention, yes?

How about, instead of sharing missile technology with Russia, we get together with China on car technology?

Uhh ... maybe we already are?

Now that's a greed I approve of.

ARTICLE: "U.S. Erects Baghdad Wall To Keep Rival Sects Apart: 'They're trying to isolate us,' says one angry Sunni resident," by Edward Wong and David Cloud, New York Times, 21 April 2007, p. A6.

Echoing Friedman's point about the Palestinian-Israeli struggle playing Spanish Civil War to this Long War (sorry, Fox, you have to come up with a better title to replace the old one): suicide bombers shift to Iraq and now Afghanistan, so why not security walls?

Already the Sunnis are bringing up Native Americans ....

You can almost hear the rueful chuckling in Tel Aviv.

As I said in PNM, I don't mind walls per se, so long as you're trying to disconnect solely in terms of violence. But it's a tricky thing, and it speaks to somebody staying around for a very long time ...

But yeah, we know how to do walls. We've sat on some for decades to get what we wanted.

Spent hours today going through all my notes and transcripts for next Esquire article, which I owe Warren . . . sometime veeeery soon!

Writing down key points on old Fortran cards (don't ask), I now have a stack about 3 inches thick.

Tomorrow morning I will begin the great sorting--replete with special hat on. Following a son's track meet I start writing tomorrow afternoon, with a big push extending through Monday. Goal is first draft of roughly 6k to Warren COB Monday.

Fallback is Tuesday noon.

July issue already shipping out to printers. As usual, I am likely to be the last guy in the door before it closes.

Yes, that sort of cutting-it-close does worry me, except my problem on this piece is an embarrassment of riches, not a shortage.

Still, I will feel much better once I get the sorting done tomorrow. Even more than the writing, I find those exercises to be the supreme act of creativity--real "beautiful mind" sort of fun where you walk around the office with hundreds of cards spread out on floor and you sort of move through it all, gyrating your brain around all unseen laser beams.

I used to be scared about moments like that: having to step up and be really creative all at once.

Then I realized I put them off to the moment when it starts to subconsciously click for me, which is why those moments always work, which is where my confidence comes from.

Still, I love having a job where you have to get up in the morning and say, "I have to be brilliant between 0700 and 1400!" You know, like you can pencil it in or something!

But seriously, you do have to pencil it in, and the trick in doing that is not mustering some imaginary brilliance that is or isn't there. Rather, it's all in the send-up, which tends to be weeks in the making. I mean, I started writing this piece in my head in early January, when I first broached the idea with Warren.

Call it tantric creativity.

Either that or somebody's been on the road too much lately ....

Good impressions of Rudolph Giuliani

With former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani consistently leading early polls for the Republican presidential nomination, pundits have spilled an ocean of ink concerning his electability. Having recently sat down with the man, let me tell you why I consider Giuliani a candidate wholly appropriate for our times.

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking and writing about globalization and security, I was brought in recently by the Giuliani campaign to discuss these topics with the mayor. This is standard practice as presidential candidates gear up, and Giuliani's camp is the fourth I've visited in the last year.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Scripps Howard edited off the end of Tom's column, so here it is:

Major coastal cities are the dominant nodes of our global economy. Not only do they attract roughly half the world’s population, such megalopolises serve as primary flow points for commerce and immigration through their financial markets, seaports and air hubs. So whether you’re talking about culture clashes, border security, legal compliance, systems integration or economic competitiveness, nowhere do globalization’s major challenges concentrate themselves more than in coastal mega-cities.

In this long war against radical extremism, we can focus on killing bad guys or making our nation more resilient. The former task takes us to the world’s most off-grid locations, while the latter forces us to strengthen our biggest connections to the world’s networks.

Ask yourself what’s more important: fewer criminals or less crime?

As the mayor who resurrected New York City across the 1990s, only to guide it masterfully through the system perturbation that was 9/11, Rudy Giuliani is uniquely qualified for what comes next: the recasting of America as globalization’s most resilient pillar.

Tom says:

I have to say, when Scripps just cuts chunks out of piece, it pisses me off supremely. I submit every column at 720 words and then somebody at Scripps will--on occasion--simply cut for length because they like smaller ones (more like 500-600). Knoxville News, thankfully, doesn't do that.

The cut on the Giuliani one is big and very important, explaining my argument of his credibility as a candidate based on experience. Cut that and the thrust of the article's main claim is left void and null. To me, that sort of editing is just careless.

The usual Scripps trick is to cut all parentheticals. So I stopped using them. Now they just lop off endings when they can't figure out anything else to do.

Impressive.

Betcha Tom Friedman doesn't have to put up with this crap.

Note to self: on next book try to sell 2.5 million copies.

Then they'll rue the day!

Early column sightings:
+ Press of Atlantic City
+ Giuliani 2008

'China seeks joint military exercise with ASEAN countries', Jane's Navy International, 16 April 2007

Under a bold policy initiative yet to be made public, China is seeking to expand its political and economic ties with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) through organising a first multilateral military exercise.Sources told Jane's that the Chinese proposal, which is still at an early stage, involves a joint naval drill. Beijing opened discussions at the start of 2007 with the aim of conducting the exercise around mid-2008.The initiative appears to have been presented to ASEAN members individually rather than collectively through the group's secretariat

As Sean noted when he passed this on, China's price for strategic alliance continues to rise.

Globalization is all about networks and networks are all about accessing new work-arounds.

The hedge strategy is rapidly being OBE, and forget about containment. China won't wait on our offer to lead Asia's next stage of integration, and so the days of bilat diplomacy and hub-and-spokes arrangements and "separate lanes" negotiations are all gone.

We're still waging largely 20th century diplomacy in a globalized, 21st century environment.

The leap-frogging is just beginning and we need to get our asses off the floor.

This is where the Bush post-presidency seems like such a drag: we're still busily closing doors on the last era while others are opening doors on the next.

