Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

ARTICLE: “Turnaround in Recruiting Puts Guard on Path for Expansion,” by Associated Press, New York Times, 31 January 2006, p. A17.

Apparently the Guard’s enlistment is up so much this last year that it’s poised to actually plus up its overall “end strength,” meaning it’s total number of personnel.

This is the result of a determined effort by the Guard to bolster such recruiting, but it creates some weird moments for a Pentagon that’s determined to sell to Congress the notion that the Reserve Component can be marginally reduced in coming years as a result of the Army’s modularization effort by which divisions are reformatted into self-contained brigade combat teams. This rationalization of Cold War force structure is declared by Pentagon seniors as allowing the Guard to actually shrink somewhat in the next few years, despite the apparent strain on end strength.

This is a very touchy subject inside the Pentagon. The administration seeks to sell Congress on its budget plan and Quadrennial Defense Review that seems to keep all the big-ticket platforms on line for near full funding despite the Army and Marines and Reserve Component (Reserves and Guard) seemingly running themselves ragged on this non-stop rotation process into and out of southwest Asia.

The dream of the modular Army says they’ll need three active duty brigade combat teams for everyone they keep overseas (one breaking down back at home, having just come off the line, and another one gearing up to replace the one currently overseas), and six reserve teams for everyone currently abroad (the Reserve Component necessarily has a slower cycle), but doubts are being raised as to whether those rotation numbers will hold up in reality. Maybe the active duty number will be more like 4 to 1, and the RC ratio more like 8 to 1. If that’s the case, then the end strength requirements of the Army go up big time, and such an Army should be happier than hell for the Guard to be expanding its overall numbers.

All of this is caught up in the Congressional decision to give Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army Chief of Staff, an extra 30k in its ceiling during the modularization process that will drag on for several years. The extension or ending of that temporary ceiling boost is a political hot potato, especially for any politician unhappy with the Pentagons’ seemingly iron-will desire to keep funding big platforms poorly suited for a Global War on Terror and obviously far more in line with the dream of future war with China. If you’re unhappy with the Pentagon’s inability to let go of its Big War past and believe the ground forces are being shortchanged by those budget priorities, then you use the end strength debate to score your points.

Rest assured that plenty in the Department of the Army are of two minds on this subject: trying to cater to the official line while wanting to submit to the clear logic of growing the ground forces’ end strength for this Long War.

So keep an eye on how the Hill argues this issue. It will say a lot about what I feel is the inevitable rise of the SysAdmin function within the Army.

Posted by at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “Sudan Leader Waits, and Waits, for His Ship to Come In,” by Marc Lacey, New York Times, 31 January 2006, p. A4.

A heart-warming tale of the president of Sudan, recently denied chairmanship of the African Union (how to put him at the head of a peacekeeping organization when his own government promotes genocide within its borders?). Seems he’s had to endure a tremendously long wait for his $4-million-plus ab fab yacht to show up.

It’ll probably take a good chunk of the nation’s GDP to transport it to its final destination in this war-torn, incredibly impoverished land. But hey, a Big Man’s gotta do what a Big Man’s gotta do. Africa’s postcolonial history is littered by all manner of Big Men who lived luxuriously while wars raged and citizenry (always predominately women and kids) died in droves.

Would you like a system for getting rid of guys like this? Do you think it would take massive invading forces or do you think that if we showed enough determination, we could get someone like this Big Man to abandon ship with his women, money, loot and—in this instance—the ship as well?

Of course, if we couldn’t do anything after scaring off today’s Big Man, then nothing would change: more civil strife, more death and suffering, another Big Man to take his place a few months later. So drive-by regime change is no answer without the second-half effort by the SysAdmin force and related connectivity forces.

What would it take to make Sudan acceptable to global business? It probably wouldn’t look like any traditional aid package. No, it would be something different, something that fostered connectivity with great rapidly, and it would likely smack of multinationals performing something akin to a UN trusteeship. Of course, you’d probably end up with some Core contact group, plus the UN, plus the African Union, plus some Core constellation of a SysAdmin force (probably working to train up a longer-term AU peacekeeping force) overseeing the whole process. Sudan’s “sovereignty,” such as it was, would be trashed for some undetermined period of time. Cheap labor would be exploited, as would the oil reserves.

None of this would be pretty, but all of it would beat the hell out of the genocide we’ve all been witnessing from the sidelines for several years now.

In the end, wouldn’t you like to find out exactly how hard such a task would be? Don’t you think the world would be a better place for trying, instead of sitting on the sidelines watching the bodies pile up?

Posted by at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Amazon Connect is a new service that gives authors a higher profile presence on Amazon. There's even a vestigial weblogging function. It wasn't supposed to come out until tomorrow, but I cross-posted Tom's last post here over there (got that?), and it's already up. Check it out by going to the Blueprint for Action page or Tom's profile.

Posted by at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "Iran to Be Reported To Security Council: U.S. Wins Backing Of Russia, China," by Kevin Sullivan and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, 31 January 2006, p. A1.

It seems that Russia and China wanted Iran basically signed up to Moscow's proposal to enrich uranium for Tehran before they agreed to report Iran to the UN Security Council--and then pushing that referral back to March.

What I see Beijing and Moscow saying by this: this is our best deal, take it or we'll go along with the Americans and elevate this to the UN, and you know where that ends up going, so let's end it here and keep this package largely managed by the Russians instead of the West.

Pretty slick by the Russians and Chinese, and very reminiscent of how the Chinese team played the "New Map" wargame back in June of 2005: when presented with a problem, they kept it from being their problem alone and they prevented it from being America's problem alone, and so by keeping it sort of everybody's problem, the end result was that China seemed to get its way over time. Here, my definition of that would be: no isolation of Iran, Iran gets to pursue nuclear energy and Russia's mostly in charge of that, and China's energy ties to Iran are preserved.

From our perspective, what Russia and China are doing is just fine, because it keeps the situation from being ours to own at a time when the military option is truly unrealistic. That will change in 2-3 years.

Then again, so will a lot of things.

Full article found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013000295.html

Posted by at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Dateline: in the Shire, Indy, 30 January 2006

Long morning at the hospital, wading through a pulmonary function, cat scan and an echocardiogram. None of it required for the surgery we contemplate to correct a structural birth defect in one of our kids. All done just to make the insurance companies happy. If the numbers don't come up right, I will probably pay for the event myself out of pocket. The insurance company would rather wait until the issue gets so obvious that it's symptomatic in terms of organ function, but by then we're out of the less invasive answer and into the more complex one. Plus, we lose the best window in terms of body growth. So, despite the money crunch of this year, I will simply plan on making this happen sometime next summer.

Being back in a children's hospital, doing such diagnostics, brings back a lot of memories for me. But it's so much different with an older kid. Emily was just two when we ran her through so much of the nasty stuff back in Georgetown.

Still, you meet a lot of kids facing some very difficult stuff when you visit a children's hospital. It's like wandering into an alternative universe within which we were once so desperately trapped.

I occupied myself by wriiting my first column for the Knoxville News Sentinel. I decided to start with a comfortable chestnut (the Department of Everything Else), because I want to step into this process slowly, writing from a position of confidence. I realized, as I planned the first few pieces, that I haven't really explored any of my stuff in op-ed form, save for the one piece I did for the Providence Journal way back when and the one piece I wrote for the Washington Post when PNM came out (a notion that extended beyond PNM and eventually made it into BFA).

So rather than going full bore into new material, I want to sort of introduce myself in bits and pieces, establishing my "case law," as it were, before pushing the envelope. Once established, I would want to step out of the narrow confines of national security and use this platform to explore new subject matter. But I figure I dance with them that brought me to start out.

Afternoon lost to a variety of Enterra stuff, to include some research on a quiet project I'm doing for Oak Ridge. I also did a phonecon with some Raytheon execs for a speaking gig later next month. You often get this on the big corporate ones: the seniors running the show want a conversation by phone to make sure everyone's on the same page. Bit of a hassle to schedule, but always worthwhile.

Got some nice gigs being scheduled, making me realize how crucial it was for my ability to leave the Naval War College that I had signed up with Leigh Bureau back in the fall of 2004. That was the big liberation that made the whole move to Indy possible. This is why I treat every possible gig as my last, or as my most important audition. Can't get talks unless you give talks, and when you give good talks, you get a lot of talks. So every performance is your best performance.

I have never missed a performance, but eventually a failure will occur for some reason. Still, I am proud of my record. You sign me up, you get a performace worth the expenditure. No ifs, ands or buts.

I could say it's what I do for a living, but then again, I do a lot of things for a living nowadays.

Posted by at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “Mideast Crises Reset Agenda for World Leaders: Iran, Palestinian Politics Take Center Stage at Talks On Afghanistan Planning,” by Neil King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 30 January 2006, p. A4.

Iran and Palestine have so overshadowed the current London’s donors conference on Afghanistan that our man Neil King forgot to even mention it, quite frankly, in this story, which I guess proves his point!

But it also proves my point on Iran: this is one country who can veto our peace efforts throughout the region. It sits next to Afghanistan. It sits next to Shiite-heavy Iraq. It has strong ties to Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

Iran decides it wants to stir things up and pretty soon that’s all we’re talking about at a donors’ conference in London on Afghanistan. You remember Afghanistan, don’t you?

Must have been awfully frustrating to the USG people who set up this conference, some of whom Enterra Solutions has been working with on the subject of how to best template the experience of moving a country from postwar basket case to globalization emerging market.

Of course, Palestine has everyone talking about it, but I keep saying to myself: don’t be unhappy getting what you wish for (real democracy where an Arab government gives up power after an election that is free). Having the “revolutionaries” and terrorists in power may be just the push the languishing Big Bang process needs. I mean, trying to make the two-state solution work with that tired old mess called Fatah was no picnic, so maybe having some firebrands will push things to their logical conclusions faster, like Israel abandoning the West Bank and securing themselves behind that Berlin Wall for the 21st century, as I like to call the security fence they’re building.

Robert Wright’s number one rule for running the world is, Don’t fight the inevitable.

My addendum to his rule would be: Hell, speed it up as fast as you can!

Posted by at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

ARTICLE: “India Touts Its Democracy in Bid To Lure Investors Away From China,” by Marcus Walker, Wall Street Journal, 30 January 2006, p. A2.

ARTICLE: “China’s Draft Antitrust Law Sows Worries in West,” by Adam Cohen, Wall Street Journal, 30 January 2006, p. A12.

There has long been this school of thought (okay, maybe going a couple of years back) that says India overtakes China as investment target of the Old Core when the political going gets tough in China, because India’s done the hard stuff of democracy. It’s an interesting argument, one that the Indians themselves are selling hard right now this week in Davos at the World Economic Forum (which, BTW, is sounding more weirdly glitzy each year).

So India sells itself like a Hollywood comedy that’s done well in its first week of BO: “India: the world’s fastest growing democracy!” (like “Wedding Crashers: America’s #1 comedy!”). Doesn’t exactly turn India into “Titanic” overnight, but you get the picture. ‘

It’s a slick trick, and India should pursue it for all its worth. To me, that’s the real and natural sort of “containment” or balancing we should encourage India to pursue: just sheer competitiveness that pushes China harder on making its own lack of democracy up on top seem more palatable over time. China will eventually go democratic, but it will go that much faster with India egging it on—but not with the U.S. hectoring it from afar.

Count on the Chinese to be Chinese, I say, and count on them to be as greedy and concerned with maintaining power as anybody else. So expect them to move toward freer markets and freer politics only when they are forced to do so defensively—in an economic sense. Trying to force China to feel defensive on a political-military level is both dangerous (could lead to war) and counterproductive (we won’t get the reform we seek). But making them feel vulnerable on an economic basis is a win-win-win for us, China, and whomever’s giving them a run for their money.

With China coming out with a draft antitrust law that has some over here worried about its potential uses by Beijing to protect state industries there, India’s timing at Davos couldn’t be better. Turnabout is fair play.

Posted by at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “Russia’s Gas Diplomacy Fuels Realignment of Former Soviet Bloc,” by Marc Champion and Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, 30 January 2006, p. A1.

Putin and company are probably getting a faster response time to their recent energy shenanigans than they expected. This article’s lead sentence lays it out nicely:

Russia’s natural-gas diplomacy is driving some of its former satellites to look elsewhere for energy supplies but is drawing others closer to Moscow’s orbit, reshaping economic dependencies and stirring deep unease in the region.

Who’s running away? Georgia, for one. Chechnya sits between Georgia and the Russian energy, and that’s gotta feel pretty scary as a long-term prospect.

Ukraine is also moving farther away, although there’s so much bad old and new blood in that relationship, we’re probably talking a drop in a very large bucket.

Moldova is another country that was recently pressured into accepting significantly higher prices from Gazprom, but it knuckled under.

Moscow says that all it’s doing is ending a lot of old, undervalued supplies relationships with neighbors and simply asking them to pay reasonable market prices, which if you know anything about the old Soviet Union’s subsidizing of Eastern Europe through cheap energy, certainly sounds plausible enough.

It’s just that this shift to market prices was both abrupt and delivered in the usual, high-handed Russian way, and this has got a lot of former satellites thinking hard about alternatives, like Poland and Romania agitating hard for the speeding up of the construction of a pipeline from Turkey to Austria to balance their existing energy ties to Russia.

So yeah, Russia’s getting Belarus, Moldova and energy-rich Uzbekistan in this pushme-pullyou process, but it’s losing some real talent in terms of economic connectivity with the West, with Poland and Ukraine being the two great historical conduits from the West to Russia.

Me, I see Russia picking up classic Gap states and burning bridges with New Core ones, and that ain’t smart.

But again, everyone goes through a learning curve on such things. I’m just surprised at how quickly this one is unfolding for Putin and his silovki.

Posted by at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "Political thought not rational: Scans find subject fires brain's emotional centers in both liberals and conservatives," by Benedict Carey, New York Times, 29 January 2006, pulled from web.

ARTICLE: "Hurrican Investigators See 'Fog of War' at White House," by Eric Lipton, New York Times, 28 January 2006, pulled from web.

When politics enters the brain, the freaky-deaky portions are excited and the logic portions are left wanting. That lack of "cold reasoning" explains the Right's bizarro hatred of Clinton and the Left's bizarro hatred of Bush.

But it also explains, I would argue, what happens when you let the ideologues of any administration, like Doug Feith in DoD or Karl Rove in the White House hold too much power during important security transitions like the postwar occupation of Iraq or the postdisaster non-occupation of New Orleans. Let the ideologues hold sway, and the sheer logic of what should be done is often superceded but the emotional logic of what seems best or most safe for the administration. Naturally, the long-term harm that's done by such political short-term logic typically outweighs the temporary gain of such steps as declaring "mission accomplished" and taking the requisite photo ops.

And the danger is different at home versus overseas: abroad the politicos typically want too much control of what should be left to the military, while at home the politicos are typically too fearful of being bold with the military at exactly those moments when a pro-active approach yields the best outcome.

Fog of war ain't that hard. Fog of postwar and postdisaster? That's really hard.

But unless you authorize, there ain't no authority. Northcom is a command, not a political entity. And DHS is a political entity, not a commander of anything.

No, the military-market nexus needs its own bureaucratic center of gravity, and that's why I call for a Department of Everything Else.

Posted by at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: "Pentagon now can help foreign militaries: Up to $200 million in spending not limited by foreign-aid rules raises worries," by Bradley Graham, Washington Post, 29 January 2006, pulled from web.

State is supposed to determine foreign aid, but Don Rumsfeld snuck in a tiny bit of transformative change in this year's defense budget just signed: operational response funds not previously tied to any one intervention--in effect, a contingency fund of the sort that Congress simply does not grant DoD and even rarely grants State's U.S. Agency for International Development (whose own budget is weighed down with earmark after earmark).

This is pure SysAdmin money, used to build capacity as required by interventions as they occur, and Rumsfeld got Rice to agree with that.

Call this a major lesson learned from Iraq, where the Coalition Provisional Authority's civilians initially ran the retraining of Iraqi security forces--right into the ground until the military took over in the spring of 2004 and newly minted Lt. Gen. David Petraeus stepped to the fore.

DoD and Rummy asked for $750 million, and Congress shortchanged them down to $200 million, giving the concept a two-year lease on life, just so all the Hill members who don't even own a passport can second-guess the military's combatant commanders 24 months down the road of this Global War on Terrorism.

Score one for Rummy, though. When the Pentagon starts openly looting the foreign aid budget, then the SysAdmin's clearly on the rise...

Posted by at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: "Halliburton to sell minority stake in KBR in IPO," by AP, Indianapolis Star, 29 January 2006, p. C2.

In Blueprint for Action, I use the example of Halliburton's long and ongoing debate on what to do with profitable but problematic Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a unit of the company that specializes in a lot of postwar operations contracts--sort of the preeminent private sector SysAdmin firm. Halliburton has been talking about selling off the unit or spinning it off. The profitability is undeniable, it's just that the political hassles of being involved in such work eventually begins to wear on the parent company, which began and still largely thinks of itself as an oil-field services firm.

Seems like Halliburton can't completely decide what to do. If it sold KBR off, it would draw a great price, probably from a big defense contractor like Lockheed Martin, which would see the long-term market-making opportunity.

And maybe that's why it's hard for Halliburton to let go...

I think this is exactly how it will be for the Defense Department and the SysAdmin function/force: hard to keep but still harder to get rid off, because there's no denying the long-term market for the services provided.

A long-running drama worth keeping an eye on.

Posted by at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

BOX: "The Most Likely Fake Bills Are C-Notes," by Ted Evanoff, Indianapolis Star, 29 January 2006, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "Flu's spread foretold, by George: Web site that tracks money may help scientists forecast how disease will spread," by Alicia Chang, Associated Press, Indianapolis Star, 29 January 2007, p. A22.

I tell the story of traveling through China on our adoption trip, with $10,000 stuffed into a special belt-like groin pack, all of it in $100 bills and all uncirculated, because nothing less than clean bills are acceptable in many Chinese venues--especially official ones. The reason why? Up to one-third of the paper money circulating in China, both foreign and domestic, is fake. And the number one provider of such fake bills (especially in neighboring China) is Kim Jong Il's criminal regime in North Korea.

The North Koreans, this article reports, "acquired a $10 million press in 1989 and most llkely paid it off years ago." It is estimated that the exporting of counterfeit currency nets the Pyongyang regime a solid $15-20 million a year.

Follow the bad money back to the Gap's worst actors.

Follow the money in general, and you find business travelers, and that helps you find where pandemics spread, most rapidly by international air travel (interesting how jetliners figure so prominently in so many System Pertrubations, or shocks to the global system, yes?).

Old advice, but good advice, because money is the most fluidly connective tissue in the global economy.

Posted by at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a chance for DC-area people to see and hear Tom in action. From the invitation:

Center for Strategic and International Studies
POST-CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT
Cordially invites you to
BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION : A FUTURE WORTH CREATING
Friday, February 3, 2006
10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
B1 A-B Conference Room
1800 K Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
A book launch featuring
THOMAS P.M. BARNETT
Author, and Managing Director of Enterra Solutions

You are invited:

RSVP with your acceptance to Anita Keshavan at akeshavan@csis.org or (202) 775-0200 ext. 3723. Please be advised that seating is limited, and we can only admit those with confirmed RSVPs.

Wish I could be there, but y'all will have to hold it down without me.

Posted by at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The spotlight is--quite naturally--my writing on Iran.

Stephan Richter, a pretty sharp guy, arranged for and made the excerpt happen. Here is how it's presented at "The Globalist": http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5076.

Posted by at 8:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the people around here who advises Tom sent in this new article by Peters from the Weekly Standard, The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs, under the email title 'Good Ralph Peters'. Tom didn't think so:

And it still makes me want to puke. All are out to get us, or are too weak to help fight. All intellectuals are fools. It's all blood and guts from here out. Warriors are supreme, the rest are nothing. We are losing and can't even realize it. The future will be full of blood and gore and war.

What is there to do with this stuff but be afraid? Being secular or quietly religious isn't evil. It does not make you weak. It is the strength of our civilization. Extending that is all, not climbing into the gutter. That job we leave to professionals, and none of them do it so their world back home can come to approximate Peters' advice.

But our fearless co-reader was not to be dissuaded, and came back with this worthy reply:

I guess it is what you focus on.

What I hear him saying is that a lot of expensive weapons are not the answer to our problems. True.

He specifically says that the fanatics are a minority within Islam, so it is not "everybody is against us". But he goes on to say that we do ourselves no favors by failing to understand them as they understand themselves. This is also true.

As to China, he makes a case parallel to yours -- a war with them would be insanity, and our people are not taking seriously what it would mean or how it would go. This is true.

I think he overstates the case as to "intellectuals", but Peters is Peters and you expect him to be over the top. I think the monopoly of the group he discusses is disintegrating due to the Internet. But I think there is an element of truth to what he says.

Tom closed with:

Yes. But he does so in such a depressing, with-fear-for-all kind of way.

For the average reader, they do indeed focus on the fear. What Peters does is the equivalent of what Frey did: he always jacks it up to the point of scaring people from useful action by making the struggle seem far worse than it really needs to be--or is.

And there is real harm in a call to arms than dissuades and depresses more than it persuades and inspires.

I truly believe that, FWIW.

What do you think?

Posted by at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Got the site backed up, checked under the hood on the templates, fixed the JavaScript, which fixed the TypeKey recognition, and tweaked the commenting templates some more. I'm not aware of any major outages involved (though you might have seen some funky formatting for a little while). I'm pleased with the progress, but there's plenty more to do.

If you plan on commenting with any regularity, I would appreciate it if you take the less-than-a-minute it takes to register with TypeKey. The immediate posting of your comments, not having to wait on my moderation, will be an improvement. Not that's it's been a big deal to approve comments so far. Thanks.

Posted by at 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 27 January 2006

Back home again after my nearly full-week jaunt.

Yesterday was sort of a quick morning at Oak Ridge before I left for the flight to RI. Got a brief on genetically-engineered threats that was very interesting (I see a column ahead) and another on working the IED threat (still another good column foreseen). Then I sat in on the beginning stages of the monthly national security department “huddle,” before racing out to my car and driving back to Knoxville.

Had to fly Continental through Detroit to get to Providence, and I must say that the new Northwest terminal there is stunning, like something outta DisneyWorld with that monorail that runs the length of the extremely long terminal, along the roofs of the shops no less!

Got picked up by a Coastie non-com who drove me to the Marriott at Mystic CT. Very spectacular pool, which I immediately did my fourth-in-a-row stint and some bike time in the gym.

Later picked up by my Lt. Cdr. Host and taken to the academy, where I addressed an audience of about 100 or so cadets, staff, etc. Was a bit beat, so my delivery a bit sloppy on pronunciation (swallowing the ends of words), so I found I really had to concentrate. I could tell I was tired because I offered up too many “vulgar” terms (as my Mom likes to say), and that sort of salty language happens when I’m fatigued—for some reason.

Remind me never to let C-SPAN tape me at night!

Bradd Hayes, who lives about 40 minutes away in RI, was able to attend, which was great, because this was the first time he could see me perform the brief he did the original slides for (since altered by me extensively but still, by and large, his PPT material, so credit where credit is due). It was really nice to give him credit for the slides at the end of my talk. It felt like the actor on stage saluting the orchestra director. But that’s how symbiotic it is for Bradd and me.

Got up this morning at 7am and got my last swim in for the week. Feeling pretty sore on that one, but enjoyed it immensely nonetheless.

Then caught a drive with my Coastie to Bradd’s house, where I spent the morning and over lunch brainstorming a development-in-a-box brief for Steve DeAngelis and I to use in the future. I really want to build that “peace is the ultimate aftermarket” concept.

Then two SWA flights home, going through BWI. Checked out the new house on the way to picking up son at Sylvan. The wood flooring has begun upstairs, starting in my office. Looks very nice. Bookcases going up all over, etc. Stairs down to basement completely done, with great railing, all oak like the steps.

Back home tonight and things are a bit tense. Some trouble at school while I was gone, which cast a bit of a pall on my absence. It was quite the trick to pick a school for all three of the older kids from afar last spring. With our move to the house late this spring, our commuting options change somewhat, and with one heading to high school, it has us thinking we ended up at too big of a grade school for the boys over the long haul.

But these are thoughts for another day.

Posted by at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARTICLE: “Hamas Routs Ruling Faction, Casting Pall on Peace Process: Palestinian Vote; Israel Won’t Negotiate With Radical Group in Government,” by Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A1.

EDITORIAL: “In the Mideast, a Giant Step Back,” New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A22.

ARTICLE: “Hamas Victory Roils Middle East Peace Process: U.S., Israel, Europe Insist Palestinian Group Renounce Violence After Election Win,” by Karby Leggett and Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A1.

EDITORIAL: “Hamas Rules: A chance to show it has an agenda beyond terror,” Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Joyful Arabs Voice Concern at How Hamas Will Swim in the Mainstream,” by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A9.

OP-ED: “Hamas at the Helm: The U.S. can’t ignore Palestinian voters,” by Fotini Christia and Sreemati Mitter, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A23.

ARTICLE: “Vote seen as rejecting corruption: Palestinians see hope for better governance,” by Matthew Gutman, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 6A.

ARTICLE: “Bush Defends His Goal of Spreading Democracy to the Mideast,” by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A9.

ARTICLE: “Israel’s Likely Course: Unilateral Action, Separation and No Talks With Hamas,” by Grey Myre, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “A Shift of Biblical Proportions? Israels’ Demolition of West Bank Homes May Signal Wider Pullout,” by Karby Leggett, Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A7.

The Times drools and the Journal rules. The NYT is all frantic doom and gloom, whereas the WSJ takes a wait and see attitude.

It’s foolish not to expect a lot of idiotic crowing from Hamas right now. Any party that finds itself so unexpectedly in power as this crew did just now has to be forgiven a lot of foolish talk. Hamas may be full of seasoned terrorists, but it doesn’t have a single statesman.

We can do our best to help grow one from our side, and I believe the Bush Administration and the EU and Israel itself are all taking the right initial stance: put up or expect to be put out on the ash heap of history. Hamas can either prove itself a decent alternative to Fatah, which never accomplished anything whatsoever through either its terror or its corrupt politics except make Yassir one rich bastard, or it can serve merely as a lesson to Fatah that its swings at the bat are not unlimited and that Palestine can suffer the consequences (and the historical delay) imposed upon it by electing a leadership that has no capacity whatsoever to move this godawful pile toward peace.

It’s clear why the people chose Hamas, and the choice for less corruption is the same one that brought Ahmadinejad to power in Iran. So let’s get real (as Hamas itself will need to if it hopes to keep the goodwill of the people it now owes far more than just mindless martyrs) and not give into the silly temptation to somehow blame this outcome on Bush’s push for democracy.

Democracy is not about only getting the party you want in power. That’s called authoritarianism, or the sort of single-party rule we see so much of in this world. Democracy is about the ability to change parties when the current one sucks enough to motivate the public toward the alternative, however risky that might seem.

We need to view Hamas as a possibility that works one way or the other: either it changes its stripes and “Nixon goes to Tel Aviv” or we get something better on the backside once this experiment fails. Either way, we need to be thinking about how we exploit this situation, not merely stonewall it.

Hezbollah in Lebanon hasn’t been the disaster that some portended. No picnic, but Lebanon not on top of the shit list right now.

Still, with Hamas’ links to patrons Syria and Iran, and Hezbollah’s links to patrons Syria and Iran, and Syria’s links to Iran, you have to wonder if isolating Iran is the best strategic play we can manage right now in this fluid environment.

Because if we don’t move or work to keep this region moving somehow, the Israelis will solidify their hard-line, hard-border answer to the question of the two-state solution, and we’ll get that Berlin Wall for the 21st century that I’ve been talking about going back to PNM. Not the worse outcome by any stretch, but a calcifying one to be sure.

If we do the slow strangle on Iran and let Israel put up that wall, the only good strategic reason for sitting on the Middle East’s sidelines through the rest of this term (an outcome that looks more and more likely with this administration) would be to lock in China at today’s prices.

