Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Google tells me there's a video torrent available of Tom talk at the NDU back in August. If you know what a torrent is and have the software to get it, by all means, check it out ;-)

(If not, I'm not prepared to do the tutorial right now, though I probably can later. Or maybe someone can comment some tips. Or you could Google it ;-)

ARTICLE: Stock Sell-Off in China Hits Wall Street: Dow Tumbles 3.3% in Biggest Loss Since '03, By David Cho and Tomoeh Murakami Tse, Washington Post, February 28, 2007; Page A01

That is a new world when stock sell-offs in China ripple into our markets.

Steve Flynn writes a great book about how America's in dire need of infrastructure upgrades WRT civil defense and disaster response.

Steve DeAngelis invents himself an enterprise resilience maturity model approved by Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute (where he's a visiting scientist), gets himself a fistful of patents for the associated technology, and signs a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Oak Ridge National Lab (where he's also a visiting scientist) to turn their famous SensorNet into the next-generation ResilienceNet, profiled in Esquire's December "Best & Brightest" issue.

And yeah, Steve's working on a book of his own.

Cool to diagnose.

Cooler to fix.

And yes, that's why I'm with Enterra and not some think tank.

ARTICLE: "Persian Shrug," by Edward N. Luttwak, Wall Street Journal, 27 February 2007, p. A16.

A simplistic argument based on a simplistic read of history. Luttwak claims detente with Sovs "propped up" the regime and Reagan puts a stop to that and kills USSR in short order. So he advocates skipping any opening up with Iran and simply pushing them hard for internal collapse.

There is no soft-kill without some connectivity, in my mind. Without it, there is no way to prepare the follow-on regime, to let it develop and emerge.

Reagan's challenging was well timed because detente had lured the Sovs well down the path of economic and social connectivity with the outside world (the whole infiltration of "hard currency," or dollars with actual monetary value that illuminated how worthless so much of the Sov economy was, plus the growing realization of how Moscow was being ripped off by energy subsidies to Eastern Europe (something Putin's still correcting to this day).

We have some vulnerability on oil revenue with Iran today that Saudi Arabia seeks to exploit, but just causing pain there won't get us regime change. Instead we're likely to get more repression with some secretive temporizing on nukes (like NK).

Luttwak's history is bad and dangerously misrepresentative. You have to set up the soft kill, otherwise one dictator's fall sets up the next.

+ Remember when Tom briefed Obama's foreign policy guy? Sounds like the message got through: Obama: Iraq Strategy Strengthened Iran.

+ Bernanke shrugs off globalization, but heads into the unknown: may have to throw out his beloved rule book.

Anyone want to weigh in in the comments on how globalization changes the Fed's job?

Tom got this email:

Dr. Barnett:

I thoroughly enjoyed your series of interviews on the Hugh Hewitt show. Thank you.

In Iraq, we are engaged in asymmetric warfare. Why are we so quick to accept the premise that we must be engaged in this type of battle? Either Max Boot or Colonel Peters recently wrote about fighting on an equal footing with insurgents in Iraq as an ill-conceived strategy. But, they never explained why we are so quick to adopt it. Is it due to our aversion to any civilian casualties? We certainly did not fight WWI or WWII in this fashion....we firebombed Tokyo, Dresden, Berlin....why the change in military doctrine? Why now?

The 2001 Bush doctrine stated that we could preemtively strike any country that supported terrorists and exported terrorism. After Sadaam fell, what changed?

Sam Grier, CFA

Tom's answer:

We fight for very different goals. That's why.

To win, we need to leave the environment more connected than we found it--our opponents, the opposite. So we can't escalate on them, just deny them their resources: disaffected, disconnected foot soldiers. The classic insurgent is not the classic terrorist (middle-class, educated) who comes to play on our connected turf. That at-risk pool we shrink by extending economic connectivity (our biggest challenge right now in Iraq is unemployment).

When jobs are your exit strategy, you cannot bomb your way to victory.

Selling big ideas in a sound bite age

I just lived every author's dream. No, Oprah didn't call to tell me she's picked one of my books for her reading club. But ego-wise, I got the next best thing: an amazing series of eight, one-hour interviews on a nationally syndicated talk radio show to discuss my 2004 book, "The Pentagon's New Map" - chapter by chapter!

You have no idea how gratifying that is for an author who's spent years summing up 150,000-word books in more three-minute TV and radio appearances than I can remember.

Read on at KnoxNews

ARTICLE: Army Secretary Is Ousted in Furor Over Hospital Care, By DAVID S. CLOUD, New York Times, March 3, 2007

I know Fran Harvey and think he was a great secretary who should have been given the chance to fix this problem rather than being ritualistically sacrificed. Firing the local Reed commander struck me as enough. Making the Army go without a secretary for several months and then enduring a new person for just the tail end of the administration might have felt good on the Hill, but it's pointless and counterproductive to an Army under huge strains right now. Harvey was a solutions-based guy, so he's the type you'd want on such a problem.

But since I don't know details of how Harvey's being connected to this, I won't say more. I just think it's sad because I know him to be both competent and a person of real honor, and I know that missing your secretary never helps a service under stress, so I just wish it had gone a different way, even as I understand the political outrage (very natural) over the shabby conditions at Reed. But war exposes this sort of stuff, showing yet again how it draws on resources that would otherwise feed the Leviathan beast with high-tech programs.

So expect even more shifts of resources to those services with the heaviest loads in the Long War.

Since Tom's a little out of pocket, and since our content's a little limited, and since I've already given you two great posts today... ;-)

I'm going to do my usual Tom around the web on Sunday tomorrow. Stay tuned! ;-)

+ ubikcan notes that Tom gets a whole chapter of criticism in the new book 'Violent Geographies'.
+ Newshog links Bush can take a good turn here (though he doesn't think the good will happen).
+ ShrinkWrapped linked More good signs from Iran.
+ Phatic Communion linked I've just about had it... (and also from Dreaming 5GW). Looks like Curtis is going to TypeKey-registered comments.
+ Chapomatic linked Tom's last appearance on Hugh's show (but, alas, the post disappeared).
+ Soob is a third of the way through BFA.. (And, wow, what an interesting comment thread, including a proposed battle royale between Tom and others! ;-)
+ Hot soup in my eye linked Pulling plug out of the question,
and linked Tom on 'energy independence'.
+ Dafydd at Big Lizards things he can condense PNM down to two sentences,
and writes about The Birth of the Functioning Core.
+ Indistinct Union calls Tom 'a 3rd way radical center approach'.
+ Spyral Notebook recommends BFA,
and references Tom in a post on 'Imperial Grunts'.
+ There Is No Second Place reprinted Tom on Hugh part 6.

More coming tomorrow...

+ Mind in the Qatar (Great play on pronunciation, BTW ;-) recommends PNM, Hugh's series with Tom, etc.
+ Movies , Books, Quotes, and Quirks quotes from PNM.
+ Murderati interviewed Tom's publisher, Neil Nyren, naming Tom as one of Neil's authors.
+ Jonathan Gurwitz calls PNM 'brilliant'.
+ Theory and Analysis references Tom on China.
+ Elect Romney in 2008 notes that Tom's not real worried about Russia.
+ NonParty Politics linked Tom's 8th appearance on Hugh's show and The presidential "start-up" that is Obama.
+ There is no second place reprinted the week 7 transcript from Hugh's show.
+ My Learning Curve hasn't mentioned Tom in a while, but he has talked about him quite a bit over the life of his weblog.
+ Opposed Systems Design tried to run Tom's theory through an old Barry Posen paradigm.

Still one of the best captures we've got of the Brief. Lots of great resources including 2 PDFs, 243.5 MB of video (!), a .zip file of all of the videos, and a full mp3.

I've said it before, but one of the things I really like about this Brief is that Tom's humor comes through and, after a while, the audience warms up to him and there's a pretty good dynamic there.

(BTW, if you're just wanting to download the mp3, here's the address.)

Since Tom's production is down this week, I planned to reprint some past posts or point you to stuff you might not have seen before. I still might.

But it occurred to me that it would be a lot more fun to have y'all suggest the posts you have liked in the past (especially after the great job you did on How did you convert to Tom?! (Which ended up at 86 comments, BTW!)).

And if you can't quite find it, click here to search the site.

I plan on linking some from a subsequent post.

So comment away!

Was it something I said? Somehow, the floodgates did not open ;-)

But thanks to Brandon for playing along. He picked Thoughts on Sunday morn, saying:

nice nuts-and-bolts explanation of how our system works, and and a serious reminder that more than anything, the Long War demands our patience. Tough in the age of 5-sec soundbite politics, and all the more necessary because of that.

Let's see... Ah yes, I was quoting this post just the other week:

I know, I know, you lose lives and you want everything to change on a dime. But in reality, we like our military slower than our politicians and our politicians slower than our titans of industry. That's how Hamilton and Madison set it up: commerce rules, politics adjust, military protects.

Anybody else have a favorite post? Or do I need to change the question? ;-)

Man, y'all don't have very long memories ;-)

Jarrod Myrick writes in to say his favorite post was You're unconvertable!. To wit:

classic stuff here: inside the creative process--director's commentary; therapeutic for me; 'false friends' + bad teachers really resonates.

More soon. Thanks for playing my reindeer games ;-)

Ok, y'all are noting some good posts in the comments of 1st favorite post.

+ Chuck agrees with Brandon on Thoughts on Sunday morn.
+ Alan says his favorite post is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
+ Allen says 'Who can pick?' (but he kind of likes the smackdowns ;-)
+ nykrindc likes Islamism is what goes with globalization.
+ CN's favorite post is Blowback on another military-only strategy.
+ Tom Mull likes the Sunday morning post and In a nutshell, my "problem" with global warming.
+ Ares likes Earth is doomed! Doomed I tell you! and When did Daily Kos turn from bully pulpit to just plain bully?
+ Tricia's favorite post was Grand strategy is not the Kiplinger Report. (Incidentally, Tricia's the one who wrote an editorial in The Aspen Times.

Got an email on Google Gapminder, which we have covered before. The title is calling it 'The Gapminder World 2006, beta. Any interesting applications?

Just back from a week in East Africa running around on invite from Central Command to do some close-up advising and to give an apparently big-time address (specially tailored brief) to a slew (about 50) of Africa's best and brightest generals currently enrolled in Kenya's National Defence College (I may be exaggerating a bit, but it seemed a big deal as both our side (coalition) and their side (KNDC) exchanged plaques, plus Kenya's minister of defense, as well as the service chiefs of their navy, air force, and army were in attendance).

How did the invite get triggered? One of their top officers caught me at our National Defense U a bit back.

Naturally, a lot of material will arise from this very privileged series of exposures. Next week's column will focus on one unusual observation of my personal life made by a Kenyan brigadier general, but the bulk won't be out for a while (I have other things on my plate right now).

When I get it worked up, rest assured I will post my 10K-word diary of the trip on the blog. Til then, this cat stays in bag.

Hakuna Matata! (which really is a Swahili phrase meaning "no worries").

Nice to be back. 24 hours of either flying or car or high-speed boat to make it back from Kenya.

Will try some blogging soon, but no promises.

Also shot about 300 photos. Will figure out how to share some of those too eventually.

Was in some pretty remote places, but came through just fine. Had all my shots and took all my pills and geared up accordingly.

Did get spooked by some baboons once at night coming back from head and some spider monkeys coming outta shower one early morn. Got pix of latter on the spot and former during daylight.

My only direct hit suffered was some tough African crows crapping on me.

Also burned my emerging hair "gap" nicely after being on tarmac too long (can't wear hats due to safety).

Bit humbling, that.

Made a ton of contacts. I've gotta go with Steve someday soon. Turning him loose on Africa, where he's made deals happen previously in his career (90s) would be fun, especially in emerging Kenya, which not only reminds me of much of China, but has plenty of Chinese already running around.

ARTICLE: Featured Embedded Report: Chris Muir from Iraq, The Fourth Rail

Good evidence of the SysAdmin's continued emergence and the crying need for a Department of Everything Else.

In the 3Ds (defense, diplomacy, development), the short leg of the stool is Foggy Bottom.

Thanks to CitSAR for sending this.

ARTICLE: S.C. may cut jail time for organ donors, By SEANNA ADCOX, Associated Press Writer

Reconnecting our prison population "gap" by the lure of shorter time thanks to organ donations.

This one is a creepy bit of Michael Crichton-like fiction predicted years ago by one of my wife's profs at Madison.

My point?

We're seeing the rise of this sort of--what to call it?--exploitation of the Gap's more financially desperate populations all the time on medical testing.

I guess this just shows we're willing to do it to our own Gappers.

Thanks to Vonne Barnett for sending this.

ARTICLE: US-Brazil deal to boost bio-fuels, BBC News

Indeed. Score one for Mark from Texas, as reader Michael Griffin notes.

POST: Wen Jiabao Weighs In

Very nice post by Steve on China. Worth a read.

And as you do, remember that Wen is 4th Generation and that the 5th gets basically teed up later this year at the party congress. So if the 4th exhibit this level of pragmatism, how much more might we soon expect from the 5th given its college educations in Europe and the U.S.?

From the April issue with Hilary Swank on the cover, p. 178 (almost at the very end), Esquire now does a preview of the next issue, and right after "63 Things Worth Shortening Your Life Over," you get:

On a totally different subject, Thomas P.M. Barnett Esquire contributing editor, defense strategist, and author of The Pentagon's New Map, offers us his brief on the state of the world 2007--the good news, the very bad news, and the wild cards. [arrow points from the words "wild cards" to a picture of Dick Cheney]

A very topical piece from someone who usually looks far ahead. Bit risky, that, but fun. I had imagined it like an updating of the country profiles from the original PNM map.

Collected articles for weeks in December and January, based on Mark Warren's proposal of the piece, then wrote it fast one long weekend. Been diddling with it ever since. Completed just before leaving for Africa--and I means minutes before leaving. Lotsa drawings/pix. Very modular.

You know, I come back from Africa more jacked than ever about the piece I wrote for Fast Company about China (dropped in a management shuffle for not being business-y enough). Reading that When Nixon Meets Mao book, I'm more psyched than ever about making the argument at this point in history. The big thing I get from that book is that the visionaries know where they are in history and know when they're making history. In fact, that's the essential buzz the visionary provides: that sense that what's being argued is history in the making. Unless you're willing to operate on that plane, with all the attendant risks and requirements, there's no sense in engaging in grand strategy.

So I guess I'm disappointed not to see the "State of the World" piece and the China piece hit the streets simultaneously, because the first one says where we are in history and the second argues for the best way to make history right now--preemptively.

Like Nixon said, "give history a nudge."

We shall see.

China's males: looking for war in all the wrong places

Strategists prefer to project, futurists love to extrapolate, and demographers will tell you their data are pure destiny. But, just like history, the future tends to repeat itself by consistently delaying our dreams (my long-overdue flying car) while constantly denying our doomsdays (remember overpopulation or the impending ice age?).

Humanity confounds us prognosticators primarily by being so inventively responsive to all the grand challenges that we so deterministically throw its way. Nowhere will we witness such innovation more in coming decades than in China, slated by confident futurists - take your pick - for both world domination and suicidal self-destruction.

Tom notes:

Original: they can go abroad and . . . you know . . . marry a broad.

Changed to: they can go abroad and, you know, marry overseas.

I am somewhat surprised the humor didn't pass. Is a "broad" considered that slanderous that "family newspapers" can't print?

Ah well. You give them a funny line ...

Tom then later notes, given some typos in the Cincy Post version ("wan" instead of "wane" and "20202" instead of "2020"):

Weird. KNS certainly caught my "wan" (I honestly think I have a touch of dyslexia like two of my brothers who both had it seriously, although I never tested positive for it, but then, it's a way subjective test--especially back in the 1960s when the whole concept was just being discovered; note--I went through all the exercises anyway just because the two suffering brothers were just above and below me in birth order and hey! The exercises seemed fun). I don't remember any 20202, but that would be a simple finger slip.

Anyway, if KNS caught both (neither appear in its version), then how did Cincy get it wrong? Since the Scripps version is messed up too, all I can imagine is that KNS passed on the typos but then later fixed their own version.

Note the Atlantic City version is corrected. So I guess this whole thing speaks to how well individual papers scan their outside inputs. Scripps apparently didn't, or just missed it this time (Scripps has offered very adept editing suggestions in the past), and then some papers repeated the mistake, while others did not.

Me? I will please being very tired and writing this in the United VIP lounge in Ohare after driving 4 hours in scary weather at high speed (my flights over to Africa were a complete mess, due to tornados here in the States last Thursday).

So investigating to make sure I understand how this happened and how to prevent it in the future. My first guess is to take up Sean's offer that I run all columns through him for an edit.

Read on at KnoxNews
Read on at Scripps Howard

Early column sighting: Good ol' Press of Atlantic City

Neil Nyren is THE MAN. In the world of bestsellers, he is the King Kong. Ain't no arguing. His record speaks for itself.

I had no idea who he was prior to his buying PNM. Now he seems like this looming figure in my career, which he is. Neil picking me changed everything, like everyone else who picked me before. If there's one thing I've learned in this career, it's that the visionary can "pick" the future, but what really matters is who picks him. There is no "go yout own way" nonsense. You are completely the product of others in terms of your access and renown. You just create the content, so know your place and appreciate the cast of thousands involved in making the vision happen (and don't even get me started on the implementation!). The visionary is all about connecting to others. The grand strategist is imagined as the solitary figure, figuring it all out on his own, but it's a complete myth. If your vision is that everything is connected to everything else (not exactly a new thought, eh!), then so is your career.

When you meet Neil, you can't help but be a bit underwhelmed, because his professional stature is so huge, but then he's this very normal looking guy who comes off as very unassuming and wonderfully soft-spoken (you expect him to be in Prada or something, yelling at everyone; in fact, you're tempted to say, "No, really, go and get me Neil Nyren! This isn't funny!"). He's just so relaxed and wry, instead of high-strung and outsized, you just want him to snap at somebody about getting him some coffee, or copy, or Tom Clancy on line 1!

Warren's like that too. A couple of guys who really live in their skin, very down to earth.

Anyway...

A lot of people sent me this interview with Neil on the website Murderati. Neil's interviewed there because he has so many huge mystery writers. The part everyone gets excited about is the intro to the interview (which is worth reading because you get some interesting glimpses into how Neil thinks and how the business works), where I get mentioned in the stable.

The authors list is simply lifted from the "about us" page on G.P. Putnam's Sons, which is basically the same description one would offer for Neil himself, since he's been with Putnam for a while (since 1984 and Putnam's unrivaled run began about a decade later, meaning it takes a while to build up the stable), so the reputation of both are really one in the same at this point in history.