ARTICLE: In a reversal, U.S. reliance on Iraqi army is fading: Training troops is no longer a priority, changing the role of American forces, By NANCY A. YOUSSEF, McClatchy Newspapers, Apr. 20, 2007

This, to me, seems more nakedly about leaving Iraq ASAP, and that worries me. A bit too close to the "cut and run" mentality long decried by the administration.

Between this and the walls going up, you get the feeling that partitioned Iraq is well under-way, which to me is realistic, but somebody better be getting the Saudis ready, cause the doorstep's gonna feel a whole lot closer once the Americans draw down.

The only good news in this (to the extent it's true, as so many reports from Iraq conflict) is that the timeline seems way to slow on the possible redirect on Iran, the precursor for which must be the Bush administration arguing a culmination of threats against Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and ... let's not forget Poland and the Czech Republic.

ARTICLE: Congress Skeptical of Warhead Plan: Lawmakers and Experts Question Necessity, Implications of a New Nuclear Weapon, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, April 22, 2007

I don't have any problem with exploring and developing a new warhead. I think nukes are good and keep the peace through deterrence.

I just don't believe in the myth of strategic missile defense (though I support a tactical version) nor in global gun control.

You want a nice lawn, then you grow grass instead of poisoning weeds.

Nukes provide the strategic top-cover for the end of great power war. and I see no reason to mess with that historical reality. When states knock on that door, I let them in and seek integration by other means.

Just look at all the middling powers we've successfully brought on board to some degree in the last quarter-century: only Pakistan, Israel and India have chosen to keep nukes. So many more walked or gave them up.

Now, with the whole nuke paradigm shifting due to energy/environment, the counter-proliferation model seems more counter-productive by the day.

EDITORIAL: “Bad Options on Iran,” by Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News & World Report, 23 April 2007, p. 76.

Zuckerman is nothing if not consistent: in column after column he explains patiently why Iran getting nukes is America’s problem first and foremost and will inevitably force our use of military power.

Israel’s 200 nuclear warheads find no mention. China’s and Russia’s implicit villainy are routinely stoked for imagery. America, we are told, is the only country that can deal with this.

It’s us versus them, I tell you!

We offered Iran multilateral diplomacy if only Tehran would first give up the only reason why we’d offer them multilateral diplomacy in the first place, and no, it did not work. Go figure.

Therefore, war is the only option.

Get used to this drumbeat from some writers. It will persist through the end of this administration, in ever-dimming hope Bush will pull the trigger. It will persist also to shape the presidential election, hoping to make a willingness to war with Iraq a litmus test on support to Israel and thus the money and the votes attached to that sentiment.

If you feel like all this is designed to prep America for the next war in the Middle East, one that will fail dramatically and leave us more isolated than before, then you’re paying attention.

SPECIAL REPORT: “Rwanda Reborn,” by Kevin Whitelaw, U.S. News & World Report, 23 April 2007, p. 43.

The Balkans fires would never dim, we were told.

And yet somehow they did, and integration begun with the world at large. Not perfect, plenty slow, but few American casualties, yes?

We deserve no similar good news on Rwanda. There was a genocide completely preventable, with a presence only necessary for the madness to subside.

Ten years later, the madness seems completely gone, and the government successfully deep in a national re-education and re-unification process:

While Rwanda might not yet be the Switzerland of East Africa, its government has charted a surprisingly ambitious course for this tiny and startlingly green country known as the Land of a Thousand Hills. The goal is to become a regional stronghold for communications and computing, a place where ethnic divisions are a thing of the past. Fiber-optic cable is being laid throughout the country, and Rwanda soon will have perhaps the most advanced broadband wireless Internet network on the continent. “We will be the nervous system for the region,” says Romain Murenzi, the country’s minister for science and technology. While it still has a very long way to go, Rwanda’s broad-based government is winning praise from foreign governments and aid groups alike for its good intentions and surprising lack of corruption. It has doubled primary-school enrollment in the past decade and has established a national health insurance system. “They are,” says [U.S. ambassader Michael] Arietti, “doing all the right things.”

No, no, the Gap cannot be shrunk. Connectivity is not the answer.

I am only a dreamer, indeed--the only one.

OP-ED: “A Korean Strategy for Iraq,” by Jim Hoagland, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 16-22 April 2007, p. 5.

POLITICS: “Wait and See: As patience fades in Washington, all sides agree: Success in Iraq looks years away,” by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 16-22 April 2007, p. 13.

In PNM, I identified two ways out of “Black Hawk Down--the Series,” or my scenario for a failed Iraq occupation: one way was through Jerusalem, the other through a sequential processing of mini-Big-Bang-like reverberations spreading throughout the region.

Obviously, this route is the longer and less desired one, but it’s one we’re certainly familiar with--the scenario I dubbed The New Berlin Wall. Unlike the Arab Yugoslavia route, which presumed an Iraq cracking up would trigger further tumultuous change elsewhere, the Wall scenario has us thinking in terms of decades--sitting on walls along Israel’s border and now within and around Iraq itself (Saudi Arabia’s already building one).

Hoagland calls this the Korean model for Iraq: instead of working for the complete solution or allowing for the complete collapse, we wall off what we can stabilize from that which we cannot.

Joe Biden is looking smarter by the minute.

To the extent the Bush Administration goes down this path (and yes, it beats the alternative), the higher premium placed on the next administration’s ability to garner international support for long-term peacekeeping, meaning the same old, same old scenario lurks for the next president: repairing the diplomatic damage done by Bush-Cheney.

Think the SysAdmin/DoEE functions won’t loom large for the next, non/anti-Bush administration?

Think again.

ARTICLE: Japan, US eye emission-free coal plant, AFP, April 22, 2007

Oh so Friedmanesque!

A very nice indicator of a future worth creating.

I feel like the wise-cracking penguin leader from "Madagascar": Price and technology, boys, price and technology.

Thanks to Louis Heberlein for sending this.

ARTICLE: Giuliani: Can hero of 9/11 win over his own party?, By Susan Page, USA TODAY,1/31/2007

Tom emails me yesterday asking how we could miss this and I don't know.

There was a profile of Giuliani in USA Today all the way back at the end of January, and he said he was reading PNM, and we missed it! Blast!