But given the QDR’s unimaginative outcome, and the continuing strength of the China hawks in the national security community, that path seems equally unlikely, which leaves me retreating to my depressing notion that the Bush post-presidency has already begun.

Posted by at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “Winfrey grills ‘Pieces’ author, apologizes for backing book,” by Carol Memmott, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 1E.

ARTICLE: “Life on ‘Oprah,’ a Memoirist Is Kicked Out of the Book Club,” by Edward Wyatt, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A1.

EDITORIAL: “On Oprah’s Couch,” Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Ms. Winfrey Takes a Guest To the Televised Woodshed: A hard-edged tale of expiation and absolution unfolds for a national audience,” by Virginia Heffernan, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A13.

Oprah nails it, which is why she continues to wield the power she does. She initially zigged when she should have zagged, but then she thought better and ended this charade before it went on too long, costing only her and making her misery James Frey’s increasingly obscene gain.

So Oprah takes that lying weasel out to the woodshed, dragging his illustrious publisher out with him.

Great TV. Good politics on Oprah’s part (striking more fear in the hearts of Republicans everywhere who fear she might someday run).

OMYGOD! What if Oprah ran as Hillary’s VP? Scary. Just plain scary. But eventually I really believe some bold scenario like that will unfold with Winfrey. I mean, how will she keep her interest up doing the same old, same old for another 20 to 30 years?

I’m not kidding. When the WSJ editorial board says Oprah “did what we have so often waited for public figures to do,” that’s a powerful precedent for someone of her immense stature.

Me, I would be afraid have a book picked by Oprah. To me, it’s like winning the lottery—just too much. You’d never know how much you really deserved it and how much of it was just her quirky tastes. Let poor Mr. Frey’s fate be a lesson, I say: be careful what you wish for and earn it on your own.

Posted by at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ARTICLE: “U.S. Rebuilding in Iraq Found to Fall Short: Agency Blames Security Costs, Poor Planning and Priority Shifts; Of 136 water and sanitation projects planned, only 49 will be done, a study says,” by James Glanz, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A10.

ARTICLE: “Study Says 80% of New Orleans Blacks May Not Return: A university report poses a continuing question: ‘Whose city will be rebuilt?’” by James Dao, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A16.

ARTICLE: “’No one knew how to deal with it,’” by Anne Rochell Konigsmark, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 4A.

CHART: “Nations’ needs after tsunami: Estimated cost for long-term recovery in tsunami-hit areas (in billions),” by David Stuckey and Dave Merrill, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: “Students Are Leaving the Politics Out of Economics: Shunning Advocacy To Focus on Science,” by Louis Uchitelle, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. C3.

OP-ED: “Axis of Evo,” by Mary Anastasia O’Grady, Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A9.

COLUMN: “Win-Win? Tell It To the Losers,” by Floyd Norris, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. C1.

Get used to a steady stream of official US Government reports on how we mangled Iraq’s rebuilding. The key dynamic was this: we didn’t secure Iraq adequately, and the decision to keep Shiites and Kurds on board by disbanding the Sunni-dominated army meant that this combined need to backfill on security while training up an entirely new force essentially diverted the bulk of the reconstruction spending into security spending.

The inspector general’s report cited here speaks of a “reconstruction gap,” defining it as the difference between what we promised to spend on the reconstruction and what we’ll actually end up spending. Consider it a penalty tax for not having an adequate SysAdmin force, one that the Iraqi people will end up paying for decades.

But FEMA’s “reconstruction gap” in New Orleans is probably just as big. Like the Defense Department, FEMA has no budget for actual operations, so it lives on emergency spending which creates the similar sort of jumping-through-your-asshole bureaucratic responses (“No one knew how to deal with it”) as that witnessed within DoD in Iraq on the postwar planning and operations. The tax in this instance will be a traveling one, as in all the blacks and underclass in general who will never return to the Big Easy because their version of it will likely never return. A harsh outcome for a roguish state. Still, LA never reached for WMD, so you’d think it would deserve better.

One can count up the reconstruction gap in South Asia as well. In Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia alone the combined long-term cost is estimated at just under $10 billion. Go back and do the math and I think you find the world came nowhere near that amount. But can we expect such an outpouring of public funds, or do we need to rethink how the public sector encourages the private sector to enter these postwar/postdisaster/postwhatever situations as early as possible instead of staying away?

Indonesia’s new president, a former general no less, seems to have done a decent job of this sort of thing, both on the public sector side (limited corruption) and on the private sector side (tapping business consultants to lure private sector investments in, on the advice of Singapore’s elder sage, Lee Kwan Yew).

Amazingly, in this last year of unprecedented postwar reconstruction efforts and unprecedented postdisaster reconstruction efforts, I don’t think I’ve read a single bold article on the economics of either.

Instead, we are all enthralled with “Freakonomics,” a good book whose reach is both profound (the abortion question on crime) and pendantic (don’t even get me started). And it’s this book that is apparently striking the nerve of young economics students across America: they want to be statisticians now, not policy makers. They want to eschew politics, and instead keep clean from such messy entanglements and such unnecessary ambitions.

Too bad. Because we need such ambition from the dismal science now more than ever. Think of America and the global economy without an Alan Greenspan, of a Paul Volcker before him. We need such giants, whether they have degrees or not, because plumbing the complex depths of the military-market nexus may prove to be the defining element of any long-term win in the global war on terrorism.

Because, remember, the only exit strategy that really works entails job creation. Peace is the ultimate aftermarket.

We get leftist swings in the Andean (not “Indian”) portions of Latin America because many ordinary citizens there see real activism and a regaining of personal control in the politics of populism. It’s an illusion and a dangerous detour, policy-wise, and yet it meets people’s emotional needs. Better to feel like Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez somehow controls the country’s destiny on behalf of the people than deal with the reality that globalization rules over everybody’s economy—whether they realize it or not.

We can’t win the GWOT by getting smarter only on the military side of that nexus. No sir, it just won’t do.

Posted by at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “Bush and China Endorse Russia’s Nuclear Plan for Iran: Tehran could operate civilian facilities, but not control the fuel,” by David E. Sanger and Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, 27 January 2006, p. A3.

ARTICLE: “EU Lobbyists Now Back Push for Transparency: Mandatory U.S.-Style Rules Gain Momentum in Brussels; Abramoff Sets Off Alarms,” by William Echiskon and Glenn R. Simpson, Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A7.

ARTICLE: “At WTO Talks, Stances Are Hardening, “ by Scott Miller and Marc Champion, Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2006, p. A7.

China says it’s all for Moscow’s plan to enrich uranium on Tehran’s behalf, but that it’s not interested in pursuing economic or political sanctions, which means there is no point in taking this matter to the UN Security Council. China is basically choosing to give Iran the same near-nuclear status that South Korea and Japan have long had, meaning they could go nuclear if they wanted in a relatively short period of time, but they choose not to do so.

Why isn’t China ready to grant sanctions against Iran? China’s a country that's amazingly dependent on globalization. You derail that burgeoning trade and investment flow, and there’s really no chance that the country can maintain its growth trajectory, meaning bye-bye to what political stability there is now in the interior provinces. So China doesn’t care for that rule set and the threat it entails, especially vis-à-vis a country that’s becoming a very important energy source for it.

Expect that to be a regular stance by New Core pillars like Brazil, Russia, India and China. International sanctions may be the coward’s war in the West, but it’s a fool’s errand elsewhere, because it tends to hurt too indiscriminately those who depend far more on the global economy’s advance.

The EU is willing to rush into U.S.-style rules on lobbyists, because they fear similar outcomes as the brewing Abramoff scandal here in DC. When the fit’s better, the transmission is rapid: good rules beget good rules.

But that fit is determined largely by where any country stands on the development curve, which is why the grand bargains required to make the Doha Development Round come to fruition in the WTO do not seem in the offing. Rob Portman, US Trade Rep, says the “Doha lite” option doesn’t work for us, because we want a deal that triggers significantly greater trade flows. Best estimate by WTO director Pascal Lamy is that the deal is about 60% complete, something Egypt’s trade minister will take today if nothing better is in the offing and the alternative is collapse.

Other Core players blame the vague nature of Doha’s expressed goals, which were born in the heat of 9/11 and spoke to the desires of advanced states to rapidly elevate the economies of underdeveloped states, lest they become (or can’t stop being) breeding grounds for transnational terrorists.

Problem was, “WTO members never agreed specifically on how that was to be done.”

Perhaps a good definition would be whatever it takes to get postwar situations like Iraq to work, don’t you think?

Or is anyone under the illusion that trade and investment flows don’t play a key role in that?

But apparently, not enough WTO members see themselves advantaged by tackling such issues, and perhaps that’s because few can imagine trade making a difference when the U.S. screws up the occupation as badly as we did in Iraq.

Posted by at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “On a wing and prayer: Faith-based travel-boom bears witness to big market,” by Laura Bly, USA Today, 27 January 2006, p. 1D.

Evangelicals are estimated to be 25 percent of the current U.S. population, or about 70 million, and they are moved by their faith, apparently all over the world.

So it’s not just Narnia and Joel Osteen and Rick Warren books they’re buying. They’re booking vacations and spiritual journeys according to their faith-based view of the world.

Estimates are that 600k Americans travel abroad each year in search of various promised lands, with 50k churches (1 out of 9) sporting some sort of organized program, a significant jump of 20% in the last five years.

For God so loved the world, he’s apparently sending his missionaries across the planet, and none too surprisingly, most of their destinations are found inside the Gap.

Another interesting example of the global connective tissue represented by evangelicals and missionaries of all faiths.

Posted by at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tom writes of the following link:

Sent to me by brother Andy the reference librarian. A good sign.

A link from the Librarians' Internet Index to the World Bank's priority on the education of girls.

If you're familiar with Tom's work, you know the high correlation he touts between educating girls/women and linking Gap countries to the Core through globalization.

Thanks, Andy, and keep up the SysAdmin work!

Posted by at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our website host has a scheduled outage tonight, 11:00 PM PST - 5:00 AM PST. Also, I'll be permforming some site maintenance this weekend relative to hosting and Movable Type. So the site will be unavailable some in the next 16 hours or so. I will try to have everything done by 12 AM EST, but I'm not making any promises...

Posted by at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Mark ZenPundit Safranski beat Tom to the punch on criticizing William Lind's criticism of Tom's work.

In that post, Mark also linked John Robb's criticism of Tom: Contra Barnett. I'm most interested in pointing out Robb's work because it's so much more even-handed than Lind's. Furthermore, the comments get really good with Mark and Robb going back and forth constructively. We want to link rational discussions of Tom's work, including those viewpoints that disagree. Check it out.

Posted by at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Dateline: hotel, Oak Ridge TN, 25 January 2006

As always, an interesting and whirlwind day at the side of Frank Akers ...

Started off with a fascinating brief/discussion with a staff senior who's working this interesting global network of visioneers through a major defense contractor. You sit through a presentation like that, and you see all that talent and energy being put against the problems presented by our enemies, and you just know we'll win this global war on terrorism.

We get smarter, they get more desperate.

Then another fascinating brief/discussion with a company that works with Oak Ridge on logistical planning, and you see this problem between the force we've been buying (institutional) and the force we've been using (operational): the latter has moved on to the networked realities of today and the horizontal scenarios of the Long War, but the former is still trapped with Cold War (acquisitions, and bureaucratic oversight in general) and even pre-Cold War (personnel) systems. It was an elevating discussion that had me scribbling mental notes rapidly--especially for Vol. III.

My favorite breakthrough: Peace is the ultimate aftermarket.

Then lunch with Frank, always an education in himself. He is a natural mentor. He is a walking history book on special operations and military history in general. He is worth the price of admission.

Then a stop by at the Howard Baker Center at U. Tennessee. Oak Ridge is appointing me a Distinguished Strategist, Baker is appointing me as a Distinguished Scholar. I am, quite naturally, feeling distinguished. I will be participating in a conference at Baker in late March on Churchill and the future of U.S.-UK alliance. Should be cool. We also discussed me giving some briefs at Baker and possibly running a strategy wargame. I will defiinitely resurrect a few tricks with my old colleague Bradd Hayes, late of the Naval War College and now with Enterra Solutions, in pulling that one off.

Final stop is the Knoxville News Sentinel for a sitdown with the editor to discuss a bi-monthly Sunday column. We'll give it a whirl for a while and see how it goes. If it works out, other possibilities emerge.

Then my third swim in a row and a Family Guy episode on the treadmill.

Tonight is the Thought Leadership dinner/meeting. Long day that goes from 0800 to 2200, but energizing across the board.

I am really beginning to love coming here.

Posted by at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Remember when Tom posted about his interview with Max Borders for Tech Central Station? The transcript, audio excerpt, and iTunes podcast instructions (search for keyword "TCS" in the iTunes Podcast directory) are now available.

Other link: TCS Daily Podcast RSS feed.

Thanks to Steffany Hedenkamp for sending in the link.

UPDATE: Corrections made to TCS transcript; deleted from this post.

Posted by at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dateline: hotel, Oak Ridge TN, 24 January 2006

Up this morning in Atlanta and gave morning pair of briefs to about 75 business exec at one of these "master executive forums." Basically did the max version of the BFA brief spread over two sessions, with Q&A attached. Great venue, great audience, great Q&A--just great all around. Morning like that makes you very happy to do this as a regular working gig.

Made a bunch of good contacts. Topped it off with a nice lunch.

Then the short flight to Knoxville on Delta for a day at Oak Ridge tomorrow.

A weirdly relaxing day given all the effort and interaction. Topped off with another round of lap swimming and treadmill.

Almost feels like I'm settling in better to the road in 2006, like I'm learning how to be the more sensible, more balanced road warrior

We put Tennesse field rock in our basement fireplace. Just got finished today. Looks really great: very natural and rough. Felt like it was my homage to my new connectivity with this state.

Walking out of Knoxville's airport today, I saw the same rock cut as large tiles on the walkway--a nice feeling.

This has beenn the anti-Koyanisquatsi day.

Tomorrow will be a major exploration of this new relationship set: Distinguished Scholar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Posted by at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ARTICLE: “Treatment Description In Memoir Is Disputed: Several addiction counselors question James Frey’s book,” by Edward Wyatt, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. B1.

Frankly, I just don’t get this one. If Frey had simply pulled the wool over Oprah’s eyes, then she admits she was lied to and fooled. Big deal!

But this article points out that suspicions were raised directly to Oprah’s senior producers even before Frey appeared on her show (or more than 3 months prior to Smoking Gun’s revealed investigation) by a veteran counselor who had worked at Hazeldon in Minnesota, a woman who had herself frequently appeared as an addiction expert on Oprah’s show in the past (so a trusted source, yes?). Oprah’s people were concerned enough about her reporting that Frey’s description of his time there, which basically defines the book in question (420 out of the 432 pages), was full of gross distortions and outright fabrications, that they conducted their own investigation (whatever that means, frankly). But in the end, Oprah sticks with her choice, does the show, and, in the events that follows, basically chooses to blow off the concern of counselors who say that Frey’s fantastic lies will actually end up deterring real addicts from seeking treatment at such centers out of fear that they will suffer similarly unreal experiences.

In sum, Oprah, despite knowing better, chooses her own aura of infallibility over the potentially disastrous harm this book ends up causing among the very population she purports to help through its promotion.

I say, Oprah, forget about running for political office. With this sort of self-preserving hypocrisy, you’re already there.

The sad thing is, Oprah’s learning the old DC lesson: it’s not the mistake, but the cover-up and the stubbornness in admitting the mistake that actually costs more in the end.

Oprah needs to dust off her own tale of personal redemption. I’m sure her spirit is willing, even if her ego is too strong.

Posted by at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

ARTICLE: “Iraq Rebuilding Badly Hobbled, U.S. Report Finds: Problems From the Start; Understaffing, Infighting and Lack of Expertise Are Cited in Draft,” by James Glanz, New York Times 24 January 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “Fear and Death Ensnare U.N.’s Soldiers in Haiti: Deepening Instability Forces a 4th Delay in National Voting,” by Ginger Thompson, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “African Union Is Divided by a Sudanese Bid to Lead It: Should a president said to foment war become chairman?” by Marc Lacey, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. A3.

The draft of the official USG report on Iraq-the-postwar is an exercise in honesty. Understaffed, under-trained, under-resourced, under-prioritized, under-authorized, under-coordinated, and under the gun—as a result.

One observer, Steve Ellis, a VP at Taxpayers for Common Sense, says the spending spree by involved U.S. agencies looked “like a spoils system between various agencies.” That’s what happens when you throw a load of money in front of a bunch of bureaucracies. That’s what happens when you have about two dozen contracting agents working the scene. You want serious spending done seriously? Create a dedicated department.

Ready to give up on this impossible task?

Check out how good the UN’s running the show on its own in Haiti. Check out how the African Union is policing Sudan’s genocide janjaweed.

Still believe an international or regional organization is going to do this work for us?

Posted by at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OP-ED: “The Gulf Between Us: The solution to our Iran problem may lie in Riyadh,” by Flynt Leverett, New York Times, 24 January 2006, p. A25.

We are told by the Iran experts that our carrots haven’t worked in recent years, but this is bullshit.

Read on:

AS the United States and its European partners consider their next steps to contain the Iranian nuclear threat, let's recall how poorly the Bush administration has handled this issue. During its five years in office, the administration has turned away from every opportunity to put relations with Iran on a more positive trajectory. Three examples stand out.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Tehran offered to help Washington overthrow the Taliban and establish a new political order in Afghanistan. But in his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush announced that Iran was part of an "axis of evil," thereby scuttling any possibility of leveraging tactical cooperation over Afghanistan into a strategic opening.

In the spring of 2003, shortly before I left government, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran's power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A conversation I had shortly after leaving the government with a senior conservative Iranian official strongly suggested that this was the case. Unfortunately, the administration's response was to complain that the Swiss diplomats who passed the document from Tehran to Washington were out of line.

Finally, in October 2003, the Europeans got Iran to agree to suspend enrichment in order to pursue talks that might lead to an economic, nuclear and strategic deal. But the Bush administration refused to join the European initiative, ensuring that the talks failed.

Now Washington and its allies are faced with two unattractive options for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. They can refer the issue to the Security Council, but, at a time of tight energy markets, no one is interested in restricting Iranian oil sales. Other measures under discussion - travel restrictions on Iranian officials, for example - are likely to be imposed only ad hoc, with Russia and China as probable holdouts. They are in any case unlikely to sway Iranian decision-making, because unlike his predecessor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disdains being feted in European capitals.

Leverett’s answer?

A “contact group” of Core powers (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China) + the Gulf’s powers coming together to declare a nuclear-free Gulf. This is the new Saudi proposal that does not link this goal to Israel’s relinquishment of nukes. In other words, we create an organization for the region like what the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe did alongside NATO in taming and ultimately integrating the old Soviet threat. We guaranteed security and seats at the table, and countries that could have had nukes when the Soviet empire fell apart chose not to make that choice.

Grand bargains are never in the offing. You build these relationships slowly but surely in tiny little steps—meeting after meeting.

We have come nowhere near to exhausting this process. What we’ve exhausted is our military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran-the-regime-change is not an option, because no one will help us on this one—bet on that.

We’ve waged the war as much as we can for now. Better get on with the peace.

Posted by at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

CHART: “The American checkbook: Dollars spent by U.S. government in fiscal year 2005,” by David Stuckey and Sam Ward, USA Today, 24 January 2006, p. 1A.

ARTICLE: “Expanding Bush Budgets Irk Conservatives: With Next Blueprint Looming, a Look at How Defense, Entitlements Fuel Increases,” by Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A4.

OP-ED: “’We Must Change Policy Direction’: A recipe for a competitive, and solvent, America,” by Robert E. Rubin, Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A20.

The QDR reveals that the Leviathan is still king, but that there’s a new crown prince in the kingdom, and it’s called the rising SysAdmin force. Some will be dismayed by this, but I am quite pleased by how far the SysAdmin has come in this first great judging of the threat post-9/11 (and no, the last-second rewrite of the last one doesn’t count).

Rumsfeld loves all his children, and who can blame him? The men upstairs aren’t reigning in the spending, because they say we’re a nation waging war.

But when do we become the nation also waging peace?

Our defense budget is in the mid 400 billions, but we spent on national security last year almost $700 billion ($677b in all, counting all those supplementals). Yes, HHS and social security were almost $600 b each, and I’m pretty sure they’ll go up in coming years, so maybe—just maybe—we’ll have to figure out how to wage peace more efficiently cause we can’t keep spending as much as we do on wars we will not wage against enemies of our imagination. Defense is up almost 9% a year on average since 2000, and China’s the belligerent big spender on defense, when their double-digit percentage increases place it way south of $100b?

Rubin’s got it right. We can’t manage this deficit build-up. It’s not sustainable. Bush can’t—and frankly doesn’t need to—tell us where this is going. He’s writing checks other administrations—and generations--will end up cashing. Get me that happy ending, and get it ASAP. The Long War must be the Expanding Peace marked by the growing Core.

Posted by at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

EDITORIAL: “Palestinian Democracy: What to do when terrorist win elections,” Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A20.

OP-ED: “Regime Change in Palestine?” by Khaled Abu Toameh, Wall Street Journal, 24 January 2006, p. A20.

This has always been the warning of the regional experts: if we promote democracy in the Middle East, we’ll just end up with religious extremists in power.

This assumption forgets two realities: 1) those striving for power act differently than those who’ve achieved it (sometimes they act worse, sometimes they act better); and 2) most founders of countries start out as rebels and terrorists (as the members of the British Parliament reminded me when I spoke there a couple of years back, they still consider George Washington to be a master terrorist).

The question on Hamas isn’t whether they used terror. They did—like crazy. So did Fatah.

The question is, Is Hamas a fundamentalist group whose main aim in gaining power is to disconnect Palestine from the corrupt, outside world? Or, more to the point, to rub out Israel—it’s version of the corrupt, outside world?

If it learns to love power, and Palestine’s ability to exist on its own, the trade-off on Israel may not be so inconceivable.

I know, I know. Hard to imagine. But I haven’t seen a revolutionary party yet that didn’t lose something with power—their goals, their common sense, whatever.

If and when Hamas wins, it won’t just be that the population is desperate. It will be because it outperforms Fatah as a provider of social services a desperate population needs desperately. And because it’s campaign focused, according to Abu Toameh, on corruption, nepotism and anarchy.

And that, my friends, is democracy in hard times and hard places.

Posted by at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Dateline: Hotel, downtown Atlanta GA, late, 23 January 2006

Such a day.

After nice go-to-church-and-bowling-with-kids on Sunday. Today is all rush and decisons.

Youngest, Vonne Mei, our baby from China, suffers lost of portion of three of her four front crowns (upper main teeth). We discovered over weekend. So morning spent at specialist who redoes them with great care, and we get even more instructions/limitations on what to do with her from now on. What an education on small kid teeth. Thought I had heard it all years ago with a two-year-old on chemo, but this is entirely new game, as it's not the secondary teeth we fear, but simply holding on to the primary or baby teeth.

After that (all works out), rush home and pack, then rush to new house for meeting with closet lady, who's really cool and easy to work with. So we go through the house, planning this and that, and I save the garage for last--most fun for the guy. My favorite: the pulley system to lift canoe up toward my 14-foot garage ceiling. Way cool.

Also work some issues with builder Kent, who continues to keep everything humming and turning out magnificently. He's a real dream to work with, and all his contractors will bend your ear about how much they like working with him--precisely because he's so demanding and precise and builds great houses they're proud to be associated with. I remain in awe of the coordination of it all. Done well, it's amazing stuff.

Thought I had Kent stumped on home theater floor strip lighting (my idea), but no, they worked that out beautifully in the baseboard. Today I tried special through-wall cat access to basement closet where I plan to store the litter box. He solved that one too, with ease. Working on harder ones in my head, but I will eventually give up, happier than hell he's going to have his guys build my Cedarworks playset extravaganza.

Hard to leave the wife and kids today. Been with them basically five weeks straight. Vonne said she was banking that time for the rest of 2006. I reminded her of the 20th anniversary Hawaii trip.

Flew to Atlanta tonight. Giving speech to about 100 local biz execs in an annual series they have here. Didn't get here until 9pm, arriving 3 hours late due to bad local weather. Spotted B&N across street (Georgia Tech) and signed one PNM soft and 2 BFA hard. Then swam laps in pool and did some treadmill.

Will be weird to sleep alone tonght. No wife. No baby. No cat. No five year old wandering in about 4 am.

I might actually sleep through the night.

That meeting set today (also had one with base painter) basically finished our decisions on the house (all the outside stuff already planned), so a real sense of settling into Indy with that hurdle crossed. Now have done my first remote, first speech, first coaching, first holidays, and have first house basically locked in--plan-wise.

And settling in with Jenn Posda's expanded role at Leigh Bureau and Sean Meade as webmaster... this is icing on the cake. Settled in with Steve and Enterra more and more (counting my first national TV appearance on their behalf with Kudlow). Just plain settling in... and it feels very nice.

Only hole right now? That G.D. Super Bowl with the Colts. That one bonded me. Next year it will be personal for me.

No transference though. Can have local AFC team. Never cared for Pats, even with all the wins on our watch. Just like Skins in DC when we were there. But Colts are old NFL in a good way (no bizarrely racist name, for example), and I hope they will balance my rebuilding Pack in my heart for next few years.

Next year, definitely scoring some tix.

Posted by at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: “Russia Expands Bid For State Control: Top Nickel Producer Studies Merger With Diamond Firm That Is Run by Government,” by Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal 19 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: “Explosions in Southern Russia Sever Gas Lines to Georgia,” by C. J. Chivers, New York Times, 23 January 2006, p. A3.

Not content with the energy sector, Putin and Co. now go after the precious metals. Norlisk Nickel is big—very big in precious metals. It’s a true global giant. I profiled the company once a while back for a client, and it has a lot more impact on global markets than the Russian oil companies (but not gas giant Gazprom).

And it’s talking merger with government diamond company Alrosa.

It’s hard to say whether all this focus on natural resources will lead Russia down the path of becoming another “trust-fund state,” but I don’t see it happening anywhere like it does in the Middle East, given the high literacy and educational rates in the former Soviet chief state.

And no one wants to see a Russian states that’s impoverished, what with that substantial pensioner class and a chunk of its current labor force that’s largely past its prime. And this flow of income helps a state that’s done reasonably well at taxing business without retarding it (except in those clear instances when the state uses taxes as a weapon in its re-nationalization strategy in the natural resource sectors).

And then there’s the perceived rise in national “power” that controlling such resources brings, which, in the end, I think Moscow will be sorely disappointed in, for as OPEC learned a long time ago, the number one goal of selling such resources is to continue the market for as long as possible, not to make the biggest killing and certainly not to try and wield political power over customers, who will typically respond quite negatively to such threats in the short term while increasing their protective hedges in the long term.

But expect Russia’s learning curve on this point to be a long one, especially with New Core pillars like India and China rushing around the planet cutting new deals all the time (like the upcoming Saudi-Chinese pact).

Yes, yes, there are plenty of experts who will point to all sorts of resource wars in the future, but pay them little attention. More customers mean more stakeholders in Gap stability. The sooner the Core as a whole recognizes that growing shared interest, the sooner the push to shrink the Gap gets real.

Russia’s silly short term actions, in this regard, just speed up the learning curve for states like India and China.

Posted by at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ARTICLE: Liberian leader promises break with violent past: Nation’s 1st female president inaugurated,” by Hans Nichols, Associated Press, Indianapolis Star, 17 January 2006, p. A5.

ARTICLE: “Liberian leader wants closer relationship with U.S.: New president says her war-torn nation needs help restoring stability,” by Rob Crilly, USA Today, 23 January 2006, p. 6A.

Thirteen years of civil war has left Liberia just about the poorest and least developed country in the world, teaming with only one thing: former combatants that number more than 100,000 out of a national population of 3.5 m (almost half of whom were made homeless at one point during the civil war).