Here's the list in the Murderati interview:

Neil S. Nyren is senior vice president, publisher and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons. He came to Putnam in 1984 from Atheneum, where he was Executive Editor. Before that he held editorial positions at Random House and Arbor House. Some of his authors include Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Jack Higgins, W.E.B. Griffin, John Sandford, Dave Barry, Daniel Silva, Ken Follett, Randy Wayne White, Carol O’Connell, James O. Born, Patricia Cornwell and Frederick Forsyth; nonfiction by Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, John McEnroe, Linda Ellerbee, Jeff Greenfield, Charles Kuralt, Secretary of State James Baker III, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Sara Nelson, and Generals Fred Franks, Chuck Horner, Carl Stiner and Tony Zinni.

Here's the bigger bit from Putnam's page:

For the past fifteen consecutive years, G.P. Putnam's Sons has led the publishing industry with more hardcover fiction and nonfiction New York Times bestsellers than any other imprint in the publishing industry. Its impressive list of award-winning, bestselling authors is well-known around the world. With its rich history and unrivaled bestselling track record, G.P. Putnam's Sons continues to be one of the most respected and prestigious imprints in the industry. Today, Putnam has broadened its list with outstanding works that reflect contemporary interests. Among the distinguished roster of bestselling fiction authors Putnam publishes are: Dave Barry, Lilian Jackson Braun, Tom Clancy, Robin Cook, Patricia Cornwell, Catherine Coulter, Clive Cussler, Barry Eisler, Frederick Forsyth, Sue Grafton, William Gibson, W.E.B. Griffin, Jack Higgins, Jayne Ann Krentz, Steve Martini, Kate Mosse, Robert B. Parker, Ridley Pearson, Amanda Quick, Karen Robards, J.D. Robb, Nora Roberts, John Sandford, Daniel Silva, Amy Tan, Kurt Vonnegut, Randy Wayne White and Stuart Woods. In nonfiction, authors published by the imprint include Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo, Lance Armstrong, James Baker, Thomas Barnett, A. Scott Berg, Maureen Dowd, Goldie Hawn, T.D. Jakes, Spencer Johnson, Bob Schieffer and Neale Donald Walsch.

Funny, but the association I get the biggest kick out of is Ken Follett, because I'm such a WWII nut.

Anyway ...

It's nice to be on the list. By contract, I have to give Neil the first look on the proposal to Vol. III. Doesn't mean it'll work for him. It just means I get a nice, serious look.

I've got to get a bunch of material off my skull by mid-April, then I plan on writing up the proposal (short version) for Neil and sending it through Jenn Gates, with all her natural inputs. If that fails, I'd need a bigger proposal to send to other houses (not the same relationship, so more explaining), but no matter what, I think I write the beast, almost for mental health reasons (gotta clear the brain) late this summer. Worse comes to worst, I'd settle for less because I just want this marker down personally. I think Vol. III will be simultaneously more about me and less about me than anything I've ever written, but I think I need to write it before I can go on to other things (like editing the book about Emily that I penned years ago). There's just this sense of intellectual sequence, like I've gotta go through it or suffer the consequences.

And I guess that's the artist in me, which I indulge, because I honestly believe the whole visionary/grand strategist thing is more art than science, so it runs a bit more on the internal subjective than the external objective. That might seem counter-intuitive, and it is given the material, but there's what it is and then there's how it gets created, and like war v. peace, you have to be able to disaggregate those things.

Rode in some in Africa last week. First time in, I thought the door was locked somehow and I couldn't figure how to open.

Then realized it was just that the door was so heavy I needed to lean into it a bit to get it started swinging open. If I just pulled the handle and didn't put any muscle into it, it was so weighty that it felt like it was still locked.

The things you learn.

Another thing I learned: when approaching a field strip, military aircraft--by routine--do a low flyover to check the field and then pull back up and out to do the real approach. Makes perfect sense, since no ATC to be looking over the whole thing.

But inside the plane, if you don't know that, it feels just like an aborted landing. Last time it happened to me was Atlanta due to birds on the runway. Scared the begeezus outta me.

On the C-130, which you can't see out of, I just figured it was something that made sense to the military so I rode it out casually, like all the officers around me. Since none of them spoke about it in real time, I just waited and asked somebody later.

And if you thought about it like a roller coaster, it's really pretty fun.

ARTICLE: Connecting the DOP Dots, By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet, March 9, 2007

This article is surprisingly complimentary of Tom's vision and the need for SysAdmin if any 'Department of Peace' is going to be successful:

In Thomas P.M. Barnett's "Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating" -- a far cry from pie-in-the-sky pacifism and well-received among wonks and military officers -- he analyzes the "Core" states, like the U.S., and "failing" states who fill "the Gap."

"When a military intervention does occur, these adversaries simply do their best to lie low and wait out our mighty blow, knowing that they can do little about its impact ... in this way, they conserve their resources for the real fight ahead: our subsequent halfhearted attempts to impose peace and civil order."

That's what Gen. Petraeus was talking about last week when he said: "any student of history recognizes that there is no military solution to a problem like (guerrilla insurgencies) in Iraq."

Though I have deep disagreements with Barnett, he does offer some important observations. "As we take on new nation building challenges with regularity, our manpower requirements for waging peace will skyrocket."

If folks are serious about "shrinking the Gap" and winning this global war on terrorism, Barnett argues, then what he envisions as "our SysAdmin force" (peace-waging force) will have to "dwarf our Leviathan (traditional military) force."

Check out the question Barnett is raising: "Where will we find the civilians to join this SysAdmin force -- this pistol-packin' Peace Corps?... I seriously doubt that, absent a dedicated cabinet-level department, America's effort to shrink the Gap will succeed over time."

This "waging peace" talk also has striking parallels with Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen's 1999 book arguing for the need to see "development as freedom" in dealing with nations filling Barnett's "Gap."

Connect the dots. Shrink the Gap. Development as Freedom. Department of Peace.

That's how to get from 'here' to 'there.'

Antonymous sent this email to Tom:

Tom - just a quick question, maybe it's worthy of a blog post. I figure that now is the best time to ask, as you've just gotten back from your trip. The question is: how do you reconcile all the information that gets thrown at you constantly? I think many of your readers are probably into their own pet theories about how to Shrink the Gap and build a better planet, but there are so many nuanced subjects relating to these topics that it's difficult not to get caught up in them. I guess info might stick to your ribs more because you're out actively talking to flags and we're passively behind computers, but I read lots of articles too - just wondering if you have any good tips or tricks for unwinding your brain and sorting out info. I appreciate your use of the blog as a "dumping ground"! Thanks

Tom writes:

Big question.

Worth pursuing.

But I plan to save for VOL. III vice blog. Will take thousands of words to explain, me thinks.

But thanks so much for asking. I will spend serious time exploring between now and then.

Self-censorship (i.e., reading that which seems to comfirm only) is the big risk on reading.

My salvation?

Provocative nature of my analysis invites criticism, which I lack not. I am regularly called an "idiot," "fool," "dangerous ideologue," etc., in addition to all the good stuff.

I guess I also get a lot of independent confirmation, especially from military, mush of that is F2F. Constant briefing, I would add, exposes me constantly to naysayers. In fact, I don't know anybody else in my genre who so routinely briefs skeptical audiences.

Then again, I've always loved the lion's den. I have, as 8 of 9, that inner drive to prove my elders wrong!

But great question from this reader. I could spend a whole chapter in Vol. III on that. Methinks some list of rules will be required. I begin amassing immediately.

If readers can suggest some based on perusal of blog, I would be most grateful for the pointers.

So what do you say, readers? How does Tom process information?

Hope: that Mark and Dan, who both specialize in cognitive processes, will weigh in here.

Not a lot of links this time because Tom was out of town and I'm pretty well caught up.

+ Let's give pride of place to our old buddy Critt Jarvis. He working on some Grazr projects and using Tom's material for his subject matter: Two great tastes that taste great together! Check out his PNM: Widgets, Gadgets, and Gizmos! Oh, My!, The Pentagon’s New Map Glossary (in Grazr), and A Story of The Pentagon’s New Map.

+ Columbia University Military Community has Tom on their shortlist of links.
+ Hidden Unities linked Tom as promoting a 'hard kill' on North Korea.
+ The Penultimate Genius linked Tom's last talk with Hugh.
+ Dreaming 5GW made a couple of references to Tom.
+ Hot soup in my eye liked finding Google Gapminder over here and getting linked on Information processing.
+ New Yorker in DC references Tom's promotion of economic connectivity WRT Syria.

It's weird to skip papers for about 10 days and then pick back up. It's like getting a TV series in a season package: yesterday's conjecture-laden headline ("Will anything happen when Iran talks to Saudi Arabia") becomes the next day's ho-hum ("Nothing happens in talks between Tehran and Riyadh"). It's just so instantly grate-ifying ("Oh wonderful!" he says, between clenched teeth), like there's no waiting required, nor any cliffhangers to endure.

Show's over folks. Get your souvenirs right here!

And reading forward into days like that, mirroring my recent shifting of hours since 1 March (back one, forward six, forward four, minus one, minus two, minus seven, plus one [cursed daylights savings!], minus three--screw Waldo, I just want to find the sun!), I can't help but feel like the Bush post-presidency has begun to cannibalize itself.

You know how I've argued that, once Bush is gone, everyone's price for cooperation with America will be cut in half? Well, it's like the liquidation sale has already begun, with the bankrupt business conducting its own wake (sorry, the time shifts my metaphors).

It's like "Six Feet Under" and the corpse is not only carrying on, it's cozying up--to just about everyone.

"How come we never talked like this when you were alive?"

Bush tours Latin America to counter the hugely accurate perception that he's ignored the region his entire term. A new diplomatic push on Israel and Palestine, to counter ... you know. Ditto with the rest of the Middle East, Russia, North Korea--the whole shooting match.

It's like that game show with Howie Mandel (the name escapes) [Deal or No Deal - Ed.]: every few minutes another box is opened with meaningful randomness ("I like number six, because I've got that many toes on my left foot!" My daughter Em: "That's soooo random!") and the discounting begins. Bush's legacy will either be $100 or maybe $275,000, but the million-dollar baby seems long gone. We won the Iraq War in 2004 just like we won the Vietnam War in 1966. You just can't help the feeling that the massive correction is already well underway. Sure, most of the major pieces will be left to the next administration ("Bring on the solutions-based centrists--social whatevers be damned! [no, really, they will be damned]), but this White House is getting what pennies on the dollar it can, while the getting's mediocre.

Ironic, but a team so committed to restoring the presidency's power has done so much to diminish it's global standing. Hubris is self-correcting, after all.

As much as I like tidy endings, I fear few of these will be. Currency runs/panics begin when international money spots local money running scared on itself (shorting), and yet I don't think we're looking at anything too adventurous by anybody--save perhaps a Goddamn'er'um from a Dick Cheney with one foot stuck in ... wherever Bill Maher's sense of comedic timing disappeared (tragedy PLUS time, dear fellow-traveler).

In short, the timing seems good for intellectual recalibrations, as there's little sense you'll miss anything in the meantime (Wouldn't even an impeachment "crisis" seem like old hat? So why bother, Chuck Hagel?).

A big part of me just wants to disappear somewhere off-grid, only to return once the nominees are set, so the weird prelims can be superseded by the significant arguments and the serious end-of-termism that this weird interregnum only approximates.

Secretly (he types on his blog), I'd love to see Barack v. Rudy, or an almost purely post-9/11 fight (Barack has no record pre-9/11 worth arguing for or against, while Rudy was reborn on that date) that focused on solutions and skipped all the 90s-reruns (much less the Vietnam replays).

My time-shifting brain just wants a reset, I guess.

I knew the minute I saw Peter's comment that Tom would love it:

I wouldn't presume to make a list of Dr. Barnett's methods for processing information, but I can suggest taking a close look at an ongoing thread in the blog that doesn't seem to be given much acknowledgement: music.

Over and over he references his passion for music, particularly that of the Talking Heads (I wonder if anybody else has noticed just how many passing references there are to David Byrne lyrics in the blog over the years). Another big favorite is Kraftwerk, and I'm not sure there are any posts that were as much plain fun to read (at least for me) as the ones about hanging out with Brian Eno. One of the things the musicians mentioned have in common is that a large part of their compositional method was/is to create a basic structure which is then layered with elements that are frequently of a more intuitive and immediate kind. Brian Eno in particular formalized (although the formality is ironic) a method for composing and recording music (along with the late Peter Schmidt) that he called "Oblique Strategies". Which probably is as good a name for Dr. Barnett's method as could be found.

And I think a case could be made for the song "Listening Wind" from the Talking Heads "Remain In Light" album to be the most coherent succinct description of what Dr. Barnett's work is ultimately about.

...at least that's the view from out here in left field!

Tom wrote:

That gets very close to the soul.

I have that album memorized (a real turning point for me), and "Listening Wind" is a particular favorite, although my all-time fav line from the THs is:

"And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and you may ask yourself, 'Well, how did I get here?"

I have learned to let the days go by,
I have let the water pull me under.

My wife's-and-my song is "Naive Melody," the only love song Byrne ever really wrote, for his wife, who had a modest role in "Beetlejuice." I have no idea if they're still married, but Vonne remains, "out of those kinds of people," my "face with a view," and so "home is where I want to be."

So I guess I think that's a very interesting and accurate observation: my favorite music is layered, rhythmic complexity, and I think anyone who's seen me brief will attest for my penchant for layered visual complexity in slides coupled with a highly syncopated staccato-like delivery. When my brief goes well, it feels very musical, and when it goes badly, I feel like I've lost the beat.

A side note: as college kid in Madison in the early 1980s (back, as Nick Cages notes in "Raising Arizona": "when that sumbitch Reagan was in the White House"), my dream concert was the Heads (followed by Clash and Psychedlic Furs--all three of which I saw in Chicago). Come my junior year, the "Remain in Light" tour comes round. I invite my girlfriend of a few months, Vonne Meussling, to come with me and my best friends from my old dorm, Spike and Jeff. We all drive down to Chicago (outdoor theater, name escapes but West side) and Vonne doesn't handle the tail-gating well. Just as we're getting ready to walk from the car into the ampitheater, so collectively pumped at our dream come true we're walking on air, Vonne pulls me aside and says it's a no-go and can I stay with her?

Suffice it to say, I am stunned, but there's no question (who'd leave their woman behind?), so we hang in the car the entire concert , hearing the music distantly. At the very end, Vonne tells me she's okay and I should head in for the curtain call, so I catch the last song. Spike and Jeff are in nirvana when I reach them, I less so. Still, it dulled the psychic trauma a bit.

Vonne later said she knew I loved her and that I'd stay with her forever after that night. To this day I pray it wasn't some devious test!

Needless to say, Vonne wasn't invited to the "Speaking in Tongues" concert the next year, which was the King King of the Heads' run, and the one that yielded the Demme movie "Stop Making Sense." Wore that long-sleeved concert tee like the shroud of Turin for years on end. Still have the Rauschenberg limited-edition LP of that album in my closet.

Very strong memories.

Thanks for reminding.

Count me among the clear-headed Packer fans who'd weep for joy if GB landed Moss in a trade. Forget all the whiny nonsense about past transgressions, past his prime or even character issues. Make the trade!

Anyone like Moss instantly elevates the O and makes every team play us and Favre very differently. Plus, his jump-ball capacity is perfect for gun-slinger Brett, and Favre is probably the one guy who can both command his respect and mentor his resurrection (a long-time mutual admiration society).

If I'm Ted Thompson, I make this trade in a heartbeat if only to keep Favre in uniform 2-3 more John Elway-career-ending-like years.

The great tragedy of the past decade has been our inability to get any HOF offensive players around Favre (Green was close). This may well be the last serious possibility to do so. If Belichek and the Pats wanted him, good enough for us.

Gambling is called for while Brett still wears the green-and-gold.

ARTICLE: "A Chinese Orphan's Journey To a Jewish Rite of Passage," by Andy Newman, New York Times, 8 March 2007, p. A1.

Fascinating story my wife and I will eventually confront with our own Chinese daughter, Vonne Mei.

You don't want to run with the alien part too hard, because--hey--religion's going to be exploding all over China across the coming decades. And if a Jewish messiah in the Middle East can define my Irish Roman-Catholic faith, then I don't find a Chinese Jew to be particularly odd.

This story has additional twists (the parents are lesbians), but everything comes down to the same innate desire: a grounding in a shared past to forge personal connectivity in the present ("we are joined in this") that hopefully extends into a future involving still more people (when this child has children, how does she connect them back to her adoptive parents?).

It all seems very profound and philosophical, but a teenager is a teenager, and even if multitasking hurts homework, multiple and overlapping identities tend to be centering--additional grip holds on the steep ascent that is adolescence.

Me? I read the story and said: "We can pull that off if they can!"

ARTICLE: "Qaddafi Heralds a Changing Libya, but Within Limits," by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 3 March 2007.

Love this bit from ol' Muammar:

Undoubtedly Libya is part of this changing world dominated by globalization. Libya is riding this wave, taking this and that. Libya cannot row against the current.

Naturally, Qaddafi's walk and talk will differ for as long as he rules and he will rule for as long as he lives.

Then we'll get the modernizing son, educated in the West, who, by all accounts, is the real push behind Libya rejoining the world--not a fear of U.S. invasion. The inside story says that the son basically asked Muammar, "What do you want to be remembered for?" Muammar looks at Saddam and takes a pass.

A pass into what? Well, at least he's smart enough to know what he's gotten himself into. Can't expect this old dog to learn any new tricks.

All you can hope for is just enough connectivity seeping in during the meantime that the floodgates can overwhelm the tinkering son once he sets the opening in further motion (the Gorbachev slippery slope).

Qaddafi's not dumb. He knows he's lived past his time. He just has nowhere to go.

Sad for now, better for later. Not our problem for now, and that's enough.

ARTICLE: "Oil Innovations Pump New Life Into Old Wells: Industry Finding Ways to Extend Supplies," by Jad Mouawad, New York Times, 5 March 2007, p. A1.

In Bakersfield CA, where the Kern River field was discovered in 1899, the oil production, true to oil peak form, had declined to a stingy 10,000 barrels a day by the 1960s.

It's current output is 85,000 bpd.

In Indonesia, Chevron applies the same high-pressure steam technology to an oil field discovered in 1941, and the take goes from 65k (mid-80s) to 200k today.

Cue the concern of the oil peak theorist:

"I am very, very seriously worried about the future we are facing. It is clear that oil is in limited supplies."

Cue the industry-funded analyst:

"Ironically, most of the oil we will discover is from oil we've already found. What has been missing is the technology and the threshold price that will lead to a revolution in lifting that oil."

Hmm, technology and price. Somehow that impacts the oil industry like all others.

Here's the underlying reality (no pun): for every three barrels of oil found, historical technology lifts only one, leaving two in the ground. New technology simply gets better at getting the other two barrels out.

Again:

In 1978, when he started his career here, operators believed the field [Bakersfield]] would be abandoned within 15 years. "That's why peak oil is a moving target," Mr. Hatlen said. "Oil is always a function of price and technology."

Price and technology.

Not exactly rocket science.

ARTICLE: "In Mexico, Wal-Mart Is Defying Its Critics: Low Prices Boost Its Sales and Popularity In Developing Markets," by John Lyons, Wall Street Journal, 5 March 2007, p. A1.