Left sidebar, bottom of "The Giuliani File":

Book currently reading: The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas P.M. Barnett.

ARTICLE: US urges Iran to join Iraq talks, Financial Times, April 22 2007 22:21

Good sign, but poor set-up over past several weeks.

I am not optimistic this late in the Bush game. If I'm Iran, I think I'm still passing and seeing what the next few weeks bring.

Thanks to Brad B. for sending this.

Wrote 5800 on the Esquire piece today.

Really happy with start, bit of teeth pulling the rest of the way.

All my previous brave talk aside, I have little confidence writing "reporting" pieces, but I do get somewhat better with each one (Rumsfeld to Monks of War to now this), making Warren's job a bit easier.

More than the other two, I am discovering this one in the writing itself, which is exciting and a bit scary, given the passing deadline.

I know this: Warren will return phone calls til this f--ker's done!

Nice looking book.

I've always liked Wiley books. Really nicely made.

Eager to read once this push is done.

My congratulations to John for getting it out. It's a big deal to publish a book with a name house. Lot harder than people think. Something to be proud of and celebrate.

Got up way early in a DC hotel today and cranked another 5k on the Esquire piece, sending it off to Warren at 1115.

He immediately checked out my ending and declared it the worst final line award-winner for 2007--preemptively since it's not even May.

Naturally, I covered my head in shame--or perhaps to shade my thinning crown (no metaphor there).

Then I rushed to a speech in the Navy Yard to a Naval Post Graduate School-sponsored conference on post-conflict ops. Maybe 75 in the room. Decent-to-good performance. Went 1:55 with 20 Q&A.

Then late to an Enterra meet with a major defense contractor who's bringing us aboard for a major gov contract bid proposal. Very technical but fascinating discussion with huge long-term implications.

Then rush to Enterra to fill out forms just before deadline for enrollment passes on all our new benes. We are seriously growing up as a company (skeletal benes when I started nearly two years ago, although great medical).

Then rush to Reagan in COB traffic.

Then hop plane, penning weekend column.

But 18-hourworkday all worthwhile just for limiting away time to a single night from home ....

ARTICLE: Anger at Iran dress restrictions, By Frances Harrison, BBC News, Tehran, April 23, 2007

Some see a sign of power. I see the growing lack of it.

Thanks to Pete Johnson for sending this.

ARTICLE: "China Moves to Boost Transparency, but Much Is Kept Hidden," by Geoffrey A. Fowler and Juying Qin, Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2007, p. A6.

Doesn't get much more succinct than that, does it?

The new rules China unveils have to do with government information.

ARTICLE: "Name That 'War'," By Max Boot, Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2007, Pg. 15

Great column by Boot.

I'm already catching this crap from Warren on my next piece, but my counter is: what do we call it instead?

Again, to me, not a great move by Fallon. You can't PR your way out of the Long War.

ARTICLE: C-SPAN? In Indiana?, By Jason George, Chicago Tribune. April 25, 2007

Ben Limbaugh writes in to inform us that today's Chicago Tribune has a list of the 'the most-ordered videos and DVDs since C-SPAN created its West Lafayette archives in 1987.'

Check out #5 below.

Plus, I just can't resist adapting the title of this article to 'C-SPAN's #5 seller? In Indiana?' ;-)

1 Organized Religion Debate with Alan Dershowitz and Alan Keyes (2000)

2 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner with Stephen Colbert (2006)

3 State of the Black Union, 2005: Defining the Agenda (2005)

4 National Prayer Service after 9/11 attacks (2001)

5 The Pentagon's New Map (2004)

6 Rites of Passage: Boys and Fatherhood With Ron Johnson (1996)

7 State of the Black Union, 2006: Defining the Agenda, Part 2 (2006)

8 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner with President Bill Clinton (2000)

9 Role of Church in Black America, morning session (2003)

10 Strengthening the Black Family, morning session (2004)

Source: C-SPAN

From the family's visit to the Museum of the Air Force, Dayton OH:

B-18A nose. The great precursor to WWII workhorse B-17.

Mitsubishi Zero

B-25 with Jimmy Doolittle represented on the right.

Clearly, Alec Baldwin was a bit too tall to play him accurately.

The famous Doolittle silver goblets (all 80 of them) are missing from their display case. The annual reunion happened just last week in San Antonio.

Gotta wonder how many of the original crews are still alive.

Neat story: Disney Studios made 1,200 plane and unit insignias--free--during WWII, continuing a wartime cartooning tradition started by WWI ambulance driver Walt himself.

B-24 Liberator, with its famous plexiglass nose.

Fat Man replica

Little Boy

POST: Anarchy in Somalia

ARTICLE: In Somalia, Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel It, By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, New York Times, April 25, 2007

I find all the descriptions of clans in Somalia sort of confusing, because Somalia, according to every East African I've ever met, consists really of just one tribe.

In fact, my buddy from Kenya, BGen Ngewa Mukala, remarked that everyone assumes tribes are the source of clashes and yet here is the one country in East Africa that's all one tribe, and yet "look at the problems!"

So I'm assuming clans are just family groupings within proper tribes, yes?

The other causal expectation I've heard on Somalia's "5 stars" (the 3 regions of Somalia proper plus Ethiopia's Ogaden plus Djibouti) tension with its neighbors (the Somali flag still sports all 5) is that the real, old-school cause behind all its trouble with neighbors is that Somalis are serious nomad gatherers, so they've never adjusted to the whole border concept.

This story would fit that whole, we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-badges profile..

Thanks to Anton for sending this.

ARTICLE: Ethiopian Rebels Kill 74 in Oil Attack, By ANITA POWELL, Associated Press, April 24, 2007

This is precisely what Tom's column is about this week and the links started to come to him just after he'd written it.

Thanks to Rob Johnson for sending the email I saw.

OP-ED: "Terror In the Weather Forecast," by Thomas Homer-Dixon, New York Times, 24 April 2007, p. A25.

Homer-Dixon is a smart guy, but he peddles the worst sort of mushy fear mongering, constantly declaring the world near collapse from all its brittleness, lack of ingenuity, system vulnerabilities and the like.