Not surprisingly, the new president wants help in retraining those young fighters, far too many of whom served as kids, but she also wants a focus on infrastructure development.

These are the two essential SysAdmin functions, which don’t always occur in nations with insurgencies. This is why Fourth Generation Warfare thinking covers some of the Gap’s postwar landscape, but hardly all. So counter-insurgency is a nice backfill but not a build-up.

By focusing on creating a stable peace by rehabbing past combatants and building a stable security force, and working the infrastructure issues, you create the basics of the military-market nexus: just enough security and just enough infrastructure to attract investment. That foreign money must be made comfortable by a third key leg to this stool: just enough legal rule sets to make contracts and property ownership enforceable at reasonable costs.

The U.S. has pledged $1b in aid, but just sending the check rarely moves the pile. There is no urgency for success in Liberia because there are no American troops to be brought home.

And that’s where the military-market nexus is broken, as far as American commitment is concerned, so don’t expect much change in Liberia any time soon.

Posted by at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “Attacks in Iraq jumped in 2005: Insurgents widen aim to Iraqi forces,” by Rick Jervis, USA Today, 23 January 2006, p. 1A.

You’re wondering what my point is with that title, right?

Attacks are up from 26k to 34k (04-05), but since the 277k Iraqi security personnel now outnumber the U.S. troops in the country, they take the bulk of the hits.

Over 2700 Iraqis died last year, compared to 673 U.S. troops (down from 714 in 2004). Wounded dropped by a quarter for the U.S., from almost 8k in 2004 to under 6k in 2005. Meanwhile suicide bombers rose from 7 to 67, and IEDs rose from 5k to 10k. Car bombs also basically doubled from 400 to 800.

All that rising activity and U.S. deaths and casualties drop, while Iraqi deaths outnumber ours roughly 4 to one.

The biggest reason for our drop, though, is that attacks on U.S. troops succeed far less frequently. In 2004, such attacks created casualties about 25-30 percent of the time. In 2005 that percentage of casualty-producing attacks dropped to 10%.

Simply put, we’ve gotten smarter in our tactics, techniques and procedures, and the Iraqis are shouldering more of the fight.

Leaving Iraq is not an option and really won’t happen. What will happen is that our casualties will continue to fall and Iraqis will continue to assume more of the fighting. Eventually, the public will stop noticing our efforts in Iraq because casualties will be minimal, as more and more of our troops stay inside the wire.

We get smarter, and the enemy gets more desperate. And that’s how you wins wars, no matter what “generation” you label them.

Posted by at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: Quiet Force in Raucous Arena: International Court’s Rulings Aid Democracy in Latin America,” by Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal, 23 January 2006, p. A15.

The Organization of American States has a 7-member panel of commissioners that does for Latin America (and rarely, for America itself) what the International Criminal Court basically tries to do for the Gap: provide a court of last resort when the local states’ legal systems don’t function up to par.

This international court goes by the name of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and it’s been used plenty of times by individuals in Latin American states to bring political abuses by previous autocratic regimes into the light of day, thus facilitating national reconciliation processes and the movement toward democracy.

Naturally, with the behemoth U.S. always on the panel, it tends to offer only the casual advice to its host (the court sits in DC) on its own human rights abuses (like Guantanamo), but whereas the U.S. itself tends to ignore such non-compulsory rulings, they are taken quite seriously in Latin America, in part, as the article says, to avoid bad publicity and in part because the governments in question really want to change.

Isn’t it amazing that this court can work so well and yet we fear the ICC so much? And this fear exists despite our bilateral exclusionary immunity treaties with basically every state in the Gap, ones in which Gap states agree to basically never “sue” the U.S. for the actions of its military there.

Makes you wonder how much good the ICC could really do for the Gap if we supported it more.

Posted by at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “Currency Reserves Held by Beijing Continue to Soar,” by Andrew Browne, Wall Street Journal, 16 January 2006, p. A3.

Remember when we assumed that all those dollars held by the Japanese gave them incredible power over the U.S. economy? Well, the Chinese are on the verge of surpassing the Japanese in reserve holdings of U.S. dollars. China currently holds about $820b, and the Japanese hold almost $850b. China is expected to soon become the first nation to hold $1trillion in U.S. dollars in its reserve coffers.

China has announced a desire to diversify its reserves with more euros and yen, but no one expects a dumping of the dollar by Beijing any time soon. With that level of holdings, any such sale would hurt China far more than the U.S. by rapidly depleting the value of its remaining holdings. When you hold a trillion dollars, it gets pretty hard to find anyone to buy them rapidly, yes?

This is the essence of mutually-assured destruction in the age of globalization.

Posted by at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: “In China, Feng Shui Helps Businesspeople Arrange a New Name: Ancient Art Used to Clear Modern Path to Profit; Mr. Chen’s Big Comeback,” by Li Yuan, Wall Street Journal, 17 January 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: “The long march to privacy: Gradually, China’s people are acquiring the right to be left alone—as long as they keep quiet about politics, of course,” The Economist, 14 January 2006, p. 45.

Don’t laugh on the feng shui bit. You spend on hour with Joel Osteen, the “smiling pastor” working his Houston audience, and you’ll hear a similarly ancient art being put to use for very similar, self-empowering and self-realizing goal achievement.

And there’s nothing wrong with that either. All such ancient arts are survival mechanisms for society. It’s just that our definition of “survival” changes as we move up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or move from Gap to Core.

What feng shui is being used for in China is the same thing that branding and PR is used for here in the U.S.—it’s just capitalism according to Chinese characteristics. People are looking for new definitions of achievement and success and coping mechanisms that get them there. So you get a “stage name,” so to speak. You pick the right company name. You debut on “lucky days” (the Chinese love #4, for example, and are indifferent about #7—go figure!).

But the most important coping mechanism of all is the rising expectation of privacy to accompany that success. I provide for the common good by growing this economy, and I get some personal privacy and freedom on that basis. Beijing’s authorities are more than willing to shepherd that process, so long as it does not spill over into the political realm for now. This is not some communist plot, but rather a fairly calculated attempt to follow in the footsteps of Lee Kuan Yew’s rule in Singapore, a guy whose influence over the region’s socio-economic-political development is vastly underestimated.

Yes, yes, I know. Many observers see an Orwellian watchdog society resulting from this pathway, but that ignores history. Watch the countries that are furthest along in the pathway, like South Korea and Japan, which remain lead geese, historically speaking. Orwell is not alive and well in either country.

Posted by at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tom posted last week about attending:

Geopol, a local virtual think tank of young professionals, scholars and students who get together and discuss geopolitics. There we got an excellent presentation on possible military strike options against Iran and debated the utility and feasibility of such approaches.

Upon further interaction, one of the participants sent Tom the link to their presentation. Check it out.

Posted by at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am already so much happier with the iBook G4 than I was with the Powerbook G4.

Size matters not, sayeth Yoda, and I agree. Twelve inches suits me just fine (what man could complain).

And I can tell already I won't suffer the dents that aluminum body did.

But the huge plus-up to me is this: the keyboard is so much more slick.

Typing on the Powerbook felt like those electric pianos with no-resistance touch: unreal and thus harder to play. The iBook keys feels naturally resistant is a very familiar manner. Already I am typing about twice as fast--as twice as accurate--on this machine than the old Powerbook.

I am thoroughly delighted as a result.

Man's gotta feel comfortable with his instrument if he wishes to be master of his domain.

Posted by at 7:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

ARTICLE: "With Threat of Sanctions, Iran Protects Some Assets," by Nazila Fathi and Andrew F. Kramer, New York Times, 21 January 2006, p. A5.

ARTICLE: "Oil Markets Are Jittery Over Possibility of Sanctions Against Iran," by Jad Mouawad, New York Times, 20 January 2006, p. C1.

ARTICLE: "Chirac Hints at Nuclear Reply To State-Supported Terrorism: Putting would-be attackers on notice that they could face dire consequences," by Ariane Bernard, New York Times, 20 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: "U.S. Aims to Avoid Angering Iran's Public," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 20 January 2006, p. A8.

ARTICLE: "U.S. Envoy Attempts to Hold Sway in Iraq: Shiite Muscle Flexing May Erode Khalilzad's Influence as White House Crafts Exit Plan," Wall Street Journal, 19 January 2006, p. A4.

ARTICLE: "Pakistan's Push in Border Areas Is Said to Falter," by Carlotta Gall and Mohammad Khan, New York Times, 22 January 2006, pulled from web.

ARTICLE: "In Afghanistan, Heroin Trade Soars Despite U.S. Aid: A Threat to Fragile Democracy, The Drug Spreads Death On its Route to Europe; Just Three Euros for a Shot," by Philip Shishkin and David Crawford, Wall Street Journal, 18 January 2006, p. A1.

OP-ED: "Baluchistan," by Frederic Grare and Georges Perkovich, Wall Street Journal16 January 2006, p. A15.

ARTICLE: "Bin Laden Issues New Threat of Attack Against U.S.: Officials Wonder if al Qaeda Is Able to Follow Through Laying Out Terms of a Truce," by Jay Solomon and Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 20 January 2006, p. A1.

OP-ED: "The west has picked a fight with Iran that it cannot win: Washington's kneejerk belligerence ignores Tehran's influence and the need for suble engagement," Guardian, 20 January 2006, pulled from web.

OP-ED: "The Iran Charade, Part II," by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 18 January 2006, pulled from web.

OP-ED: "We Should Strike Iran, but Not With Bombs," by Ivo Daalder and Philip Gordon, Washington Post, 22 January 2006, pulled from web.

Iran's clearly hunkering down, hoping to weather any sanctions by surviving on its soaring oil revenue (it's 40-50 billion dollars a year surfeit is like a magnificent, China-sized FDI flow, except it creates almost nothing in its wake). And yes, such disconnecting does signal danger, all right.

Markets are a bit jittery. I got that question from Kudlow last week and I pooh-poohed it without enough thought. The markets respond to current events--six months in advance. So when markets get jittery over Iran, they are expressing uncertainty over how to discount where this whole showdown is going. Over time, my response was right (rising demand in the East drives prices far more), but I should have listened to Kudlow's question better and offered a more pertinent answer, which is, markets need to be informed as to the likely pace of our response.

The Rice State Department is doing that quite nicely, thank you, showing a serious desire to use so-called "smart sanctions" that don't just punish the average citizen while enriching the elites. But we all know that even the smartest sanctions (meaning, most discretely targeted) tend to fail unless the whole world is watching--and complying. And that is unlikely here. Still, it's great to see State exerting a calming influence over this drive to sanction, which is already drawing in presidential candidates like Evan Bayh.

But smart money sees a lot of trouble with this approach, and with good reason.

First, there's my oft-stated concern (yes, I consider myself, "smart money"!) that we're focusing in the wrong direction by picking Iran's fight over the far more logical one with North Korea, where the dangers of screwing globalization by alienating serious big money like China, South Korea and Japan, far outweigh the potential loss of 4b barrels a day with Iran in a global oil market of 80-plus b barrels a day production. Kim's just far worse, far more unstable, and has the potential to do so much more damage where it counts--the Core. Iran's shenangigans, by comparison, are the same old, same old in a Gap region where we've come to expect failure.

But that is why a lot of smart money is distressed over this new focus on Iran--that sense that we're screwing the pooch in a region where so much change seemed and still seems possible thanks to the Big Bang we laid on it by toppling Saddam's regime. So that by rushing into this fight with Iran (Notice all the similarities with Iraq, right down to the ex-pat group seemingly to supply all our intel? You just wait until this process wakes up the sleeping giant called the Iranian ex-pat population centered in electoral vote-rich California!), we’re wasting time and energy on a player who’s going to play us far more than we can manipulate “him,” given the current correlation of forces (Iran’s oil money, strong and growing economic connectivity with India, Russia, China).

There is keeping the ball rolling and there is pissing in the wind. If you don’t care about getting your socks wet, then you try to do both, but there comes a time for a better sense of sequencing.

Our leverage in Iraq is experiencing a rapid half-life, the further we move in this constitutional process.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is not doing well, and a shared border with Iran on the subject of Baluchistan reminds us that destabilizing Iran may create more harm than good for other regional players we are desperately trying to work right now (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan). Afghanistan is also slipping backwards. You can get all myopic on the bomb all you want, but remember this: the Salafi jihadist movement is exclusively Sunni, so Iran is far more the detour than Iraq could ever be construed to be.

Yes, Osama is sounding more desperate. I spoke about this yo-yo-ing in BFA: he will alternate fantastic threats with calls for détente. Cheney is right: no compromises whatsoever with the radical Salafi jihadists. They have no place in our shared future. But he’s wrong on Iran. It is a country that will not go away or junk its role as leader of the Shiites in the region, but that doesn’t put it in the same category as al Qaeda and it never will.

We are told we can’t trust Iran because it’s not a status quo power, but I ask you, Where are the successes of exporting Shiite revolution over the past 25 years? Not a single one. That dream is far more bankrupt now than the Soviet dream of socialist revolution was when we made peace with that “devil” in the early 1970s, setting in motion the connectivity process that eventually killed that regime from within (not Star Wars, but the “hard” dollars that infected that fake economic system and created a two-tiered economy that progressively starved the command economy of capital and talent; Nixon killed the USSR, not Reagan—if you ever remember anything from my blog, remember that!).

We killed the socialist revolution when we got the global HQ of that movement to sign a deal with its worst enemy, and we do the same with Iran. The “carrots” we’ve offered Iran up to now aren’t nearly enough (some opening of economic ties and diplomatic recognition), because Tehran doesn’t reach for the bomb to acquire those but to get a sense of safety from U.S. invasion, which we cannot successfully pull off. And I say that from participating in several such wargames over the years. Yes, we can physically destroy the place, but we are years and years from the force that will effectively generate lasting regime change there—to include our ability to tap a sufficient quorum of Core powers to participate.

People and experts are blithely arguing the military capacity angle and they’re speaking only the language of Leviathan. The Leviathan’s tasks in Iran aren’t really that much worse than they were in Iraq. It’s the SysAdmin’s likely task list that’s astronomical in comparison, and that’s where the current tie-down of assets in Iraq and Afghanistan is a killer.

And no, letting Israel half-ass it on our behalf isn’t the answer either, because we get suboptimal Leviathan performance and still no SysAdmin follow-up worth discussing.

That has always been my point on Iran: we made our choices in the region with Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq. Seeing the reality of those choices in how we proceed with Iran is the missing link right now—on both right and left. There are simply operational realities going on right now with our ground forces that make most of the discussion of the pre-emption option with Iran rather fantastic—as in, a lot of “experts” are blowing smoke out their asses and seem so confident doing so because they have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to such operational realities.

Ahmadinejad knows just enough, which is why we’ve picked a fight we cannot win—for years. Our choices are this: 1) the ineffective and potentially disastrous use of force that may easily set back everything we’ve sought to accomplished to date in the region (wasting all that sacrifice) and 2) the slow strangle that gets us an isolated Iran that owns the bomb and has three key friends in its corner whom we cannot ignore: India, Russia, China.

As Jenkins says, “Iran is a serious country, not another two-bit post-imperial rogue waiting to be slapped about the head by a white man.”

Iran is close to 80 million people, putting it several folds above Iraq the postwar management problem.

With Iraq, you basically dealt with Saddam, but with Iran, we face a divided leadership of the government, parliament, the mullahs, and the expediency council (the mediator) and “experts” group that selects the ayatollah (which will go through an election of sorts relatively soon). The parliament goes up for a vote in 2008 and Ahmadinejad will be up for re-election in 2009, and those dates give me some pause.

Why? I am growing more partial to the notion that the slow strangle with “smart” (which mean, quite frankly, limited and especially ineffectual here) sanctions isn’t so bad. Everyone on our side can act “tough” and the decision-making locus remains with Rice, not Rumsfeld, who’s got more important things to lock in during his remaining years. Meanwhile, as my mentor Hank Gaffney argues, we slowly but surely work the issue with India, Russia, and China. We won’t move them much at all, but the practice of getting them to think and act responsibly in the Middle East is worth the price of this admission, much like we use the 6-party talks on North Korea to slowly build the notion of the utility of an East Asian NATO down the road.

I am not backing off my arguments on Iran whatsoever. I’m just trying to be patient, which is the sine qua non of being a good grand strategist. You can have the answer, but you need to have the players who are ready for this answer to make sense, and we don’t have those players right now, either on our side or theirs. By the end of this decade there is an entirely new crew all around, with the 4th generation of leaders in China working the hand-off to the 5th. We’re post-Bush, post-Chirac, post-Ahmadinejad (I fully expect), and we’ve now got years of Old Core-New Core dialogue on what the Persian Gulf should look like. That is a lot of positive diplomatic capital to build in the meantime, and that’s the best pathway for now given the intransigence this situation faces from Iran, the U.S., Russia et al.

Remember, my calls on Iran have always encompassed a time frame of about 5 years (by 2010), so resolution here is not the ball-busting showstopper some want to make it out to be.

Because, again, my preference is to deal North Korea in the meantime, not Iran. I think we need to raise the confidence and trust level with New Core powers there first before we can hope to get the cooperation we need from them in the Middle East.

Daalder and Gordon are essentially right: we need the process of sanctions to slowly but surely help Tehran’s many elements see the wisdom of rapprochment on this issue, not confrontation. But more important, in my mind, is teaching both the New Core pillars and ourselves—the Old Core West—that Core-wide cooperation on severe security issues in the Gap is not only possible under the best of circumstances, but something worth building in a systematic manner across all such cases and potential scenarios.

I believe in my vision completely, but I remain realistic enough to know—again—that having the answer is one thing, and having it at the right time is another (something I wrote early in PNM). When the time is not right, you make the time right, you don’t just force the answer despite the poorly receptive environment.

And you do so patiently.

In this regard, I grow more optimistic over time with Rice’s leadership. She has the chance, in these three years, to make up for a lot of mistakes she allowed to happen on her watch as National Security Adviser.

I wasn’t kidding during Katrina when I said the Bush post-presidency has already begun. The question right now with this administration is not what it will accomplish between now and the end of its term, but what it will lock in and what it will set up for the next one. The lock-ins, as I have argued in Esquire in the Rumsfeld piece and will argue in “The Monks of War” piece upcoming, are mostly internal. The set ups are mostly external, and they mostly involve bringing the New Core up to speed on what needs to be done in coming years, because any attempt on our part to proceed without them will fail, causing more harm than good.

Iran ends up being, along with North Korea, the strategic issues where both Old Core and New Core will learn the wisdom of needing each other more than needing quick solutions to the problems that bedevil us both.

Posted by at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE: "Peru May Join Latin America's Swing to the Left: Free-Trade Opponent's Lead In Polls Poses New Challenge To Market Reforms in Region," by David Luhnow and Robert Kozak, Wall Street Journal, 16 January 2006, p. A1.

We see countries turn to the left in Latin America (serious "caboose braking" in my the-train-can-travel-no-faster-than-the-caboose vernacular) as the rural poor vote for candidates who seem more focused on their needs/fears/dangers in a globalized world.

And it's hard not to worry about the future of free trade in the region.

But then we read the fine print: Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru--all Andean states, all members of the Gap.

When the "leftward" turn of Core states (e.g., Brazil, Chile, Uruguay) is examined, though, we see that leftists that assume power in those countries naturally "governed from the center, keeping government spending in check and continuing to integrate their economies to the outside world."

And yet the WSJ frets over the rise of what it calls the "Andean troika," using that Russian word with purpose, especially since it sees the three falling under the mentorishp of that loser Castro who's accomplished so much in the way of Cuban economic development over the decades. Thus fears are expressed about Argentina and Mexico.

But my guess is that, just like in Chile, Uruguay and Brazil, any leftward turns in those two states would be more based in appearance than reality--the essense of Clintonism as we lived it in the United States in the 1990s

Anyway, interesting how the breakdown so clearly follows the map, huh?

Posted by at 6:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

ARTICLE: "Bangladesh has told phone companies to stop offering free late-night mobile phone calls, arguing that they corrupt the country's youth," Reuters, at cnet news.com, news.com.com/2102-1039_3-6027427.html.

Bangladesh, as the story says, is a "deeply conservative country, where dating is discouraged." So imagine when the mobile phone companies started giving away free late-night calling.

Where there is will, my friends, and connectivity ...

The car really started the sexual revolution in the U.S., so why not cell phones in the Gap?

So, many parents complain and authorities stop the practice, pissing off youth the country over.

The network types will snort over the silliness of it all, like pissing in the wind. The "clash" types will say, "I told ya so!"

But in the end, this is all natural yin and yang with globalization: two steps forward, one step back, more connectivity creating more desire to control content.

Me? I say never bet long term against people's natural desire to connect. "Life finds a way," Michael Crichton wrote in Jurassic Park, speaking in the voice of his maverick mathematician. I bet on connectivity because I know why mankind rules this planet--and how I got four kids.

Got this one from a reader. Can't remember which between my laptop, Treo and desk top, but he knows who he is.

Posted by at 9:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From ZenPundit:

Chirol of Coming Anarchy is looking at Victorian imperialism in Egypt through the lens of Dr. Barnett's PNM Theory; a nice interdisciplinary mix of political science and history.

You may want to check it out.

British Egypt and PNM Theory Parts I, II, and III

Tom says "Chirol intrigues constantly".

Posted by at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Moving down from latest and greatest to oldest and least ;-)]

You, the reader, can greatly improve the usefulness of this site. Please do contribute your pertinent comments and links. There will be spam and impertinence, but I'll zap those (as quickly as I can).

Please comment and argue civilly.

Everyone is welcome to comment. However, the comment must be pertinent to the thread. And, while you are free to disagree with Tom, if every comment you write is in fundamental disagreement with Tom, there are other websites where your time would be better spent.

Before asking or (worse!) demanding an answer from Tom, please at least search the voluminous website for an answer/direction, ask a frequent commenter, or read one/both of the books.

No lecturing Tom. He has described this weblog as his 'virtual living room'. Don't taunt Tom (or anyone else!). I want our conversations here to be great.

Comments should be reasonably brief. There are many fine, free weblog services where your long writings can be posted. Self-linking/manual trackbacks for pertinent posts are encouraged. Lay translation: if you have a long comment, post it on your weblog, then put a link in the comments. If you'd like us to read an article, link it (don't copy it in).

If/when you have problems or questions, please email me at webmaster@thomaspmbarnett.com.

If you're willing to register with TypeKey and login with them, your comments will post immediately without approval (though they will still be subject to moderation - deletion or banning, should that be necessary). If you don't wish to register with TypeKey, your comments will have to wait for approval. I will approve such (legitimate) comments as fast as I can, but my ability to approve them will be severely limited while I'm working my day job, approximately 0700-1330 EST during the week.

Archive

After having comments on for a little less than 24 hours, I'm ready for version 0.2. I've got the TypeKey registration function working now (I was missing a '/').

As the title of this post expansively alludes to, I'm going to keep updates on the status of comments in this thread (and point to it from the comments template).
And, since this is now the comprehensive comments thread, let me include two items from yesterday:

1/23/6 update:

I've noticed 2 glitches for registered commenters (so far just me and Bill):

1. You have to reload the page after commenting to see your new comment.
2. The weblog doesn't recognize you as registered until you go to preview. You can go straight to preview without typing anything and it will recognize you. I will get this fixed as soon as i can.

I think I finally got TypeKey working right in the comments. If you plan on commenting with any regularity, I sure would appreciate you registering (unless you object conscientiously ;-).

Posted by at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Was asked by Simon Owens and replied as posted. A quick four questions and a bit longer four answers.

Interview with Thomas P.M. Barnett

Bloggasm is a website whose mission statement reads:

Bloggasm seeks to interview and promote a variety of blogs from different cultural realms. We sometimes post several interviews a day. We also bring you a multitude of posts on blogs, culture, and weird news we find on our daily web wanderings.

So let it be written, so let it be URLed.

UPDATE: link to Bloggasm updated

Posted by at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As Tom wrote, I'm delighted to be on board with you as the new webmaster. Please don't hesitate to contact me with comments about or problems with the website at webmaster@thomaspmbarnett.com

Without further ado, let me announce that we've turned comments back on. They've been off for over a year. We're going to try them again for a number of reasons.

One reason is that Tom has made a (what I think is good) decision to end the newsletter. We are hoping to replace some of the value of the newsletter with comments.

Another reason we're turning comments back on is because so many of you have a lot to offer. Please do contribute your pertinent comments and links. There will be spam and impertinence, but I'll zap those (and as quickly as I can, too). Not sure yet what the final configuration will be. I've got all the safeties on for now (comment moderation, etc.). We'll release this baby into the wild and tweak it on the fly.

It should go without saying that you are free to disagree with Tom and one another. Please comment and argue civilly. Thank you.

Posted by at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Sean Meade has been with me virtually for many months now, for a long time offering his free proofreading services on my blog.

Now, in a move that delights us both, I've taken him aboard as my webmaster on the site.

Be patient as he works the site and gets familiar with everything.

Posted by at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

ARTICLE: "Lessons Learned in Iraq Show Up in Army Classes: Culture Shifts to Counterinsurgency," by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post 21 January 2006; A01.

Yet another good piece that signals a growing media awareness of this under-covered story. Ricks spoke with a lot of the same guys I spoke with, but an amazingly smalll overlap with my upcoming Esquire piece. And yes, I look for my "crown jewels" when I see a piece like this and I'm not seeing them, so certain sigh of relief.

In the end, I'm actually glad to see a lot of these bits and pieces articles appearing; it says the market is really ready for the ambitious, overarching sort of stuff I always shoot for. I think our timing couldn't be better in this regard, especially since our piece narrativizes this whole change in a way that newspaper articles just can't capture because they're not working with 6,000 words.

Also makes me realize that here it is the 21st, and subscribers will be getting the mag in less than two weeks!

Here's the full article, which is worth reading: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/20/AR2006012001906.html.

Posted by at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Found here: http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_1_20_06.htm.

Actually, it’s not a review of my books whatsoever, but a pathetic cribbing of Joe Nye’s Washington Post review of BFA. Lind gives the impression of having read both my books, but then, in a display of almost Frey-nian hubris, he gives numerous clues to the fact that he never read either volume.

Where I come from, they call this lying. I will call it intellectually dishonest and leave it at that.

In the end, it just saddened me that Lind is so fucking lazy, and it maddened me that in his profound arrogance, he doesn’t seem to think it matters or that he’ll get caught. From now on, whenever people write that I have a big ego, I will remember Lind’s diatribe not because it’ll make me feel better, but because it’ll put the fear of God in me. If I ever get this analytically fraudulent, I hope somebody whom I respect will pull me aside and tell me to quit embarrassing myself. Better to go out as Lou Gehrig than Barry Bonds.

And no, I won’t end it here. Because although I first received many reviews of Mr. Lind’s nasty attack, instead of simply cribbing those emails, I actually took the effort to sort through his bile, and frankly, I was shocked at how goofily off-base it is. The man clearly doesn’t anticipate being caught—just like our deer-in-the-headlights Mr. Frey.

Clue #1 that suggests Lind read neither book: there is nothing in his review that isn’t pulled or obviously extrapolated from Nye’s two paragraphs on PNM and BFA—not a goddamn thing.

Clue #2 that suggests Lind read neither book: he doesn’t mention the dominant military concept from PNM, or the splitting of the U.S. military into Leviathan and SysAdmin functions. Virtually no one who’s reviewed PNM has skipped that point, and given Lind’s approach, it absolutely stunning that he ignores it completely. Most 4GWers go apoplectic on this point, but apparently it meant nothing to Lind? Try to make that one go away, Mr. Frey—I mean, Lind!

Clue #3 that suggests Lind read neither book: he ignores my treatment of Fourth Generation Warfare in BFA (in which I mention Lind favorably and with real respect, no less), and my arguments suggesting its complimentarity with Network Centric Warfare. How in God’s name the great man of 4GW bypasses that challenge is just beyond me—unless he has no fucking idea it’s even in there!

