Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

OP-ED: The Great Illusion, By PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times, August 14, 2008

We modeled the behavior, and now it's being imitated. We'll over-react and then it's off to the races. I used to believe the damage of the first Bush administration could be "reset" by the better behavior of the second Bush administration, meaning we'd reset the clock back to roughly 9/11 geopolitically. But the damage now seems worse than that. We're reverting all the way back to the late 1980s.

And if you want to scenario-ize globalization's destruction, this is a realistic pathway.

The only way it really goes downhill is if America is suckered by circumstances into believing it must basically take on the entire world. This is Bin Laden's supreme dream, affording him more strategic wiggle room than he ever dared to hope would be his.

(Thanks: motoole)

ARTICLE: Babble Rouser, By Bernard Condon, Forbes, August 11, 2008

Guerilla connectivity from someone who's clearly got his own foreign policy.

(Thanks: Jack Ryan (really! ;-))

I do think she was a bold, politically-astute choice, meaning I think she can help John McCain win the presidency.

I do not see how she can be justified as the best the GOP could come up with--not by any partisan stretch of the imagination.

My point: McCain says he's different and will put country ahead of himself and his political goals. I think his choice of Palin, the most important and revealing choice any candidate for president makes, says otherwise. Choosing her says he wants to win the election more than do what's right by the office, and that diminishes a powerful aspect of his appeal, in my mind.

As for Obama's experience: in our political system, if you can pull off what he's pulled off over the past year and a half in building and leading a political machine, that's all the qualification you need to be president. That is a huge CEO/leadership operation and that's just how our system was built to operate.

In Dubai now on business and bumping into all sorts of signs as to how businesses accommodate/respect the requirements of Ramadan, which always surprises me by arriving earlier each year (nature of the difference in calendars). Good example (quoting the letter from my hotel in my room) is "restaurants within the hotel will have separate sections or closed curtains as a sign of respect to our Muslim guest and no alcohol will be served during fasting hours."

As an American Catholic, about the only thing you can compare it to in length and observation is Lent, which, when I was growing up, was quite different from the rest of the year but whose differences are now more muted. One hears the same from Muslims about Ramadan in general around the world, but clearly that varies by place and UAE is pretty close to ground central on the subject--certainly in geographic terms.

I feel like I've passed through the Middle East/PG before during Ramadan, but since I'm usually moving so fast, I tend not to notice as much. This trip doesn't feature the constant blur-shifting I am usually subjected to, so I'm allowed more observation--so to speak

ARTICLE: "Not all bad news: Newspapers are thriving in many developing countries," The Economist, 26 July 2008, p. 80.

Emerging markets (basically all New Core and Seam States) see newspaper circulation rise as they emerge economically.

The logic?

The demand for news tends to go up as people enter the workforce, earn more money, invest it and so begin to feel that they have more of a stake in their society. Literacy rates also rise in tandem with wealth. For the newly literate, flipping through a newspaper in public is a potent and satisfying symbol of achievement.

As almost always, The Economist puts it best.

PRESS RELEASE: Net 1 Announces Official Launch of UEPS Technology in Iraq, August 4, 2008

Simple stuff to us, but a great sign of growing connectivity inside Iraq. It doesn't take a lot of security to make this possible--just enough.

(Thanks: Gunnar Peterson)

No one likes good comments more than me. But we need to rein things in a little bit again.

For your reference: The Comment Policy

I'm really not going to publish long comments. Tom has said no longer than the post itself, so let that be your guide.

You don't get to be snarky. Tom does. It's his weblog. Tom gets to be emotional and go off half-cocked if he wants. You don't.

Stuff that Tom would call stupid, relative to his own thinking, does not get published. E.g.,

Hopefully the Obama hordes from Mordor can be held off until 2010 and reinforcements can arrive in time to save the country.

This on a thread two posts after Tom said he doesn't go in for political hysterics.

No 'blogging in the comments' (Tom's term): There are lots of great weblogging services. Go use 'em. Win yourself an audience. But here, comment on Tom's posts.