Naturally, he loves the potential of global warming, citing CNA's recent study by retired flags where they all opine ominously, but with no real sense of historical causality, about how climate change equates to a "threat multiplier."

History actually provides scant evidence that disasters or tough weather or water shortages cause war. Truly, the historical record portrays more the opposite: people tend to come together in hard times.

Now, if you want to say economic collapse, then your argument improves, but as I've said before, all indications are that it will pay to be rich in the global climate change future, and that it will suck to be poor--no matter where you live. My answer to that is to make people richer, especially those poor now, and I start that process with connectivity.

Read this concluding bit from Homer-Dixon:

By weakening rural economies, increasing unemployment and disrupting livelihoods, global warming will increase the frustrations and anger of hundreds of millions of people in vulnerable countries. Especially in Africa, but also in some parts of Asia and Latin America, climate change will undermine already frail governments--and make challenges from violent groups more likely--by reducing revenues, overwhelming bureaucracies and revealing how incapable these governments are of helping their citizens.

Okay, I'll buy that. I'll also buy that a lot of bad things in this world make those bad trends worse, and I'll also argue--in the vein of Bjorn Lomborg--that, bang for the buck, there's a ton of better ways to address every bad thing on Homer-Dixon's list before turning to global warming, the course of which we can tilt but slightly, but not without significant shorter-run costs (stretching across decades) whose unintended side effects--I'm gonna go out on a limb here--are far larger than we can imagine.

I'm not saying don't do whatever makes reasonable sense to cut CO2 emissions. I love new technology. I want it spread everywhere. I love new and better ways of making energy happen. I want those spread everywhere too.

But when I read Homer-Dixon on this stuff, I can't help but wonder how many other subject causes can easily be inserted into this generalized logic of his. I mean, a lot of things out there reduce revenues in frail states. A lot of things overwhelm bureaucracies in frail states. A lot of things reveal how incapable weak states are in meeting the needs of their citizens.

So why this amazing bandwagoning on the link between global climate change and increased instability and conflicts?

Because, I've got to tell you, if you think going after CO2 emissions is how we shrink the Gap, I think you're losing your grip on reality. To me, this rush to pile on here is just plain odd, reflecting that Calgon-take-me-away sense so many people seem to be getting on the Long War against radical extremism, which--yeah--will get more extreme if the Gap suffers more due to warming, but global warming sure as hell ain't its driver, nor the driver of frail states, nor the cause of disconnectedness, which tends to be complex even as--yes again--it will probably get worse with global warming.

I'm just saying, dealing with global warming is not rising to some great challenge of the future security environment. It's rising to the great challenge of the future environmental environment.

Yes, a great thing to pursue. But there are many great things to pursue, and while everything connects to everything, casting those connections in terms of simplistic one-way causalities is--to me--not very helpful.

I guarantee you, that whatever's freaking people out most is what Homer-Dixon is running with hardest. If tomorrow climate change gets boring, he's onto something else that will--naturally, inevitably, inexorably--lead to our civilizational downfall.

But to me, listening to security people all of a sudden fall in love with global climate change as "the next big thing" is somewhat sad. Security doesn't flow from one source, but from many, the most important one being rules. We have far more rules on the environment today than we did yesterday, and we'll have far more tomorrow.

That's all good.

But a rising environmental challenge itself is not a cause for security alarmism. It's logically a cause for better environmental policies, smarter business practices, and marketizing more opportunities for human ingenuity, which is--contrary to Homer-Dixon's patronizing tone--inexhaustible.

Update: Steve wrote about this same article today: Climate Terror

Thinking on my last post (Homer-Dixon): the key reason why I like working with Steve DeAngelis is that, like me, he worries about all the same bad things I do (and Homer-Dixon) does, but his answer is always to fix, improve, innovate, make more resilient, etc. He motivates through profit and does not seek to profit from fear.

The differences between the way Steve and I talk to clients and partners and mil and intell and so on, and the way the fear-mongers do is actually very small in terms of content but huge in terms of tone.

And that's because, in the end, we peddle a product, we have an answer, we seeks solutions.

You're always going to be called "naive" when you argue that complexity can be conquered, and you're always celebrated for your "realism" when you argue for limited-regret, firewalling strategies.

But all human progress is based on the former, and all historical retreats on the latter.

And I guess we just prefer the forward motion.

LEADING THE NEWS: “Abbott’s Concession to Thailand On Drug Price Signals Power Shift: AIDS-Treatment Discount After Generics Spat Reflects Clout of Developing Market,” by Nicholas Zamiska and James Hookway, Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2007, p. A3.

ARTICLE: “Thai Showdown Spotlights Threat to Drug Patents: Abbott Protests Move To Buy Copycat Pills, But It Yields on Price,” by James Hookway and Nicholas Zamiska, Wall Street Journal, 24 April 2007, p. A1.

One of my favorite stories from PNM was how the whole anthrax scare, coming on the heels of 9/11, put Old Core states in the weird position of having to explain their hypocrisy on drug prices connected to huge global health burdens.

Since then it’s been a knockdown drag-out globally between rising New Core states and their companies versus the Old Core’s Big Pharma and their lobbying power (which is immense).

Great story here on how little and increasingly New Core Thailand is working Abbott over on this subject.

Abbott and Big Pharma suffer these slights and pushback because the Old Core’s ability to sustain their huge profits is waning, while the New Core’s is growing.

But guess what? The New Core recognizes its purchasing power, and they want a better deal.

And quite frankly, suffering as so many Americans do under the high price of medicine in this country, I don’t blame them one bit.

In fact, I cheer them on.

For that reason and so many more, I just laugh when critics identify my vision as vaguely or even openly imperialistic. It’s like they don’t have a f--king clue about how this world works, much less how it’s so dramatically changing with the phenomenon we call globalization.

ARTICLE: “Handled with care: Central banks try to make it cheaper for people to send money home,” The Economist 21 April 2007, p. 86.