Clue #4 that suggests Lind read neither book: the comparison of my future worth creating to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World wouldn’t be so comical if I didn’t attack that book for its dark view of history—in BFA no less! Quite the boner, that one. But let me double up here: the subsequent labeling as “soft totalitarianism” is equally queer but far more laughable. Mr. Lind has clearly never enjoyed writing a NYT bestseller (he complains that my books are “just the sort of patent medicine that sells”) if he thinks mistakes like that one can slip by, because people ACTUALLY READ MY BOOK!

Clue #5 that suggests Lind read neither book: his casual but uncertain lumping of me in with neocons. His cute little “(other?) neo-cons” reference is about the only honest sentiment he expresses in the “review”; I mean, at least here he’s expressing some doubt. If he had actually read either book, he’d been in no doubt of my opinion of the neocons, but I guess expecting Mr. Lind to rise above the level of your average Amazon.com blowhard was just too much.

Clue #6 that suggests Lind read neither book: his presumption that I see only states reigning in the current age of warfare. That boner only would have required him to make it aaaaaaaaaall the way up to chapter two (The Rise of the Lesser Includeds) in PNM. Christ, man! My ten-year-old son made it til the end! Doesn't the man have a staffer, like he once was on the Hill? I mean, some minion that makes sure he doesn't embarrass himself in public?

Clue #7 that suggests Lind read neither book: his two big criticisms (America will be exhausted and the result will be a socio-economic “hell on earth”) of my vision are ones I deal with explicity in chapter 5 of BFA. How about just a sentence suggesting he’s read anything of the sort? This one I give the old Hill staffer a pass on because it would have required he read a good 700 pages.

Clue #8 that suggests Lind read neither book: his contention that I think “restoring the state in places where it has failed will be easy.” His proof of this accusation? Oh, he quotes Joe Nye’s encapsulated presentation of my A-to-Z rule set on processing politically bankrupt states. That’s it. I know, I know. Why should I expect him to read a fairly substantial section of chapter 1 in BFA when there’s a wonderful one-sentence version that lands on his doorstep on Sunday morning? Cause if he had, he would have come across all those paragraphs where I say America can't go it alone, and that would have given him plenty to criticize, like my call for alliance with Russia and China (another 'outrage' to the Right that he lets pass by thanks to his dutiful ignorance regarding my ACTUAL text).

Clue #9 that suggests Lind read neither book: his assertion that I argue for regime change in Iran. I mean, come on! Can’t you even leaf through an Esquire now and then? They come to your mail box, for crying out loud! And the covers have been known to spruce up your average 58-year-old's day.

Clue #10 that suggests Lind read neither book: Lind has apparently never written about me or anything I’ve ever done up until now (some web crawler, please correct me if I’m wrong), and yet he magically comes up with a sweeping condemnation of both of my substantial and large books that is completely traceable to a Washington Post review that appeared only days earlier.

Gosh, do ya think?

William Lind is the Director (director, mind you!) of the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.

Lind has never served in or worked directly for the military (not that there's anything wrong with that ...), as far as I can tell, although he was famously an acolyte of Col. John Boyd, much in the same way I was identified with Adm. Art Cebrowski. Two years out of Dartmouth and Princeton (he finishes his masters in 1971 ... ), he seems to go directly to the U.S. Senate as a staffer for 13 years (1973-1986 for Taft and Hart) and then he went directly to the conservative Free Congress Foundation, where he's been for the last 19 years.

How's that for living in the real world? All Ivy League and then 32 years straight inside the Beltway. I feel like an outsider in comparison. No wonder he distrusts my capitalist instincts.

Lind's main claim to fame is that he co-authored, with a slew of active-duty and reserve officers, a seminal article on 4GW back in 1989. He published one military strategy book on his own prior to that (1985), co-wrote an attack on the U.S. military with Gary Hart, and now seems content to churn out his critiques of operations and strategy (unlike me, Lind-the-non-operator has no fear of critiquing operations or even tactics), and the occasional right-wing diatribe on "cultural conservatism," which his site defines as "the belief that there is a necessary, unbreakable, and causal relationship between traditional Western, Judeo-Christian values, definitions of right and wrong, ways of thinking and ways of living -- the parameters of Western culture -- and the secular success of Western societies: their prosperity, their liberties, and the opportunities they offer their citizens to lead fulfilling rewarding lives. If the former are abandoned, the latter will be lost."

Yes, yes, the barbarians are at the gate all right, and I'm the "soft totalitarian" ... How quaint.

Don’t get the impression I’m mad, because I’m not. Lind writes a lot of good stuff on 4GW, most of which--ironically enough--actually fits my view of how to shrink the Gap quite nicely.

Anyway, it’s actually fun when someone that pompous pulls their pants down, bends over, and dares you to put your size 13 up their big lily-white Beltway ass.

Thank you sir! May I have another?

Posted by at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

ARTICLE: "Diplomats Will Be Shifted to Hot Spots: Rice Also Plans to Elevate USAID Chief," by Glenn Kessler and Bradley Graham, Washington Post, 19 January 2006, p. A1.

Hundreds of diplomats shifted from Europe and DC to the Middle East, Asia, and Gap locations galore, as Rice goes for her own brand of "transformation," picking up that word just as the term falls out of favor (OBE) in the Pentagon. You want different leaders, you make them climb different ladders, which now seem to run through the Gap more and more for foreign service officials.

"The greatest threats now emerge more within states than between them," she says.

Hmmm, a familiar line.

"The fundamental character of regimes now matters more than the international distribution of power."

Now THAT is a bold and original statement! One that separates Rice from the neocon structuralist view of the world.

"As part of the change in priorities, Rice announced that diplomats will not be promoted into the senior ranks unless they accept assignments in dangerous posts"--read, the GAP!

So the State Department, which has as many diplomats in smaller core states like Germany as it does in huge New Core states like India, is shifting jobs.

Rice also elevates the new USAID boss to the equivalent of deputy secretary of state, which is a number 2 rank--another bold step.

The talk of "rock star" is cool, but pointless. The photo ops and oohing and aaahing by the press abroad is cute, but pointless.

These changes have a point, and Rice is to be congratulated on that.

Posted by at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Dateline: in the Shire, Indy, 19 January 2006

Had a fun night last night with World Affairs Council of Indianapolis, which hosted me for brief at Butler University in northern Indianapolis. Brought daughter Emily along for cocktail hour, then dinner, then my brief with Q&A, then signing some books. After all that we go to local bar where we participate in meeting of Geopol, a local virtual think tank of young professionals, scholars and students who get together and discuss geopolitics. There we got an excellent presentation on possible military strike options against Iran and debated the utility and feasibility of such approaches. Really quite cool.

My performance was pretty good. It was an older audience, so I went at a reasonable speed, explaining a lot of stuff I wouldn't with a professional military audience. As such, I only got through the A-to-Z rule set on processing politically-bankrupt states.

Still, overall a very nice night. I did this talk for free to sort of announce myself in the area (many seemed stunned I moved to Indy). Not sure how many more will follow over time, but doing it the night after my first remote (Kudlow and Company), it made the week feel like my coming-out party.

Today was lost to hospital time with son who faces some unusual surgery this summer, so lots of F2F with docs. Nothing too tense, just one of those things you end up enduring (this process will unfold over years) as a parent.

Now for the changes ...

My former partner in the New Rule Sets Project, Steffany Hedenkamp, gave a go at being my combined personal assistant and webmaster, doing a great job throughout her first six weeks (especially in navigating my site to a new host provider), but we decided to mutually end the relationship because of the workload involved for her, given all her competing interests. I'm very grateful to Steff for helping through the last couple of months and I'm sorry it didn't work out, but the experience taught me a lot, helping me move toward a bunch of decisions that hopefully will create a better work environment for me as I continue to get more deeply involved at Enterra Solutions while maintaining the blog, writing for Esquire, supporting the books and someday writing another, and continuing in my role as a public speaker with my agency.

To that end, a few changes are in store.

The big change is that I've given up on the notion of trying to find one person to be both personal assistant and webmaster. In reality, I've got plenty of admin support from Enterra, so it's really only my speaking engagements where I need the help, primarily in setting up travel and then following through with vouchers. To that end, I've finally taken up the very kind offer of my speaking agent, Jennifer Posda, to make those services part of the Leigh Bureau's service to my as my booking agency. This works for me because it comes under their percentage fee, and it works for Jenn because it frankly simplifies her planning and support to me by giving her complete control over the process from A to Z. Jenn had been offering this kind of help for a while, and I guess it just took some time and enough circumstances for me to realize what a great offer it was. Jennifer has been a huge boon to my work life in general in recent months (she took over for me during 2004 after I lost the original manager I had at LB and have been temped for a while by another senior manager). When Jenn and I were finally paired, it took a while for us to get to know each other well enough to be more forthcoming in advice and sharing of information with one another. But now I consider her such a big part of my worklife, I'm really thrilled to have this function handled by her, making me that much more grateful to be with Leigh Bureau.

So that problem (the personal assistant) is basically solved, leaving me with the issue of webmaster, which I intend to solve ASAP.

Two other changes of note: First, I intend to end production of the newsletters, which, by my way of reasoning, are simply too much work to have piled on top of the weblog. The journal-cum-newsletter concept grew out of my original partnership with Steff, Critt and Bob Jacobson in the New Rule Sets Project. It was envisioned as a vehicle for promoting dialogue in which my partners could participate and through which we could promote the vision, the firm, my books, the whole enchilada. But with NRSP dead and gone, and now those three partners all moved on to other ventures, it just seems like drudgery to me. Don't get me wrong, the essays were great (from others, I mean), and I enjoyed having the AskTom letters being shared with a wider audience, but again, it was just too much work for the gain, and I'd rather have this site and my creative endeavors center around the blog exclusively. It's why I started the site, and it's what keeps me (and virtually everybody else, judging by our stats) coming to the site. So it's a matter of sticking with what you love and trimming as necessary to protect that kernel.

One of the main reasons I considered keeping the newsletter was to allow for the reprinting of the AskTom emails and my responses, which grew out of the decision, way back when, to stop the comments function on the blog. I made that decision way back then because I used to read the comments obsessively and try to comment back on all of them, which tired me out and made me tense. But I feel like that's not going to be an issue for me at this point, because I now barely have enough time to write the blog, much less review it or scan the comments. I think what I'll do this time around is have my new webmaster moderate the comments (yanking the jerks/spam/sellers) and edit them at will, using his best judgment. And if that doesn't work, I'll simply kill the function again (with the shame being on me this second time).

That's the sum of it: Steff departs, a new webmaster comes in, the newsletter dies, and the comments come back. I'll keep the AskTom function for now, because some prefer that route (actually, a large number of my readers do, for various reasons), but I also want to create--within reason--a space for people to discuss the posts.

I'll try to post something later tonight. Got my new Mac (went for iMac this time, in 12 inches, hoping the white plastic Mac turns out to be tougher than the aluminum G4 that I beat the crap out of in just one short year of travel--okay, I travel a lot, but really, that thing dented like no laptop I ever used before), and I'm hoping to break it in a little bit tonight.

Posted by at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But the Rumsfeld crowd continues to amaze me with its flexibility in thinking.

This is what I said in Blueprint for Action:

[page 82: Chapter Two: Winning the War Through Connectedness]
Ultimately, you're faced with the larger, inescapable requirements of having to connect Africa to the Core to run this problem to ground, otherwise today's problem for CENTCOM simply becomes tomorrow's distant problem for EUCOM. When you make that leap of logic, the next decision gets a whole lot easier: America needs to stand up an African Command. Now, I know that sounds like a huge expansion of our strategic "requirements," but when you consider the boundary conditions in this way, the discussion shifts from if to when.

[page 338: Conclusion: Heroes Yet Discovered]
The first U.S. military commander of African Command: The United States will be forced by circumstances in the global war on terrorism to refocus more of its military attention on sub-Saharan Africa over time, eventually recasting its Unified Command Plan to create a specifc African Command. This will represent a huge commitment on the part of the Pentagon, which historically has shied away from any major efforts on the continent. At first, African Command will be a lot like Southern Command, which covers Latin America: lots of geographic responsibility but little in the way of troops and resources. But as the Middle East settles down and NATO builds up its capacity for extrareginal operations, Africa will become the main focus of the Core's SysAdmin force.

Those were the predictions, the following is the unfolding reality reported in Army Times:

Army Times

January 23, 2006

Pg. 23

Officials Look To Put Africa Under One Watchful Eye: Continent now split between two commands

By Gordon Lubold, Times staff writer

As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld considers how to reorganize the military to address global threats in coming years, defense officials are exploring the possibility of putting Africa, long split between the U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command, under one unified command.

Such a move has been discussed for years, but as U.S. operations evolve in the Horn of Africa, officials say the time has arrived to do something.

Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, said the area of responsibility for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, could be expanded to include all of Africa ...

Whelan, respected in and outside the Pentagon for her experience of more than a dozen years working African issues, said the joint task force in the Horn of Africa has evolved many times since it was created and, given the situation on the ground in the region, it may be time for it to evolve some more.

Africa, an operational backwater for the U.S. since the botched operation in Somalia in 1993, is becoming increasingly relevant in the war on terrorism, officials say. Experts say that terrorist groups, squeezed out of places like Iraq and Afghanistan are moving to areas in North and West Africa and elsewhere. Many nations cannot effectively govern themselves, leaving a welcome mat for terrorist groups.

The Pentagon has begun to pay more attention to the region, sending small units of special operations forces and Marines to conduct training and other missions. But the department’s efforts are hamstrung somewhat by the fact that two commands have responsibility for Africa ...

A Central Command official confirmed that discussions are taking place on the task force in the Horn of Africa and what it should look like in the future. The official could not confirm if its area of responsibility would be expanded but said officials believe its role may be changing ...

“It should push to be more representative of the other elements of national power besides the military,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the conversations. “The military should be just one component" ...

Sounds like African Command and the SysAdmin function, yes?

This was sent to me by a Naval War College prof off Early Bird. I'd give the URL for full story, but EBird not available to non-gov, and I'm rushing out door...

Posted by at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Been soooooooo long since I've done any public speaking--weeks, really. I was a bit spooked about going on this afternoon. A rough day of working with the painting lady on colors throughout the house (tense, in a guy way). Plus I found out today that my Sprite spill in the Mac laptop months ago finally caught up with the machine, to the tune of almost $1,500 in non-covered damages.

So I was a bit tense, let's say.

Rushed back from house and picking up kids, did quick pre-interview with Kudlow's producer, showered, got dressed and caught the limo from our apartment to the remote facility in Indy.

Guys there were very nice, but the lighting in the room was not to my liking. Instead of multiple lights from angles, just one big-ass bright light right on my noggin (hence the weird blinking while I waited to speak, which--thankfully--went away when I did talk).

Did okay on the content, but nothing special. Big accomplishment for me was not talking toooooo fast. Left a lot of good lines on the table, but felt the need to try and address Kudlow's questions as directly as possible, since he's a fan of my writing and I really appreciate that.

Disappointed he wasn't wearing a nice french cuff, though. The man's my inspiration for moving in this direction sartorially!

My big goal here tonight was not to embarrass myself given the lay-off and to make Kudlow glad to have me on (Iran expert guys is Iran expert guy, but I can come back on a host of issues). This goal wasn't hard to achieve because Kudlow so gracious in his intros, questions and follow-ups.

Big pluses tonight? Mentioned the blog. Mentioned and showed cover of book. Mentioned and showed Enterra Solutions + my title there.

Not bad!

Now, to find a new Mac laptop. Will probably get same Powerbook in 12 inches this time (15 too bulky for this road warrior--actually one of the causes of the spill in the first place, as it was too big on planes). I know, I know. I could wait a month for Intel-chip Mac that's so much faster, but frankly, speed was never an issue for me. Plus, I'll work this bubba til the fall, give it to my daughter for high school, and then buy the better Mac laptop to go with a nice high-end Mac desktop for my new office when we move in (assuming I come up with that downpayment . . .)

Ah, but first to get the educational discount . . . must call the Baker Center at U of Tennessee!

Posted by at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Heading off to Indy studio now. Exact time will be in the range of 5:00-5:20.

Posted by at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Post had promised to review PNM but never did, but now comes through on Blueprint for Action (which is cool since PNM was a WP bestseller in Dec 04). Not the full-up, singular review but a group review where BFA is paired with two other books.

But the guy reviewing it makes up for that by a ways: Joseph Nye, easily one of the most influential political scientists in the world for several decades now (his Power and Interdependence with Bob Keohane is the first great book on globalization--years before anyone else described it well--and his writings on "soft power" have had huge influence as well).

Joe, you must know, connected with me in a variety of ways when I was at Harvard. I took his graduate survey course on international relations (co-taught with Stanley Hoffman). I also taught as a teaching fellow in his famous undergrad course on international conflict. Finally, he advised my PhD diss, along with Houchang Chehabi (Iranian and specialist on Iran) and Adam Ulam (whom I worked for at Harvard's Russian Research Center).

I get a solid two paragraphs from Nye in the review. Here's the clipped version that covers only the BFA references:

Through a Glass Darkly: The world's last superpower tries to find its way in the post-9/11 landscape.

Reviewed by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Sunday, January 15, 2006; BW05
Book World
Washington Post

THE AMERICAN ERA: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century
By Robert J. Lieber
Cambridge Univ. 255 pp. $28

BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION: A Future Worth Creating
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
Putnam. 440 pp. $26.95

LAWLESS WORLD: America and the Making and Breaking of
Global Rules from FDR's Atlantic Charter to George W. Bush's Illegal War
By Philippe Sands
Viking. 324 pp. $25.95

Sept. 11, 2001, was like a bolt of lightning that illuminated a new foreign policy landscape. During the last quarter of the 20th century, the information revolution and the acceleration of globalization had shrunk distance. Suddenly, Americans were vulnerable to nonstate actors based in a poor weak country halfway around the world. Rather than simply signifying economic growth, globalization had created a new security threat. A transnational network of terrorists killed more Americans in one day than the government of Japan did with its surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

Not surprisingly, this new world called forth a new grand strategy to relate America's capabilities to its interests and values. George W. Bush had run as a traditional realist who eschewed nation-building and wanted to focus his foreign policy on the great powers. But after 9/11, he soon devised the National Security Strategy that instead focused on terrorists, weapons of mass destruction and rogue states and asserted America's right to act preemptively, with or without the backing of allies or international institutions. The wisdom of that strategy is the subject of these three new books. Robert J. Lieber, a Georgetown political scientist, and Thomas P.M. Barnett, a Pentagon consultant, supported the Iraq War and approve of Bush's grand strategy, though they criticize what they describe as the inept way in which it has been implemented; Philippe Sands, a professor of international law in London, disagrees, both about the Iraq War and the underlying premise for Bush's new course: that the alliances and institutions America had created after 1945 were inadequate to deal with the al Qaeda menace.

Lieber's argument ...

In Blueprint for Action, Barnett is both more critical and more ambitious in his discussion of that course. In his words, "a grand strategy requires a grand vision," such as the one he sought to provide in his recent bestseller, The Pentagon's New Map. Now he is back with a blueprint by which the two-thirds of the world that he calls the global economy's "Functioning Core" can rescue the remaining third of humanity, trapped in what he calls the "Non-Integrating Gap," with the ultimate goal of universal inclusiveness and global peace. Politically bankrupt regimes in the Gap tend to support or attract transnational terrorist activities, he argues. But the United States can act as a Leviathan, or a proxy for the international community, in defeating and deterring rogue regimes. Barnett has a six-step plan to accomplish this: First, the U.N. Security Council acts as a grand jury to indict countries; second, the Core's biggest economies issue " 'warrants' for the arrest of the offending party"; third, the United States leads a "warfighting coalition"; fourth, a Core-wide administrative force (with the United States providing 10 to 20 percent of its personnel) puts things back together with the help of the fifth element, a new International Reconstruction Fund; followed by a sixth step, criminal prosecution of the apprehended parties at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. "That's it, from A to Z," Barnett notes cheerfully. "Bad states go in, better states come out." But when he applies this formula to, say, North Korea, the analysis is not very convincing.

Barnett writes in a breezy, self-referential style that tells the reader about the jokes he has cracked at various Pentagon briefings. He likes to engage in "big think"; consider him a sort of Thomas L. Friedman for colonels. Whenever someone promotes risky large ideas -- like allying with Iran and accepting the inevitability of that country's possession of nuclear weapons, or creating a new U.S. alliance with China, Russia, India and Brazil that would become more important than NATO -- he is bound to attract criticism. But interspersed with some zany ideas are trenchant criticisms of the Bush administration's strategy, as well as some highly original insights.

Philippe Sands's book ...

Joseph S. Nye Jr. is Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University and the author, most recently, of "The Power Game: A Washington Novel."

COMMENTARY: Nice to mention PNM as bestseller. Nice recap of Core and Gap and the basic strategy of shrinking it. Most excellent to get a run-through on the A-to-Z. He blanches re: my more vigorous approach to North Korea (fine, Joe's a big believer in international institutions). The inevitable "breezy" line because I don't write like an academic (forgiven, since that comment is mandated by his Harvard contract whenever he reviews non-academics like me). "Self-reverential" is kind enough, especially when paired with the Friedman comparison (much like Ignatius way back when, and it's a good niche description of me). The "risky ideas" commentary is okay, since he puts out the ideas fairly enough (I like being described as controversial and iconoclastic in my thinking, which Joe as much as says with his "will attract criticism" bit). "Some zany ideas" is a given, given his age and mindset, but I'll take the "trenchant criticism" and "highly original insights." Overall, a very positive review, in my mind, especially when the other two books don't seem to excite him much. I am greatly pleased, especially since it's from somebody I admire so much and who is so important in the field of international relations.

Find the full review at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011201685_pf.html.

Posted by at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Had to catch up on stuff, though. Feel like I've been on Mars for the past several months. Never had any real down time like this last week.

25 posts by me alone! Gotta be my new record. So many that most are pushed off the front page of the blog already. Not sure that matters, but ...

Hope you find the newsletter enjoyable. Facing another transition in the work place, so it may be the last for a while.

Tomorrow, after I organize my files, I am going through my email account to find all the things I told myself I would blog but never got around to.

Then back to the Director's Commentary on BFA. Then I start reviewing the reviews. Should take me . . . through ... I'd rather not say.

Time to drink some beer and watch a totally inappropriate movie with my kids.

Posted by at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I come across Lorelei Kelly's stuff a lot, and she always seems very solid to me.

Plus, the Democracy Arsenal cast is impressive. Good site to keep an eye on.

And yes, I cite her post because she references my China piece in Esquire last November!

Here it is: The QDR:Dreaming of the USSR.

Alas, Kelly is all too right on the QDR.

Posted by at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TM writes, as always, with great intelligence. I know he finds my soft-kill arguments hard to take. They require a lot of patience. But remember, it's how we took down the "evil empire" without firing a shot, and we did it all in a brief span of 16 years (1973-1989)!

The soft kill is also clearly working wonders in China, and I think history will judge it hugely instrumental in turning India outward after all those decades of "Hindu rate of growth." The mullahs, which TM worries about so, have already lost the fight for the masses in Iran. We are in the opt-out period much like Brezhnevian USSR, and no, we didn't realize it then either (although a summer in Leningrad in 1985 certainly convinced me of it).

Here's his good post on the subject: Hard Kill v Soft Kill in Iran.

Posted by at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Resisted the temptation to go teak (my God, who has a teak playset?), because I like the size and robustness of the Cedarsaurus-size contraptions.

I have a brilliant space in the trees in my new side/back yard where this behemoth will go. Will the flat screen in the sun room, I complete my plans to be able to watch NFL games and the kids on the playground at the same time.

Now I must figure out a way for a small fridge to appear in the sun room stocked with Leinenkugels ....

Posted by at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark Safranski is such a consistent performer on his blog (he, I know, is a teacher), that he must be a delight in class.

I missed this post during my BFA book tour buzzathon. Coming across it now, I want to bring your attention to it. Read the comments here and at "Coming Anarchy" and you get this sense of a fairly well-developed crew of writers. Are they some weird little cluster or do they represent more? Content-wise, clearly the latter, frequency-wise, who the hell knows?

I just really like this post: http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/moral-countermeasures-against-anti.html.

Posted by at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, I am trolling Technorati's search function for stuff on BFA. Catching up, as it were.

Anyway, beats the shit outta thinking about the Colt's butt-ugly loss today. Man that hurt! I have never seen such a down (got way behind), then up (caught up), then down (the 4th and 16 failure), then up (what was Cowher thinking?), then down (the CB doesn't score on the fumble return!), then up (Peyton drives!), then down (missed FG!).

But I regress . . .

After reading so much Tdaxp, I'm beginning to think I like "Coming Anarchy" more, because they treat PNM/BFA as tools and less as debating points (a weakness with Tdaxp).

This one is cool just for the funky graphics: http://www.cominganarchy.com/archives/2005/11/10/a-pnm-take-on-the-riots/.

The more I read Chirol, the more he impresses. One assumes Chirol is a teacher, given the functional use of other people's ideas. If not, he/she should be.

Posted by at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a truly bizarre and equally brilliant post, probably the best display of horizontal thinking in a blog I've ever seen.

Find it here: http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/11/21/globalization-is-water-the-magic-cloud.html.

Me? I had to go lie down with a Corona Extra after reading it.

Posted by at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thompson is a really easy interview: super-profesional in execution, very friendly guy, and just plain prepares well.

This is a short, maybe 10-minute MP3 version of the interview I gave him during my book tour.

Find it at: http://thebookcast.blogspot.com/2005/11/thomas-barnett-stansfield-turner.html

Posted by at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, I know it's a bit late to cite this, but what the hell. I was just interested to know he blogs at http://lkmp.blogspot.com.

Here's the post in question:

My Holiday Reading List:

Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman. This is a golden oldie. I reread it this year. Apparently President Bush also read it this year — hopefully, he memorized it.

Flat Tax Revolution, by Steve Forbes. Tax reform is Bush's last hope for a big-bang policy proposal. Secy. John Snow is cooking up one. I hope the president and his Treasury secretary read the Forbes book.

Churchill and America, by Martin Gilbert. Winston Churchill was ahead of his time in understanding the power behind the English-speaking nations. Gilbert connects Churchill's ideas with those of the rising nation across the pond. (For a 21st century update on this theme, read James Bennett's The Anglosphere Challenge.)

Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating, by Thomas P. M. Barnett. The U.S. military in Iraq must now shift from war to peace. We were brilliant in the Iraq war, but we bungled the peace. Here's how to solve it.

The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II, by Thomas Fleming. This is the book on why American-style socialism didn't work then and still doesn't now.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Lincoln put all his political opponents in his Cabinet, where he befriended them and overshadowed them. Meanwhile, he somehow managed to save the Union and free the slaves. This is a great read.

Interesting collection, yes? Not books I am typically paired with, which I like.

Gotta get on his show!

Posted by at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GUEST FEATURE: Transforming U.S. forces and the World: Where are we now in this dual task?

Freely pass to people you know. Thank you very much.

You can download this Newsletter in Word or PDF format.

You can download previous issues, also in PDF or Word format, here: http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/newsletters/archive.htm .

Posted by at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't always follow Tdaxp's logic, but I don't think there is a more avid fan of my work who so routinely trashes it completely, which certainly makes he/she/it an interesting blogger.

Find links to Tdaxp's multiple reviews of BFA here: http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/11/08/review-center-of-thomas-pm-barnett-s-the-pentagon-s-new-map.html.

I offer no comment. I would need roller-skates to keep up with Tdaxp.

But the funny book cover art is worth the price of admission.

Posted by at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting blog, especially the post, "Danish PM: Shrink the Gap."

Good to see the free map downloaded being readily employed.

Posted by at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

during their fall fund-raising drive, they would have given you a copy of BFA!

Check it out if you don't believe me: http://www.nhpr.org/node/9795.

New Hampshire, a great place to buy booze cheap before heading back into Massachussetts.