Wal-Mart keeps screwing up in affluent markets, like Germany, Japan, large U.S. cities, but routinely cleans up in developing or emerging markets, where it's sell to the bottom of the pyramid mentality meets an aggressive desire on the part of consumers for better economic connectivity ("My modest income is now connected to so many more choices!").

Turns out poor Central Americans like Wal-Mart for all the same reasons why the rural red states in America like it too.

It connects and empowers while, yes, simultaneously reconfiguring local markets--the essence of globalization.

Interesting chart showing how China is slowly but clarly trying to equalize its SysAdmin-style global presence with its burgeoning economic connectivity.

Remember when I sat down with the PLA long-range planners in Beijing and one had done PKO time in the Congo?

This is a trajectory to exploit.

Thanks to Renato for sending this.

Correction: Stratfor writes to tell us that this is their graph. They have graciously allowed us to keep it up. We apologize for the original lack of attribution.

ARTICLE: Right Ideas, Wrong Time, By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, March 19, 2007 issue

Good piece by Fareed. Marries up nicely with my Everything must go! post.

Thanks to Kilngoddess for sending this.

ARTICLE: The Maturing of the Right, By Cal Thomas, Real Clear Politics, March 13, 2007

This is VERY interesting and a very good sign for Rudy, especially when described by a conservative popularizer like Thomas.

Thanks to Kilngoddess for sending this one, too.

Stratfor writes to tell us that the graph we published in Chinese contribution to UN Peacekeeping Operations. They have graciously allowed us to keep it up. We apologize for the original lack of attribution.

Your (pertinent) comments add greatly to the value of this site, for the readers and for Tom.

Your impertinent comments can sometimes add humor when done intentionally. ;-)

But, please remember that comments on this site are intended to be brief interactions with Tom's material. Longer commentary about the subject matter Tom is addressing, but not about Tom's ideas, is not appropriate for our comments. We are happy for you to post links to your own posts on your own weblog on such topics in our comments.

It's the law ;-)

ARTICLE: Halliburton Chief's Move to Dubai Evokes Warnings on Hill, By Steven Mufson and Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post, March 13, 2007; Page A02

Halliburton is a private-sector SysAdmin element. Dubai is emerging as a huge SysAdmin-style nation state that is beginning to engage in what I like to call "preemptive nation-building," not just in the Middle East (its emulation of Singapore) but increasingly in East Africa (send in the clones!).

As such, this evolution makes perfect sense to me.

Think horizontal and eliminate surprise.

Doesn't make you invincible or infallible. Just keeps you level and centered when the perturbations unfold.

Why important?

Everyone makes their hay/bucks/victories during the churn. If the churn disorients you, then you're shit outta luck.

ARTICLE: Bush Seeks to Redirect Some Defense Outlays, By Jonathan Karp, Wall Street Journal

Now at least I hope I don't ever need to reiterate my long-standing argument that war isn't good for platform acquisition nor the contractors who provide them.

I remember some site going all ape-shit on my a while back on the subject, calling into question my alleged expertise. I wonder where that guy is now?

Upcoming "State of the World" piece includes my first printed use of the "f word."

Hoping my Mom will lose interest before getting that far in the piece...

ARTICLE: "Exxon Plans to Lift Output A Million Barrels a Day: $20 Billion a Year in Investments Are Set," by Jad Mouawad, New York Times, 8 March 2007, p. C6.

ARTICLE: "Output Falling in Oil-Rich Mexico, and Politics Gets the Blame," by Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 9 March 2007, p. C1.

Exxon, considered the most disciplined capital spender in the biz, announces more than 20 major oil and gas projects will be started in the next three years.

Price goes up, so investment eventually follows, unleashing new technologies in the process, creating new efficiencies as a result. Basic economics.

At least when governments aren't involved. Pemex in Mexico is a slow preview to what Chavez is more rapidly accomplishing in Venezuela and highly analogous to how Iran, another classic NOC-head, has squandered it's own reserves.

Can such declines be reversed? Sure. But you have to let the connectivity in. Pemex doesn't allow any outside investment, and since Mexico gets roughly 40 percent of its fed budget from its revenue, guess how well Pemex is run?

Mexico is still so proud of nationalizing its own industry way back when, that its energy policy continues to close off "the option that most cash-starved national oil companies have used--opening up some production to joint ventures with foreign company."

As a result, Mexico will be importing oil in coming years. For now, three-quarters of all Mexicans oppose any FDI going into Pemex. We'll see what they say when the imports start.

ARTICLE: "Religious Surge in Once-Atheist China Surprises Leaders," by Howard W. French, New York Times, 4 March 2007, p. A3.

I like French's work a lot.

Near the end of BFA, I think in "Headlines from the future," I talk about how surprisingly religious China will end up being.

This was a gut call on my part (what Art Cebrowski liked to call "data free research"), based on conversations I had with younger Chinese professionals during our adoption trip in 04. Everyone said they were raised godless and now pretty much worshiped success, and stated rather confidently that China would remain that way. My response was, wait until you get a kid and that kid grows up a bit and starts asking questions you can't answer, like the always favorite "why?" At that point, I said, "you'll be surprised how much you start turning to religion."

This story starts with a mother converting to Buddhism and then steering her daughter in that direction.

Not a particularly visionary prediction on my part, just noticing the dynamic unfolding.

This process just begins. It's why the Vatican wants in so bad.

Everyone likes an emerging market.

EDITORIAL: “Missile Fantasies,” Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 March 2007, p. 24.

I gotta admit: I’m with Putin on this one.

The notion that we need to install missile defense systems in Central Europe is just plain queer--if your sales job is Iran.

I mean, come on! Does anyone expect Tehran to pop a couple off toward Poland?

I get the notion of spreading out the costs of a system that’s never worked; why not share the pain? But it seems like we’re doing all the spending.

The real target here is Moscow, which is now threatening to deploy intermediate-range missiles previously banned from Europe. I may be stupid, but this strikes me as a missile defense system in search of a threat. To the extent we trigger Moscow’s equally idiotic response, I guess we can call it a success, except we know Russia’s missiles work and we know our missile defense system does not, so the one-upmanship here borders on the Orwellian.

It’s all part of this queer pattern with Bush-Cheney: simultaneously picking stupid fights with rising powers we’re simultaneously trying to engage for their help with rogue nations elsewhere.

The only logical assumption you can make is that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing in this administration.

MECCA JOURNAL: “The Price of Progress: Transforming Islam’s Holiest Site,” by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 8 March 2007, p. A4.

This is not our culture versus theirs, but the desire for modernity and connectivity versus the desire for tradition and the status quo (ante, if you’re a radical Salafist).

Simply put, America is not in charge of this transformation world process called globalization.

No one from outside is telling the House of Saud to plop one of the world’s largest malls and condo developments looming over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. I mean, it’s a big country. Certainly they can plop it elsewhere.

But Saudi Arabia wants to both facilitate and take advantage of all the Muslims who visit this place, so the Disneyfication is self-inflicted for all the same reasons why we like Disney.

I mean, when you make your pilgrimage, why not hit the neighboring fast food joints, amusement park rides and lingerie shop?

Because don’t be under the impression that somehow this development crassly commercializes the uncommercial. No, the real crime here is the displacement of Mecca’s ancient and famed night market.

Mecca has long been a commercial as well as a religious center, but increasingly global brands dominate here.

Better get a move on, Osama. Time is rapidly running out.

ARTICLE: “The Civilian Shortage: Rebuilding Iraq has been hindered by federal agency turf wars and a tight purse,” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 March 2007, p. 9.

The lack of real experts is killing us in Iraq and Afghanistan. This stuff isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t send-whoever’s-available either.

Almost four years after the United States set about trying to rebuild Iraq, the job remains overwhelmingly unfinished. The provincial reconstruction teams like those in Diyala are often understaffed and underqualified--and almost unable to work outside the military outposts where they are hunkered down for security reasons. Today, there are just 10 of the 30-person teams operating in all of Iraq.

Bush asked to double the PRT effort. Turf wars among agencies have thwarted that call.

You want to end that? Carve out some turf.

And no, Lugar’s plan for generating the bodies in some program won’t be enough, just as the State Department Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization wasn’t enough. Making this effort some bastard child of an existing agency that’s forced to beg for bodies from all the rest is not going to work. Creating a real bureaucratic center of gravity is required, and if we’re smart, we’ll take advantage of what I hope the HELP Commission will recommend and start building that cabinet-level Department of Everything Else around a USAID freed from the stifling and completely useless grip of the State Department.

With its own department, at least we could suck Congress into the responsibility of funding the peace in addition to the war. Instead of blaming all the postwar incompetence on DoD, a department neither designed nor given to such tasks, our political system would collectively and transparently deal with this enduring and enlarging challenge (failed states).

OP-ED: “U.S. Sanctions With Teeth,” by David Ignatius, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 5-11 March 2007, p. 26.

Ohio State U. prof John Mueller has argued that sanctions have killed far more people in the 20th century than WMD ever did. Most of these deaths are never counted (or, if they are, they are quickly discounted as meaningless) because most involve the elderly or young children (no surprise, when you stress a society those who are weakness succumb first).

The Treasury’s new brand of “financial measures,” however, do seem like a breakthrough. They play upon globalization’s financial webs of connectivity, threatening disbarment to those institutions who do business with bad actors.

As Ignatius argues:

These new sanctions are toxic because they effectively limit a country’s access to the global ATM.

Also:

The new measures work thanks to the hidden power of globalization: Because all the circuits of the global financial system are inter-wired, the U.S. quarantine effectively extends to all major banks around the world.

Connectivity drives codes. Simple as that.

Good stuff to read. Nice piece by Ignatius.

Takes village to raise this child

Last week in Africa, I learned I had two wives, and I have to admit the news shocked me. No, this isn't an argument for polygamy. Like my Kenyan friend who offered this provocative assertion, I feel that one mother-in-law is enough.

Still, my friend's teasing got me thinking that globalization has done less to change the essential nature of human interactions than simply recast their scale and reach. In short, the global village is real, defined less by technology than by people's super-empowered desire to connect to others.

First, let me give you the genealogy of my Kenyan friend, Ngewa.

Read on at KnoxNews
Read on at Scripps Howard

ARTICLE: “A British Classic In the Chinese Stable: The MG Roadster Becomes a Trophy Of a Restless Economy,” by Craig S. Smith, New York Times, 13 March 2007, p. C1.

The title of this piece is rather goofy.

How come whenever our companies buy something overseas, we call it an “investment,” but when rising economies buy something that once belonged to us, we dub it a “trophy”?

Bit egotistical, don’t ya think!

There’s no way China can sit on a trillion USD in reserves when something like 800 million of their people are barely scraping up an existence. It’s only natural that they’d diversify their holdings from super-safe T bills. They’ve got serious needs that they can fund themselves, without our development aid. Shouldn’t we be happy with that, especially when we’re talking something like one out of every eight people on the planet?

As for the buying up of foreign companies, that’s just what rising powers do. They can’t buy anything we don’t want to sell, and in the vast majority of these instances, the Chinese will pick up companies they desperately need in terms of development (like those in energy and infrastructure in general) plus the bargains like MG (is it better for MG to die or be reborn with a scrappy new boss?).

China’s government is now encouraging outbound FDI, which only increases the economy’s dense financial connectivity with the outside world, subjecting Beijing to more and more rules. It’s a totally natural progression, threatening only poorly run companies, who, quite frankly, should be devoured by somebody rather than linger and bring our economy down--however tangentially.

China’s playing up. We can look down in fear, or we can look up ourselves and get on with it.

Fear is always the choice of the lazy.

Jobs aren’t eternal. Talent is.

ARTICLE: “In Baghdad, Sectarian Lines Too Deadly to Cross,” by Damien Cave, New York Times 4 March 2007, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Is the surge beginning to work?” The Economist, 3 March 2007, p. 51.

The ISG said it would be too hard. Critics of Joe Biden said his thinking was unrealistic.

But this outcome is inevitable, because none of the three players (Kurd, Sunni, Shiite) are willing to give the central government sufficient power to prevent it.

As smart as Petraeus is, he’s trying to keep a three-way marriage intact when none of the parties want to stay married--at least until each feels like they’ve exhausted their chances for something better (for Kurds and Shiaa, it’s called relative independence; for the Sunnis, it’s called trying to get it all back).

Tell me this doesn’t sound exactly like the Balkans:

After centuries full of vibrant interaction, of marrying, sharing and selling across sects and classes, Baghdad has become a capital of corrosive and violent borderlines. Streets never crossed. Conversations never started. Doors never entered.

The essence of Gapdom. You can say we did it to them and you’d be right. You can also say they do it to themselves and you’d also be right.

There’s all sorts of ethnic enclaving in America. You simply can’t tell people where to live or with whom they should consort.

What you can do, however, is give them all the economic incentives to play with one another nicely, primarily out of the greedy desire to do better, get more, and share it with loved ones.

We’ve let the ethnic enclaving occur. Big deal.

But we’ve also let the economy withdraw from normal life, and that’s our huge mistake.

If you don’t give them the chance for the Lexus (buy it, sell it, build it--whatever), they fight over the olive trees. They fight over identity.

It’s pathetic all right, like watching dogs fight over bones.

Over time, the talent leaves and the concentration of losers and incapables grows ever more dense.

We are responsible for this vicious cycle, but the behavior within belongs to those who engage in it.

Still, the separation process isn’t necessarily all bad. I have a slide near the end of my brief now where I talk about the journey from fake states to real (I gave three models of jumping the Bremmer J-curve in a recent column), noting that the disaggregation of political power, despite creating chaos and violence typically, can also pave the wave for a sort of corporatist economy to emerge, with the corporations in this instance being ethnic tribes.

Both the good and the bad about Baghdad right now might be very much the same: this divorce must happen, but a good after-marriage is completely possible once everyone comes to the realization that they can live in separate political houses, so to speak, but still engage in the logic of economic interaction (the great black hope of the still murky oil revenue-sharing legislation).

As I have argued in the past, success in these interventions won’t look much like a classic military victory (“Are we winning?” “Are we losing?”), in large part because we’re an enabler to these processes (both the killing and the rebuilding) but we’re in charge of neither, except in tactical, episodic moments.

ARTICLE: “U.S. Releases Rights Report, with an Acknowledgment,” by Helene Cooper, New York Times, 7 March 2007, p. A6.

The NYT editorial board recently put out a huge editorial that listed all the steps we need to take to fix how we’re handling suspects and guilty parties in this long war on extremism. The list was unremarkable. We all know what needs to get done, because we all know that international case law must be built if we want our new rules to have any reach, much less staying power.

So yeah, it gets awfully hypocritical when we issue our human rights report, just another way in which the Bush Administration’s actions over the past six years have severely damaged our global reputation as the good guy, the look-up-to power.

ARTICLE: “Peace Force Is Attached on Arrival in Somalia: The latest violence in Mogadishu recalls the chaos that met earlier peacekeepers,” by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 7 March 2007, p. A11.

I think we had something like 20k troops in Somalia way back when, and they weren’t enough. The African Union hopes to send 8k but has only half committed. Brave Uganda--400 strong--is sending in the first peacekeepers.

They got a nasty welcome and it will likely only go downhill from that.

Africa policing itself is a nice dream, but it’s a long ways off. I’m not saying these guys are up to the challenge on a individual basis (I was very impressed by the East African officers I recently engaged during my travels, as they all seem to understand Somalia quite well), it’s just that it’ll take some serious outside help and more bodies than the locals can generate (Kenya, for example, is the blue-chip military of the region and it’s total air-sea-land forces number around 30k).

In the beginning, capacity building won’t be enough. A critical mass will have to be built from a larger pool.

ARTICLE: “Where Artists and Inventors Plot to Save the World,” by Saul Hansell, New York Times, 5 March 2007, p. C1.

I guess I’ve made the rounds of the hoity-toity types super-conferences in the U.S., having done TED, Pop!Tech (twice) and FiRE. There are, of course, others, but those are the classic pick-up games, the wide smorgasbords that wander about subject matter.

This article’s mostly on Chris Anderson, the guru-in-chief who took over from the legendary founder of TED back in 2000. If I remember, I appeared there in the spring of 2004, or hell, maybe it was 2003. I simply can’t remember. I can’t even remember blogging it or not. All the appearances simply blur into one another after you pass the first thousand (I love it when people come up to me and say, “I saw you speak!” and I say, “Really, where?” and they come back with, “It was a big ballroom!”).

But I do remember the performance vividly, describing it at the time as the best 20 minutes I’ve ever done. I also remember the standing ovation. I also remember meeting Charles Fleischer and having him tell me I was one of the best stand-up comedians he’s ever seen on stage (it was a funny show).

Those things you don’t forget.

It did seem a shame to blow in and blow out so fast on that one, because the ambiance was awfully cool, but I feel like I was still at the War College and couldn’t justify the time.

Funny, but freed from that now and given Steve’s forbearance on such things, I’m even less likely to stay at such things for any length of time now than before.

Home . . . is where I want to be, in my beautiful house, with my beautiful wife, because I know exactly how I got there, and the price of constant motion has been high.

Good article on TED and Anderson, who’s had an interesting career. I do envy people who go to conferences like that. The article says next year’s session is already sold out, if you can believe it.

POST: Russia to Iran: Pay Up

You can argue that Iran's dangerous trajectory is self-correcting, largely for economic reasons. You can also argue that the Bush administration is cleverly giving them a push.

Assuming Sy Hersh is wrong, there are great reasons for optimism in the question, "Can we flip Iran?"

Assuming no one in power screws up this logical pathway of reintegration-under-duress. China and India and Russia all want it. Secretly, we do too, under certain conditions.

Israel and Saudi Arabia both fear it intensely, and may well go out of their way to sabotage it.

But I see this as another sign for optimism.

ARTICLE: Bush's Shadow Army, Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, March 15, 2007

It's a sign of desperation, but the right sign and the right instinct. Blackwater can help, but it would be a stopgap measure. Does it beat not doing anything? Yes. But if the outcome is bad, does it scare us off from any logical U.S. military action, either direct or through locals? Maybe.

So a risky notion reflecting the desperate situation and people's frustration with it.

Thanks to Patrick Squire for sending this.

Flying back from Europe for the second time in two weeks, I am sick of airline food.

But consider this: since 1 March I have seen up close or traveled to the shores of or flown directly over the Pacific, Atlantic, North, Med, Red, Persian, Arabian and Indian oceans/seas. I think that comes close to covering all the biggies, maritime-wise.

After my long Africa trip, I was home for Saturday night (one son’s b-day), all day Sunday (another son’s b-day party), and then Monday morning (bunch of errands to run).

Then I flew Monday afternoon to San Diego via Phoenix (writing my “two wives” column on the way), ending up right on the Pacific Ocean for a Tuesday morning session (the longest brief I do in one sitting) with the boss of the U.S. Navy’s air community (VADM Zortman, a very cool guy very much in my thinking mode, so naturally I like him) and all his senior officers, plus many of their spouses (this was a three-day professional development effort and my talk was the one also offered to spouses). That was a great but exhausting brief, with good Q&A. Total elapsed was about 3.5 hours.