Capiche?

ARTICLE: McCain opposes farm policies popular in Midwest, By MIKE GLOVER, AP, Aug 6, 2008

Give it to McCain on principles here.

And it showed in his speech, which was a good one.

Palin, though, struck me as a political lightweight who delivered a trite speech whose cheesy banter seemed more appropriate for an awards ceremony. I watched her and I simply could not seriously imagine her as president. She looks simply way out of depth.

And I have a real problem with that, when you're talking a 72-year-old man with significant health issues. To me, it was simply a disrespectful choice, hard to square with putting country-before-self thinking. She simply isn't the best the GOP has when it comes to accomplished, experienced, maverick women. Snowe? No discussion. Hutchinson? No discussion. But Palin strikes me as a very partisan, non-mainstream, poorly equipped choice for the most important job in the world. McCain dies his first year in office: does Palin strike you as the best we could do as his replacement? I just can't see doing that to America.

You really want somebody who got their first passport a while ago--not last year.

Neat view from atop Rosslyn office building we're considering for expanded facilities as the DiB effort continues to grow exponentially.

So many companies, so little office space.

ARTICLE: "Georgians Eager To Rebuild Army: U.S. Mindful That Aid Would Anger Russia," by C.J. Chivers and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 3 September 2008, p. A1.

Opening paras as chilling in their potential pathways:

Just weeks after Georgia's military collapsed in panic in the face of the Russian Army, its leaders hope to rebuild and train its armed forces as if another war with Russia is almost inevitable.

Georgia is already drawing up lists of opions, including restoring the military to its prewar strength or making it a much larger force with more modern equipment, like air-defense systems, modern antiarmor rockets and night-vision goggles.

State and DoD say no decisions made yet.

I am reminded of FDR's bit about your neighbor having a fire at his house and you loaning him your hose.

But what is your neighbor asks for a gun because he wants to blow some holes in that bully who's been threatening him?

Care to get that involved with a nuclear power?

Or is that the equivalent of Russian military hardware being stockpiled by Cuba?

One thing to pick a Veep on impulse. Another thing to pick up a nuclear war hair-trigger like this.

It gets better:

The information to date suggests that from the beginning of the war to its end, Georgia, which wants to join NATO, fought the war in a manner that undermined its efforts at presenting itself as a potentially serious military partner or power.

Mr. Saakashvilli and his advisers also say that even though he has no tactical military experience, he was at one time personally directing important elements of the battle--giving orders over a cellphone and deciding when to move a brigade from western to central Geogia to face advancing Russian columns.

But, by all means, give the kid a gun and signal to him that his plans for revenge are okay by you.

And then see where that promise takes you.

Georgia lost its Gaza and West Bank, and won't be getting either back any decade soon. This is Russia's border we're taking about here. Think carefully about the next steps and the "inviolable" U.S. strategic interests you're casually picking up, because those can quickly get our people dead.

And those orders shouldn't be taken over Saakashvilli's cellphone.

POST: Is Putin getting outflanked on the right?, Passport Foreign Policy Blog, 09/03/2008

Money quote:

I believe that one of the reasons the fighting stopped was not because there weren't people in the defense ministry who thought it should go on for a bit longer, but because in the first two working days of the war, there was a total of some $8 billion net capital outflow from Russia.

Again, the truth emerges that there is some over-reach here on Putin's part. The minute the oligarchs feel that Putin does more harm than good to their economic connectivity, then he starts being interpreted more as a function than "the man."

"Founders" get tossed by angry boards of directors all the time, so remember, a business masquerading as government isn't ambivalent about the bottom line.

(Thanks: Seán J. Kreyling)

POST: Behold the Bear: 10 Reasons Americans Should Care about Russia, By Yuri Mamchur, Russia Blog, AUGUST 28, 2008

Every downer allows somebody else to score the upper, if you're paying attention and avoiding the soda-straw view.