Posted by at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Found here: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/library/military_reading_lists.htm.

Nice to see both PNM and BFA make the list.

Posted by at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't trust the Coming Anarchy for the most part because they revel a bit too much in that Fourth Generation Warfare-way, and because they seem too accepting of Robert Kaplan's view of things (hence the name, one imagines).

[Kaplan's Imperial Grunts, BTW, is not having the impact he hoped for inside the Special Ops community, according to many I speak with. They are realizing that his romanticism of their work is actually a bigger threat than the critics because it creates dangerous expectations that will never be fulfilled.]

But Coming Anarchy does get around and you have to respect that. Plus it's a place of vigorous debate within their view of the world, which I find accessible for the most part--just taken too far to extremes for my regular taste. In short, a little of these guys goes a long way, but perhaps that's just the contrarian in me.

This post CISS Event: Beyond the Three Block War is an interesting you-are-there capture of a defense conference up in Canada (where I have attended some of the more interesting such conferences in my career--like in a reverse universe or something!).

Here's some snippets from the blogger Younghusband:

Yesterday I attended a conference which outlined US, UK and Canadian perpectives on Three Block War. The Three Block War (3BW) concept was first articulated by retired Commandant of the Marine Corp, General Charles Krulak in a speech in 1997, and a famous article in 1999 entitled The Strategic Corporal ...

The event was organized by the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies and was held at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. Speakers included the Director General of Strategic Planning for the Canadian Forces MGen Andrew LESLIE, Marine 3 Corp commander LGen Thomas Metz as well as other interesting speakers from the US and UK militaries, Foreign Affairs and the rest of the CF services ...

Two of the dominating themes of the conference were joint operations between services, and the Military-Civilian disconnect ...

I also noted how the US officers’ presentations had a Barnettian flavour to them. But what surprised me the most was the Canadian Captain Paul Maddison, Director General for Maritime Force Development who quoted Barnett three times and used Core-Gap terminology throughout his presentation ...

As I have said here before, Canadians are just like Americans--but better. Intellectually, they're canaries in the coal mine or frogs in an endangered environment: if they don't get it, it will never be gotten. So naturally, the spread of the vision there is quite satisfying to me.

For another interesting post on how to apply PNM to domestic situations, see Chirol's Domestic PNM Theory.

My thanks to Zenpundit for alerting me to these posts.

Posted by at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is the text of an interesting article on BFA in the Topeka Capital-Journal:

Published Saturday, January 14, 2006

U.S. can't bring peace to world by itself

By Bill Roy
Special to The Capital-Journal

George W. Bush in his first narrowly successful campaign for president scorned "nation-building." And many people, thinking of the ugly Balkan wars of the '90s and "Blackhawk Down" in Somalia in 1993, nodded in agreement.

Many also recognized in 2000 -- and recognize now -- that our military does not have the resources and training to build peaceful national governments in nations we can easily defeat militarily. We know how to break things; we don't have the resources to put them back together, so many suffer.

Five years later the Bush administration (and all of us) is bogged down in nation-building in Iraq. To date, this has been hugely unsuccessful. As a result, Americans are growing impatient with the cost and loss of lives and may soon insist that we withdraw, leaving a made-in-America center for terrorism and asymmetric warfare.

Most of us don't want our investment of lives and money in Iraq to account for nothing -- or worse than nothing. And, due to the ineptitude of the Bush administration that may well be the result.

But, finally someone has taken the lessons of Iraq -- and a long-time, in-depth knowledge of the American military and our wars -- and found a silver-lining. In "A Blueprint for Action." author Thomas P.M. Barnett sees more peaceful missions for our military in the future.

Our immensely powerful military -- which he calls the Leviathan -- can strike down rogue governments that suppress their people and breed terrorists with relative ease. Thereafter, Barnett visualizes nation-builders from advanced nations with stable governments acting together to win the peace.

We are told Barnett, a Harvard Ph.D in political science, "regularly advises the office of the secretary of defense, Special Operations Command and the Joint Services Command and routinely offers briefings to ... the intelligence community and Congress."

In a sense his book is a follow-up on Thomas L. Friedman's books on connectedness and rapid economic development among two-thirds of the world's population. These people live in the "core" nations that both have an interest and capability to bring the other one-third of the world's people into a world with less poverty and injustice -- and a better chance for peace.

Otherwise, Barnett sees these have-not nations as the source of internecine wars in the 21st century. Such wars potentially threaten us all, especially if connected nations begin choosing up sides, as happened during the Cold War, instead of working together to bring peace and prosperity to these failed, disconnected nations.

In Iraq, the military mission was quickly accomplished with minimal loss of American lives. But our government made no preparations to win the peace. We were quickly overwhelmed by looting, chaos and finally an insurgency that did not have to happen. We were unable to switch from major combat operations to post-conflict stabilization operations, because we had too few troops and too few properly trained troops.

Barnett states we should have had in Iraq -- and will need in future wars -- peace-makers from "fellow core pillars." He writes, "Ideally, we would have had 30,000 to 40,000 peacekeepers each from NATO, Russia, India, and China."

But the Bush administration was more adept at making enemies than friends among nations whose help we needed. As a result, India's parliament said no, and negotiations with Russian President Vladmir Putin bogged down. The ham-handed neocons charged ahead more to win domestic elections than to achieve international stability.

In sum, our military as constituted today is capable of destroying other nations' war-making powers quickly and with minimal losses. But we do not have the personnel to win the peace and probably do not have enough people and money to win the peace in future wars. We need a new paradigm and help from other nations to establish secure governments in nations we attack.

Barnett takes us through the evolution of thought and war that has brought us to this point and discusses in depth political and economic barriers that must be overcome for the world's advanced nations to bring order, prosperity and peace to the failed nations that are breeding grounds for terrorists.

Bill Roy is a retired physician and former Member of Congress. He has a law degree and lives in Topeka. He may be reached at wirroy@aol.com.

I'd send you to the original, but it takes a lot of signing in and registration to see. If desired, simply Google "Thomas P.M. Barnett" in advanced search in news and it'll pull up first.

Posted by at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ARTICLE:"Iranian Says Pressure Won't End Nuclear BidIranian Says Pressure Won't End Nuclear Bid: Dismissing Sanctions Threats, President Asserts West Needs Tehran 'More Than We Need Them,'" by Karl Vick, Washington Post, 15 January 2006, p. A20.

Full story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011401107_pf.html.

Ahmadinejad is not stupid. Fanatical yes, but not stupid.

We just need to understand the entirety of the "they" he's referring to. The old "we," or the Old Core, needs the New Core for our shared global economy to continue flourishing.

The Old Core may have decided that Iran can't have the security it seeks with the bomb, but the New Core (India, Russia, China) have decided they need access to Iran (for China and India, it's energy, for Russia, it's a market where their marginally competitive exports can find purchase--just like the French more and more).

When Ahmadinejad refers to "they," he's referring to the entire Core, not just the West, but we, in the West (or at least the U.S.) can't seem to see this playing field for real.

The New Core has already chosen Iran for integration. We either get with that program or we split the Core on this issue.

Iran is smart enough to see this, especially Ahmadinejad, and that is why he will continue to play us for fools until we see the larger picture.

And no, the lecturing of the sort that Tom Friedman engages in ("The Axis of Order" is a wonderful phrase though, evoking the 1930s in a neat, spooky sort of way, yes?) won't work either.

Posted by at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Talk about a "man bites dog" story!

NYT reports that economists now argue that--duh!--war seems to cost our economy more than peace!

CANYOUBELIEVEIT?

I realize they are pinheads on both sides of the political spectrum that still believe such nonsense, but these people believe in a lot of nonsense. Must we write stories about them so regularly?

Here is the stunning article in question: When Talk of Guns and Butter Includes Lives Lost .

The stunning conceit of this new analysis? They're actually counting lost people now!

Wow! Who'd have thunk it?

The saddest part of this research? It's myopic focus on what this war gets America in particular and what this war costs America in particular. It is strictly binary in approach, as in, us-v-them.

There is no systems analysis here. There is no everything else beyond our borders. There is just "our costs" versus the prevention of the hypothetical attack on the U.S.

Do I pay taxes to have a police department JUST to prevent the criminal attack on my house and my family? Is that the limit of my understanding of a collective good here?

This is old thought that applies war-v-peace thinking from another era.

What I never get is this: everyone talks about a global community being good, but whenever the subject comes to our sacrifice versus our enjoyment of that community's growing benefits (globalization being the catch-all description of said benefits), we always seem to turn into these ungrateful, piggish, self-focused people.

We are losing lives in this war, and right now I'd more than love to have two of those at-risk lives back home from Iraq. But Americans need to remember the world we're trying to shape. There have been millions upon millions of deaths from violent conflict in this world (overwhelmingly in the Gap) since the end of the Cold War. Those calculations never seem to enter our thinking because the causal connections are too hard to make, it seems.

But remember this: Iraq is about connecting the Middle East to the world. When that happens, it's not just our soliders who don't have to die there anymore (though they will still die elsewhere in the Gap til it's gone), there are a lot of local lives not lost. There are also a lot of local lives enriched, which will benefit us and help other nations around the world advance as well.

I know that couching the war in these terms offends many. But we need to look into our past and realize that the military-market nexus is what we used to build this country: we used the military to secure these lands, and that security gave us the potential for the wealth we now enjoy. With the GWOT, we've just re-engaged that historical role on a global basis, and our cost-benefit calculations need to understand that. Because when they do, the logic of the A-to-Z rule set on processing politically bankrupt states in the Gap will seem compelling to the bulk of the American political spectrum.

So yeah, it matters.

Posted by at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If we didn't need their energy, then countries like Iran and Venezuela wouldn't be so bold and bad. Instead they'd just be poor and disconnected and angry.

Ah, but that tough love would work. Look at Cuba!

The NYT disappoints, as usual, with this editorial: Energy Impasse.

The logic is queer, to say the least: these countries are bad in large part because their economies are so biased toward energy exports (true); that bias gives rise to nasty elites (also true); if we make these societies and ecnomies more disconnected from the global economy, that will force their bad regimes to change (breakdown occurs here).

This is classic, and painfully simplistic "shock therapy" thinking. It persists because American love simple answers to complex questions.

Posted by at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's the story with opening paras:

January 14, 2006 Wealth Grows, but Health Care Withers in China By HOWARD W. FRENCH

FUYANG, China - When Jin Guilian's family took him to a county hospital in this gritty industrial city after a jarring two-day bus ride during which he drifted in and out of consciousness, the doctors took one look at him and said: "How dare you do this to him? This man could die at any moment."

The doctors' next question, though, was about money. How much would the patient's family of peasants and migrant workers be able to pay - up front - to care for Mr. Jin's failing heart and a festering arm that had turned black?

The relatives scraped together enough money for four days in the hospital. But when Mr. Jin, 36, failed to improve, they were forced to move him to an unheated and scantily equipped clinic on the outskirts of Fuyang where stray dogs wandered the grimy, unlighted halls.

China's economic reforms have turned an almost uniformly poor nation into an increasingly prosperous one in the space of a mere generation. But the collapse of socialized medicine and staggering cost increases have opened a yawning gap between health care in the cities and the rural areas, where the former system of free clinics has disintegrated.

In the last several years China has experimented with reforms aimed at improving health care for peasants. The most important is an insurance plan in which participating farmers must make an annual payment of a little more than a dollar to gain eligibility for basic medical treatments ...

This is some serious caboose braking, per my BFA vernacular. It points to a variety of points I like to harp on with China: coast can only go as fast as interior can stand; the future "outsourcing" by China will be mostly "near-sourcing" to the interior regions; service-sector growth will be more important than manufacturing growth in future for China, and its interior integration in coming years and decades will dwarf its exterior integration with the world.

Globalization is a domestic issue everywhere, but no more so than in China. Beijing needs more globalization to keep the country together. Once Deng made that choice to open up, this all becomes a fait accompli, including the ultimate loss of the party's hegemonic position in Chinese politics.

The only question for us is, What do we do to facilitate this process in such a way as to advantage ourselves and the world?

And dreaming of China-the-near-peer-competitor isn't the answer.

Full story found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/international/asia/14health.html

Posted by at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is the nice, definitive piece from an infantry guy writing an op-ed in the NYT: All Dressed Up With No Way to Fight. This refers back to my previous blog about body armor.

Andrew Exum's op-ed (All Dressed Up With No Way to Fight) in the 14 Jan 06 NYT basically makes that case for balance in the search for the perfect-armored warrior.

He reminds me of that scene in "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie's little bro is so wrapped up in winter clothes by mom before heading out to school that he can't move his arms. When he falls down on the way to school, he can't get up.

Posted by at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sent to me by reader Paul Speer (I need to get better at citing people who send me stuff, sorry! Then again, not always sure they want their names used [sorry Paul!]).

Here's the op-ed from Bremer in IHT: IN Iraq, Wrongs Made a Right.

Here's the crucial package:

Another clear lesson is that America must be better prepared for the post-conflict phase should it find itself in similar military situations in the future. The administration has made a good start by setting up offices of reconstruction in the State and Defense departments. But the effort must be broadened through the government and especially the private sector.

The goal should be a quick-reaction, public-private Civilian Reserve Corps consisting of people with expertise on matters like the establishment of telecommunications facilities, rebuilding of electrical power plants, modernizing health care systems and instituting modern budgeting procedures.

That, I would say, is the horse's mouth all right. I like the emphasis on public civilian and private. Marry that up to the security element, and make it as multinational as possible, and you have my SysAdmin force.

Stick that function inside a cabinet-level department that says America is serious about shrinking the Gap, and you have my current book.

I am still out ahead, but my lead is getting shorter, because, as I say in BFA, the grand strategist doesn't take you somewhere you'd never otherwise go, he just gets there first and says "This way!"

Thus the need to keep writing! I can almost spot the next cairn on the trail up ahead.

Posted by at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It worked.

Pats lost last night.

So for another year we see that no team in NFL history is capable of winning three championships in a row. It remains an impossible feat!

Except the Packers did it twice (1929-1930-1931 and 1965-1966-1967).

Funny, last night during game there was poll for fans: Which decade dynasty was most impressive?

The list was Steelers in 70s (4 championships!) 49ers in 1980s (4 championships!), Cowboys in 90s (3 championships!) and Pats in 2000s (three championships!).

Funny that no one bothered to include only team to win 5 championships in a decade: Green Bay (1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1967).

Ah, but we know that the there was no NFL before the Super Bowl ...

Posted by at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I will shy from blogging stories that would pull me down that line of temptation.

It's just hard, because you get so psyched about the piece and it's so big in your head.

But Warren never pays me until the piece comes out, clever bastard that he is, so I will have to bury my knowledge for now by pretending "I know nothing--noooooooooothing!"

I've already begun doing this. Was going to blog story about Army decision to kill drone program, but as I started getting into the analysis, I started spilling over into points from the article, so I just had to junk the piece.

Ditto for a WSJ piece on Army in Iraq over weekend. Tempting, tempting, but no.

I must avoid the triggers that make my bad behavior inevitable!

Puppy will sit until master throws the check across the lawn.

Posted by at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is the blog entry as it was brought to my attention by a reader: http://writinghistory.blogspot.com/2006/01/diplomacy-as-psychiatry.html.

It's such a queer premise, in the standard sense, that I am immediately drawn to it. I used interpersonal psych stuff in my Ph.D. (later book) to explain how two bullied countries (East Germany and Romania) dealt with the bullier (USSR). The DDR tried to become best boy in Third World ("Are you pleased master?") and Ceaucescu used venue to play bad boy a la Tito ("See, I make friends where I please!"). So I am partial to this sort of stuff.

The question he poses?

A country is based around an identity. That identity can be mature ("We are Singapore and Singapore stands for ... X in the world.") or, for lack of a better word, retarded in its development ("I don't know who we are except we've suffered a lot together in the past and I'm generally pissed off about the outside world.")

So this blogger's basic question really is, Is there a role for national "psychiatry" in bringing a Gap nation up from the depths?

And I guess I would say, yes, there is.

And it would run like this: First in security, you need to help them understand their self-destructive behaviors and gain confidence in themselves and their capacities for self-rule and self-defense. Second, in economics, you'd need to help them understand similarly their capacity for self-development of capital (especially human through education and the liberation of women). Ultimately, you'd have to work on their political identity in the world, a sense of who they are and what they're capable of.

I say it in BFA: the journey from Gap to Core is one of youth (Gap) to middle-age (New Core) to seniority (Old Core). It really is a demographic journey as much as anything else, so remember that when you deal with national identity in the Gap, you're dealing with kids, so to speak, or very youth-skewed demographics.

This is why the spread of religion in the Gap, especially the dueling spreads of Islam and Christianity, is so vital. Youth look for guidance, and the most accepted global package for that is religion, which, like much psychiatry, is all about gaining self-control, self-awareness, etc.

Posted by at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Don Beck of "Spiral Dynamics" just sent it to me. Very cool.

Map itself is found at: http://maps.maplecroft.com/china.

A canned PowerPoint-ish movie shows a bunch of details and how to interpret the map here: http://movies.maplecroft.com/china.

The main measures are trade and investment flows. Countries are ranked from low to extreme in integration with China. Most of the extremes are those countries that surround China, to include key trading/investment partners Japan and South Korea (ring any bells for U.S. national security?). Others are found in Middle East (Yemen, Central Asia (Kazakstan), Africa (Sudan, Angola, Congo) and even Latin America (e.g., Chile). Pretty much entire New Core is at least High, as are several Old Core (like Germany, US).

It's a fascinating map. Gives you a sense of China's reach, especially in the Gap, which is, I imagine either on par with ours or larger.

Why is this useful? We need to understand China's growing economic influence throughout the Gap, not to thwart it per se, but because we'll be going to these places more and more and finding China and its interests there more and more. We'll need to take those interests into account (unless we're spoiling for a fight), and we'll need to learn how to leverage those interests into pushing China toward cooperative security schemes in these countries--furthering our interests.

China is a giant train. We want it to go down certain tracks, but no one in their right mind wants to stop or derail this train, because it creates too much good for both China and the world.

Posted by at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

REVIEW: "The Bremer Paradox: The standard criticism of the former head of Iraq's rebuilding is groundless. His real mistake was behaving like a proconsul (My Year in Iraq by L. Paul Bremer, with Malcolm McConnell)," by Robert L. Pollack, Wall Street Journal, 14 January 2006, p. P10.

Very solid review worth reading. Basic premise: Bremer exaggerates how bad it was when he came in, but his decisions to disband the Iraqi army and ban Baathists from power were right. His real problem? He was a control freak who screwed up the security and didn't put an Iraqi face on the process early enough. Even today as the locals run things, Bremer denigrates them as weak compared to his own firm hand.

In short, Bremer didn't understand his role then and still doesn't today. We lack this kind of postwar talent on the civilian side, and it cost us dearly in Iraq.

This is why I call for a Department of Everything Else, not just some tiny office tacked on to State.

My one gripe with Pollack is the notion that the quick disbanding of the Iraqi army was necessary to get buy-in from Shiites and Kurds. But this is a highly debatable point. Me, I would assume an insurgency of loyalists is always in the cards, so be prepared to beat back that danger first and risk the civil war-like split with other groups in the meantime(and there are always persecuted minority/majority groups like this in this pretend colonial states created by the Europeans decades ago--that the was the entire design purpose!) because, as we learned here, if the insurgency grows big enough, they can trigger that civil war on their own anyway by forcing your counter-insurgency toward solution sets that raise that danger.

But overall a real solid and penetrating review.

Posted by at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To me, grand strategy is seeing the big picture, not just pushing the security angle in some weird attemtpt to shape everything else like it's playdough or something. It's about contextualizing the use of military power, not rationalizing it.

And there is no single pub that provides you more material for that "everything else" perspective than the Wall Street Journal, which my wife, past editor of a major U of Wisconsin student newspaper (Badger Herald) and a journalism B.A., always describes as the best example of strongly structured newswriting in the business (that perfect upsidedown triangle of tight-wider-widest retelling of the story's main point from front to back in the article).

I was asked by the new boss of the Sylvan Learning Center where son attends what would be the three pubs I would take with me to the desert island (this guy did finance work abroad in Japan for years), and I said WSJ, Economist and Variety (damn, reminds me to renew). The Wall Street Journal and The Economist are simply neck and neck, in this regard, and I'd vote for Variety in third to break the tedium a bit (although the more I come to appreciate Esquire as I get older and more "male," the more I think it would eventually supplant it).

Here is just a great, simple article from the WSJ today that proves what I'm talking about. Seemingly esoteric subject (foreign direct investment), but so well delivered that if you read it through, you are really a whole lot smarter about the world, how it works, and where it's going.

ARTICLE: "China Drew Over $60 Billion In Foreign Investment in 2005," by Andrew Browne, Wall Street Journal, 14 January 2006, p. A2.

Key points and bits:

-->FDI in China in 05 was just a hair under what it was in 04, despite the small appreciation in the Chinese currency, the rising wages, power shortages and overcapacity in key industries like steel, aluminium, cement and autos.

-->This number doesn't include all the "billions of dollars pumped into Chinese banks, insurance companies and brokerages by overseas financial giants"

-->Hong Kong remains leading conduit. EU investments jumped over 20% higher from previous year, while U.S. investments dropped by same amount.

-->Strongest I in comms, electronics and transport, to deal with all the bottlenecking (China is connecting up its interior now more than its "exterior").

-->This FDI drives about 60% of China's trade with the world, meaning almost two-thirds of China's trade is due to foreign companies coming there and "exploiting" its cheap labor. What does that tell you about integration and shrinking the Gap? You need access to foreign capital to do it, and they will come if you give companies access to your cheaper labor. The result? Your economy grows and you create a stable urban middle class, which now counts at least 50m in China today, according to this article, whereas other estimates are more generous, suggesting a pool of 300 million middle-class purchasers in all, both urban and rural).

-->This FDI flow will slow in manufacturing, as China can only suck up so much manufacturing before wages rise, so it begins to outsource such stuff and turn more and more to services sector, where outside firms eager to tap that growing domestic market (and all those savings, which in turn will fuel even more aggressive emerging markets investments inside the Gap over time).

-->"As China becomes the world's biggest market for a growing number of products, many of the world's largest companies believe they have to invest in China or risk losing global leadership." This is why the long-term view of war with China gets awfully weak, as do the painfully simplistic comparisons to Kaiser Germany and still-feudal Japan at the beginning of the 20th century. We're just talking about an entirely different level and form of connectivity with the outside world.

-->One fly in ointment? China plans to soon make foreign companies pay same corporate tax rates as those paid by domestic companies (remember, the synching up of the domestic rule set with the global one), a practice of favoritisim to outsiders that dates back to 1978 and Deng's first moves to trigger foreign investment.

Simple article, well delivered. Read it through and you are so much smarter--but only if you connect it to the "everything else," including war and peace.

Posted by at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Long-time blog readers will remember my lengthy agonizing in print about whether or not I should write a sequel to PNM. I simply had to work out that logic and rationale in the blog, which is the purpose it serves for my thinking (especially in recording it).

I get so many emails that either challenge my career or ask for career advice, plus my work for Esquire has taken a turn toward examining individual-level (or led) change (Rumsfeld, now Mattis, Petraeus and Wallace), plus I'm doing such change agent stuff through Enterra, plus I get to spend so much time with this ball of change energy called Steve DeAngelis, plus my work with Frank Akers and Oak Ridge is all about taking advantage of all that learning and thinking going on there ... it just seems to be where the work is pulling me.

So the logic of Vol III seems clear enough to me (stories of such change and leadership, interspersed with my personal logic and career stories of building those skills in me and using them with others, plus the desired deeper drill down on SysAdmin, Dept of Everything Else, development-in-a-box--all of which are coming naturally to me through my ongoing work, speeches, email interactions, etc.--topped off with a direct, "release the inner grand strategist in you" sort of guidebook material), and yet you can expect me to spend a lot of time in this blog working these issues out in my head.

This will seem weirdly self-indulgent to some, inviting the usual charges of huge ego and self-absorption, but I will share such stuff because: 1) again, that's what the blog does for me, so f--k 'em if they can't take a joke!; 2) your advice has shaped my thinking and delivery a great deal (I hear voices as I write, in a good way); and 3) I just think it's cool to reveal that kind of stuff. Anyway, it beats making up autobiography and calling it non-fiction, right?

Posted by at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an email I get every so often. This is how I replied today.

Prof. Barrnett:

Have you been in combat? If not, why?

Are you Straussian in the sense to which Anne Norton talks in her book.

I have bought your books, but am afraid your premises are wrong, totally wrong.

We are headed to Syracuse with the Athenians, led by a bunch of faithless chicken hawks.

I have 24 years in the Army, and it frightens me that you teach anywhere in the military. I also did three years in Vietnam, a great background for skepticism in the time of an illegal invasion.

[name withheld]
Burlington, NC

My reply:

I don't advise on operations, but strategy. I don't tell warriors how to fight but when and why. In over 15 years of working with senior officers, I have never been asked how to wage the war, but where it will happen and why and what our goals should be.

Maybe you want military rule in this country, but I believe in civilian control, and that's why I've spent my life working with the military.

You are certainly free to call me names on that basis. People called me names under the first Bush, then Clinton, now the second Bush. They'll call me names under whoever comes next. You work for the military, you get used to that on day one. Me, I only worry about what officers think about me. They're the ones buying my books by the tens of thousands and flying me all over the world for my advice. Maybe all of them, including all the foreign officers, are just incredibly stupid and you know better.

Or maybe they just view this world and age differently than you do.I dunno, maybe you've been called a lot of names over the years for your service and views. Maybe that's why you feel the need to equate my views with such accusations of cowardice and duty-shirking.

Personally, I think it's a very honorable thing to work with the U.S. Military, an entity I've described as being the greatest force for good I've ever known. When it does well, people admire you for that career. When it does badly, people often despise you. I stay with the military during the good times and bad, rejoicing in their successes and feeling awful over their failures. But I stick around over the years because I continue to believe--and see daily--that the miltary does many great things for this world.

Thanks for tour note. I can tell it meant a lot for you to write it.

Tom Barnett

When you work for the military and people disagree with your views, many will automatically label you some coward who avoided military service like the plague and now only cynically uses the blood of others for your fantastic desires and schemes.

Truth is, I never expected to work for the military while I was young. I always expected to work for the State Department as a diplomat, so I got an education that fit that track. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the military looked like a terrible career choice, with the most emblematic movies being "Stripes." Still, a lot of my friends from my small farming community did join, looking to find themselves. Me, I wanted to do diplomatic battle against the Sovs, my dream being to negotiate fabulous nuclear arms agreements, which I studied like crazy--along with Russian.

What I found when I got done with school in 1990 was that the State track was extremely limited, and none of the people I met there seemed open to my way of thinking.

I looked into the intell community and got very far with CIA, but then was dropped form contention after I took a day's worth of psych tests. I was told I just didn't have the personality they were looking for. In the end, after years of working with them, I agree.

So the only companies that were interested in me were ones that worked for the military. I felt this would be a dead-end track for me, because, hey, the wall just came down and my Soviet background was now this huge liability. Many prospective employers asked, "why should we hire someone like you with this training?"

But I did get hired, as I noted in PNM, and began an 8-year stint of working primarily for the Navy and Marine Corps. The process of being a civilian analyst taught me a lot. Then I worked directly for the government at the Naval War College, to include the two-year stint in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Now I work directly for the government on a free lance basis.

You could say I wandered into this career somewhat. I've stuck it out because I really like working for the military. Looking back, I feel this career path served me well in what I do for the military, which is help them understand their place and function in the larger world.

Sometimes that place and function includes waging war, more often now it includes waging peace. These are controversial activities for most Americans, who are of many opinions about what our nation's role in the world should be.

And so they tell me their views on a daily basis because of the prominence I've gained by this blog, the Esquire articles, the books, the speeches and media stuff.

Every so often I get this email. Obviously, the person disagrees with my views and my role of working with the military. Then they go a step further and start calling names in an effort to dismiss me. Fair enough. Free country.