After that I go first class (joy) to Dallas, hang in the cool cat lounge, and then go overnight to London Gatwick on a nice American Airlines plane where the biz class had this near-flat lie-down seat which worked just fine for me (after a nice dinner, the movie “Déjà vu,” an Ambien, and then the movie again--if I’m not mistaken).

Then spent better part of a day in Gatwick having a nice meal in a pub (good beer) and writing a slew of posts.

Then a late afternoon flight on Wednesday to Naples (first time to Italy), crossing the Swiss Alps in the process (very cool to observe from above). I head there upon invitation by the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe/NATO Naval Forces to brief both his rank and file staff in a straight lecture and his senior leadership in a strategic review exercise at a retreat (Crete). As soon as I’m off the plane and through customs I’m greeted by the PAO and protocol officer and sent with a driver to the big man’s own house, where I spend the night with my old friend, Admiral Harry Ulrich (who really could and should play himself in the movie).

His house, built by the Italian government for NATO’s naval boss decades ago, is an Italian villa of the coolest, most marble-filled sort. The back terrace is a stunner, overlooking both the bay and the famous volcano (Vesuvius) in the distance. I get the main guest suite to myself, and it’s big enough to get lost in.

We have a nice dinner: me, Ulrich, his Naples-born wife of 32 years Mary (whose mom still lives within two blocks; Mary often gazed at this villa as a kid wondering who lived in such a palace and now she does!), VADM “Boomer” Stufflebeam and his spouse Nancy. It was a great meal with great conversation. Stufflebeam, you might remember, was the voice of the Pentagon during OEF. Far cooler to me? He’s played on Lambeau’s hallowed turf as punter for the Detroit Lions (1975-79). If you can believe it, he actually moonlighted from the Navy. His nickname goes without saying.

The even cooler story to most people? Mary’s older sister won the Oscar for best supporting actress in the Italian film “Two Women,” the one in which Sophia Loren won best actress. Loren is a local legend in Naples as the hometown girl who made it big.

Very nice to see Harry again. Harry’s done some amazing things with the command, giving me tons to think about in Vol. III.

Maintaining these sorts of relationships over the long haul (Harry was my immediate boss at CNA in the early nineties when he was a commander) is something I want to explore in Vol. III. The visionary’s networking is almost as important as his content. As I wrote in PNM, there’s having the answer and then there’s having the answer at the right time with the right audience. Harry is a serious visionary, and a management change guru in his own right. He is a product of three great guys: Owens, Cebrowski and Clark.

How Harry ever became a four-star is a story in itself. The man couldn’t pull a punch if he tried, and yet it was fascinating to watch him over the next few days, playing motivational leader one minute and suave diplomat the next.

Thursday, I get up and have breakfast with Harry and then we careen through Naples rush-hour traffic in his government car with blue-light flashing. “Grand Theft Auto” has nothing on his driver, who moves aggressively through traffic like a motorcycle ambulance. I simply concentrated on my discussion with Harry, who clearly grew oblivious to this a long time ago (been there three years).

We whisk to the base and they walk me into a movie theater, where I do a 75-minute brief on stage to a full house. Great questions after, as Harry promises Sunday afternoon off to whoever offers the toughest question. It was the last one, BTW.

Then we’re whisked out to an airfield and jump aboard his command aircraft, a nifty C-26 (if I remember the designation correctly, it’s very much like a Gulfstream), and take off for Crete (a very cool view of Mediterranean islands along the way).

We sit opposite each other up front, with the PAO observing, and I tape a two-hour interview with him, as he runs me through his stuff. I am stunned, frankly, by the breadth and depth of his innovation. I’ve gone around for years saying we should do this or that, and Harry’s actually pulled off several of my dreams. He’s kind enough to say he’s read my book, but that’s not the causal link. Harry would have done these things anyway. I will claim only that great minds think alike.

Nice lunch aboard the jet, and by the time I get off, I know the trip was completely worthwhile in terms of data gathering. That two-hour interview alone did it all.

We land in Crete at the naval air station, meet all the base leadership, and then walk directly to an all-hands meetings that Harry leads without any notes. Imagine Clint Eastwood channeling Phil Donahue channeling Peter Drucker, and you get the picture. It was fascinating to watch.

Then we’re driven to an allied WWII cemetery (the Germans invaded and occupied Crete in 1941), where the two of us wander around for a while, chatting about our careers and just catching up further (Harry has had a truly interesting run, working for all sorts of historical figures). I discover a “D. Barnett” buried there among the Scots. There are also Australians and New Zealanders among the many British names.

The rest of his senior officers and their wives then show up in a bus.

For the next run we ride in the bus with everyone else, listening to a local tour guide. I get the chance to talk a lot of inside-the-business history with Ulrich and his chief civilian analytic brain on loan from CNA, Jed Snyder, who is the guy who engineered my trip. Jed is a very cool guy who’s worked for a lot of legends in this business over the years, and it was very neat to finally cross paths with him.

The next trip of the day is to a German WWII cemetery. Believe it or not, but 1.7 million German soldiers from WWI and WWII are buried abroad in roughly 100 countries.

The final trip was to a former German concentration camp.

Then we bus to the seaside resort in Crete where the planning retreat will be held. I get in some email time thanks to Ulrich’s comm guys and then it’s dinner, where I sit at the head table with Ulrich and his spouse, the local base commander and his spouse, and the town’s mayor and his spouse. The mayor, a nephrologist, has had a long career in both national politics and Greece’s Olympic Committee (he was a famous long-jumper in his youth). The meal was great, especially the baklava.

Day ended late with a final drink with senior officers at the bar. As the guest brain of honor, you feel compelled to stay up until everyone who wants to approach you has had their chance to do so. I’m not getting any real money from the command for this trip, but it’s one of those gigs you’re more than willing to do if you take the grand strategist thing seriously.

Got to bed late, but up early--of course.

Over breakfast on Friday I chat up one of Harry’s reserve-component admirals who’s doing a lot of innovative stuff in Africa, barely noticing what I eat. That was a grave mistake, but I probably wouldn’t have been any more careful if I had paid attention. It was a buffet, and I tried a bit of everything. I’m eight of nine. It’s just my birth-order genetics.

Something I ate induced a severe allergic reaction. I got worse over the morning, looking stranger and stranger according to officers sitting around me. About 1130, even though I was scheduled to talk for two hours starting at 1215, I tell Ulrich I’m off to the head to throw up breakfast.

It was the most unusual and painful incident of vomiting I have ever experienced. It was like my face was throwing up instead of my stomach. When I came up and glanced in the mirror I was shocked: I had burst tiny blood vessels all over my face and a recently emerging bit of keratosis (hardening of the skin that I simply have frozen off with liquid nitrogen) near my right eye had turned blood red, giving me an immediate skin cancer spook. My face was swelling and looking like I had that roseacea (spell?) thing going on. Every muscle on the front of my head hurt. It was truly bizarre, like I had a face transplant or something and the graft wasn’t taking well. I felt like I had some strange mask on. It was really noticeable to everyone who encountered me the rest of the day. Good thing they turned the lights down low for my presentation.

I was somewhat wobbly afterwards but felt better after puking. Ulrich sends his doc out to check me and he tells me to take the stomach antibiotic I carry for just such occasions. Everyone’s asking if I can go on, since I’m the center of the day’s activities.

I drink a Coke and say, definitely. The showman in me is not to be deterred. Simply put, I’ve gone on sick before and I just hate traveling somewhere and then disappointing an audience (how in hell could I travel all the way to Crete and then take a powder?). I had heard from too many there that they were psyched for the talk, having heard how well it had gone for the staff the day before back in Naples. Simply put, my ego overcame my aching face, which really did feel like I’d run a marathon on it.

It was one of my best, most funny performances, reminding me of how I often played my best in high school sports when I was injured. I guess I just had to get myself inspired to pull it off, so it was an inspiring show. Still, I almost fell over a few times, I was that woozy.

Great discussion afterwards, one of the best I’ve enjoyed, but that’s just the quality of the staff and Harry’s leadership (everyone there said they loved working under such an innovative guy).

Afterwards I retreat to the comms room and gently surf the net, catching up on some email and filling up on liquids. By the time the conference ends (I sit in on the last couple of hours), I am feeling weak and wobbly but ambulatory.

We’re driven to the airport and I’m back on the admiral’s jet for the ride back. I have a glass of red wine and eat a plate of cheese and fruit and crackers. I’m almost feeling human again.

Once down in Naples I’m driven to a hotel near the airport but still on base. Once checked in, I’m back in another car for a drive to a famous local restaurant, the kind where they bring you plate after plate of whatever they’re cooking that night (no menu). It’s a big, grand meal with Harry, his spouse, and about six other command couples. I skip the shellfish and the owner is kind enough to bring me a steak instead of the main fish entree. It’s cooked on the seared-rare side, but it’s truly delicious, so I, in my new-found hunger, devour it.

Great conversations into the night. Lots of those sea stories officers love to swap. Harry’s a great storyteller, so we duel til about 2300.

Back to the hotel I’m lights out at 0030 and up at 0530 on Saturday to catch my Alitalia flight to Milan.

Once I get there, I get the bad news about the big winter storm on the east coast. My USAirways to Philly is canceled and all the future flights to the U.S. have been completely sold-out for Sunday and Monday and Tuesday. The last flights that day to the U.S. are leaving just as I realized how screwed I am. I’m feeling sick enough still that I have a hard time standing up for too long. No audience, no will power apparently.

Still, I wander around trying to figure out what to do. I end up credit-card calling Jenn a couple of times. She can’t do anything from the U.S. At one point she’s on hold with USAirways for three hours! Locally, USAirways offers me a flight Wednesday morning. That’s it. They’ll give me something four days from now and meanwhile I’m advised--at my own cost, of course--to find myself a place to stay in Milan for four nights!

I am stunned. But apparently this is the reality of being caught in Europe while trying to get home and a big storm hits in the eastern U.S. Planes don’t come over so none can go back. And if the subsequent flights are already full (as they were), they you get in line for remaining seats on the days ahead. Milan’s airport was crammed with Americans trying to figure out what to do. The luckiest ones, already in line before I landed, got flights on Tuesday. Some were settling for Thursday, five days ahead, by the time I figured out my escape plan.

The decision was easy enough for me when I got my head cleared enough to think it through: there was just no way I could hang out in a Milan hotel for four days, alone and sick. I already had an appointment with my doc back in Indy for Monday morning and by God, I was going to make it.

I heard one American woman (I was pulling aside anyone vaguely American-looking to hear what they had settled for) say there were supposedly still a couple of seats on a KLM flight out of Amsterdam late Saturday night. I had, by this time, already tried Delta. They too were offering Wednesday at the earliest. Forget about British Airways. They just waved me off, shaking their heads.

So I rushed to KLM and found the last seat out of Europe apparently until Thursday, by all accounts since. It was a business class on Sunday afternoon, which meant it ran 3,000 Euros (about $4,100). I didn’t care at that point. I felt pretty bad, awfully tired, and simply wanted to be moving in some direction that got me closer to home. So I bought it. I’ll let Jenn try to get it out of one of the several masters I served on this trip. That’s a great advantage of this sort of career: every trip is multi-purpose and multi-client, so you can spread the travel pain if necessary. Since I discounted the command about 95% on this trip, I’m hoping they’ll pick up the tab, but I have other options.

Still, even if I eat it for a tax deduction, it was worth it. I have dates scheduled that I simply cannot abandon, much less blowing off my family that long. Plus, in the end, four days and nights in Milan wouldn’t have been cheap. Indeed, I was already being warned by fellow travelers that only the most expensive hotels had any rooms left due to the crush of stranded Americans.

I guess that’s the harsh truth of the situation. I mean, it’s not like carriers are going to send an extra plane all the way across the Atlantic to get you. You’re just shit out of luck.

I hop the first Alitalia flight (partner with KLM) to Amsterdam, getting in around 5pm. I grab my luggage and find a close hotel for only 59 Euros. I ride the bus there, checking out the countryside near Amsterdam. Already I feel a bit safer. The Netherlands looks a lot like parts of Wisconsin, as do the people--naturally. Italy seemed crowded and weird in comparison. But this? This felt instinctively like home.

I collapse in my room and sleep for about 15 hours. It improves me quite a bit. My face is starting to look normal, although it still hurts in this weird way. Now it just looks like a weird sunburn.

After conferring with Jenn and Vonne by email, I decide to make the planned flight to Minneapolis Sunday (over nine hours) and then stay at my sister Cathie’s home for the night. I change what was my connecting to Detroit Sunday night (I had a fantasy of getting in at midnight and driving til dawn to Indy in a rental, but Vonne and Jenn talk me out of that; I’m just feeling very guilty because I miss hosting my younger son’s birthday party outing with his best friends on Sunday) when I get to the Amsterdam airport late Sunday morning to an early Monday Minneapolis-to-Indy direct flight.

The Amsterdam airport is one of the coolest I’ve ever been to: super neat and modern and efficient and . . . just so niftily Nederlander. I retreat to the KLM elite lounge and write my column for next weekend, eating the offered fare a bit and drinking lotsa juice and good coffee. I celebrate the first draft with a draft Heineken. I am almost feeling normal at this point, like I’ve been through a bad flu that swept through my system, leaving all of the damage on my face.

The flight to Minneapolis was nice enough. Surprisingly smooth given all the turbulence of westward flights this month (this is my--if you can believe it!--18th flight of March! I will likely make it over 30 for the entire month, when all is said and done, and that’s definitely a record for me). I have an interesting seat partner in a 65-year-old engineering professor from U Minn. He’s just coming back from the UAE.

After the nice sojourn at my sister’s place, I get back to Indy just before 10am on my early flight. I get to the doctor appointment late, but get a good going-over from my physician. We talk through the whole episode and my man says it was probably an MSG-triggered allergic shock, which tends to be face oriented.

Whatever.

I am home. Eight nations and six states in the first 19 days of the month. Another six states and 12 flights to go.

Google told me that Tom was mentioned in this forum post. It links to an interview with Tom reported in Chinese (The picture towards the bottom confirms ;-).

Google came up with a pretty good translation that I'm going to copy here

According to Barnett : If China is ready to interview U.S. strategists DWNEWS.COM-- 2007年3月19日20:51:49(京港台时间) --多维新闻网DWNEWS.COM-- at 20:51 on March 19, 2007 : 49 (Beijing time RTHK) -- According to the news network

Farewell press reports Wangqinchuan 1951 / U.S. strategists Barnett said : strategic planning, national security, foreign policy, consultants and other experts in the field of military action to the views I hold an open mind, I with these people through the exchange China's influence in the fifth generation of leaders take over. On the contrary, is the fourth generation of leaders more, I can not accept the theory that they fear conservative. They want more attention to the internal affairs of our country, to avoid making too many in the international community's response

China is interested in cooperating with the United States

Farewell : The United States in the six-party talks held in Beijing last year, called for North Korea to give up its development of nuclear weapons. for the United States to lift financial sanctions against North Korea, but North Korea that the United States should first lift financial sanctions. lead to the breakdown of the six-party talks, North Korea and all the second guessing when the testing of nuclear weapons. In the book, you mentioned that China and the United States should cooperate together to check North Korea's development of nuclear weapons; However, economic interests between China and North Korea, China's current attitude seems to still own interest. not with the United States, to work together to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons development, so as not to enrage his North Korea, in the circumstances, it really would help the United States resolve the North Korean issue?

Barnett : China and North Korea's economic interest is not how big, in fact, Instead, the economic interests between China and South Korea is much larger. China and Korea, or other Asian countries should understand that trade between the Compared with the protection of the interests of the Korean economy will be more important, in addition, China and Korea, and Taiwan should set aside some of the "burden", will look at a broader level, cooperation with the United States to establish a strategic alliance.

According to the Digest in March 2007 (No. 24 overall). (Farewell)
　　I think China should be interested to cooperate with the United States because China is the source of political instability in the energy, merely concerned with their own short-term interests of these countries do not want to damage relations on their own or that they can maintain the status quo or to solve problems in the near future, they will be found, This is unsustainable.

For alliance between China and the United States have yet to be established, I think it is because both parties have a blind spot in terms of coordination. made to the development of Sino-U.S. relations, and military or economic alliance in Asia can not be hastened. Therefore, China and North Korea not to the narrow interests, it will abandon the great advantages of cooperation with the United States, China, which is risky behavior. However, I think China has seen the advantages of the alliance, and has the will to cooperate with the United States. is whether economic or military, the Chinese mentality are not yet ripe; alliance, China is bound to bear more responsibility, but China is not able to accept this responsibility; China has enough confidence, North Korea's stability is not yet prepared to take up the mission.

In fact the Korean issue, the United States should take the responsibility not to the Chinese. Although China does not support North Korea's nuclear weapons because tests, but in certain areas has been interpreted as a representative of North Korea. So in addition to North Korea with China's interests, but also have a negative impact on China. In fact, it is not difficult for China to give up North Korea, China and South Korea if North Korea were continuing to import trade. When these two economic development, North Korea's economic situation has not improved, but at this time North Korea may be dissatisfied with my heart, Asian or have a negative impact on the world.

China has the ability to compete with the major powers

Farewell : A recent missile destroyed the old meteorological triggered international tensions. This is all speculation China's real intentions, do you think China launched missile. it would allow expansion of the "core function" of the target has become more difficult? You also mentioned that if the United States regards China as a friend, China is likely to become a friend : If the United States regard China as an enemy, China will become an enemy, in the United States and there is no consensus on the North Korea issue. China test-fired missiles such circumstances, the relationship between the United States and China?

Barnett : China's action to the United States a message that the United States military is as a partner, China has become more powerful. China already has the capability to compete with the major powers in aerospace technology, not only to launch satellites, but can also destroy satellites, but If China moves before doing that, he need not comply with the space weapons agreement with the prior consultations. so the idea is absolutely wrong, because anti-missile tests, after a great impact.

After the end of the Cold War, the United States and other countries have consensus, and to prevent an arms race in space. China should sit down and talk about a good performance out of space weapons agreement with the United States would like the attitude Even if it is not easy for China to destroy satellites, but the destruction of the satellite debris, but it will cause harm. spent a lot of energy to remove the future, and space weapons if China wants to ignore the agreement, China will allow other countries to be more disappointed. China must take to destroy satellites after pressure from the international community, therefore, to focus on China and its development will destroy satellites. If not peace efforts on the development of aerospace technology, otherwise it will be China's political and economic influence.

However, I am also worried that if the United States wants China to consult China's anti-based and not because he did not want to do to respond to this question seriously. China's silence but for the international community to destroy the satellites of suspected motives for China negative, -- this would create a dangerous deterioration in China's international relations.

The current relations between China and the United States, I think in a very close relationship between the economy and technology. whether in trade or energy-dependent economy, while the United States in seeking alliance targets, we naturally think of China, so interrelated than the political and military relationship to the race. So the United States, with which China is establishing a military and political connections to the overall balance of relations between China, , to a significant military and political relations and close economic ties if alienation, let mutual suspicion between the two countries.

