Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

As it should be, now if the Navy would simply reverse a simple mistake of big surface combatants (DDG-1000) and mini motherships (LCS) to big motherships and small surface combatants (same requirements, different approach) they can get to work with the "more ferry than warship" surface fleet ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Don't really have documentation but as to Korean pennisula scenarios believe that Japan and China have reached detente on nuclear posture of N.Korea. China has no interest in seeing Japan go to full nuclear power status, although of course they could do so in less than three years. So Japan gets China to leverage N.Korea. And of course nuclear power status for S.Korea goes away largely if N.Korea not a nuclear threat. By the way to my knowledge none of these countries have conducted any emergency preparedness for core-melt incidents/accidents in their nuclear power industries. Would be interested to learn more! The ASIANS unlike the US seem capable of maintaining long-term state secrets.

Until the Gap is shrunken to nil, there will be a need for a Leviathan, so the GWOT and then eventually some kind of "Global War on Poverty" (GWOP) will eventually replace our current "Great Powers" doctrine of war planning. So...

Since when did we get a true SysAdmin force? No DoEE yet, and China and India are just now stepping up their own individual interests in the things the SysAdmin is supposed to do. It'll take at least a generation of turn-over in demographics, in several countries and not least the U.S., before it's all restructured as intended. In the meantime...

The academics (myself included) are not merely "getting ready" to sell the "resource wars!" of the future. Those conflicts are already here and we're already busy talking about the places, causes, and effects to be expected. Some of us, however, want to prevent such conflicts. Knowledge is power, in this field. And with knowledge, we can plan for such things. If only we had a Department that knew how to plan for conflict and its prevention...

If the DoD simply diverted the funding from big-weapons programs to SysAdmin-type functions and activities, we'd be golden. Instead, budgets get cut altogether, and the other functions are not recognized for their potential. Until Tom or someone of like-minded enlightenment gets to be SecDef (or SecEverythingElse), the U.S. will fiddle while Africa and the Middle East and Central Asia burn.

Eventually some deep space probe will discover life on another planet which will prompt an expensive PDI "Planetary Defense Inititive"

Patrick,

If it doesn't really happen, it will have to be faked.

Call it "Capricorn Two."

Matthew,

There are no real resource wars out there, just civil strife and failed states that flow from a variety of reasons, with resource constraints more a symptom than cause. Put the income higher and the assumed causality disappears. Plenty of rich countries are resource constrained and don't war.

Real state-on-state war, historically, occurs over resource abundance, not constraints. I conquer space to accommodate all my ambitions. I don't do so to babysit resources I can just as easily pay for or substitute. The same is largely true within states: the fighting begins when the new valuable resource is found in abundance and simple greed kicks in.

But the notion that "I don't have and therefore I war" is misguided. The ambitious war, not the poor or deprived.

So even if the old military-industrial complex doesn't change to allow for adequate sys-admin, it'll still need changing to allow enough money for all their pet leviathan systems? Not a good time for them . . .

Ain't no simple guide lines or check lists folks.

Before WW I the British establishment realigned its global Army and Navy, political and business establishments towards the global SysAdm of their time. It involved gunboats, mentor ambassadors and merchants to the underdeveloped regions of world, and Chinese Gordon type military leader/role models for those folks.

They missed the evolving threat from Germany and the steps leading to WW I. Then they created a crash program for a Leviathan effort to confront Germany's Leviathan. Then an awkward peace.

Hitler was then seen as transient figure towards Germany's return to the Core of their time. He had to be skillfully handled, and that new guy in Italy might help. Darn, missed that solution too!

My comments do not mean that Leviathan thinking should dominate. Their players usually focus too much on old enemies and methods, so they are not ready for the next issue cycle either.

Those in real positions of responsibility have to be aware of both potential Leviathan and SysAdm situations and requirements, and be ready to double check and adjust their efforts based on realities.

The real problem is the bureaucratic executive and congressional establishments that cause the DOD and other relevant security departments to rig their discussions and documentation of investments and priorities based on oversimplified Leviathan or SysAdm thinking!!!!

Capricorn Two. you can put that in the bank.

makes me think of Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. bet you'd like them, Tom, if you haven't read them.

An Antipodean Perspective – we saddle our procurement needs to the JSF to cover Australia’s sea –air gap and then buy outdated fighters as a stop gap just in case…just in case what, we have no real near power rival even remotely itching for a stand up fight. Yet we continue down the path of standard procurement, why, because sales men need to feed their families. Australia fights few wars and when we do we ride shotgun for the States, but will we see a significant change to the system? At this point it looks unlikely, even with a change of government it still seems to be business as usual at the Defence Material Organisation. Australia looks like a fantastic Sys-Admin resource, but selling that is going to take some time.

Tom--

While I certainly agree with your response above when it comes to "war" vs. "conflict" and about the ambitious making trouble, while the poor cannot afford to do so anyway, wars up to this point in history have been over things of value for which we can indeed find substitutes: land, timber, gold (or other mineral treasure), and now oil.

Water has no such substitute, and up to recently has had no recognized value. It is our cultural and civilizational conditioning that has helped up to think that it is an abundant resource. However, water has been at the center of the Israeli regional conflict/peace process for decades. Nile basin countries are all beholden to Egypt, who has threatened war over any action that reduces their "share" of the river (watch out, Ethiopia). India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir not because they love the mountains, but because those mountains provide the bulk of Indus River flow to the breadbasket of South Asia. China has undertaken the most massive intra-state diversion project since the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, greater even than unfulfilled plans for the diversion of Siberian rivers, the last of the great untapped freshwater sources in the world, to the nearly extinct Aral Sea.

Former Senator Paul Simon made quite an impact on the shape of U.S. foreign aid with the Water For the Poor Act of 2005. China and India are jumping into Africa, Brazil and Argentina are spreading the wealth in South America, China is securing almost simultaneously the water and power grids in Southeast Asia to support their own ambitions.

You're right in a way, that it's the ambitious who can afford to reach out, and sometimes conflict follows--look at much of the blowback the Chinese get for unconditional loans and grants, while U.S. aid brings democratization as a prerequisite. But the ambitious don't actively seek war--they seek capitulation and the satisfaction of their resource needs, and are willing and able to fight for it. Whether the object of that fight is worth its cost in money and lives...well, that's what politics is for, and that's not my bailiwick. To someday prevent the loss of at least a single life over a needless resource conflict, especially over water--that's my goal in my own work, politics (and politicians) be damned.

Louis interesting points.

The challenge for change is to break down the mindset of Leviathan or SysAdm within the industry AND services, and promote the hybrid approach to acquisition with justification within the context of both.

It is what is called transition, not transformation.