This is how I typically respond. I post here not to discourage others from hurling such accusations via emails--again, free country. I post here because today I just felt like posting here, and that's what the blog is for.

The logic here is the usual one: only those who've been in combat can talk about the conditions under which it occurs. I agree with that. I think you leave combat to experts.

But that logic is always implicity extended to the decision to go to war. There I disagree. I think the decision to go to war is--in our system--the purview of civilians, otherwise you basically have military rule over foreign policy, something I've seen lead to many wars and needless suffering in the world with no beneficial outcomes on the far side.

As I say in my reply to this email, I don't advise on how to do war. Instead, I really advise on how to do peace, or the everything else. Sometimes that advice includes arguments on the necessity of war, which is like the general M.D. saying you need to have surgery, but then telling you to go see a surgeon for how to do it.

Now, when you face such tough decisions in life, it's comforting to access the opinions of people who've actually been through such things, but you wouldn't base your decision on whether or not to have a surgery simply on the basis of what previous patients told you, you'd want somebody who's spent their career working such issues to give you what is hopefully their best advice.

But certainly, you'd want access to a variety of opinions: your general doc, your surgeon, past patients. You'd want a sense of risk and pathway dependencies. You'd want your own mini-debate to play out so you could see the big picture.

But you wouldn't necessarily discount anything your doc said simply because he'd never been through open-heart surgery before, or consider him inherently evil for suggesting this might be the best course for you.

What I think grand strategy does is help people, institutions and governments put together a thinking process that forces them take into account the widest angle view possible for such decisions as going to war so that they're able to reason their way through not just the causal chain leading up to war, but far more importantly, the causal chain that will ensue postwar.

That's what I try to do in my work, and I think my career choices that got to my current set of skills in this regard are both honorable and fairly smart (and fairly standard if you look at previous versions of myself in history). If I had spent no time amassing these skills and this experience in working with the military, then I think the charge of just bloviating my way in these debates would be valid. But I'm not a tourist in this field, nor the journalist. I'm a practitioner in the field of grand strategy, one that has sadly, in our defense establishment, fallen in recent years to just journalists and academics in that backward-looking, 20/20 hindsight mode.

And that's not only sad, it's very dangerous for the military to outsource such thinking to observers and commentators vice professionals who actually work with them on these issues and planning, because there is so much incredible inside talent right now that is poorly used by the system (something I noted in PNM up front).

So what you have far too often in our defense establishment is a military that feels very competent in war but not so in peace. You have a chattering class that seems to be in charge of America's grand strategy, which mostly consists of running away from whatever it is we just tried. And then there are the civilians working for the military who mostly just tackle efficiency issues, keeping their opinions on such matters to themselves.

What we need are civilians who have real skills and real confidence in playing the role of strategists with the military, which needs to recognize them in this role and use them better than they do. The military also needs to raise better officers who can employ such thinking more fully, something I see happening right now in the Army and Marines (the subject of my upcoming Esquire piece), and to a lesser extent (because there's less impetus) in the Navy and Air Force.

But, quite frankly, what keeps the military from engaging in those skill sets and encouraging them more among their civilians is this notion that still lingers from the Cold War: we do the war, we don't do the peace. If the military reaches into the peace, it'll turn into colonialism or Vietnam quagmires, and if the civilians reach into the war--even worse. So there's this pretense of a solid divide between war and peace--again, a queer legacy of thinking from the Cold War with its almost theological threat of global nuclear war.

My point is this: if you want to do this sort of work as a civilian, you need to understand your role and be able to deal with accusations like this the one embedded in this email. If such accusations frighten or cow you, you can't be in this business.

You need to know who you are and what you're trying to do. It is a very honorable and good thing, but you need to be prepared to face a lot of people who will think your motives are not only misguided, but purposefully evil--reflecting your lack of moral character.

Posted by at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rest of my day lost to the final tweaking of the Esquire piece, which I finally see in Second Pages (meaning all type-set by page, photos in, but call-out bits and photo captions not done yet). I spend two hours with Tom Colligan, fact-checker extraordinaire (he catches things that just blow my mind--I pity the fool that tries to sneak things past him!), and we work on his toughest remaining mysteries.

Piece looks great. Very cool photos of the generals. Six full pages, plus three "jump" pages in the back.

After that, tonight it's a series of calls with Mark to negotiate those last few sentences (Warren really lives and dies with this, and I like these exchanges the best). My guess is that the beast is gone from my hands/influence for good within the next couple of hours. I am very pleased with the outcome--really. It's amazing to start this thing as an email from Gen. Petraeus leading to a phonecon with Mark while driving from BWI to DC one afternoon ... and wham! All those trips, interviews, transcripts, writing, edits, fact-checking, photo-shoots (long talk with the photographer this time) and so on and so forth and four million issues later ... there it is.

Let me count: PNM in Mar 2003, Mr. President (Iraq) in June 04, then Mr. President (2nd Term) in Feb 05, Rumsfeld in July 05, and China in Nov 05. So this makes my 6th Esquire article, clocking it at roughly 6,000 words. I've probably written a good 30,000 words in the mag so far. When I hit 100k, I'm looking for a publisher.

Posted by at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

PR announcements ready to roll from Oak Ridge's side. My man Steve DeAngelis is on the road right now, so probably will wait until he returns to releash the hounds of PR!

Looking at a couple of "distinguished'": one with Oak Ridge itself (way cool) and one with the Howard Baker Center at U. Tennessee (also way cool). Between them, I figure I'll get that educational discount on my new desktop Mac (you know the one ...).

Spent afternoon with my new boss at Oak Ridge, a retired Army flag by the name of Frank Akers, who is one of the more amazing people I've met in my career.

Frank's career hits so many spots, it's unreal: BA from Naval Academy (that's right, an Army guy with an Annapolis degree!), attended Command General Staff College in Leavenworth and the Army War College in Carlisle, then MA and PhD from Duke. Typical slough-off, he.

Service stretching from Vietnam to Desert Storm, rises to one-star Chief of Staff at 82nd Airborne, so he's a Ranger to boot. Retires to become Associate Laboratory Director for National Security at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. What the hell kind of Ranger walks out of the service to that job?

At Oak Ridge, according to his bio, "he is responsible for managing a focused research and development portfolio that includes nonproliferation and threat reduction, arms and export control, homeland security, and counter terrorism technologies for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Akers also coordinates ORNL activities with the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies with a mission involving national security, law enforcement, and public safety."

Think I'm gonna have fun as a "distinguished BLANK"?

Well, Frank flies in from Oklahoma, where he told me he spent a fascinating couple of days with David Boren's university (yes, the former senator is now president there) and first thing he tells me is, he'd like to take me there some day to see all the interesting things they're doing to create a high-tempo learning environment. After working the Esquire piece on Quantico and Leavenworth, this is beginning to feel like a real groove, moving me more and more in the direction of casting Vol. III as a study of individual-level strategizing and transformational change. Frank says ORNL is also doing some fascinating stuff with Singapore, so I'm like, "You have me at distinguised!"

I head to Oak Ridge later this month to kick this baby off. I could not be more psyched.

Posted by at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Offer from Japanese public TV network NHK to participate in panel discussion show on meaning of Iraq war and the postwar world. Would be taped in NYC in Times Square station of Reuters in late Feb. First date they offered is no good (already have Orlando speech for big corporation gathering), but back-up date works, so I will do it if possible.

NHK picks up travel, so no cost to me, and since the rights to PNM sold very nicely in Japan, no harm in spreading the world about BFA to the same audience. Sold almost 10,000 copies of PNM in Japan in 2004. Hell, I can remember thinking that would be a great number for PNM in the U.S.!

Already been on Korean public TV, but this would be first time for me with Japan's. Never been to the country, and after Singapore, it's the place I'd like most to visit for the first time in the region.

Hope this works out. Don't usually discuss offers in the blog, but figure I might as well get credit for the invite if the skeds don't work out.

Posted by at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Link is the same as before: http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Esquire/2005/11/01/1037812.

Now, you can read the whole thing without having to pay $3.95.

I have been amazed at the positive networking function this article has unleashed for me: connecting me to all sorts of like-minded people. Really glad I wrote it.

Posted by at 9:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 12 January 2006

Gave good 45 minutes over the phone with Max Borders. TCSdaily.com (a publication of Tech Central Station) will do edited podcast and maybe a transcript.

Borders was good. Interview was thus easy, despite the long holiday layover.

I am getting, for weeks now, a real flood of AskTom emails that are particularly good. Plenty of people who've read both PNM and BFA, and pushing me on further points. I find my replies getting better and better (any good interview is driven by the interviewer, as I've often pointed out), and that I'm taking the key points and punching them into a file of ideas I maintain on my Treo for Vol. III of the PNM series.

Having that great give-and-take brings my out of the January doldrums. Too early to discuss Vol. III with Putnam, but I know I will write it (as does Mark Warren) and publish it somewhere eventually. My fun working title is "Release the Inner Grand Strategist in You!"

I don't feel the need to crank this one as fast as BFA. First, I'm a bit winded from the last two years. Two, I would like to settle in the house this year, as well as go full-court press with Enterra, because there are so many great opportunities to go great and good things through it with the government. I say, "as fast," because I am committed to the notion that III comes out in the spring, like PNM. I found the fall release too damn hard (and crowded). So either I write III next summer and fall for the spring of 07, or I bide my time for the next go-around and catch the spring 08 release date. I am partial to the second scenario for the reasons cited, and simply because it makes sense to me in terms of the maturation/flow of my thinking. I just feel like taking more time this time.

Then again, if Putnam were to like III for the spring of 07, I would take up the challenge like anyone would. I just will be okay if it doesn't work out that way, because the pace might be better, and it would give both PNM and BFA time to keep building and spreading and doing their thing.

Also, in this longer pathway, I wouldn't seek publication of my prequel manuscript (the "Hobbit" to my "Lord of the Rings" trilogy" until 2009, when the main subject of the book would be reaching her 18th birthday ... which would feel about right to me.

But I digress ...

All these emails make for a good biweekly newsletter.

Yes, Steffany and I decided to go two times a month, because weekly was just too much! So the plan now is: mid-month is guest writer (this next time my long-time mentor from the Center for Naval Analyses Hank Gaffney, in a great essay) and end of month will be me. But in both issues lotsa Q&A with readers, which I think are getting better and better because you write better and better questions. So thanks for all your efforts.

UPDATE: The transcript, audio excerpt, and iTunes podcast instructions (search for keyword "TCS" in the iTunes Podcast directory) for the TCS interview with Max Borders are now available. Other link: TCS Daily Podcast RSS feed.

Posted by at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"A Firebrand in a House of Cards," op-ed by Dariush Zahedi and Omid Memarian, New York Times, 12 January 2006, pulled off web.

■"Iran's Nuclear Challenge," editorial, Washington Post, 12 January 2006, p. A20.

■"Russia Won't Block U.S. on Iran: Commitment Is Cited by Officials Pressing for IAEA Vote," by Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, 12 January 2006, p. A18.

■"Help Us, America ...," op-ed by Farouz Farzami, Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2006, p. A12.

■"Let's make sure we do better with Iran than we did with Iraq: The west's next step on Tehran's nuclear plans should be to understand the regime and society, not to start bombing," op-ed by Timothy Garton Ash, Guardian, 12 January 2006, pulled from web.

■"U.S. Ratchets Up Pressure on Syria In Hariri Probe: Answers Are Sought in Death of Ex-Lebanese Premier; Threat of Sanctions Looms," by Neil King Jr.,Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2006, p. A11.

The Iranians are weak, as a society, as the first op-ed argues, but expecting the hardliners to give into Russia's offer to process their uranium just doesn't make any sense. Iran doesn't want nuclear power for the power, but for the bomb. It wants the bomb because it fears U.S. invasion. It will fear that invasion until it gets the bomb or gets something like it from the U.S. in terms of guarantees. Such guarantees can't happen unless we somehow co-opt Iran strategically. If we did that, the hardliners' arguments are easier for competing factions within Iran to dislodge, but so long as we work to isolate Iran and promise "grand bargains," in the muddle logic of the mocking WP editorial, where we give them some carrots and expect them to go along with feeling deeply insecure about U.S. power and presence in the region, we only strengthen the hardliners' position.

The hardliners can hold out, if we choose to make the Iranian people choose between nationalism and cooperation. We need to give them a choice that is both nationalistic and cooperative ... duh!

And that's why I argue for co-optation that gives Iran's leadership a sense of security and invites the government, slowly but surely over years, into a cooperative security relationship with the U.S. and Russia and China and India and ... okay ... the Europeans too.

Whether we realize it or not, Russia and China and India have ALREADY chosen on Iran: they want its oil and they can wait pretty much forever on reform (much like us with the House of Saud ... so put that stone down right now, my fellow sinner!).

We are told by some, like the Iranian journalist in the WSJ op-ed ("forbidden to publish in her own country" ... no doubts there), that our pressure on Iran reveals fissures in their political system. True. But guess what? They've been there for years. By continuing the pressure, we just help the hardliners in the government, while not taking advantage of what allies might be found in the mullahs (yes, Virginia, not all are nuts) and especially in the parliament (closest to the pissed-off public).

Now, for something completely different: common sense from Timothy Garton Ash, an all-around brilliant fellow who's been doing this stuff for years and years:

The European policy of negotiated containment, mistrustfully backed by America and ambiguously accompanied by Russia, has failed. It was worth trying, but it was not enough. The Europeans did not carry sufficiently credible sticks and the Americans did not wave large enough carrots to sway the theocrats in Tehran. Neither half of the old transatlantic west could induce oil-hungry China and energy-rich Russia to play the diplomatic game sufficiently clearly our way.

The seemingly half-crazed new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would probably regard a cost-benefit analysis as an invention of the Great Satan and a prime example of western secular decadence. Allah, he would say, is not an accountant. Yet if cooler heads in the regime behind him are making a cost-benefit analysis, they could still conclude that this is a risk worth taking. The mullahs are floating high on an ocean of oil revenue: an estimated $36bn last year. This money can be used to buy off material discontent at home.

They know that the US is deeply mired in neighbouring Iraq, where the Iranians wield growing influence in the Shia south. As President George Bush might privately put it, Tehran has Washington by the cojones. The mullahs also know that China (which has a large energy-supply deal with Iran) and Russia have very different interests from Europe and the US; and they know that countries like Germany and Italy will be deeply reluctant to let sanctions restrict their lucrative trade with Iran. That's a strong hand.

Everyone seems to agree that the next major step is for the matter to be referred to the UN security council. Even the Bush administration, so contemptuous of the UN during the Iraq crisis, now regards that as Plan B. What then? The security council raps Tehran over the knuckles. President Ahmadinejad says go to hell. The security council comes back with sanctions, which would be limited by the geopolitical and energy interests of China and Russia, and the economic interests of Germany, Italy and France.

Iran continues (overtly or covertly) with uranium enrichment, while those sanctions produce a growing siege mentality in the country. The regime will tell its people that they are being unjustly and hypocritically punished by the west, merely for developing nuclear energy for peaceful use, as Iran is entitled to do under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Compare and contrast Washington's treatment of nuclear India! Many will believe that propaganda -- which, like all the best propaganda, contains a grain of truth. External pressure, in this form, could thus consolidate rather than weaken the regime.

I could not concur more, as readers of this blog may attest.

Unfortunately, Ash punts at the conclusion of his article, saying we shouldn't bomb because it will just turn the pro-West Iranian public against us, but that we should take the threat of a "fragmented" (good term) Iranian government holding the bomb seriously. Then he says we need to share info with the Europeans and think this thing through before doing anything rash.

Since the man has ruled out all the stupid and ineffective routes, what remains, ipso facto, is the co-optation route that crowds out the nuts in the Iranian government by rewarding the realists. But Ash doesn't go that far. Too bad.

Too bad that the U.S. government (meaning State) isn't smart enough to realize the same dynamic is likely to occur with Syria, where, if we were in the business of co-opting Iran, we'd have a real chance with such pressure.

As it is, we're likely to waste our time on these efforts too, although Damascus isn't swimming in a sea of oil profits (thanks to China and India ratcheting up global demand, not the invasion of Iraq), so there's some hope.

Posted by at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

■"China's Trade Surplus Tripled, Topping $100 Billion Last Year," by Murray Hiebert, Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2006, p. A2.

The China trade surplus thing has long baffled me.

One, if we count intra-multinational corporate trade, we realize it's far smaller, as much of our "imports" from China consist of our corporations going over there and basically renting cheap Chinese labor. The alternative? I guess higher labor and less competitive goods, which is sure to win us the future high ground in this hyper-competitive global economy.

Two: our rising imbalance with China is nothing new, but just a shift of those past imbalances with the rest of Asia. China's stolen ASEAN and Japan's and South Korea's past shares of surplus and aggregated them unto itself. Big f**king deal, say I. Want to give them back to those countries so we can have higher wages, less ... oh, forget it!

And why not let that imbalance happen with China, because that flow of U.S. money, which comes back in China's Treasury buys and sticking dollars in our secondary mortgage markets and other capital markets (meaning we do awfully well in this transaction), can only help to speed China's marketization process, which only weakens the Party's control and pushes the political system, slowly but surely toward more pluralism.

Ah, but the Party seems to crack down on political dissent more and more!

Or is it that the Party HAS to crack down on such stirrings more and more?

And what is responsible for those stirrings? All this change brought on by China's embrace of globalization?

And doesn't China's rise also make the rest of the region more capitalistic in a defensive mode, thus furthering the long-term course of capitalism and democracy?

Or should we retaliate, depress our economic strength, put the money in arms, and plot for brilliant future great power wars with China?

Depending on your congressional district, this is a tough call. If you're not beholden to special interests, though, it's actually a fairly easy one.

Posted by at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 11 January 2006

Morning lost to picking out window covering fabrics. Not too bad really.

Then back to the house to do one-hour conference call with Dr. Don Beck of "Spiral Dynamics" fame http://spiraldynamics.com/ and a band of similar thinkers at a DC-based conference. Don always seems to have a lot of former military and especially special ops guys at his events, which intrigues me. Haven't cracked the code of his career yet, but he's a very interesting and charismatic guy with big thoughts galore and an amazingly diverse background that's taken him the world over. Good conversation. Just sad to do it from my crappy bedroom in my crappy apartment.

Then rescue Pilot from Honda dealer and pick up kids.

Then to new house with spouse. Cabinets up throughout house, as well as all doors. Gutters now on, so outside complete save drive and sidewalks, playset, deck and patio, all of which await a bit warmer temps. New grading ended drainage issue. Discovered next door neighbor planted nice pine on my side of property line (I'll take it, as we planted two dozen trees of various sorts on back property already). Almost all doors in. All trim stained and basement almost done with trim (that home movie room looking sweet!). Wood for floors off-loaded and that goes in next now that tile done throughout. Saw my shower done for first time today. All in all, very uplifting.

Got the flights for our Hawaiian 20th Anniversary trip today. Very exciting for us all (unfortunately, all six of us). Will be talking at Pacific Command and spending the whole time on Oahu. Just not willing to do the intra-island flights with all those kids and two pretty young. We plan to do up Oahu this time big time, and be as lazy as possible doing it.

Between reserving those flights and seeing the house with so much activity and change, my spirit renewed somewhat.

Need to call that Popular Mechanics reporter back tomorrow for last couple of questions. Gave him interview last week. He's writing a piece he says builds off the November China piece I did in Esquire. Steff: remind me to call him tomorrow!

Meanwhile I await the First Pass layout pages from Esquire on the Army-Marines piece, titled now "The Monks of War." Always a thrill to see the piece laid out for the first time, especially the accompanying photos.

Posted by at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"After Sharon: The death or departure of Israel's superhawk will darken hopes for peace,"The Economist, 7 January 2006, p. 11.

■"Iran's Nuclear Decision Starts Shock Wave: U.S. and EU to Call for IAEA Emergency Session, Demand Action by U.N. Security Council," by Carla Anne Robbins and David Crawford, Wall Street Journal, 11 January 2006, p. A4.

Sharon was the latest peace messiah for Israel: the superhawk who gets all dovish, but realistically so, in last years of life. His departure makes everyone pessimistic on hopes for a two-state solution with Palestine, especially since Abbas has proven so weak at controlling his own.

Meanwhile, Iran breaks the seats on its nuke site and a showdown with the West (and the East, sorta-maybe-sometimes-you-never-know), that will get expressed first in the UN, which, as always, chooses to express its "dismay" first. If really pissed, here comes the sanctions, and we know how all-powerful and compelling those can be.

So the hardliner-turned-dove departs in Israel and the hardliners in Tehran see little cost in pursuing the nuke option, which best guesses estimate they're still three to five years away from achieving.

Same as it ever was.

So our inventive diplomacy will be to: 1) feel lost without Sharon; and 2) the same-old, same-old with Iran.

This is the most depressing pair of articles signaling the slowdown of the Big Bang strategy in the Middle East that I've seen yet. I really get the feeling Bush is done in the region, with the slimmest of hopes for rock-star Condi to do something besides be really admired for the fabulous woman and role-model she is.

But I think the Middle East now awaits the new administration.

Posted by at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Out of the underworld: Numerous, mysterious, and now spreading fast in the United States," The Economist, 11 January 2006, p. 23.

You read these articles about once every 10 months: the one declaring the rising tide of criminals seething into our country from the south. They run so much smuggling and account for so much violence. The center of their activity in the U.S. is Los Angeles.

As always we hear that their growing threat rivals that of traditional transnational terrorists, except they have no political agenda whatsoever, except to be left alone enough to make their dough. Their numbers are vast, and yet virtually no one in the gangs seems to have any money. It's a sad, desperate, Hobbesian existence, and it's coming to a neighborhood (you know the one) near you.

I read these articles every ten months and hear the same thing every time. Don't really doubt any of it. Just don't know what to do with it particularly, cause I just don't see the tide rising to point to truly redirecting U.S. national security, which I see stuck in southwest Asia for now and sliding into Africa over coming years.

And yet watch this trend we must, because if there is to be a turn southward in the GWOT, this will be the main reason really. Problem with this scenario is, what is the wild card event that pushes this?

End of the article is sadder still but accurate: "The only real hope is that economic growth will eventually lift El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras out of their poverty and so reduce the incentives for joining gangs."

Pretty pathetic, I know. Trouble is, pretty accurate too.

Posted by at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Untying U.S. Tongues: A presidential push for more study of key foreign languages," by Alex Kingsbury, U.S. News & World Report, 16 January 2006, p. 35.

I got through 10 years of undergrad and grad school with no student debt, and what resecued me regularly was my willingness to study Russian. Result? America got me, the grand strategist ... for whatever that's worth.

To shrink the Gap and deal with rising New Core pillar China, the Bush Admin does something really smart: puts $114 million against the goal of getting H.S. and college to study languages like Arabic, Chinese, Farsi. Guess that means we plan on wars with more Muslim regimes in the Middle East, the People's Republic and Iran.

Okay, maybe just spying on China, messing with Iran, and regime changing a few more in the Middle East.

Still, you can't wage the peace without such knowledge, and getting kids to study languages is always good (makes you better at English, I found, in my years of doing French, Russia, German and Romanian ... oh, and Moldavia too [chew on that one for a while ...­ Romanian in Cyrillic!]).

This new program naturally links State, Education and Defense, just like my old Foreign Language Area Scholarships did (I got them in Russian and Romanian and financed a summer of language study in Leningrad with a third one). Nothing wrong with that. Bucks there, needing bodies, so you have to expect Defense to be the main player. Plenty of the resulting talent will go national security in careers, like me, and plenty won't, but America will be smarter no matter what.

Posted by at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Asia Attracts Middle East Cash: Malaysia, Singapore Are Among Destinations for Property Investors," by Cris Prystay, Wall Street Journal, 11 January 2006, p. A13.

■"A long walk: A survey of Saudia Arabia," Max Rodenbeck, The Economist, 7 January 2006, 12 pages.

These two stories actually make me feel better about the long-term possibility of a kinder, gentler sort of Modest Bang still working in the Middle East.

First, Asian Muslim states continue to play lead geese to the Middle East, attracting their investments and tourists and generally establishing more connectivity that I believe will lead to positive influence and examples over time for the latter.

Second, the usual great Economist survey on Saudi Arabia paints a pretty optimistic picture of a system with huge social and intellectual backwardness, but at least more and more of both the people and the elite seem aware of this and want to change things ... plus they've got plenty of money to smooth things over as they do this.

So the House of Saud, with new King Abdullah, seems committed to spreading wealth more equitably and dealing with their dysfunctional educational system, which seems good at producing only bored youth and the occasional, pissed-off terrorist.

Good first sign? World Bank recently picked Saudia Arabia as best overall business environment in region, even over usually top pick Dubai.

Still, we're talking the country founded and run by a ruling family clan that now numbers in the tens of thousands and hogs (we're guessing) at least one-fifth of all that fantastic oil wealth (making the entire clan worth hundreds of billions) while keeping women so queerly infantilized (SA ranks lowest in women's freedom in that sad, pathetic region, which is saying a lot) in a manner never suggested by any Koran I've ever heard of--save for that weird-ass version promoted by the strict Wahhabists. Clearly, some skepticism is in order.

And yet, as I noted in BFA, the youth bulge drives a lot of top-down fear in that system, and this is good. Abdullah, in the words of one Riyadh history prof, "feels betrayed by the religious establishment. He thinks they created the environment that made terrorism possible."

And he's right.

So here's hoping he feels the demographic pressure, realizes the decarbonization of global energy is a timetable he must adjust the country's economic profile to accommodate, and does what needs to be done to turn Saudi Arabia into a constitutional monarchy within a generation's time ... my prediction at the end of BFA.

Posted by at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DATELINE: In the Shire, Indy, 10 January 2006

... is really amazing. He cherry-picked the best stuff and strung it together like you wouldn't believe. Two key characters get excised pretty much, but the importance of their thinking remains. The three main characters shine through now, with quotes galore from my interviews (I got much better at eliciting them and using them this time). It's a killer piece that makes me very proud, and very grateful to Mark, who worked his ass off on the article despite a resurgent cold.

There is nothing quite like reading the first-edited draft the first time. I read it tonight outside a music store while Kev got a piano lesson. Cold and rainy and I'm drinking potato soup from a paper cup, but I was in heaven. You can see and feel the reporting in the piece, a statement I didn't even begin to understand as recently as a year ago--that's how far Mark has pulled me along.

Most exciting about going this late on the issue: we're only a month from having it on the stands. My fact-checking maestro, Tom Colligan, is on my case again. I expect about 25 phone calls over the next 48 hours as we put this baby to bed.

The piece will clock in at about 6k, which is ... BEEG! And yet a solid 7k sliced away.

Mark said I could post the first draft down the road if I wanted, but I'm afraid it would only make him look too good, and me too weak!

I say, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. The great and powerful Tom . . . oh, to hell with it.

Posted by at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"See the U.S.A. in Your New Car From China, Starting in '07," by Jeremy W. Peters, New York Times, 10 January 2006, pulled from the web.

Detroit knew it way only a matter of time. Competitive Chinese cars at significantly lower prices (under $10k!):

"It does not matter that Geely, the Chinese carmaker, getting a lot of attention at the auto show here, has yet to sell a single car in the United States. It is the possibility it could that has Detroit talking."

GM's vice chair and product development chief:

"I think it's the beginning, the very beginning, of Chinese international participation in the U.S. A few years down the road, sure, it'd be foolish not to see it as a threat."

Geely is probably two years off, hoping to hit the U.S. in 2008. Chery Automotive (yes, the name is designed to look like Chevy), another Chinese giant, "has already announced plans to begin shipping cars to the United States in 2007."

Here's my favorite bit:

Recalling the collective shrug American automakers gave when Japanese cars entered the market, Detroit, in particular, is paying attention.

"Remember, the first Toyotas were laughable," Mr. Lutz said. "The first Hyundais that we saw were laughable."