Even worry that the pressure from outside the United States

　　Farewell : If the United States in military action after the end of the Cold War, The vast majority of those operations were found to be "crack" it coincidence that the United States almost a decade of military operations in accordance with your theory. moving to narrow the "cracks" the goal, launched by the United States to narrow the "crack" wars. is the war in Iraq. (a proxy war)Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki, in an interview with CNN on January 31, Iraq is turning into a war between the United States and Iran, "Acting War" (a proxy war). At present, the American media are asking the United States to sign the next war will be Iran, Do you think the Bush administration has been bogged plight of the Iraq war, Iran launched the war?

Barnett : The current chaotic situation in Iraq, saying that "civil war" is the dispute between the Shiite and Sunni, as it is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iranian-backed Shiite sustained growth will be a serious threat to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries.

However, I am even more worried that the pressure from outside the United States. Now, whether the United States or the Republican members of the public, or even international, that the United States will be aimed at a target Iran, if the Bush administration really will be the last attack on Iran as the next target. Bush also retiring before the war, this will lead to a very dangerous situation; This will cause great harm to the United States. In particular, the relationship between the United States, China and Iran because of the high degree of dependence on oil.

However, the Bush asking Iraq, I have to condemn the targeted Russia, China and India. This should only three countries to send troops to Iraq and assist the Iraqi reconstruction order in the territory, because once the outbreak of the energy crisis The United States will not be affected, but China, Russia, India. Iraq, the United States is not dependent on the region's energy, is really a heavy reliance on China, Russia, India; These three countries should be aware of : We should not take (USA) blood, in exchange for their oil. China, Russia, India should take the responsibility to solve the Middle East issue. understand that their future will be one of the countries leading the world, the best way. each country is 50,000 people troops to Iraq, if so, then there, together with the 200,000 U.S. troops. stabilize the situation in the Middle East.

But at the moment there is the tendency to spread in Iraq disputes, China should go the distance, adding a timely manner. otherwise it would affect the interests of China in the future. In international security affairs, China, as a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick's "responsible stakeholder" take the attitude should be pursued two solitary wasp situation, such as Iran's nuclear issue, China is also the United States could be used as an intermediary with Iran for diplomatic negotiations. I was encouraged by the leaders to the fifth-generation

Farewell : You study long-term military strategy, and has served as a senior Defense Department. There are many political and military ties with the United States, do you think the United States military and the official number of people agree with your point of view? In addition, your contact with the Chinese government or related very frequently, whether you agree?

When I discussed his theory with senior staff, and with my generation, who is about 40, and more young people themselves, very acceptable from my point of view, they are rational and willing to accept different voices. older than I, regardless of the current situation indicates that China has made a number of changes. These inherent still difficult to change the view of most of them remain skeptical, but by refusing to accept other view.

　　Compared with American officials, I fewer ties with China, but I spent a lot of time a series of trips to China in these trips, I plotted strategy with China, the national security, foreign policy, military operations, as discussed his theory of expert consultants. I think these people adopt an open attitude to my point of view, but the most open-minded young people. I have with these people through the exchange to influence the succession in China's fifth-generation leader.

In comparison, on the contrary, is the fourth generation of leaders more I can not accept the theory that they fear conservative. They want more attention to the internal affairs of our country, to avoid making too many in the international community's response. Conversely, the fifth generation of leaders that the responsibility to cope with the world situation, but also wanted to do something in an attempt to change the heart. Fifth generation of leaders is also important that the relationship between the United States and is based on a core of the world.

In China, the fifth generation of leaders has given me a lot of encouragement, which is the next opportunity to accelerate progress towards a major world power.

OP-ED: “Obama: Man of the World: Can a Jakarta ‘street kid’ grow up to win?” by Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, 6 March 2007, p. A23.

Cool piece by Kristof exploring what nifty international life experience Obama brings to the table. Indeed, in terms of knowing the world outside of America (if not the leaders), he truly brings a lot to the table. I mean, don’t you want somebody who “gets” Islam to lead us in this crucial early phase of the Long War? Doesn’t that make a certain amount of sense?

If I were God (sometimes considered a possibility), my bipartisan ticket would be Rudy for prez and Obama for veep. I’d pick Rudy to be a reasonable continuation of what was good about Bush but likewise a pragmatic fixer of what Bush got so terribly wrong--especially the explanation. Obama would be my bridge-builder to the future, and my articulate strategic communicator. It would be a killer team.

Frankly, I welcome the death of the primary season. I think a national referendum or by-party run-off vote is the way to go. States have with congressional delegations to kiss their collective asses. We’re picking the leader of the free world, or as close to globalization’s king as it comes. That’s a global election. So the run-ups should be at least truly national elections.

But beyond a national run-off to decide the nominees, I’d also kill the team-ticket concept and let the two offices be contested more independently. I like the idea of mixed tickets as a way to avoid the inbreeding we so often get in administrations--the self-licking ice cream cone phenomenon.

Just dreaming, I guess.

OP-ED: “Al Gore’s Outsourcing Solution: U.S. companies should buy ‘carbon offsets’ in China,” by Gregg Easterbrook, New York Times, 9 March 2007, p. A23.

Interesting bit from Easterbrook that underlies where our global coin is best spent on global warming: quite naturally where the growth will be biggest in coming years in terms of CO2.

Easterbrook’s point fits nicely with my “New Core sets the new rules” philosophy: you can either strangle our economy with too much effort for too little gain or you can invest far more wisely in the infrastructure build-out underway in Asia and make sure that goes down a far smarter, more environmentally-sustainable path and--in doing so--you’d get huge bang for the reasonable buck.

The best part?

As a bonus, American investments in reducing Chinese and India air pollution would improve public health in those nations. Today smog in Chinese and Indian cities is worse than any in the West since London of the early 1950s. The result is far higher rates of respiratory disease in China and India than in the West.

A great summing-up last para:

If our goal in legislating against carbon releases is not simply punishing the West and its power companies but truly trying to reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the main event will be in the developing world. We must pursue the smartest possible economics, and that means investing in China and India.

Access the current build-out, change the world in the process.

This is good business and a moral imperative.

I think I need to get this guy’s book (The Progress Paradox). Anybody read it?

ARTICLE: Triggering the Next Iranian Revolution (Part II), By Grzegorz W. Kolodko, The Globalist, Thursday, March 15, 2007

More evidence of the good timing on killing-Iran's-mullahs-softly-with-connectivity. Great piece by Globalist.

Just goes to show: judge not by their answers to your questions/demands but by their own questions. Answers are mostly about futures to be avoided. Questions are more about futures desired.

Thanks to Erwin van der Rijnst for sending this.

POST: Africa and Science

Great Steve blog that really got me thinking, given my recent African sojourn and watching "Blood Diamond" (Leo WAS amazing) last night with Vonne in the home theater.

You see the whole "conflict diamonds" scheme and you can't help but be for it, but then there's the bit when the local villager, whose entire community is in flames, opines, "I hope they never find oil here, then things will really go bad" (or words to that effect).

And you wonder: is it the stuff they've got in Africa (raw materials they inevitably fight over) or the options they lack (everyone in the movie wants the pink diamond so they can escape in wealth)?

Create wealth and the options multiply. Fight over fixed resources and it'll always be zero sum

All rule of law gets you is confidence that, if you try and actually create new wealth, you can keep it. All markets get you is the chance to securitize that effort by being able to sell what you create. And all S&T is about is that search for what's useful and sell-able next.

So yeah, the Economist makes perfect sense to me.

But I always remind: security is 100 percent of your problem until you get it. Then it's only 10 percent of your exit strategy solution.

ARTICLE: "Army Brigade, Long a Symbol Of Readiness, Is Stretched Thin," by David S. Cloud, New York Times, 20 March 2007, p. A1.

Did an interview with "Inside the Pentagon" yesterday on this subject, but in reverse: would creating stabilization forces limit Big Army's ability to escalate?

The questions posed by the reporter reflect the Big Army's old trick to define SysAdmin-like forces as peacekeepers only. This has never been my argument, although some have described "stabilization" forces in this manner.

I see SysAdmin as a much larger function, so my embedded Marines readily rise up to Fallujahs or better. As I have written, I don't believe in the 3-block war. I want my Marines to remain Marines, and I want the non-combat portions of the SysAdmin function filled out by civvies and private sector.

As for turning Army into pure PKO-style troops, that's where the international/coalition factor must come into play.

We put 22-23 ground personnel per 1000 local population in Bosnia and Kosovo, and in both cases we're about 10 percent of total. That's a real model.

In Iraq we field 6-7 per 1K and supply over 90 percent ourselves. Surprise! That both fails and strains readiness.

But here's the kicker canard you'll now hear from Big Army in the budget battles ahead:

Military officials say that the United States, which has more than two million personnel in active and reserve armed forces, has a combat-tested force that could still emerge victorious is another major conflict arose. But the response would be slower, with more casualties, and would have to rely heavily on the Navy and Air Force, they said.

Bullshit, bullshit, and duh!

The response would not be slower.

It would not involve more casualties.

It would be air-heavy from USN and USAF asset bases, and it would simply win the war from above with no attempt to secure the victory from below. It would be pure Powell Doctrine, which is still valid and entirely proper for high-end scenarios (NK and Iran) being discussed

Do not be sold this line.

This is really the Future Combat System and the rest of Big Army's acquisition community squealing. But FCS is huge and expensive and largely inappropriate for the 21st-century battlespace that is the Gap, and no amount of readiness whining is going to change that.

Yes, we need more ground troops.

Yes, we need lots of gear replaced.

And yes, transformation in tactics and technology largely await application within the ground forces (unlike the air community--Vern Clark's point to me).

But the increased separation between air-dominated Leviathan and ground-pounding SysAdmin continues ...

ARTICLE: "Clinton Says Some G.I.'s in Iraq Would Stay if She Took Office," by Michael Gordon and Patrick Healy, New York Times, 15 March 2007, p. A1.

Here's the bit:

... she would keep a reduced but significant force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

Add the words "primarily through training and operational support by American air assets" to the end of that sentence and it's just about perfect.

Without offering as many good points, I make the same basic argument in my column this weekend.

Proof again to me: besides all the knee-jerking on Hillary from the right, she's an entirely sensible, solutions-based candidate.

ARTICLE: "Suspected Leader of Attacks on 9/11 Is Said To Confess," by Adam Liptak, New York Times, 20 March 2007, p. A1.

What didn't Khalid Shaikh Mohammed plot?

I'm sorry, but given the man's history on false statements and how convenient it is to have him confess to all sorts of things that will add nothing to his eventual sentence, I find this all a bit much.

ARTICLE: FedEx Raises Stakes in China Markets, By Bruce Stanley, Wall Street Journal

Thanks to Peter Johnson for sending this.

OP-ED: Abizaid's Long View, By David Ignatius, Washington Post, Friday, March 16, 2007; Page A21

Great piece by Ignatius on Abizaid: a great combo of best journalist and author in the subject of the Long War.

I am optimistic on Fallon now, after hearing numerous first-hand stories on his personal and intellectual growth at PACOM. I praise the selection in my upcoming Esquire May piece ("State of the World").

Thanks to Tyler Durden for sending this.

OP-ED: The west cannot hide from the disordered world beyond, By Philip Stephens, Financial Times, March 15 2007

Interesting example of the reproducible strategic concept popping up.

The ego in you wants credit, the visionary simply wants progress because life is short and demands meaning.

Thanks to Phil Costopoulos for sending this.

ARTICLE: Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts, By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, March 19, 2007; Page A01

The strategic dangers cited here are real, but also oversold. The Big Army, whenever we get involved abroad, routinely decries the loss of readiness for Big War, which everyone knows is now air-heavy and ground light--as in, we'll bomb the crap out of people.

Still, you have to expect ground forces to wage this battle, which is all about the bucks necessary to buck up their services at the logical expense of Air Force and Navy.

Of course, none of this happens or is required if we do Iraq's war AND postwar like we did the Balkans, so this is a completely self-inflicted strategic wound--provided by the Bush administration in their eschewing of allies and their inability to win new friends while rapidly--and carelessly--expanding our lists of enemies.

ARTICLE: L America migrant money tops aid, By Duncan Kennedy, BBC News, 19 March 2007

As you may remember from BFA (and assuming I do so correctly myself), this is basically one of the points I made about how Hispanic immigrants coming to America--legal or not--are generating far greater money flows back to their homelands (while spending over 90 percent of what they make here in our economy) than all the combined OECD aid.

This while simultaneously starting new businesses at a relatively higher frequency than natives and backfilling all sorts of 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) jobs in our economy.

Social stress? Definitely. A certain welfare burden for the state (education, med)? Certainly.

But considering all the poverty alleviation we're buying with this scheme, we have to either extend citizenship or our borders, because nothing else will satisfy.

Thanks to Bgrant for sending this.

POST: First Chinese-designed car in U.S. will be the Buick LaCrosse, by John Neff, Mar 19th 2007

Get used to this story.

First, there's the natural bit that what was once U.S. became Japanese became Korean became Chinese (i.e., design prowess).

Second is GM tapping China to better sell to the bottom of the pyramid.

Third is China's car sales outpacing ours (across the board, sooner than you think).

Fourth, first "Chinese" cars to American will be ours, the next wave will not.

New player in market, new rules.

Thanks to Shiva Polefka for sending this.

ARTICLE: Cleaning Up the 20th Century, By JIM YARDLEY, New York Times, March 18, 2007

The slow consensus on our side: tie off the Cold War in Asia to gain the East Asian NATO.

If it can be done slow and easy, great. The "mini-me Deng" model is definitely preferred, but that would mean Kim buys the buy-out--an iffy proposition since it signals the inevitable end of his rule.

Thanks to Jarrod Myrick for sending this.

POST: Moscow's Pink Taxis: Women Only

I do agree with reader: hopeful sign of bottom-up capitalism, which was all relegated to the "na levo" economy under communism (black/grey markets).

Yes Putin renationalizes energy, but rest of economy is functioning reasonably well.

Over time, that is what matters most--plus the economic connectivity with the outside world that results.

Thanks to Steve from Minneapolis for sending this.

ARTICLE: “Fueled by Oil Money, Russian Economy Soars: An Investment Boom Transforms Industries; Bor’s Barter Days Over,” by Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2007, p. A1.

This article speaks for itself:

On Bor Glassworks’ state-of-the-art production line here, workers in blue overalls churn out windshields for Russian-made Fords and Renaults--and offer a glimpse of an investment boom transforming Russia’s industrial landscape.

The glass company was once so poor it paid its workers sewing machines and other tradable goods. Now, after an injection of $100 million from Belgian investors, it’s a success story: Bor produces a growing share of windows for the western cars assembled on Russian soil.

“We have a great future ahead of us,” says Valery Tarbeyev, Bor’s chief executive. “Some people are waiting in line up to six months for a new Ford Focus.

Across Russia, companies are spending billions of dollars to upgrade facilities and expand capacity--all in an effort to keep pace with surging consumer demand. The activity is the latest stage of an economic turnaround that has delivered seven years of robust growth. Fueled by Russia’s vast energy sector but ranging well beyond it, the boom goes a long way to explain Russia’s new assertiveness on the world stage.

The revival--dating roughly back to the 2000 election of Vladimir Putin--is also a major reason for the president’s enormous popularity. Under Mr. Putin, Russia’s per-capita gross domestic product has quadrupled to nearly $7,000, and about 20 million people have been lifted out of poverty. Global corporations, such as Intel Corp. and Ford Motor Co., are fast expanding their Russian operations.

For the first time since the end of the Soviet Union, opinion polls show, more people are optimistic about the future than pessimistic.

Naturally, observers say there is too much state-involvement still and Russia lacks the overall entrepreneurial spirit of India and China, but guess what? That will change only when people in Russia, both on top and below, see that deficiency as the major hindrance to further increasing income levels. So long as the current system suffices, helped in no small part by high oil prices that India and China fuel, don’t expect much change.

But here’s the best part:

Businesses are now plowing profits back into fixed capital--assets such as machinery and new buildings.

As Benjamin Friedman writes in his brilliant “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth,” when incomes rose in America throughout its history, so did political freedom, and when it became stagnant or dropped, so did our long march to greater freedom. The same will be true for Russia, so we should continue to encourage the growing economic connectivity so long as the impact is rising income levels across a wide swath of the economy and society.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: “India’s Bet on Industry Sows Violence: Farmers Object to Plan to Forgo Agriculture for Economic Zones; Fights With Police Turn Deadly,” by Peter Wonacott, Wall Street Journal, 16 March 2007, p. A6.

Fascinating and clear example of caboose braking:

Deadly battles this week between protesters and police on a planned industrial-development site have brought into sharp relief a major problem in India’s economic boom: As local governments bet on industry rather than agriculture to deliver expansion, many farmers fear they will be left behind.

No comment necessary.

ARTICLE: "'Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen': Federal agencies spar while trying to revamp Iraq's food-rationing system," by Rajiv Chandrasekara, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 19-25 March 2007, p. 6.

ARTICLE: “Farm aid plumps up Iraq funding: Democrats insert $3.7B that’s unrelated to war,” by Ken Dilanian, USA Today, 22 March 2007, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: "International Support Is Sought at U.N. for Iraq Rebuilding Plan," by Warren Hoge, New York Times, 17 March 2007, p. A7.

ARTICLE: "U.S., Iraqis Join In Push to Curb Oil Smuggling: Aim Is to Stem the Flow Of Cash to Insurgents; Corruption Runs Deep," by Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, 15 March 2007, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "Iran Now Plays Expanded Role In Keeping Iraqi Economy Going: Electricity and Trade Tie 2 Lands Closer Together," by Edward Wong, New York Times, 17 March 2007, p. A1.

The story on our ag aid to Iraq is a microcosm of the whole sham that is the interagency process, and--quite frankly--what a disaster it is to have the State Department in charge of Iraq (you thought DoD was bad).

This is classic stuff: the idealists and can-do types in DC constantly overridden by the realists and the not-invented-here types on the ground in Iraq. The former don’t realize what they can’t do and the latter know all too well all too much about all the things that will never--ever--be done in Iraq.

This is the dumb leading the blind.

Regional experts tend to go native, constantly telling you how “that won’t work here” for all these idiosyncratic reasons, while the functional experts assume their one-size-fits-all. Between them there’s almost no one with any serious private-sector experience making all sorts of decisions regarding market and generating business activity. How screwed is that?

Class example starts the story: Commerce wants to end the food rationing in Iraq and move onto something more--CANYOUBELIEVEIT!--more marketized. State has a kitten and freaks out, believing the rationing was essential to continued social stability in Iraq (lots of that going around right now). I guarantee you this: leave State in charge long enough and Iraqis will be on food rations the rest of this century.

The story quotes “economics section” staffers at the embassy decrying the end-of-rations as this incredibly stupid idea that keeps resurfacing every twelve months. My God, we’re four years into this and we’re still keeping everyone on rations?!?!?

Here’s the kicker: almost all of the rations are imported.