Anything that encourages the global commute is good, and no, it is unfair to deride this flow of money as “forcing developing countries to self-finance their own developmental aid.” Only an ODA professional could make such a misguided remark (something I read in a New York Times magazine article about the stress the global commute puts on families).

Believe-you-f--king-me, I understand the stress of a global commute, and I send all my money home too. Granted, I’m sitting near the tippy-top of the pyramid, but the motivations and the willingness and sacrifices are basically the same: we want better for our families and this is what we’re willing to do to make it happen.

I remember my life of 9-5 in DC. I could have stayed there forever, as so many do. But I wanted something I felt was better and through which I could earn a lot more money, and so I moved my family from Blue State to Red, taking advantage of a far cheaper cost of living, and traded off the countrywide and global commute for the time with my wife and kids.

Yes, a big driver on all that is my desire to effect change on a grand scale, but if I felt I could pull it off with young kids better on the East Coast, I would. But for now, the balance on that ledger says, live in the center, help on the aging mother-in-law (I married the only daughter), and make the sacrifices on time and distance.

With your average global commuter, the choice is far more stark: either earn a whole lot more abroad or earn much less at home.

This is not a new dynamic, even in a global sense. Who built out the American West? Freed African-American slaves, dirt poor Irish and German immigrants, and Chinese “coolies.” None of them were there for the sunshine. They were there, at enormous risk and sacrifice and often involving years of separation with virtually no contact with families, because it was the best deal going for them at the time.

The best deal going for those on the bottom of the pyramid is often the frontier that needs taming, no matter where it is found geographically. More generally, globalization opens up frontiers all over the place and at all levels of skill and compensation, the global “talent hunt” on top and the global “labor hunt” on the bottom. In many instances, and at both levels, it’s travel or forget about it.

Mexico gets $23 billion in remittances (trackable) now, up sevenfold in the last 12 years, with fees dropping by two-thirds.

The banks are just catching up with the global commute at the bottom of the pyramid. Not exploitation, and not undue sacrifice. Just people looking for better lives through better opportunities, stitching together a global community one person at a time.

ARTICLE: “Bush Administration Gains Support for New Approach on Global Food Aid,” New York Times, 22 April 2007, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “A Dam Connects Machakos, Kenya, To Archbold, Ohio: As Development Aid In Rural Africa Dwindles, American Farmers Pitch In,” by Roger Thurow, Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2007, p. A1.

First story is a bit of an oversell: conference hosted by USG entity that oversees food aid sees lots of condemnations on the usual crap I and others routinely condemn and which the Bush administration has valiantly tried to correct.

All the piece really says is that more and more people shine a light on these shameful practices and the villains and greedy bastards who feed off it.

Still, the more it is talked about, the better, like China and Darfur. Doesn’t mean anything will change. Just means it’s not unknown.

Second story reminds me--at least--that this iron triangle of shippers and aid groups and big ag companies doesn’t represent the average American small farmer. I grew up in that world, and while it’s a cheap bunch in many ways (no choice), it’s far from lacking in compassion and sensibility, and a strong sense of shared interest with other small farmers. This wonderful peer-to-peer aid story just reminds us of that.

ARTICLE: “China Yields To Inquiry On Pet Food,” by David Barboza, New York Times, 24 April 2007, p. C1.

Good stuff, signaling the rapid climb globally from know-your-customer to know-your-supply-chain to know-your-biological-chain.

China wants to sell the stuff, then China must open itself up on the basis of health concerns.

Some see our increasing brittleness with each such crisis unfolding or scandal revealed. I see something very different: more rules and more transparency.

Crises are not indicative of a lack of resilience. The inability to process them quickly is.

ARTICLE: “With Eye On Iran, Rivals Also Want Nuclear Power: Fears of an Arms Race; Peaceful Use Cited, but a Trend in the Region Poses Dangers,” by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, New York Times, 15 April 2007, p. A1.

You can’t get global gun control until the players in question feel they’ve got all the protection they need.

We got it with the USSR when both of us had gorged ourselves on nukes and any further advance was pointless. Until that point was reached, arms control itself was pointless, and once it was reached, it quickly became pointless again--except to keep the club as closed as possible.

Well, globalization is integrating countries like crazy, often with great unevenness. Some, like China, get network and economic integration far ahead of political and military integration.

Others, like the bulk of the Middle East, achieve it primarily through an energy flow that’s effectively viewed by its recipients more in a security perspective than an economic one, because of the lack of alternatives. The Middle East, because of its unwillingness to embrace globalization broadly, wants further integration largely on its own, seemingly weird terms (all sorts of controls on content). Those terms, for now, are so intense as to effectively preclude deep integration, especially since they trigger all sorts of security problems among themselves.

And yet, these many authoritarian regimes, want their sense of security strengthened especially as they contemplate deeper economic and network integration over time.

Not surprisingly, given America’s actions in the post-Cold War era, the primary tool for such security is viewed by many regimes as getting nuclear power/capability for weapons. That’s their backdoor route, along with oil, to gaining entry into the Big Boys club.

Given our complete failure to deal with the continuing security dilemmas in the region (Israel v. Palestine, Iran v. Israel, Saudi Arabia v. Iran, al Qaeda v. Saudi Arabia, Syria v. Lebanon v. Israel, every authoritarian regime v. their peoples, etc.), the region is using pursuit of nukes as its own forcing function. Left to their own devices, these tribes will self-sabotage their way for decades further, so if you consider our efforts to date to be the best we can do (and they may well be, given the “olive tree” nature of the region), then I say, bring the nukes on.

Why?

Where we’ve brought the nukes on before, state-on-state war has disappeared.

None of the existing regional fights gets me a regional security dialogue worth spit, but nukes will.

I guarantee it.

ARTICLE: “A bear at the throat: The European Union is belatedly grasping the riskiness of its dependence on Russian gas, but it is disunited and short of ideas for how to reduce it,” The Economist, 14 April 2007, p. 58.

A quick overview: Russian gas clearly dominates east central Europe, because that’s the way it was under COMECON. Russia’s gas lines have dramatically penetrated western Europe since the end of the Cold War. Thus, Europe as a whole worries about this sort of dependency.