Neither is so funny anymore, and neither will be Geely or Chery in a decade's time.

Posted by at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"As Brazil Bills Up on Ethanol, It Weans Off Energy Imports: After Years of State Support, Use of Cheap Fuel Made From Sugar Is Widespread; U.S. Delegations Pay a Visit," by David Luhnow and Geraldo Samor, Wall Street Journal, 9 January 2006, p. A1.

■"Cnooc Expects to Complete Nigeria Oil-Field Deal in 1st Half," by Kate Linebaugh and Shai Oster, Wall Street Journal, 10 January 2006, p. A7.

The opening sentence of the Brazil article is a grabber:

After nearly three decades of work, Brazil has succeeded where much of the industrialized world has failed: It has developed a cost-effective alternative to gasoline. Along with new offshore oil discoveries, that's a big reason Brazil expects to become energy independent this year.

Hmm. How long has America blown off the potential of ethanol and dismissed the notion of drilling off its shores (at least off the rich ones east and west; the less fussy Gulf Coast poor remain open to the notion, otherwise we'd had virtually no oil here in the States.

So Brazil somehow easily manages that which the U.S. can't.

Too simplistic you say? The truth always is.

Twenty percent of Brazil's transport fuel market (the global average is 1 percent for such alternative fuels). Think we couldn't grow that amount here? Interesting proposition a lot of farm-belt representatives and senators have long pushed, but not to much avail here. Of course, ours is made from corn, not sugar, so it costs a lot more.

And then there's all the left-coast liberals that want America to wean itself off the Middle East but demand that no oil be pumped off its coastline, lest their views suffer (ditto on the wind farms).

Guess who's been to Brazil checking this all out? Why Hillary, of course.

Yes, yes, too tough for U.S. to manage, but somehow old Brazil can get a car market running where seven out of 10 new cars are flex-fuel capable.

This catches the attention of India and China, which also sends plenty of delegations. Their car ranks are surging.

Yes, yes, there are some real idiosyncratic bits and pieces to the Brazilian puzzle that make its replication elsewhere harder. But need is the mother of invention, and the Brazilians, as in other matters of development and growth, clearly have things to teach not only fellow New Core states like India and China, but Old Core powers like the U.S.

We keep waiting on the world to change in our image, when we could be learning so much from others who are changing so much more than we are right now.

China buys 45 percent of a big offshore Nigerian oil and gas field. Yet another of its moves after Cnooc was denied its bid for Unocal.

Clearly, this must be sign of China's obsession with owning the barrel in the ground, so to speak. Clearly this is an aggressive attempt to close off West Africa to the U.S.!

Afraid not. Cnooc plans to sell the oil to Europe and the U.S. instead of China, "which can acquire energy reserves more cheaply from fields closer to home."

Again, see how quickly the new student learns how to work the global economy for safety and gain?

Makes the "masters" look a bit slow and stodgy in comparison, yes?

Posted by at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Taiwan Indicts Two Ex-Officials At Big Chip Firm: Move Highlights Tensions As Many Executives Seek To Do Business in China," by Jason Dean, Wall Street Journal, 10 January 2006, p. A12.

■"The Challenge Before Us: Iraq and its allies enter a decisive phase," op-ed by Zalmay Khalilzad, Wall Street Journal, 9 January 2006, p. A12.

■"Afghan headmaster stabbed and beheaded," by Noor Khan, Indianapolis Star (Associated Press), 5 January 2006, p. A5.

■"How U.S. Immigration Evolved as the Nation Grew and Changed," by Cynthia Crossen, Wall Street Journal, 9 January 2006, p. B1.

Fascinating quartet that reminds us that rising connectivity always engenders a fear-threat reaction.

Taiwanese businessmen want to do more and more business with China. The famed chip and semiconductor and motherboard industries of Taiwan have been shipping production to China for years. And that scares a lot of politicians and nationalists on Taiwan, "who are concerned the island is becoming overly dependent on its political adversary."

So when execs of a large micro-electronic firm in Taiwan are observed trying to set up similar companies in China, they are investigated by the government. Can't have someone connecting these two economies too quickly, it would seem. The two execs are forced from the company for "breach of trust" against their shareholders, whatever the hell that means. Apparently they were trying to get too much profit for the shareholders by following economic logic and seeking out cheaper labor. Certainly, Taiwan will gain politically from this loss of connectivity by having their goods cost more.

Then again, it all depends on what you value: identity or efficiency. Guess which one drives human progress? Guess which one hinders it?

Khalilzad in the WSJ makes all these points about where Iraq must go in coming months. It all starts with security, and it all ends with growing economic connectivity with the outside world. The key is inserting private sector activity and access to foreign capital as early in the recovery process as possible, and security is the long pole in the tent to make that happen.

Sounds to me like somebody understands the military-market nexus with some wisdom.

So Iraq can progress through greater efficiency, or it can cling to old identities and fight over the olive groves, as Friedman would say.

Not an easy choice for anyone, but hardest for Gap states. Because when you don't have much, you still have your cultural identity. "I'm poor and ignorant and my kids lives will suck, but hey! That's what makes me fill-in-the-blank-tribe!"

So if you try to teach young girls in Afghanistan, if you try to connect them to something larger than their father's control, which over time ends only with their husband's tight grip, then you take your life in your own hands. You threaten identity with progress and connectivity and opportunity that does not fit with the status quo definitions of who does what. People gotta know their place--and only their place. To learn of other worlds is to demand more than is reasonable, and history shows, that unreasonable people tend to be troublemakers, and inventors, and pioneers and radicals.

Better to kill the teacher and cut off his head as a warning to others: teach my daughter anything about the larger world and suffer my wrath!

Of course, it's not easy to change all that history, and God knows we here in America have gone through our bouts of anti-immigration. First we wanted to preserve our Anglo-Saxon purity, then our Anglo-Saxon-Germanic purity, then our Anglo-Saxon-Germanic-Roman-Gaelic purity, and now our ... oh hell, it's just too long to type out.

But thank God for the purists. Thank God for the head-choppers and preservers of the one true way/faith/race/NFL franchise ...

Oops! That last one slipped in there.

I mean, you let one of them into a nice sitcom like The Simpsons, and pretty soon there's an Apu in every damn show in America! Pretty soon there's Kumar's heading to White Castle, stoned and hungry, like some blond surfer dude out west.

Surely, all this diversity must cost us something? All this connectivity can't be good? Surely, it's not why we remain such a strong and inventive country?

Posted by at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pleased to announced the digital version of the PNM map is now available for free download.

You can download the map as a PDF in high-resolution format (17.25 MB) or low-resolution format (309 KB).

You can visit the map download page at http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/pnm/map_index.htm.

Posted by at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 9 January 2006

Mac Powerbook at local shop for screen connection problems. Glad I got the Mac care now!

So while travelng about, have to employ my Freedom Keyboard on my Treo, which is a real bitch to squint at from a distance.

Then again, perhaps I've finally found a form of masturbation (mental) that truly does make you blind! (He typed, slumped over his crotch in intense concentration ... two hours later he could barely stand up, his back was so tight!)

Carpe diem meets carpal tunnel.

But seize I must. Just expect briefer posts til end of week.

Posted by at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Don't add to armor, some soldiers say: Troops complain that protective gear is heavy and restricts their movement," by Ryan Lenz (Associated Press), Indianapolis Star, 8 January 2006, p. A13.

The Pentagon study looks at 93 fatal wounds in Iraq from March 03 to July 05, and it decided that in 74 of the cases, armor with more coverage over the body would have made a difference.

Thus the logic implied is "the bigger the armor coverage, the more lives saved."

Makes sense at first blush, until you talk to soldiers who say the gear they wear is already too constricting. Of course there is the usual fatalism of soldiers talking here: as one puts it, "You can slap body armor on all you want, but it's not going to help anything. When it's your time, it's your time. Second Lt. Josh Suthoff says he'd wear less if his superiors would let them.

So it's a trade that probably doesn't make sense to people who haven't worn the gear in combat.

I've always wondered why so many NFL receivers and defensive backs go without knee pads I mean, why risk the career-ending injury? But when you ask them, they'll tell you straight up they'll take the mobility and speed edge over the safety.

This story reminds me of what Rumsfeld told me on such equipment shortages and weaknesses. He basically said, stuff doesn't win it for you, or keep you aive. Better tactics do, because as soon as you get better gear in this Global War on Terrorism, you can expect our enemies to figure new ways around them.

The key is not our stuff, or our technology, but our capacity to learn and change, PLUS all that stuff and technology.

But the latter never substitutes for the former in Fourth Generation Warfare, a point I will never argue with the 4GWers.

And that's the sort of thrust I was working on in the Esquire piece Mark and I edit this week (he turned in his edited first copy draft to the production crew today; we wil be editing various "passes" between now and Thursday late per his latest estimate).

Posted by at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

■"Microsoft Defends Censoring a Dissident's Blog in China," by Kathy Chen and Geoffrey A. Fowler, Wall Street Journal, 6 January 2006, p. A9.

MS shuts down a Chinese blog site because of some postings there that offended Chinese authorities. The culprit was a Chinese journalist writing under a pen name.

MS not talking, but its action is not unusual for IT companies operating overseas: they follow the local content laws as a quid pro quo for establishing the connectivity in the first place.

China's internet users rose from almost nothing in 1998 to roughly 100 million by '05.

This journalist was pushing the limits in ways any democrat would approve, and when his site started drawing 15k hits a day, the authorities pushed MS to pull the plug, which they did.

But more key to me is the incredible growth of blogging in China, AND those bloggers pushing limits, AND getting in trouble AND forcing both governments and corporations to deal with that.

Sure most bloggers in China write about their personal lives rather than politics. But the key thing is 33 million Chinese bloggers and all the learned networking behavior that comes with it.

Of coure, the article quotes the always-solid Rebecca McKinnon on the subject, and she raies the right questions in a balanced way: "In the short term [acquiescing to China] gets you into a market you perhaps couldn't be in otherwise ... [but] in the long term is this good for your corporate global image in China, that you go along with censorship?"

Fair question, someday soon to be debated by ... say ... a couple of hundred million Chinese bloggers?

I say, take the connectivity in the hand over the political freedom in the bush. Eat today and live to blog again tomorrow.

Me? I'm betting on Chinese ingenuity--on both sides--to make this one helluva cat-and-mouse game that the many and the cheap will ultimately win over the far fewer and more expensive.

Posted by at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

■"Russian Gas Accord Doesn't Calm Europeans," by Gregory L. White and Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A9.

■"Facing an Addiction: Western Europe Comes to Terms With Its Dependence on Russian Gas; Russia, still acting like a superpower, tried to use natural resources for political goals," New York Times, 8 January 2006, p. A10.

Russia's going to end up learning the same lesson that OPEC learned in the 1980s: you're in the driver's seat on energy only so long as you keep it reasonably priced and steady in supply. If you do that, you don't trigger political responses or movement economically toward alternatives--unless other values intervene and force that shift despite your best efforts (OPEC's fear of the shift to hydrogen--and yes, I know that every time I write that I get several scientists sending me emails that work hard to debunk what they see as the myths of moving in this direction, but I stick with those many other scientists and inventors (like Amory Lovins) whom I regularly interact with and who say it's nowhere near as hard as the pessimists make out).

Putin's bad-boy shtick on natural gas with the Ukraine won't win him any real power over Europe. He'll just push them toward hedging pathways, which they will pursue given their mix of social values, economic values and lack of any serious political-military alternatives for counter-pressure.

In the end, all Putin will end up doing, if he pursues this path, is driving the Europeans toward faster accommodation with the Arab and Islamic world (and increase their reliance on nukes AND bring them back into Africa and South America, where they'll bump into the Chinese and Indians already there!). Movement in the direction of better energy/people/money/security flows with the Middle East and North Africa really kills two birds with one stone for the Europeans, whereas suffering the Russians' BS and bluster only revives old enemy images they'd rather forget.

The "power guys" running Russia today are kidding themselves if they think this tactic will resurrect their superpower status. It'll just put them in the same sad category of the rancid authoritarian regimes of the Middle East and South America.

Posted by at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

■"A Man Does Not Ask a Man About His Wife," the "Word for Word" compilation of quotes, New York Times, 8 January 2006, p. WK7.

Excerpts from the cultural-sensitivity reference cards passed out in the thousands to U.S. troops in Afghanistan:

"Do not walk in front of someone at prayer."

"Do not ask a Muslim if he is a Sunni or a Shiite."

"When offered a seat of honor, decline graciously and accept only when offered again."

"Do not argue, but strive for consensus. Majority rule is not the norm for solving issues or problems."

"Do not stare at women, touch them or try to shake a woman's hand (unless she extends her hand first)."

And my favorite: "Speak about your families. Afghans like to know you have them."

Again, it's brains PLUS stuff, not just stuff that will win battles and keep our troops more safe. Can't win without local intell and you can't get local intell if you piss people off.

Posted by at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Words to Live By," by Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News & World Report, 9 January 2006, p. 60.

Great quote from Condi Rice: "Political agreements close chapters of the past. Economic agreements open chapters in the future."

Which I guess explains why Clinton's two terms seemed to be future oriented and economically successful while the Bush terms seem so ... something else.

I believe in this quote. In the 1990s while I still worked with the Center for Naval Analyses as a consultant, I ginned up a slide that said State closes doors on the past, Defense deals with the bad stuff of today (despite the constant daydreaming on future enemies), and Treasury (and US Trade Rep) work mostly the future (figuring that discount rate!).

In the past, State was more relevant because interstate wars and the threat of global war meant it needed to stay busy preventing the present from exploding. But now, we are back to settling and integrating frontier areas, where the military-market nexus is more obvious, so now it's Defense that needs to be able to segue failed states from instablity to connectivity, which in turn triggers the most important flows of trade and money, which is where you'll find the really good Treasury secretaries like Baker and Rubin doing their thing and reducing the risk of war over time (a sad comment on the Bush terms has been the serious weakness of their T secretaries).

That renewed military-market nexus is fundamentally why State secretaries have been so weak since the Wall came down. Quick! Name the last important one who made a real difference. Again, you're back to Baker.

'nough said.

Posted by at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"How to do better: After brutal blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American army has become more intelligent-and hopes to be more effective," The Economist, 17 December 2005, p. 22.

A great piece with some nice bits on Petraeus and Leavenworth (bet the journalist didn't address the entire student body with a two-hour lecture while he was there ... but I regress), sandwiched between a description of training changes at Fort Polk in Louisiana (actually, the Joint Readiness Training Center at Polk always feautured a lot of this stuff; it's really at the Army and Marines training centers where the change is far more stark).

Overall, a solid piece like King and Jaffe's in the WSJ and Julian Barnes' many pieces in USN&WR recently. If my piece coming out in about a month in Esquire didn't fly at a much higher altitude (I know no other way to operate and certaintly wouldn't try to compete with these brilliant reporters at their own game), I would be really nervous.

Instead I am greatly relieved. My reporting uncovered all the same details. I just want to tell the story on my usual grand strategic level (and yes, "major league bullshit" level to my critics--to which I reply, "your point?") in my own peculiar style, which just so happens to fit so well with Esquire.

Go with what you know (and do best), say I. Play at the level that makes most sense to you.

Which is my way of saying, I guess, that I'm really getting psyched about this piece!

Nice note from Hearst International today: they are picking up "The Chinese Are Our Friends" piece from November for the internatonal editions. Not sure which ones yet. Hoping for China and the UK, cause they pay the best!

Posted by at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Jesus, CEO: America's most successful churches are modelling themselves on businesses," The Economist, 24 December 2005, p. 41.

Harris' celebrated book on religion (The End of Faith) is considered this brillaint attack on the foibles and evil of modern-day organized religion (I have tried to read it but gave up because I found it too dense and gobbley-gooky; it may indeed be quite good, but like many great books, it made me too sleepy to seriously engage), and like most such comprehensie attacks on religion, the book pines for a time in which its global influence was lessened or eliminated all together.

Social scientists have predicted this for decades, only to be proven more and more wrong with each passing year--except in Old Core Europe and perhaps Japan, but I hesitate on that charge because their media content strikes me as so spiritual).

Well, this interesting article only points out how religions, faith and--in particular--churches seem bigger and more comprehensively involved in their attendants' lives than ever.

Sounds like Harris is on to something!

Why would people, even in very connected and relatively rich America still seek out such comprehensive faith communities? I guess religions, even in our super-connected states, are sort of the AOL for the soul--the great translating mechanism for preferred visions, preferred sites, preferred content.

Does this only prove yet again how disintegrating globalization is? Everyone seeking their own "channel"?

Or does it prove that individuality is alive and well, and so are self-selecting communities of practice--religious or otherwise?

The 21st century will be the most technologically-obsessed age yet experienced by man, and in a yin-yang balancing act, it will also be the most religious.

Connectivity and content controls. Like it or not, they go hand in hand.

And that's not a bad thing. In fact, it's how we keep things from coming apart.

And yes, that notion should help you understand China a bit better. The dominant faith clings on, but the new faiths--the individually driven ones--are just beginning to rear their beautiful heads. The South Koreans are coming! The South Koreans are coming!

Posted by at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In advance of Tom's speaking engagement to the Indiana Council on World Affairs (to be held at Butler University in Indy) the evening of Wednesday, 18 January, thought it would be good to share the note that went out from John Clark, Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research.

Perhaps the most important geo-strategic analyst in the US right now is Thomas P.M. Barnett, author of the best-selling book, The Pentagon's New Map and its recent sequel Blueprint for Action. On September 10, 2001, Barnett was an international relations professor at the Naval War College, who had been delivering a PowerPoint presentation to military audiences that argued that they were completely unprepared for the challenges they would be facing. Within months after 9/11 he had emerged as a leading defense intellectual-celebrity, even appearing on the cover of Esquire.

The Pentagon's New Map was an elaboration of this presentation, an exhilarating and aggravating book. No other book has so polarized military thinkers: war-fighters think he is crazy, civil-affairs and nation-builders think he is the greatest mind ever. Personally, I think Blueprint for Action, which focuses on the challenges that must be addressed after the heavy fighting is over, is even better than his first book, and I liked The Pentagon's New Map a lot.

This weekend I'll be posting a review of the book and a critical analysis of Barnett's other work at http://indybuzz.blogspot.com.

For a flavor of Barnett's writing, check out his website: http://thomaspmbarnett.com/. This has to be one of the most generous websites I know. For free, Barnettt provides access to just about everything he has ever said or written. We are in for a treat.

What: Barnett will speak to the Indiana Council on World Affairs
Where: Butler University, Johnson Room in Robertson Hall
When: The evening of Wednesday, January 18

Cocktail reception 5:30
Dinner 6:30
Talk at 7:15
Conclude at 8:45

Dinner for ICWA members is $22; the cost for nonmembers is $24. Depending on the space available, it may be possible to attend only the talk for $4. This is a great time to join the ICWA, and I have attached a membership form. This promises to be an exceptional evening: Barnett is an electrifying speaker who displays not a whiff of self-doubt. We will get a chance to experience what has enraptured or enraged much of the defense establishment, and I hope you can attend ...

To RSVP: Before January 13 e-mail Kishor Kulkarni at KMKulkarni@aol.com with "ICWA Dinner Reservation" as the subject; include your name, address, phone number, and the number of places you would like to reserve. Or phone your reservation to 317-566-2036.

You should RSVP to KMKulkarni@aol.com as soon as you can, attendance for this event will surely max out. Please feel free to pass this invitation along to anyone you think would be interested. I do hope you can make it. Please let me know if you have any questions. See you the 18th, John.

John Clark, Senior Fellow
Sagamore Institute for Policy Research
Indianapolis, IN
www.sipr.org

For those of you in the region who have not seen Tom speak (not on CSPAN, mind you, but LIVE), this is a great opportunity. Don't miss it!

Posted by at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: Back in the Shire, Indy, 8 January 2006

Worked the ever-expanding punch list on the Esquire piece from 0800 to 1300 on Saturday, then drove to Terre Haute with the boys for a mini-family reunion on my wife's side. Highlight: "Chronicles of Narnia." Lowlight: another crappy sleep on a mushy hotel mattress.

After a farewell lunch today, I zip back and put in another six hours of typing up bits and pieces in response to Warren's frequent emails.

This is the most wearying part in the long process of getting a piece done (the planning on this began in early November), but it's actually my favorite because of the intense collaboration with Mark. Reporting is exhausting. Writing is lonely.

But editing is fun.

Posted by at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got an email from a reader who lives near Charlotte, North Carolina, seeking any in his area who could join him and a group of friends as they gather to discuss PNM. If there is anyone in that part of the world who could join the group's discussion (such as a political science professor, history professor, or other individual intimately familiar with Tom’s work), please contact Richard D., MD, at radmd51@charter.net.

Posted by at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After hearing about Sterling for so long, I can easily see the attraction. Guy writes with a clean, undeniably sensible bent on China, which is a good indicator of solid strategic thinking today (arguably, THE best indicator today).

Worth reading: http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/).

Posted by at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: In the Shire, Indy, 6 January 2006

Up at 0600 this morn, working Warren punch list on Esquire article solid til 1200, then shower and race to K-garten with Jerry. Today I am volunteer parent.

Then race home for more punch list items from Mark (by "punch list," I mean bits and pieces Mark wants written to cover the tape lines and zipppers he's been forced to apply in his slim-down edit and rearrange), working straight to 1930. Then race to pick up Kev at tutor's. Then home and my Mac is already lost to daughter's iTune downloading, so it's Leinenkugel Honey Weiss and Family Guy Vol. III DVDs for me til lights out.

Never should have let wife get older kids iPods. Now we'll want to go all Mac (not bad idea). Plus, I discover I am closet Coldplay fan!

Oo! ... oooo-wooo-oooo-woooo ... aaaah!

Home ... Home ... Where I wanted to go ...

As Stewie would say: "Damn! Damn you all for thwarting my plans!"

And you can't be surprised by the FG fixation. After all, we're ex-Rhodies.

Damn! Damn them all!

I return to the punch list first thing in the morn ...

Posted by at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Sharon's Stroke Adds to Turmoil In Israeli Politics: Crisis Complicates Elections, Hopes for New Peace Talks; Concern of Renewed Violence," by Karby Legget, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A1.

■"Militants bulldoze Gaza-Egypt border wall: Hundreds of Palestinians rush through breach; 2 Egyptian troops killed, 30 hurt in rampage," by Associated Press, Indianapolis Star, 5 January 2006, p. A7.

■"Iraq's Political Consensus: The good--and not so good--lessons of its sectarian election turnout," editorial, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006.

Is it just me, or does it seem like Israeli politics often features tough guys who, very late in life, decide to make peace, only to die tragically or suffer some debilitating loss before they can bring their vision to fruition? I mean, it seems like Israel is constantly falling just short of some Nixon-goes-to-China outcome that would deliver it some serious stability.

But maybe that just points out how reliant we've all been on the politics of personalities in the region, not just with the autocratic Arabs and those pesky Persians, but even with democratic (and raucously so) Israel.

Sharon, legendary tough guy and hardliner-among-hardliners was in a perfect Nixonian zone for reaching out and forging some new arrangements. He had left Likud and formed his own centrist party Kadima, plus several states in the region are clearly considering normalization of relations with Tel Aviv.

But here's the rub: "the party is largely a product of the force of Mr. Sharon's personality and the dramatic change in approach toward the Palestinians and security issues that he has successfully pushed in recent years."

The U.S. was clearly betting on his amazing pullout from Gaza last year, and with Abbas running Palestine, the opportunity for settling the border issues was definitely there.

Now, perhaps, we're back to zero.

Meanwhile, Gaza is lurching back toward instability. I will tell you, there are plenty in the Pentagon who think we'll end up in Palestine at some point in this process. I know, I know. It's IMPOSSIBLE. We're too tied down. The public won't stand for it. Blah blah.

And yet these things happen, whether we want them or not. I'm just saying that few in the Pentagon think Iraq will be our last intervention in the Middle East. Go figure.

But looking at Iraq's recent election, maybe it just teaches us the reality of "identity politics," as the WSJ calls it, and how it's unrealistic for us to expect that to disappear in a region that's remained: 1) so isolated from globalization for so long; and 2) has suffered so much autocracy for so long.

You pull the top off that, and you have to expect it to boil and bubble for quite some time. A region that so depends on the politics of personalities and has so much unrequited political yearning for identity can't be changed overnight. In fact, it only makes sense that it would be a generational turnover at best. This is not a region of systems, reflecting the general lack of connectivity (or, in the case of Israel, it's strange disconnectedness within its own neighborhood even as it remains amazingly connected to the global economy), so it's all about who is leading and when.

The U.S., Europe, Japan (my Old Core) all enjoy systems robust enough to survive all manner of sloppy and stupid politicians (which is, of course, why we get them, because real talent avoids that venue and I don't blame them), but there is no such slack in the Middle East. There, countries need the best of leaders under the best of conditions and armed with the best of intentions and then ... maybe then ... they get somewhere.

Otherwise, stagnation.

Posted by at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"China Eases Rules On Stock Buying By Foreign Holders," by Kate Linebaugh, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A6.

■"Mitsubishi UFJ Negotiates Stake In Bank of China," by Andrew Morse, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A12.

The China hawks in the Pentagon and on the Hill view that country's "rise" strictly in terms of alleged "power" and "influence." They never see the liabilities, especially the internal ones. They never see the factions and divisiveness and political infighting, so they constantly misinterpret or fantastically extrapolate from their very narrow focus on military matters an entire Chinese view of the world (Yes, yes, it's all "unrestricted warfare" from here on out! As if you can't find similar bullshit from our own Fourth-Generation Warfare hard-core types.).

Worse, the hawks are never able to locate China in our own past history, seeing them only as necessarily vectoring toward some Nazi-like outcome, as if China's embrace of globalization and rapid privatization (70% of the economy is now private-sector driven) comes anywhere close to the Third Reich's very different trajectory.

Nor do these hawks ever examine the relative differences between ... say ... China's foreign policy and America's over the past several decades. I mean, which country has waged war time and time again distant from its shores, and which country has essentially acquiesced time and time again with such warfare. Recall any dramatic, Soviet-like military showdowns between the U.S. and China anywhere other than its coastline or the Taiwan Straits? In other words, where do we find China's "influence" and "infiltration" leading to superpower rivalries of an unstable sort?

Ah, we are told the Chinese are too masterful and clever for that--way too 4GW. You are thinking too crudely if you expect such things. The Chinese are doing this all indirectly, which is why we need mucho gigantic military platforms that are absurdly expensive because ... uh ... that is clearly where warfare is going, right?

Me, I see a clear trajectory with China: day-in and day-out it slowly but surely opens up its precious "communist" economy to outside economic influence and connectivity. Its political leadership, which is clearly autocratic, increasingly lets that process of growing connectivity drive a comprehensive and profound transformation of its internal economic rule sets, while trying desperately to keep itself insulated from the pluralistic impulses that process inevitably unleashes throughout society, but especially among the youth.

But seeing that economic trajectory for what it is, well, that's considered naïve and idealistic. Yes, yes, focusing on economics and capitalism and reading the WSJ, that's the naïve observer all right.

Meanwhile, clinging to dreams of great power war with China, a dream that has clearly prevailed in the current Quaddrenial Defense Review, means we change our force structure and acquisitions strategies very little, despite this Global War on Terrorism, the "long war" with radical Salafi jihadists, and the Iraq of today and the Iraqs of tomorrow--that's realism.

Or perhaps just a particular form of greed we have a hard time shaking--or should I say, Congress and the Pentagon have a hard time shaking.

Posted by at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Mexican Rebel on Reality Tour: Few Outside His Entourage Cheer Famed Chiapas Champion of Poor," by Jose de Cordoba and John Lyons, Wall Street Journal, 5 January 2006, p. A12.

Fascinating article on the pathetic "farewell tour" of the Chiapas rebel leader, Subcomandante Marcos (who now calls himself "Delegate Zero"), as he tries to sort of run in/influence the upcoming July national elections.