Guess what that does to Iraqi agriculture.

Bremer’s crazy idea was “to cut off the rich and provide poor Iraqis with cash so they could buy the food they needed.”

But why treat them like adults when we can suppress market development all these years and keep them in a welfare mentality?

The last poor happened this August. Listen to the craziness proposed by Commerce:

“The [public food distribution system] is wasteful and creates a disincentive to produce,” the document stated. Iraq’s government “should press forward with a program to transfer the supply and distribution to the private sector.”

What kind of crazy talk is that? Don’t we realize that Iraqis never fed themselves until the Americans showed up in 2003? Do we want their ag and service sectors to recover when we could keep them showing up for their rations for many more years? Isn’t this how you rebuild an economy and society after war? Keeping them on rations ad infinitum.

This story is so oddly reported by Chandrasekaran: always approvingly quoting State bureaucrats calling the privatization idea stupid and always presenting the Commerce ideas as “off the reservation.”

State is so incensed about these proposals they’ve actually blocked Commerce officials from interacting with Iraqi counterparts, despite Commerce officials claiming that Iraqi officials want to see this happen (go figure, they don’t want to stay on handouts forever!).

What is the counter State plan? Never mentioned here.

A Rand Corp analyst who headed up the embassy’s own “Joint Strategic Planning and Assessment Office” came up with an even more radical and aggressive plan to torch the hand-out system. It wanted them gone in 38 weeks, which apparently passes for radical to our embassy in Iraq (over six months!).

Even though our ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad listened to this proposal, State officials on the ground led a bureaucratic push to have it killed.

So the embassy people (State, USAID, others) had lots of meetings. Naturally, no Iraqi officials were invited (why bother?).

The result of this big internal review? Stretch the proposal out to 100 weeks--almost two years!

Beautiful stuff:

To the embassy’s economists, saying they wanted to kill the program in two years was an elaborate ploy, the embassy official say. It would get them on the record as favoring major changes, but the timeframe almost certainly meant it would not happen. “Things in Iraq change every six months,” the first embassy official says. “If you say you plan to do something in two years, it means you’ll never do it.”

Need anything else to convince you that State COULD NEVER BECOME THE DEPARTMENT OF EVERYTHING ELSE--MUCH LESS “ANYTHING ELSE”!!!!!!!

Then when you think State couldn’t be more blockheaded, they go out of their way to fight Paul Brinkley on his plan to revive manufacturing in Iraq. Keep them on rations and stop any movement toward job creation.

The complaint? The factories in question were “dinosaurs.”

This is classic Six Sigma thinking on our part: gold-plated modernity or nothing at all. The point is job creation, not ideal positioning of the Iraqi economy in the global marketplace.

But we disband the Iraqi Army and now we’re dead-set against rebranding old state-run enterprises.

In the end, Brinkley gets his way and proceeds.

Meanwhile, we’ve created such an idiotic dependency culture in Iraq that our embassy officials brag that “no Iraqi politician wants to get rid of free food. It’s political suicide.”

Man, that’s a great accomplishment amidst all the sectarian violence and civil war and terrorism: protecting Iraqi politicians from “political suicide.”

Instead, our embassy officials say we’ve wasted so much time on this stupid proposal when so many other better things could have been pursued.

Right, right. Let’s not focus on jobs when a dependency culture is completely in the works. This is classic Official Development Aid mentality: the social worker who never leaves and who destroys local capacity instead of building it. Fukuyama has railed against this like mad in two books, but with diplomats and aid workers running the show, should we expect any better? Two communities who don’t know their asses from their elbows on market creation.

So let’s have another international donor conference--four years into this mess! That’s real progress, along with keeping Iraqis on food rations.

Plus, the bigger the food program, the more pork barreling possibilities back home for the Dems, so everyone’s served by this stupidity: both the brain-dead administration and the greedy opposition party.

Still, some good things to cite, like our ground forces working hard to cut down on the thievery and corruption surrounding the Iraqi oil industry, which accounts for 94% of Iraq’s $32B budget.

This matters plenty, because lots of the stolen oil ends up funding the insurgency to the tune of somewhere north of $25m and somewhere south of $100 million.

Locals are happy to see the Americans boost their presence in the oil industry. As one truck driver put it, “I want coalition forces to guard this place, not the Iraqi army. The Iraqis don’t care about the law.”

Meanwhile, neighboring Iran’s influence in the economy naturally grows:

While the Bush administration works to stop Iran from meddling in Iraq, Iranian air-conditioners fill Iraqi appliance stores, Iranian tomatoes ripen on the windowsills of kitchens here and legions of white Iranian-made Peugeots sit in Iraqi driveways.

Some Iraqi cities, including Basra, the southern oil center, buy or plan to buy electricity from Iran. The Iraqi government relies on Iranian companies to bring gasoline from Turkmenistan to alleviate a severe shortage. Iraqi officials are reviewing an application by Iran to open a branch of an Iranian bank in Baghdad, and Iran has offered to lend Iraq $1 billion.

The economies of Iraq and Iran, the largest Shiite-majority countries in the world, are becoming closely integrated, with Iranian goods flooding Iraqi markets and Iraqi cities looking to Iran for basic services.

After the two countries fought a devastating war from 1980 to 1988, Saddam Hussein maintained tight control over cross-border trade, but commerce has exploded since the American-led invasion of 2003.

Please don’t give me that crap about Iran “winning.” All this economic connectivity will change Iran more than Iraq, and the former will play Poland to the latter’s Russia.

Let the Westoxification begin the old-fashioned way: marketization!

And get the State Department’s social-welfare mentality out of there ASAP.

Pride of place this week definitely goes to Tom's short post on Chinese peacekeeping with the Stratfor graphic, Chinese contribution to UN Peacekeeping Operations. It got picked up by MountainRunner, Danger Room, Pacific Empire, and Robot Economist (who says he can't stand Tom).

+ Cheat Seeking Missiles says Tom's vision of the world is coming to pass.
+ Sen Harry Reid's memoir will be written with Tom's editor extraordinaire, Mark Warren. Tom is listed in Mark's work.
+ Neptunus Lex noted hearing Tom's Brief last week, then did a more extended treatment.
+ And The Happy Carpenter linked Neptunus saying we need deep thinkers like Tom.
+ igginzz links The Pentagon's New Map (article).
+ SCSU Scholars linked Price and technology AND the level of state involvement.
+ Chapomatic linked One of the weirder military sales jobs of this administration.
+ We've got these videos available other places, but if you're really into YouTube, here's a link to the seven videos of two Briefs over there.
+ Critt continues to add to his Grazr work on Tom. This one includes Google Video of Tom on Conversations with History.
+ Zenpundit linked The Pinkertons of the 21st Century.
+ Observing Japan links Tom as someone who wants China to be a stakeholder.
+ Big Lizards refers to Tom's Functioning Core.
+ Catholicgauze refers to Tom's Gap.
+ Outside the Beltway linked The readiness canard.

I have more, but I'm going to save them for Sunday.

I'm particularly struck, on watching this video, by how it may be the best piece we have on Tom's early career and, especially the first 20 minutes, the best 'advice' to young grand strategists piece we have until volume 3 comes out (bad MIDI theme notwithstanding ;-).

Conversations with History: The Pentagon's New Map, with Thomas P.M. Barnett

POST: A New Power Rises in Iraq

Cool blog post on traveling to Kurdistan today versus year ago.

Our most successful nation-building effort since German and Japan--a huge success, in fact.

So when the competing histories of postwar Iraq reach a consensus, they will say: Kurdistan a success because it wanted to be; Shiite Iraq a partial success because of Sunni-driven sectarian violence (fueled by nasty outsider to a certain extent); and Sunni Iraq a complete failure.

With the dream of a unitary Iraq finally faded, the realistic outcomes become clearer.

Basis of my column this upcoming weekend.

Thanks to Pat O'Connor for sending this.

B-School Q&A: Colorado State Goes Green for Green: A new program in sustainable enterprise will educate future business leaders in producing working solutions to global problems, for a profit, Business Week, March 13, 2007

Like an MBA in building an emerging market in a sustainable fashion. Great stuff from Colorado. Methinks some military should definitely be encouraged toward such education as serious professional military education.

Thanks to Steff Hedenkamp for sending this.

ARTICLE: Pace in China, urging joint ops, better ties, By Christopher Bodeen, The Associated Press, Mar 23, 2007

Thanks to Rob Johnson for sending this.

ARTICLE: Views on globalization studied, The Daily Beacon, March 23, 2007

The whole article's about Tom, so I'll quote it completely:

Enhancing trade relations between economically advanced states and developing countries would further global security in the future, as long as the advanced states protect themselves in the meantime from negative influences, a nationally recognized strategic thinker said during a lecture Wednesday.

Thomas Barnett spoke at the University Center Auditorium and shared his views on the current and the future state of global relations.

Barnett’s lecture began with a discussion of the various stances prominent 21st century thinkers take on the issue of globalization. The first was of political scientist Samuel Huntington, who contends that some states will never become players in the global economy. The second was of Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times who holds the opposite view that though some people still have not entered the global economy, eventually they will.

Barnett took Friedman’s view one step further in defining his view on the future of globalization.

“Some have it (globalization) now. Some don’t. And it’s inevitable that when the spread happens, it will generate conflict if not approached properly,” Barnett said.

Barnett backed his prediction by discussing past conflicts that resulted from globalization. He cited the historical threat of globalization on traditional, male-dominated societies. Globalization subtly reconfigured the conventional hierarchy of men as leaders and disproportionately empowered women. This trend has resulted in great conflict in countries where cultural tensions have led to violence and death, Barnett said.

He proceeded to map globalization’s future conflicts around the world. He labeled all economically advanced countries the “Functioning Core” and other countries the “Non-Integrating Gap.” The “Core” consists mainly of the United States, Western European countries, China, Japan, Russia and Australia.

Most of developing countries occupy regions in South America, Africa, most of Asia and the Middle East. All of the “Core” countries are linked to the global economy and follow rules of international trade, while the “Gap” does not.

Barnett said the “Gap” has been reducing in size as globalization is slowly spreading. However, since many terrorists have come from “Gap” countries, he said one of the best ways to move toward reducing terrorism and peacefully entering globalization is for developing nations to form alliances with “seam states,” or countries that are on the border of the “Gap.”

Barnett said three things are needed for this to be accomplished. First, he said, “Core” countries must improve their ability to withstand and mitigate 9/11-like “system perturbations.” His second point was that the “Core” must discretely filter out the “Gap’s” worst exports — such as pandemics, narcotics and terrorism — without affecting human migration trends.

“It is essential to keep immigration as wide open as politically feasible,” he said.

Barnett’s third point was to enhance and protect the “Core’s” security.

“Shrink the ‘Gap’ by exporting security to the worst sinkholes located there,” he said.

Making these countries stable, he said, will bring more investment to the global economy and create stronger linkages with the outside world. This can eventually create conditions to stabilize most countries, Barnett said.

The final result will be reduced international violence, when countries would become reliant on one another for economic prosperity and have reasons to avoid conflict, he said.

Barnett also noted that, since the end of the Cold War, U.S. military deployments have been in “Gap” countries.

David Jenkins, a junior in computer engineering, said in an interview after the lecture that Barnett’s ideas are pragmatic.

“His message was eye-opening. If all countries can become globalized, then war would decrease so much. That seems realistic.”

Remember the other day when I linked to that interview with Tom in Chinese? Turns out that was the second page. Oops. Why didn't anyone tell me? ;-)

Tom reminded me that he gave this interview back on February 1st in Oklahoma City.

Frank wrote in with this link, which is actually the first part of the interview. Thanks, Frank!

Let's run it through Google translation again:

According to Barnett : If China is ready to interview U.S. strategists action

Farewell press reports Wangqinchuan 1951 / influence over China's economic and political influence to larger security. From a long-term view, China will not only affect the world economy and into the mainstream. refused to concerns about the powers of the world are important safety issues involved

U.S.-China relations will become even closer, or even antagonistic atmosphere up? As is the rise of China as a world power, should be in the future and what kind of policy adjustment? With these questions in mind, Farewell recent telephone interview with a famous military strategist Barnett (Thomas PM Barnett).

Barnett held in 2004 and in 2005 published the "Pentagon's new blueprint" (The Pentag on ''s New Map, Putnam Publishing Group) and "Blueprint for Action : create a worthy future "(Blueprint for Action : A Future Worth Creating) two very forward-looking books, globalization, Sino-U.S. relations, the situation in the Middle East and other topics, be sure to check out unique insights into the United States after the publication of competing media reports. Barnett has been interpreted as future scientists, one of the most important strategic thinkers.

Barnett at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (University of Wisconsin-Mad ison) made Russian literature and international relations degree, and then specializing in the former Soviet Union. The situation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and other regions with the Marxist, and a doctorate in political science at Harvard University. Barnett then injected into the strategic field. from 1998 to 2004 had served as Naval Academy (the U.S.. Naval War Coil ge) Professor of the Department of Research and Strategic Analysis, and served as the school's director of strategic planning and advisory bodies. New World under the auspices of the rules of forming the Study of Globalization.

In addition, in 2001-2003 Barnett also served as a researcher at the U.S. Department of Defense strategic planning. During this period, Barnett gradually summed up the situation for the future of a unique idea. In future, "The Pentagon's new blueprint," a book extension. Since that "the ideal realists and the idealists reality," Barnett. At present, "fashionable" (Esquire) and the magazine editor Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center honor scholar; Barnett also provide strategic management of the military and civil service, In many speeches were held.

According to an interview the following summary : Barnett

The United States should give priority to economic benefits

Farewell : In your book, pointed out that globalization pillar of the new world system. is a series of "core functions (Functioning Core)" countries, including North America. most of South America, Europe, China, Japan, Russia, India, Australia and New Zealand and South Africa and other countries; Globalization and those with isolation Globalization has been forgotten corner was known as the "crack" (Non-Integrating Gap). also pose a threat to the security of the United States and the world black hole, do you think narrowing the "cracks" and increase its "core function" is the trend of the future, "cracks" to export "safe" ways to reduce, rather than export "democracy" But whether this means that the United States foreign policy in the future, we should abandon democracy and human rights? Output in what ways?

Barnett: The so-called "export security" is the time and effort on a global action against terrorism that the future of world peace can be achieved this goal. And reduce the "crack" at the end, besides the eradication of terrorism, dismantle terrorist fundamental pillars, on the other hand, these nations can also allow greater sharing of information and technology. In a globalized world, the close relations between the countries, rely on each other, it is no longer between "You lose my solitary wasp." "zero" absolute, but should be aware of the "double solitary wasp" in order to bring the greatest advantage. In addition, the impact of globalization, there is no so-called "rulers" and only rule makers.

As for the "export of democracy", many countries have their own integration and the development of democracy, After the Second World War, globalization in the country, with the development of politics. Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Russia, Mexico, in place since the development of democracy in these countries; Several countries that were one-party politics, but the checks and balances by the opposition parties, under the leadership of the competition will continue to be replaced, and the United States "exporting democracy", which is arbitrary, relatively speaking, the United States democracy after a long time. The results can be developed, it will focus on its democracy, than on economic development. The economy is on the road to promote democracy, the United States should give priority consideration to the economic benefits of choosing allies, in addition, should stop certain countries, such as China, as competitors, but as partners.

As for China's development, I believe China's economic influence on the political and security influence than many larger, From a long-term view, China will not only affect the world economy and into the mainstream. refuse to participate in the major world powers concerned about safety issues, because these security issues involved in the so-called political instability in the country, and China's economic interests, Therefore, China is not in pretending that their ability to maintain global stability. only in their own interests rather than their position clear. The future, if China is ready to take action, then China will greet the advent of globalization, the world will discover, China is represented in the context of globalization.

China will soon open political speed

Farewell : What do you think the Chinese side by side with the United States in the 21st century will become the most powerful, then the relationship between China and the United States, like the 20th rise in the relationship between the United States and Britain, But against this theory that you believe the suspects have overestimated China, because China's economy has developed rapidly course. But the development is uneven, the gap between the rich and the poor in urban and rural areas, the reform of the political system has no obvious signs. In addition, do you think the development of the market economy, will promote the democratic process, China's economy has developed rapidly and But democracy seems to "delay", then you…… based on the above theory?

Barnett : only have to look to the nations of the world. will find the same level of economic development in the region do not necessarily have the democratic process, However, the economy will have been developed democratic countries; So we can see that after promoting democracy and economic development, is the inevitable result.

Although China's future economic impact could reach the world's top two strong, But security in the world have played a major impact has been not even be said to be minimal. Therefore, I predict, if China wants to achieve a comprehensive democracy, and economic development, we still need some time, China's population and the excessive demand in the overall development is a concern. China in the next 20 to 30 years there will be a great change in the social structure. This question is to reduce the gap between rich and poor in China is indeed a challenge, But we can see that China is finding ways to improve this problem.

China's foreign influence, I can cite the example of the United States. Some of the poorest countries neighboring the United States in trade with the United States, the economic impact of gradually by the United States, stimulate the development of the United States and these countries, though not the United States, but has become a part of the economy, therefore, When more and more people into the country and China's economy, China will be more powerful and more able to contend with other countries. What I see is the tremendous opportunities in China, I think that China has not overestimate the strength China would develop under the conservative political and military aspects of the economy; However, I have to admit. China in the political, security is still a long way to go.

Moreover, I also believe that China should be responsible for the safety world, rather than a passive bystander standing position. China's human rights and freedom of expression issues, I think the outside world to exert pressure on the media and communication networks, political will and the pace of China's opening up and freedom of expression even more rapidly than people imagine. Although the Communist Party wants to permanently hold control, The United States currently does not have adequate leadership also open and forward-looking thinking. The Chinese, however, a new generation of leaders in the upcoming 2010-2015 succession Under the new leadership in China, I will be optimistic.

Despite Beijing dominate Taiwan?

Farewell : What do you think the United States should abandon its policy on Taiwan ambiguous stance, explicitly says it will abandon Taiwan, alliance with Beijing's wishes. If the United States displayed in Beijing to launch military action to protect Taiwan at all costs, then it might act. at the time of their choice to stir up controversy, but it will be connected into the United States and trigger a war between the United States and Beijing. So do you think the United States should set up a military-strategic alliance with Beijing and Chau established organizations like NATO, so, to take the lead. But this idea does it mean that the United States should abandon Taiwan, despite Beijing dominate Taiwan?

Barnett : The question is not whether the United States will approach the Taiwan "so" to Beijing to take over Taiwan if Beijing. It was just a process, the ultimate goal of economic integration. And Beijing, will bring great benefits. Establish an economic alliance in Asia, the economic integration and shared interests, China will be like Germany, India, the French equivalent. Japan, like Switzerland, the economy is promising.

However, the economic system should be established only after the military alliance, after the military alliance countries can share information and energy strategies Under such circumstances, if a war breaks out between Asian countries is absolutely no benefit. War not only lowered the national military defense force, all countries will detract from the trust, if the military alliance. were willing to cooperate with the United States, both of the United States, Beijing, Taiwan, Japan or Korea. The absolute most important thing is to share the hands of military resources.