Two things I notice are primarily from the neat map that accompanies this story.

First, Russia is deeply networked with Europe on the basis of all those pipelines. Not yet a good neighbor, but then again, Europe could go a lot further itself besides snapping up Russia’s former satellite states and largely keeping Russia at arm’s length on serious integration. So yeah, Russia for now uses its energy for everything it’s worth. That’s crude all right, and it reflects the leadership generation that Russia both enjoys and suffers right now (our third iteration from the brilliance/stupidity of Gorby and the just-deceased Yeltsin--not moving fast enough for many, but for me, from a security angle, I’m pleased as punch because I just see stuff I don’t have to deal with).

Second, if you want great alternatives to Russian gas, then you go through Turkey and you access Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Either way, you better be nicer to Turkey.

ARTICLE: “Bloggers may be the real opposition,” The Economist, 14 April 2007, p. 54.

The pyjamahideen slowly emerge inside Egypt. Yes, some of the best and most impactful will have strong Islamist views (like any poll in the world shows: people want the globalization, but with content controls, labor controls and environmental controls), but do you think they would support the new, resulting Islamist regime that then turns on them and demands an end to their connectivity?

There is, of course, always the danger of the Iran Revolution scenario, but that’s the too much, too fast scenario, or what I would call the caboose-induced-trainwreck.

Actually, the slow but steady spread of this sort of protest is the best we can hope for:

Such pinpricks have yet to puncture the dominance of any Arab state. But with internet access spreading even to remote and impoverished villages, and with much of its “user-generated content” pitched in pithy everyday speech rather than the high classical Arabic of official commentary, the authorities are beginning to take notice.

Globalization is all about networks, and networks are all about workarounds, and workarounds promote the notion that man’s paths to happiness are infinite rather than singular, and that’s subversively political.

INTERNATIONAL: “How to get a handle on the axis: Financial sanctions have a big place in a tool-box designed to thwart the proliferators of Pyongyang and Tehran,” The Economist, 14 April 2007, p. 69.

The use of specifically targeted financial sanctions is clearly intriguing, because it gets right to the heart of the thin connectivity that rogue regimes must maintain, almost like criminals, to “launder” their transactions. Typically, these connections are very tightly concentrated at the top of the elite, like it was with Milosevic and his family cronies in Serbia (the first time I heard of these very personally-specific efforts to get at leaders’ money).

In short, these sorts of sanctions avoid the usual problem of enriching the elites and killing the poor, and they definitely get the bad leaders’ attention focused.

But as this article notes, in both instances, key outside enablers hold the key (by my definition: China in both instances, South Korea with North Korea, Europe and India and Russia with Iran). We can get old-school companies and banks in the Old Core to behave on this score, and with some effort, we can get some level of compliance/fear-avoidance from New Core companies (but typically less so).

So, you can almost imagine a sort of tipping-point in connectivity when the sanctions have the max impact: once the country or leadership in question decides the connectivity is worth more than the loss of political control. In the instances of both North Korea and Iran, I don’t think either country’s anywhere near there yet, meaning we can hurt them and we can certainly get their attention, but we can’t break them on this basis.

With the New Core enablers, our ability to crack our whips with them is caught up with their emerging ability to crack whips with us (e.g., Russia on energy in Europe, India on outsourcing services, China on currency reserves and manufacturing connectivity).

So while the sanctions seem far better than any we’ve used in the past, and while I advocate both their use and their expansion, I’m fairly suspect about any “silver bullet” effects. Part of the toolkit, yes, but not the hammer.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: “Clean-Energy Firms Make Pitch to Asia: U.S. Trade Mission Aims to Capitalize on Growing Commitment in China, India,” by Jane Spencer, Wall Street Journal, 18 April 2007, p. A9.

India and China gear up to spend billions on renewable energy as that $10T gets spent on new infrastructure by 2030 (six in energy, four in water). Naturally, our clean-energy businesses want in, which is smart.

Accessing the build-out in Asia is re-learning how to sell to the bottom of the pyramid--pure and simple.

The usual hyperbole from a investment fund manager looking to profit: “Either we have a complete environmental collapse, or we have to quickly evolve the entire global economy to a much more energy-efficient, resource-efficient and environmentally conservative model.”

Hmmm.

I’ll take Option B, but can I stretch out the payments some?

Commerce is involved due to fears of IP loss, which makes good sense.

When we did the Cantor Fitzgerald-Naval War College “NewRuleSets.Project” economic security exercise on future environmental damage in Asia back in the summer of 2001, Cantor kept saying, this is going to be huge within a decade, and we want a big role in shaping the markets that make it happen--thus their new energy-trading business whose debut was trumpeted at the event. Can’t remember the name off the top of my head (probably blocking, cause the CEO who attended, Carlton Bartels [see bios as bottom], died on 9/11), but have a mug in my office (CO2e.com). The side biz was designed to anticipate, shape, and exploit future cap-and-trade regimes, which they believed would grow, bottom-up around the world (national and regional first) versus a global rule set like Kyoto being imposed from above.

So here’s the first bit that interests me:

The clean-energy mission is part of a wave of initiatives developed by the U.S. government that seek to harness the forces of the free market to address Asia’s environmental problems, creating business opportunities while dealing with global pollution problems. The projects are part of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate--the U.S., China, India, Japan, Australia and South Korea--that was organized as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol.

The signature program, Pollution Prevention and Energy Efficiency (P2E2) is rolled out later this year.

This is the second cool bit:

P2E2 aims to help companies in Hong Kong turn profits while cleaning up heavily polluting factories in China. It will ultimately be backed by $1 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank and other sources that will grease the wheels by eliminating capital costs for the companies involved.

The basic idea is to match environmental-service companies based in Hong Kong with individual factories in China’s Pearl River Delta region, one of the most heavily industrialized--and most intensely polluting--places on the planet. The service companies will conduct environmental audits at the factories and then install new energy-efficient technology and machinery to cut both costs and pollution at the factories. In effect, the Chinese factories will outsource their clean-up to the Hong Kong environmental-service companies.