Focusing on poverty is good, but Marcos' answers never were. Clearly, though, his rebel force were masters of the sort of netwar so promoted by Fourth Generation Warfare types as being the new top dog in international conflict: they worked the web and the media like few had before them.

So what killed this rebellion and turned this guy into a pathetic joke? Was it some amazing "info war" campaign by Mexico's government. Did the public diplomacy and strategic communications rule the day?

The sight of the aging revolutionary on an undersized bike prompted Mexico's leading newspaper, Reforma, to compare Marcos to a pizza deliveryman.

"If he keeps this [motorcyle tour] up," quipped one radio commentator, "he should be called Sub-comedian Marcos."

More stinging than the mockery is the growing realization, even by many of his once-devoted supporters, that Marcos has become increasingly irrelevant as Mexico has embraced democracy and free markets. While his legacy is evident--leftists and indigenous movements have become a political force here and elsewhere in the region since he burst onto the scene, and President Vincente Fox felt compelled to launch a competing tour of indigenous communities--few Mexicans these days buy Marcos' revolutionary rhetoric, and townspeople here offered studied indifference and wariness when he arrived amid an army of masked followers.

My, what an inconceivable outcome, so clearly driven by the dynamics of 4GW. How the incompetent Mexican government and private sector pulled this off, I'll never know.

And clearly, any movement by Iraq's fledgling government and economy down similar pathways will yield nothing of value there.

No, no, only the masters of 4GW disaster take the long view. The naïve idealists of economic connectivity are no match for this brilliant realism.

Posted by at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Cheney Cites Justifications for Domestic Eavesdropping: Secret Monitoring May Have Averted 9/11, He Says," by Jim VandeHei and Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 5 January 2006, p. A2.

Cheney makes reference to NSA intercepts of comms inside the U.S. among the 9/11 hijackers, in effect arguing that if the government had more freedom to monitor such comms inside the U.S., it would have connected some dots and possibly prevented the attacks.

Noted terrorist expert Bruce Hoffman is quoted in the piece saying that's a bit too simple and that our national security system's failures were more systematic, so no silver bullet here.

But the larger point implied by Cheney remains: there's a weird hole in our system if we basically give terrorists a free pass once they get inside our borders. Clearly, allowing for such domestic surveillance is a risky venture, one that should be subject to all sorts of judicial oversight, something Cheney is definitely not fond of. But just as clearly, this notion of "home" versus "away" game is awfully artificial: this idea that we can be as brutal and extra-legal as we want overseas while playing an ultra-fair version within our borders.

The more we cling to that chimera at home, the more we'll drive our government toward "illegal" and immoral strategies abroad. We will not extend rule sets, we'll just perpetuate an us-versus-them divide that simply will not serve us well in this war.

Posted by at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"Putin, Acting in Character: A Pipeline Ploy Worthy of the Soviets," op-ed by Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, 5 January 2006, p. A15.

■"Russia and Ukraine Reach Compromise on Natural Gas," by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 5 January 2006, pulled from web.

Hoagland likes to ride Putin and he's right to do so. As I have said here many times, watching Putin rule is simply an exercise in observing the limits of the ex-commies in power: they know how to get power, they just don't know how to use it.

So yes, Putin now clings to his energy "influence" in the same way as Brezhnev and the gang (man, does that name evoke ancient history!) once did with nukes, because that's how Putin was raised and that's all he knows.

So the question isn't, "How do we change or reform Putin?" It's, "How do we help the next generation of Russian leaders see the world differently?"

The U.S. political system once viewed global energy supplies in very similar ways as Putin (and, increasingly, the Chinese and Indians) does today: either own the barrel in the ground or you've got bupkis in terms of power and influence. That view was pervasive in our national security establishment and political system as recently as the 1970s.

But we largely moved beyond that in the years that followed. By and large, we now see a fluid global oil market where our insecurity is defined less in terms of potential loss of supply than in potential movement of prices. But, just as clearly, New Core pillars India, China and Russia have yet to reach that maturity of understanding, so their foreign policies revolve around energy in as crude a fashion as ours once did.

What do we need to do? On some levels, time itself takes care of the problem, as governments and private sectors in all three countries will simply learn by experience.

Like so many things in life. It's not so much a matter of getting it right as not getting it wrong: avoid the unnecessary conflict and let your potential opponent grow past this point of immaturity.

Posted by at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DATELINE: In the Shire, Indy, 4 January 2006

Interesting batch of articles fired off to me as attachments and hot links today. The disturbing trends I find in these pieces are: 1) "We're losing badly and don't even know it!"; and 2) the "clash of civilizations" argument of "fighting fire with fire" and mirror-imagining ourselves into something that can fight radical Islam symmetrically is stronger--and more myopic in its vision--than ever.

First up is this strange Department of State career-specialist in public diplomacy with this amazing diatribe about how we're losing the Fourth Generation Warfare that Al Qaeda has clearly mastered (Tony Corn, "World War IV As Fourth-Generation Warfare" in Real Clear Politics, go to http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-1_4_06_TC.html). His answer? Of course, lots of very intensive public diplomacy and "info ops."

Missing in this whole piece is any semblance of the role of global economics, except, at the end, to bring in the Chinese as our natural enemies and key allies of Islam (so very Huntington, who likewise has indulged his old-scared-white-guy leanings a bit too much in recent years). Instead, we get the usual choice between net-centric and 4GW, an idiotic choice I spent a lot of time in BFA dismissing. Having just spent a lot of time at Quantico and Leavenworth, I have to say, I just don't meet the counter-insurgency and 4GW types who argue the irrelevancy of NCW. But this is the level of sophistication, I guess, we are to expect from someone who thinks, as so many at State seem to do, that it's governments that run the world and control most of reality (except when those devious 4GW warriors are attacking The Man and The System so effectively).

All in all, a weird piece with so little sense of the private sector's role in this (save a brief toss-off reference). Instead, we get so much faith in propaganda, which is that fight-fire-with-fire stuff I can't stand for two reasons: 1) Americans don't trust their government's propaganda, so I don't know why this guy is so sure it will work and 2) we already have plenty of Western propaganda that's way too effective already and it's called Hollywood. Hollywood's so effective, that's why we get this desperate Salafi jihadist response, which, as a recent Stratfor piece notes ("Al Qaeda in 2006: Devolution and Adaption," by Fred Burton) gets less coherent with time. But alas, as so often is the case with the most gung-ho 4GWers (and a State dept. hand at that!), all that "devolution" is yet another sign of Al Qaeda's growing mastery of "netwar" and our growing incompetence in both recognizing it and fighting it.

We are so screwed (or perhaps we don't screw enough, but let me finish with Corn before moving on ...).

Corn's piece employs some funky math in a sort of Carl Sagan-like whirl: basically he talks about 1.2B Muslims and if only 1 percent go all jihadist on us, that's 12M, and if only 1 percent of them go suicidal, that's 120k suicide bombers--(just like that!).

It's that wonderful focus on numbers and demographics which gets me to Mark Steyn's gloriously frantic and fear-mongering piece in the WSJ Opinion Journal:

THE CENTURY AHEAD

It's The Demography, Stupid

The real reason the West is in danger of extinction.

By Mark Steyn

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West ...

Those frickin' Muslims are breeding like rabbits and infiltrating us like crazy. Europe will be lost within a short historical timeframe. Hell, it may be too far gone already. Like Corn, Steyn pushes for an aggressive sort of re-education campaign, where, apparently, we outdo the House of Saud in brainwashing (of course, they're winning like you wouldn't believe, multiculturalist pussy that you are!).

In fact, Steyn's frantic assault on multiculturalism is the piece's most sad aspect, doing poor Sam Huntington's scared-old-white-guy philosophy a big step better (actually, even making Sam's crankiness seem quaint in comparison). Dig this bit:

What will Europe be like at the end of this process? Who knows? On the one hand, there's something to be said for the notion that America will find an Islamified Europe more straightforward to deal with than M. Chirac, Herr Schroeder & Co. On the other hand, given Europe's track record, getting there could be very bloody. But either way this is the real battlefield. The al Qaeda nutters can never find enough suicidal pilots to fly enough planes into enough skyscrapers to topple America. But unlike us, the Islamists think long-term, and, given their demographic advantage in Europe and the tone of the emerging Muslim lobby groups there, much of what they're flying planes into buildings for they're likely to wind up with just by waiting a few more years. The skyscrapers will be theirs; why knock 'em over?

The latter half of the decline and fall of great civilizations follows a familiar pattern: affluence, softness, decadence, extinction. You don't notice yourself slipping through those stages because usually there's a seductive pol on hand to provide the age with a sly, self-deluding slogan--like Bill Clinton's "It's about the future of all our children." We on the right spent the 1990s gleefully mocking Mr. Clinton's tedious invocation, drizzled like syrup over everything from the Kosovo war to highway appropriations. But most of the rest of the West can't even steal his lame bromides: A society that has no children has no future.

Wow! Somebody get a lynching party together. We better hang some of them dark-skinned pagans before they start screwing our women! You there--start having some babies for Der Fatherland!

I mean, where do they get dinosaurs like this? And why, in our fear about others not like us, do we reach for such racists?

It's just so sad to see so many "opinion leaders" with so little faith in this country, and the myriad of cultures that built it. We're winning the globalization war, and yet we are so filled with self-doubt and self-loathing.

The reality is, we'll need plenty of foreigners if we want to remain rich and strong:

U.S. Faces Severe Worker Shortage in Future

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jan 4, 1:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The United States faces a severe worker shortage in the near future, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday in advocating better education for Americans and changes in immigration law to allow in more foreign workers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060104

But instead of seeing that sort of economic logic, we're treated to this sort of strategizing: those we can't re-educate, maybe we just sterilize. The private sector does nothing, the government is the answer for all.

I get asked a lot why my vision seems to be winning more and more converts.

Is it that good?

No, my friends, the competition just sucks so goddamn bad.

Posted by at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dateline: Back in the Shire, Indy, 3 January 2005

Drove home yesterday from my Mom's place in Wisconsin. As always, a bit bittersweet. My Mom contemplates moving on to something else, so she actively encourages her kids to slowly pillage her possessions, which can feel a bit ghoulish -- but far less so than your typical estate auction (man, did I go to a lot of those with my Dad as a kid!).

So you pack up a lot of memories. You look through photos, recognizing most but not all, selecting the most precious for yourself (beggars can't be choosers when you're the 8th of 9 kids, because if it wasn't a group shot, you're not in it!). Fortunately, my Mom always seemed to make copies of the group shots, so there's plenty to go around.

But sometimes you can't help wondering, "Do I just take these to my place, store them on shelves for X years, and then my kids go through them as adults, selecting their favorites and wondering about all the ones they can't identify?" I mean, it all has a somewhat scary, why-bother(?) feeling to it. When no one's around to say, "Oh, that's your Uncle SoAndSo!" Well, then no one knows what that image means, and so it's lost to all, save those who can recall on the spot.

And I guess that speaks to the importance of labeling, or providing the context. Connect the image or the content dies.

Today was a complete disaster: strep throat for one kid, the music teacher who left town on another kid, a campaign for "judge" at school for another kid, and stitches out for Jerry.

Oh, and my car broke down. And they screwed up our mail. And the WSJ delivery is likewise screwed. And there was a drainage issue at the new house today that disturbed me.

And so on and so on.

Stepping back into life, so it seems.

Fun to travel around for so long, but nice to sleep again on that memory foam. I mean, like sex-without-a-condom-good compared to all the beds I've slept in over the past month of travels.

January will be slower for me, and I like the sound of that.

Need to get organized. Got a bunch of interviews to give. Need to raise some BFA profile. Need to get deeper into the Enterra stuff, like the new gig at Oak Ridge.

So I'm feeling hungry despite all that eating out.

Oh, Jerry's stitches were ones he took on the bridge on his nose thanks to a nosedive he took on some stairs at Camp Snoopy inside Mall of America. Got us an afternoon at the emergency room at St. Paul's Children's Hospital (first rate). Nasty time, but looks like Jer walks with just a slight horizontal scar that will someday be lost behind glasses or a good wrinkle.

Still, reminds me to love the ones I'm with (stemming the profuse blood flow with your fingers does that). We are all pretty fragile, pretty temporary, and far more ethereal than we realize.

And maybe that's why I feel so funky now: I haven't really had my office for over a year now (all of it sits in boxes still) and we've collectively been living out of containers and suitcases since we put the house up for sale back in March.

I don't feel particularly connected to my surroundings, so little vertical shocks pack more punch, and confronting long horizontal realities seems more depressing.

Then again, there's the sense of starting the new year. 2005 was a year of transitions, some pretty substantial, like losing Art Cebrowski. Hopefully, 2006 becomes a year of settling in.

Posted by at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

■"The Fight For Iraq: U.S. Sets New Mission For Keeping the Peace; Pentagon Seeks Better Ways to Foster Postwar Stability and Reconstruction," by Neil King Jr. and Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 3 January 2005, p. A4.

A stellar piece from King (whom I grow to admire more and more) and Jaffe (enough said) that really helps to put the new Pentagon directive on postwar ops planning in some perspective.

The difficulties of rebuilding Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein have taught President Bush a painful lesson: Aftermaths can be tougher than wars. Now the administration is trying to recalibrate the military and foreign service to better handle postwar developments in future conflicts.

For the first time, the Pentagon has declared that, along with battling foes, the ability to foster stability and reconstruction is one of its core missions.

The administration also planted the seed for a corps of trained nation builders in 2004 when it created an Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department. The 55-person shop is staffed largely by officials on loan from the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies. It tries to anticipate the next global hot spot -– be it Sudan or North Korea –- and prepares to deploy as the main U.S. postwar coordinator wherever a need might arise.

There is some debate about whether –- and how quickly –- to turn the operation into something bigger, including a large reserve corps that would work alongside a U.S. military that is emphasizing nation-building more and more in the way it trains troops and plans for battles.

With finances tight, Congress isn't rushing to budget the money. One senior Pentagon official says he has heard objections from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Their worry: elevating the importance of nation-building will, over time, divert funds from the nation's ability to wage all-out war and leave the military less prepared to counter an unexpected major threat from a country such as China. And legislators in both parties are wary of more Iraq-style adventures.

"There is wide recognition of the need to professionalize our response to postwar challenges," says James Dobbins, who oversaw a host of U.S. rebuilding efforts during the 1990s, mainly at the State Department, and who is now at the Rand Corp. think tank. "But there is also a whole range of criticism that says, 'If we get better at this, we might start doing it more often'"

Oh my! We do it so often, that we fear if we actually got smart on it, instead of doing it ad hoc each time, we'd be tempted to do it more often –- like it was useful or something!

Supporters point out that after the Cold War –- and well before the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan –- the U.S. plunged into more than 15 different stabilization and reconstruction operations, from Haiti and Bosnia to East Timor and Kosovo. Each effort was undertaken essentially from scratch, by mustering whatever personnel and money the government could.

And that didn't get us any waste, or suboptimal outcomes, or wasted opportunities, or embittered allies, or needlessly dead soldiers ...

The postwar operation in Iraq exposed the defects of that approach. They include sketchy advance planning, a deficit of qualified personnel and tensions between the military and diplomats. Even today, Pentagon officials complain that the State Department and other civilian agencies, such as the Justice, Commerce and Agriculture departments, are slow to provide reconstruction experts to help soldiers in the field. That leaves the military doing jobs it says are better suited to civilian experts.

This is the plainest truth of the matter, and why I argue that the Department of Everything Else naturally begins in the Defense Department, because that's where the bucks and the (available) bodies are.

The Bush administration opened the State Department office on a shoestring –- and with little fanfare –- 17 months ago. In 2005, the White House asked Congress to chip in $17 million of start-up funds, but ultimately it got only $7.7 million.

The administration then asked for $124 million for the fiscal year ending in September –- $24 million for staffing and the beginning of a first-response team, with the rest to establish a special crisis fund. Instead of funding the crisis fund, lawmakers have given the Pentagon the authority to transfer as much as $100 million from its budget to the State Department office in the event of a crisis.

And this is how it's likely to go: spending only after the fact and beggaring the up-front preparations in the mean time. This is unlikely to work and everyone knows this, but while it's dangerous to be soft on "defense," no one is ever voted out of Congress for being soft on the postwar stuff.

But what if the postwar stuff has the power to make the war meaningless?

Ah, that's too complex. Easier to fixate on China.

But some in the Building are getting a whole lot smarter and a whole lot more aggressive in arguing their case (hence the 3000 directive):

The Pentagon has pushed hard to persuade lawmakers to fund the State Department office, arguing that many critical nation-building tasks are best performed by civilians. Without strong civilian support, senior military leaders worry they will be left holding the bag.

"In the future, there is always going to be a need for a lot of deployable civilian capacity," said Jeb Nadaner, deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations. "Think of all capabilities you need in stability missions." He envisions the new State Department office coordinating contributions from departments as diverse as Treasury, Commerce, Justice and Agriculture.

Almost like a virtual department? Hmm, my dream for the DoEE.

Think it will happen in DoS? Don't hold your breath.

So it will grow inside DoD for the meantime:

Whether or not Congress acts, the Pentagon is raising the profile of nation-building operations.

In late November, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a Pentagon directive singling out postwar stability and reconstruction operations as a "core U.S. mission" with a priority "comparable to combat operations." More than a year in the making, the directive marked the first time the Pentagon has elevated stability operations to such a level, and it reflects the post-9/11 realization that failed states, such as Afghanistan, pose just as great a threat to U.S. security as industrialized powers.

"This is a revolutionary notion. It is a huge change," said Hans Binnendijk, who teaches at the Pentagon's National Defense University.

Binnendijk's office just contacted me about a book project he is overseeing on the most influential strategy books in the post-Cold War era. Seems PNM will make the cut.

The directive orders the military to develop skills such as "foreign language capabilities and regional area expertise." It also mandates for the first time that the services devote part of an officer's education to working with foreign governments as well as foreign aid groups, both of which play key roles in postwar reconstruction operations.

This is the key: mandating the interagency and intergovernmental experience. In ten years, all flag officers will know this stuff by heart.

But much remains to be filled in:

But the Pentagon directive is a bit short on specifics, and it is unclear how much it will change the way the military operates. "Responsibilities are spread a bit thin," Mr. Binnendijk said. "There is no one person in charge of implementation." For the directive to be successful it will need "very strong advocates on the military and civilian side," he said.

Few know the difference between elbows and assholes on this question than Hans. He and Stu Johnson wrote a definitive exploration of SysAdmin troop structure for National Defense U. I used it as a guide in BFA.

There are other signs of change. For the first time since the 1960s, the Army has written a new counterinsurgency doctrine. Its major training centers, through which all units pass on their way to Iraq and Afghanistan, have undergone a massive overhaul.

Instead of leading big, simulated tank battles, officers must fend off insurgent attacks, calm angry crowds and make headway with Iraqi and Afghan role players who play the parts of local mayors. Each month, the military flies in dozens of Iraqi- and Afghan-born U.S. citizens to populate villages made to look like those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some officers who have succeeded at stability operations in Iraq are being promoted to positions where they can better shape the future of the Army. For example, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus ... has been promoted to run the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. There, he is responsible for educating officers and shaping Army thinking on warfare.

Describing that larger evolution in a strategic sense is what I'm working on now with Mark Warren and Esquire. Nice to see I'm in synch with guys as savvy and smart as Jaffe & King. This is much like the NYT piece that did a quick profile on Rumsfeld in the weeks running up to the publication of my profile of him in Esquire. When you first see something like this, you can get a bit panicky, but then you remember your venue's strength: length and leisure of being able to go beyond the facts.

I turned in way too much to Warren, indicating I still have a lot to learn about how to shape the story. But located within are the support beams upon which we'll build this story, Mark and I. It will be an amazingly collaborative process.

In the books, Mark's main goal is to make sure I say what I want to say – as well as possible. In the magazine, Mark's main goal is to make the story as strong as possible.

Mark is amazingly patient with me. It's easy for me to write stuff like the China piece, because it just flows. But telling other people's stories is harder, because there we both struggle (I, obviously, far less than the mucho experienced Warren) with what the reader needs to know (this is something Warren knows, in broad outline, from the start –- hence his desire to have the piece done in the first place).

Too often in my first draft I leave too much logic unexposed. I assert because I know, but that doesn't do enough to help the reader know what he or she must know for the story to work, and so getting me to make the logic transparent in the storytelling is Mark's main job. And again, he is very patient with me on that.

Viral in-coring: Seoul to Beijing

■"A Rising Korean Wave: If Seoul Sells It, China Craves It," by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, 3 January 2005, pulled from the web.

A fascinating piece.

Americans always think we need to be the country doing the teaching, the mentoring, the integrating. Reality is that the best teachers are the ones closest to the subject, and the ones best situated to mentor the newest of the New Core are the elders of the New Core, like South Korea mentoring China on content, media, fads, and how to behave as a New Core society in general.

As for the Gap, there we're talking the newest New Core (like India and China) and Seam States (like Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia).

So it's not about making the Gap like the U.S., but making it like Indonesia's version of China's version of South Korea's version of Japan's version of America.

And you know what? Nothing is lost in that translation. In fact, much is gained.

The opening paras:

At Korea City [in Beijing], on the top floor of the Xidan Shopping Center, a warren of tiny shops sells hip-hop clothes, movies, music, cosmetics and other offerings in the South Korean style. To young Chinese shoppers, it seemed not to matter that some of the products, like New York Yankees caps or Japan's Astro Boy dolls, clearly have little to do with South Korea. Or that most items originated, in fact, in Chinese factories.

"We know that the products at Korea City are made in China," said Wang Ying, 28, who works in sales for the local branch of a U.S. company. "But to many young people, 'Korea' stands for fashionable or stylish. So they copy the Korean style."

From clothes to hairstyles, music to television dramas, South Korea has been defining the tastes of many Chinese and other Asians for the past half decade. As part of what the Chinese call the Korean Wave of pop culture, a television drama about a royal cook, "The Jewel in the Palace," is garnering record ratings throughout Asia, and Rain, a 23-year-old singer from Seoul, drew more than 40,000 fans to a sold-out concert at a sports stadium in Beijing in October.

But South Korea's "soft power" also extends to the material and spiritual spheres. Samsung's cellphones and television sets have grown into symbols of a coveted consumerism for many Chinese.

Christianity, in the evangelical form championed by South Korean missionaries deployed throughout China, is finding Chinese converts despite Beijing's efforts to rein in its spread.

For a country that traditionally received culture, especially from China but also from Japan and the United States, South Korea finds itself at a turning point in its new role as exporter.

The transformation began with South Korea's democratization in the late 1980s, which unleashed sweeping domestic changes. As its democracy and economy have matured, its influence on the rest of Asia, negligible until a decade ago, has grown accordingly. Its cultural exports have even caused complaints about cultural invasion in China and Vietnam.

South Korea is also acting as a filter for Western values, experts say, making them more palatable to Chinese and other Asians ...

Again, a great piece. One that points out what a powerhouse South Korea could and would be on a global stage once past the issue of reunification with North Korea.

Seriously. You get Seoul past that, and we're talking a global power of the first rank within a generation –- especially on religion. South Korean Christian missionaries are a leading force for change in the world today (second only to U.S., with that relatively tiny population!). You wanna talk about walking into the lion's den, these people do it like you wouldn't believe. I would guess their presence in Iraq far outweighs the influence of the government's military presence there. No kidding.

Today, in China, South Korean missionaries are bringing Christianity with an Asian face. South Korean movies and dramas about urban professionals in Seoul, though not overtly political, present images of modern lives centering on individual happiness and sophisticated consumerism. They also show enduring Confucian-rooted values in their emphasis on family relations, offering Chinese both a reminder of what was lost during the Cultural Revolution and an example of an Asian country that has modernized and retained its traditions.

Note also the behavior mod begun in Hollywood:

"Three Guys and Three Girls" and "Three Friends" are South Korea's homegrown version of the American television show "Friends." As for "Sex and the City," its South Korean twin, "The Marrying Type," a sitcom about three single professional women in their 30s looking for love in Seoul, was so popular in China that episodes were illegally downloaded or sold on pirated DVDs. "We feel that we can see a modern lifestyle in those shows," said Qu Yuan, 23, a student at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "We know that South Korea and America have similar political systems and economies. But it's easier to accept that lifestyle from South Koreans because they are culturally closer to us. We feel we can live like them in a few years."

You laugh, but when you're moving as fast as China, you're bringing up a whole lot more than incomes; you're raising an entire society, in effect schooling it on how to behave with its new-found wealth.

I stick with my prediction in the "Blogging the Future" afterward in BFA: we will be amazed at how religious China is within a generation. And we'll have South Korea to thank for it.

Jin Yaxi, 25, a graduate student at Peking University, said, "We like American culture, but we can't accept it directly."

So long as globalization doesn't feel like overt Americanization, it's the sugar that helps the medicine go down, yes?

BTW, Peking U. just asked me for high-res graphics of map for the Chinese edition of PNM. They will translate the map just like the Japanese did.

Yes, some filtering on my book too (snips cut here and there), but the key thing is helping them see the world for all that it can be for them (the Chinese) and for all that world needs from them.

Politics also seem to underlie the Chinese preference for South Korean-filtered American hip-hop culture. Messages about rebelliousness, teenage angst and freedom appear more palatable to Chinese in their Koreanized versions.

I wasn't kidding in BFA when I wrote that hip-hop will win more hearts and minds thus prevent more terrorism than our military efforts. People gotta express.

Ki Joon, 22, a South Korean who attends Peking University and graduated from a Chinese high school in Beijing, said his male Chinese friends were fans of South Korean hip-hop bands, like HOT, and its song "We Are the Future."

"It's about wanting a more open world, about rebelliousness," he said. "Korean hip-hop is basically trying to adapt American hip-hop."

In sum, a way cool article. The kind that makes me glad for every limb I climbed out on in BFA.

And yes, I often bump into articles that make me regret such limb-stretching exercises.

And no, I don't just "hear" the reaffirming ones while discounting the discounting ones. I just bet on human nature, which -– quite frankly today –- is better captured on MTV than the History Channel. Remember, youth tends to drive culture and the New Core and Gap, the two more dynamic parts of the world, tend to be far more skewed toward the young (at least for now in the New Core ...)

But this story also teaches me something that I've been learning day-in and day-out for years: to be a good futurist you need to stay aggressive in your forecasting (always pushing the vision just a bit beyond the plausible) and you need to think young (something my mother-in-law, who teaches college still, constantly reminds me about).

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FEATURE: Why I Remain Optimistic

Freely pass to people you know. Thank you very much.

You can download this first Newsletter of 2006, in Word or PDF format.

You can download previous issues, also in PDF or Word format, here: http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/newsletters/archive.htm .

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This makes three for three, which feels pretty good. Drops from 4th to 8th, and the four books that moved up all got extensive end-of-year notice, so I held my own given the relatively low PR month the book had.

Me? I will take it with gratitude and try to make January a high-profile month.

Here's the complete list:

The top-selling hardcover books on American foreign policy and international affairs. Rankings are based on national sales at Barnes & Noble stores and Barnes & Noble.com.

POSTED JANUARY 3, 2006

1) The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (1st last month, nine months on list)

2) Collapse by Jared Diamond (3rd, 12 months)

3) The Assassins' Gate by George Packer (2nd, three months)

4) Postwar by Tony Judt (10th, three months)

5) The Great War for Civilisation by Robert Fisk (7th, two months)

6) Imperial Grunts by Robert D. Kaplan (6th, four months)

7) China, Inc. by Ted C. Fishman (8th, 11 months)

8) Blueprint for Action by Thomas P. M. Barnett (4th, three months)

9) 9/11 Commission Report by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (13th, 16 months)

10) The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman (9th, three months)

11) The Next Attack by Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon (5th, two months)

12) Future Jihad by Walid Phares (12th, two months)

13) Illicit by Moisés Naím (11th, two months)

14) Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid (15th, four months)

15) The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith (not on list last month, four months)

Find the posting at: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/book/bestsellers

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