WASHINGTON AT WAR: Defense Skirts State in Reviving Iraqi Industry, By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, May 14, 2007; Page A01
This WAPO article (from the great Rajiv C.) describes Paul Brinkley's work in trying to revive Iraqi state-run factories. Steve DeAngelis, my CEO and partner, accompanied him on his last trip, wrapping up any day now in Kurdistan. Brinkley asked Enterra to pilot our Development-in-a-Box "flexible framework" approach in Kurdistan, in effect scoping out an SEZ (special economic zone), which fits within the DiB mindset. (DiB, BTW, is now a trademarked product of Enterra Solutions, duly registered). No wheel reinventing for us, just an updating on technology and a holistic approach to connectivity and security in a long war conducted in a flat world.
[Editor's note: Check out Steve's latest post from Kurdistan, 3 days in Iraq from the Syrian/Turkish border to the Iranian border.]
Perused "The Essential Drucker" at a Charlotte airport Simply Books just now, signing two paper PNMs, which the salesperson said they keep selling because people keep buying. One of the many quotes that catches the eye:
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Well, Steve's a perfect partner for me, in this regard. As visionary as he is, he's got an implementation streak a mile wide. He would be the perfect Secretary of Everything Else (me, I'm ready to study my fifth foreign language--Chinese--to begin my dream post).
This story also great for exploring--yet again--the huge divide between DOD and State on postwar reconstruction and stability ops.
State, as always, wants the perfectible, reflecting their mindset on negotiations and treaties and creating new rule regimes for international affairs. I believe State has it's own brilliance in this regard, and that's what I told the "State 2025" task force a while back in their interview. I think it's a huge source of American rule-set export.
But the perfectible naturally crashes with the sufficing mindset of the military, which, according to Rajiv, was unfortunately short-circuited by the neocons (yet again!) at a point early in the postwar when State was on board for Brinkley's approach (they have now reversed themselves in a strategy of limited regret--or do no long-term harm).
It's sad to see this cultural divide remaining so wide, but it's why the realist in me seeks a practical-yet-visionary outcome in the standing up of both the SysAdmin force (slowly rising within Army and the RC (Reserve Component)) and the DoEE.
I want DoD to stay focused on war and State to stay focused on growing the Core's rule sets. And I want both to continue doing what each does best while paying somebody else to do the everything else--just like Drucker always argues.
Update: Steve just posted on this article, too: Interagency Feuding Over Iraq Reconstruction.
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Comments (3)
slowly rising within Army and the RC
RC?
Posted by DoEE GS-13 | May 14, 2007 6:21 PM
RC = Reserve Component
Posted by Anonymous
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May 15, 2007 8:35 AM
Five points worth noting:
1. One of the few effects of the Iraq invasion that was not clearly predicted in advance was the collapse of domestic manufacture and the influx of exports just wiping out local economic balances. This sent more than a few people into the arms of thugs including a lot of well-trained former Sunni army officers. And loan sharks and others who prosper in times of despair.
2. Drucker, repeatedly throughout his career, used to emphasize the higher quality of management in the US nonprofit sector than in the for-profit sector. One gets the sense from him that he considered private sector managers to be under pressure to create value of a too-narrow sort, the kind that's measurable quarter by quarter. In his last book, Galbraith, whose economic histories are more useful than his theory was, emphasized the role of the professional manager of both the enterprise and the pension fund in alienating people from their own investments and thus also keeping their values out of the equation. An obvious advantage of reviving state-run factories is that they could easily become co-ops or run by pension funds of their own workers, as is most of the US economy now.
3. Some advanced aspects of the US economy, such as shareholder activism, may be more compatible with an Islamic than Christian country. Muslims are not generally allowed to dodge moral implications of what they invest in, that is, ethical investing is built in to the Qu'ran itself, and simple debt-yielding interest isn't allowed for this very reason.
4. Because of this, a model thrived as far back as the Middle Ages that we would call an "ethical micro-venture-capital investment system", and it continues in some form to this day. Instrumenting this tradition could be far more effective than trying to bring in Western debt driven local economies and creating disconnections between employees, investors and communities.
5. State is going to need a lot more help to make these transformative ideas work - on whatever scale and with whatever models - it's not for instance going to be able to really implement a model with deep local roots.
It could however provide a lot of background and lots of encouragement, citing a large number of precedents in US ethical investing funds, worker-owned funds and pension funds, etc. A particularly powerful example is the Comptroller of New York City shareholder resolution presented to google May 10 (which sadly did not get the board's support) to withhold cooperation from countries that restrict freedom of political speech.
This resolution directly cited the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights and laid out a clear minimum standard for the company to follow.
What's particularly useful about this example is that the Comptroller represents the fire, police and other NYC municipal employees on pension. That is, all of the surviving kin and the disabled heroes of 9/11 in Manhattan. Who are also the people who collect the UN's garbage, and would be collecting its bodies if it were ever itself attacked.
If these people wish the UN DUHR protected and upheld by corporations they invest in, that's a very clear and poignant moral message. It would be foolish not to set a similarly high standard for the reconstruction of any region that has suffered terrible human rights abuses. Corporate charters, shareholder agreements, pension fund investment guidelines, bank loan agreements, etc., can and should all reflect the reality of global human rights and accountability.
That kind of culture can probably take root now more easily in Kurdistan than in America. Shamefully.
Posted by Craig Hubley | May 16, 2007 12:29 AM