The trick is that neither party will face any upfront costs or capital investment. The Hong Kong companies will finance their work with loans from the Asian Development Bank and other sources. The factories get the technology free and later pay the environmental-service companies a cut of the cost savings generated by the new technology over a period of years. The Hong Kong companies then pay off the loans and pocket the remainder as profits.

That is sweet. It just needs to be marketized by private capital markets so it can be scaled up.

Brilliant quote to end:

“We can’t fund enough regulators or prosecutors to solve Asia’s environmental crisis,” says Stewart Ballard, chief commercial consul for the U.S. Commercial Service at the American Consulate General Hong Kong and Macau. “We need to start looking at the environment as business opportunity.”

Couldn’t have said it better.

Enterra’s doing similar stuff on the security angle first for a waterway stretch from Philly out to the mouth of the Delaware bay, another hugely concentrated chunk of intense industries (energy and chem.) Tons of conflicting rules to work. Perfect for us.

Eventually we’ll be working this stretch in China too--my prediction.

Lomborg's ranking work with the Copenhagen Consensus Group is basically the same thing I did with Cantor and all our bigwig guests atop World Trade Center 1 in June 2001 when we looked at global climate change: when we ranked the big choices, we came up with a number of easier and more impactful short-run fixes than tackling CO2 emissions per se.

The fact that Lomborg, a serious genius, did the same thing later with a bunch of Nobel Laureates, makes me believe in his thinking so much: it's a totally reproducible strategic concept that others can arrive at on their own.

Here is a great transcript of his appearance on Lehrer.

Thanks to Kevin Shook for this link.

Tom's new story is up on the Esquire website. It's called State of the World and it's must reading. Here are the contents:

Iran: The Coming Distraction
Middle East: The Big Bang Theory
Globalization: Life During Wartime
Al Qaeda: The Global Brand
Iraq: The Quagmire
Long War: The Theater-After-Next
Defense Department: The New Coin of the Realm
War on Terror: The Legal Underpinnings
Afghanipakistan: The Ungovernable
China: The Slated Near-Peer
North Korea: The Persistent Outlier
White House: The Bush Imperative
Rising East: The Degree of Compliance
Aging West: The State of Alliance
All the Rest: Other Complications
The Wildest Card: 2008

Enjoy!

OP-ED: "China Needs an Einstein. So Do We." By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, New York Times, April 27, 2007

OP-ED: Changing China, Trade's Power - and Limits, by George Will, April 26, 2007

This is a tendency to want to slice and dice globalization along various planes in order to: 1) simplify the process in people's minds and 2) to express some great concern about a potential destabilizing trend within.

One great horizontal slice is, of course, global warming. People get hugely focused on it and want the whole discussion on globalization to center around it, in a profound trumping effect. Related to that is peak oil. Both get you arguments that say, "Everything you say about globalization and security may be true, but this changes everything!"

A version of vertical slicing is to see all of globalization within a few key players. Americans, naturally, tend to see our role as paramount. Now, there's a rising sense of similar impact by China--a sort of, "as goes China, so goes the whole concept of globalization." Because there's so much hyperbole on China, the natural pushback is to argue the null hypothesis: this must fail and here's why.

All of these vertical and horizontal slices are useful, if not taken to extremes. They are not overriding guides to action. They are serious data points, though.

All of these slices are presented as incisive explorations of the usual have-havenot argument: China will fall apart because the have-havenot split will get too big, global warming will dramatically expand the have-havenot split, peak oil will . . . well, most peak oilers jump straight to the "we're all going to hell" argument.

On the China argument in particular, this concern is what drove me to write the section in "Blueprint" called "The Train's Engine Can Travel No Faster Than Its Caboose," essentially the Core-Gap argument taken below the level of nation-states to that of society. Go too fast, and you end up with revolution, like with the Shah's Iran. But go too slow and things will go badly too.

In China today, the balance of opinion is that the extension of globalization's benefits to the rural poor has gone too slow. The resulting peasant unrest (something like 65k events last year) is real caboose-breaking, serious enough to become a bit of an obsession with 4th Gen leaders Hu and Wen. The correlating fear is that this slow pace is ossifying into a sort of caste-like Domestic Core that permanently disenfranchises and exploits the disconnected Domestic Gap. It's a natural and logical fear, and all I can tell you is that it's not something unknown inside Beijing, but rather something the elite talks about all the time and seeks to work.

Naturally, the Party is going to try to finesse this process historically in such a way as to maintain its firm grip on power. As I have stated consistently, I don't think that's possible over the long run, so I'm looking for a China, on its current trajectory, to experience a lot of political evolution by 2025, coming fairly close to what most people would define as political pluralism, albeit one grown--in spurts that will often be tumultuous--originally from within the ranks of the party itself (first wings, then serious factions, then parties-within-parties).

I remain optimistic but realistic on this pathway. It won't be pretty. It will be marked by spasmodic incidents of crisis and patching-over change. China will need many great leaders to arise to make it happen, and I described a few in the "Heroes Yet Discovered" ending of "Blueprint."

So yeah, I'm with Friedman on China needing plenty of new smart guys to alter paradigms (and America too). As a professional self-described grand strategist, I want to be one of those people and create others in my wake--not just on my side but on China's too.

Having taken on such a life-defining task, I'm naturally optimistic about it happening and unfolding in positive ways (otherwise, why would I try), so I don't share Will's or Mann's deep pessimism (Will, for example, expresses pessimism given China's 35 years to change following Nixon's opening; I would argue China's change has been huge, but largely concentrated in the last 10 years of opening up incredibly to globalization, which, quite naturally, replicates some of the same have-havenot dynamics of globalization writ large). I find the Chinese to lack no ingenuity, which--again--I consider to be an inexhaustible global resource not defined by any Anglosphere or WASP universe-unto-itself.

But I also expect the Chinese to remain Chinese. I expect many of their answers to initially confound us, because their history, as I argued in BFA, is not ours.

So yeah, I tend to be more patient than most people, who can't wait to declare crises all over the dial and to prematurely define failure, whether it's with China or the Big Bang or globalization itself.