Therefore, in East Asia to establish a military alliance similar to NATO, it will be worthwhile and feasible strategy United States military forces in Asia will then be seconded to the Middle East and Africa, but also for military cooperation with China. After the military alliance should also hastened economic alliance, political and economic development together; Nevertheless, Taiwan and the mainland will not resort to force, because both sides believe that cooperation is the best way to achieve double solitary wasp, In cooperation with the United States, North Korea and East Asia will be able to find the problem.

(To be continued)

ARTICLE: Report calls for unity on postwar rebuilding: The State and Defense departments should be forced to join forces in the future to avoid a repeat of Iraq, the study says, By Julian E. Barnes, LA Times, March 22, 2007

No surprise. The IG looking at Iraq recommends a "unity of command" on future postwar efforts.

The movement toward the Department of Everything Else continues ...

Thanks to John Mooney and Tyler Durden for sending this.

Are a dry run on impeachment.

Bush is warned on what the Dems will do if he crosses certain lines before the end of his term.

Make no mistake: this "crisis" or "showdown" is nothing, the signal is everything.

This is pre-emptive, asymmetrical political warfare.

Given the international stakes, I approve--for the sake of this country and the world.

Overreaction?

Not with this administration's record.

And no, please don't offer analysis of this process WRT to either Clinton's impeachment or his previous treatment of U.S. attorneys. Those data points have little to do with this effort at political deterrence.

Signal-to-noise hard to fathom for some, easier for others.

I search "Thomas P.M. Barnett" on Google news and get this one in The Korea Times for last weeks' "global family" column:

But I don't get the two where I know it appears: Knoxville and Scripps.

Then I search "Thomas Barnett" and get none of those but come up with this one Times Daily from northern Alabama, where they apparently don't approve of my middle initials. This one is my Chinese male/female ratio column from the week before.

Then I search "Ngewa" on news and just get the Korea Times one again.

Then I search "Ngewa" on the blogs and get Deseret News.

Plus this Inside China News technology-focused site (this takes you just to site, because to see article requires laborious registration process).

Plus another one that's ag-focused but comes from the same China News site.

Plus one from a Kenya News blog aggregator site.

Plus a News Boob site I never got to open.

Then I search "Thomas P.M. Barnett" on blogs and get a Press of Atlantic City hit (although link doesn't work).

And so on and so on.

Isn't it sort of sad and weird that this is the best I can do on flagship Google?

Am I just stupid on how to search better or is this just the state of the art. I mean, even Scripps says they can't give me a decent read, and they distribute it!

Foreign policy: Distinguishing dedication from commitment

I recently spent some time with an old friend who commands a big chunk of America's overseas military. This natural-born leader explains the difference between dedication and commitment as follows: the chicken is dedicated to your breakfast, but the pig is committed.

Think about the wide chasm, and you'll come to the same conclusion I have about where our nation's foreign policy has gone so incredibly wrong under President George W. Bush. We've committed ourselves to specific outcomes where we should remain dedicated to broader goals.

Read on at Knox News.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Early Column Sighting: Press of Atlantic City

Pride of place goes to a couple of weblogs that got tagged as 'Thinking Bloggers'. Both China Law Blog and Asia Logistics Wrap were selected AND recommended Tom as a thinking blogger. Congratulations, guys, and thanks.

+ Long-time contributor TM Lutas linked Unity of effort requires unity of command.
+ So did My Dogs are Smarter.
+ So did Hot soup in my eye.
+ So did A Second Hand Conjecture.

+ Generation Watch says Tom's his favorite person to read on the Internet.
+ The Writing on the Wal linked Wal-Mart IS the bottom of the pyramid!.
+ PurpleSlog writes that he has bought into Tom's ideas, to a large extent.
+ The Opinionated Bastard linked A hopeful sign on sanctions.
+ Mutant Palm linked Opposed Systems Design linked Told'ya so.
+ relevanTomorrow linked What China will do with its money is what all people do with their money: use it to make them richer.
+ ZenPundit linked Tom on Google Video: Conversations with History.
+ Red Hill Kudzu says Tom is really interesting.
+ New Yorker in DC linked Somalia: this won’t be pretty for the AU.
+ Pennypack Post linked History will say on postwar Iraq....
+ Brad DeLong linked Tom at UT yesterday.

More later

ARTICLE: “Beyond the egg: The global vaccines industry is undergoing a renaissance,” The Economist, 10 March 2007, p. 65.

ARTICLE: “For Booming Biotech Firms, A New Threat: Generics: Democrats’ Bills Would Clear Way for Copies; Preparations in Croatia,” by Ana Wilde Mathews and Leila Abboud, Wall Street Journal, 14 March 2007, p. A1.

All this connectivity forced upon the world by globalization is doing great things for disease treatments inside the Gap by making us all feel so much more vulnerable to pandemics. As such, vaccines, which “used to be seen as low-technology, commodity products that fetched low margins in rich countries and none at all in poor ones,” are now no longer viewed as dogs to be avoided but serious money makers worth throwing some serious investments at in the hope of global sales.

Better yet, as biotech firms lose their privileged status as companies that don’t face the competition of generics (inevitably produces in New Core states eager to break into the biz, like Croatia cited here), we’ll see even better products at cheaper prices all over the Gap.

Great stuff.

GLOBAL VIEW COLUMN: “Who Needs Nukes,” by Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 20 March 2007, p. A18.

In general, I like Bret Stephens, but he writes in such a sarcastic way at times that I think he’s too clever by half, meaning he often buries his lead.

He starts off by saying that nukes are “going out of fashion where they are needed most and coming into fashion where they are needed least.”

Again, a bit too cute.

Nukes have never gone out of fashion among great powers that already have them. Yes, we fuss here and there with arms control reductions that make the masses and certain eggheads very happy, but the U.S. will never get rid of them, any more than any other nation with significant holdings will ever get rid of them. It’s a club worth belonging to--pure and simple.

Nukes are not coming into fashion where they “are needed least,” but rather with countries who are truly roguish in their behavior and yet seek--in the post-9/11 environment--serious hedges against the possibility of U.S.-led invasion. That’s a whopping two states known as North Korea and Iran, the surviving members of the “axis of evil.” Nobody else is seriously pursuing nuclear weapons, because basically everyone else is convinced that their relationships with the great powers and especially with the United States is such that, in the event of serious crisis, our nukes will be used to deter certain escalations from happening.

But even with Iran and North Korea, it’s clear that nukes are for having, not using. If either just wanted a nuke to be able to pop one off pronto, it would have done that a long time ago. No, both regimes want nukes primarily as bargaining chips with the U.S., as both see their antagonistic relationship with us as their primary international security issue. Neither state would gain any “hegemony” over anybody else by threatening the use of nukes. They’d simply invite U.S. strikes.

Having said all that, I am one who will never argue against modernizing our nuclear arsenal nor maintaining it at a level that makes it clear to anybody on the planet that we can and will vaporize them under certain intolerable conditions and/or acts of aggression.

Without a doubt, nukes have been the best thing that’s ever happened to great power relations, effectively killing great power war (unless you think it a strange coincidence that as soon as nukes were invented and used in 1945, great power warfare disappeared from the planet, never to appear again).

Of course, the threat of such war’s return always lingers, and that’s why retaining nukes in sufficient numbers will make sense for the foreseeable future, no matter the weird, self-indulgent guilt trips foisted upon us by scientists and aging statesmen.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: “U.S. to Cut Off Macau Bank: Move Follows Probe of North Korean Ties, Could Hinder Nuclear Talks,” by Neil King Jr. and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, 13 March 2007, p. A4.

ARTICLE: “U.S. Cautions Foreign Companies on Iran Deals: Oil and Gas Assistance Could Lead to Penalties,” by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 21 March 2007, p. C1.

The Bush administration’s push against the Banco Delta Asia bank in Macau is interesting to watch. The whole SARBOX/Patriot Act rule set was basically America telling the world, “this is the new minimum level security practices you must adhere to or we’ll run you out of business.” Riggs bank in DC was set up as the example case, and the bank, which was way lax on keeping tabs on its most nefarious customers, was forced to sell itself to PNC. Poof! Just like that, the “bank of presidents” was gone.

That sent a real chill and signaled just how serious the government was about these new rules.

Now, with North Korea and Iran, we’re seeing a similar exporting of our internal rule sets.

With Banco Delta, we’re being very Patriot Act, basically saying, “we know your bad customers and if you don’t treat them as such, we’ll treat you as such by cutting off any financial connectivity with the U.S. financial system. Decide for yourself which line of business is more important.”

With Iran, Bush is using a Clinton law to warn energy companies and foreign governments about long-term investments in Iran, getting better responses for now from our European friends (who love sanctions per se) than our Asian ones (India and China are definitely going to invest a lot in Iran, one way or another, simply because they have little choice given the rapid ramp up of their energy needs).

Tricky business, because--of course--we’re learning just how useful it can be to have China on our side on a host of troubling situations around the world. Just name a situation or nasty regime, and I’ll tell you how we’re quickly realizing that China’s on the far side of that equation.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: “Bush’s Aid Policy Prods Countries: Yemen and Lesotho Embrace Overhauls; The Gambia Balks,” by Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal, 14 March 2007, p. A6.

ARTICLE: “China Is Forming Agency To Invest Foreign Reserves: A $1 trillion hoard resulting from Beijing’s huge trade surpluses,” by Jim Yardley and David Barboza, New York Times, 10 March 2007, p. B3.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS: “Advocates of Borderless Money Temper Outlook for Benefits,” by David Wessel, Wall Street Journal, 15 March 2007, p. A4.

The Millennium Challenge Corp is probably the most innovative thing the Bush administration has done, because it’s all about making clear to developing economies what the standards are for emergence.

In 2005, on his first day as head of President Bush’s signature foreign-aid program, John Danilovich’s to-do list included the unpleasant task of telling Yemen’s president that his reform efforts had slipped so badly that the country was being cut off.

Last month, Mr. Danilovich phoned Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh with better news: Yemen was back on the list of countries eligible for grants from the Millennium Challenge program.

What happened during those 15 months is evidence of the potential ripple effects of the high-profile aid program--and the power of the threat to publicly shame countries that veer off the path of economic and political overhaul.

In short, it’s all about being credentialed by the biggest aid donor (size, not per GDP) in the world.

My favorite example to date: Lesotho previously treated women the same as kids in terms of legal rights, unable to buy land or borrow money. We told them no good if you want MCC credentials:

With the Millennium Challenge Corp. pressing for changes, the Lesotho Parliament passed a law in November putting married women on equal legal footing with their husbands.

Only twice have countries been suspended: the nice Yemen story and the un-nice Ghana one (human rights abuses).

So America basically has a hedge fund of very small amounts (only $3b granted to date), but one that focuses on getting countries to acceptable thresholds.

Meanwhile, China puts together a fund that may command as much as half a trillion dollars and make financial investments (obviously different from grants, but in many instances not as much as you might assume) both at home and abroad. Naturally, China will be focused on making money as opposed to--as the leadership likes to put it--“interfering in the internal affairs” of other countries.

It’ll be interesting to watch the demonstration effects of each.

Why do I say this?

The last article (from the always great “Politics & Economics” column in the WSJ) notes some recent research that suggests that the freer flow of investments in and of itself isn’t the big change agent in terms of volume (as in, more money equals more change), but rather that the sheer connectivity of accepting money from the outside and sending it abroad forces a lot of positive rule-set changes.

In short, exposure to global capital markets ups a country’s game, forces financial markets and firms to be more efficient, offers businesses and consumers better terms for borrowing and lending, reduces opening for corruption and discourages short-sighted domestic economic policies. It isn't the money; it’s the collateral benefits.

In other words, there’s the policy connectivity of encouraging new rules explicitly, and there’s the financial connectivity of encouraging new rules implicitly.

Both can be very positive.

This has been a brutal month, but a little less brutal this weekend, cause Kev came along for a Baltimore-DC trip.

Friday we did the Archives, Ford Theater, got turned away at Pentagon (3-week notice to sign up for tour, I was shocked to discover), and spent rest of afternoon at Air & Space (8 kills for our combined team in the fighter simulation).

Saturday I got up at the Baltimore hotel where we stayed (Marriot Waterfront) and briefed about 700 naval officers at a supply community conference. Great audience. Two giant screens. I wandered around the ballroom so much I wore myself out with the blooming allergies coming on.

Kev and I spent rest of day in Baltimore, just wandering around the waterfront. Highlight? Learning how to ride Segways at the Science Museum and getting to toodle around on them. You don't just stand on them, it's a constant exercise in isometrics and balance. Very intuitive.

Today we had breakfast with my old mentor Hank Gaffney in Bethesda and then did Udvar-Hazy at Dulles, which was stunning. Seeing Enola Gay totally restored was really something. A museum worth visiting once in your life.

I am so tired of travel, but spending all that time with Kevin this weekend was a lot of fun.

View of National Archives from below, just as you enter the exhibition hall. Kevin, convinced a treasure map is drawn on the back of the Declaration of Independence, is armed with lemon juice and a plan to steal it.

We shall see....

Kev got both Declaration and Constitution--only $14!

ARTICLE: China's Military Proposes Cooperation, By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press, Mar 23, 2007

Thanks to Brandon Winters for sending this.

ARTICLE: Iran threatens `illegal' nuclear steps, Associated Press, Mar 21, 2007

What would you expect him to say in response? "My bad"?

This is a negotiation and Tehran didn't care for our latest offering. Don't hang on such exchanges for understanding. It's like trying to figure out a football game by only listening to referee calls.

Thanks to Steven in Minnesota for sending this.

ARTICLE: The perils of “parapolitics”, The Economist, Mar 22nd 2007

Very interesting piece. Reads almost like an internal intervention led by a tough-but-fair leader (Uribe) with lots of mil aid from outside (US). In this push, you see all the same dynamics and challenges of any post-conflict nation-building (bolstering internal security forces, rehabbing baddies, extending networks of police that trigger the return of just enough social trust, and all of these things leading to the sine qua non of recovery: rising FDI.

Long way to go, yes, but very encouraging and proving the utility of the great leader with vision.

I get a lot of readers and audience members trying to get me to upgrade Latin America from sort of bad to truly ugly, in effect asking, what will it take to get us down there militarily?

I always have a hard time doing that, because I think the process will simply be slow and steady and largely economic, since I have a hard time coming up with serious military interventions down there, even with Chavez (despite reports to the contrary, I have never declared Chavez's overthrow to be necessary, much less imminent; actually you need the counter-example to prove your point on markets, as Chavez will do nicely soon enough).

I would love to see Colombia escape any downstream international intervention of the sort I sketched at the end of BFA. But there's a lot of ground to be successfully covered between Uribe's current achievements and a Colombian government that actually controls all its territory.

But it's good to remain optimistic, which is why I only rarely write about Latin America in a security sense.

Thanks to Steve Pampinella for sending this.

I never dreamed we'd get linked on Gawker. But Tom's post where he mentions meeting Esquire EIC David Granger's in-laws scored a mention. Crazy.

Spoke at U Tennessee Wednesday to mix of locals and students and faculty. Maybe 250.

Went 75 with 15 Q&A. Bit sloppy on my phrasing, and like so many college audiences, this one pretty serious and wouldn't laugh too much.

Afterwards met parents-in-law of David Granger, editor-in-chief of Esquire. They said "our little David" hasn't changed one bit since leaving the volunteer state, and that makes them all the more proud of his achievements. That was kinda cool and unexpected! Naturally, I praised David to the hilt, because he's been a great influence on and promoter of my work.

After the talk, I go about an hour with a class who had read PNM for their globalization class. That was a lot of fun.

Then a working dinner in Oak Ridge at the lab, then all-day meetings today.

Just a 2-day, 1-night trip! Pure heaven.

After getting back with Kev from DC Sunday night, I flew to Tampa first thing Monday morning and keynoted a security cooperation conference there chaired by Deputy Commander of Centcom, VADM Dave Nichols.

Spoke in big, cool auditorium to about 250 officers all in desert cammies.

Real thrill was during minutes before talk as place fills up. Officer after officer walks up, intro's self and tells me how My books/briefs/articles influenced his work in this or that billet.

My favorite? Guy who saw me at NDU two years ago, then goes to OSD and is told to read PNM in order to get ready to help write DOD directive 3000. Again, the word "guidebook" is used.

After several sloppy-phrasing deliveries over the past week or so, this one was dead on. I spoke faster and more clearly than I think I ever have. I was completely in the zone. I credit it simply to catching up on sleep and not switching so many time zones so rapidly.

You may remember Nichols from the piece Ignatius wrote about his use of PNM as a strategic guide to his planning while head of naval forces in Central Command.

Well, Nichols gave me a really fantastic introduction, saying he still uses PNM as a guidebook for his work as Deputy Commander of CENTCOM and that the vision infuses a lot of CENTCOM planning. If I never got another compliment in my career, hell, if this was the ONLY compliment I ever got in my career, it would be more than enough for me.

Remembering all the reviews I've gotten over the year about how my stuff isn't practical and can't be used in any real planning sense, and then having the sorts of experiences I've had this month in Africa with CJTF-HOA, in the Med with our naval/NATO forces, and yesterday in Tampa ... well, it's both gratifying and indicative of how detached from reality the average academic pinhead reviewer is. Those weenies like to review my stuff from their academic perches, criticizing my theory. Their own problem is that I'm not a theoretician but an active, career-spanning practitioner of strategic planning whose main client has always been and will always be the U.S. military. What I do, and what my impact is, is but slightly glimpsed by the outside and when it is, it's rarely interpreted correctly (Ignatius the Wise is a rare person in this regard, like Jaffe). What I write down for publications is a refracted view of that world, delivered to the best of my ability and delivered for maximum understanding while protecting the equities of those whose trust I value as they value mine.

But this is all primping, silly-ass stuff to begin with.

If I had wanted the approval of a bunch of pinhead academics, I would have stayed in academia back in 1990 (and no, I was never an academic at the Naval War College, which was a big part of my problem there). Instead, I have always sought a different audience with a very different goal: to lead a worldwide revolution in thinking about the seam between war and peace.

Judging by my travels this month, my side is definitely winning.

And I'm very proud to be a small but crucial part of that historical process.

Many thanks to Tyler Durden for hosting me yesterday at CENTCOM, and yes, Tyler, I still want that write-up and that POC info.

Briefed over 100 financial investors in Milwaukee over lunch today at the athletic club. They belong to the Chartered Financial Analyst global network, which is:

Membership

CFA Institute is comprised of more than 89,000 individual voting members and 134 member societies across the globe that believe in setting a higher standard for the investment profession. Individual members either hold the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation or are active in the investment business and all agree to abide by the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.

Governance

The CFA Institute Board of Governors consists of 20 individuals who represent a cross-section of the CFA Institute membership.

Locations

With members in 131 countries around the world, CFA Institute has headquarters in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, and offices in Hong Kong, London, and New York. CFA Institute is a 501(c)(6) organization incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

It's basically a worldwide professional association that trains up its members to global standards of investing. Good definition of a New Core country? One that has a new CFA group, like Turkey.