But hey, it sell books.

Although I would note that optimistic books (especially those focused on individual-led self-help) tend to outsell pessimistic ones.

Thanks to John for sending this.

OP-ED: Interest on Both Sides In U.S.-Iran Talks, By David Ignatius, April 27, 2007

Ignatius, whose sources are wide and deep, continues to make the best case for the emerging dialogue between the U.S. and Iran. It remains my great hope that Bush makes the leap of logic on Iran before his term ends, although I remain deeply suspicious of: 1) the skill sets missing in this crew to make the diplomacy work (tell me, where has the Bush administration made any serious diplomatic breakthrough happen anywhere that doesn't look like a pale, rushed, unimaginative version of what Clinton ended up pursuing a decade earlier?); 2) their real motivations (I fear the effort is cynical at best); and 3) the lack of signs elsewhere in our regional policies that they're beginning to think holistically).

Instead, I tend to see only the same basic thinking of the past, just deeply tempered by the reality of the continuing tie-down in Iraq. To me, this "realism" is just neoconism-plus-postwar-Iraq--i.e., with no teeth.

The imaginative thinking on financial sanctions is encouraging, but I fear it won't be decisive for reasons I've laid out recently.

So while I truly hope for breakthroughs in this regard, I don't expect the level of bargaining flexibility required for this to happen in the time remaining for Bush, although--again--the worse Iraq gets the more flexible everyone gets--including us.

So an open mind remains a requirement, and nobody feeds that openness better than Ignatius' continued excellent reporting on the subject.

Thanks to kilngoddess for sending this.

ARTICLE: Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures', By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, April 27, 2007; Page A04

This article underscores the reality of the current generational change going on because of Iraq. In short, it won't be led by the Vietnam-era grey beards (retired flags) you currently watch on TV. It will be led, as it was back then (by many of those same grey beards in a younger form) from below.

This is the fundamental reason why I've concentrated my work more with mid-level officers than seniors. They're basically the military's version of the New Core--as in, most incentivized to change and adapt.

So this is a good example, I guess, of "New Officers --> New Rules."

Thanks to the anonymous reader who sent this.

ARTICLE: "Rice Deputy Quits After Query Over Escort Service: Randall Tobias Oversaw U.S. Foreign Aid Programs," By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 28, 2007; Page A01

ARTICLE: "Tenet Details Efforts to Justify Invading Iraq: Former CIA Director Says White House Focused on the Idea Long Before 9/11," By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, April 28, 2007; Page A01

ARTICLE: "Wolfowitz Panel Finds Ethics Breach, Officials Say: World Bank Board Could Act on Monday," By Peter S. Goodman, Washington Post, April 28, 2007; Page A01

The classic end-of-administration milieu: scandal upon scandal.

We should never re-elect anybody, it would seem. Second terms? Name one that wasn't a significant come-down from the first.

The only improvement you can cite in the 20th was FDR.

Notice anything different?

I clicked down the the size of the fonts a little. Changed the search back to just the default, Movable Type weblog search with a link to an added page for advanced searches of the whole site or Tom's network.

At first I just changed the links to plain blue, but that seemed a little too bright. So I changed them to PNM blue. Then I thought, 'Why not use PNM khaki, too?' So I did.

On the whole I like it all better.

What do you think?

Rebranding China’s military for tomorrow’s challenges

Last week in Honolulu I spoke at a high-level conference, hosted by our Pacific Command, of special operations forces (SOF) commanders from numerous Pacific Rim countries. This gathering was notable primarily for the attendance--for the second year in a row--of senior officers from the People’s Republic of China.

Now, depending on your worldview, you might be aghast that: 1) the U.S. military even interacts with SOF personnel from China, our rising competitor in the East, or 2) that it’s taken this long for such interactions to begin with a power already as globally significant as China is today.

I fall into the second category.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Note: The Scripps Howard version turned out really funky: unexplained excision in the first paragraph and underscores instead of dashes throughout. Still waiting to hear how that happened...

ARTICLE: Iran to filter "immoral" mobile messages, Reuters, Apr 28, 2007 ET

Some focus on friction (censoring), but I focus on growing force (connectivity via phones among young to extent that elite are scared enough to act).

You know damn well what young people pass around. My 15-year-old daughter played me her latest downloads today on the way to Mass. Plenty forgiveness sought, by me at least.

The cellphone is to the Gap what the automobile was to the US post-WWII: the great enabler of youth-culture emergence--and the destroyer of morals (mais oui!).

Remember Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) the mathematician in "Jurassic Park": "Life finds a way."

Bet on the social blowback that follows, but lay down the serious lodge on the innate human need to connect.

Thanks to Nick G for sending this.

+ More links to the Pop!Tech vid:

• ArtLung
  
• DeepTape
  
• Alphachimp

+ The Boston Herald picked up last week's column.
+ Then some PhD candidate on 'Democracy Arsenal' punked it.
+ ZenPundit linked New officers...
+ So did Most Serene Republic.
+ Phred at Most Serene Republic says draft Tom for war czar, whether he wants the job or not.
+ And linked Got Robb's "Brave New War" in the mail today.
+ Draconian Observations linked The price of locking in China...
+ et alli. linked Catching up to the Israelis' logic on walls.
+ Soob linked The long, steady drum beat for American military strikes on Iran.
+ So did New Yorker in DC.
+ The War Room referred to the SysAdmin.
+ OregonGuy posted his question and Tom's answer.
+ Tom Roeser says he's still intrigued with Tom's PNM thesis.
+ I Am Net-Centric linked the Esquire State of the World article.
+ Mackinlay's (in Spanish!) linked Power loss.
+ EcoHutong linked Tipping points in the journey from the Gap to the Core.
+ And linked An interesting package on clean energy development in Asia.
+ Ablogistan linked Beware hypocrisy on Darfur, China.
+ Same post at Prose Before Hos.
+ HIV / AIDS Treatment linked Revisiting the System Perturbation argument on breaking global drug patents.
+ Energywire.net linked Connecting to the Core through the scary back door.