What was fun for me: yesterday at CENTCOM I did a 50-minute brief. That's 25 "white slides" that I count at 2 minutes per slide (I don't count the black transition slides). To do the brief today for the investors, I keep 15 and swapped out ten. I love having a core brief that doesn't change much but which is easily adapted to different audiences through the swapping out of the secondary slides. Plus, I like the fact that I don't have to change the brief that much for senior officers at CENTCOM or financial investors in Milwaukee. In effect, the message is very similar, just delivered a bit differently.

Good questions afterwards, plus good discussion.

The title reference: I have the "Milwaukee package" in Packer season tix (2nd and fifth home games that used to be played in Milwaukee).

ARTICLE: McCaffrey Paints Gloomy Picture of Iraq: In Contrast to His Previous Views, Retired General Writes of 'Strategic Peril', By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post , March 28, 2007; Page A11

People have hung on McCaffrey's word for years WRT Iraq, and I've found his reports to be highly accurate.

Here he cites some good reasons for optimism but likewise underscores the solid reasons for long-term pessimism.

In weighing both judgments, you can't help but get the feeling that Bush and Co. are simply running out the clock, hoping to barrow the score as much as possible but not making the desperate run to pull out any win.

The diplomatic offensive is similarly arrayed: just enough to get some short-term progress (perhaps on Palestine) but not enough to force any comprehensive advance on any timetable Bush can complete.

As long as this mix of short- and long-term signals continue to be sent, I would expect similarly half-hearted attempts from all concerned: all will make moves that look like an openness to serious concessions but none will quite follow through in any breakthrough manner. They all just want it on the record for the next administration that they've been trying as hard as anyone else to make things work.

Meanwhile, the Dems will do everything conceivable to tie Bush's hand in case Rice is being set up on Iran just like Powell was set up on Iraq. They are wise and correct to do this, because the danger of some stupid kinetic reach for quick solutions near the end of the term will be large, given the temptation of such an approach to those in this administration who believe that restoring power to the presidency is their real historical legacy.

Would I like to be able to argue for a better outcome still on Bush's watch? You bet.

But here's where the lack of strategic imagination in this crowd comes to haunt us, reminding us that Bush's second term was a profound electoral mistake.

ARTICLE: "Venezuelan consumers gobble up U.S. goods: Despite political tension, U.S. companies do well," by David J. Lynch, USA Today, 28 March 2007, p. 1A.

No, not the fact that Venezuela's oil boom allows average citizens there to indulge their inner American.

Here's why:

Few manufacturers are doing better than General Motors ...

GM, which has sold cars here since World war II, literally can't make vehicles fast enough to satisfy Venezuelan buyers. Its local plant, housed on "General Motors Avenue" in an industrial district near this city's airport, added a third shift in 2006 and is running flat-out producing more than 20 models.

But rather than expand capacity to meet ravenous demand GM--like other U.S. companies--is importing additional products. With Chavez, a self-described revolutionary, promising a grandiose "socialism for the 21st century," new multi-billion-dollar investments are just too risky.

"Commercially, the country's in a good moment. But I don't think this is sustainable in the long term ... The truth is, there's no more investment coming in," says Michael Penfold, former executive director of Venezuela's investment promotion agency.

I wonder which Chavez cousin got his job. I'm sure he's amazingly unqualified--besides his birth.

ARTICLE: "Our Atomic Future: It'me to take another look at nuclear power," by William Tucker, Wall Street Journal, 28 March 2007, p. A16.

Great article that makes point few people get as of yet: nukes don't only come in one size--gigantic.

The ones that got and get built tend to fall in the 1,200-1,500 MW range, just like coal-fired electricity plants, but we've had the capacity on nukes to go as low as 5 MW for decades, and with pebble-beds weighing in roughly at 250 MW (ideally, says MIT researchers), then it's clear we have a wide lower range to explore.

And here's the connectivity kicker: these smaller plants are ideal for more remote and off-grid locations. And with pebble-beds, you have the capacity to crack hydrogen and crank potable water as by-products.

Cool wrap-up para:

The only reasonable scenario for avoiding global warming is to substitute nuclear power for coal as our prime source of base-load electricity, supplementing it with wind and solar electricity for our spinning reserve and peaking-power needs. If Al Gore were to support a nuclear-solar alliance--a joint effort by carbon-free technologies to impose a tax on carbon emissions--we could take giant steps toward solving the problem.

Guess who's pushing pebble-beds?

New Core South Africa.

New Core, new rules.

Travel for March (31 flights) is finally over.

Now I hold down the fort while wife takes eldest daughter and mom on vacation.

Last night in Milwaukee at Wisconsin Club was my last speech of month to family-run investment house headed up by a laconic patriarch of North Dakotan birth. Last guy they had in was Charlie Wilson.

Very interesting discussion. Took owner's wife back just a bit after she lamented China's cultural assault on Tibet when I compared it to the fate of the Lakota.

Progress is as progress does.

Still, won her over with my PPT wizardry, which she took delight in due to her love of computing. She guessed correctly that I pattern my delivery on stand-up comics, but was surprised at how much I likewise study televangelists.

Naturally, my Packer ties impressed most.

ARTICLE: Senate Bill Aims to Attract Civilian Volunteers to Strife-Torn Areas of the World, By Tim Starks, CQ Staff, March 27, 2007

Lead to this subscriber-only story:

A Senate panel likely will approve legislation Wednesday that would establish a civilian reserve corps to provide reconstruction expertise in countries damaged by war and other strife.

One small step for Congress, one tiny leap toward the SysAdmin force and the DoEE.

Thanks to Chris Mewett for sending this.

ARTICLE: Slowdown in U.S. Navy Program Could Benefit Shipbuilder Austal

ARTICLE: Marines, others clamor for new armored trucks, By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, March 27, 2007

Count me among those who see this as a tit-for-tat on the recent sanctions announcement, plus the non-talks with US at regional Iraq conference.

Iran wants our attention and this trolley car came down the street, so they jumped on.

For the hard-liners with Ahmadinejad, they hope we'll bite on the "act of war" hyperbole that naturally flows from our neocons.

For the non-hardliners, they're hoping they can force talks by striking against our proxy (UK) instead of us.

Me? I expect Bush and Co. to screw this up royally or simply use it as a pretext for striking--perhaps employing a proxy.

But this was inevitable once we started arresting Iran's people in Iraq. Conflation, pure and simple. Like with Hezbollah last August, Iran's intent on proving it can conflate the region's various tensions at will, as always, striking against our proxies.

ARTICLE: A 'Law & Order' Presidential Candidate? Actor, Ex-Senator Thompson May Run, By Michael D. Shear, Washington Post, Thursday, March 29, 2007; Page A01

Thompson is getting kinda weird.

To me, at least, Michael Moriaty's original DA character on "Law & Order" was based on that legendary Southern District of NY prosecutor Rudy G.

So this is becoming an "L&O" intra-show scrum.

ARTICLE: "Starr to Invest In Real Estate Inside Russia," by Liam Pleven, Wall Street Journal, 26 March 2007, p. C3.

A group set up by Hank Greenberg is diving in. He'll focus on prime office space, hotels and residential housing.

A Starr spokesman says the company is "comfortable' about the political situation there.

Compare that to yesterday's post on Chavez and you begin to see why Russia is Core and Venezuela is Gap.

ARTICLE: "Intel Aims to Build Bigger Profile in China: Chip Plant Is Designed To Court Local Clients, Government Officials," by Don Clark, Wall Street Journal, 26 March 2007, p. B6.

The reverse domino in action: Vietnam needed that $1B chip plant to keep up with the Joneses to the north who are getting a $2.5 B chip plant.

So Intel sinks $3.5B into East Asia--just like that!

This is big step for Intel. Past plants in China was just for packaging and testing. This is a pure build play.

ARTICLE: "Tsang Retains Leader's Post In Hong Kong," by Jonathan Cheng, Wall Street Journal, 26 March 2007, p. A6.

ARTICLE: "Shanghai To Be Led by rising Star With Pro-Market Reputation," by Jason Dean, Wall Street Journal, 26 March 2007, p. A6.

Tsang gets his second, rather fixed term, and yet look at what everyone says is his mandate? Moving HK to popular free elections.

Meanwhile a Fifth Gen leader is named to take over the Party in Shanghai, armed with his PhD in Law and the type of career that has led him to cross paths repeatedly--and with purpose on both sides--with US SECTREAS Paulson.

Xi is expected to be named to the Politburo at the Party Congress later this year--one to watch.

We'll be performing some much needed maintenance to Tom's website tomorrow morning. Access and performance may be spotty during that time. Thanks for your patience.

Ok, everything's back to normal.

Well, hopefully better than normal.

Remember my post about importing all of the old posts? Well, I did ultimately have to hire outside help. He worked on it this morning, and I think everything is pretty well fixed now.

Not that too many of you will notice. One noticeable thing is the much greater length on the Archives list at right.

ARTICLE: Interview - Michael Wynne: US Secretary of the Air Force, By Caitlin Harrington, Jane's Defense Weekly, 26 March 2007

As I have said many times and at the start of BFA, Iraq transforms transformation, bringing from air to ground, from NCW to 4GW, from Phase III to IV, and from USN and USAF to USA and USMC.

Thanks to Doron Ben-Avraham for sending this.

Tom got this email:

Dear Mr. Barnett,

It is after 3 AM and I can't sleep for the third night after reading "The Pentagon's New Map." I'm processing a lifetime of study of many disciplines into a unified whole. This may sound hokey, but I believe I'm going through a religious experience. For the first time in my life I feel that my "self" is connected to all the billions of "selves" in the world. Your vision of the future of globalization has shown me an new way of thinking - a practical faith in the future

Being that I am the son of two survivors of the Holocaust in Poland, over many years I have sought the global connectivity you discuss but on psychological, intra-psychic level. Until I read your book, I didn't realize that due to my parents' experience, and the persecution I experienced as a child, subconsciously I felt abandoned by the world, even after living in this country since 1958.

I've met many people in this country who have much sympathy for my legacy, but you're the only one with a practical, proactive vision that goes beyond America. It's funny how the Lord works in mysterious ways. I bought your book for $4.95 at a discount store, only because it was cheap and the title interested me. Now, I can not put a price on it.

I hope you don't mind if I write my thought to you while I'm going through this metamorphosis. You need not respond, as I know that you understand exactly what I'm talking about.

ARTICLE: Olympic Trials for Polluted Beijing, By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post , March 30, 2007; Page A01

Attempts to brand Beijing 2008 as the "genocide Olympics" is hypocrisy at its worst: America won't do a damn thing to stop the janjaweed, so it's ALL CHINA'S FAULT, as if the cessation of their investments would bring the mass murdering to an end (yes that would immediately make things better, you just know).

What '08 will really represent (and I've been pushing this concept since the June 2001 workshop atop WTC1 with Cantor Fitzgerald on enviro damage in Asia) is a global and China-specific tipping point on environmental damage from rapid industrialization there, plus the larger reality that China's on the verge of becoming the world's biggest CO2 emitter.

Many embarrassments will result from the bad air, and China will end up being super-motivated to erase that reputational damage.

Plus the world will end up having an even bigger discussion on global warming.

In the end, both will be good things.

As for Darfur, Hollywood bullshit artists better get over their hatred for the U.S. Military if they want that horror show stopped.

ARTICLE: "Why Private Colleges Are Surging in India," by Paul Gladner and Peter Wonacott, Wall Street Journal, 29 March 2007, p. B1.

ARTICLE: "Mergers and Acquisitions No Longer Shock Japanese," by Martin Fackler, New York Times, 29 March 2007, p. C1.

I often think back to all the writings about how capitalism in Asia was going to be so different from that in the West. They are more communal, more statist and less given to hyper-competitiveness and the edge-seeking behavior of Westerners.

And yet watch socialist India accept a boom in private education and the Japanese allowing for M&A--even hostile takeovers! Their "distinct" forms of capitalism are looking more familiar by the day.

Yes, differences will always remain, but years from now it's not like we're going to look back and recognize only common ancestors, as so many breathless analyses of yesterday made it out to be. Instead of converging toward something not quite us or them, their evolution seems to mirror ours plenty, with each rationalizing stage seeing their further acceptance of behaviors and policies that--only years earlier--would have been unthinkably "cruel" (the loss of past custom) and "heartless" (watch especially the similar "breakdown" in social relations).

There's Hindu and Shinto and Confucian, and then there's the reality of modern life.

WEBSITE: DEBKAfile: Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security

You just wonder how much Condi's getting played ...

Remember how Bush-Cheney sold Iraq, so assume they'll go much harder on Iran. It'll have to be an ultimate imminent threat.

Thanks to Ole Strömgren for sending this.

Ole, BTW, gets a shout out near the end of Coram's "Boyd."

Saw "Meet the Robinsons" with kids tonight, and was disturbed somewhat by the orphan-baby-left-on-doorstep scenario--exactly Vonne Mei's story.

I realized that she watches this movie and doesn't pick up on it yet, but that ours days for such bliss are numbered.

Eventually we have this question and this discussion. Movie was nice enough, just didn't answer that mail per se.

I don't expect it to be bad. I just don't expect it to be easy.

A lot of readers, most notably those we've picked up from Hewitt, wonder why I don't stick firmly with Bush/Petraeus during the surge. They wonder why I would argue that it's a good thing for Dems to tie Bush's hands in his remaining time.

So let me reiterate to be clear:

I supported Bush's Big Bang decision to topple Saddam. To me, it was never about WMD, which is an overblown fear (it's not the ultimate Rubicon now that global war is off the agenda, it's just a super-weapon that we must deal with). To me, it was about a rule-set breaker who flouted the will of the global community for years on end. We got up the nerve to stop him in the early 1990s, and then, true to our Powell Doctrine roots at that time, we refused to finish the job.

9/11 happens and we respond to the apparent source in Afghanistan. Then Bush and neocons get up the nerve to finish the job in Iraq, ending the horror of the sanctions regimes, finally rescuing the courageous Kurds (well on their way to nationhood thanks to the northern fly zone), and giving the Shiia a chance to avenge the genocidal warfare rained upon them by Saddam with our implicit okay in the early 1990s (our southern no-fly zone eventually ends that). The Sunni Serbs responded as expected, Al Qaeda and others take advantage, and the insurgency begins.

The insurgency need not have grown so formidable, but the Ford reruns of this administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld) knew what they knew: 1) don't do Vietnams and 2) restore the presidency destroyed by Watergate. So they planned a truly brilliant war (Just Cause on steroids) and then with almost criminal neglect they didn't bother to plan for the peace, and stubbornly fought the postwar's entire unfolding.

Bush, so decisive in the first term when it came to kinetics, is lost when it comes to the non-kinetics. Saddled with two amazingly weak SECSTATES, both of whom were picked to be exactly that (weak, talking-point deliverers and nothing more), this administration has been adrift the entire second term, just as I feared (thus my call for Kerry). Bush was effective in changing the rule sets and putting the Middle East's board in play, but he's been amazingly ineffective when it comes to convincing others to adhere to that new rule set, in large part because he lacks--along with his entire administration--any significant strategic imagination.

Bush refused to take advantage of the changes he himself set so effectively in motion in the region. There was a huge groundswell of change across the Middle East the first 18 months following the war. When he had the chance to start regional dialogues that addressed the real fights of the region (Iran v Israel, Iran v Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda v House of Saud), he did not. He stubbornly stayed the course in Iraq, pretending an internal solution was possible in what quickly and logically became a regional conflict that all players on all sides are effectively conflating in a host of asymmetrical ways.

Bush's first great answer was to rerun the entire WMD drama on Iran.

Bush's second great answer was the surge. As I wrote several times earlier: the surge with serious regional diplomacy--that I would gladly support.

But the surge without serious regional and international diplomacy--that I do not support.

I do not support it because it is designed to fall.

I do not support it because I think it's Bush's ruse to Iranify the Long War.

I think that if Bush attacks Iran on his watch, he'll screw up the Big Bang permanently and could quite easily trigger a long-term rivalry with Russia and China in the region.

I find these pathways beyond stupidity, and so I do not support them.

People who act like you either support Bush's mismanagement of this postwar or you're un-American are myopic in the extreme. They're acting like we should put our entire team on the field for the extra point when we need to score a couple more touchdowns before the game clock runs out.

We are told: Why negotiate with people who don't want us to win?

I will tell you why: because we're not going to win--or lose. We're either going to keep the Big Bang rolling or we're going to let it die and let the region go right back to what it was. Not every play in this game is going to be for positive yardage. Sometimes we'll punt and play for field position.

And yeah, when we screw up royally, we'll take our medicine.

We've screwed up Iraq (outside of Kurdistan) and if we want to cut down our exposure, we'll have to accept many compromises. You can get mad about that and blame Bush or you can get mad about that and pretend the Left "stabbed us in the back." But stubborn is as stubborn does and Bush made all the big decisions, so whine about that or move along, because when the Dems tie his hands now it's not about preventing some illusory "win" in Iraq, it's about stopping a strategically idiotic war with Iran, which won't fix Iraq but make our entire effort there to date a complete waste of blood and treasure.

Bush, in my mind, has no idea how to win at this point. He pretends we can screw up and then take no pain for our efforts, so he eschews negotiations with people who have no intention of helping anyone but themselves (duh!). So both they, and everyone else involved in Iraq will continue to screw us, and both our blood and our treasure will continue to go largely wasted until Bush loses the stubbornness or simply leaves office.

I have no anticipation of Bush gaining strategic smarts any time soon, nor Cheney, whose Manichean world view makes him far more of a menace to America than any of our enemies. So I want the clock to run out on them with no further damage being inflicted on our strategic position.

I want to win. I just don't pretend we can come back on a single drive from being behind several scores.

As for those who do, they're free to have their own opinions.

But I can't peddle that sort of crap. It just won't get me in front of audiences like the 250 senior officers of CENTCOM I briefed on Monday. I just would never get those chances with that mindset. And you know why? They're totally interested in winning, not who gets the credit, so politics doesn't interest them one bit.

The point right now is how we move ahead, not how we save this presidency.

I believe in the United States, not in any one leader.

And I want to win in the end, not on the next play.

So let me be clear as crystal: my guys never leave office. They are there administration after administration. They know exactly what I'm about and I know exactly what they're about, and we get along just fine.

The politicians, meanwhile, get exactly what they deserve.

Both end up letting roughly the same number of locals die--to date.

But Clinton has America providing only 10% of the peackeepers while Bush has us at 90 percent.

Clinton manages to put 22-23 coalition troops on the ground per 1,000 local pop. Bush averages far less than half that number.

Clinton manages to pull off the Balkans with almost no casualties. Now, those states supply us with more peacekeepers than NATO's putting in, meaning they're already security exporters.

We're roughly at 3k in deaths in Iraq. It has become an exporter of terrorists.

Tell me which president gets judged by history as more effective and a better commander-in-chief?

Seriously, on record alone, who keeps things under control and who spins out of control?